Venda's cultural and ecological diversity are increasingly threatened by land grabbing, development projects, tourism and now mining. Coal of Africa (CoAL), an Australian mining company, has proposed the Makhado Coking Coal Project. If this goes ahead, the community faces severe ecological, social and economic damage to their ancestral homes. The biggest concern is water because this is an area where water is already scarce.

Social justice and environmental protection are equally urgent and intrinsically linked universal goals, with coordinated global action needed on both fronts at the UN’s ‘Rio+20’ Conference on Sustainable Development in June, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to an audience of development experts, civil society leaders and government officials at the first Global Human Development Forum in Instanbul.

IRIN's freelance journalist Moulid Iftin Hujale, in this third installment of his account of life in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, describes how since November 2011 there have been a a series of abductions and road-side bombs, which the Kenyan police attribute to people linked to Somalia's insurgent Al-Shabab group. '...the past four months have been quite tough and very scary with unprecedented grenade explosions, killings and rigorous police operations; Dadaab has never been the same again.'

In Madagascar's east coast city of Tamatave, a local taboo against having a toilet in your house or on your land has complicated the task of trying to improve the region's dire sanitation situation. Nationwide, more than 10,000 people, of whom two thirds are children under five, die prematurely from diarrhoea annually, according to the World Health Organization, which attributes 88 per cent of these cases to poor quality water and sanitation.

A year later and South Africa has still not convinced the world or the creator of Brics why it belongs in the exclusive emerging-giant grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India and China. 'It's just wrong. South Africa doesn't belong in Brics,' said Jim O'Neill, global chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, who coined the term 'Bric' 10 years ago. In an interview with the Mail & Guardian in London this week, O'Neill was highly critical of South Africa's position in this political bloc. 'South Africa has too small an economy. There are not many similarities with the other four countries in terms of the numbers. In fact, South Africa's inclusion has somewhat weakened the group's power.'

Four American cities are gearing up to host regional meetings of the World Court of Women on Poverty in the US Founded by Tunisian activist Corinne Kumar, the World Courts of Women (WCW) are public hearings featuring testimonies of survival and resistance from people on the margins. Since 1992, there have been 37 Courts in cities around the world, including the International Court of Women on Crimes Related to Population Policies in Cairo, Egypt in 1994; the World Court of Women against War, for Peace in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001; and the World Court of Women on U.S. War Crimes in Mumbai, India in 2004.

Thousands of people are celebrating in the streets of Dakar after preliminary results showed Senegalese opposition candidate Macky Sall has won over Abdoulaye Wade, the incumbent president who sought a third term in office. Sall supporters gathered in the streets of the capital on Monday, chanting, dancing and sounding car horns. Wade conceded election defeat and congratulated Sall, as preliminary results gave an overwhelming lead to his runoff rival.

Life in the Malian capital Bamako is slowly returning to normal after mutinous soldiers seized power, toppling the democratically elected government of President Ahmed Toumani Toure. Fuel stations and market stalls reopened on Sunday after a decrease in the gunfire and looting that followed Wednesday's (21 March) overnight coup. The military junta that ousted Toure has ordered all soldiers back to barracks, but rebels in the country's north exploiting the coup have been pushing towards three northern towns, the Reuters news agency reported.

A journalist working with the independent Shabelle broadcaster in Mogadishu, Mr Mohydin Hassan Mohamed alias Husni, was Sunday attacked by two men armed with pistols. The attackers struck as Mr Mohamed was walking along Madina Avenue, near his home in Wadajir District in south Mogadishu. One bullet brazed Mohamed's chest as he fled.

Estimates suggest that military-connected enterprises account for 10 per cent to 40 per cent of the Egyptian economy, reports the LA Times. 'It is an opaque realm of foreign investments, inside deals and privilege that has grown quietly for decades, employing thousands of workers and operating parallel to the army's defense industries. The coming weeks will reveal how the military will maneuver to protect its authority and financial holdings as it prepares to hand power to a new president and civilian government in June.'

