The Lesotho government has launched a four-year plan to reduce new HIV infections among children by 50 percent and ensure that all HIV-infected children have access to life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Mother-to-child transmission is the leading cause of HIV infection in children.

As Lesotho's newly-elected legislators settle down to the task of governing, activists are expressing disappointment at the low representation of women in the country's parliament.

The newly opened Baylor Children's Centre of Excellence in Maseru, one of seven that the Baylor International Paediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) has established in Africa since 2003, is a gleaming, state-of-the-art facility which shows what can be achieved when foreign expertise and resources combine with government commitment. Despite this, of the 18,000 children UNAIDS estimates are living with HIV in Lesotho, only 6.3 percent are accessing ARV treatment.

Tom Thabane's decision to walk out on Lesotho's government four months ago after becoming frustrated with the levels of corruption was vindicated yesterday by election results giving his new party a significant presence in the national assembly.When Mr Thabane quit the Lesotho cabinet to form his own party he said he could no longer stomach government corruption.

The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) has won the 2007 elections after it grabbed more than half of the 120 seats in Lesotho's parliament, warding off a strong challenge from a new opposition.

The tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho heads into its fourth general elections on Saturday with the ruling party trying to fight off a concerted challenge from one of its former leading lights.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) correspondent in Lesotho, Thabo Thakalekoala, who is also the regional chairperson of MISA, has been inundated with threatening anonymous calls that complain about his reporting, ever since the former minister of communications, Tom Thabane, defected from the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) to form the All Basotho Convention (ABC) on 9 October 2006.

Twenty dollars seems a meagre amount, but it has brought an end to backbreaking toil and food insecurity for many of Lesotho's elderly. Two years ago the government of the small landlocked country started a pension system for citizens over the age of 70. Today, more than 76, 000 people are receiving a monthly pension of approximately 20 dollars. Whereas such steps in Southern Africa are frequently taken at the behest of donors or the international financial institutions, Lesotho's government introduced the grant in order to address worsening poverty among the elderly.

Environmental campaigners have welcomed a decision by the World Bank to debar German-based Lahmeyer International for bribing officials to win contracts for Africa's largest inter-basin water transfer scheme, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP).

The Lesotho chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa says transformation of the state broadcasters now seems unlikely, writes Mzimkhulu Sithetho on "The institute’s former national chairperson, Thabo Thakalekoala, has been in the forefront of a Misa campaign to turn Radio Lesotho and Lesotho TV into public broadcasters. But he now says that the campaign is unlikely to succeed as there seems to be resistance from authorities."

Three European companies were found guilty of fraud in a major development project in southern Africa by a Lesotho judiciary. The companies were fined a total of $5.6 million (€4.4 million) on Wednesday. Investigations of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) contributed to the court’s decision which found a French, Italian and German company guilty of fraud and bribery.

Imperial Fleet Services (IFS), a wholly owned subsidiary of South African corporate giant Imperial, is embroiled in a scandal concerning the Lesotho government fleet contract which has rocked the mountain kingdom. In terms of a deal the Lesotho government cut with IFS Lesotho, senior government officials, including ministers, judges and parliamentary officers, can buy three-year-old government vehicles at 1% of their original value.

Lesotho, the tiny mountain kingdom, punches above its weight. This is not reflected in a bossy attitude; rather it has done what is seldom expected of relatively weak African states — it has tackled corruption in the multibillion rand Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme head on, prosecuting corrupt officials and bribe-paying corporations.

Lesotho’s single largest employer, the textile industry, has made a remarkable comeback, setting an example for the region and giving thousands back their jobs. “All the factories that were closed have been reopened - the number of jobs that had shrunk from just more than 50 000 to less than 40 000 have now climbed back to about 47 000,” Andy Salm, regional textile and apparel specialist at ComMark Trust, an NGO that monitors the industry in Southern Africa, told Irin.

Lesotho’s communications ministry has dismissed calls by the Lesotho chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa for the transformation of the national broadcaster into a public broadcaster, writes Mzimkhulu Sithetho. In a position paper on the transformation model, Misa Lesotho (Miles) says Radio Lesotho and Lesotho Television should be governed by a board independent of government interference, reports Journalism.co.za.

The Lesotho government is to improve medical care provided to sexual violence survivors after rape cases reported in the first three months of this year climbed to almost the total number for 2005.

Who aspires to teach in this small southern African state? A new report examines what newly qualified teachers (NQTs) think of the training they have received and reviews how their expectations match those of the teacher trainers. It looks at whether they are content with the teacher education curriculum they are presented with and assesses how cost effective the current teacher training system is.

Following allegations of corruption, a local NGO has appealed for an audit of the tenders allocated in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), the world's largest water transfer operation. "Bribery for tenders goes along with compromising of workmanship standards. We can only pray that, despite this, standards for constructing these kind of dams was not compromised, as it would be a double punishment to the people living around the Katse and Mohale dams," said Mabusetsa Lenka of the Transformation Resource Centre (TRC), an NGO fighting for the rights of communities displaced by the multi-dam project.

The Lesotho Highlands scheme supplies South Africa with millions of cubic metres of water per year, while people living in the lowlands of the tiny mountain kingdom struggle to find water for domestic consumption. Young women and children queuing with containers, waiting to draw water from boreholes or public taps, are a common sight in many parts of the country. "Life is difficult because we always have to travel for long distances to get water, and when we finally find a place that has water, there are many people waiting to get a turn," said Makemohele Koetle, from Lithabaneng district, southeast of the capital, Maseru.

A crack in the wall of Mohale dam in Lesotho, one of the world's highest rockfill dams, has sparked concern among neighbouring communities, according to a local NGO. Heavy rain in the mountain kingdom led to a sudden filling of the Mohale dam, part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), creating a crack in one of the panels of the 145 m high wall. "An expert in dam construction from Europe is arriving in Lesotho next Monday to assess the damage ... at the moment it is hard to make any assessments ... because the dam is still filled to capacity. We are, however, hoping that the water level will go down in time to see how far the crack has gone," said Liphapang Potloane, chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), reports Alertnet.