'Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo', 'I Want A Wedding Dress' and 'Ungochani' were three of the films recently screened at the Women’s Law Centre in Harare as part of a new film based gender rights series initiative between Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ) and The Women’s Law Centre. The collaboration started in February this year and will continue in the next semester.

The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) government has, in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB), officially launched a Curriculum Vitae (CV) registry that seeks to assist its citizens in their quest for employment opportunities in Africa’s newest nation. Under the new arrangement, the Ministry of Human Resource Development and other government ministries will review CVs received through the registry, thus matching them with appropriate openings within the public sector, if available. 'South Sudan requires a skilled and dedicated workforce in order to implement its national development plan and other goals effectively. The country needs qualified professionals to help it address challenges and who can share in the nation building process,' said AfDB in a statement.

The Hawks have taken the first step towards re-opening the multibillion-rand arms deal probe - which could expose those who took bribes to prosecution. The head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, Anwar Dramat, wrote to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) informing it of the Hawks' intention to speak to European investigators to establish whether or not criminal charges should be brought against any South Africans. The Hawks controversially dropped the probe into the arms deal in September last year, arguing that prospects of successful prosecutions were slim.

In 2005, countries in the wider East African region launched a master plan that would finally sort out the region’s perennial power woes. The East African Power Pool (EAPP) was to exploit the enormous hydropower potential in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda, the geothermal potential in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, natural gas in Tanzania and Rwanda and coal in Tanzania and the DR Congo. Six years later, the region’s power troubles seem to be going from bad to worse - Kenya this week joined Tanzania and Uganda in the growing list of East African Community countries rationing power to domestic and industrial consumers.

In this month’s issue:

Dialogue among Civilizations News
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Book Launch
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition KZNSA Gallery 2011
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition Leeds 2011
- Profile: Berry Bickle

Women for Children News
- Gabisile Nkosi Remembered (4 February 1974 - 27 May 2008)
- Youth Day 16 June 2011
- “Precious Cargo” by Ernestine White
- DUT Students view on Youth Day 2011

Break the Silence News
- 5th SA AIDS Conference - June 2011
- Art work: Yehoshua Comforting an Aids Victim by Mduduzi Xakaza

General News
- ASJ Conference
- Nelson Mandela Day – 18 July 2011

August is when Nchoo Ngochila would normally be gearing up for the traditional female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) season in her Ilchamus community in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. This year, however, Ngochila will spend her time trying to convince her community the practice should be abandoned. About a year ago, a campaign by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) urged FGM/C practitioners in the area to put down their razors and campaign for women's rights in their communities.

Despite 12 years of reform, Morocco’s universities continue to fall short of expectations, with students complaining that the training they get does not meet the demands of the job market. Professors in this North African country of 32 million people echoed their students’ grievances, adding that Moroccan universities are poorly managed and riddled with corruption. 'The kind of training provided by universities remains poor and does not meet any of the educational, pedagogic, academic and intellectual conventional standards,' Zakaria Rmidi, a student preparing for his master's degree in English studies, told IPS.

The Tanzanian Government has come under pressure to make public the revised version of the Constitutional Review Act 2011. Participants at a weekend meeting accused the government of being reluctant to issue the document and vowed that they would not relent in their quest to have it released. The chairman of the Constitutional Debate Forum, Mr Deus Kibamba, said the government appeared not to be ready for change, and was trying to delay the process. The country might experience chaos should the process of writing the new constitution not be transparent, he said.

Women in Law in Southern Africa (WILSA) working in Zambia, believes prevention is important in reducing the number of women who become victims of gender-based violence. Rudo Chingobe Mooba says the media can play an important role in raising awareness of risks and dangers as well as in influencing public opinion and policies that protect the rights of women. Rudo is worried that a number of gender-based violence cases occur in marriages. A situation she says 'poses a threat to stopping gender-based violence, notwithstanding the issues of HIV/AIDS which stand at 16% in Zambia.'

A massive shortfall in funding for African infrastructure projects is costing the continent up to three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a year, a senior African Development Bank official said. 'The gap right now is something like $45 billion a year and that gap is dragging down economic growth in Africa by as much as 3 percent of GDP,' Mthuli Ncube, chief economist for the lender, said at a launch event for its annual economic outlook. 'The most critical area is energy - power. Any power outages are bound to cause massive problems for growth.'

Four months before South Africa hosts the United Nation's big climate-change conference in Durban, concerns are mounting that the country is lagging behind in its preparations. This comes amid accusations that tensions are running high between the department of environmental affairs (DEA) and the department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) over responsibilities. Because of international protocol, the environment department handles the content of the climate change conference and Dirco the logistics. Greenpeace's Melita Steele, who is also part of the civil society steering committee for COP17, said it was only now, in July, that Dirco was ready and the confusion over which department was responsible for what seemed to have been sorted out.

Eritrea was behind a plot to attack an African Union summit in Ethiopia in January and is bankrolling al Qaeda-linked Somali rebels through its embassy in Kenya, according to a UN report. A UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia and Eritrea said the Red Sea state's intelligence personnel were active in Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, and that the country's actions posed a threat to security and peace in the region.

Concerned with a low rate of voter registration, Tunisia's Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) is in the midst of a major push to encourage citizens to register for the country's historic 23 October elections. Tunisians have until Tuesday (2 August) to register to vote for the Constituent Assembly elections.

South Africa's health system is on the brink of a dramatic change, with the National Health Insurance White Paper expected to be considered by Cabinet this week. The main priority will be to provide free health care to all South African’s regardless of what they earn or where they live. On this page, listen to - or read - a Health-e report on a visit to South Africa's west coast where an innovative programme is leading the way.

Ever since a man in Tunisia burned himself to death in December 2010 in protest at his treatment by police, pro-democracy rebellions have erupted across the Middle East. This interactive timeline produced by The Guardian UK traces key events.

Of the millions of dollars spent on climate change projects in developing countries, little has been allocated in a way that will benefit women. Yet, in Africa, it is women who will be most affected by climate change. According to United Nations data, about 80 per cent of the continent's smallholder farmers are women. While they are responsible for the food security of millions of people, agriculture is one of the sectors hardest hit by climate change.

Zambia's President Rupiah Banda has put this year's general vote on Tuesday, 20 September. Incumbent Zambian President and top contender under the governing Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) stable, Rupiah Banda announced the election day during a live broadcast to the nation.

The Mandela Park Backyarders have issued a press statement detailing irregularities in the allocation of houses at the Mandela Park Housing Project in Cape Town, South Africa.

The top United Nations peacekeeping official has reported that more than 500 troops with the new UN mission in the disputed Abyei area of Sudan have been deployed and both of the contesting sides appear committed to avoiding combat and willing to withdraw in favour of the blue helmets. But Alain Le Roy, the under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told a meeting of the Security Council that 'deployment difficulties' in working with the Sudanese government have left some of the troops facing a 'critical food shortage'.

On 11 June and 2-3 July 2011 ‘punitive’ night raids were carried out against women in the southern city of M’sila, Algeria. Considered to be ‘potential prostitutes’ by their neighbours because they live alone, and under the pretext of the defense of morality, hundreds of youth have burnt down the houses of women who barely escaped being lynched. The police did not intervene.

Recently a press conference was held in Algeria where the Observatory on Violence Against Women condemned the lax manner with which the public authorities react to these punitive raids: ‘What we are denouncing is the absence of the state to the point where every individual can take the law into their own hands and find a pretext in the defense of morality to make an attempt on the lives of women.’

Please follow to read more and to sign a petition addressed to the Algerian authorities.

A French statement about these raids is available here.