‘Can you really re-member Afrika in the images, symbols and languages of the master? Can you really dream the dreams of liberation in the language of the oppressors?’ These are among the questions raised in a new book by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Re-membering Africa, Issa Shivji writes in Pambazuka News. In a commentary shared at the launch of the book, Shivji says that wa Thiong’o’s latest work ‘captures an important intellectual moment in the long struggle of African people to re-claim and recover our collective memory.’

A very successful Second Edition of the Price Moot Court took place in Oxford from 18 - 21 March 2009. Teams from Malaysia, India, China, Jordan, Europe and the United States competed, and many internationally recognized media law experts acted as judges, including Judge Dean Spielmann from the European Court of Human Rights, Ms Siobhain Butterworth from The Guardian, Ms Gugu Moyo from the International Bar Association, Mr Mark Stephens from Finers Stephens Innocent and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC. The finals of the Third Edition of the competition will be taking place in Oxford in March 2010.

It is those at the heart of the Fairtrade movement, poor farmers and workers, in developing countries, that are at the very frontline of the climate crisis. These individuals and their families are already reporting to us the impact that climate
change is having on their livelihoods and their wellbeing. The Fairtrade movement has always fought to support small farmers and workers in their quest to find solutions to the challenges they face. As the climate crisis looms we will continue to do so, and this document outlines how we believe that our founding principles, experience, and the networks we have built up, mean that we are uniquely placed to play a specific role in the global response to climate change.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International have called on the Egyptian authorities to "urgently rein in their border security forces" after seven African asylum-seekers were killed in September trying to cross into Israel on foot, but some Israeli NGOs and soldiers say the death toll at the border is far higher.

Harnessing science and technology, and fostering innovation have become imperatives to address the problems and challenges of structural transformation of the South. This is increasingly so in the context of globalised and knowledge economy. As there is no journal with special focus on science, technology, and innovation in Africa, AJSTID aims to address this need.

Programme Director, Demand Dignity
London based
£53,568 plus excellent benefits (3 year fixed-term contract)

Big issues demand big ideas. If you have them, bring them to the biggest human rights campaigning platform there is. Amnesty is the only global movement of its kind. And we can give you a louder voice and the chance to make a massive difference the world over.

About the role
You’ll boost the Demand Dignity campaign’s effectiveness and the quality of Amnesty’s work on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by shaping the direction that the programme takes, and deciding which issues they focus on. It’s a strategic role and a creative one. It’ll be down to you to get the most out of your budget by harnessing new approaches and fresh thinking. Working closely with others at the International Secretariat, Amnesty’s sections worldwide, and our partners, you will steer the resources using innovative forms of activism and capitalising on other emerging campaigning opportunities. But whatever tactics you employ, you’ll never lose sight of the big picture, our core values and the ultimate aim of ending human rights violations.

About you
You’ll have already proven you can develop and deliver global campaigns that galvanise people into action and make change happen. And whichever part of the world you’re working in now, you’ll have shown you’re forward-thinking, and well able to initiate and win support for your innovative projects. Thoroughly familiar with human rights issues, you’ll have a deep understanding of the links between poverty and human rights including perspectives from the global south, you’ll also have developed sound political judgement, strong relationship-building skills and a flair for putting your points across convincingly. Now you’ll be looking for a more influential role in a complex campaigning environment – one where you can truly capitalise on your ability to make and win arguments.

About us
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people standing up for human rights. Our network extends to more than two million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries around the world. Each one of us is outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world – and together we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. This year Amnesty launched its biggest and most ambitious global campaign to date, the Demand Dignity Campaign against the human rights violations that keep people poor.

To apply, visit and quote reference CP/09/15.

Closing date: 25th October 2009.

The Government of Japan, in association with the World Bank, FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD, hosted a Roundtable “Promoting Responsible International Investment in Agriculture” on Wednesday 23 September in the Millennium Hotel, New York. The meeting was intended to initiate a coordinated global response to the growing trend of major agricultural investment associated with acquisition of rights to land and related resources, particularly in the developing world.

Small scale farmers have accused the Kenyan Government of failing to act to address persistent food insecurity. Further, they want policies that discourage use of chemical fertilisers and other substances that damage soil fertility to be introduced. Under the auspices of the Sustainable Agriculture and Community Development Programme, the group also opposed the leasing of agricultural land to foreigners.

The European Union and Central African bodies have signed an agreement in Brussels under which the EU will help develop projects with trans-border roads and railways and telecommunication infrastructure.

