The violent two-week metalworkers strike has ended, with some workers gaining a 10 per cent wage increase. Eight of the nine National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) regions accepted the offer, bringing an end to a strike that brought a near-total halt to the second-biggest contributor to GDP.

The Human Rights Committee of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reviewed Ethiopia's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recently, including its press freedom record. Peppered with questions about an indefensible record of abuse - jailing the second largest number of journalists in Africa and leading the continent in Internet censorship - representatives of the Ethiopian government responded with cursory talking points and bold denials in contradiction of the facts, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

ECOWAS Ministers in charge of humanitarian affairs have resolved to set up a Task Force of Government Ministries, relevant partners and civil society to coordinate the implementation of the African Union (AU) Convention on humanitarian assistance and internal displacement in Africa, also known as the Kampala Convention. At the end of their first Ministerial Conference on Humanitarian Assistance and Internal Displacement in West Africa, held 7 July 2011 at the ECOWAS Commission headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the ministers also agreed to formulate coherent national IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) policies, legal and institutional frameworks that will fully reflect the content and the spirit of the Kampala Convention.

NATO jets have struck a military storage facility and other targets in the eastern outskirts of the capital, Tripoli. Sunday's attacks came two days after major international players recognised Libya's opposition leadership as the country's legitimate representative. From Tripoli, bright flashes could be seen on the eastern horizon just after midnight, followed by a steady rumbling that went on for an hour.

The National HIV/Aids Secretariat of Sierra Leone, which falls under the National HIV/Aids Control Program (NACP) recently conducted a study on Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) around the country. The 2011 study on MSM in Sierra Leone has broken the silence on the existence of sexual minorities in Sierra Leone. Findings from this survey revealed several problems affecting sexual minorities, especially MSM in Sierra Leone.

SA's top prosecutors are in a fight to the death over the future of corruption-buster Willie Hofmeyr, who heads the Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Special Investigating Unit. The Sunday Times reports that new corruption claims have been levelled at Hofmeyr and top NPA officials thought to be close to him. NPA officials in various provinces claim the charges were stage-managed by NPA boss Menzi Simelane.

The United Kingdom has announced the suspension of all general budgetary support to Malawi indefinitely, effective 14 July. The International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said they suspended aid based on concerns about governance, democracy, suppression of freedom of expression, chronic fuel shortages and a deteriorated tobacco industry. Relations between Malawi and UK soured in April this year when President Bingu wa Mutharika expelled British High Commissioner Fergus Cochrane Dyet and the UK reciprocated.

A new report by an international coalition of marine scientists makes for grim reading. It concludes that the oceans are approaching irreversible, potentially catastrophic change, reports the New York Times. The experts, convened by the International Program on the State of the Ocean and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, found that marine 'degradation is now happening at a faster rate than predicted'. The oceans have warmed and become more acidic as they absorbed human-generated carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They are also more oxygen-deprived, because of agricultural runoff and other anthropogenic causes. This deadly trio of conditions was present in previous mass extinctions, according to the report.

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...

Make Every Woman Count (MEWC) is a newly established African women's organisation. The organisation has launched a website, which provides timely and accurate information regarding the African women's movement. Please visit the website for more information

Surgeons say there are no statistics on cosmetic surgery in Kenya, a country where half the population lives at or below the poverty line. But among higher-earning women here, tummy tucks and breast reductions are on the rise, according to surgeons interviewed for this story. Sue, who declined to give her last name to protect her privacy, is in her 40s and has one child. She says that after years of emotional abuse from her husband, she paid $5,500 to have a tummy tuck and a breast lift to boost her self-esteem.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party has renewed its calls for new elections this year, rejecting a timeline that his own negotiators hammered out last week, a state daily reported. 'The politburo is unanimous that elections should be held this year,' Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo told the Herald newspaper after the party's top decision-making body met in the capital. On 6 July, negotiators from Mugabe's party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) agreed on a timeline for election preparations which would put the polls in 2012.

