The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), Global Rights, Interights and the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists have just concluded a groundbreaking four-day workshop on legal strategies for promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Africa. The meeting, the first-ever dialog between lawyers who have worked on litigation related to LGBT rights and African LGBT leaders, was held in Cape Town, South Africa and attended by 45 participants from 11 African countries— Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

The return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs is one of the most pressing challenges faced by the international community today. Recently back from a visit to the Great Lakes region, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations will discuss the local settlement of refugees in Tanzania and the return and reintegration of refugees in Burundi.

Behind the headlines heralding potentially positive developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), women and girls continue to be at risk. Media outlets report the arrest of rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda and the possibility of peace openings, but the eastern region where women and girls have been savagely raped and mutilated remains traumatized.

The Durban Review Conference, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, 20-24 April 2009, will evaluate progress towards the goals set by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

Riot police from mainland France have arrived on the French Caribbean islands as protests threaten to paralyse tourism and spread further afield. Strikes on Guadeloupe and Martinique have closed shops and schools and the reinforcements will help local police.

Filmmakers hope a documentary about war-ravaged Darfur featuring former Sudanese officials detailing their role in atrocities will change perceptions in the Arab world that international concern over the region's bloodshed is part of a Western-backed conspiracy against Sudan.

Rwanda is in the process of adopting male circumcision as a part of its national HIV prevention strategy, but experts worry that a spike in requests before a planned public awareness campaign has been launched could have negative implications. Alphonse Ndakengerwa, a surgeon at King Faisal Hospital in the capital, Kigali, said clinics in the city had recently been overwhelmed by requests for the procedure, largely as a result of media reports on research indicating a lower risk of HIV infection in circumcised men.

Dressed in karate uniforms and track suits, the young Egyptian women break off in pairs and begin sparring, with one kicking and punching while the other tries to block the attacks. The nearly two dozen women and girls in a small gymnasium in this city of one million, north of Cairo, are learning to fight off assailants — a rarity for women in the Arab world.

ActionAid International Malawi has fired over 30 employees amid reports of effects of the global economic recession on its programmes. ActionAid board chairperson Alick Msowoya told reporters last week they could not ignore the current global economic situation although some donors had not yet reneged on their commitments to the organisation. Msowoya confirmed the organisation fired 31 employees, bringing the total number of its staff to 56 across the country.

Gambia’s Information and Communication Department has been taken over by President Yahya Jammeh’s office while the newly-appointed Information Secretary (Minister) Omar Ndow has been redeployed, the government said in a statement received on Thursday.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday said it had not decided whether to issue an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, Omar el-Bashir, despite media reports. In a statement issued from The Hague, the ICC stated: “No arrest warrant has been issued by the ICC against President Omar el-Bashir of Sudan. No decision has yet been taken by the judges concerning prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's application for a warrant to be issued.”

Three men suspected of recruiting children for planters in Cote d'Ivoire were arrested by the police at Kadiolo, a district bordering the country and Burkina Faso, the local correspondent to the Malian Press Agency (AMAP) said. The three men are suspected to be trading with six minors, aged from 7 to 13 years and found in the district of Zegoua on board a minibus to Cote d'Ivoire on 16 January at 11pm.

One confirmed case of cholera and 14 suspected cases have been reported in the Hagadera refugee camp in Dadaab, eastern Kenya – numbers that have the potential to spike as Somali refugees inundate already overstretched camps, say the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Zimbabwe's new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was set to swear in a new cabinet Friday, bringing his party into a fragile union with long-time adversary, President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has yet to name the ministers that he will bring to the 15 portfolios reserved for his ZANU-PF party under the unity accord, which is hoped will end nearly a year of political turmoil.

Detained Zimbabwe Peace Project director Jestina Mukoko has been released into the custody of the Avenues Clinic for medical attention in compliance with Harare Magistrate Gloria Takundwa’s ruling on 11 February 2009.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has apologised at a truth and reconciliation commission over her backing for ex-rebel Charles Taylor. She said she had initially supported the rebel chief's war effort and even raised funds for him, but denied ever having been a member of his group. She said she had been fooled about the real intentions of Mr Taylor.

Egyptian police have released a pro-Palestinian blogger who was detained last week during a rally. Egyptian-German student Philip Rizk was held on Friday, north of Cairo, where he helped organise a protest in support of the Gaza Strip. Eyewitnesses said he was bundled into a white van with no licence plates, which then sped off.

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has said he would like a United States of Africa to include "Caribbean islands with African populations". Col Gaddafi, speaking in Tripoli as the African Union's (AU) new chairman, said this could include Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. The Libyan leader also sympathised with Somali pirates, describing their actions as self-defence.

