Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has in an astonishing broadside at perceived opponents including the country’s media warned them to desist from insulting him or they would be 'properly dealt with by the law'. A press release signed by State House press officer Albert Mungomo said that Malawi law provides for the 'total respect and protection' of the country's leader and that the authorities would no longer stand by and watch as the President of the Republic of Malawi was ridiculed.

This is a recording of a speech made by Arundhati Roy as a part of the Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Trust Lecture that was delivered on the 20th of January, 2012 at Xaviers college, Mumbai, India.

A suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church in Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least 10 people in the blast, and the retaliatory violence that followed, officials said. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended the final Mass of the day at St. Finbar's Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands have died in the last decade in religious and ethnic violence.

Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian activist, academic and spoken word artist. She is currently a Phd. candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto. She released her spoken word CD Hadeel in Novermber 2009. Here she performs 'Shades of Anger'.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

Continued fighting in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has forced more than 3,000 civilians into Uganda since the beginning of this year, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says. In a statement, the UNHCR said that an average of 50 people were passing over into Uganda every day this year, after a series of attacks on farms and villages in the volatile northeastern region.

More than 200 have been killed and several others are missing in fresh fighting between two rival ethnic groups in the troubled Jonglei state of South Sudan officials said, raising stakes ahead of a disarmament exercise set for mid this month. The fighting erupted Friday (9 March) morning in cattle camps in Akobo County when armed men from Pibor in the same state crossed in from the Ethiopia borders and attacked the area, Jonglei state Local Government minister Duop Lam said.

The 19th African Union Summit will take place from 23rd-30th June 2012 in Lilongwe, Malawi with the theme of ‘Boosting Intra-Africa Trade’ and ‘2012 year of Shared Values’. Fahamu- Networks for Social Justice (www.fahamu.org) through its Emerging Powers in Africa Initiative is pleased to announce a call for applications for its journalist visit to the Summit. Five successful applicants will be chosen to participate in a 4 day visit during the Summit. Media professionals in print, broadcast, radio and online fora from Africa, India, China and Brazil are encouraged to apply before the deadline of 30 March 2012.

Starting 2010, FEMNET has been partnering with South African-based African Democracy Institute (Idasa) and Zimbabwean-based Public Affairs and Parliamentary Support Trust (PAPST) in the Fredskorpset (FK) Exchange programme. The Exchange programme facilitates the exchange of personnel (ages 22 – 35 years) within participating organizations with an aim to transfer expertise/skills and promote networking for a period of nine months. The programme is supported by FK a government body under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the rights of a group of Somali and Eritrean nationals who were intercepted by Italian Customs boats and returned to Libya in 2009 were violated, under several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Although this historic decision of the court was for a case under Italy's agreement with the Qaddafi regime, it has clear ongoing relevance, as refugees and other migrants continue to face real threats in their countries of origin, as well as in Libya. This link to the AfricaFocus Bulletin contains three short commentaries, with background explanations, on this significant court ruling, from the UK Human Rights Blog.

Authorities in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia shut down an independent radio broadcaster and arrested the station's director over coverage of fighting between the government and Al-Shabaab militants, local journalists said. Armed police arriving in two vehicles raided Codka Nabadda (Voice of Peace) in the port city of Bossasso, confiscated equipment, and sealed the studios, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists.

A series of explosions at a bus station in the Kenyan capital Nairobi have killed at least four people and wounded 40 others, the Kenyan Red Cross has said. The Red Cross reported on its official Twitter account that eight out of the 40 injured people admitted to hospital on Saturday are in a critical condition. Kenyan police immediately blamed al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist armed group, that Kenyan troops are currently fighting in neighbouring Somalia.

A law in Ethiopia is crippling human rights work in the country, forcing organizations to cut programmes, close offices and lay off staff, according to an Amnesty International report published today. 'Stifling human rights work: the impact of Ethiopia’s civil society legislation' describes how the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation puts in place restrictions on organizations working on human rights and allows for excessive government interference. The result is that people in the country have less access to independent human rights assistance.

Millions of newborns, children and mothers continue to die needlessly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where rates of child mortality are the highest in the world. In this region one out of every eight children die before their fifth birthday, twenty times the rate of industrialised countries. Speaking at a Healthcare in Africa conference yesterday (WED) Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, said although there has been a reduction in the under five mortality rate, the death of newborns was still the 'stubborn piece of the problem'.

Jolted by a public outcry since the start of the year, Nigeria's government has announced a series of measures to address oil industry corruption in the world's eighth biggest producer. It is an issue that may come to define Goodluck Jonathan's presidency. But two recent audits of the oil industry reviewed by Reuters show billions of dollars in irregularities despite years of government promises to clean it up.

A new gender law in Mauritius that requires one-third of candidates in local elections to be women represents another small step towards parity in decision-making. The gender quota is contained in the new Local Government Act that entered into force on 1 January 2012 and compels all political parties to field more women to contest in local elections due by April this year. Under Mauritian law, the town and village councillors are elected every five years and their main role is to ensure the smooth running of five towns and 108 villages, overseeing the provision of services such as garbage collection and road maintenance.

Twenty-five South Africans who suffered at the hands of the apartheid security police have claimed a small victory after a United States court ratified a settlement between the claimants and General Motors. Khulumani Support Group attorney, Charles Abrahams, has been quoted as saying that, 'The settlement is a small amount. It was a show of good faith on the part of General Motors, considering that they are bankrupt.' The claimants and the Khulumani Support Group, a lobby group for financial reparations for victims of apartheid, will share an amount of $1.5-million.

The third Global Health Watch report shows that health financing, including dwindling support for AIDS, is one of the challenges facing global health. The third edition of the Global Health Watch report provides an analysis of health challenges facing the world today. It also seeks solutions to these challenges. The new edition identifies three main issues that affect people around the world. 'We talk about the three acts – the three main crises that face poor people every day...the crises of finance, of food and fuel, which are life crises squeezing people’s lives throughout the world,' said Peter Benjamin of the People’s Health Movement, during the launch of the report in Johannesburg.

The Tunisian unemployment rate reached 18.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, with nearly three-quarters of jobless citizens under the age of 30. The rate marks a 0.6 per cent rise from the second quarter of 2011, according to data released by the Tunisian National Institute of Statists (INS) on 23 February. The total number of jobless Tunisians was reported at more than 738,000, a jump of 33,500 people.

Nicolas Sarkozy has declared there are too many foreigners in France, deliberately using extreme-right rhetoric to regain ground in his difficult re-election battle. The French president is already under attack by religious leaders and from within his own party for veering to the right and stoking anti-Muslim sentiment by forcing the marginal topic of halal meat into the centre of his campaign. He has now vowed to cut immigration by half and limit state benefits for legal migrants.