Reporters Without Borders has voiced its support for the one-day strike planned by Mali’s media, when radio stations will suspend broadcasting and no newspapers will be printed. In a show of solidarity, the organization issues a call for an end to the constant media freedom violations of the past four months.

At least a hundred protesters arrived at South Africa's parliament on 11 July to demonstrate their disapproval of the ongoing court case by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis against the Indian government over its patent laws. As the case draws to a close, health organizations say a win for the pharmaceutical company will be a loss to the developing world, which sources the bulk of its generic medicines from India. Novartis approached the Indian government six years ago, seeking to register a cancer drug already commonly marketed under the name Gleevec. The patent was denied and a long-running court battle ensued, but at each step Indian courts have ruled against Novartis and the company has appealed.

There are fresh fears that plans are being laid by ZANU PF to dismiss the proposed new constitution, in a move that will ensure there are no voting rights for the Diaspora. There is still no confirmation about when the draft charter will be released, but ZANU PF has repeatedly shown resistance to the document spearheaded by the COPAC team. Robert Mugabe’s party has been advocating for the ‘Kariba Draft’ constitution, which was a negotiated document made well before COPAC was tasked with setting the laws for a new, democratic Zimbabwe.

Child labour is on the rise in Ghana, particularly in urban areas. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) 2012 State of the World’s Children Report, 34 per cent of Ghanaian children aged between five and 14 years are engaged in child labour – up from 23 per cent in 2003. Emilia Allan, a Child Protection Officer at UNICEF Ghana, noted that Kumasi alone makes up eight per cent of that figure.

16 July 2012 - From early this evening, the community of SST and the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town has been in the midst of a mass action in front of the home of Amos Nkomeni, the ANC ward councilor for ward 93 in the City of Cape Town. Councillor Nkomeni’s response to the community march to his house was arrogant and dismissive, instead of responding to the demand for an end to the degrading and dehumanising bucket system imposed by the City of Cape Town in the absence of decent sanitation at SST.

Fewer people are dying from AIDS-related illnesses and being infected with the HIV virus than at any time in the last decade, but more progress is needed in prevention, testing and treatment, a report from the United Nations AIDS programme (UNAIDS) said. Fewer people are dying from AIDS-related illnesses, with the number of deaths declining to 1.7 million in 2011. New cases of HIV infections were 2.5 million, the lowest level since 2001, according to UNAIDS figures for the last decade.

The UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, controversially endowed by Equatorial Guinea, was finally awarded in Paris 17 July, after years of wrangling and postponements. The three prize winners - from Egypt, Mexico and South Africa - each received US$100,000 from Equatorial Guinea's vice president, Ignacio Milam Tang, amid speculation about whether the country's dictatorial president, and the prize's original funder, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, would attend in person (he did not).

On 15 July 2012, the Swazi Observer issued letters of suspension to its editor, Thulani Thwala, its weekend editor, Alec Lushaba, and the newspaper's chief financial officer (CFO) and senior manager, Mr. Nala Nkabindze. No explanation was given for the suspension. Both editors have been suspended for one month and await the outcome of an investigation into the matter. National Director of the Swaziland Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Swaziland), Comfort Mabuza, has condemned this development, branding it a clandestine action to silence the editors and prevent them from the informative and critical reporting that they are known to facilitate in Swaziland.

The Moroccan government on 2 July confirmed its decision to withdraw support for UN Western Sahara Envoy Christopher Ross. The Moroccan government had earlier announced that it had lost confidence in the UN envoy and accused him of 'biased and unbalanced guidance' in brokering unofficial talks between Morocco and the Polisario.

Human rights organisations have condemned the acts of violence committed on 26 June 2012 against Dr. Stephen Ulimboka, Chairperson of the Special Committee of Doctors, and called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry mandated to shed light on the circumstances of this aggression so that its authors can be brought to justice. Dr. Ulimboka was kidnapped and beaten while leading a strike by doctors seeking improved working conditions in public hospitals.

After 18 months of having its funding nearly completely cut off by a payment industry blockade, WikiLeaks says it’s finally found a new workaround that allows it to receive credit card donations. And after a legal victory against Visa in Iceland, the group is literally daring the card companies to shut down payments to his site again.

Mali has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate atrocities that have taken place in the country since January 2012, the chief prosecutor said. A mix of local and foreign Islamist fighters, including some fighters linked to al Qaeda, are in control of northern Mali after they hijacked a rebellion initially launched in January by secular Tuareg separatists. About 300,000 people have been displaced in a conflict marked by killings, rapes, torture, and attacks on cultural sites.

Senegal stopped renewing agreements allowing European fishing vessels in its waters in 2006, but now an expanding artisanal fleet and local industrial boats enjoying exclusivity under lax regulations are being blamed for malpractice and degrading the country’s main economic and food resource. 'In terms of environmental degradation, the responsibility is shared. Artisanal fishermen are responsible for habitat destruction. Although industrial vessels and foreign ships are often blamed, artisanal fishermen contribute hugely to the disappearance of species,' said Moustapha Thiam, the director of Senegal’s Maritime Fishing Authority, a Fisheries Ministry department.

An independent, global medical and humanitarian organization says African nations are not receiving adequate international funding to fight HIV/AIDS, leaving them to face catastrophic consequences without enough medication. Experts at Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said Congo is only able to supply anti-retroviral drugs to 15 per cent of the people needing them and 'patients are literally dying on our doorstep'. In a statement released in Johannesburg ahead of the United Nations world AIDS conference in Washington starting 22 July, the organization said countries worst affected by the pandemic were the least able to provide 'the best science' available to fight it.

Angolan police on Saturday arrested 10 youth protesters and two journalists at an anti-government demonstration in the capital Luanda, Portuguese state news agency Lusa reported, as tensions rise ahead of August's presidential election. A youth movement has staged several demonstrations since March last year calling for long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to resign after 32 years at the helm of Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.

Eritrea has reduced its support for the al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab militant group in Somalia under international pressure, but still violates UN Security Council resolutions and remains a destabilising influence, a UN report says. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, which investigates violations of an arms embargo on both nations, said in a report to the Council, seen by Reuters, that it had found no evidence of direct Eritrean support for al Shabaab in the last year.

Kenya sex workers are expected to attend the parallel 'Freedom Festival of Sex Workers' in Kolkata, India to coincide with the International AIDS Conference in Washington, US. The festival has been hailed as the 'alternative International AIDS Conference 2012 for sex workers and allies.' Many sex workers in Africa were refused a US visa to attend the XIX International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Washington DC later this month.

Nurses are to join teachers and civil servants in the growing public sector strike in Swaziland. They will strike from 18 July 2012 in pursuit of a 4.5 per cent salary increase. Teachers have been on indefinite strike for nearly a month and civil servants joined them last week.

Experts say older people are affected more severely than the rest of the population during displacement. 'People who have energy can resist or run or take away belongings. An old person doesn't have the energy to do all this. So in cases of forced evictions, for instance, they lose a home and lose belongings and also a critical social network,' Protus Waringa, a Kenyan human rights law expert, told IRIN. Globally, an estimated 26.4 million people were displaced by armed conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations at the end of 2011, according to a 2011 overview by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC); the overview noted that there were huge gaps in the data available on older IDPs, with just six out of 50 countries making specific reference to older persons in their data on IDPs.

Somalia's interim government has denied allegations of corruption contained in a leaked UN report. It alleged that around 70 per cent of money intended for development and reconstruction in a country racked by 20 years of war was unaccounted for. 'The systematic misappropriation, embezzlement and outright theft of public resources have essentially become a system of governance,' the leaked report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, published by the Somalia Report website, said.