Undeterred by police warnings, the opposition have said they are resuming nationwide protests to express their dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the high and rising cost of living in the country. Masaka Municipality MP and national coordinator of Activists for Change pressure group, which is leading the protests, Mr Mathias Mpuuga, said that protesters would only bow to police attempts to stop their plans if police quoted the specific law empowering it to prevent them from exercising their constitutional right to hold a peaceful demonstration.

This blog article tackles the issue of how to end conflict in the DRC. 'Ending the world's deadliest conflict is no easy task, but a growing consensus of Congolese civil society, electronics and metals companies, investors, and governments are now taking action to do so. A chief driver of their work is the Dodd-Frank legislation on conflict minerals, which is why a coalition of 40 Congolese human rights groups called it "the leverage needed to instill and impose ethical business practices in the Great Lakes region."'

ZANU PF has strongly denied the existence of torture camps near the controversial Chiadzwa diamond fields, after video evidence of the ongoing abuses by the military there was released. The UK’s BBC Panorama investigative series has revealed that the camps have been operational in the Marange region for the last three years, and the explosive report shows how civilians are subject to severe beatings and sexual attacks. But Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has denied the camps exist, calling it 'cheap propaganda from the BBC'.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), Navi Pillay, said that 'an estimated 370 million indigenous people' globally have lost or face the threat of losing their ancestral lands and natural resources due to 'unjust exploitation for the sake of development', PANA reported. According to UNHCR, when indigenous communities are alienated from their lands because of development and natural resource extraction projects, they are often left to scrape an existence on the margins of society.

There is no bi-lateral agreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe to prevent refugees from the famine-wracked Horn of Africa entering South Africa, said state officials last week. The statements from the South African department of Home Affairs and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week are in direct contrast to statements appearing on the South African Home Affairs website, and Zimbabwean news reports on Zimbabwe’s decision to bar entry to Somali and Ethiopian refugees.

Joseph Kaute, the 43-year-old gay Cameroonian who was due to be deported from the UK, is back at Harmondsworth detention centre, thanks to Air France, the airline that was due to fly him from Heathrow back to Yaoundé via Paris. It was the third attempt to deport him. 'Air France refused to allow me to board,' Mr. Kaute told UK Gay News.

The Institute for Race Relations in the United Kingdom reports on prisoner transfer agreements between the UK and other countries. 'For the past few years, under pressure from right-wing Tories, the government has made strenuous attempts to reach agreements with countries such as Nigeria to enable prisoners serving sentences here to be compulsorily repatriated to complete their sentences in their home countries, so as to save costs, reduce the foreign national prisoner (FNP) population and make space for British prisoners.'

The New York Times profiles the use of private US military contractors in the war in Somalia, introducing the story with Richard Rouget, whom they describe as 'a gun for hire over two decades of bloody African conflict'. The story goes on: 'Rouget, 51, commanded a group of foreign fighters during Ivory Coast’s civil war in 2003, was convicted by a South African court of selling his military services and did a stint in the presidential guard of the Comoros Islands, an archipelago plagued by political tumult and coup attempts. Now Mr. Rouget works for Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops who have fought a pitched urban battle in the ruins of this city against the Shabab, the Somali militant group allied with Al Qaeda.'

A sign of cordial relations between Rwanda and Uganda?

This video posted on Youtube provides a simple explanation of the US debt crisis and why it spells disaster for the global economy. What the world is facing, says the video, is complete global economic collapse, something that has never happened before. And it's not a matter of if it will happen, but when.

The government of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who pledged to uphold democracy in a Friday (05 August) meeting with US President Barack Obama, has suspended a newspaper over a reprinted opinion column criticising the White House meeting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine will convene in District Six, Cape Town, site of a brutal apartheid-era forced removal. The land has remained undeveloped on the edge of the city since it was declared 'a white group area' and the homes of black residents were demolished in the 1970s. The Cape Town session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine – to be held on 5-6 November – will consider whether Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people fits the international legal definitions of the crime of apartheid.

A women’s group begins campaigning near La Marsa beach in Tunis to convince more women to come up and register in the electoral lists, in time for the deadline now pushed back to 14 August. Most of the women watching the proceedings are veiled. The veils present more of a question than a suggestion at present. One survey among veiled women conducted by journalists here claims that four in five of these women will not vote for Ennahda, the Islamist party surging ahead in popularity ahead of elections for a constituent assembly due in October.

Thousands took to the streets of Bissau Friday 5 August for the third rally in three weeks to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, who is accused of hindering an assassination probe. 'Carlos, get out', 'Carlos to court', chanted protesters, according to an AFP journalist, during a march to the presidency. The rally was called by a coalition of 17 opposition parties accusing Gomes Junior of failing to shed light on a spate of high profile political assassinations in 2009. Two earlier protests were held on 14 and 19 July.

The British producer’s voice was clearly audible in the background: 'Lift up his arm so we can see how thin it is.' The starving Somali baby’s arm was duly lifted for the camera. Media interest in the East Africa famine started to gain momentum a couple of weeks ago, when the United Nations declared it the worst drought in 60 years and half a dozen aid agencies appealed for funds in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, reports Alertnet in this article on the media coverage of the situation. But journalists in Kenya complain of the international media’s ‘Animal Farm’ news values. We’re equal, but some are more equal than others.

Oil giant BP has entered the oil rush in Namibia by clinching 25 per cent of the equity in Chariot Oil & Gas’ exploration license in the orange Basin. The transaction is in the form of a farm-out agreement and was conducted through Enigma Oil & Gas Exploration, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chariot. The new share structure of Block 2714A is Petrobras, as operator, with 50 per cent, with BP and Chariot sharing the remaining interest. The partners hope to strike an estimated nine billion barrels of oil.

The New York-based rights organisation Human Rights Watch has described the suffering of scores of women in South African government hospitals and clinics. It charges the abuse puts women and their newborn babies 'at high risk of death or injury'. The report says poor governance and corruption contribute to thousands of unnecessary maternal deaths.

As the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) marks 10 years of its existence as a continental programme aimed at fast tracking the development agenda of the continent, opinions are divided about how far it has succeeded in achieving its objective. Since its inception, NEPAD has undergone some metamorphosis. In February 2010, the 14th Assembly of AU decided to establish the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency), as the technical organ of the AU, to replace the NEPAD Secretariat.

In early 2010, the government of Equatorial Guinea accepted more than 100 recommendations made by United Nation (UN) member countries at the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The accepted recommendations were aimed at improving several key areas related to the protection and promotion of human rights and civil liberties. It is unclear how or if the government of Equatorial Guinea is implementing the UPR recommendations; to date it has not provided the UN Human Rights Council with any updates to this effect, reports EG Justice.

In assessing the chances of another financial crash, Richard Murphy, an adviser to the Tax Justice Network writes that there is a two-part economy in the world, the real one and the feral one, which exists beyond the limits of the real economy and is made up of the enormous financial balances that are only entries in computer ledgers. 'This feral economy represents the wealth quite deliberately extracted from the real economy by those who have exploited it over the last thirty years of neoliberal domination.'