Côte d’Ivoire has one president but two 'treasuries' - one official, the other funded from the continued collection of road tolls and other taxes by former rebels. During the nearly nine years rebels controlled northern Côte d’Ivoire, the civil administration, comprising such things as mayors’ offices and the treasury, did not function and the rebels collected 'taxes'. Months after Alassane Ouattara was finally able to take charge of the country, 'parallel' taxation has yet to be eliminated: The disorder and unpredictable extra costs are affecting people’s livelihoods, just as they are looking to bounce back from months of chaos and economic stagnation.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has condemned the raid on a Tahrir Square sit-in on 1 August. 'The return of violence and repression after a revolution against a dictatorial regime is extremely disappointing, and the statements of some members of the Military Council betraying the revolutionaries and describing them as "thugs, vandals and agitators aiming to drive a wedge between the people and the army" are unacceptable.' ANHRI's press release contains a list of the detained, the injured and the disappeared.

With the health of the country’s economy hanging in the balance and financial markets watching closely, President Museveni convened a crisis Cabinet meeting to try to come up with austerity measures that would deliver a blueprint for economic recovery. Across the nation, the rising public concern caused by double-digit inflation - currently standing at 18.7 per cent, is palpable. Of late, public employees, particularly teachers, medical workers and the business, are increasingly growing impatient as a result of the depreciation of the Shilling and the rising cost of living.

Mali will soon hold a referendum to vote on political reforms after the country's parliament adopted proposed changes to its supreme law. The National Assembly's vote was overwhelming in favour of the constitutional changes, with 141 deputies supporting them. Only three deputies rejected the draft while one member abstained. Some 105 out of 122 articles are targeted in the reforms but the presidential term limit remains pegged at two and the governing system semi-presidential, although the president's duties will be reinforced.

The goal of this material is to connect some of the ideas and energy from the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Bolivia in 2010 with the issues on the table at UN climate talks. It contains briefs on 13 issues, including climate debt, mitigation, adaption, the dangers of climate markets and gender and climate justice.

In recent years, Egypt has become home-away-from-home for a big number of Africans migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Though the majority of these are Sudanese from both sides, Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis also make up the numbers, with a mixture of other African nationalities. Despite their numbers here, there are no reliable statistics of African migrants in the country, but most organisations quote a figure between 250,000 to a few million.

Graffiti is suddenly all over Cairo - on schools, on telephone exchange boxes, on empty walls and corrugated fencing around building sites, reports the New Yorker magazine. 'Daubs of slogans, finely rendered panoramas of Tahrir Square, and, increasingly, the kind of biting satire and subversion...' There's a great gallery of the graffiti at the top of this article, with 25 scrollable images.

Swaziland's pro-democracy activists have threatened to march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against SA’s R2,4bn conditional rescue package for the kingdom. Swaziland has been hit with protests this year after its government froze public sector salaries and cut social services. Protesters have accused King Mswati of looting state coffers to finance his extravagant lifestyle. The Swaziland Solidarity Network, which represents a consortium of pro-democracy movements in the kingdom, said it would organise protests at the Union Buildings and around SA to voice displeasure at the loan and in support of their demand that King Mswati lift the ban on political parties, in place since 1973.

The Sowetan newspaper apologised to City Press editor Ferial Haffajee on Thursday (04 August) for publishing an insulting column. 'In his latest column, [Eric] Miyeni crossed the line between robust debate and the condonation of violence,' said Sowetan and Sunday World general manager Justice Malala and Avusa editor-in-chief Mondli Makhanya in a statement on page 15. Miyeni's column, "Haffajee does it for white masters", appeared in the daily on Monday. He wrote that 'in the 80s she'd [Haffajee] probably have had a burning tyre around her neck'. City Press last week reported about African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema's trust, which he allegedly uses to bankroll his lavish lifestyle.

The four armed robbers who gang raped her may be serving time for their crimes, but six years later justice has turned out to be a myth for Mildred Mapingure. 'I was silently praying I was not pregnant,' Mapingure told IPS from her rural home in Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe. It is illegal to terminate a pregnancy in Zimbabwe unless the ‘pregnancy endangers the life of the mother and/or is a result of unlawful penetration (rape)’, according to the Termination of Pregnancy Act. And abortion is only allowed in the first trimester. When Mapingure realised the inevitable had happened two months after being raped, prosecutors rushed the application for a termination of pregnancy order through the Chinhoyi regional magistrate’s court in Mashonaland West. But long court delays resulted in the order being granted when she was eight months pregnant. Mapingure had no option but to give birth.

