(23 February 2007 | Peter Moszynski | The Guardian) The death of Kenya's leading HIV researcher, Professor Job Bwayo, at the age of 58, in a Nairobi car-jacking, has robbed Africa of one of its most renowned scientists, just as the significance of his work was becoming evident through the success of initial field trials of the Aids vaccine he helped to develop.

Bwayo became world-famous for his pioneering research on natural immunity against Aids. His groundbreaking studies of the epidemiology of the HIV virus in east Africa in the mid-1980s led to him discovering an apparent natural immunity among a group of 60 prostitutes in Nairobi's Majengo slums. He found that the uninfected women had developed large numbers of killer T-cells, a crucial component of the immune system, which has led to some of the most promising Aids vaccines currently under development. "They didn't have the virus or the antibodies. So they must have been getting rid of the virus so quickly that it couldn't get established," he told the Observer in 2001. "We took the HIV virus and white blood cells from the prostitutes, put them in a test-tube and - bang! - they reacted. The cells killed the virus."

Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., president and CEO of the Africa Society, a leading Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, died early Tuesday at Washington Hospital Center following a short illness.

"Leonard was simply one of the finest individuals I have ever met," said Judith McHale, president and CEO of Discovery Communications and vice chair of the Africa Society Board. "He was a true servant of the public, whose leadership and dedication changed lives on two different continents," she said in one of a number of tributes that poured in as news circulated of Robinson's unexpected death, which his family said was caused by complications from a kidney infection. He was 63.

"Another strong voice for Africa was silenced today," said C. Payne Lucas, a close friend and president emeritus of Africare. "He was committed to making Africa a full partner in the global community."

Robinson served two terms as deputy assistant secretary of State for Africa during a career in international relations that spanned four decades, dating from his tenure as a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1964 to 1967. At age 23, he was named as the associate director for India for the Peace Corps, where he later became director of minority recruitment.

(BBC) Ali Farka Toure, known as the "Bluesman of Africa", who has died of cancer, was one of the continent's best known musicians.

Outside his home country of Mali, he was seen as blending African music with the blues of the southern United States and he collaborated with US stars Ry Cooder and John Lee Hooker.

At his house in the capital, Bamako, a photo of a young Toure next to US rock star Jimi Hendrix was always proudly on display.

Despite these influences and the cowboy hat he generally wore when performing, he always insisted that the music he played was authentically African, as were the origins of blues.

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ethiopia’s Poet Laureate, passed away in his home in New York City on February 25, 2006. He was born in 1936 in Boda, in the vicinity of Ambo, Ethiopia. After receiving his primary and secondary education in his country, he earned a Bachelor of Law degree from Blackstone School of Law in Chicago in 1959. From 1959 to 1960, he studied British and French experimental theatre at the Royal Court Theater in London and the Comedie Francaise in Paris.

In 1971, Tsegaye was awarded a visiting research fellowship in African cultural antiquities at the University of Dakar, now known as the Cheik Anta Diop University of Dakar. On the merit of the research he conducted during this fellowship, he was then granted a Fulbright Scholarship, which enabled him to tour various universities in the United States presenting lectures on Ethiopian art and literature.