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.

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.

With women now comprising 61 percent of all people infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, international donors, governments and advocacy organisations are looking more closely at the connections between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality. A new report released last week by two Washington-based think tanks, the Centre for Global Development (CGD) and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), more closely explores the connection between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality, and to what extent donors and countries are using this knowledge to help in the fight against AIDS.

This bulletin, published by the Population Reference Bureau, provides a sketch of urban health in developing countries, documenting the intra-urban differences in health for a number of countries and showing how the risks facing the urban poor compare with those facing rural villagers. It begins with an overview of the multiple dimensions of urban poverty and a summary of internationally comparable evidence on the urban health differentials associated with poverty.

Members of the Ghana Reparation and Repatriation Foundation (GRARF), a local NGO operating in the north, have appealed to the government to take a strong stand and asked for compensation from Britain and America for their involvement in the Trans Atlantic Chattel slavery in Ghana. The members reminded government that the United Nations Human Rights Commission has classified the Trans Atlantic Chattel Slavery as crime against humanity and that must be pursued to its logical conclusion without any favour.

Risky sexual behaviour has a language of its own on the University of Zimbabwe's (UZ) campus in the capital, Harare. When female students arrive, they join an informal sorority known as the "university spinster association", or USA, while their male counterparts are inducted into the "university bachelor association", or UBA

As an African Union summit on agricultural investments opens in Libya, donors and non-profits are calling participants' attention to the role smallholder farmers – mostly women – can have in feeding their communities. Agriculture is an overlooked “emergency” that deserves as much attention as the global financial crisis, according to Kate Norgrove with Oxfam UK’s office in Dakar, Senegal.

Journalists covering an HIV/AIDS workshop for Swazi parliamentarians were on 30 June 2009 kicked out of the workshop after MPs and senators expressed displeasure at their presence. The parliamentarians asked the organizers of the workshop to expel the journalists because they wanted to learn freely without the presence of the media.

The fourth largest river in Africa, the mighty Zambezi, is a lifeblood to 32 million people, from land-locked Zambia to Mozambique on the Indian Ocean. But its blessing is also its curse. Climate change is blamed for an increase in rainfall and flooding along the river's 2,574 kilometre course through Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.