Only two in every five people in the Southern African Development Community has access to safe water for drinking and household use. Three quarters of those lacking access, live in rural areas and the majority of these are women and children. Chrispin Sedeke, head of the Transboundary Water Management Division of the Ministry for the Environment of the Democratic Republic of Congo, believes that even these discouraging figures are likely understated. According to a report published in March 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme, the DRC possesses half of the water resources in Africa, but more than 50 million Congolese do not have access to water.

Staff at a public university have threatened to boycott work in protest against the dissolution of the institution’s governing council. The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology workers gave the government one week to appoint a new council or face industrial action. The council, which is charged with the university’s administrative duties, was dissolved through a Kenya Gazette notice published on 3 June.

'The profiteering of SA’s businesses (enabled by lax compliance with labour law and weak regulation of trade and capital flows) stand in the way of creating decent jobs that can offer the majority of South Africa’s the dignity prescribed in our Constitution. In this context the Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC) supports the struggle of NUMSA and other unions for a living wage. A victory for them will set a better standard for the whole labour market.'

Attending Santiago de Cuba’s Festival of Fire to deliver a lecture on CLR James at a colloquium on Pan-Africanism in the Caribbean, Norman Girvan finds that ‘culture is to Cubans what shopping is to Americans’.

Recent developments at national and international levels with regards to anti-counterfeiting legislation and actions have raised debate about such laws not undermining access to affordable generic drugs. This policy brief produced by EQUINET, SEATINI and TARSC points to the separate measures and mandates needed to combat firstly fraudulent trade mark and intellectual property (IP) infringement in counterfeit medicines by IP authorities, secondly to ensure that any anti-counterfeit measures protect TRIPS flexibilities, including for access to generic medicines.

Groups from 13 developing countries have slammed UK climate loans to be given through the World Bank. Community leaders in countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique and Yemen have written to British cabinet ministers Chris Huhne and Andrew Mitchell rejecting the loans the UK is providing to their countries to help them cope with climate change. In their letter they say the UK and other rich industrialised countries, who have done the most to cause climate change, owe a ‘climate debt’ to poor countries who are worst affected by the phenomenon. ‘Climate loans will only lock our countries into further debt, and further impoverish our people,’ reads the letter.

Four communities that Shell Petroleum Development Company operates in recently issued a 14 day ultimatum to the company, demanding implementation of an agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi. Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest at the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base.

Fifty young economists, academics and businesspeople called an Algiers press conference on Saturday (9 July) to unveil '100 Measures for a New Algeria'. It was the symbolic date of 5 July, however, that 'Nabni' ('Our Algeria Built on New Ideas') selected to announce the recommendations. The group hopes to implement the proposals, drafted after two months of deliberations, before next years' independence decennial.

Reports that major opposition parties in the country have united to form an umbrella opposition coalition against the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) could be the beginning of an end to the ruling party's 45-year rule over this country. However, the level of support for the new coalition remains unclear. With negotiations still underway, the opposition coalition has not yet taken control of any political power base nor demonstrated its popularity. Leadership of the coalition might also prove a contentious issue.

Uganda opened its first war crimes trial Monday, 11 July charging a commander of the Lord's Resistance Army rebellion blamed for brutal civilian murders during a 20-year war in the north of the country. Thomas Kwoyelo was charged before the International Crimes Division court in the northern town of Gulu with 53 counts of wilful killing, hostage taking, destruction of property and causing injury.

Ibrahim Kalokoh, an investigative journalist of the privately-owned For Di People daily newspaper, was threatened with death by two staff members of the Sierra Leone Port Authority (SLPA), following corruption reports by his newspaper against the SLPA’s General Manager, Benjamin Davies. The Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent reported that the two men warned him to discontinue 'publishing' negative stories about their boss or they would be killed.

The acting president of the party of former strongman of Cote d’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo has quit. Mamadou Koulibaly resigned, accusing some executive members of being opposed to 'any change'. Koulibaly, who is also the Speaker of the National Assembly, accused the Ivorian People’s Front (FPI) of being 'static, immovable, walled up in disorder, idolatry, worship of its founders, hopeless contradictions and fear of innovation'.

The government wants new refugees settled outside Kenya to ease congestion in existing camps. Internal Security assistant minister Orwa Ojode said Kenya is overwhelmed by the number of people fleeing Somalia, which has escalated in recent months. 'It’s a very heavy burden which we did not budget for. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) can feed them in Somalia since the latest arrivals are not fleeing due to insecurity but lack of food,' he said.

West African country Togo's students' struggle for better education conditions is now in its fifth week and despite a recent truce, tensions remains high in the capital Lomé. A wind of appeasement seemed to blow on the demonstrations organised by the Mouvement pour l'Épanouissement des Étudiants Togolais - MEET (Movement for the Fulfillment of Togolese Students) - when students managed to obtain from authorities the reinstatement of the president of their association on 30 June. Abou Seidou, a student of the University of Lomé, had been previously expelled for allegedly causing troubles on the campus. This reinstatement was expected to open the way to negotiations, reports Global Voices Online.

Angola's commodity-based economy is tied to global oil and diamond prices, and is thus highly susceptible to exogenous shocks, says this Chatham House briefing paper. 'Urban poverty is a source of social strife. The ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) will need to improve service delivery and quicken the pace of social reform to stave off potential unrest. If mismanaged, the task of choosing a successor to President José Eduardo dos Santos could spark a destabilising power struggle within the MPLA.'

Red tape at border points is costing East Africa $7 million (Sh630 million) for each hour of delay in a year, according to a new study that proposes checks along the Northern Corridor be co-ordinated to ease transport costs. The report, 'Harmonisation of vehicle overload control in the East African Community', sponsored by the Japan International Cooperation Agency shows that trucks take five days to cover the 1,100 kilometres from Mombasa to Kampala - with 19 hours being spent on crossing borders and weighbridges.

Europe's biodiesel industry could be wiped out by EU plans to tackle the unwanted side effects of biofuel production, after studies showed few climate benefits, four papers obtained by Reuters show. Europe's world-leading $13 billion biodiesel industry, which has boomed in the wake of a decision by Brussels policymakers in 2003 to promote it, is now on the verge of being legislated out of existence after the studies revealed biodiesel's indirect impact cancels out most of its benefits.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela anticipates she will have some tough questions for the government once her probe into missing apartheid billions gets under way. This week Madonsela announced she had reversed her initial decision not to investigate allegations that upwards of R26 billion was looted from state coffers via various schemes under apartheid. The allegations originate from a report compiled by a UK-based investigation and asset recovery firm, Ciex, which alleges it was contracted by the government to track billions which were siphoned from the government in the dying years of apartheid.

Three Zimbabwean government ministers were briefly detained on Sunday evening (10 July) as tension continues to mount in Harare’s troubled coalition, it was reported. Industry and commerce minister Professor Welshman Ncube, also the leader of the smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was arrested alongside two ministers from his party as they returned from a meeting in Victoria Falls. He was with regional integration minister Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and her national healing and reconciliation counterpart Mr Moses Mzila Ndlovu.

A new tool for measuring food price volatility in global agriculture markets could help poor countries or aid agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) decide where and when to buy staples, says Maximo Torero, director of the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) Markets, Trade and Institutions Division. The early warning tool, NEXQ (Non-parametric Extreme Quantile Model) has been developed by IFPRI and is based on sophisticated economic modelling, which provides daily price variability ratings for four major crops - hard wheat, soft wheat, maize (corn) and soya beans - and aims to help analysts predict price volatility.