President Mugabe has labeled his former finance minister Dr Simba Makoni a “political prostitute”. Dr Makoni, early this month cut ties with Zanu PF to challenge Mr Mugabe in the March 29 polls. - Friday 22 February 2008

Is mass male circumcision the new big thing in HIV prevention, or is it a risky social experiment that threatens to divert funding from tried and tested interventions? - Thursday 21 February 2008

An international conference, co-sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Pahrmaceutical Security International (PSI) to discuss counterfeit medicines in Africa took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the 15th of January last month. A laudable initiative, which helps bring the reasons behind the success of counterfeit medicines to the fore. Regular medicines are much too expensive for the world’s poor, a reason why they turn to counterfeits with hope. - Thursday 21 February 2008

- Thursday 21 February 2008

Thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in the capital, Mogadishu. Somalia’s transitional government has welcomed a resolution by the UN Security Council authorising a six-month extension for African Union (AU) peacekeepers but said more needed to be done to restore peace and stability to the war-torn country. - Thursday 21 February 2008

Almost 20 percent of the world does not have access to safe drinking water, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), means 1.6 million people die every year of waterborne diseases. A team in California has a potential solution: a tricycle that filters water as one pedals. - Thursday 21 February 2008

The Zimbabwe dollar took a dramatic plunge yesterday, on the eve of President Robert Mugabe’s 84th birthday falling by more than a 100 percent. Foreign currency dealers say the Zimbabwe dollar was trading around $16 million to the United States dollar on an illegal but flourishing black market for hard cash on Wednesday afternoon and as much as $20 million for larger amounts. - Thursday 21 February 2008

"We know why you’re in South Africa - Life in Zimbabwe is murder these days", a billboard greets Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa’s border town of Musina; it also asks them to return to vote in next month’s election, but so far the people traffic has remained solidly one-way. - Wednesday 20 February 2008

Kenya’s opposition has threatened to call its supporters back into the streets en masse in a week’s time if parliament is not recalled to pass constitutional amendments to allow for power sharing. - Wednesday 20 February 2008

Some Kenyans are using SMS text messages to revive ethnic tensions in their country, preying on the political-ethnic tensions that have ravaged the country since the controversial results of the December 27 general elections. The government has warned the perpetrators of these hate messages of serious measures, but technical issues have rendered the warning redundant. - Wednesday 20 February 2008