IkamvaYouth's head office in Makhaza, Khayelitsha was petrol-bombed on 27 April and the organisation is appealing for donations and help. IkamvaYouth is a non-partisan, non-governmental organisation that was established in 2003 in Makhaza, Khayelitsha with the objective of enabling disadvantaged youth to pull themselves out of poverty and into university and employment through peer-to-peer learning and support. The programme's success (87-100 per cent matric pass rate since 2005 and over 70 per cent of learners accessing tertiary for the past three years) has led to the model's replication in five townships in three provinces, and numerous accolades include winning the Mail and Guardian / Southern Africa Trust Drivers of Change award in 2010.

The dictatorship in Eritrea results in large numbers of people feeling the country. But once they enter the international refugee system their problems are only just beginning, writes Tricia Redeker Hepner.

The Jadaliyya website is an independent ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), a network of writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org). It is motivated by the need to discuss the 'Arab World' or the 'Middle East'.

‘Few things are more hateful’ than the ‘deliberate manipulation of the minds of the broken and destitute in the name of liberation,’ writes Pedro Alexis Tabensky, as the ANC attempts to win support from South Africa’s poorest communities by portraying the party as ‘the representatives of God on earth’.

I’m no supporter of Osama bin Laden but the assertion that his killing ‘marks the triumph against global terrorism’ is ‘laughable and absurd’, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. Why won’t the West recognise that it is its own disregard for the lives and worldviews of people in the Global South that fuels rage and resistance against it?

Negotiation, not military intervention, is the best solution for resolving conflict argues Stephen Musau, as the international community’s attempts to quell the unrest in Libya take their toll on innocent civilians.

The world’s worst online oppressors are using an array of tactics, some reflecting astonishing levels of sophistication, others reminiscent of old-school techniques. From China’s high-level malware attacks to Syria’s brute-force imprisonments, this may be only the dawn of online oppression, says this report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

‘What are the conditions under which cultural expressions, used as a means for resistance, can become accessible to an international community?’ Martina Keilbach reflects on the work of Kenyan poet and political activist Abdilatif Abdalla.

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has again declared Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional, on the basis that members of the jury during his trial were given unclear sentencing instructions. The award-winning journalist has been on Pennsylvania’s death row for 29 years. His 1982 murder trial and subsequent conviction has been the subject of great debate.

Pambazuka and the Carleton University Institute of African Studies invite you to a talk to celebrate Africa Liberation Day with Firoze Manji and Molly Kane, Pambazuka News. It takes place on Wednesday, 25 May at 6pm at the Arts Lounge, 1025 Dunton Tower, Carleton University.

Wonder whose fault it is this time?

Author Raj Patel is updating 'Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System', bringing the statistics up to date, adding sections on land grabs, biofuels, food price rises, and food rebellions. He'll also be thinking a little harder about how China fits in to the global food picture. To do this, he'll need help, and is looking for a bright graduate student, or exceptionally bright undergraduate, who’d be willing to spend a couple of months working with him.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for postgraduate students in the broad field of law and development to reflect on its themes, progress and future.

National ministers from Africa gathered with hundreds of people from United Nations agencies, development banks, public water operators, non-profit groups and trade unions from around the world to celebrate World Water Day last month in Cape Town. A priority on the agenda: responding to the growing urban water challenge. But, writes Mthandeki Nhlapo, while the right to water is akin to the right to life, many governments are reluctant to recognise this most basic reality and shoulder their responsibilities to deliver safe, affordable water.

'Nature cannot be submitted to the wills of the laboratory. Science and technology are capable of everything including destroying the world itself,' said Pablo Solón, the permanent representative of Bolivia in a speech to the United Nations on 20 April. 'It is time to stop and reaffirm the precautionary principle in the face of geo-engineering and all artificial manipulation of the climate. All new technologies should be evaluated to gauge their environmental, social and economic impacts. The answer for the future lies not in scientific inventions but in our capacity to listen to nature.'

The Jury of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA), meeting in Geneva, selects Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera as the Laureate for her work for LGBT rights and marginalised people in Uganda. Nabagesera is the founder and executive director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, a lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights organisation.

‘As quiet as it is kept, international terrorism did not begin on 11 September 2001.’ Before Osama bin Laden, there was Luis Posada Carriles, writes Horace Campbell.

In order to advise policy-makers at a critical juncture after the re-election in January 2011 of President François Bozizé of the Central African Republic (CAR), the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (Watchlist) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) joined forces to conduct a four-week field mission to CAR to research and report on the situation of children affected by armed conflict. Evidence was found that at least four of the six grave violations monitored under UN Security Council Resolution 1612 (2005) are still being committed against children in CAR: the abduction of children, recruitment or use of child soldiers, attacks against schools, and the denial of humanitarian access to children. This is a link to the full report.

‘As workers and taxpayers of this country, we were shocked and disgusted yesterday that President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga refused to attend the Uhuru Park workers' day celebrations, writes George Nyongesa, national coordinator of Kenya’s Bunge la Mwananchi (People’s Parliament).

Women and girls worldwide face a wide range of violations to their sexual and reproductive rights, such as lack of access to contraception and safe abortion, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual violence. Moreover, when accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare services women and girls encounter low-quality, often negligent and abusive care and treatment. These human rights violations often involve tremendous physical and psychological pain and arguably rise to the level of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment (CIDT), states this briefing paper from the Centre for Reproductive Rights.

The seventh annual meeting of Arab national human rights organisations wrapped up in Nouakchott last week with an affirmation of the groups' role in protecting civil liberties. The 27-28 April conference focused on how rights organisations in the Arab world can help monitor and enforce international treaty obligations with respect to human rights. Participants concluded the event with a 'Nouakchott Declaration' that emphasised the role national human rights bodies have in implementing rights treaties and developing civil society.