When Demosthene Lubert heard that Bill Clinton's foundation was going to rebuild his collapsed school at the epicenter of Haiti's January 12, 2010, earthquake, in the coastal city of Léogâne, the academic director thought he was 'in paradise'. The project was announced by Clinton as his foundation's first contribution to the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. However, when Nation reporters visited the 'hurricane-proof' shelters in June, six to eight months after they'd been installed, we found them to consist of 20 imported prefab trailers beset by a host of problems, from mold to sweltering heat to shoddy construction.

'Women and Food Sovereignty: The voices of rural women from the south' provides an overview of the situation of peasant women in the Global South. The document showcases the problems faced by these women, as well as their different forms of resistance and struggle in demand for food sovereignty. It includes testimonies of rural women from Africa, Latin America and Asia. They explain why it is necessary to struggle for access to land, for the conservation of seeds and for small-scale farming.

Outbreaks of measles and cholera in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed hundreds of people, with thousands more infected, says an official of the UN World Health Organisation (WHO). 'Since September 2010, 115,484 measles cases and 1,145 related deaths have been reported in South Kivu, Katanga, Maniema, Kasaï Occidental, Equateur, Bas Congo and Kasaï Oriental provinces,' Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO media and advocacy officer, told IRIN. According to Jasarevic, a lack of government funding halted follow-up mass immunisation activities in the regions, leading to the measles outbreak.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the Democratic Republic of Congo's ban of a private broadcaster favourable to opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi. Radio Lisanga Télévision (RLTV), based in the capital, Kinshasa, lost its signal without formal notice, the station's director-general, Basile Olongo Pongo, told CPJ. The same day, Congolese Communication Minister Lambert Mende issued a decree indefinitely banning the station across the country over 'programs that are promoting violence and contribute to disturb public order,' according to news reports.

The website is dedicated to the declaration launched on 1 November 2010 by South African Artists Against Apartheid. You can follow the campaigns and events initiated by South African Artists Against Apartheid on this website, as well as recent news relating to international cultural boycott activities.

A new collection of stories, research and good practice is showing how African climate and poverty activists are leading the global fight for climate justice - finding creative, inspired ways of using life-saving knowledge networks to share climate change and poverty research. But their voices are often ignored by African governments when it comes to policy, and funding for African-led research and knowledge sharing is not seen as a priority. 'New voices, different perspectives' is a pioneering pan-African ‘encyclopaedia’ of the brightest and best ideas in climate change adaptation. It’s the result of a collaboration between over 200 of the continent’s leading development researchers, community activists, NGOs, climate scientists and international donors at the AfricaAdapt Climate Change Symposium held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 'New voices, different perspectives' offers a stark message to African politicians in the run up to the UN climate negotiations to be held in Durban, South Africa, this December: African governments can only lead the global fight for climate justice if they start to seriously value indigenous knowledge, community-led responses and African-led research. Apart from the publication, a video animation can be watched at:

Following a hearing before an British immigration judge, Tanzanian gay asylum seeker Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas was released from Harmondsworth Removal Centre at 5pm and was also removed from the 'detained fast track' process. The judge's decision has not been written but a witness at the court hearing said that it was on the basis that previous immigration judiciary decisions could be regarded as possibly 'unsafe' and that more time was needed for both a psychiatrist's report as well as for an expert witness of the situation of LGBT in Tanzania to be found.

There has hardly been a week without headlines on mobile apps in the last six months. The launch of the Apple apps store in July 2008 has undoubtedly been a turning point in what is today considered as a sector that generates at the global level US$ billion of annual revenues through apps downloads. Consultancy and research company, Balancing Act, has just released a new report entitled 'Mobile apps for Africa: Strategies to make sense of free and paid apps' which analyses the nascent apps ecosystem in Africa while providing an analytical framework allowing African mobile operators or other stakeholders to decide on what strategy to adopt regarding mobile apps.