SA is not in any kind of energy crisis, despite the unfolding crisis at nuclear plants in Japan, an activist organisation has said. 'It's [the energy crisis] a complete fabrication. Of our total capacity, domestic users account for 18 per cent,' Muna Lakhani, Cape Town branch co-ordinator for Earthlife Africa told News24. Recently the government has announced that it intends to move toward a green energy production, but has come under fire from environmentalists for continued discussions on nuclear energy.

Tired of the picturesque island's debilitating political crisis, Malagasy youth are reading the riot act to their politicians and have asked them to put their act together. But with limited access to the corridors of power, Madagascar's young population have so far been reduced to airing their grievances at public forums. 'The young have been pushed to take part in many political battles. But once the backed people seized power, they always failed to solve our problems,' said Mr Désiré Ranaivoson, the head of the National Platform of the Young (PNJ) and one of Madagascar's interim president's right-hand men.

The Presidency tried to convince the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday (17 May) that it should not be compelled to release a report on the 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe to the Mail & Guardian newspaper. However, the Mail & Guardian argued the release of the report was in the public interest because it would throw light on whether President Robert Mugabe legitimately remained in office after the elections. Both the North Gauteng High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal agreed with the newspaper. The Presidency had now turned to the Constitutional Court in an attempt to keep the report secret.

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) has bowed to the pressure by donors and Monday (16 May) released a much awaited National Governance and Corruption Survey report. The report shows generally that corruption is still a serious problem in the country, with respondents listing the police force, judiciary and education sectors as areas which they perceive to be the most corrupt in the country.

Botswana's government closed all primary and secondary schools on Monday (16 May) after violent clashes between police and students angry over a strike by teachers and other public workers. The violence began last week at a secondary school in Molepolole, a village 60km south-east of the capital Gaborone, and spread to schools across the country. Students have missed most of their classes since teachers and other public-sector workers went on strike on 18 April. Public service employees are demanding a 16 per cent salary increment, while government is offering five per cent.

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.'

A Kenyan official says a British human rights investigator looking into the illegal deportations and detentions of terror suspects from Kenya to Uganda has herself been deported. Hassan Omar Hassan of the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says lawyer Clara Gutteridge was deported on government orders.

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...

Employment wise, in sub-Saharan Africa women occupy just one in three paid jobs outside agriculture, and it comes as no surprise that women are typically paid less than their male counterparts and have less secure employment. Despite this, there is an increase in women entering the labour force throughout their child-bearing years, finding ways to juggle the pressures of their unpaid family work and paid employment.

In the context of the International Year for People of African Descent, the Anti-Discrimination Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is launching a Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent from 10 October to 4 November 2011.

Government will pay out millions of rands to compensate victims of apartheid era atrocities, the Sunday Times reported. Those who qualify for financial assistance include victims and their children, even if they were born in or out of wedlock or were adopted. People with parental responsibilities over victims and their children will also be eligible for compensation.

Egypt’s new leadership has promised to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza permanently after more than five years of partial and occasionally full closure, but observers wonder how far this will go to ease the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). 'Our intention is to alleviate the human problems and living conditions for the people in Gaza,' Ambassador Mahna Bakhoum, spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told IRIN. 'It is under study now - how, when and what [the opening of Rafah crossing will involve]. This is all being discussed by the government and by the whole country, not just the Foreign Ministry.'

This World Health Organisation fact file contains 10 facts on how smoking impacts on women. 'Women who smoke are more likely than those who do not to experience infertility and delays in conceiving,' it says, 'Smoking during pregnancy increases risks of premature delivery, stillbirth and newborn death, and may cause a reduction in breast milk. Smoking increases women's risk for cancer of the cervix.'

The Kenyan government and rights groups have expressed outrage at a project in western Kenya that is paying HIV-positive women to undergo long-term contraception. Project Prevention, a US-based NGO, offers cash to drug addicts in the US and the UK to undergo long-term contraception or permanent sterilisation. In 2010, the project started offering HIV-positive women in western Kenya US$40 to be fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can prevent pregnancy for over a decade. The project uses a medical practitioner in the western Kenyan town of Kakamega to insert the IUDs for $7 per woman; so far, 22 women have undergone the procedure.

Up to five people were killed when Ugandan police clashed with opposition supporters who attacked cars carrying African leaders at the inauguration of President Yoweri Museveni. A government spokesman confirmed at least one death in the capital, Kampala, on Thursday. But local independent TV station WBS reported that five had died when police opened fire on opposition supporters who threw stones at the cars. At the same time as the inauguration, a crowd of thousands supporting Besigye had gathered in the capital to welcome him back to Uganda from Kenya.

An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone at the weekend as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles. The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to bring them under control. The group, who call themselves the Mitchell’s Plain Backyarders’ Association, moved on to the Swartklip Sports Field on Saturday.

Global Civilians for Peace in Libya is embarking on its second fact-finding mission into the war-torn country. The delegation is comprised of academics, professionals, journalists and ex-military personnel from Europe, North America, England, Middle East and Africa. The delegates are independent and not allied to any government or official body. An Italian camera crew will be embedded with the group, a TV producer from Britain and a French journalist.

New Readers Publishers (NRP) is a nonprofit publishing project based in the Centre for Adult Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. NRP supplies readers with adult content and simplified language in Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, TshiVenda and Xitsonga. NRP is conducting an intensive residential workshop for writers and editors from 24-27 July 2011 in East London.

In preparation for the upcoming 2011 International Labour Conference (ILC), the International Domestic Workers' Network (IDWN) has prepared a pamphlet to rebut common arguments against passing the ILO Convention enabling rights and protections for domestic workers. Visit their website to read the full document.

As the world focuses its attention on oil rich North Africa and the Middle East, a wave of police brutality within sub-Saharan African states of the Commonwealth has gone largely unnoticed and unpunished. Uganda, Swaziland and Mozambique have seen a wave of protests. But little attention has been paid to the uniformly brutal way in which they are being dealt with. These are all Commonwealth countries. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) strongly condemns the routine use of intimidation, beatings, illegal detention, torture and excessive use of force being used within these countries to curb legitimate expressions of dissent and the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.