The Tanzania government has formed a four-man task force to investigate a massive corruption scandal involving government officials suspected to have pocketed millions of Tanzania shillings in compensation to some 900 people relocated from a gold mining area in Geita, Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria.

An historic meeting of Ministers of Water Affairs from the Nile Basin countries has ended with agreement to cooperate on seven basin-wide projects. The meeting marks an important milestone of the Nile Basin Initiative
(NBI), an unprecedented partnership which has united nine African countries in pursuit of sustainable development and management of the River Nile water resources.

The Sudan government has said that it is essential to act quickly on a serious problem of drought in a number of affected regions. In a high-level meeting between government officials, diplomats and humanitarian agencies this week in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the government called for "swift action domestically and at the international level".

Nigerian Nobel Prize winning author Wole Soyinka has an Earth Week message for the world about his homeland - at least a third of the entire country is polluted in some way.

High level talks on the Kyoto climate protocol at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York over the weekend have confirmed global opposition to America's decision to abandon the deal in its current form.