Sanusha Naidu rounds up this week's Sino-African news.

UNHCR staff in Libya have been carrying out interviews with 82 people who were intercepted by the Italian Navy on the high seas on July 1 about 30 nautical miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa. They were transferred to a Libyan ship and later transported to Libya. Based on subsequent interviews, it does not appear that the Italian Navy made any attempt to establish nationalities or reasons for fleeing their countries.

Gender Links is seeking Female and Male Fieldworkers to conduct a Household Survey and Qualitative Research on women and men’s relationships in Gauteng Province. Gender Links, a non-governmental organization which promotes gender equality between women and men, is conducting a research project to understand women and men’s relationships in the province of Gauteng. Gender Links is its headquarters in Cyrildene, Johannesburg.

Cyrus Degraft-Johnson and Alhassan Suhuyini, journalists of two Accra-based radio stations were on the night of July 9, 2009 violently assaulted by security personnel working for the city authority, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA). Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the incident occurred at about 21: 30 GMT in Shiashi, a suburb in the eastern part of Accra, where Degraft-Johnson, reporter of Joy FM, had gone to cover an ongoing demolition exercise by a combined team of AMA guards and police officers to rid the city of illegal structures.

The Institute of Development Studies in collaboration with the Directorate of Public Service (UDSM), Mwalimu Nyerere Chair, UDASA, University of Dar es Salaam School of Law, UDSM Philosophy Club and Educational Perspective UDSM Chapter, is organizing a memorial gathering in honour of the late Professor Haroub M. Othman. The event will be held on 18th July 2009 at Nkrumah Hall, at the University of Dar es Salaam, Main Campus starting from 10 am. This event is open to the general public and you are all invited.

The US is increasingly reliant on oil from West Africa for its daily energy needs and forecasts that up to 25 per cent of imports will hail from the Gulf of Guinea by 2015. Ghana, which discovered oil offshore only recently, is set to become a producer next year. Some Ghanaians say Barack Obama’s choice of the country for his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa was partly related to ambitions to ensure an interest in the country’s estimated 3-4bn barrel reserves.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU began a total and indefinite strike after it became obvious that the government was not ready to sign agreements it jointly reached with ASUU through its Technical committee. Really, what does ASUU want? Why is the government acting up? Is there hope for this country?

Understanding Organisational Leadership through Ubuntu offers a creative, innovative and holistic approach to understanding organizational leadership using the principles embodied in the African philosophy of personhood known as ubuntu – or the essence of being human. Using African proverbs, folktales and indigenous concepts, the book discusses the organizational principles of ubuntu and the leadership lessons that modern organizations can learn from these principles.

The ABM-WC is calling an end to state criminality of criminalizing it's members by applying old apartheid tactics of arresting, assaulting, and shooting people with rubber bullets when they exercise their right to freedom of expression and the right to protest. The movement will not be silenced by the state under the leadership of so called ANC government, and will continue to be vocal using any forms of engagement.

Zimbabwe’s constitutional conference designed as the first stage of drawing up a new constitution for the country collapsed in chaos in Harare on Monday only 10 minutes after the formal proceedings started. Neither President Robert Mugabe nor his coalition partner Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who were scheduled to speak, attended the meeting. Delegates from the two main parties – Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change – disrupted the opening address by the Speaker of Parliament, Lovemore Moyo, throwing bottles of water, jeering and heckling.

The military operations launched against the FDLR since early 2009 have been presented as a bid for the unity (Umoja Wetu) and peace (Kimia II) that have so long eluded eastern DRC. In that light they have received considerable international acclaim and support, particularly through the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. Warnings of potentially devastating consequences for civilian protection over recent months have repeatedly met with the response that this is 'the price to pay for peace.' In May 2009, Oxfam and a number of its partners interviewed residents in some of the areas of North and South Kivu where that price is being exacted.

Samir Amin

“The African Grantmakers Network will change the face of global philanthropy. And it will happen right here in Africa”, said Sarah Mukasa, Director of Programmes at the African Women’s Development Fund, at a meeting organized to establish a network of African grantmakers. After years of careful planning, preparations, consultations and meetings, the AGN was launched in Accra at a meeting convened by the African Women’s Development Fund, TrustAfrica and the Kenya Community Development Foundation—and attended by key African grantmakers.

Uganda, Rwanda and the United Nations High Committee on Refugees set a target date of July 31 for all Rwandan refugees in Uganda to return home, with the U.N.'s refugee commission planning to reduce support for remaining Rwandans in August. The closer that date gets, the more it worries Beatrice Mukasekuru, who has asked that her real name not be used to protect her privacy.

A stringent Bill against homosexuality is in the offing, the state minister for ethics and integrity, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, has said. Addressing a press conference at the Media Centre, Buturo said the country was besieged by homosexuality, pornography, prostitution, human sacrifice, drug abuse, embezzlement and witchcraft to the extent that it was “dangerously becoming a permissive society.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report has revealed that six of Africa’s regions will be unable to grow maize by 2050 as growing seasons get hotter that normal even if the carbon emissions are dramatically reduced. The six countries, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone which most of them are in Sahel, according to the researchers may have nowhere to turn as few countries currently experience their extremely hot projected climates.

In the first case of its kind in Botswana, a woman has successfully sued another woman for publicly revealing her HIV status. The High Court in Lobatse, a city in the southeast, has ruled that Sadi Nokane pay Obakeng Madubela US$1,000 in damages for violating Madubela's right to privacy. Around 55 percent of the population live on two dollars per day.

After a 50-year wait, thousands of Kenyans in Central Province have received the most coveted asset in the country – a piece of land. The move is not only good news for those allocated the land but for the country as a whole as the move will boost food security when the recipients start farming wheat, beans, maize and livestock on the 6,070ha.

Another journalist has been killed in violence-ridden Mogadishu, report the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Mohamud Mohamed Yusuf, a journalist for the private station Radio Holy Quran, was shot in the stomach twice as he was covering the fighting on 4 July in the neighbourhoods surrounding the station, says NUSOJ.

Climate change in Malawi interacts with environmental degradation, notably deforestation, and it is women who suffer most. Women have multiple roles as farmers and bringers of water and firewood and so depend very directly on natural resources. At the same time their position in society means that generally they have less access to income and credit and little or no voice in decision making. That resulting increased vulnerability feeds the spread of HIV and AIDS, for example if women resort to selling sex for food during the hungry months before the harvest. This Oxfam report details the impact of climate change on livelihoods in Malawi, and outlines the ways in which people are adapting to these changes.