According to South Africa's Mail & Guardian, Brazil is making a major push in the region and, it is reported, this is not necessarily pleasing to the ruling African National Congress government in Pretoria.

The conventional wisdom in the North Atlantic community nowadays is that the Cold War confrontation between the US and USSR was a disaster for an Africa that was squeezed by both sides. Actually, as this informative memoir cum history suggests, the reality was that – for example in apartheid South Africa – Washington was supportive of the white minority regime, while Moscow backed those fighting this illegal government.

A small army of specialists have been ordered to determine if South Africa's international champion in the women's 800 meter race, Caster Semenya, is really a woman. After her blazing victory and complaints from her international opponents, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ordered a "gender test."

World leaders, civilians and celebrities alike took time off their busy schedules on Saturday to pay tribute to the father of the South African nation on his 91st birthday, the South African Press Association reported.

Escalating violence in Southern Sudan is putting tens of thousands of vulnerable people at risk of being cut off from help, aid workers warned.

ASMARA, 12 June 2009 (IRIN) – Eritrea is facing a food crisis, but aid workers say they cannot fully determine its severity as they are unable to assess the situation because of travel restrictions and the government's policy of "self-reliance."

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today released an important new report on the grim and persistent realities of sexual violence directed against Darfuri women in Darfur and Eastern Chad.

If someone had said two years ago that piracy would soon be a serious international issue, most people would have disregarded the claim as the delusional result of watching too many Johnny Depp movies.

NAIROBI, 4 May 2009 (IRIN) - The expulsion of 13 international NGOs (INGOs) operating in the western Sudan region of Darfur has left gaps in health coverage, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) as 12 of them provided health and nutrition services to about 1.1 million people.

It took several days and some Special Forces clout to take down the Somali pirates, and rescue Captain Richard Phillips, but no sooner had this took place than the fast fingers of the white American press dove in to discredit the pirates.

Cuba and South Africa look forward to expanding bilateral cooperation in the field of biotechnology, as revealed during the current working visit to that nation by the director of the Cuban Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center.

Due to its plight in recent decades, the cheetah, which can reach speeds of 70 miles per hour, is considered one of the world’s most endangered species by the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The ICC decision will present both challenges and opportunities. The international community, led by the United States and other members of the United Nations Security Council, must first and foremost meet the challenges.

The Liberal Democratic and Komai parties on January 22 held an anti-piracy project team meeting and agreed on sending Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels to the sea off Somalia in Africa as early as March.

There is not likely to be much of a honeymoon period when Zimbabwe's new unity government takes office in February – both the international community and citizens demand urgent action to tackle the country's humanitarian disaster.

Somalia and Ethiopia have both confirmed the complete withdrawal of Ethiopia troops from the war-wrecked horn of African nation. The last Ethiopian soldiers had left their base in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, a senior Somali government official said on Monday.

There have been no farm jobs since President Robert Mugabe embarked on the fast-track land reform program that displaced more than 4,000 commercial farmers and caused the collapse of the agricultural sector, one of Zimbabwe's major employers.

(KHARTOUM) – The Secretary General of Sudan’s communist party (SCP) Ibrahim Nugud announced today that he will visit the Southern capital next week for talks with political forces there.

Food, water, health and sanitation facilities at several villages on the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border are overstretched as civilians continue to pour into Uganda, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said on 31 October.

What will be impact of the Wall Street bankruptcies, bailouts and blunders on working people in this country and worldwide? What's the solution to the crisis?