Ayanda Kota of UPM defends the Cutting Edge television programme's portrayal of terrible sanitation conditions in Grahamstown, South Africa.

The extent of tuberculosis and HIV co-infection rates in South Africa has firmly placed tuberculosis on the agenda of the South African National AIDS Council. This, after studies have shown that in some parts of the country, like in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape for example, about 73 per cent of HIV-infected people also have TB. The South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) took a decision to include tuberculosis as part of its mandate after a World Health Organisation (WHO) review in 2009 of South Africa’s national TB Control programme. The review found that the levels of TB and HIV co-infection in South Africa were enormously high.

Egypt's former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garranah has been jailed for five years on charges of corruption, an Egyptian judicial source has said. Garranah had handed out tourism licences illegally, the source said. Last week, ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was jailed for 12 years for money-laundering and profiteering.

Senegalese opposition leaders are protesting a delay in issuing identification cards to youth, a move they say was calculated to deny them votes in the forthcoming elections. In the election to be held in February next year, President Abdoulaye Wade will face three former prime ministers and other veteran politicians in what promises to be the hottest political contest in Senegal since independence. On Tuesday, the opposition accused the ruling party of instituting technical delays in issuing the new identification cards, saying it was intended to sideline thousands of youths from registering.

An indefinite strike by public-sector workers in diamond-rich Botswana is threatening the ruling party’s 45-year grip on power and denting its image as the steward of one of Africa’s success stories. The main public employees’ union said more than 90,000 workers have joined the strike, which has ground public services to a near halt and forced schools, clinics and government offices to operate on skeleton staff. The country’s three largest opposition parties have moved to capitalise on the unrest.
Duma Boko, head of the opposition Botswana National Front, called on Botswana to replicate the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

Reporters Without Borders says it is appalled by the Rwandan government’s determination to keep hounding one of its media bugbears, Jean Bosco Gasasira, editor of the bimonthly newspaper Umuvugizi and one of the country’s most outspoken journalists. Prosecutors have asked Rwanda’s supreme court to sentence him to ten years in prison on charges on which the Kigali high court acquitted him last September. Gasasira is charged with spreading rumours that incited civil disobedience, insulting the president and deliberately violating Rwanda’s media law. The supreme court, whose decisions cannot be appealed, is due to announce its verdict on 27 May.

A vast majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people seeking asylum in the European Union on the basis of their sexual orientation, have been met by a severe blow as most of their applications have been rejected due to failure of giving accurate account or valid proof of persecutions they claim to have experienced or might incur if they were sent back to their country of origin. This has prompted the call from ARDHIS (Association pour la Reconnaissance des Droits des Personnes Homosexuelles et Transsexuelles à l’Immigration et au Séjour), a French based organisation that advocates for the rights for LGBTI people to be granted asylum in France, urging African based LGBTI organisations to document homophobic persecutions occurring in their respective countries.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general Pascal Lamy has once again urged WTO members not to weaken the organisation, as members continue to stall on the final hurdles challenging the Doha development round of negotiations. South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has continually stated that South Africa would not make agreements under the round, which does not have a developmental agenda at the forefront. Other developing country member States have agreed that the Doha round has lost much of its developmental focus, with industrialised countries not willing to concede much to developing nations.

A report released by the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has revealed that several countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic are improving HIV treatment to reduce deaths and illness – but a lack of support from donors prevents many from making vital changes. This fragile progress needs sustained support, but the two biggest AIDS donors, the US and UK, are opposing a critical HIV treatment target ahead of next month’s AIDS Summit in New York at a time when mounting evidence shows that HIV treatment can also prevent HIV infections.

Baton-wielding riot police waged a brutal crackdown recently on peaceful Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) demonstrators in Bulawayo, with witnesses saying dozens of people were injured. WOZA said thousands of protesters gathered in central Bulawayo to express their frustration at the persistent daily ‘18 hour power cuts,’ when riot police arrived and began to indiscriminately beat the peaceful activists. The protest was aimed at the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) for what WOZA termed was daylight robbery by the utility company.

