This year’s conference amends Kwame Nkrumah’s and Cheikh Anta Diop’s challenge to the African Personality—to move beyond mere festivals and cultural celebrations of African identity—to introduce a cohesive Pan-African Personality configured to reflect the distinct cultural character of African aspirations at home and abroad. The Pan-African personality embodies the historical memory, common sense, collective consciousness, artifacts, social institutions, innovations and creative visions of the composite African People.

Anger against the push by MPs to increase their pay was on Thursday written on the faces of these Kenyans demonstrating outside Parliament. But inside the Chamber, the people’s representatives were unmoved in their resolve for more pay and refused to adjourn until the extra money was in their pockets. MPs, with the apparent support of the front bench, refused to second an adjournment motion moved by Government joint Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo to pave way for the break until August 10.

Rwanda has expressed its concern over the way the authorities in South Africa are investigating the shooting of a former Rwandan army chief of staff. Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa was wounded outside his house in Johannesburg last month.

Anti-corruption watchdogs have shown their teeth, but Egypt's fat cats appear safe from prosecution as long as they stay in favour with the regime. "The state investigates corruption but usually only after officials are out of office, and only with the green light from above," says anti-corruption expert Ahmed Sakr Ashour. "We need (to prosecute) these officials while they are in office and abusing power."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) today suspended proceedings in the case of a Congolese warlord accused of recruiting child soldiers, saying that prosecutors have refused orders to disclose information to his defence. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the founder and leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri region of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), faces two counts of war crimes: conscripting and enlisting child soldiers into the military wing of his group and then using them to participate in hostilities between September 2002 and August 2003

Hundreds of Somalis in five towns controlled by Islamist rebels protested against plans to deploy extra peacekeepers in Somalia. The protesters including veiled women and children brandishing AK-47 automatic rifles took the streets in the port town Kismayo, around 310 miles (500 kilometers) south of the capital of Mogadishu. They were chanting slogans against the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and western backed government led by former Islamist leader Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Egypt's biggest opposition bloc, the Muslim Brotherhood, has set up a website to help potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei gather support in his campaign for change and political reform. The website, also joined by other opposition groups, has collected almost 3,000 signatures since its launch late on Wednesday, in a sign the banned group is capable of mustering large numbers of supporters for a cause.

The EASSy cable connecting the east coat seaboard is currently in its testing phase and will go live some time around the middle of this month. Its WIOCC shareholder consortium has always promised lower rates and better transit prices and these are on their way. But the new landing stations have energised backbone roll-out, particularly in Tanzania. All of this will leave satellite as a niche transport application in the key East African markets. Russell Southwood looks at the heady pace of change.

Moroccan media distorts the image of women, according to a recent survey undertaken by the communication ministry. Overall, Moroccan females believe that their image is so misrepresented and manipulated that it does not mirror the reality of Moroccan women, the survey said. Advertising and drama are the farthest from reality in terms of perception of everyday women's lives, said women whose opinions were recorded in the final report released on June 30th.

Scientists are pooling remote-sensing satellite data and geographical information services for two pan-African digital observatories that will provide accurate and readily accessible information on biodiversity and forest cover for policy-makers. Under a grant awarded in 2009, the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) is supporting the development of the observatories, details of which were discussed at the fourth EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF 2010).

When Macklean Kyomya came to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, at 19, she found work as a lap-dancer in a nightclub and was soon accepting money from clients in exchange for sex. "I enjoyed the feeling of power I had over men; I had a pimp who looked after me so I was never forced to do anything I didn't choose to," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I was still doing my A-levels, so the money helped pay my way."

A series of meetings to educate residents about xenophobia in the informal settlement of Du Noon, Cape Town, will begin on 7 July and run until the final game of the FIFA World Cup on 11 July. On 27 June units of the South African army were deployed to the township in what police described as an "anti-crime operation", after widespread reports had been circulating that foreign nationals would be attacked on 12 July - the day after the final soccer world cup match.

Cameroon's government has rejected the claim by a gay asylum seeker in the UK that he would face persecution if he returned home. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of the man, and a similar claimant from Iran.

Nigeria's president has said the hundreds of posts on his Facebook page helped persuade him to reverse his suspension of the national football team from international competition. "I have listened to your voices," Goodluck Jonathan said in a posting on the social networking site.

The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon. The south-east African country, with its coastline of 2,700 km stretching along the Indian Ocean, has increasingly been subjected to environmental disasters over the past decade.

The progress made by Guinea-Bissau following last year’s political crisis could be jeopardized unless major reforms in the areas of defence and security are carried out, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report. Recent months have witnessed rising political and security tensions in the country, where a series of political assassinations last year had threatened security and stability but where order was restored with the election of Malam Bacai Sanhá in the June 2009 presidential election.

South African unions dropped a threat to strike at power utility Eskom this week after receiving a higher wage offer, ending concerns about electricity supplies during the soccer World Cup. Widespread power cuts could also have dented manufacturing and mining companies' output in Africa's biggest economy, the world's top platinum and fourth-largest gold producer.

An international autopsy team looking into the death of a prominent Congolese human rights activist was unable to give a conclusive cause of death. The death of Floribert Chebeya, whose corpse was found in his car last month after he was summoned to see the police chief, caused outrage and led to calls for an international investigation.

The World Bank has approved financing in the amount of US$44.7 million from the International Development Association (IDA) to the Government of Ghana as additional funding for the ongoing eGhana Project. The original eGhana Project of US$40 million was approved in 2006 to support the Ghana Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development Program.

With a view to raising awareness about available protections of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Kenyans in the Bill of Rights Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya hosted a Civic Education day on 19 June. The proposed new constitution, a summary of 18 chapters, was a theme for this day with discussions on how it will affect the Kenyan LGBT community.