The Government of Southern Sudan should take urgent steps to uphold human rights, including protecting civilians from armed communal violence and excessive use of force by soldiers and security forces, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.

What can be learnt from the work of Rwanda's female parliamentarians? This report by the Initiative for Inclusive Security reviews the literature concerning women’s participation in politics. It considers the issue of gender-based violence in Rwanda and the role of women in Rwanda’s government. Factors behind the successful development of the gender-based violence (GBV) law included soliciting input from constituents and maintaining close relationships with civil society.

The High Court has awarded a family, including a one-year-old baby and a child of eight, £150,000 damages after the Home Office accepted that it had unlawfully arrested and detained them. On 9 February 2009, in the face of court proceedings brought by the family, the Home Office accepted that the family's arrests and subsequent detentions were unlawful as they could not have been lawfully removed back to the Republic of Congo.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the murder of Said Tahliil Ahmed, Director of HornAfrik- a radio and television station in the Somali Capital Mogadishu- who was gunned down on 4 February 2009. "We condemn this murder which is the result of the lawlessness in Somalia," said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the IFJ Africa Office.

Peace talks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the mainly Tutsi rebel group which last year launched a devastating offensive in the eastern region of the country are expected to restart soon, the United Nations envoy leading the negotiations announced. The talks between the Government and the National Congress in Defense of the People (CNDP), which began in Nairobi in December, seek to bring an end to a conflict which has uprooted an estimated 250,000 people since August, on top of the 800,000 already displaced in the region, mainly in North Kivu province.

Ninety per cent of some 25,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in two camps in northern Zambia want to return home, the United Nations refugee agency said today after a survey was conducted in advance of voluntary returns planned for May. The verification exercise was conducted late last month by the government of Zambia and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to learn the exact number of refugees, identify those with special needs, update biographical data and collect information on their desire to return to the DRC.

The use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by breastfeeding mothers greatly reduced the risk of HIV transmission to their infants after a 14-week course of infant HIV prophylaxis was stopped, according to a study performed in Malawi and presented to the Sixteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) on Tuesday. However, ART use did not significantly reduce transmission risk in mothers with CD4 cell counts above 250 cells/mm3.

Morocco is determined to protect its children from potentially harmful online activities. Thanks to a new public-private partnership from UNESCO, Microsoft Maroc, and Morocco's National Children’s Rights Observatory (ONDE), parents and educators are getting help catching up to their children's web sophistication in order to better protect them.

The global response to HIV and AIDS must be significantly reoriented to address the unmet needs of millions of children and their families in the worst affected countries, according to a new report by the independent Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA). The report summarises two years of research and analysis of AIDS- related policies, programmes and funding and their effectiveness in addressing the needs of children.

As people around the world celebrate their loved ones on Valentine's Day weekend, activists are working to ensure that the ongoing horrors of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are not forgotten. Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands women and girls have been brutally raped in the DRC, primarily by rebel groups vying over control of land and mineral resources.

As arrests of people on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity escalate in Africa, some human rights groups have come up with a plan to challenge such arrests at a legal strategy meeting on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) held last month in Cape Town. International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) in collaboration with Global Rights, Interights and The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) convened this meeting with a view to discuss strategies that could be used to defend cases against LGBTI people in the continent.

Rwandan Hutu rebels have killed over 100 civilians in eastern Congo in reprisal attacks since the start of a joint offensive against them three weeks ago, New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Friday. The attacks by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels took place after Rwanda and Congo launched joint operations aimed at removing the rebel militia, which is seen as a root cause of years of strife in central Africa.

The Department for International Development will announce a £1.4 million three-year project that will lay the foundations for financial services to be made available through new and emerging technology across Africa and Asia, to bring access to the poor in developing countries. International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander said the introduction of Mobile phones, text messages and fingerprint recognition could soon bring branchless banking to millions of the world's poorest people and could redeem them from poverty.

Xenophobic attacks in South Africa displaced 150,000 people and killed more than 60 in 2008. This year, as the country heads to the polls, researchers say local politicians may be capitalizing on the hate and fear that fuelled the attacks - this time to win votes. Immigrant lobby groups have put out a call for increased monitoring of political campaigns ahead of general elections in April.

The course will cover various advanced topics in international refugee law. Topics to be covered include ethical and professional obligations while representing clients undergoing refugee status determination; the \"nexus\" requirement of the refugee definition; the expanded grounds for protection under the OAU Convention and UNHCR\'s mandate; the possibility of socio-economic \"persecution\"; the distinction between prosecution and \"persecution\"; the non-refoulement and expulsion provisions of the Convention; refugee rights guaranteed by the Convention; and, the interaction between the Convention and domestic and international human rights protections.

