More than one decade after the International Criminal Court (ICC) was set up, a new “age of accountability” is replacing the “old era of impunity,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has underlined. Twelve years ago when world leaders gathering in Rome for its establishment, “few could have believed, then, that this court would spring so vigourously into life,” Mr. Ban said at the first-ever review conference of the ICC held in Kampala, Uganda.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors in Africa news, Industrial and Commercial Bank mulls acquisitions in Middle East and North Africa, France pushes for African presence on UN Security Council, presidents of Seychelles and South Africa set to visit India, and Kenya reaps billions from Sudanese separation plan.

Contraceptives should be taken out to women at their homes. Health Centres should be use to store these contraceptives but not act as distribution centres. Most healthy centres are far located from some people and only access them when there is a very serious illness. Most people even fail to get transport to access these centres when they are sick so image! Can such women access healthy centres for contraceptives which seem to be luxurious?

Egypt’s majestic legacy of civilisation and empire appears to have lost its shine in the light of its current geopolitical positioning as ‘a brutal but glorified US ‘security guard’ at the expense of Egypt's citizens’, writes Khadija Sharife. Sharife explores the interaction between US foreign policy and this ‘draconian state’, which is ‘conveniently located astride both North Africa and the Middle East’.

In this paper, Adams Bodomo looks at how Africans are received in Yiwu and in Guangzhou, which contains the largest community of Africans in China. Bodomo argues that because of the relatively negative reception of Africans in Guangzhou compared to the more efficient and civil treatment of Africans in Yiwu, Yiwu is fast overtaking Guangzhou as the best place for Africans to thrive in China.

Gaza-based Palestinian Civil Society Organisations and international activists called on the international community and civil society to pressure their governments and Israel to cease the abductions and killings in Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla sailing for Gaza, and begin a global response to hold Israel accountable for the murder of foreign civilians at sea and illegal piracy of civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza.

South African farmers have not received government support for 10 years, but Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson intends to change this by pushing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) restrictions to the limit to do so. State assistance to agriculture has been a controversial issue for many years in the WTO and is on the agenda in the current Doha round of negotiations. Of particular importance are support measures for agriculture in developed countries that render products from the developing world uncompetitive.

The introduction of a seamless mobile bank account product by Equity Bank and Safaricom on Tuesday promises to open up electronic commerce -- and mobile commerce in particular -- to the mass market. The service, dubbed M-Kesho, will allow users to perform basic banking transactions like deposits, withdrawals, loan applications, processing and reception right from their handsets.

A microbicide that researchers are pinning their hopes on is safe for use in pregnant women, according to a study presented at the Microbicide 2010 conference taking place in the United States this week. Study participants applied a single dose of tenofovir gel two hours before birth by cesarean section.

What effects have recent debt-relief programmes had? Does debt relief promote institutional change? This article from the Development Policy Review provides new evidence on debt-relief programmes in Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). It shows that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance and is correlated with increasing domestic debt.

Mobile banking has transformed the way people in the developing world transfer money and now it is poised to offer more sophisticated banking services which could make a real difference to people's lives. Currently 2.7bn people living in the developing world do not have access to any sort of financial service. At the same time 1bn people throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia own a mobile phone.

Scientists announced the creation of first self-replicating synthetic life form last Friday, and a few hours later, a United Nations science advisory body meeting here urged countries to take a strong precautionary approach to avoid release of such entities into the environment. Acting as the world's guardian on biodiversity, it also expressed deep concern about the potential impacts of geoengineering schemes to combat climate change on the Earth's ecosystems.

In this weeks roundup of emerging actors new, African Development Bank seeks to triple the amount of funds it has available to invest in roads and power plants, China's short-term boost could become a long-term threat to Africa, India backs Africa for Security Council, and The China-Africa Development Fund (CAD Fund to boost footprint in Africa.

After traveling halfway around the world from Nigeria to the U.S., Emem Okon, along with 17 other people representing oil-producing communities around the globe, stood today as shareholders ready to attend Chevron’s Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders. Chevron arbitrarily denied Ms. Okon and at least 13 others entry to the meeting despite the fact that other representatives from Chevron-impacted communities were allowed to enter the meeting.

The Commonwealth Games, which begin in Delhi on 3 October, are already surrounded by concerns over security. Far more worrying than the possible threat to a few thousand privileged visiting foreigners, however, is a new report by the Housing and Land Network, an arm of the global movement Habitat International Coalition, suggesting that by the time the Games begin about 140,000 families will have been evicted from their homes to clear the space for the lavish facilities now compulsory for such events.

Humanitarian officials will look to the Chad government to protect civilians and secure aid operations after the UN Security Council decided on 25 May to withdraw some 3,000 UN peacekeepers from the country's volatile east. "The Chadian government has said quite clearly both publicly and privately that they take on the responsibility for our [humanitarian workers'] security," and that of other civilians, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes told IRIN from the capital, N'djamena, at the end of a four-day visit to Chad.

Chinese investments across Africa require ‘more than just a superficial understanding that China and other actors are going to be panaceas for Africa’s development or merely that they represent the next set of neo-imperialists’, writes Sanusha Naidu. Naidu explores the extent of these investments and suggests that a realistic assessment of where the practical benefits lie for Africa is needed to determine whether such a relationship is in the continent’s advantage.

Representatives of La Via Campesina from Europe and Latin America joined the demonstrations in Madrid demanding that the more than 60 heads of state from Europe and Latin America abandon the negotiations to sign free-trade agreements between their countries and regions and the EU.

The European Foundation Centre is holding its first ever Foundation Week in Brussels from Monday 31 May to Friday 4 June and we are going to be there to bring you the latest developments as they happen with our brand new blog. With an international team of contributors, we will be blogging throughout the week, posting regular updates and responses to sessions, as well as video interviews and end-of-day summaries. Whether you’re attending the event or not, let us keep you up to speed as well as providing a platform for your comments.

In this weeks roundup of emerging actors in Africa news, India, Brazil and South Africa lead effort against Child Labor, Controversial Sudanese dam sparks human rights complaint, South Africa's FirstRand completes African deals with China Construction Bank, and the World Cup pulls Indians to South Africa.