In this months newsletter Daniel Large provides commentary on relations between China and South Sudan, as well as the potential role for China to play in the newly independent state. In our second commentary piece, Peter Bosshard provides insight into the long-term impact of China's Three Gorges Dam and the lessons they offer Africa as the number of large-scale hydro-power projects on the continent continues to increase. Translations of the two commentaries are also provided in our continuing Chinese series. The July edition is available .

Angolan authorities should explain the arrest and incommunicado detention of a radio journalist for reporting on a nationwide wave of mass fainting of people, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Since April, more than 800 people, mostly teenage schoolchildren, have fainted after complaining of sore throats and eyes, shortness of breath, and coughs, the Catholic Church-run station Radio Ecclesia reported.

The 7th conference of 'The Revival of Panafricanism Forum' was held on Saturday, 16 July 2011. The topic of the conference was 'Panafricanism: A Viable Ideology to Address Africa’s Rape Redux/Euro-American 21st Century Neo-Colonial Re-Conquest and Scramble for Africa.' The speakers were Dr. Molefi Kete Asante (keynote), Peter Bailey, Maurice Carney, and Chioma Oruh. Videos of the conference are posted on Youtube:
- (Part 1)
- (Dr. Molefi Asante, keynote speaker)
- (Closing remarks and comments).

US officials led a far-reaching international campaign aimed at keeping former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide exiled in South Africa, rendering him a virtual prisoner there for the last seven years, according to secret US State Department cables. The cables show that high-level US and UN officials even discussed a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from 'gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti'.

More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers. 'Most say they left their country [to avoid] a prolonged military conscription, but they also say they want to join their families on the road,' Moses Okello, UNHCR’s representative in Ethiopia, told IRIN. Ethiopia hosts at least 61,000 Eritrean refugees.

Witnesses' chilling depictions of a new Sudanese genocide at an emergency US congressional hearing quelled any remnants of doubt that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Nuba mountain region of South Kordofan, reports IPS Africa. 'It is a war of horror,' Sudanese bishop Andudu Adam Elnail told a House committee here. Elnail's closest colleagues had told him they witnessed two pits being dug at a school one night, where bodies were later transported to the site, put in 'wide body bags' and thrown in the pits – something to add to the heap of evidence piling up in Washington that a decades-old campaign to exterminate the ethnic Nuba has resumed in the wake of the south's independence.

South Africa's preparations to host the next major round of climate talks have met with scepticism from activists critical of what they say is the country's lack of leadership on environmental issues. The high-level meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for 28 November to 9 December in the eastern port city of Durban, is seen as the last chance to renew the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement with binding targets for cutting greenhouse gases. But environmentalists have voiced concern that South African organisers are not doing enough to lay the groundwork for an ambitious conference that will make hard commitments on climate change and raise the cash to achieve them.

Lingering armed conflicts have kept 40 per cent of African children out of school, according to a global report released recently in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 2011 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, which focuses on crisis and their underlying causes, said the impact of armed conflicts on education had been widely neglected, becoming a 'hidden crisis' which is 'reinforcing poverty, undermining economic growth and holding back the progress of nations'. The report was presented at the 26-28 July Kinshasa Round Table on 'Education, Peace and Development', organised by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa.

The promotion of two Côte d’Ivoire military commanders against whom there are serious allegations of involvement in grave crimes raises concerns about President Alassane Ouattara’s commitment to end impunity and ensure justice for victims, Human Rights Watch has said. On 3 August 2011, President Ouattara signed a promotion making Chérif Ousmane the second-in-command for presidential security (Groupe de sécurité de la présidence de la République). During the final battle for Abidjan, Ousmane was the head of the Republican Forces operations in Yopougon neighborhood, where scores of perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo were executed extrajudicially.

Faced with the slow response to the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons, the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) convened a debate over 3–6 July in Kampala on gaps between ratification and implementation, engaging member states and involving civil society.

Stephen Oola writes about how a recent International Association for the Study of Forced Migration conference explored the links between transitional justice and forced migration.

Berna Ataitom makes the case for the local integration of refugees in their host countries, describing it as the forgotten yet ultimate solution.

