It's been almost three years since the son of the 5th Lord Delamere, Thomas Cholmondeley, first hopped down from a police  truck and entered into Kenya's High Court to face murder charges  over the death of a local poacher on his estate.

Cholmondeley sat as impassively this week as he did that  first day in court as the judge convicted him of a lesser charge  of manslaughter.

Although the death  penalty is off the table, he still could face life in prison.

Cholmondeley admitted shooting dogs belonging to five armed poachers whom he confronted on his 55,000 acre ranch but denied killing local stonemason Robert Njoya.

The media frenzy surrounding the case has had as much to do with the gin-soaked antics of his British colonial ancestors as  with simmering resentment against settlers who snatched large  tracts of land during British rule .

The aristocrat's family is one of Kenya's largest landowners and is famed for its association with the wealthy white settlers  of colonial east Africa's "Happy Valley" set whose passions for  big game hunting, adultery and lavish parties inspired the book and film "White Mischief." Many Kenyans say there are two laws  in the east African nation - one for whites and one for blacks.

Another murder case against Cholmondeley -- this one  involving a game warden in 2005 -- was dropped for lack of  evidence.

Lawyers will be back in court on Tuesday to begin the  sentencing process. Defence attorneys have already said they  would appeal. Was the verdict fair? What sentence do you think he'll get?

So in a move to ease some of these issues, heads of state who chair the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC),  met in the Ugandan capital to draw up a pact on integration, and eventually hoping to have a unified customs union. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said at the meeting's opening that: "The greatest enemy of Africa, the greatest source of weakness has been disunity and a low level of political and economic integration." The meeting's final communiqué said a timeframe for integration would be considered in one year. Rwandan President Paul Kagame cautioned delegates that African nations must make sure to enforce the protocols and treaties that they've adopted. Heads of state at the meeting stressed the need to create economies of scale, bigger markets equal more opportunities to grow, they said.

But many of the existing blocs have already run into trouble. The EAC's integration, for example, has had some hiccups because some member countries felt their economies would be dominated by neighbours.

So, should Africa think bigger and bigger or try to work on existing institutions? Do you think the creation of a free trade zone spanning COMESA, SADC and the EAC will take off, or will it just remain on the drawing board? What do you see as the major challenges in implementing this agreement?

But more than twenty years since LRA leader Joseph Kony began his rebellion, northern Uganda is seeing the first effects of peace; both good and bad. Agriculture output is rising as people return to the fields -- the north could become Uganda's bread basket. At the height of the war, some 2 million people were forced from their homes. Now, the majority have returned to their villages or to transition areas. But, it hasn't all been easy. In fact, many new problems are emerging. An outbreak of highly-infectious Hepatitis E has killed more than 100 people so far. Many northerners are returning to villages, which have rotted during the long course of the war. Aid groups say conditions were often better in camps than in home villages. Many residents are returning to areas with little access to clean water or good sanitation. And this breeds more disease and more suffering.

Adding to these problems, Kony's rebels still haven't signed a final peace deal to bring the conflict to a close despite a raft of agreements between LRA and Ugandan negotiators earlier this year. Many northerners say they are worried that peace will not hold. They keep one eye on the fields and another eye out in case the guerrillas return. Kony is now holed up and destabilizing the remote border regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan where the elusive leader has been accused of abducting children, killings and other mayhem. For these and other war crimes, the International Criminal Court in The Hague wants Kony. The rebels say they need more clarification about how Kony and two of his deputies will escape trial at The Hague before signing the peace deal. But Uganda says that Kony must first sign before the charges can be put aside. So the question of how to deal with returning rebels, who were notorious for using mutilation as a terror tactic, remains at the heart of peace efforts. 
There have been other tries at peace before, but they have all fallen through, and the north returned to war. Will peace hold this time? Will Kony come out of the bush and sign the final agreement? Or will the north and the region once again be sucked into conflict?
 

Just stop someone on the street and ask if they have a cousin, a brother, or a sister living in Europe, the United States or elsewhere around Africa, and most likely they'll say that they have two or three or more. Remittances from those loved ones total some $40 billion per year, according to the United Nations. In some countries, diaspora money makes up more than 20 percent of the gross domestic product, and analysts say, remittance cash may be as much as 50 percent higher than current estimates due to informal transfers.

But there is growing concern that this money could be a victim of a spiralling crisis in global financial markets.

It's still too early to tell how much remittances from the estimated 30 million Africans living abroad have been impacted by the crisis, which, world financial bodies warn, could lead to a global slowdown. But some families have already been told to expect less money.

This year, the continent has suffered a dual attack from high oil and commodity prices. And now, if there is a shortfall in remittances, a third front would put an added strain on wallets and purses. But in some ways, Africa is better-placed to weather some of the storm because its banking sector is relatively unexposed and its economic ties with Asia are deepening. For remittances, the fear is that if a recession hits Europe or the United States, traditionally resilient flows could ebb as migrants' purse strings are pulled tighter and tighter.

Will a slowing of global economies hit remittance money from Africa's large diaspora? Or, will Africans abroad prove resilient yet again and continue to send the same amount of money to families back home?