A staggering 854-million people were undernourished between 2001 and 2003 while at the other end of the scale 700-million people are likely to be obese by 2015, according to the Global Health Watch (GHW) 2. Launched in Cape Town, the Global Health Watch 2 is an alternative world health report and includes the voices of civil society organisations and scientists from around the world.

Following the arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Rose Kabuye in Frankfurt, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem explores the core hypocrises and injustices underpinning France’s attempts to try a key figure in the Rwandan genocide. The author contends that France has since 1994 been attempting to wash its conscience through denial and counter-narrative, and that whatever one may think of Paul Kagame’s current regime the recent French indictments should never be mistaken for justice. Far from a move towards genuinely bringing an alleged player in the genocide to justice, Abdul-Raheem suggests judicial developments in the France reflect the guilt of a former imperial power with blood on its hands.

In response to : Our experience working with small-scale farmers in developing countries for the past 60 years confirms that farming is about far more than the production of food. It’s about stewardship of the land. It’s about stimulating the growth of local economy. It’s about feeling that you have a voice in your community and that you have skills to offer in building a better future for that community.

For Edwin Nyirenda, a farmer from Mwamuwilri village in Northern Malawi, the issues were clear. “I have seen tobacco farming take over the land we need and I have also seen the depletion of trees and the erosion of the soil.” As the farmers in his community lost control of the natural resources on which their livelihoods had depended they struggled to produce enough to feed their families. They lost confidence as farmers and increasingly gave up on their vision for a community in which natural resources including trees, water and land were “available for as long as the Mwamuwiliri village exists.”

Edwin’s story is one among many. Modern industrial agriculture, with its focus on increasing production at any cost, has caused tremendous pollution, rural displacement, widespread loss of agricultural and biological diversity and growing corporate concentration throughout the agricultural sector. This focus seems particularly short sighted in light of the fact that the current world food crisis is as much about increased world oil prices and climate change as it is about the production of food.

Now more than ever, there is a need for an approach that understands farming not only as a means of producing food, but as central to the preservation of delicate eco systems and to empowering farmers to have a voice in their community.

Find Your Feet is currently supporting 30,000 Malawian farmers like Edwin Nyrienda to practice sustainable farming based on local innovation, farmer exchange and the sharing of information. This approach has reduced dependence on external inputs such as fertilizers and hybrid seeds, has enabled adaptation to increasingly erratic weather patterns and has helped farmers to preserve the productivity of the soil for future generations.

Since working with FYF, says Edwin “I have produced enough food to feed my family and have even grown a surplus. I have sold this and now have an income to buy clothing and medication for my family.” As a result he and his fellow farmers have regained their pride in being farmers and custodians of the land.

In one of the many backyard taverns selling chang'aa (illicit brew) in the Korogocho informal settlement of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, two women desperately try to get patrons to listen to their lecture about HIV; many are too drunk to care, but others are more attentive.

As a massive food distribution got under way Wednesday in six UNHCR-run camps for tens of thousands of internally displaced Congolese in North Kivu, the UN refugee agency prepared to hand out tonnes of shelter and household items. A four-truck UNHCR convoy carrying 33 tonnes of various aid items, including plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans crossed Wednesday from Rwanda into Goma, the capital of the conflict-hit province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

With the failure of the South African National AIDS Committee (SANAC)’s 1.1-billion Rand (round 8) application to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) and the ongoing political uncertainty with a “caretaker” government until the 2009 elections, South African delegates attending the World Lung Health conference in Paris last week expressed fears that many long awaited activities to scale-up TB and TB/HIV services will be placed on hold for some time to come.

In the latest edition of the World Health Organisation Bulletin health economists explore the extent of fragmentation within the health systems of three African countries. Fragmentation is when there are a large number of separate funding mechanisms (e.g. many small insurance schemes) and a wide range of health-care providers paid from different funding pools which leads to an inequitable system.

Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organization, has deployed its staff into Zimbabwe to help fight the cholera epidemic, an MDC MP disclosed on Thursday. Willas Madzimure, MDC MP for Kambuzuma in Harare, said the organization has brought in badly needed facilities, such as special beds for cholera victims and gloves for medical personnel.

The World Bank, acting as administrator for the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA), has signed a grant agreement for US$6.02 million with the Health Insurance Fund (HIF), a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, to establish a community health scheme for low-income families in Lagos, Nigeria. The scheme will provide affordable pre-paid health insurance plans for up to 22,500 beneficiaries.

The number of children dying before their fifth birthday in Kenya has risen in the past 10 years, according to health specialists. One in nine children dies before the age of five. "For every 1,000 children born, 121 die, compared with 97 in 1990," Shahnaz Sharif, the senior deputy director of medical services in Kenya's health ministry, told IRIN.

Text messages will be sent to mobile phones in South Africa to encourage people to be tested and treated for HIV/AIDS. Project Masiluleke will send one million texts a day to South Africans after it is launched on 1 December. The messages are written in English and local languages such as Zulu, and will include prompts to call helplines. Many of the messages were composed with the assistance of local communities.

As October marks breast cancer awareness month, a research conducted by lgbthealthchannel website (focusing on gay health and wellness issues) found that lesbians, bisexual women and women who have sex with other women are more likely to develop breast cancer than heterosexual counterparts. The findings emphasise that breast cancer can at times be associated with nulliparity – the state of not giving birth.

Hot on the heels of Mauritius, health experts predict Swaziland will be the second country in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to eliminate malaria. Malaria kills more than one million people worldwide most of whom are children under five years and almost 90 percent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria killed five people last year in Swaziland.

Superinfection among heterosexual couples in sub-Saharan Africa may be surprisingly frequent, according to findings from Zambia presented on Tuesday at the 48th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Washington DC. Researchers from the Zambia Emory HIV Research Project presented evidence that 3 out of 34 people among heterosexual Zambian couples were superinfected during the time of the study.

The SA Food Cost Review 2007 showed that between 1991 to 2007, food production growth only grew by 10%, while the population increased by 32%, and that increase excludes estimates of between one and 10 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the country. The report, which was compiled by The National Agricultural Marketing Council and the Department of Agriculture, said: “Population growth has outstripped agricultural production, in particular field crop production, by far.

A cholera outbreak has claimed its first victim in Zimbabwe's capital after causing death and illness elsewhere in a country too poor to provide clean water or clear garbage from the streets. Health authorities reported the death in Harare Thursday and said 20 other people had been hospitalized.

The entire world is in crisis, a crisis with multiple dimensions. There is a food crisis, an energy crisis, a climate crisis and a financial crisis. The solutions put forth by Power – more free trade, more GMOs, etc. – purposefully ignore the fact that the crisis is a product of the capitalist system and of neoliberalism, and they will only worsen its impacts. To find real solutions, in this open letter argues we need to look toward Food Sovereignty.

Questioning the validity of a description suggestive of an unpreventable natural phenomenon, Astrid von Kotze explores the factors behind the onset of an ostensible ‘silent tsunami’ driving the world food crisis. Addressing core issues around global disparities in consumption and problematising received Malthusian wisdoms, the author argues that food encompasses far more than the purchase of mere commodities, reflecting social relations, use of the environment, and control of resources.

For almost six months now, John Mberi*, 14, from the high-density suburb of Mufakose in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, has been taking care of his sick mother, Fortunate, who returned home from neighbouring South Africa very ill. The community attributed Fortunate's condition to food poisoning while awaiting deportation in the infamous Lindela repatriation camp in South Africa, but close family members knew that Fortunate was HIV positive.

HIV programmes in Burundi have been struggling to support people affected by the pandemic since the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria rejected the country's request for funds a year ago. "It has been very hard; we have tried to use our internal resources and prioritise interventions to make sure that we cover the most important activities," Dr Jean Rirangira, the interim executive secretary of the national AIDS control council, CNLS, told IRIN/PlusNews.