In the last decade, Asian migrants have fanned out through southern Africa, opening shops in small towns and rural backwaters. While consumers in countries facing increasing economic hardships have come to depend on their low prices, local shop owners complain they are being forced out of business, pressuring governments to introduce restrictions on foreign traders. In Malawi, Chinese-owned shops and restaurants have proliferated since the country established diplomatic ties with China in 2007. But the government was recently prompted by bitter complaints from local business owners to introduce legislation preventing foreign traders from operating outside of major cities.

Rebels have set up a de facto administration in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said as the Security Council urged a political solution to the crisis rather than applying sanctions. Ladsous briefed the 15-member Security Council after his recent visit to Congo, or the DRC, and Rwanda, which has been accused by Kinshasa and UN experts of supporting the M23 rebel group. Kigali has repeatedly denied any involvement in the crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians protested during the revolution that led to the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak. Some of the men and women that took to the streets to reclaim their rights never came back home. The disappeared are neither dead nor alive. There are no government records about their cases, reports

Zambia has rejected a proposal by Australia's Zambezi Resources Ltd to develop a $494 million open cast copper mine in a game reserve, citing environmental concerns, a government agency said. Zambezi Resources' Zambian subsidiary Mwembeshi Resources said in March it planned to start copper production at the Kangaluwe project in the Lower Zambezi National Park by 2015. But a spokeswoman for Zambia's environmental management agency, which has to approve all huge infrastructure projects, told Reuters the project had been rejected.

With mobile subscribers on the rise and a supportive government backing new initiatives, information and communication technologies are taking off in Rwanda. Now, an innovative space invites young entrepreneurs to develop solutions-based technology for the country.

Activists attending the public hearings on the controversial Traditional Courts Bill in Parliament were shocked when women were told debate and comment on the Bill were not welcome. A number of civil society organisations and rural women have travelled to participate in the public hearings on the Bill which has been widely criticised for entrenching gender inequality and possibly subjecting millions of rural South Africans to a ‘second class’ justice system. It is feared that the Bill, which is before Parliament’s Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Development, in its current form gives patriarchal traditional courts enormous power to undermine the Constitutional rights of women and children.

The Open Society Foundation for South Africa is pleased to announce the third and final call for grant proposals for 2012. Applications can be made online or application forms downloaded. The deadline for applications is 5 October 2012. For more information, please refer to the application guidelines or email [email][email protected]

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mr. Jean Ping, on 14 September 2012 received a delegation led by Mr. Omar Faruk Osman the president of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the regional African group of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). It was at the sidelines of the two-day Pan-African conference on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity held at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) has slammed what it calls a 'disturbing trend' of police intimidation in Bulawayo, after the arrest of another member on Tuesday 18 September. Tuesday morning saw a group of more than fifty WOZA members march together to the Bulawayo offices of the Joint Operating and Monitoring Committee (JOMIC) to deliver letters of complaint about their treatment at the hands of the police. This followed the indiscriminate arrest of WOZA’s leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu last week.

Forces working together with the Somalia forces have confronted Al Shabaab fighters in Birta Dheer, some 60 kilometres west of the port town of Kismayu. The Saturday operation included the Amisom troops and Ras Kamboni Brigade. Birta Dheer is a heavily fortified post that had been under the control of Al-Shabaab for the past three years.

Egypt saw a fresh wave of strikes on Sunday as transport and education sector employees downed tools to push for financial and administrative reform. In separate bouts of industrial action, workers at the Cairo Transportation Authority (CTA) and non-academic staff at universities across Egypt walked off the job.

Ethiopian ruling party the People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), has confirmed Mr Hailemariam Desalegn as country's Prime Minister. The leader picked to succeed the late Meles Zenawi last month will be sworn in when the country's parliament reconvenes next month. Mr Hailemariam also becomes chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the ruling coalition of parties.

A coalition of organisations is to submit an alternative report to the UN Human Rights Committee to inform its review of Kenya’s Third Periodic Report at its 105th Session (9 - 27 July 2012) on the implementation of the Provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in relation to torture. The report seeks to highlight the prevalent incidences of torture and related human rights violations in Kenya as serious concerns remain in this area. The overall conclusion is that whilst Kenya has endeavoured to include the principles of the ICCPR in its newly promulgated Constitution of 2010 and legislative framework, there continue to be important legislative and administrative gaps that still provide challenges towards full implementation of the ICCPR as specified in subsequent chapters.

Egyptian campaigners launched a fresh salvo against government plans to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Saturday, claiming further foreign loans would mean repeating the 'economic disasters' of the Mubarak era. Calling for a full audit of Egypt's debt bill, campaigners took aim at the ousted president's economic legacy - privatisations, soaring public debt, delapidated services and corruption - for which they hold the previous policies of the IMF and several major development banks jointly responsible.

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation’s Justice and Reconciliation in Africa programme has released a new Policy Brief entitled ‘Reconciling Kenya: Opportunities for constructing a peaceful and socially cohesive nation’. The Brief forms part of an ongoing project focused on promoting national cohesion and reconciliation in Kenya, which will be jointly implemented by the IJR, the Kenyan National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden over the next two years. The project pieces together the initiatives taken in Kenya towards reconciliation since the post-election violence in 2007/2008 and gives recommendations to different actors on the way forward to consolidate national cohesion and reconciliation.

The University Council that oversees the affairs of public universities in Malawi has announced a 25 per cent increase in salaries of university teachers. But the Polytechnic, the constituent college of the University of Malawi in Blantyre, which is already on a month-long industrial strike, refused to immediately accept the offer, while Chancellor College in the eastern city of Zomba said the offer was a fair deal. Both constituent colleges were demanding a 113 per cent salary hike, citing the recent 49 per cent devaluation of the Malawi currency, the kwacha.

The Gambian president has suspended the execution of prisoners on death row, amid an international outcry. In a statement, Yahya Jammeh said he was responding to 'numerous appeals'. Nine prisoners have been executed since his vow in August to clear death row. Another 37 inmates remain on death row.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on how developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa are now facing an economic slowdown with a deterioration in GDP growth, exports and lending conditions. The effects of the Eurozone recession and the US slowdown are now increasingly felt in the South. Another analytical article 'Rethinking growth strategies is imperative for the South' by South Centre’s Chief Economist Yilmaz Akyuz shows how the favourable international conditions that led to the South’s high growth in the past decade have now turned unfavourable, resulting in the current economic difficulties. Thus the developing countries have to prepare for new growth and development strategies.

In Sudan’s newspaper district in Khartoum East, dozens of people sit beneath the trees sipping tea or reading newspapers. Most are journalists who once worked for the 10 newspapers that were either forced closed by the country’s security services or because of economic constraints that resulted after the government raised printing taxes in an attempt to prevent the media from reporting on anti-government demonstrations. Mohamed Ahmed, a former journalist for the Ajrass Elhuriya newspaper, which was closed in July 2011, is one of them. 'I have been sitting under the trees for a year and a half because the government closed my newspaper and other newspapers, that consider me to be opposed to the government, are afraid to hire me.'

'It’s possible that two children died so that you could have that mobile phone,' says Jean-Bertin, a 34-year-old Congolese activist who wants to end the 'absolute silence' around the crimes committed in his country to exploit strategic raw materials like coltan. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has at least 64 per cent of worldwide reserves of coltan, the colloquial African name for a dull black ore composed of two minerals, columbite and tantalite.