Every Friday, mothers and their children gather at the community nutrition centre in the little village of Rantolava, 450 kilometres north east of Antananarivo, the Malagasy capital, to learn more about a healthy diet. The weekly workshops are part of the 3.5 million dollar National Community Nutrition Programme (PNNC) being implemented at 6,000 centres across the country. Madagascar is among the six countries suffering the worst rates of malnutrition in the world – half of all children under five on this large island nation suffer from chronic malnutrition, and diversifying their diet is a key element in the national programme.

Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz warned in Maputo against following advice by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would make the fight against inflation the number one priority of economic policy. Addressing an overflowing public meeting organised by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), Stiglitz, who is also a former chief economist at he World Bank, said he had been 'appalled' to discover that the IMF wants to impose 'inflation targeting' on Mozambique. He argued that, while low inflation might be desirable (and he praised the Bank of Mozambique for its handling of inflation, currently at historically low levels), it could not be the main goal of economic policy, which should also take into account such considerations as growth and employment.

Google is launching a new campaign, Legalize Love, to pressurize governments into recognizing and decriminalizing homosexuality. With Legalize Love, the search giant wants to ensure its staff have 'the same inclusive experience outside of the office as they do at work', and that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) communities can feel safe and accepted wherever they are. The campaign will focus on countries like Singapore (in which male homosexuality is illegal) and Poland (which doesn't recognize same-sex couples). Dot429 quotes Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, Google's head of Diversity and Inclusion, explaining how this initiative will work: 'Singapore wants to be a global financial center and world leader and we can push them on the fact that being a global center and a world leader means you have to treat all people the same, irrespective of their sexual orientation.'

Angolan police on Saturday arrested 10 youth protesters and two journalists at an anti-government demonstration in the capital Luanda, Portuguese state news agency Lusa reported, as tensions rise ahead of August's presidential election. A youth movement has staged several demonstrations since March last year calling for long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to resign after 32 years at the helm of Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.

Eritrea has reduced its support for the al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab militant group in Somalia under international pressure, but still violates UN Security Council resolutions and remains a destabilising influence, a UN report says. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, which investigates violations of an arms embargo on both nations, said in a report to the Council, seen by Reuters, that it had found no evidence of direct Eritrean support for al Shabaab in the last year.

Kenya sex workers are expected to attend the parallel 'Freedom Festival of Sex Workers' in Kolkata, India to coincide with the International AIDS Conference in Washington, US. The festival has been hailed as the 'alternative International AIDS Conference 2012 for sex workers and allies.' Many sex workers in Africa were refused a US visa to attend the XIX International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Washington DC later this month.

Nurses are to join teachers and civil servants in the growing public sector strike in Swaziland. They will strike from 18 July 2012 in pursuit of a 4.5 per cent salary increase. Teachers have been on indefinite strike for nearly a month and civil servants joined them last week.

Experts say older people are affected more severely than the rest of the population during displacement. 'People who have energy can resist or run or take away belongings. An old person doesn't have the energy to do all this. So in cases of forced evictions, for instance, they lose a home and lose belongings and also a critical social network,' Protus Waringa, a Kenyan human rights law expert, told IRIN. Globally, an estimated 26.4 million people were displaced by armed conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations at the end of 2011, according to a 2011 overview by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC); the overview noted that there were huge gaps in the data available on older IDPs, with just six out of 50 countries making specific reference to older persons in their data on IDPs.

Somalia's interim government has denied allegations of corruption contained in a leaked UN report. It alleged that around 70 per cent of money intended for development and reconstruction in a country racked by 20 years of war was unaccounted for. 'The systematic misappropriation, embezzlement and outright theft of public resources have essentially become a system of governance,' the leaked report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, published by the Somalia Report website, said.

