A high-level ECOWAS delegation led by the President of the Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, arrived in Abidjan on Monday, 22nd August 2011 for talks with officials of the Government of Cote d’Ivoire on how the regional organisation can support the country’s post-conflict reconstruction.

After 30 years and over 20 million deaths in Africa alone, US researchers report that early treatment of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that leads to AIDS cuts transmission of the disease by over 96 per cent. Announced by the US National Institutes of Health on 12 May after a six-year, nine-country clinical trial that cost $73 million, the discovery that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) can make people living with HIV far less infectious means that humanity finally has the tools to reverse the epidemic.

DRC President Joseph Kabila has warned national institutions not to shoot their expenditures out of control. The president has had a big issue with his prime minister, Adolphe Muzito, on this matter. In the past two years, President Kabila has prevented the premier from signing documents related to big expenditures. He has accused the Prime Minister of excessive spending in disregard of the allocated budget.

ActionAid Tanzania in collaboration with the Tanzania Land Alliance (TALA) under the land Accountability Project (LAP) launched on Friday, a web-based land portal to aid in accessing information and discussion of land related issues in Tanzania. The project will also establish a system for women and the poor to access support and expose land grabbing on the internet, said a statement issued by the ActionAid.

One of the more serious problems facing the World Bank and International Monetary Fund is a long history of Western racism, the author of this article argues. 'Unless the IMF and the World Bank are willing to undergo a radical reform, not a superficial one (to prolong its power structure for Western domination), their historical relevance will come to an end soon, to be replaced by alternative global institutions when the new powers in the Asian century (and others) take their turn to reshape the world order.'

Cape Verde’s opposition candidate, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, 61, has won Sunday’s presidential run-off elections with 54 per cent of the votes cast. His rival, Manuel Inocencio Sousa, 60, has conceded defeat after 92 per cent of the overall ballots were counted by Monday morning.

Euphoric Libyan rebels have moved into the centre of the capital, Tripoli, as Muammar Gaddafi's defenders melted away and thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air. The rebels' surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall on Sunday, they had advanced more than 32km to Tripoli. Pockets of fighters who are still loyal to Gaddafi still control parts of the city - including the areas around Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizia compound in the south of the city.

Sharon Slater, American anti-gay activist and president of Family Watch International, recently encouraged delegates attending a law conference in Lagos, Nigeria to resist the United Nations’ calls to decriminalise homosexuality. Keynoting the Nigerian Bar Association Conference, Slater told delegates that they would lose their religious and parental rights if they supported 'fictitious sexual rights'. One such 'fictitious right' is the right to engage in same-sex sexual relationships without going to jail.

Africa Today host Walter Turner discusses the crisis in the Horn of Africa with a guest from a pastoral community and an environmental activist. Analysts have noted climate change and militarisation as some of the root causes of the crisis, notes Turner in his introduction.

Guinea's President Alpha Conde has pardoned 17 opposition activists jailed for taking part in an illegal rally in April. The amnesty was aimed at promoting reconciliation after divisive elections last year, the BBC's Alhassan Sillah in the capital, Conakry, says. Mr Conde had also appointed Guinea's top Muslim and Christian clerics to head a reconciliation commission.

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...

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and his wife Simone, detained since he was ousted
from power in April, have been charged with 'economic crimes, armed robbery, looting and embezzlement', the public prosecutor has said. Simplice Kouadio Koffi said Gbagbo was charged on Thursday and his wife on Tuesday. Both have been moved from house arrest in the north of the country to jail.

Southern Africa has just acquired the world’s largest conservation area - a 444000km² peace park joining Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Peace Parks Foundation said. The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was legally established on the last day of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) conference in Luanda, Angola.

An aid convoy which departed South Africa in July is soon to arrive in Gaza after traveling the length of Africa. South African Relief Agency Chief Coordinator Aneesa Brits answers questions from Pambazuka News about the reasons for the epic journey.

Heavy fighting and gun battles have broken out in areas of Tripoli after opposition fighters gained control overnight of much of the Libyan capital in their battle to end Muammar Gaddafi's decades-long rule. Clashes erupted on Monday after tanks left Bab Aziziya, Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, to confront the rebel assault. Many of the streets in the centre of the city, where anti-government supporters had celebrated hours earlier, were abandoned as pockets of pro-Gaddafi resistance and the presence of snipers and artillery fire made the area dangerous.

At least 125 people were confirmed dead on Sunday as sectional fighting continued between two feuding tribes in Jonglei state in South Sudan, officials said. Sixty others perished in fighting between the army and a militia group in Upper Nile state on Saturday, according to the army spokesman. The caretaker Justice Minister, John Luk Jok, said 125 bodies were found dead on the ground in Uror County in Jonglei state since the fighting broke out on Thursday.

With power in Côte d’Ivoire having changed hands from Laurent Gbagbo to Alassane Ouattara, the social dynamic has shifted in Moyen-Cavally, creating new challenges for stability in the cocoa- and coffee-rich region where political partisanship runs largely along ethnic lines. But observers say community structures and local will to overcome divisions remain and can be built upon to move past unprecedented turmoil. 'People here have no choice but to coexist,' said Benjamin Effoli, prefect in the western town of Duékoué in Moyen-Cavally. 'Social cohesion is a non-stop job and every single person has his or her role.' He said in the wake of the latest crisis, long-standing community groups are monitoring the situation and discussing how to rein in strife.

A group of asylum- seekers has applied to the High Court in Pretoria for an order directing the Home Affairs ministry to provide adequate refugee reception offices in South Africa, including in Johannesburg. The order - which, if granted, could force an overhaul of a refugee management system that at times borders on dysfunctional - seeks to compel the ministry to address a host of problems, including rampant corruption and overcrowding at reception offices that have made applying for asylum a nightmare in South Africa.

An aid convoy which departed South Africa in July is soon to arrive in Gaza after traveling the length of Africa. South African Relief Agency Chief Coordinator Aneesa Brits answers questions from Pambazuka News about the reasons for the epic journey.

Thousands of Libyan students enrolled in universities and colleges in Australia, Britain, Egypt, South Africa and the US face suspension of their monthly stipend from the government in Tripoli, possibly by the end of August. Many students fear reprisals for holding protests against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi should they return home, but the British and US governments have promised to do what they can to ensure the students will be able to complete their courses.