Angola's 'very violent' expulsion of about 200 Democratic Republic of Congo nationals from its territory this month is a sign of the increasing 'bad blood' between the neighbours that analysts believe revolves around border demarcations and conflicting claims to resources, particularly oil. In 2009, 18,000 DRC nationals were expelled from Angola and 39,000 Angolan nationals from the DRC.

The focus of a new paper from the African Centre for Biosafety is the emerging field of synthetic biology, in particular its implications for the African continent. Synthetic biology combines a number of scientific disciplines and is generally understood to involve the deliberate design of biological systems, using standardised components that have been created in a laboratory. The conclusion of the paper leaves more questions than answers because of the emerging and secretive nature of the field, but highlights the very significant implications of this new technology and the need for a precautionary and vigilant approach towards it.

Will MTN finally set up as a mobile service operator in Kenya after several years of failed attempts? That’s the million-dollar question after the data unit of South Africa’s biggest mobile operator took control of a local internet service provider, UUNET, by buying a majority stake. The firm has since rebranded to MTN Business Kenya, to reflect its principal shareholders.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) urged newly appointed Cabinet ministers on Monday to bring down 'unacceptable' levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality. 'We urge the new team to remain fully united so that we can move forward together to deliver on our promises and bring down the unacceptable levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality,' a Cosatu statement said.

With only weeks to go before regional and local elections, Namibia's ruling Swapo Party is coming under tremendous pressure from the civil servants who plan to march on the government unless the entire management of the state pension fund is dismissed and millions of Namibian dollars in unpaid empowerment loans are recovered.

Members of the Kimberley Process diamond watchdog began talks in Jerusalem on Monday over whether to allow Zimbabwe to resume exports of the gemstone from its controversial Marange fields. The organisation, which is meant to ensure diamonds are 'conflict free', suspended its certification of the Marange fields last year, over claims of forced labour and torture at the gem mines.

Tanzania grants high levels of tax exemptions relative to what it collects in revenue. This raises concerns about whether the practice is justified for a country that can barely raise enough to finance its budget. Analysis by civil society organisation Uwazi at Twaweza shows that tax exemptions have increased sharply during the second part of this decade (2006-2010) compared to what was granted in the earlier half of this decade (2001-2005). The analysis, presented in a policy brief titled, 'Tanzania’s Tax Exemptions: are they too high and making us too dependent on foreign aid?' suggests that Tanzania could make significant savings in revenues if it granted tax exemptions less liberally.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a Geneva-based international housing rights watchdog, has released a 'report card' examining Uganda’s national land policy and land reform processes and their impact on women. The report, 'The Impact of National Land Policy and Land Reform on Women in Uganda', was released together with the Women's Land Link Africa (WLLA), a joint initiative of organisations dedicated to improving women's land and housing rights in Africa. One of the main findings of the study was that while there have been many advances in land reform in Uganda that grant women legal rights, custom and practice are still lagging behind the law, leading to a regular violation of women’s land rights.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery programme is unlikely to get full marks from a visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) team amid allegations that the Bretton Woods institution is unhappy about policy slippages by Harare’s fragile coalition regime. A six-member IMF team, which arrived in Zimbabwe last weekend, has been meeting government officials, bankers and business leaders and is expected to issue a statement on its findings at the end of this week.

Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa and the United Kingdom have called for devolution of powers and the slashing of provinces by more than half in submissions to the Constitutional Select Committee that is leading the drafting of a new charter for Zimbabwe. The proposals by the exiles - some which echo the views of the opposition ZAPU party and the two MDC formations - appear tilted towards whittling down the powers of central government.

The South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI) has applied to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for permission to conduct field trials for four varieties of GM sugarcane. Having viewed SASRI's applications in terms of the Public Access to Information Act (PAIA), the African Centre for Biodiversity issued a statement saying: 'It is our opinion that the information provided is so inadequate that it is virtually impossible to conduct any meaningful independent assessment of the applications. Further, throughout the application runs the assumption that the genetically modified lines under discussion are 'equivalent' to their conventional counterparts. This is a view not supported by the published literature.' Read the rest of the statement through the weblink provided.

At the wealth spectrum’s uppermost reaches, just over 1,000 billionaires and another 80,000 'ultra high net worth individuals' worth over $50 million each. At other end of the global spectrum sit three billion people - 'more than two thirds of the global adult population' – with an average wealth per adult less than $10,000, reveals a new report.

The Mozambican Labour Ministry has withdrawn the work permits of three Chinese citizens. A Labour Ministry press release, issued last Thursday, said that the three men all belonged to the Chinese building company Nantong Constructions, and had been working in Sanga district, in the northern province of Niassa. All three were accused of brutal assaults against Mozambican workers.

AWID is currently seeking an activist/researcher with a strong background in economics and development to work with our Influencing Development Actors and Practices for Women’s Rights (IDeA) strategic initiative. IDeA is engaged in an exciting action-research agenda that is attempting to connect theoretical debates on development and the need for alternative models with concrete experiences, lessons learned and analysis from a women’s rights perspective.

'If Kyoto entered history as the city where the climate accord was born, Nagoya will be remembered as the city where the biodiversity accord was born,' said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). He was commenting the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-10) that concluded 29 October in Nagoya, Japan. Upbeat assessments highlight that COP-10 achieved three inter-linked goals: adoption of a new ten-year Strategic Plan to guide international and national efforts to save biodiversity through enhanced action to meet the objectives of the CBD; a resource mobilisation strategy that provides the way forward to a substantial increase to current levels of official development assistance (ODA) in support of biodiversity; and a new international protocol on access to and sharing of the benefits from the use of the genetic resources of the planet.

The overall purpose of this consultancy is:
- To assist INTERIGHTS’ lawyers through in depth legal research on complex or emerging legal issues arising principally, but not exclusively, in our litigation;
- To provide research and analysis of the highest quality, with links to relevant laws, cases and articles;
- To provide high quality written documents in agreed specialist area.
Panellists do not need to be resident in the United Kingdom, as the work would be conducted primarily remotely via email and telephone.

The October issue of 'Walking the Talk', a quarterly publication of the African Union and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, is out. Headlines include:
- Grassroots approach to gender equality and women’s empowerment
- Kenya’s Vision for African Women’s Decade
- Women’s rights advocates seek to influence the human rights strategy for Africa
- Gender related decisions taken during the July 2010 summit in Kampala.

The fourth in an ongoing series of updates from the Global Campaign for Pretrial Justice is available. It is intended to track developments in the field and facilitate information sharing among practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. The includes:
- The Rule of Law and the MDGs
- Access to Justice and the New Kenyan Constitution
- Locked Up and Forgotten - Prison Overcrowding in South Asia
Write to [email][email protected] to find out about subscription.

Israel is trying to find ways of repatriating or relocating African migrant workers whose illegal influx via Egypt is alarming authorities, a senior government official has said. Thousands of Africans, many of them from conflict zones such as Sudan and Eritrea, have slipped in across Egypt's Sinai desert in recent years to seek work or claim asylum as refugees.

'Water management in South Africa is in serious crisis. Consumers were recently told to wash their fruit and vegetables as they could be infected by disease causing E. coli microbes because the crops were irrigated with water contaminated by sewage,' writes Glenn Ashton on the website of the South African Civil Society Information Service. 'Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is killing not just crocodiles but entire riverine eco-systems. Our dams, rivers and streams are becoming ever more stressed due to the low flows of water that remain in them because of illegal over-abstraction for irrigation and contamination by poorly maintained sewage works.'