Seven Malawians killed in anti-government riots this week were buried in a mass grave on Friday 22 July as President Bingu wa Mutharika threatened to stamp out any further protests against his rule. At least 18 people have been killed and 200 arrested in unprecedented protests against Mutharika, with soldiers firing live ammunition and tear gas to disperse crowds calling for an end to what they say is autocratic rule.

A comprehensive 30-year dataset of African rainfall could soon help test climate change predictions and improve climate models, according to a UK researcher. The new data come from a European Meteosat satellite that has been collecting data over Europe and Africa. The data will supplement the poor ground data on rainfall to help improve climate predictions, which are often contradictory.

Residents of a Philippi informal settlement and police have clashed again as protests over electricity supply entered their third day. Three police Nyalas cordoned off the corner of New Eisleben and Sheffield roads on 21 July when protests flared up again in Siyahlala. Residents set containers on fire and used them to block off sections of Sheffield Road, while teenagers and children lined the road, armed with rocks, watching for police.

Israel has violated the right to free expression by approving a law that penalises individuals and organisations that call for boycotting Israel, say IFEX members the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) and Human Rights Watch. The law, approved in a 47-to-38 vote by Parliament on 11 July, makes it a punishable offence to publicly call for a boycott - economic, cultural or academic - against Israel, its institutions or any area under its control.

Senegal banned political rallies in the centre of the capital Dakar on Thursday 21 July, two days before a planned protest against President Abdoulaye Wade seeking a new term in 2012 elections. The move forced organisers of the march to reschedule it to a location outside the centre of town, where they had been planning to demonstrate close to Wade's presidential palace. A pro-Wade rally is due to take place in a separate suburb of the sprawling coastal capital. The Interior Ministry said the ban was needed on grounds of security.

The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) has called on the prosecutor general to launch investigations into the forced disappearance of many individuals, including the journalist Reda Helal. On 21 July 2011, 'Al Wafd' Newspaper published a report on an interview with police officer Mahmoud Abdel Nabi, a member of the Honest Police Officers' Coalition in which he said that 'the police killed him [Helal], I know the officer who committed the murder.'

Despite its decision to grant diplomatic recognition to Libya’s rebels, the Obama administration is struggling to find ways to provide them with the $34 billion in frozen Libyan assets held in US-controlled bank accounts, officials say. Administration officials held at least two meetings this past week to explore ways to release the money, which the opposition Transitional National Council says it urgently needs to pay salaries and buy critical supplies. But the funds are ensnared in a thicket of legal regulations.

Ghana's President John Evans Atta Mills has chastised the media for reporting that he 'would institute measures to check the menace of homosexuality and lesbianism'. He allegedly made the statement at the Sunyani Central Ebenezer Presbyterian Church. President Mills was said to have personally telephoned the acting editor of the Ghanaian Times to reprimand him over a recent publication in the state-owned newspaper of the raging homosexual issue, even though the story was originally a Ghana News Agency story.

The spread of HIV is driven more by how many sexual partners a person has in their lifetime rather than having more than one lover at a time. This is according to extensive research conducted over five years by scientists from the Africa Centre in Umkhanyakude district in rural KwaZulu-Natal. The results were published on 15 July in the prestigious Lancet journal. Debate has raged for years about the role that concurrent sexual partnerships (ie sexual partnerships that overlap in time) play in HIV transmission, with a number of experts arguing that concurrent partnerships are a key driver of the epidemic in Africa.

In what is being described by many Egyptians as the country's 'second revolution', tens of thousands are currently staging protests and sit-ins in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities in the biggest wave of protests since the fall of Hosni Mubarak on 11 February. The 18-day uprising toppled the former dictator, however, many demonstrators maintain that his legacy is alive and well in the current administration. Anger now is directed toward the ruling military council and caretaker prime minister Essam Sharaf's transitional government. This Al Jazeera page carries a series of photographs depicting events in Egypt.

Children in Somalia are being systematically recruited to fight on frontlines, killed in indiscriminate attacks and denied an education, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Other abuses include being flogged, and being forced to attend public stonings and amputations by Islamist groups, including al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab, the rights watchdog said in a report. 'As a child in Somalia, you risk death all the time: you can be killed, recruited and sent to the frontline, punished by al Shabaab because you are caught listening to music or "wearing the wrong clothes", be forced to fend for yourself because you have lost your parents or even die because you don't have access to adequate medical care,' Michelle Kagari, Amnesty's deputy director for Africa, said in a statement.

