Zambia must engage the public and other stakeholders before deciding whether to start accepting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) or not, the country’s National Biosafety Authority (NBA) has said. NBA registrar Alfred Sumani said that the Zambian public and stakeholders need to be given balanced information on the merits and demerits of accepting GMOs into the country.

Recent weeks have seen demonstrators, for the most part students, take to the streets of Khartoum - and to a lesser extent other Sudanese cities - to protest against the rising cost of living and call for an end to the 23-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir. This IRIN Africa post is a brief overview of anti-government forces which, despite some alliances, lack strong cohesion or coordination among their various elements.

Footage obtained by the M&G shows Swaziland's people, ruled by King Mswati III, are suffering from starvation, displacement, intimidation and violence. Visit their website to watch the production.

The World Bank has admitted that it is largely to blame for the failure of the project to rehabilitate the Beira railway system. Indian consortium RICON was the dominant partner and was supposed to be in charge of the complete reconstruction of the Sena Line. The World Bank was initially enthusiastic about the project, and backed it up with a loan of 104 million US dollars. The Mozambican authorities, and CFM, soon began to sound the alarm. Ricon kept missing deadlines, and its work failed to observe technical standards.

Nine women in the northern Côte d’Ivoire town of Katiola have been convicted for carrying out female genital mutilation – the first time that a 1998 law banning FGM has been applied. The women were found guilty of excising thirty girls aged between 10 and 15 in February. They were each sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay a fine equivalent to roughly 100 dollars. 'We have been waiting a long time for a boost in the fight against this scourge,' said Rachel Gogoua in the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan, where she heads the National Organisation for Children, Women and the Family (ONEF), a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against FGM.

The next few weeks promise to be interesting for Ghana as the country tries to come to terms with the sudden death of President John Atta Mills on 24 July. Known for its strong democracy, the west African country will be keenly watched over how it handles its transitions. Within hours of Mr Mills death, his deputy John Dramani Mahama was sworn in in line with Article 60 (6) of the country's constitution, drawing praise from observers.

DRC President Joseph Kabila has visited the Angolan capital Luanda to mobilise support over the ongoing crisis in the Central African country. Currently, DRC is trying to neutralise an armed insurrection by the M23 rebel group, which, according to UN and Kinshasha, is supported by Kigali, claims that Rwandan officials have denied. More than 200,000 people in the region have been displaced by the conflict.

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference less than four months away, African countries need to present convincing arguments and successful adaptation projects to attract competitive funding for adjusting to changes in global weather patterns, climate finance experts say. 'Africa needs to focus on developing strong arguments for COP 18 and beyond based on clear evidence,' climate change and finance expert, and chief executive of OneWorld, Belynda Petrie, told IPS. The 18th Conference of Parties or COP 18 will take place in Doha, Qatar in late November.

Germany has suspended millions of euros in aid to Rwanda over allegations that the country is backing rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Development Minister Dirk Niebel said on Saturday that Germany was putting on ice some €21-million in aid for Kigali planned from this year until 2015 in what he said was an 'unmistakable signal to the Rwandan government'.

Ethnic clashes in southern Ethiopia are reported to have left at least 18 people dead and 12 others injured. More than 20,000 people have crossed into Kenya to escape the fighting, the Kenyan Red Cross says. A spokesman said that people were continuing to cross the border although Ethiopian government forces had intervened to stop the fighting.

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has killed at least 13 people and infected a further seven in Uganda. The health ministry says emergency measures are in place to deal with the outbreak, which began in late June but has only just been confirmed as Ebola. The cases have been reported in Kibaale district, about 170km (100 miles) to the west of the capital Kampala.

FEMNET is a pan-African regional women’s rights network that has been in existence for 24 years and has been at the forefront championing gender equality, equity and women’s rights through delivery of critical information, and strengthening linkages and collaboration among women’s organizations. Femnet is advertising five jobs, including Head of Capacity Building; Knowledge Management Officer; Member Liaison Officer; Finance Officer and Assistant Translator.

Inequalities in South Africa are threatening economic growth, with children born into poor families unlikely to ever to escape poverty or reap the rewards of living in Africa's largest economy. The World Bank's sobering assessment, released last week, found that a child's gender and ethnicity at birth, combined with a lack of education, largely determine that person's chances of success in life - even 18 years after the end of apartheid.

With Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi seriously ill, East African leaders need to start worrying about what his impending exit will mean for the region. Many analysts in the region worry about the political situation in a post-Zenawi Ethiopia, and are sceptical that the country can pull off a smooth transition.

About 90 Somali migrants stranded on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea for more than four days have been rescued, an Italian news agency and relatives say. Earlier this month, 54 people died of dehydration while trying to sail from Libya to Italy in an inflatable boat. More than one million Somalis have fled the country since 1991.

This UN document contains graphs and maps which break down international migrants by age and sex. It includes information on median age, youth migrants, migrants of working age and older migrants.

This case study from Oxfam on the uprising in Egypt says that the revolution gave women a sense of freedom and empowerment, and seemed like the perfect opportunity to claim their rights. However, while many groups, including women, overcame their fear to speak out against violations of their basic rights, the change in power relations threatened to ignore women’s rights or even reverse gains that were won in the past.

Morocco is on target to be one of the few countries to meet the UN's goal of lowering maternal mortality by 2015, in part thanks to a strong Peace Corps program and smaller families. A woman waiting at a clinic dramatizes how things are changing, in this story from www./womensenews.org.

Every day in international development organisations feminist bureaucrats make use of strategy, tactics, wisdom and skill to act for their principles. This Institute of Development Studies paper explores the challenges and opportunities for feminists working as women’s rights and gender equality specialists in international non-governmental development organisations, as analysed from an insider practitioner perspective.

In a new report, 'Asset laundering and AIM: Congo, corporate misconduct and the market value of human rights', the business and human rights organisation Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) catalogues the inadequacies of the London Stock Exchange's regulatory framework. The Central African Mining and Exploration Company plc (CAMEC) was allowed to trade and flourish on London's junior Alternative Investment Market (AIM) despite its close links to Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party (Zimbabwe), the dubious provenance of its Congolese mining assets and the unsavoury reputation of key business associates.