Africa has little room to change the one-dimensional nature of its trade ties and use its new-found growth to create jobs and alleviate poverty, according to the 2011 Africa Progress Report. The emergence of non-European trade partners, notably China, has not changed the fact that the continent mainly exports raw materials and imports manufactured goods, it states. 'Africa’s current economic growth is not all positive. It is generally not accompanied by much-needed structural transformation and diversification,' reads the report released at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town.

A national task team is to tackle hate crimes against lesbians and gays, the justice and constitutional development ministry said on Wednesday. The decision came in response to a 170,000-strong Change.org campaign calling for action on 'corrective rape', spokesperson Tlali Tlali said in a statement. It followed the murder of lesbian activist Noxolo Nogwaza, 24, who was stoned, stabbed with broken glass and gang-raped in KwaThema, Johannesburg, last month.

The ‘Governing Migration’ conference will draw together approximately 350 persons working in the field of forced migration (academics, practitioners and policy makers and forced migrants themselves) to debate recent research findings, hot policy topics, and pressing concerns in the field of forced migration as they relate to the fields of Governance and Justice, and to catalyse the establishment of new research, policy and practice agendas.

In this Al Jazeera video interview with Cornel West, the intellectual and author provides his analysis of Barack Obama's presidency and discusses recent global developments. The bestselling author argues that we are living in 'catastophic, catatonic, and catalytic' times, but we must face them with compassion.

Minister Louis Farrakhan, in this video interview, discusses the role of the CIA in the conflict. He points to the contradiction of Western concern over the people of Libya, while the people of Palestine and Rwanda, for example, were ignored.

'On the 5th May 2011, a 14 years old transman was raped in Attredgeville, Pretoria. He was left unconscious and traumatized by the perpetrators. The transman is believed to have been raped on his way to school. According to the victim’s mother, the school phoned her after one teacher realized that the victim was crying and bleeding from his genitals.'

Chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula has called for a quota system to improve women's representation. She said the Independent Electoral Commission was not happy with the number of women candidates in local government elections to be held on 18 May. 'The male/female split is not pleasing at all,' Tlakula told a business breakfast in Johannesburg. Out of 53,000 candidates only 37 per cent are women.

Drug regimens used in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV are effective, but infants should be monitored for drug resistance, a new study has revealed. The study in Kisumu, western Kenya, found that the triple combination of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs given to HIV-infected mothers to prevent transmission of the virus to their infants was effective and feasible, but there were cases of possible drug resistance in HIV-positive infants.

Italian coast guards and local fisherman saved all 528 refugees on a boat from Libya after their vessel hit rocks off the island of Lampedusa in an operation a rescuer described as a 'miracle'. Images of the rescue showed people jumping in panic or falling into the choppy waters as their boat heaved in the waves on Sunday. Among the refugees who had thrown themselves into the water at night were 24 pregnant women.

While foreign direct investment in least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa has risen sharply over the past decade, most of it went to resource-rich economies and had little impact on employment creation.
On the eve of the fourth United Nations’ conference on LDCs, UNCTAD has launched a study on the developmental effects of foreign direct investment (FDI), adopted at the 2001 LDCs conference as one of the tools to foster development in poor countries. The study, called 'FDI in LDCs: Lessons learned from the decade 2001 – 2010', shows the results are at best mixed.

Tunisia's prime minister suggested on Sunday (08 May) that July elections for an assembly to draw up a new constitution could be delayed, potentially fuelling unease among anti-government protesters over the path to democracy. The North African country has struggled to restore stability since a revolution in January ousted authoritarian ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired uprisings across the Arab world.

Libyan regime forces laying siege on Misrata intensified their assault on the lifeline port on 8 May as smoke billowed from a fuel depot bombing, attacks a rights group said may amount to an atrocity. Two loud explosions were also heard in Tripoli, where the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has its headquarters, as jets flew overhead, witnesses said.

The proportion of the world’s population that has access to a free press declined to its lowest point in over a decade during 2010, as repressive governments intensified their efforts to control traditional media and developed new techniques to limit the independence of rapidly expanding internet-based media. Among the countries to experience significant declines in press freedom were Egypt, Honduras, Hungary, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and Ukraine, says the report 'Freedom of the Press in 2010' from Freedom House.

Rwanda could become the first country in Africa to effectively fight cervical cancer following the launch of a comprehensive national prevention programme last week. Rwanda will be the first country in Africa to offer a national prevention programme that includes the most advanced technologies and tools to protect girls and women from the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer. HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection among women worldwide, with more than 270,000 dying each year.

The organizations ADEFHO (association for the defense of homosexuals) and SID’ADO(teenagers against the HIV/AIDS) have been informed of a new case of sentencing on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. On April 28 2011. A young man named Roger Jean- Claude was sentenced to 36 months in prison for homosexuality.

Heavy flooding in Namibia has killed at least 65 people and displaced 60,000, damaging crops and infrastructure in the southwest African state, a UN report said. 'Sustained high water tables over the past three years mean that it may take months for the floodwaters to subside completely,' said the report by the office of the UN's resident disaster coordinator.

Gender-based violence and the quality of health care and schooling were among the top concerns raised by refugee women in the latest round of UNHCR consultations that ended over the weekend in Zambia. The UN refugee agency's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, joined donors and other stakeholders in reaffirming their commitment to support and empower refugee women, at the Fifth Regional Dialogue with Refugee Women and Girls held in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.