Foreign traders in many Johannesburg townships have closed their businesses and put their livelihoods on hold in response to a campaign of threats and intimidation launched in recent weeks by a group of local business people calling themselves the Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF). In late April, the GGBF started distributing letters to immigrant shopkeepers in at least nine townships, giving them seven days to pack up and leave. The letter threatened drastic action against those who did not comply.

In order to reduce instances where pharmacists are inflating the cost of subsidised malaria drugs, the Kenyan government has embarked on awareness campaigns through the media to inform Kenyans of the availability of the drugs, and the recommended prices per dose. According to Dr John Logedi, the deputy program manager at the Division of Malaria Control, the awareness campaign will help consumers make an informed choice and enable them to seek outlets that sell the drugs at the right price.

The President of the Union for the Development of Fouta Djallon, a region in Guinea where the alleged victim of IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn originates from, has expressed indignation over the alleged attempted rape of the lady (name withheld). Speaking to Radio France International (RFI), Mr Souleymane Diallo said that the ethnic Fula community in the United States will shortly undertake a 'massive demonstration' in support of the 32-year-old woman.

More than $25 billion is needed to implement roads infrastructure projects in East Africa in the next 10 years. The amount covers the cost of massive upgrading, modernisation and construction of roads to improve intra-regional connectivity and also link up EA with countries outside the bloc. 'The estimated cost of these roads infrastructure development in the next 10 years is in excess of $25 billion,' disclosed Ms Hafsa Mosi, the Chairperson of the East African Community Council of Ministers, when unveiling the Community's 2011/12 budget.

Gustave Massiah

Mireille Fanon Mendès France

In Cape Town, African women who think that AIDS is man-made are half as likely as other African women to have used a condom during their most recent sexual encounter, researchers report in the journal AIDS and Behavior. In addition, African men who believe that HIV is harmless while antiretroviral drugs are harmful are half as likely to use condoms as other men. There are important differences in the findings for men and women, which suggests that gender is crucial to understanding AIDS conspiracy and denialism in South Africa.

Eighteen months after fleeing across the riverine border separating the two Congos, some 120,000 refugees seem to have little prospect of returning home soon. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had scheduled an organised repatriation from the northern Likouala region Republic of Congo to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Equateur Province in late April, but this was indefinitely postponed because of logistical and financial issues. The exodus from DRC took place in late 2009 following conflicts over natural resources, such as fish ponds, between the Enyele and Munyaza communities.

Three international organisations have negotiated reductions on key first and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May. The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or 'first-line', regimens.

ZANU PF has demanded that recent strong resolutions on Zimbabwe, adopted by the regional security organ the Troika, be overturned, calling on the Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to reverse the position. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which is attending the summit, told SW Radio Africa that SADC leaders were set to discuss recent resolutions adopted by the SADC Troika in March. That summit in Livingstone, Zambia, had condemned the lack of progress in the unity government, in the first meaningful criticism of ZANU PF the region has ever issued. The Troika called for an end to violence and intimidation, and called for the drafting of an election roadmap towards a credible and violence free poll in Zimbabwe.

South Africa's local government elections were officially declared over on Saturday night by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria. At a closing ceremony attended by political leaders from across the spectrum, the governing African National Congress remained firmly in charge of the nation's municipalities, taking just under 62 per cent of the vote nationally. The opposition Democratic Alliance took just under a quarter of all votes - 23.94 per cent.

There are obvious gaps in access to the Internet, particularly the participation gap between those who have their say, and those whose voices are pushed to the sidelines. Despite the rapid increase in Internet access, there are indications that people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remain largely absent from websites and services that represent the region to the larger world. A research project is assessing the connection between access and representation - click on the URL provided to read more on this topic.

Women in the developing world need new methods of contraception that meet their needs and lifestyles, according to a Guttmacher Institute report. The study focused on sub-Saharan Africa, south central Asia and southeast Asia, which 'are home to 69 per cent of women in the developing world who have an unmet need for a modern method'. The report said new forms of contraception are needed in the three regions 'where there are 49 million unintended pregnancies every year resulting in 21 million abortions'.

Almost 4,000 Chadians who have returned home from strife-torn Libya via Niger are in a critical situation in the border town of Zouarke, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned. 'According to the Chadian government, more than 3,800 migrants including 310 women and children are in a very difficult situation in Zouarke with limited food, no water and transport to make their journey south,' the IOM said in a statement. Most of the migrants are Chadians, of whom 25,000 have already fled the Libyan conflict and made their way to the northern towns of Faya and Kalait, but the latest batch lacks the means.

Inaction marked the Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community heads of state in Windhoek, despite an agenda covering Zimbabwe elections, political deadlock in Madagascar, the suspension of the regional court and allegations of corruption within SADC itself. In the days leading up to the summit, there was the chance that it might not take place at all, with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, pulling out at the last moment, preferring to concentrate on local elections in his own country. In the end, eleven heads of state and their representatives met in Windhoek, but deliberations lasted only a few hours before the summit was ended.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem was born on 6 January 1961 in Funtua, Katsina State, Nigeria. He died tragically on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2009 in a motor accident in Nairobi Kenya.

s the Libyan uprising enters its fourth month, people in the liberated eastern part of the country are playing a waiting game, and for many, patience is running thin. The spontaneous jubilation that marked the early days of the revolution is all but gone. In its place, an unmistakable sense of weariness and uncertainty fills the cool springtime air. Concerns of a civil war or an Islamist takeover do not predominate here; most people laugh these off as overblown Western fears that are not grounded in Libyan realities. Now that the fate of the uprising is almost wholly in the hands of those with the best weapons, foremost on people’s minds is how much longer they must wait for the regime to fall.

The Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First shapes how people think by analysing the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and developing solutions in partnership with movements working for social change. You can subscribe to their newsletter by clicking on the URL provided.

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...

Issue 2, 2011 of The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southern Africa newsletter contains opinions on South Africa's municipal elections and articles on Wal-Mart, decent jobs and Mauritius.

Traditional rulers from the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to re-examine the activities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the Niger Delta region. The call was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Port Harcourt and contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Eze Young Ogbonna and Pere Stanley Perediegha Luke, national president and national secretary respectively.