South Africa would not be able to escape an escalated European crisis unscathed, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday, adding its direct economic exposure to the countries affected was reasonably low. 'South Africa's direct economic exposure to those countries affected by current market turmoil is reasonably low,' Gordhan said in an opinion piece published in Business Day. 'The greater risk for South Africa is the potential for contagion that results in a prolonged and expanding crisis in Europe and undermines global growth significantly.'

A South African refugee rights group has called on the South African authorities to extend the deadline for Zimbabweans to get permits, warning that thousands of people are yet to receive their paperwork. The end of the Zimbabwe Documentation Project is less than two weeks away and South Africa is set to resume deporting undocumented Zim nationals when the process is finalised. But according to the Cape Town based PASSOP group, thousands of people have not got their documents yet, and fear is rising that they face possible deportation in the coming weeks.

Tunisia is set to hire thousands of new teachers while at the same time doing away with a long-derided aptitude test for those wishing to join the ranks of educators. Many teaching hopefuls said the Contest of Aptitude for Secondary Education Teachers (CAPES) was a barrier to employment and a source of corruption. The education ministry will hire 2,000 new teachers, 1,345 new superintendents and 120 new chief superintendents.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has released the report, 'The Price of Hope: Human Rights Abuses During the Egyptian Revolution'. This report follows a fact-finding mission that was conducted in Egypt in March 2011 and documented the grave human rights violations perpetrated by the security forces against the protesters during the popular uprising. The investigation covered the period between 25 January and 11 February 2011, the day President Mubarak stepped down, with a special focus on Cairo, Alexandria and Suez, the cities that witnessed the most violence.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned a violent attack by members of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) on a Muvi TV crew that included two women that went to Nakachenje, a town to the west of Lusaka, on 18 July to investigate claims that MMD members were illegally seizing and sharing out land. The police, who are investigating the assault, said they arrested two suspects on charges of 'assault, criminal trespass and obtaining money by false pretences'.

Moneytheism and monotheism or the obscurantist international?
Samir Amin

The resurgence of spirituality has made religion a determining factor in history. But despite its strength, argues Samir Amin, religious belief has not destroyed what he calls the ‘immoral and savage competition’ that accompanies the coupling of moneytheism and monotheism. Amin notes that ‘contemporary monopoly capitalism is in crisis and is desperately trying to develop a new ideological offensive by a systematic recourse to ‘spiritual’ discourse.

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Religion and the struggle of the oppressed
Samir Amin

History has a wealth of examples of the involvement of religious revivalist movements in revolts against oppression. But while liberation theology made waves in Latin America, similar movements in the Muslim world, says Samir Amin, were scotched in the bud with the complicity of all the powers. But today’s revolts seem to be unaffected by religious arguments and Amin asks whether 'this is an indicator of the limits of this model of legitimising the struggle for social justice.'

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Historical landmarks in the fight against violence against women
Aline Murin-Hoarau

The reason why violence against women seems to be so ingrained is because it is rooted in relationships of social dominance and racial discrimination, which historically have left little liberty for women. A key point Aline Murin-Horau took away from a recent meeting of Indian Ocean countries is that people must be aware of the history of this scourge if they want to succeed in transforming hearts and minds and the actions that follow.

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An African of his times - Mamadou Dia would have been 100 today
Tidiane Dia

Mamadou Dia died on 25 February 2009 at the age of 98. He was ousted from his position as president of the council in Senegal’s first government after only two years. Accused of attempting to stage a coup d’état, he was arrested in December 1962. His imprisonment effectively ended his dream of genuine independence in Senegal. He would have turned 100 on 18 July. Tidiane Dia looks back at his life and times.

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A Chinese company has been given a contract to distribute media content in Kenya. The company has got the license to distribute digital broadcast signal, giving it control of key strategic infrastructure and role in Kenya’s transition to digital broadcasting. Pundits are scared that this is a measure by the 'conservative' forces in government to curtail the freedom of the media in Kenya.

Of the 158 MPs in Zambia, just 22 are women. With women representing just 14 per cent of parliament, Zambia is one of the poorest performers on affirmative action for female politicians in the South African Development Community, SADC, a regional interparliamentary body made up of 15 member countries. Zambia will hold its presidential and legislative elections in October. The Regional Women's Parliamentary Caucus, a policy organ of the SADC, has set a goal for women to make up half of Zambia's parliament after these elections.

South Africa’s LGBT community now has a financial service provider, Gaysure, catering exclusively for its needs. 'The gay community is a much lower risk when it comes to insurance needs and thus it is long overdue for not just another company targeting the LBGT market, but a company catering specifically for their needs with a niche product,' say Gaysure on their website. Products and services provided by Gaysure include, car and household insurance, business insurance, life insurance, retirement planning and stock broking.