Nigeria's most vocal opposition political party, the Action Congress (AC), said Nigeria's "comatose state", on the occasion of its 49th independence anniversary, has brought to the fore the litany of opportunities missed by the nation to leap into the rarefied height of developed countries and ensure better life for its people. In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alha ji Lai Mohammed, the party said a succession of inept, selfish and visionless le a ders was to blame for the sorry state in which a country that was so promising at independence in 1960 had now found itself.

The government will hand over election violence suspects, thought to include six sitting Cabinet ministers, to The Hague. The six are part of a list of suspected perpetrators of the chaos, compiled by a judicial commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Philip Waki, that also names five MPs, seven former MPs and prominent people and businessmen. They are accused of either financing or orchestrating the worst ethnic violence in Kenya’s history in which 1,133 people were killed and 650,000 others left homeless.

Nine Zimbabwean human rights activists and others tortured in custody are suing government officials for $500m (£314m), their lawyers have said. Jestina Mukoko and eight others are suing the police commissioner, a cabinet minister and police officers.

Kenya's much-criticised anti-corruption chief has resigned just weeks after he was reappointed by the president. Aaron Ringera said he was stepping down in the best interests of the country and the anti-corruption commission. President Mwai Kibaki had unilaterally reappointed him for a second five-year term as head of the commission without consulting parliament.

Opposition parties in Gabon have rejected the terms of a re-count of votes from last month's controversial presidential poll. Activists, who alleged widespread vote rigging, were angered after a court ruled that opposition observers would not be allowed to oversee the re-count.

The Ugandan government should immediately order an independent investigation into the killing of unarmed persons during and after riots in Kampala on September 10 and 11, 2009, Human Rights Watch has said. A Human Rights Watch investigation found that at least 13 people were shot by government forces in situations where lethal force was unnecessary.

What role do young women play in contemporary African wars? Mainstream thinking on war and conflict sees women as passive and peaceful and men as active and aggressive. This report from the Nordic Africa Institute calls for a broader understanding of women’s roles and participation in armed conflict in Africa. Programmes to disarm, demobilise and re-integrate former fighters need to be adapted to local contexts and designed to meet the needs of female ex-fighters.

Although Algeria was affected by large-scale displacement caused by conflict between 1992 and 2002, internally displaced people (IDPs) were not a priority for the government during or after the conflict. As a result, even the most basic information about their number and situation has consistently been unavailable. The European Union estimated at the end of the conflict that violence had displaced one million people, while other sources put the number as high as 1.5 million. The government has not contested these figures.

Arguments about how much influence developing economies have over the world’s financial affairs are set to dominate the International Monetary Fund summit in Istanbul this week. There was some progress at last week’s G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, but until details are agreed, the balance of power between key economic players remains unresolved. Under existing arrangements, the industrialised countries hold 57 per cent of the IMF votes.

A plan to develop a biodiversity corridor across the border between Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia will be the focus of discussions to be held in Abidjan next week in cooperation the United Nations and other organizations. Hosted by the Ivorian Minister of Environment, Water and Forests, the meeting on 5-6 October is part of a transnational initiative launched by the UN-led Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) and the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF).

The top United Nations official in Cote d’Ivoire warned today that technical difficulties may adversely affect the timeline for the country’s long-awaited presidential elections, which were to have been held as far back as 2005, and are now scheduled for 29 November. Young-Jin Choi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), said that two months have already been lost, but he noted some successful political developments, such as the establishment of mobile court hearings across the country and the end of voter registration.

The authorities in Sierra Leone have disputed a recent "alarming" report by the right group Amnesty International (AI) on the country's present maternal mortality rate. The report stated that one in every eight pregnant women in the country risk a chance of dying whiles giving birth and that six out of the 13 districts still have no emergency Obstetrical Care facility.

Global food leader Nestle's Zimbabwean unit has stopped buying milk from a farm owned by President Robert Mugabe's wife which was seized under his controversial land reforms. Western countries vital for Zimbabwe's recovery from an economic crisis demand political reforms, including an end to land seizures, before aid flows.

ARTICLE 19’s Comment expresses alarm in relation to almost all the provisions of the Genocide Ideology Law which was adopted by the Rwandan Parliament on 23 July 2008. In ARTICLE 19’s view, the law’s central concept of “genocide ideology” is extremely broadly defined and would catch a whole range of legitimate forms of expression. Indeed, the definition of “genocide ideology” violates international law under the Genocide Convention 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 in multiple ways.

Algeria has addressed the cases of nearly 25,000 victims of terrorism through its national reconciliation programme, and many key terrorists have surrendered, leading some observers to proclaim the process a success. The 2005 Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation "has realised its objectives," said Farouk Ksentini, head of the National Commission for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights, at a special forum on Monday (September 28th).

