RIGHTS-MALAWI: Country Not Safe for Homosexuals By Claire NgozoLILONGWE - Malawi is quickly becoming unsafe for homosexuals as the country’s police service recently launched a campaign to hunt down and arrest prominent people who are suspected of being gay. MORE >>
POLITICS-NIGERIA : In the Shadows of Men: Women’s Political Marginalisation By Mustapha MuhammadKANO - Ten years after Nigeria returned to civil rule women still play second fiddle in the male-dominated politics of Africa’s most populous nation, women politicians and activists say. MORE >>
DEVELOPMENT-CAMEROON: Are Women the Magic Bullet for "Electoral Apathy"? By Mohamadou HoumfaYAOUNDE - A support network for women's political participation, is challenging head-on what it calls "electoral apathy", after noting a growing trend in electoral abstention. MORE >>
KENYA: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Sets Back Women’s Rights By Susan Anyangu-AmuNAIROBI - Lillian Mutuku, a 34-year-old mother of three, describes her home in Katine area, in Kenya’s Eastern province Tala, as a harsh place to live. The soil is poor, she says, the sun beats down mercilessly and vegetation is sparse. MORE >>
SOUTH AFRICA: Gender Loses Out in Basic Education Crisis By Ann HellmanCAPE TOWN - With the 15th-year review of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women taking place at the ongoing Commission on the Status of Women in New York, South African teachers and education experts say they fear that a special focus on the advancement of girls is getting lost amidst the growing levels of poverty in the country. MORE >>
SOMALIA: U.S. Should Accept Islamist Authority, Report Says By Charles Fromm and Mohammed A. SalihWASHINGTON - The United States should accept an "Islamist authority" in Somalia as part of a "constructive disengagement" strategy for the war-torn country, according to a new report released here by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Wednesday. MORE >>
RIGHTS: Africa's Success Stories in Gender Empowerment By Thalif Deen*UNITED NATIONS - Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political reckoning - and wrongly so. MORE >>
KENYA: New Bill to Improve State Witness Protection, If Passed By Mary KiioNAIROBI - Kenyans affected by the violence that erupted after the country’s disputed presidential elections in 2007 may soon be able to speak out without fear. A new bill will offer better protection to state witnesses. MORE >>
EDUCATION-TANZANIA: Pregnant Teens Forced Out of School By Arnaud BébienDAR-ES-SALAAM - Pregnancy is the leading cause of dropouts for school girls in Tanzania. And a national law forbidding young mothers to return to school after giving birth did not make it any easier for them to continue their education. MORE >>
TANZANIA: Weather Changes Turn Farming into Gamble with Nature By Denis GathanjuDAR-ES-SALAAM - Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for Tanzanian farmers. Prolonged droughts and floods have made the lives of small-scale farmers, who don’t have access to irrigation, extremely difficult. MORE >>
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