The African Union has delayed a fundraiser for millions of starving Somalis due to what is said were scheduling challenges. The event, initially set for 9 August, would now be held on 25 August at the bloc's Addis Ababa headquarters, although this new date remains tentative. 'The AU has serious financial challenges and member countries are also reluctant to pay their dues. It makes the upcoming fund raising [event] challenging,' the commissioner said.

In this working paper, Ruth Hall from the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness and capital elsewhere in southern Africa and the rest of the continent. The research considers the changing character, scale and location of South African investments elsewhere in the region and the continent, focussing specifically on the AgriSA-Congo deal (the largest deal concluded thus far), and acquisitions by the two South African sugar giants, Illovo and Tongaat-Hulett, for outgrower and estate expansion elsewhere in the region. The study addresses the degree to which South Africa is no longer merely exporting its farmers, but also its value chains, to the rest of the continent — and what this means for trajectories of agrarian change.

Systemchange.ca is a free, public, interactive website – a multi-media tool for climate justice. With the full launch of the project in September 2011, you will find featured videos here including speakers such as Maude Barlow on the Rights of Nature, Peter Victor on no growth economics, former UN Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solón on climate debt, John Cartwright on good green jobs, Naomi Klein on climate justice organising, Bill McKibben on climate science, Nnimmo Bassey on climate debt repayment and more.

Whites still occupy 73.1 per cent of top management positions in the country, the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) says. Black people made up 12.7 per cent of top management, Indians 6.8 per cent and coloureds 4.6 per cent, the CEE said in its 11th annual report released in Pretoria. Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said she was disappointed at the slow pace of reform at top management.

'In many ways,' writes Sophia Azeb on the blog Africa is a Country about the trial of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, 'this trial is a showpiece.' Azeb writes that it is another attempt by the military to distract Egyptians from their own despotism. 'While many are well aware of this, Mubarak facing trial and conviction for his crimes against the people is still very important. I doubt this trial will keep the military safe from further demonstrations and actions just as I doubt this trial will end well – whether Mubarak is convicted or not. This spectacle is disturbing to me, and I don’t think imprisoning or executing the Mubarak family will mean justice is served.'

New research suggests that HIV epidemics are emerging in North Africa and the Middle East among men who have sex with men (MSM). According to researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Tunisia are seeing high rates of infection in gay and bisexual men. Across the region, homosexuality is illegal or frowned upon in most countries. The researchers said it was a common belief that little or no data is held on MSM HIV transmissions in North Africa and the Middle East. However, they discovered some reliable and previously unpublished sources.

In many countries women’s rights have been abused for so long that many women long ago stopped fighting for them. Not so Unity Dow, a lawyer who challenged the unequal citizenship rights in her native Botswana and won. Her 1992 lawsuit was recognised last month as a landmark case in the fight for women’s rights when UN Women published its flagship report: 'Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice'. Dow succeeded in overturning the section of Botswana’s Citizenship Act that prohibited Botswanan women who married foreigners from passing on their Botswanan nationality to their children.

The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has expressed concern over the volatile political atmosphere in the country as incidents of politically motivated human rights violations shot up to 1,014 in June from 994 recorded in May. In its summary on political and food-related violations, ZPP said Midlands province recorded the highest number of incidents, pegged at 214, up from 201 in May. The province witnessed an increase in assault, harassment and intimidation cases while Mashonaland East recorded a drop from 188 to 172 reported cases.

South Africa’s young democracy may have been a shining example to the rest of the world for a while, but dreams of real freedom of expression and of the media seem to be nearing the end of their usefulness to SA's ruling party says this article, which focuses on the province of Mpumalanga. 'There’s a shadowy force that threatens, arrests, assaults and otherwise intimidates reporters who ask inconvenient questions and publish uncomfortable truths. As Jacob Zuma’s fight to retain another term in office intensifies, the malevolence is spreading.'

Security forces broke up demonstrations by hundreds of people after weeks of electricity cuts in Niger, with several protesters wounded and arrested Monday 1 August, radio reports and police said. Police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who took to the streets of the central town of Tanout after a first day of protests on Sunday, private Anfani radio said.