Existing ‘normative social, political and legal structures do not support’ internally displaced persons and ‘their quest to own and have access to properties or land’, writes Denis Barnabas Otim, in an exploration of the relationship between IDPs and property rights in Africa.

Sun Biofuels Mozambique, a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Sun Biofuels, has exported the first batch of 30 tonnes of Jatropha oil, from its fields in the central Mozambican province of Manica, to the German airliner 'Lufthansa'. Cited in the daily paper 'Noticias', Sun Biofuels Mozambique manager for corporate affairs, Sergio Gouveia said that the exports of Jatropha oil follows an order placed by Lufthansa for testing on its planes, Mozambique's news agency, AIM, reported. 'Civil aviation is an interesting market, that's why we are looking forward for Lufthansa test results, which has shown a keen interest in our production,' stressed Gouveia.

Malawi journalists were beaten by police in churches and hospitals in Lilongwe, and were blamed for the demonstrations that swept the country last week. The country's radio stations were also shut down in the 'national interest'. Meanwhile, private media houses shut down last week after they heard that their buildings were about to be torched, said Kondwani Munthali, a journalist from Nation Publications.

After being filed two weeks ago, it is now only a matter of time before the MP for Gaborone Central, Dumelang Saleshando, presents a motion of no confidence in President Ian Khama and his government. Because the motion is not likely to pass, Saleshando intends to use it to highlight the shortcomings of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government under Khama, whom he considers unfit for office. Speaking in an interview, Saleshando blamed the recent public service strike on Khama, saying as unions bargained with the employer, the president had seen fit to tour the country vowing that there would be no salary increase.

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has said it is worried by the rate at which state security agencies are arresting citizens on charges of insulting President Robert Mugabe, whose cases the organisation is receiving every day. 'One of the most fascinating things at ZLHR is that everyday we are getting a case of a person being charged with the law of insulting President. If you say anything critical especially mentioning governance and in particular current President you are likely to spend a night in jail, and that to me is a symptomatic of a country which is not ready to accept democracy. Democracy in its own allows citizens to freely express themselves without fearing for what will happen after.'

Nigerian security forces killed at least 23 people in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri in retaliation for a bomb attack blamed on a radical Islamist sect, Amnesty International said on Monday (25 July). Boko Haram, a radical group which wants sharia law more widely applied across Africa's most populous nation, has been behind almost daily shootings and attacks with homemade bombs in and around Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Some 40,000 famine-hit people have fled to the Somali capital Mogadishu over the past month in search of food and water, the UN refugees agency said. 'Over the past month, UNHCR figures show that nearly 40,000 Somalis displaced by drought and famine have converged on Mogadishu in search of food, water, shelter and other assistance,' said Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 'A further 30,000 have arrived at settlements around Mogadishu.'

A gallery of images from Hossam el-Hamalawy and published on the London Guardian website illustrates how a protest march towards army headquarters in Cairo ended in violence.

Pirates have hijacked an Italian diesel tanker off Benin in western Africa in an attack of the kind more usually associated with Somalia. Assailants boarded the RBD Anema e Core in the Gulf of Guinea, officials in Benin and Italy confirmed. The Gulf of Guinea has become increasingly important for its potential energy reserves which have attracted international interests, BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports from Dakar.

At least nine people have died in clashes between unidentified 'armed gangsters' and security forces in northwest Burundi, sources said. The incident, the most deadly since the end of the 1993-2006 civil war, came amid increasing reports in recent weeks of attacks by 'armed gangs'.

South Sudan has barred people of Somali origin from entering its territory by road, creating a potential diplomatic and trade crisis with its neighbours. A senior Kenya Revenue Authority official, who sought anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said that the rules were introduced two weeks ago due to what is believed to be security reasons. Kenyan traders, including those of Somali origin, have flocked to South Sudan in search of new business opportunities.

A Zambian newspaper editor has appeared in a Lusaka High Court to commence his defence in a defamation suit brought against him by President Rupiah Banda. President Banda, in power for almost three years now, sued The Post editor Fred M’membe and his publication for defamation ahead of the 2008 polls after the paper allegedly said he was 'corrupt and a liar'.

