Burkina Faso’s Constitutional Court has thrown out an opposition bid to stop President Blaise Compaore running for a third term in elections which are less than a month away. Five opposition candidates in the 13 November poll had appealed to the court to declare Compaore’s bid for re-election null and void on the basis of Artcle 37 of the constitution, which sets a two-term ceiling on the office of president. In 1997, the clause was amended by a stacked parliament, which lifted the ceiling to enable heads of state to remain in office for life. But in 2000 parliament re-introduced the two-term limit and reduced the presidential term from seven to five years in office.

In 1990, Burkinabe linguist Benoit Ouoba used his own funds to set up a teaching programme with a difference: it focused on using local languages to develop literacy, rather than the customary French. Fifteen years later, the 'Tin Tua' method of teaching has significantly improved literacy in the eastern Gulmu region where it was introduced, attracting the attention of international donors in the process. Tin Tua, meaning 'Let's Develop Ourselves by Ourselves', is drawn from Gulmancema - one of the most widely spoken languages in Burkina Faso.

Two initiatives aim at integrating the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the educational system in Burkina, a country that figures at the bottom of the UNDP classification scale. Global Teenager Project (GTP) is a programme set up in 1999 by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD). The project brings the new information and communication technologies to the high and middle schools. Apart from this project, World Links, a World Bank programme, set up in Burkina in 1997, aims for better integration of the new ICTs in schools.

Health authorities in Burkina Faso have already admitted they will not be able to meet global goals for providing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people living with AIDS, but aid workers say even the government's scaled-down target will be under threat if grassroots groups are not drafted into the fight. Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, has pledged that 15,000 people will receive the life-prolonging ARV drugs by 2007. That would be a five-fold increase on the 2,700 patients that currently access treatment, but would fall short of the 27,000 people which the World Health Organisation said should receive medication by the end of 2005.