Eighteen months after fleeing across the riverine border separating the two Congos, some 120,000 refugees seem to have little prospect of returning home soon. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had scheduled an organised repatriation from the northern Likouala region Republic of Congo to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Equateur Province in late April, but this was indefinitely postponed because of logistical and financial issues. The exodus from DRC took place in late 2009 following conflicts over natural resources, such as fish ponds, between the Enyele and Munyaza communities.

Three international organisations have negotiated reductions on key first and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May. The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or 'first-line', regimens.

ZANU PF has demanded that recent strong resolutions on Zimbabwe, adopted by the regional security organ the Troika, be overturned, calling on the Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to reverse the position. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which is attending the summit, told SW Radio Africa that SADC leaders were set to discuss recent resolutions adopted by the SADC Troika in March. That summit in Livingstone, Zambia, had condemned the lack of progress in the unity government, in the first meaningful criticism of ZANU PF the region has ever issued. The Troika called for an end to violence and intimidation, and called for the drafting of an election roadmap towards a credible and violence free poll in Zimbabwe.

South Africa's local government elections were officially declared over on Saturday night by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria. At a closing ceremony attended by political leaders from across the spectrum, the governing African National Congress remained firmly in charge of the nation's municipalities, taking just under 62 per cent of the vote nationally. The opposition Democratic Alliance took just under a quarter of all votes - 23.94 per cent.

There are obvious gaps in access to the Internet, particularly the participation gap between those who have their say, and those whose voices are pushed to the sidelines. Despite the rapid increase in Internet access, there are indications that people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remain largely absent from websites and services that represent the region to the larger world. A research project is assessing the connection between access and representation - click on the URL provided to read more on this topic.

Women in the developing world need new methods of contraception that meet their needs and lifestyles, according to a Guttmacher Institute report. The study focused on sub-Saharan Africa, south central Asia and southeast Asia, which 'are home to 69 per cent of women in the developing world who have an unmet need for a modern method'. The report said new forms of contraception are needed in the three regions 'where there are 49 million unintended pregnancies every year resulting in 21 million abortions'.

Almost 4,000 Chadians who have returned home from strife-torn Libya via Niger are in a critical situation in the border town of Zouarke, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned. 'According to the Chadian government, more than 3,800 migrants including 310 women and children are in a very difficult situation in Zouarke with limited food, no water and transport to make their journey south,' the IOM said in a statement. Most of the migrants are Chadians, of whom 25,000 have already fled the Libyan conflict and made their way to the northern towns of Faya and Kalait, but the latest batch lacks the means.

Inaction marked the Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community heads of state in Windhoek, despite an agenda covering Zimbabwe elections, political deadlock in Madagascar, the suspension of the regional court and allegations of corruption within SADC itself. In the days leading up to the summit, there was the chance that it might not take place at all, with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, pulling out at the last moment, preferring to concentrate on local elections in his own country. In the end, eleven heads of state and their representatives met in Windhoek, but deliberations lasted only a few hours before the summit was ended.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem was born on 6 January 1961 in Funtua, Katsina State, Nigeria. He died tragically on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2009 in a motor accident in Nairobi Kenya.

s the Libyan uprising enters its fourth month, people in the liberated eastern part of the country are playing a waiting game, and for many, patience is running thin. The spontaneous jubilation that marked the early days of the revolution is all but gone. In its place, an unmistakable sense of weariness and uncertainty fills the cool springtime air. Concerns of a civil war or an Islamist takeover do not predominate here; most people laugh these off as overblown Western fears that are not grounded in Libyan realities. Now that the fate of the uprising is almost wholly in the hands of those with the best weapons, foremost on people’s minds is how much longer they must wait for the regime to fall.

For many in the developing world, the IMF and its draconian policies of structural adjustment have systematically 'raped' the earth and the poor and violated the human rights of women, says this article about the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It appears that the personal disregard and disrespect for women demonstrated by the man at the highest levels of leadership within the IMF is quite consistent with the gender bias inherent in the IMF’s institutional policies and practice.

Municipal elections appear to have had a dampening impact on service delivery protests, according to research by Municipal IQ, which carries out a Municipal Hotspots Monitor. Municipal IQ reported that there were 10 protests in 2004. This jumped to 34 in 2005, dropped to just two in the last municipal election year in 2006, rose again to 32 in 2007, dropped slightly to 27 in 2008, but jumped steeply to 105 in 2009 and to 111 in 2010. There have been 23 so far this year.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has set September as the deadline for the over 25,000 Angolan refugees to voluntarily leave Zambia for their homeland, failure to which they lose their refugee status at the end of this year. UNHCR representative in Zambia Joyce Mends-Cole, announced in Lusaka that Angolan refugees wishing to repatriate with the assistance of UNHCR had only until the end of September 2011 to do so, following the recommencement of organised Angolan repatriation.

Police in Morocco have violently dispersed protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations, beating them up with batons and taking several into custody. Sunday’s police action in the capital, Rabat, and Casablanca seemed to suggest a tougher government response to the increasingly defiant protests that first erupted in February.

Libyan officials lied about photojournalist Anton Hammerl to the South African government, international relations and cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has said. 'We kept getting reassured at the highest level that he was alive until his colleagues were released and shared the information yesterday [Wednesday],' she told reporters in Pretoria. It was revealed last week that Hammerl has been killed while covering the Libyan conflict.

Pambazuka Press and The Africa Centre invite you to:

In the field of international security, discussions about women and children are usually marginalised. But is it possible to achieve human security without placing women at the centre of the policy agenda?

Discussion with Funmi Olonisakin, Awino Okech, Ecoma Alaga and Ekaette Ikpe, chaired by Patricia Daley.

The speakers' important new book,

Traditional rulers from the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to re-examine the activities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the Niger Delta region. The call was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Port Harcourt and contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Eze Young Ogbonna and Pere Stanley Perediegha Luke, national president and national secretary respectively.

The Bretton Woods Project and partners from around the world are launching imfboss.org, a new website dedicated to tracking the leadership selection processes at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With the IMF's current Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan involved in a media storm, the debate over the IMF's anachronistic and unfair selection process has been reopened.

As health experts gathered in Geneva to attend the 64th World Health Assembly (WHA), global civil society organisations called on World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr. Margaret Chan to address widespread concerns about corporate conflicts of interest regarding global water governance, health and nutrition policy.

Thousands of farmers in Western Kenya are attracting global attention after being the first group in Africa to win financing from the World Bank (WB) to use agriculture to fight climate change. The farmers, spread in 45,000 hectares of land in Bungoma, Malakisi, Bondo, and Kisumu, will receive Sh28 million (US$350,000) from WB's BioCarbon Fund to adopt environmentally-friendly agricultural practices that cut carbon emissions to the atmosphere.