Somalia is no stranger to international interventions, having been colonised and invaded throughout its history. On 23 February, an international conference was held in London to plan a roadmap for Somalia’s future, with some arguing that this conference has stripped Somalia of its sovereignty. Following on from Part Two of this SOAS Radio special looks at the conference and what implications it might have for the country’s future with studio guests Quman Jibril, a Somali independent research consultant who has a special interest in international refugee protection and advocacy; Mary Harper, BBC Africa Editor and author of the new book, 'Getting Somalia Wrong?' published by Zed Books; and Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a Somali researcher currently pursuing a Masters degree at the London Metropolitan University.

'For me the Occupy Wall Street movement expansion is, first, a clear sign of the fact that there are many more people than we can imagine wishing to change the world; and, second, that the tools and institutions we have to make it possible for people to participate in politics are absolutely insufficient and inadequate.' This is according to Chico Whitaker, a Brazilian activist and organizer who helped launch the World Social Forums in 2001, in an interview with US Social Forum news.

Solidarity with migrants in the city of Calais - a migrant bottleneck in Europe - is not limited to organisations, reports IPS Africa. 'Some local residents have also become involved on an individual basis with the transient foreign population that has passed through the city. Some have put up migrants in their own homes – despite the fact that such activities are punishable by five years imprisonment or a 30,000 euro fine under Article L622-1 of the French Foreigners Law.'

Libyan authorities are struggling to cope with a post-revolution influx of migrants, many of whom are using the Mediterranean country as a stepping stone to Europe, according to this Al Jazeera video. Mustafa Joha, the commanding officer of Tripoli's naval base, says that the country's coastline is too vast to patrol effectively, especially since NATO forces destroyed most of its ships during the country's war.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been forced to backtrack on alleged comments published by the UK newspaper, The Guardian, which suggested she was opposed to gay rights. While holding a joint interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Monrovia, the president had been asked a question about an anti-gay Bill being debated by Liberian lawmakers. The Guardian reported Mrs Sirleaf as responding: 'We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve...We like ourselves just the way we are.'

The European Union has agreed to expand its mission against Somali pirates by allowing military forces to attack land targets as well as those at sea. In a two-year extension of its mission, EU defence ministers agreed warships could target boats and fuel dumps. Up to 10 EU naval ships are currently on patrol off the Horn of Africa.

The March edition of the TaxCast by the Tax Justice Network is available. The 15 minute podcast follows the latest news relating to tax evasion, tax avoidance and the shadow banking system. The March show covers Apple i-tax dodging, reclaiming Arab Spring country assets, the rich country club of the OECD and the ABCs of setting up letterbox companies.

As the debate over Helen Zille’s use of the word 'refugees' in relation to the education crisis in the Eastern Cape raged on the social network site Twitter late last week, an ANC provincial coordinator raised eyebrows by calling her a 'racist bitch'. Zille’s remarks on ­Twitter that Eastern Cape pupils were ­moving to schools in the ­Western Cape in order to access better educational resources, and calling them 'education refugees' sparked fierce debate on radio talk-shows and social network sites. Asked why he called Zille a 'racist bitch' on a public site, Mphila said: 'She is racist and is behaving like a bitch.'

Trade envoys of India, Brazil, and South Africa have warned industrialised countries not to hijack the Doha multilateral trade negotiations by adopting the controversial plurilateral approach to liberalise trade in services. A plurilateral agreement allows member countries to voluntarily agree to new rules. In contrast, in a multilateral agreement all members have to be in agreement. This, they say, could ultimately undermine 'the possibility of resuscitating the Doha Round'. The Doha Development Agenda was launched almost 11 years ago to correct the historical imbalances and asymmetries in the global trading system and was designed to enable poorer countries to integrate into the system.

The African Union has said it will deploy a 5,000-strong military force to hunt down the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The force - with troops from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic - will be led by Uganda where the LRA, headed by Joseph Kony, abducted and massacred civilians in a decades-long armed rebellion. The AU announced the launch of the force after Kony's global profile shot up recently thanks to a celebrity-backed internet campaign to bring him to justice.