AFRODAD has published a new report entitled ' Ecological Debt: the case of Tanzania'. The report interrogates and defines the concept of ecological debt, it traces the origins and applicability of the concept in Africa and more specifically in Tanzania, it identified the fact that repayment of Third World financial debt is having destructive effects on natural environments.

On 22 September, a shocking study from Oxfam International provided the evidence and insight on how the World Bank, coupled with the United Nations, used the carbon credit scheme introduced by Al Gore, and other green advocates, to literally rob landowners in the country of Uganda of their property, and even bringing about the death of a child when they burned down homes and villages. All so that a grove of trees could be planted on that land.

President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire is determined to apprehend compatriots he accuses of committing crimes during the country’s protracted post-election crisis. The position bumps against his other declared quest for national reconciliation. When he arrived in Accra on an official visit on 6 October, President Ouattara sought to proclaim national reconciliation but at the same time pushed for the arrest and repatriation to Cote d’Ivoire of persons who have been indicted for war crimes. Earlier, his foreign minister, Mr Daniel Kablan Duncan, had signed a tripartite agreement with Ghana and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of the approximately 18,000 Ivorian refugees.

Sierra Leone's opposition parties have announced an indefinite suspension of their participation in parliament, citing 'attacks on democracy' they say are being perpetrated by the governing All Peoples Congress (APC) party of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Among other things, they demanded the 'immediate' lifting of a ban by the police on political processions, rallies and public meetings.

A network of Pan-Africanists from Ubuntu Pan African Network and Pan Africanist Unity groups are initiating an invitation to Cynthia McKinney to serve as the African World Envoy starting 28 October 2011. It has been recognized that Cynthia McKinney, a former US Representative and 2008 Presidential Election Candidate, has contributed her voice and her life to justice and WORLD peace. She is a long time proponent of abolishing NATO and a tireless voice against the genocidal exploitation of humans and the environment by multinational companies and the West.

14 October will see the launch of the book 'The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive
Accumulation and the Peasantry'. The launch forms part of a day-long event taking place at Nyerere theatre one at the University of Dar es Salaam, which will see top academics discussing the theme of the book. Click on the link provided to access the full programme.

There has been an increase in the number of cholera cases and deaths in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo where an outbreak has been ongoing since March, say humanitarian agencies. At least 6,910 cases and 384 deaths had been reported as of 3 October, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), compared with a total of 3,896 cases and some 265 deaths by 20 July 2011.

The counterfeit medicine business is a big business in Ghana. Experts say only 60 per cent of anti-malarial medicines in the country are genuine; the remaining 40 per cent are fake. As a result hundreds of people are dying yearly. But the institutions charged with the responsibility of dealing with the problem appear not to have the capacity to end it. This documentary investigates the counterfeit medicine business and reveals the business doesn’t look like ending now.

Every graduate in Ghana is mandated to do a year’s national service. The programme coordinated by the National Service Secretariat was introduced 30 years ago. The purpose was for graduate students to give their first fruits of labour to their country. Students should also be posted to areas where they can best apply the knowledge acquired at university. This documentary highlights concerns the programme is not achieving the purpose for which it was introduced.

At least 24 people have been killed and scores more injured in clashes between mostly Coptic demonstrators and military police outside the state television building in central Cairo. Essam Sharaf, Egypt's interim prime minister, called for a calm early on Monday morning as a curfew was imposed in central areas of the capital, including Tahrir Square. Egypt's leadership also held an emergency meeting late on Sunday to discuss the situation, with clashes also reported in Alexandria, Egypt's second city.

Police in the Tunisian capital have used tear gas in an attempt to disperse hundreds of protesters who were attacking authorities with stones and batons. The protesters, who are aligned with conservative Islamic groups, had gathered at the main university in Tunis on Sunday to protest against a ban on wearing the niqab, or full-face veil, as well as the closing of a mosque near the campus.

This article from Project Syndicate looks at Egypt’s public finances. 'The interest that the country pays on its foreign loans is larger than its budget for education, healthcare, and housing combined. Indeed, these debt-service costs alone account for 22% of the Egyptian government’s total expenditures. The impact has become impossible to ignore. With growing political uncertainty and a slowing economy, Egypt is likely to witness decreasing government revenues, increasing demands for urgent spending, and rising interest rates on government borrowing. This could lead to a fiscal catastrophe for the government at the very moment when the country is attempting a complicated political transition.'

Freedom Now! host Dedon Kamathi interviews Mahdi Nazemroaya, one of the last independent journalists in Tripoli, and former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, about Nazemroaya's findings regarding the fabricated claims that led to the US war on Libya.

Visit this Facebook page to find out more about the ecological Internet campaign against the hubris that humans can or should geoengineer our shared biosphere.

African countries which persecute gays will have their aid cut, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said. He was quoted by the Britain’s Mail on Sunday saying that already his country has cut aid to Malawi by £19million after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years hard labour. Mr Mitchell, one of Mr Cameron’s closest allies, is also threatening to impose further aid 'fines’ against Uganda and Ghana for hardline anti-gay and lesbian measures.

Malawi has said there is no reason to apologise to newly-elected President of Zambia Michael Sata over his deportation and declaration as a prohibited immigrant in 2007. Seventy-four-year Sata, elected President two weeks ago after beating a Mutharika-ally Rupiah Banda, on Saturday snubbed the Malawian leader’s invitation to attend the Comesa summit in protest against the Mutharika government and demanded for an apology concerning the 2007 quarrel.

The poorest countries in Africa are not merely the victims of natural calamities. They are also ravaged by the continued denial of market access as promised in the Doha trade negotiations, say African trade diplomats. Almost six years ago at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Hong Kong ministerial meeting, the least-developed countries (LDCs) in the global trading regime, drawn largely from Africa, were assured that their industrial products will be given duty-free and quota-free market access in rich countries. Sadly, there are grave doubts now that these promises will be addressed at the WTO’s eighth ministerial meeting in December.

