A Kenyan official says a British human rights investigator looking into the illegal deportations and detentions of terror suspects from Kenya to Uganda has herself been deported. Hassan Omar Hassan of the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says lawyer Clara Gutteridge was deported on government orders.

Mozambique's government will again attempt to curtail subsidy expenditures for essential foods and services, but this time its approach will be more nuanced so as to avoid a repeat of the cost-of-living protests in 2010. Antonio Cruz, director of policy analysis in the planning ministry, recently told local media that subsidies on fuel, bread and rice, estimated to cost the donor-dependent government millions of dollars each month, would be phased out by the end of June 2011. Planning and development minister Aiuba Cuereneia told the state-run newspaper, Noticias, that savings accrued from discontinuing the generalized subsidies would enable the introduction of a new food basket and transport benefits for families earning less than two dollars a day.

The Arusha-based United Nation's court for Rwanda handed a 30-year prison sentence Tuesday (17 May) to former army chief Augustin Bizimungu for his role in the country's 1994 genocide. The court also convicted Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former head of the paramilitary police, of genocide crimes but ordered his release as he had already spent 11 years behind bars since his arrest. Two other senior generals were each sentenced to 20 years in prison.

SA is not in any kind of energy crisis, despite the unfolding crisis at nuclear plants in Japan, an activist organisation has said. 'It's [the energy crisis] a complete fabrication. Of our total capacity, domestic users account for 18 per cent,' Muna Lakhani, Cape Town branch co-ordinator for Earthlife Africa told News24. Recently the government has announced that it intends to move toward a green energy production, but has come under fire from environmentalists for continued discussions on nuclear energy.

Tired of the picturesque island's debilitating political crisis, Malagasy youth are reading the riot act to their politicians and have asked them to put their act together. But with limited access to the corridors of power, Madagascar's young population have so far been reduced to airing their grievances at public forums. 'The young have been pushed to take part in many political battles. But once the backed people seized power, they always failed to solve our problems,' said Mr Désiré Ranaivoson, the head of the National Platform of the Young (PNJ) and one of Madagascar's interim president's right-hand men.

The Presidency tried to convince the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday (17 May) that it should not be compelled to release a report on the 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe to the Mail & Guardian newspaper. However, the Mail & Guardian argued the release of the report was in the public interest because it would throw light on whether President Robert Mugabe legitimately remained in office after the elections. Both the North Gauteng High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal agreed with the newspaper. The Presidency had now turned to the Constitutional Court in an attempt to keep the report secret.

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) has bowed to the pressure by donors and Monday (16 May) released a much awaited National Governance and Corruption Survey report. The report shows generally that corruption is still a serious problem in the country, with respondents listing the police force, judiciary and education sectors as areas which they perceive to be the most corrupt in the country.

Since January 2011, over 1,000 migrants have drowned while attempting to reach the fortified coasts of the southern shores of the European Union. These figures must be added to the 15,000 victims of the 'war against migrants' which reaches these days new peaks of inhumanity. According to informations, a boat carrying over 600 people is lost in the high seas off the Libyan coast, amidst general indifference.

A large number of Egyptian women participated in a march entitled 'No to sectarian strife' which appeared with its ugly face in the district of Imbaba. They participated in this march to stress the values of citizenship and tolerance and to prevent the strife that has been witnessed in the district and in many different places in Egypt after the revolution. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights affirms that the incidents that happened between Muslims and Christians are a clear attempt to abort the 25th of January revolution.

The edition highlights the recent BRICS Summit, held in China. An article by Mr John Bailey provides commentary on the event following his media coverage of the proceedings. A second article by Peter Konijn then provides a review of the second international roundtable on health collaboration between China and Africa that took place in Beijing. Mandarin translations of original articles published through the newsletter are also to be incorporated into future newsletters. Three translated articles on China-Africa civil society cooperation within FOCAC, South Africa’s inclusion into BRICS and the recent World Social Forum are available in this month's edition. The April edition is available .

Highly sensitive documents revealing the torture of Mau Mau Kenyans at the hands of the British authorities were a 'sort of guilty secret' for the UK Government, a report has found. Foreign Secretary William Hague said the documents, which detail how detainees were castrated, beaten and sexually abused while in British camps, should now be made public. His announcement comes as a High Court judge is set to decide whether the UK Government, which sanctioned 'systematic violence' in the detention camps, is liable for the torture of the Mau Mau people between 1952 and 1961.

Thousands of frustrated Ethiopian and Somali asylum seekers trying to make their way to South Africa have been marooned in overcrowded camps in northern Mozambique since the government introduced measures limiting their movements. The Maratane Refugee Camp in Nampula Province, which normally accommodates around 5,500 long-term residents from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, now has a population of over 10,000, while an additional 1,000 asylum seekers are staying at a temporary site in the coastal town of Palma, near the border with Tanzania.

Seventy per cent of those living in absolute poverty in our world – starving or on the edge of starvation – are female. All over the world, women and children are the mass of the poor and the poorest of the poor. In Nigeria, as in many other developing countries, the new face of poverty is woman. This has become an economic phenomenon as the gap between women and men caught in the cycle of poverty has continued to widen in the past decade, a phenomenon commonly referred to as ‘the feminisation of poverty’. This underscores the fact that where an issue affects (negatively) both men and women, in most cases women suffer more than men. In the situation of single parenting for instance, families headed by women are poorer compared with those headed by men.

Over 100 Somali refugees stranded at Zimbabwe’s border with South Africa have been hit by a malaria outbreak, authorities have said. They have warned of a worse disease outbreak if the situation was not addressed urgently. The Somalis were denied entry into South Africa where they wanted to apply for asylum and were now stranded at Zimbabwe’s border town of Beitbridge.

'The future for least developed countries lies in trade, productive capacity and governance more than in aid,' said Cheick Sidi Diarra, United Nations High representative for the Least Developed Countries, responding to criticism of the plan of action put forward as the UN conference on the world’s poorest nations drew to a close in Istanbul. Representatives of governments said they were optimistic that the Istanbul Programme of Action for the decade 2011 to 2020 will prove instrumental in seeing at least half of the 48 countries now classed as least developed leave that category in the next ten years. The civil society forum swiftly rejected the plan of action as inadequate. The NGO group said donors and development partners had avoided committing themselves to delivering on long-standing pledges to provide substantial financial support for LDCs.

Political parties have ratcheted up the rhetoric ahead of the local government elections on Wednesday. Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille told a crowd in Lebogang, Mpumalanga, that they could choose five more years of poor service delivery and toyi-toying, or they could choose five years of steadily increasing access to housing and basic services by choosing the DA. ANC Youth League president Julius Malema was on the warpath taking swipes at Zille and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He referred to Zille as the 'madam' who 'moves around doing a monkey dance looking for votes'.

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...

Employment wise, in sub-Saharan Africa women occupy just one in three paid jobs outside agriculture, and it comes as no surprise that women are typically paid less than their male counterparts and have less secure employment. Despite this, there is an increase in women entering the labour force throughout their child-bearing years, finding ways to juggle the pressures of their unpaid family work and paid employment.

In the context of the International Year for People of African Descent, the Anti-Discrimination Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is launching a Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent from 10 October to 4 November 2011.

Government will pay out millions of rands to compensate victims of apartheid era atrocities, the Sunday Times reported. Those who qualify for financial assistance include victims and their children, even if they were born in or out of wedlock or were adopted. People with parental responsibilities over victims and their children will also be eligible for compensation.