Domestically abused women who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to the country’s new law on domestic violence. Women’s campaigners have welcomed the introduction of the new law, which was signed into the statue books on 8 July, and which criminalises domestic violence and offers protection to victims and their families. Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola - and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced recently that Germany was prepared to sell six to eight patrol boats to Angola as part of an international cooperation deal. 'Germany is ready for an energy and raw materials partnership,' Merkel said during a visit to the oil-rich country. Politicians in Berlin are concerned about Angola's human rights record. Claudia Roth, the head of the Greens, described it as a bad move following the controversial decision to sell battle tanks to Saudi Arabia last week, calling Merkel the 'patron saint of the arms lobby'. And Rolf Muetzenich from the SPD parliamentary group alluded to Germany's concern over Angola's human rights record.

Angola's commodity-based economy is tied to global oil and diamond prices, and is thus highly susceptible to exogenous shocks, says this Chatham House briefing paper. 'Urban poverty is a source of social strife. The ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) will need to improve service delivery and quicken the pace of social reform to stave off potential unrest. If mismanaged, the task of choosing a successor to President José Eduardo dos Santos could spark a destabilising power struggle within the MPLA.'

German economic interests played a key role during Angela Merkel's three-country trip to Africa. In oil-rich Angola improving business ties was a major topic on the agenda for Chancellor Merkel. Ricardo Gerigk, who has headed the delegation of German business in Luanda since last year, said: 'Angola's oil production is close to two million barrels a day,' he said. Angola is the second largest oil producer in Africa after Nigeria. But with a population of just 17 million, compared to Nigeria's 150 million people, there's more wealth, he said.

Agostinho Chicaia – an Angolan human rights activist arbitrarily detained without charge in the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than two weeks – must be released immediately, Amnesty International has said.

The International Monetary Fund said it had reached a staff-level agreement with Angolan authorities that could lead to the release of $136 million in funding to the African oil producer. IMF mission chief to Angola Mauro Mecagni said in a statement the disbursement of the next tranche under Angola's $1.4 billion loan agreement first needed the approval of the IMF's board. Some $1.25 billion has been disbursed to date. Mecagni said there had been 'considerable progress' by Angola in implementing agreed economic measures following a 2009 fiscal and balance of payments crises.

Following the arrest of human rights defender Agostinho Chicaia in Kinshasa at the request of the Angolan authorities, OSI Angola and the Association for Justice Peace and Democracy (AJPD) are calling on Angola and the DRC ‘to state clearly what are the circumstances and the legal grounds for Mr Chicaia’s detention.’

In an open field 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Angola's chaotic capital, a $3.5-billion city seems to rise from nothing, a showpiece in government's drive to build one million new homes. Dubbed the 'new city of Kilamba Kiaxi', it's the antithesis of overcrowded Luanda's traffic-choked streets and is being built - like so much else in Angola - by Chinese contractors.

Police arrested more than 20 people to break-up rare protests in the Angolan capital but released all of them the following day, police and activists said Thursday (26 May). An anti-poverty protest near downtown Luanda was organised by the 'Revolutionary Intervention Movement', a gathering of rights activists, they said. About 100 protesters called on President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to improve living conditions in Angola, where UNICEF estimates that 87 per cent of the urban population lives in shantytowns, often without water supplies.

In a rare climbdown, the Angolan government has withdrawn controversial legislation severely restricting how people use the internet. It was scrapped when the government removed it from parliament moments before it was due to be voted into law. Under the proposal, which had already passed a first round of voting, it would have been illegal to share information electronically that could 'destroy, alter or subvert state institutions' or 'damage national integrity or independence'.

Figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that during 2011 Angola will leapfrog Morocco to become Africa’s fifth largest economy. Although growing, Angola's immediate influence on African affairs will not supercede that of the region's giants, South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt, says this article by Dominic Wall on 'The gap between the trio and the rest in economic size, demographics and political clout is considerable. ECOWAS, by far the most sophisticated and active regional bloc, is dependent upon Nigerian funding and manpower, while Southern Africa - besides Angola itself - relies heavily on South Africa. These and other factors mean the traditional giants will continue to dominate. But Angola’s rise has been, and is likely to remain rapid, despite a number of economic weaknesses. And the ability of the Dos Santos regime to influence events on a regional scale cannot be ignored.'

E.S.Newmann

Luiza Bairros

Marílio Wane

Urging the Angolan government to withdraw a cybercrime bill before parliament, Human Rights Watch said it would undercut both freedom of expression and information, and pose a severe threat to independent media in the country. Human Rights Watch expressed its apprehension that the bill would help security forces to confiscate data and create harsher penalties for crimes in electronic information technology. Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said, 'This bill fails to establish clear safeguards to protect the public's right to know and right to speak and deepening the existing restrictions in Angola's media environment, where many Angolans have turned for open debate on matters the government wants to restrict.'

Tension between the ruling MPLA party and the main opposition UNITA party and questions over policy-making are worrying investors in the major African oil-producing nation of Angola, states this risk assessment article from Reuters. Campaigning for 2012 elections got off to a shaky start, with UNITA saying food price riots in Mozambique in September could lead poverty-stricken Angolans to do the same.

Twenty-six children died from measles out of 445 cases recorded in Angola's northern enclave province of Cabinda since the start of the outbreak in 2010, the official news agency Angop reported. Particularly in malnourished children and people with reduced immunity, measles can cause serious complications, including blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, ear infection and pneumonia or even deaths.

Angola, Africa's second-biggest crude oil producer, has denied a report that it lost almost $6 billion in illicit capital flows in 2009. Calculations provided to Reuters by Washington-based watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) suggest funds equivalent to nearly a sixth of the annual budget went missing in the last year for which data are available. In a rare response from the usually tight-lipped government, the finance ministry denied there was anything suspicious about the discrepancies highlighted by GFI.

An Angolan journalist who was convicted for reporting on a local judge has been released on bail of $2,400. The Voice of America’s Armando Chicoca was sentenced on 3 March 2011, to one year in prison for criminal defamation against a judge in the coastal town of Namibe.

A week after the date of the revolution supposed to 'dethrone' Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and his royal court, the situation in the country appears calm. It is as if there had never even been a call for revolution, reports Global Voices. The actions of the State contributed greatly to this. A preemptive manoeuvre involved putting troops at the ready and convened pro-MPLA rallies from Cabinda to Cunene.

An attempt to organise a mass protest against the government in Angola’s capital Luanda may have fallen flat, but there is no doubt that a fuse has been lit among people who for so many years have not dared to challenge authority. In the days leading up to the protest, the planned action was the main topic of conversation across all tiers of society, from the top floors of skyscraper office blocks to the mud-level slums on the peripheries of the cities.

The Angolan government carried out an intimidation campaign in connection with an announced anti-government demonstration that was inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, Human Rights Watch has said. The government warned in the weeks leading up to the protest, which was announced for 7 March 2011, that anyone who joined would be punished for inciting violence and attempting to return the country to civil war. Police arrested several demonstrators and journalists the night before the event.