Food prices are likely to become more volatile in coming years, increasing the risk that more poor people in import-dependent countries will go hungry, the United Nations said in an annual report on food insecurity published on Monday. Global food price indices hit record highs in February and were a factor in the Arab Spring of unrest in north Africa and the Middle East. Prices have since eased but the UN report said economic uncertainty, low cereal reserves, closer links between energy and agriculture markets and rising risks of weather shocks were likely to cause more dramatic price swings in the future.

For a man who thrives on giving the impression he is in total control, Robert Mugabe surprised many people on Thursday when he admitted he could not call for elections when he wants them. Addressing the ZANU PF Central Committee in Harare Mugabe said: 'We were looking forward to holding elections soon but I’m not in control of the mechanism that would lay the road to elections this year.' For months ZANU PF was adamant that elections would be held this year.

After years of living in fear of showing her ID or driving licence to anyone, a transgender Durban woman can now proudly display her documents without being embarrassed or harassed. Her physical journey to womanhood started two years ago when she began hormone treatment and since then she has developed breasts, her facial hair has diminished and her weight has gone down by almost 30kg because the increase in oestrogen has led to a decrease in muscle mass. The task of changing her gender officially was much more difficult. Home Affairs said that since she had not undergone any gender reassignment surgery, her journey to womanhood was incomplete and her details could not be changed.

West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP) in partnership with Crises Management Initiative (CMI) has launched a project on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Accra. The initiative is aimed at harnessing the dynamics and socio-political impart of gender-based violence for sustainable peace processes in West Africa. The Project dubbed: 'Addressing GBV in Peace Processes in West Africa', hopes to increase the capacity of local and regional mediators in West Africa to address GBV more effectively in peace mediation processes.

Evicted from their homes in 2009 when the government initiated efforts to restore Kenya's largest water tower, the Mau Forest Complex, thousands of the affected families are still without permanent shelter. The fact that the country's policy on internally displaced persons (IDPs) has remained in draft form since 2009 does not give the evictees hope that their plight will be resolved soon.

Media reports that Zambian Watchdog reporter George Zulu is in police custody are not true, the reporter told the International Press Institute, while expressing concern that the newspaper's staff is being intimidated by police who want them to reveal their sources on a controversial story. IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie called on Zambia's new government to be diligent in protecting the rights of journalists to report freely and in calling to task police or other officials who would intimidate journalists or pressure them into revealing their sources.

A controversial hormone drug, long opposed by several Black, Latina and Native American women’s health groups, has found its way to Africa where new research has made some alarming discoveries. In the just-published study of seven African countries, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that women who used the Pfizer drug Depo Provera – a hormone-based contraceptive injection - were twice as likely to acquire and pass on HIV as those who didn’t.

Western powers preach democracy to African countries, but those same powers then undermine democracy in Africa, argues Antoine Roger Lokongo.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, professor of English and Creative Writing at Penn State University, prize-winning poet and vocal survivor of the Liberian civil war, speaks to Roland Bankole Marke about her work.

One of the major features of proposed electoral reforms is the possible introduction of a localised voting system which will be conducted using polling station-based voters’ rolls. ZESN takes a closer look at the benefits and risks of such a system in the Zimbabwean context.

Plans for Malawian civil society protests on 21 September plunged the country into a state of anxiety on International Day of Peace, writes Steve Sharra. But with conflicts continuing elsewhere across the globe, Sharra argues that as long as we perpetuate ‘educational policies that ignore larger ideals of uMunthu-peace, social well-being and the greater good, the world will continue the paradox of celebrating peace amidst war, violence and death.’

During the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in February 2011, social movements, organizations of small food producers and other CSOs released a collective appeal against land grabbing. Over 650 organizations have already endorsed it. If your organization has not signed on yet and would also like to support this appeal, please do so before 7 October 2011.

WILPF International finds that the lack of procedures by the UN and those who occupy on humanitarian grounds are part of a militarisation that, without effective regulation, investigation, prosecution and punishment, has again lead to the commission of acts of serious sexual violence against women and young girls in Côte d'Ivoire.

Clashes between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the Sudan Armed Forces are the latest flashpoints in a crisis that points to issues beyond the borders of Sudan, writes Explo N. Nani-Kofi.

Are the 23 candidates in Cameroon’s October 9 presidential elections only in it for the money? Without a unifying opposition figure what hope for change is there? These are among the questions raised in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, compiled by Dibussi Tande, which also takes a look at elections in Zambia and Liberia.

A decade after the historic World Conference against Racism, the issues raised remain relevant and urgent despite western opposition, writes Pierre Sane. The whole world must confront racism, which continues to reinvent its justification and modes of expression.

Kenya is under national and international obligation to guarantee the right to food, but the current famine and inadequate response point to government failure, writes Joseph Kibugu, who calls for effective measures to end the cycle of famines.

A lesbian member of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was physically assaulted and beaten on 2 September. The attack comes after continued reports of harassment and threats towards LGBT people in the area by known individuals.

The fire at the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 8 September probably won’t ‘turn into a bushfire’, writes Gabriele Habashi, but it does give the Egyptian military an excuse for clamping down on protests by ordinary people in the eyes of the international community.

Gabriele Habashi gives a gripping account of her experience during the early days of the protests that would eventually force President Hosni Mubarak out of power in Egypt. She debunks some myths about how the revolution actually unfolded.

On the World Day against Monoculture Tree Plantations, The No REDD Platform, a coalition of climate justice groups and Indigenous peoples organizations, seeks support for the letter attached.