The government wants new refugees settled outside Kenya to ease congestion in existing camps. Internal Security assistant minister Orwa Ojode said Kenya is overwhelmed by the number of people fleeing Somalia, which has escalated in recent months. 'It’s a very heavy burden which we did not budget for. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) can feed them in Somalia since the latest arrivals are not fleeing due to insecurity but lack of food,' he said.

West African country Togo's students' struggle for better education conditions is now in its fifth week and despite a recent truce, tensions remains high in the capital Lomé. A wind of appeasement seemed to blow on the demonstrations organised by the Mouvement pour l'Épanouissement des Étudiants Togolais - MEET (Movement for the Fulfillment of Togolese Students) - when students managed to obtain from authorities the reinstatement of the president of their association on 30 June. Abou Seidou, a student of the University of Lomé, had been previously expelled for allegedly causing troubles on the campus. This reinstatement was expected to open the way to negotiations, reports Global Voices Online.

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.'

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...

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies Database (CMRS) has announced the launching of its newly constructed information system. The CMRS information system aims at becoming a comprehensive location where migration and refugee research material especially, but not exclusively, on the Middle East region is compiled. The system is divided into three main components: legal, demographic and socio-economic. It contains material in both Arabic and English and it is possible to search in both languages.

The Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) is accepting applications to its 2nd Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ), an annual week-long residential programme with a focus on Transitional Justice issues in the context of Africa. The Institute, which is scheduled to take place from 20 - 27 November 2011, in Kitgum, Northern Uganda has as its theme: 'Whose Memories Count and at What Cost?' The deadline for submitting applications is 1 August 2011, and any applicant intending to apply for some form of scholarships must do so before that deadline.

National AIDS programmes are feeling the pinch as the international community and governments rethink their prioritization of AIDS over other infectious diseases. The withdrawal of support for the fight against HIV is gaining momentum and it is time to get angry, according to Francois Venter, head of the Southern Africa HIV Clinicians Society. In this Q&A with IRIN/PlusNews, Venter spoke about debunking the five major claims fuelling the backlash against global HIV expenditure, drawing on work by University of Cape Town professor Nicoli Nattrass and long-time HIV activist Gregg Gonsalves.

Ghana’s former President Jerry Rawlings has finally lost his charm and charisma after delegates at the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) primary rejected his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings’s bid to replace incumbent President John Atta Mills at next year’s election. Out of 2,861 votes, Nana Agyeman-Rawlings could only poll 90 votes against President Mills’ 2,771. If she had won, this would have been the first time that a serving president is changed after his first term in office since the country returned to Constitutional rule in 1992.

Mother of eight, Jessicah Foni, 36, hopes that independence will mean a hospital will soon be built in her village. Foni, who has travelled from a remote village in South Sudan to the state’s capital to celebrate independence, lost two babies at birth because of the lack of medical facilities in her area. South Sudan has one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. Out of 100,000 live births, 2,054 women die.

The African Studies Association is pleased to announce three pre-conference workshops to be offered on Wednesday, 16 November 2011. Participants will have the opportunity to explore governance and development at American University in depth or go behind the scenes to learn about the resources employed by The Library of Congress and the Museum of African Art.

Commercial sex workers in Nigeria are demanding more respect and more rights. Nongovernmental organisations have been promoting various rehabilitation and education initiatives. But prohibative costs for these programs lead some advocates to believe that the best option is to decriminalise commercial sex work. The Nigerian Criminal Code penalises prostitution with imprisonment, but some say the law shouldn’t govern morality. The government has mentioned no plans to decriminalise sex work and instead promotes education and alternative employment.

CODESRIA and SEPHIS are pleased to announce the first edition of the African-Arab Advanced Institute. This annual advanced institute on African-Arab relations will be held alternatively in North Africa and in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Institute is conceived as a high-level knowledge-building, agenda-setting and networking forum for scholars in the prime of their careers desirous of experimenting with new fields of knowledge and exploring new conceptual terrains.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has described the situation in drought-hit Somalia as the 'worst humanitarian disaster' in the world, after meeting with those affected at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. The camp, located in the northeast and the world's largest in the world, is overflowing with tens of thousands of refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia and within Kenya. Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), visited the camp on Sunday, appealing for 'massive support' from the international community for the more than 380,000 people estimated to be living in Dadaab.

Early in June in Singapore, the International Centre for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board of directors announced that they will allow more gTLD (generic Top Level Domains). Currently, there are only 22 registered gTLDs like .com and .org. The expanded gTLD space means that Africa can too have its own gTLD like .africa. An organisation going by the name DotConnectAfrica (DAC) (http://www.dotconnectafrica.org/) has been spearheading this venture for a while now. DAC has even been on social media, communicating their agenda and advocating for the .africa gTLD long before the ICANN announcement.

A married couple in the US pleaded guilty in federal court to exploiting an African woman and forcing her to work for them, authorities said. The woman, from Swaziland, was invited to travel to the United States and work as a caterer for a wedding. The wedding never existed. Instead, the woman was harboured in a home, concealed from law enforcement detection and kept working as a housekeeper until early 2007. 'This case reminds us that modern day slavery is occurring in our communities,' United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. Last month, a Nigerian citizen in Atlanta was convicted for trafficking women from Nigeria to work as nannies.

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When Libyan rebels requested NATO air support to help them in their fight against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, they might have gotten more than they bargained for, and might be paying for it for a long time to come. Several scattered reports released since the conflict began claim that some of the missiles NATO jets are using to disable Gaddafi's army are tipped with depleted uranium, a toxic heavy metal that could have long-term negative health effects on populations exposed to it.

Egyptian companies and multi-nationals are now using images of and references to the youth-led uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in advertisements to sell internet service, mobile phones, soft drinks, tourism and more. The marketing has sparked something of a backlash among young Egyptians and has contributed to a rise in politicised street art and graffiti. 'Everyone sold us down the river. So all these people coming now and claiming that their phones, their kitchen appliances, their whatever, has helped the revolution - nothing has helped the revolution but the people that did the revolution,' said one Egyptian.

In line with its mandate to promote high-level scientific and academic debates on various aspects of socioeconomic development in Africa, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) hereby announces the 2011 edition of its Gender Symposium which will be held from 1st to 3rd November, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. The Gender Symposium is a forum organized annually by CODESRIA to discuss gender issues in Africa, and the theme of this year’s edition is Gender and the Media in Africa.

A lack of proper primary care facilities in South Sudan means doctors are often overworked. And a lack of money means they are under-equipped, as well. The government in Juba does not give them enough to buy the supplies they need, and donations from the international community do not fill the gap. The health ministry has plans to open a network of primary care centres - roughly one per 15,000 people - but none are fully operational. And the military and police hospitals are closed, forcing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers to seek care from civilian facilities.