A week-long lecturers' strike has been suspended to allow pay negotiations between the government and university unions. Labour minister John Munyes announced that the tutors are expected to resume teaching immediately and talks will begin in two weeks. Under the agreement, the Ministry is supposed to initiate the consultation process with the Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Service.

Clashes are continuing in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, between riot police and protesters demanding that the ruling military quickly announces a date to hand over power to an elected government in some of the worst unrest since the country's revolution. Police fired tear gas canisters and protesters threw rocks on Sunday morning as thousands remained on the streets overnight in and around central Cairo's Tahrir square, the focal point of the 18-day uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in February. Essam Sharraf, Egypt's interim prime minister, was set to host an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the unrest.

The World Bank and the African Union have taken steps to lower the cost of sending remittances to and within Africa by launching an online database that will help increase transparency about prices and stimulate greater competition among service providers. The database, Send Money Africa, is a years-in-the-making partnership between the Bank, the African Union Commission, and donors. Through its interface, migrants can compare the cost that remittance service providers charge to send a particular amount to a given country. 'Send Money Africa will stimulate competition among the service providers and ultimately induce a reduction of the costs. As a result, remittance senders and recipients will benefit from transparent, efficient, less costly remittance services,' said Richard Cambridge, Manager of the Africa Diaspora Program in the World Bank’s Africa Region.

The United States ambassador to Mozambique has saluted an anti-piracy agreement signed between South Africa and Mozambique last week which presages an accord with Tanzania. South Africa's defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu signed a memorandum of understanding with her Mozambican counterpart Filipe Jacinto Nyusi. The two countries applauded successful patrolling activities off the central Mozambican coast and decided to involve Tanzania - north of Mozambique - in their activities.

Zambia’s recently elected government is to double royalties on copper mines, it announced as it unveiled its 2012 budget, which aims to back its election pledge of distributing more equitably the southern African state’s mineral wealth. Alexander Chikwanda, finance minister, said he proposed to increase the mineral royalty rate to 6 per cent from 3 per cent for base metals, including copper, and from 5 per cent for precious metals.

A pre-conference on men who have sex with men (MSM) in Africa and HIV is planned to take place in Ethiopia ahead of the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA). The full-day event will feature presentations from more than 15 of the continent’s top experts on the health and human rights of sexual minorities. The pre-conference will offer a opportunity for experts as well as developing practitioners to cultivate new partnerships, network, build skills, share best practices and conduct hands-on learning.

In this video interview, renowned Indian writer and global justice activist Arundhati Roy joined in the studio to talk about the Occupy movement. 'What they are doing becomes so important because it is in the heart of empire, or what used to be empire,' Roy said. 'And to criticize and to protest against the model that the rest of the world is aspiring to is a very important and a very serious business.' She also discussed her new book, 'Walking with the Comrades', a chronicle of her time in the forests of India alongside rebel guerrillas who are resisting a brutal military campaign by the Indian government.

Humanitarian activities in the world’s largest refugee complex have been restricted to essential services amid worsening security exemplified by the 13 October abduction of two Spanish aid workers and the earlier abduction of a Kenyan NGO driver in the eastern Kenyan facility. All but critical food, water, health and nutrition and some child protection services are suspended, as is the registration of new arrivals in the Dadaab complex.

Health authorities say 207 cases of typhoid are being treated in Zimbabwe’s capital after a prolonged spell of unusually hot weather amid acute water shortages. Harare city council health director Dr. Prosper Chonzi says no deaths have occurred so far in the monthlong outbreak. He said the disease will be difficult to contain in impoverished townships relying on water from shallow, makeshift wells and marshlands.

They are men who have lost all pride and self-confidence and who have been left severely traumatised by their experience. At the medical centre in Uganda where they are being treated, they talked candidly about the crimes carried out against them. 'In the past, I thought that it was only females who were raped but not men. I cannot understand myself today. I feel pain all the time in my anus and bladder. I feel like my bladder is full of water. I do not feel like a man. I do not know whether I will ever have children,' said John (not his real name), a 27-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who is just one of possibly thousands of victims of male rape as civil wars and tribal conflicts continue unabated across Africa.

As DRC prepares for its third presidential election on 28 November, Antoine Roger Lokongo cautions that external interests in the country’s vast mineral wealth mean that a genuine democracy owned by the Congolese people is likely to remain elusive.

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...

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale’s support for African National Congress (ANC) Youth League president Julius Malema may see his presidential ambitions collapse as he is frozen out of the camps of both President Jacob Zuma and those seeking to oust him. Mr Malema, who faces suspension of five years from the ANC, is likely to sink Mr Sexwale’s aspirations and those of many senior politicians if he fails in his desperate campaign to retain his membership. Mr Malema’s known backers include ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula, former MP Tony Yengeni, veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Mr Sexwale, Northern Cape chairman John Block, and Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale.

Climate change is likely to lead to increased average rainfall in the world's major river basins but weather patterns will be fickle and the timing of wet seasons may change, threatening farming and foodstocks, experts say. Furthermore, some river systems in Africa - southern Africa's Limpopo, north Africa's Nile and West Africa's Volta - are set to receive less rain than they do at the moment, hitting food production and fuelling international tensions.

This durbanclimatejustice.wordpress.com website is designed to provide logistical support for climate justice activists attending the COP17. With information on events, venues, actions, and essential activist advice on a cheap curry and decent beer after a long days changing the world.

Access to basic education in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains poor, with up to seven million children across the vast country out of school - despite a 2010 government decision to make primary education free. DRC is still struggling to overcome the effects of wars that raged between 1996 and 2003, compounded by continuing violence in the east of the country and decades of corruption and poor governance. The seven million figure was contained in the preliminary findings – reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - of a study conducted by the DRC government with the UK Department for International Development and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper, and reporter Nqaba Matshazi, were arrested in Harare on Tuesday 15 November and charged with theft, unlawful entry and criminal defamation. It is believed the journalists were taken to the Harare Central Police station. The duo’s arrest is over a story Matshazi wrote on 6 November that claimed a new health insurance firm, Green Card Medical Society, was reportedly on the brink of collapse. The story claimed that the company’s expenditure outstripped its income.

Heavy rains and an outbreak of cholera in Kenya’s Dadaab complex is exacerbating the situation in the overcrowded refugee camp, where aid efforts were already hampered by insecurity, the United Nations reported. There are now 60 cases of cholera in the camps, including 10 laboratory-confirmed cases and one refugee death, according to Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Nigeria has evacuated from Mali 104 of its citizens, mostly women, either made to work as 'sexual slaves' or suspected of involvement in human trafficking, officials said. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) evacuated 93 alleged victims of human trafficking, nine suspected traffickers and two babies, the agency's head, Beatrice Jedy-Agba, told reporters.

Annette Groth, spokeswoman on human rights for the Left Party in Germany, relates her experience of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which took place from 5 to 7 November in Cape Town, South Africa.