Niger's appeals court has dropped all corruption charges against ousted President Mamadou Tandja and ordered his release from jail. It said that under the country's law it was not possible to try a head of state after he had left office. Soldiers led the coup in February 2010 - angered that after 10 years in power, he was seeking a third term in office. Tandja was accused of embezzling state funds worth $1m (£670,000). He was also linked to a corrupt fertilizer deal worth between $9m and $10m.

A new, post-Mubarak Egypt has given both Egyptians and other Arabs alike, hope that Egypt can once again reclaim its role as the focal point from which Arab culture and politics emanate, says this article on Jadaliyya, an independent ezine. 'The opening up of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza and the active promotion of a unity government in the Palestinian Territories are both indications that this is slowly happening. However, Egypt’s regional affiliation is not only with the Middle East, but extends towards its riparian partners along the Nile as well. And on that front, events in the immediate months after the fall of Mubarak indicated that an Egypt in transition, unable to take firm political positions, could be taken advantage of by upstream Nile riparian countries that have for years tried to gain the rights to greater use of the Nile’s water flows.'

Delegations from Reclaiming Public Water Network and Public Services International participated in the Global Water Operator Partnerships (GWOPA) Congress held on 20-21 March in Cape Town, South Africa. This video features unionists, activists as well as public water managers from Spain, Morocco, Netherlands and Uruguay who present their vision for Public Public Partnerships in the water sector. The video is a Transnational Institute/Public Services International Production and was filmed and edited by Liane Greeff of EcoDoc Africa, with music provided by Roy MacGregor.

'On the 5th May 2011, a 14 years old transman was raped in Attredgeville, Pretoria. He was left unconscious and traumatized by the perpetrators. The transman is believed to have been raped on his way to school. According to the victim’s mother, the school phoned her after one teacher realized that the victim was crying and bleeding from his genitals.'

Drug regimens used in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV are effective, but infants should be monitored for drug resistance, a new study has revealed. The study in Kisumu, western Kenya, found that the triple combination of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs given to HIV-infected mothers to prevent transmission of the virus to their infants was effective and feasible, but there were cases of possible drug resistance in HIV-positive infants.

While foreign direct investment in least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa has risen sharply over the past decade, most of it went to resource-rich economies and had little impact on employment creation.
On the eve of the fourth United Nations’ conference on LDCs, UNCTAD has launched a study on the developmental effects of foreign direct investment (FDI), adopted at the 2001 LDCs conference as one of the tools to foster development in poor countries. The study, called 'FDI in LDCs: Lessons learned from the decade 2001 – 2010', shows the results are at best mixed.

Libyan regime forces laying siege on Misrata intensified their assault on the lifeline port on 8 May as smoke billowed from a fuel depot bombing, attacks a rights group said may amount to an atrocity. Two loud explosions were also heard in Tripoli, where the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has its headquarters, as jets flew overhead, witnesses said.

Rwanda could become the first country in Africa to effectively fight cervical cancer following the launch of a comprehensive national prevention programme last week. Rwanda will be the first country in Africa to offer a national prevention programme that includes the most advanced technologies and tools to protect girls and women from the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer. HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection among women worldwide, with more than 270,000 dying each year.

'The rebellion of the poor in this country is growing,' writes Ayanda Kota, the chair of the Unemployed People's Movement in the Mail and Guardian, days before South Africans vote in local elections on 18 May. 'More and more organisations are emerging. More and more people have become radicalised. More and more communities have lost their illusions after experiencing the violence of the predator state. More and more people are starting and joining discussions about the way forward for the struggle to take the country back.'

Tension between the ruling MPLA party and the main opposition UNITA party and questions over policy-making are worrying investors in the major African oil-producing nation of Angola, states this risk assessment article from Reuters. Campaigning for 2012 elections got off to a shaky start, with UNITA saying food price riots in Mozambique in September could lead poverty-stricken Angolans to do the same.