By Abdurrahman Warsameh

A Somali youngster walks past a ruined building in Hodon district in Mogadishu. / Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS.

MOGADISHU, Dec 30 (IPS) – With vehicles and donkey carts packed with their belongings, Somalis are returning, four years after they fled, to their partially standing, bullet-scarred and mortar-shelled neighbourhoods in former Al-Shabaab controlled areas of [...]

By Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar

Girls at most schools in Somalia are ordered to wear an Islamic dress. / Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar/IPS.

MOGADISHU, Dec 26 (IPS) – Schools are beginning to re-open slowly in areas of capital Mogadishu that were until recently controlled by the militant Islamic group al-Shabaab. But an estimated 80 percent of students [...]

By Abdul Samba Brima and Jessica McDiarmid

Elizabeth Zainab Kargbo suffers from epileptic seizures. Suffers in Sierra Leone are often undiagnosed and unaware that their condition is treatable. / Jessica McDiarmid/IPS

FREETOWN, DEC 23 (IPS) – Elizabeth Zainab Kargbo was a successful young woman, eight months pregnant and working in Sierra Leone’s civil service, when she [...]

By Jared Ferrie

The refugee camp of Yida in South Sudan is home to over 20,000 people who have fled the violence in Sudan’s South Kordofan state. / Jared Ferrie/IPS

YIDA, South Sudan, Dec 13 (IPS) – In the sprawling settlement of Yida, just south of the Sudan border, more than 20,000 people have gathered [...]

By Jared Ferrie
 
JUBA, Dec 7 (IPS) – Joyous reunions accompanied the latest batch of South Sudanese returning from Sudan to their newly independent homeland. But the returnees will face huge challenges integrating into South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation on Jul. 9, but also one of the poorest.

Cheers, ululations and cries of “hallelujah” [...]

By Stephen Leahy
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 2 (IPS) – Civil society has warned of the danger of turning Africa’s food-producing lands into “carbon farms” so that rich countries can avoid making cuts in their carbon emissions.

Children in Durban, South Africa, support efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

On Friday, they called on host country [...]

By Tim Ash Vie *

Climate change wreaks damage on infrastructure, ecosystems, livelihoods and lives in developing countries. / Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – As climate talks get underway in Durban, South Africa this week, progress on a Green Climate Fund is one of the hottest, most contentious tickets in town. [...]

By Anselm Nkinsi
KINSHASA, Dec 1 (IPS) – Nadine Mbwol suffers from konzo, an epidemic paralytic disease that affects the lower body. "I lost my marriage because of this disability," she says sadly.

Many people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) believe that this disease, which affects many young, female victims like 20-year-old Mbwol, is caused [...]

By Lee Middleton

Volunteers for the Sonke Gender Justice Network door-to-door medical male circumcision campaign. / Lee Middleton/IPS

CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 (IPS) – Although at first glance male circumcision may not be the most obvious entrée to get people talking about gender equality, activists in the Western Cape in South Africa are attempting to [...]

By Isaiah Esipisu

In pastoralist communities, mobile phones are crucial for alerting communities to droughts and reducing food insecurity. / Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Francis Mburu used to keep indigenous cattle in Entasopia village in the semi- arid Kajiado region, 160 kilometres southwest of Nairobi. However, increasing temperatures and frequent [...]

By Nastasya Tay

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change. / Nastasya Tay/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 28 (IPS) – The European Union plan to save the Kyoto Protocol may meet its greatest obstacle in the developing world.

Abias Huongo, one of Angola’s negotiators, says developing country blocs of which [...]

Isaiah Esipisu interviews DR. TOMAZ SALOMÃO, the executive secretary for the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
 

Dr. Tomaz Salomão, the executive secretary for the Southern African Development Community. / Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 28 (IPS) – African leaders have urged the international community to move the United Nations climate change negotiations, which started in [...]

By Travis Lupick and Archibald Kasakura
 

Charcoal production in Malawi is done inefficiently using traditional methods and tools that lead to large areas of land being felled. / Travis Lupick/IPS

BLANTYRE, Nov 28 (IPS) – As Daniel Chakunkha and Mussa Abu talk on the side of a dirt path in Makunje village, Malawi, a steady stream of [...]

By Miriam Gathigah

Settlers dig trenches in the Mau Forest to divert water to irrigate their illegal farm plots. / Miriam Gathigah/IPS

NAIROBI, Nov 25 (IPS) – The resettlement of evictees from Kenya’s Mau Forest remains a humanitarian and environmental concern for the country as more than 25,000 people continue to live in camps around [...]

By Kristin Palitza *
 

Rooibos plants are severely threatened by climate change. / Kristin Palitza/IPS

CAPE TOWN, Nov 24 (IPS) – South Africa’s Rooibos tea has become a popular drink all around the globe. But prices of the herbal brew could shoot up within the next decade, as the Rooibos plant can only grow in one [...]