The government failed to stop a teachers’ strike last week after the ministers responsible insisted there was no money to meet their demands. Education Minister Jessica Alupo and other line ministers told MPs on the Parliamentary Social Services Committee that their hands were tied and that the matter had been forwarded to Minister of Public Service Henry Kajura, who asked teachers to be patient as there was no money.

The trend of international land grabbing - when governments and private firms invest in or purchase large tracts of land in other countries for the purpose of agricultural production and export - can have serious environmental and social consequences, according to researchers at the Worldwatch Institute. Deals that focus solely on financial profit can leave rural populations more vulnerable and without land, employment opportunities, or food security.

Inmates in Ugandan prisons are subject to brutal compulsory labour, frequent violence, miserable overcrowding, and disease, Human Rights Watch said in a report examining conditions in 16 prisons throughout the country. Over half of those in Ugandan prisons are in pretrial detention and may be held for years without having been convicted of any crime, Human Rights Watch said. Profits from prisoner labour often benefit individual prison officers, while prisoners suffer illness from inadequate food, water, and basic hygiene.

As African Union and NATO leaders push for a political solution to the Libyan crisis, many of the thousands of refugees and migrants stranded on the Libyan- Tunisian border say their plight continues to fall on deaf ears. Sitting outside her makeshift tent with her daughter and grandson, 63-year-old Somali refugee Hawiyeh Awal tries to find a bit of shelter from the scorching sun on the Tunisian desert. 'I’m so scared that I’m going to die in this hot desert,' she says. 'I have diabetes and I’ve lost more than eight kilos since coming here because of the hot weather.'

For the first time ever, the Kenyan finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars, about 3.6 per cent of the primary education budget, to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls. This comes after persistent pressure from women parliamentarians who took the issue of girls’ absenteeism from school, due to lack of sanitary pads, to parliament. It was a campaign that left their male counterparts speechless, for such matters are rarely spoken about in public, let alone in parliament, in Kenya’s conservative society.

A call for applications to grantees seeking to organise activities to mark 16 Days of Activism against Gender based Violence has been issued by African Women’s Development Fund. The maximum amount of grant disbursed per organisation will be US$1,000.

Health workers say an apparent rise in contraceptive use in Nigeria stems largely from a willingness by traditional and religious leaders in some regions to use their influence in promoting reproductive health. In the predominantly Muslim north, where contraceptive use has historically been far lower than the national average, the support of traditional leaders has helped change attitudes in communities where contraception was long regarded as taboo.

Post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problems experienced by Somalis who fled their country to settle in the UK, according to Abdi Gure, a community development worker for Mind, a mental health organization based in Harrow, north London. Uncertainty over immigration status, housing and language barriers can compound mental illness but fear of being stigmatized may prevent sufferers from seeking support from their community as well as from the mental health services.

Zimbabwe’s Justice and Legal Affairs ministry has dismissed reports that the country has failed to recruit a hangman since 2005, after several people rushed to hand in their applications for the supposedly vacant post. The ministry has said there is no opening for the job and instead blamed the cabinet for 'sitting' on requests to carry out executions since last year. There are 55 convicts on death row, some who have been there for up to 13 years.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron may want to get his own house in order before lecturing African leaders…

‘South Africa became the regional economic powerhouse that it is today partly on the backs of immigrant labourers from the SADC who helped build the country’s economy. Is it unreasonable for people to want to share in the fruits of what they helped create?’ asks Mandisi Majavu.

For the past three decades, neoliberalism has insisted that ‘there is no alternative’ to semi-colonialism and the diktats of the IMF and World Bank. But, writes Senegal’s Guy Marius Sagna, our people ‘have enough common sense to understand that things have to change’.

African prosperity relies on a wholesale rejection of the Western free trade model, which was not the view of David Cameron or the delegates he travelled with on a recent trip to Africa.

With UK Prime Minister David Cameron continuing to face pressure over the News International scandal, Cameron Duodu considers the parallels with Watergate in the US in the 1970s.