Municipal elections appear to have had a dampening impact on service delivery protests, according to research by Municipal IQ, which carries out a Municipal Hotspots Monitor. Municipal IQ reported that there were 10 protests in 2004. This jumped to 34 in 2005, dropped to just two in the last municipal election year in 2006, rose again to 32 in 2007, dropped slightly to 27 in 2008, but jumped steeply to 105 in 2009 and to 111 in 2010. There have been 23 so far this year.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has set September as the deadline for the over 25,000 Angolan refugees to voluntarily leave Zambia for their homeland, failure to which they lose their refugee status at the end of this year. UNHCR representative in Zambia Joyce Mends-Cole, announced in Lusaka that Angolan refugees wishing to repatriate with the assistance of UNHCR had only until the end of September 2011 to do so, following the recommencement of organised Angolan repatriation.

Police in Morocco have violently dispersed protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations, beating them up with batons and taking several into custody. Sunday’s police action in the capital, Rabat, and Casablanca seemed to suggest a tougher government response to the increasingly defiant protests that first erupted in February.

Libyan officials lied about photojournalist Anton Hammerl to the South African government, international relations and cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has said. 'We kept getting reassured at the highest level that he was alive until his colleagues were released and shared the information yesterday [Wednesday],' she told reporters in Pretoria. It was revealed last week that Hammerl has been killed while covering the Libyan conflict.

Pambazuka Press and The Africa Centre invite you to:

In the field of international security, discussions about women and children are usually marginalised. But is it possible to achieve human security without placing women at the centre of the policy agenda?

Discussion with Funmi Olonisakin, Awino Okech, Ecoma Alaga and Ekaette Ikpe, chaired by Patricia Daley.

The speakers' important new book,

In late March, 29-year-old Libyan student Eman Al-Obeidy caught the world’s attention when she burst into a Tripoli hotel to inform Western media of her alleged detention, torture, and rape at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces. Eman Al-Obeidy has subsequently fled Libya. In this Q&A on the website of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, 22-year-old Amany Mufta Ismail, a woman activist in rebel-controlled East Libya, describes her reactions to the story of Eman Al-Obeidy.

Foreign traders in many Johannesburg townships have closed their businesses and put their livelihoods on hold in response to a campaign of threats and intimidation launched in recent weeks by a group of local business people calling themselves the Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF). In late April, the GGBF started distributing letters to immigrant shopkeepers in at least nine townships, giving them seven days to pack up and leave. The letter threatened drastic action against those who did not comply.

In order to reduce instances where pharmacists are inflating the cost of subsidised malaria drugs, the Kenyan government has embarked on awareness campaigns through the media to inform Kenyans of the availability of the drugs, and the recommended prices per dose. According to Dr John Logedi, the deputy program manager at the Division of Malaria Control, the awareness campaign will help consumers make an informed choice and enable them to seek outlets that sell the drugs at the right price.

The President of the Union for the Development of Fouta Djallon, a region in Guinea where the alleged victim of IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn originates from, has expressed indignation over the alleged attempted rape of the lady (name withheld). Speaking to Radio France International (RFI), Mr Souleymane Diallo said that the ethnic Fula community in the United States will shortly undertake a 'massive demonstration' in support of the 32-year-old woman.

More than $25 billion is needed to implement roads infrastructure projects in East Africa in the next 10 years. The amount covers the cost of massive upgrading, modernisation and construction of roads to improve intra-regional connectivity and also link up EA with countries outside the bloc. 'The estimated cost of these roads infrastructure development in the next 10 years is in excess of $25 billion,' disclosed Ms Hafsa Mosi, the Chairperson of the East African Community Council of Ministers, when unveiling the Community's 2011/12 budget.

Gustave Massiah

Mireille Fanon Mendès France

In Cape Town, African women who think that AIDS is man-made are half as likely as other African women to have used a condom during their most recent sexual encounter, researchers report in the journal AIDS and Behavior. In addition, African men who believe that HIV is harmless while antiretroviral drugs are harmful are half as likely to use condoms as other men. There are important differences in the findings for men and women, which suggests that gender is crucial to understanding AIDS conspiracy and denialism in South Africa.

Eighteen months after fleeing across the riverine border separating the two Congos, some 120,000 refugees seem to have little prospect of returning home soon. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had scheduled an organised repatriation from the northern Likouala region Republic of Congo to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Equateur Province in late April, but this was indefinitely postponed because of logistical and financial issues. The exodus from DRC took place in late 2009 following conflicts over natural resources, such as fish ponds, between the Enyele and Munyaza communities.

Three international organisations have negotiated reductions on key first and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May. The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or 'first-line', regimens.

ZANU PF has demanded that recent strong resolutions on Zimbabwe, adopted by the regional security organ the Troika, be overturned, calling on the Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to reverse the position. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which is attending the summit, told SW Radio Africa that SADC leaders were set to discuss recent resolutions adopted by the SADC Troika in March. That summit in Livingstone, Zambia, had condemned the lack of progress in the unity government, in the first meaningful criticism of ZANU PF the region has ever issued. The Troika called for an end to violence and intimidation, and called for the drafting of an election roadmap towards a credible and violence free poll in Zimbabwe.

South Africa's local government elections were officially declared over on Saturday night by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria. At a closing ceremony attended by political leaders from across the spectrum, the governing African National Congress remained firmly in charge of the nation's municipalities, taking just under 62 per cent of the vote nationally. The opposition Democratic Alliance took just under a quarter of all votes - 23.94 per cent.

The head of the US Department of Agriculture recently announced an incentive program that would subsidise up to 75 per cent of the costs for establishing new US agrofuel plantations, in an 'effort to promote production of fuel from renewable sources, create jobs and mitigate the effects of climate change'. This 'incentive' is a hand-out to agribusiness, and despite the industry’s 'green' fuels hyperbole agrofuels could actually have a negative impact on atmospheric carbon when land use changes are factored in. These subsidies are a public handout to Monsanto, Cargill, BP and Chevron, says this article on the website of the Institute for Food and Development Policy.

We are seeking a dynamic, highly motivated and creative young feminist to serve as our executive director. Reporting to the board of directors, the executive director will provide overall leadership in the strategic direction of the organisation through its office in Nairobi.

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and its partners l’Action contre l’impunité des droits humains (ACIDH) and Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) have filed a communication before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights against the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complainants allege that the events that took place in the south-eastern remote town of Kilwa and the subsequent failure of the DRC state to ensure reparations to victims are in violation of several guarantees of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First shapes how people think by analysing the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and developing solutions in partnership with movements working for social change. You can subscribe to their newsletter by clicking on the URL provided.