"More Conflict in Sudan Predicted" -- BBC Radio News

The carnage in Sudan, which began in 1983, left two million people dead and four million people homeless. Since then the peace agreement that ended the war has been threatening to unravel. In the first of his series, Mike Thomson reports from Sudan on Africa's longest running civil war.

Click here to listen to streaming audio of the story.

Click here to listen to streaming audio of an interview with the Catholic Archbishop of Juba.

This series will run daily all week. Keep checking back HERE for the newest installments.

"Why They're Dying in the Congo" -- BBC World Service

BBC World Affairs Correspondent Mark Doyle explores why over five million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past decade.

Part I - Listen (23 min.) streaming from BBC World website

Part I -- download mp3 podcast

Part II - Listen (23 min) streaming from BBC World website

Part II - download mp3 podcast

Statistics from aid agency The International Rescue Committee show mortality rates in Congo to be significantly higher than other sub-Saharan African countries. Mark finds out why DRC is arguably suffering the world's deadliest crisis since World War II.

Violent conflict is one cause. The armies of half a dozen African states have become involved in the region and the UN has its largest peacekeeping force there - but the vast majority of deaths are caused by treatable conditions such as malaria and malnutrition.

Mark travels by boat up the River Congo to visit villages in the west of the country, and drives through the war-ravaged agricultural communities of the east, near the volatile border with Rwanda. He comes across a number of mothers in the towns and villages, every one of whom has experienced the death of a child. Many have lost more than one.

The two part documentary features Congolese health personnel, fishermen and farmers.

Doyle meets the doctor who runs the Accident and Emergency department of the country's biggest hospital - but who does not have a single bandage to treat a newly-arrived road-crash victim. "It hurts me", says the doctor; "I am helpless".

"Addressing Nigeria's brain drain" - by Hugh Levinson, BBC News

The "brain drain" -- the best and brightest minds in developing countries leaving for the greener pastures of the West -- is one of the biggest barriers to societies lifting themselves out of extreme poverty. BBC's Hugh Levinson puts a face on this problem in a story from a Nigerian lab.

Dr Peace Babalola is one frustrated scientist.

At her lab in Nigeria, she just wants to get on with her research into drugs to combat endemic local diseases like malaria. But things are not easy. "It is a real sacrifice. It is patriotism," she says of her work.

She can't afford to buy enzymes. Her lab is missing a critical machine.

Most frustratingly, the power supply is unreliable.

The electricity can stop unexpectedly for several hours at a time - which can ruin experiments, damage sensitive equipment and destroy refrigerated samples.

So far she has resisted the temptation to leave Nigeria and move abroad.

"It's not as if we don't have offers," she says. "Universities in the US want us to come."

Many of the brightest and best African scientists have already been lured to the West by the promise of better pay and - more importantly - the chance to carry out more effective research.

Difficult decisions

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Africa suffers more than any other region from the brain drain in science and technology.

The higher the level of education, the more likely the scientist is to leave the continent.

Dr Babalola's former research assistant at the University of Ibadan Medical School has just joined the exodus.

"She's very intelligent, the best student I have ever supervised," says Dr Babalola.

"It's like they've cut off my right hand. Then I realised the problem of the brain drain."

Read the whole piece on the BBC news website.