"Why is Africa losing its best brains?" BBC News World Edition, March 19, 2004.

[Note: Strathmore University combats Africa's brain drain by training, developing, and inspiring elite leaders and managers in Kenya. Ed.]

Thousands of Africa's professionals and students are leaving the continent for better prospects in Europe, USA or India.

For instance, it is estimated that more than 10,000 South Africans for instance left the country for America and Europe in the last year alone.

A majority of professionals who leave the continent include lecturers, nurses, doctors are leaving for greener pastures away from home. Most of them are reluctant to go back home, they would rather seek jobs abroad.

According to statistics, the so-called brain drain costs the continent an estimated 4 billion dollars per year - in what has been pronounced as a slow death for Africa.

Read the entire article and join the online discussion.

"Crisis meet on over river Nile", The Monitor (Uganda), March 10, 2004

By Mwanguhya Charles Mpagi

Kampala - A 'crisis' meeting of officials from 10 African countries over the River Nile enters its third day in Entebbe today. Sources at the talks have described the atmosphere as tense, with the Egyptian delegation refusing to cede on key points on the agenda.

The commissioner in charge of Water Resource Management in the ministry of Lands, Water and Environment, Mr Nsubuga Senfuma, said the week-long meeting is aimed at charting out a "deal on the legal and institutional framework co-operation for the Nile."

Egypt clings to treaties signed with Britain in 1929 and 1959, which restrict other basin states, many of which were then British colonies, from undertaking projects that reduce the volume of water flowing to Egypt.  When he was president of Tanzania, the late Julius Nyerere declared that all such treaties were nullified by independence. Tanzania has embarked on a 27.6 million dollar project to draw significant volumes of water from Lake Victoria, prompting threats from Egypt. Kenya has said it would similarly start using Lake Victoria's waters on a hitherto larger scale.

Legal experts say that there is no law binding all the 10 countries and that the current negotiating process is an attempt to draw up an all-inclusive document acceptable to all members. Uganda says the 1959 agreement collapsed at Independence in 1962. "In 1962 the prime minister declared that all the agreements were null and void and should be renegotiated and that is the standing statement," Nsubuga said. "The issues are a bombshell," Solicitor General, Lucien Tibaruha told The Monitor yesterday, "we have been at this process since 1997.

However, Egypt says it will reject any proposal to lower its quota of the Nile waters. This position was reaffirmed, Saturday, by Egyptian Irrigation Minister, Mr Mahmud Abdel Halim Abu Zeid. "The talks will have to comply with one permanent feature: not to touch Egypt's historical rights," the minister told a news conference. He said the talks should focus on "the means to benefit from the Nile water which are lost," and not on a review of Egypt's share.

Of the Nile's estimated annual allotment of 83 billion cubic metres, Egypt has been receiving 55 billion cubic meters under the 1929 treaty. The meeting is organised by the Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat in Entebbe and is attended by officials from Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo and Uganda. Eritrea is attending as an observer.