Pressure is mounting on the Tanzanian government following the recent violent evictions of Maasai from their land in Loliondo, Northern Tanzania, to make way for the hunting company, Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC). Local human rights organizations are filing criminal and civil cases against the Tanzanian government on behalf of the affected Maasai people at the High Court in Arusha. More than 100 witnesses are reportedly willing to testify.

The United Nations has provided hundreds of bicycles and motorcycles for Zimbabwean health workers to respond to potential cholera and flu outbreaks, the latest in a series of steps by the world body to help the southern African country confront acute humanitarian needs. The 300 black bicycles and 124 bright red motor cycles, purchased by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) with $500,000 from the Central Emergency Response Fund, will enable health workers to move quickly to prepare for and respond to potential health concerns, including cholera outbreaks and the H1N1 flu pandemic.

A month before the recent attack in Jonglei State that left scores dead, Daniel Dau had moved his family from Duk to Twich East County, about 100km away, believing they would be safer there. But he was wrong. On 20 September, Duk Padiet village in Twich was attacked and at least 167 people killed, according to Jonglei State statistics.

After days of stalling, hundreds of people displaced by Kenya's post-election violence in early 2008 have begun leaving a camp in the western town of Eldoret after receiving cash handouts from the government. Most of the estimated 2,700 internally displaced persons (IDPs) had, between 28 September and 1 October, declined to accept KSh35,000 [US$460] from the government to help them resettle.

The authorities of Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have begun cracking down on would-be migrants and people smugglers, who have been using its ports to reach the Gulf States, a senior police officer has said. He said thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians had gathered in Bosasso, the commercial capital, with the aim of attempting to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen.

More than half of HIV-positive pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries continue to go without life-saving anti-retroviral medication that could prevent transmission of the virus to their unborn children, according to a new report, Towards Universal Access. "Although there is increasing emphasis on women and children in the global HIV/AIDS response, the disease continues to have a devastating impact on their health, livelihood and survival," Ann Veneman, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a statement.

The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR), Osun State has called on the Babatunde Fashola/AC government of Lagos State to immediately recall Comrade Ayodele Akele, a former labour leader in Lagos State, in the spirit of the celebration of the life of Chief Gani Fawehinmi. If Lagos State government does not want the public to believe that it is playing to gallery, it should immediately recall Comrade Ayodele Akele.

In this week's Emerging powers in Africa watch, a weak economy drives Angola into the arms of the IMF as Luanda's elite works more closely with their Chinese counterparts in local and regional deals.

In this week’s issue of Pambazuka News, activist Nawal El Saadawi writes about the inter-relationship between the power of the military, the police, capitalist markets and media, and religion, both at a global and local level. El Saadawi recently founded the Global Solidarity Movement for Secular Society, ‘to save women and men, globally and locally, from unjust laws forced on them under the name of God or religion.’ Religion is ‘a very personal individual private matter’, argues El Saadawi, and should be ‘totally separated from public life.'

The battle to oust Thabo Mbeki from ANC leadership brought ‘two diametrically opposed groups’ together in support of Jacob Zuma, William Gumede writes in Pambazuka News. Now though, President Zuma finds himself walking a ‘tight-rope’ between the opposing groups, with one side seeking genuine party reform in favour of the people, and the other simply wanting its own place at ‘the feeding trough’. Will Zuma take the side of democracy? That depends on whether he wants to secure another term for himself, or to ‘rescue’ the ANC’s ‘democratic legacy’.

With Rwanda's application for membership of the Commonwealth likely to be on the agenda at this year's Commonwealth heads of government meetings, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) expresses serious reservations about the country's credentials. Evidence pointing to the suppression of freedom of speech and a climate of fear represent significant causes for concern, the CHRI argue in this week's Pambazuka News, and ultimately point to the need for an independent body designed to assess applicants' and existing members' records on democracy and human rights.

While Western countries' role is not to be underplayed, we should be extremely wary of the moral assertions of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi around climate change, argues Rezene Hagos in this week's Pambazuka News. The Ethiopian government's record on both the environment and human rights is abysmal, writes Hagos, and Meles's demands for vast sums from donors in support of Africa's battle against climate change should be viewed with a great deal of scepticism.

Willy Jackson

Olivier Sagna

In this week's edition of Pambazuka News, Jared Ficklin reviews Peter Stalker's book , which uses clearly structured facts and figures to dispel common myths and misperceptions about migrants and migration around the world.