As 2015 draws near, Africa has effectively engaged in the process of defining the contours of the post-2015 development agenda, according to a report published in Addis Ababa by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), African Union, African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. The report, 'Assessing Progress in Africa towards the Millennium Development Goals 2012', was considered and endorsed by the 19th Summit African Union Heads of State and Government, according to ECA’s Information and Communication Service. The report explains ongoing efforts to capture emerging perspectives from Africa on the post-2015 development agenda, but urges countries in the region to remain focused on the MDG targets.

Three guards who worked for the security firm G4S have been told they will not face manslaughter charges over the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan refugee who collapsed while being escorted on a flight from Heathrow airport in London 21 months ago. The men worked as guards for the firm, which was contracted to escort deportees for the Home Office when the incident occurred. Mubenga, 46, died after losing consciousness on British Airways flight 77 to Angola, as it waited to take off on the runway.

Beijing is eager to rewrite negative perceptions of its growing ties with Africa at a summit this week, citing expanding private investment and a push to shift low-end manufacturing to the continent long seen as a commodities and energy cache for China. Chinese state-owned firms in Africa face criticism for using imported labour to build government-financed projects like roads and hospitals, while pumping out resources and leaving little for local economies, an image Beijing wants to change at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

News that Eskom plans to seek a nearly 15 per cent electricity price hike this year has sparked a call for greater energy efficiency, while the DA says the state-owned company’s monopoly should be ended. DA deputy energy spokesman David Ross said he would write to the Competition Commission to ask it to examine the case for separating Eskom’s electricity generation and distribution components.

Angola's political opposition have accused the National Electoral Commission (CNE) of irregularities ahead of general polls set for late August. 'We call on the CNE to take the necessary decisions to correct these irregularities to ensure that the electoral process is truly free, fair and transparent,' said Abel Chivukuvuku, president of the Broad Convergence of Angolan Salvation (Casa) coalition after meeting the CNE. 'The number of voters is unclear, the CNE cannot say how early or foreign voting will be organised, or give the publication date of the voters' roll.'

The global battle for natural resources - from food and water to energy and precious metals – is only beginning, and will intensify to proportions that could mean enormous upheavals for every country, leading academics and business figures told a conference in Oxford. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, who convened the two-day Resource 2012 conference, told the Guardian: 'We are nowhere near realising the full impact of this yet. We have seen the first indications – rising food prices, pressure on water supplies, a land grab by some countries for mining rights and fertile agricultural land, and rising prices for energy and for key resources [such as] metals. But we need to do far more to deal with these problems before they become even more acute, and we are not doing enough yet.'

The Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCO, has been fined U.S.$5 billion over the massive oil spill that occurred at its Bonga oil field on December 20, 2011. This was disclosed by the director general, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Dr. Peter Idabor, when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Environment.

Liberia has no plans to abolish Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) despite mounting demands by local and international organisations, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said. President Sirleaf said, 'to hastily abolish the practice could spark off a serious societal crisis'. FGM is widely practised in Liberia with thousands of young girls annually initiated in traditional 'schools' known as the Sande Society in preparation for mutilation.

What is the future of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)? This was President Mutharika's flagship programme, which put Malawi on the forefront of international development debates and provided subsidies for seeds and fertiliser. Through the FISP, which was implemented against fierce donor resistance, Malawi was able to break free from a vicious cycle of hunger and food insecurity. This article from Africa Report examines whether the FISP will continue under new president Joyce Banda.

An investigation by the Conflict Awareness Project has exposed an active arms trading network of associates of former trafficker Viktor Bout that involves companies from the United States, South Africa and the United Kingdom, among other countries. All are cross-linked in a complex system with its centre in the island of Mauritius. The traffickers’ ultimate goal was to access countries such as Iran, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and possibly Syria, researchers say.

Sudanese refugees who fled fighting between rebels and Sudan's military are suffering in primitive camps without enough aid because the international community has not provided the needed funds to help, a top United Nations official said. Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, urged donor nations to ease 'the enormous humanitarian tragedy'. Sudanese troops are fighting rebels, who were once aligned with what is now South Sudan, in two states near the countries' shared border. Guterres said more than 200,000 refugees have fled the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile and into neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan.