Angola's 'very violent' expulsion of about 200 Democratic Republic of Congo nationals from its territory this month is a sign of the increasing 'bad blood' between the neighbours that analysts believe revolves around border demarcations and conflicting claims to resources, particularly oil. In 2009, 18,000 DRC nationals were expelled from Angola and 39,000 Angolan nationals from the DRC.

A popular Angolan radio commentator, whose satirical broadcasts have been critical of the government, was injured in a stabbing this morning in the capital city of Luanda, according to local journalists and news reports. António Manuel Manuel Da Silva, better known as "Jójó," was walking home around 3am when he was stabbed by an attacker who confronted him about his program on private Radio Despertar, according to the station's director, Alexandre Neto, who spoke with eyewitnesses.

Angola has deported nearly 200 Congolese citizens, according to humanitarian reports, prompting fears of a new wave of mass expulsions that saw tens of thousands displaced last year. Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo were allies during the latter's 1998-2003 war, but relations have been strained in recent years due to rows over border demarcation and oil rights.

Passive before human rights abuses in Angola, the British government often shows little concern for people who have come to this country seeking refuge, writes Lara Pawson in the London Guardian in reference to Jimmy Mubenga, a man who died while being deported to Angola. As the facts of Jimmy Mubenga's death come to light, we would do well to consider why he ever sought refuge in the UK, and why 'I don't want to go' were among his last words, she says.

With Angola’s parliament spending over US$43 million on top-of-the-range BMWs, Rafael Marques de Morais discusses the government’s inability to properly represent its citizens and what the money might have bought if spent in the public interest.

With some 5,000 families in Angola’s Lubango, Matala and Quipungo municipalities affected by housing demolitions since August, struggles continue to get the government to respect both legislation and its own public statements, writes Sylvia Croese.

Chinese investment in Angola is bringing back to life one of the greatest rail routes in Africa, the Benguela Railway. In return, China gets oil - but how fair are accusations that China is engaged in a colonial-style scramble for resources?

The third African meeting on Solidarity with Cuba was held in Luanda, Angola, 11-12 September, to consolidate the friendship between the African and Cuban people and contribute to strengthening African solidarity towards the Caribbean island nation. The general secretary of the Association of Angola/Cuba Friendship, Fernando Jaime, told the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP) that the event aimed to consider the difficult financial situation in Cuba due to the economic blockage imposed over the past 50 years by the US.

Reporters Without Borders has expressed shock at the death of Alberto Chakusanga, the host of a programme on a radio station critical of the government. The first journalist to be murdered in Angola since 2001, he was found dead in the kitchen of his home in the Luanda district of Viana at dawn on 5 September.

Only 46,722 people, approximately a third of the number of the disabled in Angola, receive assistance from the National Association of the Disabled (ANDA), according to the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP). More than 150,000 disabled persons are registered in Angola, but this figure is unreliable as the national census had overlooked areas in the country with large numbers of disabled people.

The campaign for Angola's 2012 elections is off to a ill-tempered start with the ruling MPLA party and the opposition UNITA party accusing each other of dirty tactics that threaten a return to violence in the oil producing nation. The polls will only be the second since the end of Angola's civil war that pitted the Russian and Cuban-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against UNITA, backed by the U.S. and apartheid South Africa.

Angolan lawyer Suzana Antonio da Conceiçao Nicolau Ingles, was unanimously elected by the National Assembly as the chairperson of the National Electoral Commission (CNE). She was elected during the third extraordinary session of the National Assembly, led by speaker Antonio Paulo Kassoma.

Angola's ruling party will meet this week to examine a private report accusing members of the president's inner circle of corruption, a spokesman has said. The report, "The Angolan Presidency -- The Epicentre of Corruption", describes how people close to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos have taken control of the economy by securing stakes in firms in sectors ranging from oil to banking.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/494/angola_tmb.jpgAs communities in Angola’s municipality of Matala and Quipungo face up to demolitions as part of the government’s ‘Operation Combat and Demolition of Shacks and Anarchic Constructions in the Municipality of Lubango’, civil society work by local groups has proven crucial in enabling families to prepare adequately and begin to organise, writes Sylvia Croese.

The Angolan government should annul the convictions of three prominent rights advocates and a former policeman after a politically motivated trial in the oil-rich Cabinda province, Human Rights Watch has said. The government should revoke the overbroad and vague provisions of the state security law brought against the four men, Human Rights Watch said.

UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have appealed for the participation of all sectors of the Angolan society to ensure the vaccination of about 5.6 million children under five years against polio 6-8 August and 10-12 September. A joint statement by the two UN agencies said the exercise was aimed at protecting children in the country against the crippling disease, and a forerunner to Angola's plans to carry out a national vaccination campaign in 2011.

Government and civil society need to ensure that exploration in Angola’s diamond provinces brings greater benefit to the lives of the local populations, according to a new report about the country’s diamond sector, writes Sylvia Croese. Prepared by the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace, the report focuses on the growth of the sector from 2002 to 2009 and analyses the effects of the economic crisis, diamond legislation and the development of the diamond provinces of the country.

Responding to Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos's call for a zero-tolerance policy on corruption on 21 November 2009, Rafael Marques de Morais reports on the business dealings of three figures representing a 'triumvirate that today dominates Angola’s political economy': General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa”, General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento “Dino” and Manuel Vicente. Though government figures, these individuals make no distinction between public and private affairs and represent the apex of a state-business empire based on 'illegal self-enrichment for the top state officials', Marques de Morais writes.

In the newly opened red brick Lubango health clinic, a long line of Angolans wait their turn to see one of the two Cuban doctors working here. The doctors were assigned to provide health care to some 30,000 people in the southern province of Huila. The Lubango clinic is one of several that have recently opened across Angola. The clinics are symbols of hope for a country once plagued by one of the world’s longest civil wars, which ended in 2002 and left a severely damaged health-care system in its wake.

Chair of the board and CEO of Angolan parastatal Sonangol, Manuel Vicente's 25 per cent shareholding in Grinaker LTA Angola – a company that was awarded two multi-million dollar construction contracts by Sonangol – involves ‘passive corruption and conflict of interest’, writes Rafael Marques de Morais. De Morais takes a look at Vicente's role in the murky relationship between the two organisations and the Banco Africano de Investimentos (BAI) in light of national and international anti-corruption legislation.