As the dust settled on President Hu Jintao’s four nation African visit, a sense of relative normality returned to the Africa-China debate. A few residual commentaries and debates continue to make media headlines and blog sites around the interpretation of President Hu’s Africa visit and . But attention has now shifted to a more a significant diplomatic visit, namely Hilary Clinton’s first official engagement and visit to Asia as US Secretary of State.

As discussed in earlier editions of the China-Africa-Watch, Mrs Clinton’s visit to China has been characterized by all kinds of expectations, not least that the Obama administration would continue with its tough trade talk against China, in keeping with the new President’s election stance. Even Washington hawks and Clinton opponents expected her to stick to her guns in pushing China on its human rights record as she did during her election campaign.

But, it was Mrs Clinton who did a 360 degree turn and caught most off-guard with her comment that while Washington ‘would press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet…’.‘form a pragmatic partnership with Beijing on the financial crisis and climate change’.

By making her first diplomatic trip to Asia and China in particular, the new Secretary of State was sending a clear signal about her priorities. But where does Africa fit in all of this?

As the US and China begin to define their pragmatic but symbiotic relationship, how does President Hu’s talk of forging a new Africa-China consensus take into consideration this thawing of relations between Washington and Beijing? Perhaps, it is too early to draw conclusions, but for African scholars and commentators the issue is that any change to the engagement between Beijing and Washington does have important implications for how Africa engages with each of them.

This is especially relevant since the global financial crisis was the backdrop of President Hu’s African visit with the underlying message about strengthening partnership and cooperation during times of adversity.

Some might fear that America could be a rival to Africa for China’s attention and affection. But American-China relations are based on a real economic interrelationship whose health is also key to Africa’s hopes of mitigating the worst of the economic storms. In particular President Obama depends for his economic stimulus package on China’s willingness to continue to lend the USA money.

As the Financial Times reported on 22 February; ‘The level of Chinese demand for US Treasury paper could play a crucial role in determining the interest rates the US government has to pay for its rapidly growing debt pile.
‘In the past year, Chinese investors – mainly its central bank – have become the biggest foreign holders of US Treasuries, increasing their holdings 15 per cent last year to nearly $700bn (€545bn, £485bn).
‘Foreign investors now own about $3,000bn of US Treasuries, or more than half of the amount publicly available. Whether Chinese buying continues to increase this year at the same pace could be an important factor in the outlook for the Treasury market.

‘In turn, the level of demand from China depends on the health of the US economy. The fewer Chinese goods Americans buy, the fewer dollars China will have to invest in dollar-denominated assets’

So much as economic reality forced Hilary Clinton to moderate her election campaign line on China’s human rights issues, so China has little laternative but to continue to buy US Treasury bonds to enable Obama’s rescue package – although mounting opinion in China is asking if the money would notbe better spent at home.

This ambivalence was pungently expressed by Luo Ping, a senior Chinese banking official, at a recent conference; ‘“US Treasuries are the safe haven; it is the only option,” said Mr Luo. “Once you start issuing $1-$2 trillion ... we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys, but there is nothing much we can do.”

If this China-America marriage of convenience lasts long enough to pull the global economy out of recession, then Africa along with the rest of the world economy will feel the benefit of a shorter-lived downturn. But many expect that once the global economy recovers, China will be looking for alternatives to the dollar, and to reforms in the global financial architecture.
This could be to Africa’s benefit, if her leaders know or can be pushed and pressured into knowing, how to make the best of the opportunities.
But in forging a new consensus with Africa, China should also reflect on how Africa’s newest Diaspora in China is affected by the global financial meltdown.

As Chinese traders and merchant families have to find new ways of keeping the Chinese dream alive, similarly African traders in China are finding it harder to maintain their business activity, not least due to the increased pressures of ‘dared to think and act’. But African traders are also making the same trek to China with the same intentions and ambitions. Therefore, if the ‘financial crisis breeds new opportunities’ for China’s private firms and traders in increasing investment into Africa, then the traffic should certainly not be only one way. The official rhetoric of ‘win-win partnerships’, may sometimes appear to be contradicted by realities on the ground.

* Stephen Marks is research associate and Sanusha Naidu is research director of Fahamu’s China in Africa programme

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

They are no longer stirring still. In fact, they are dying at an alarming rate. First, there was Edward Said, then Mahmoud Darwish, and now Tayeb Salih. And if Said sang about the pleasures of the “placeless place,” Darwish wrote like a jealous child unwilling to share the page with anyone, especially with a ruthless occupier. Salih, on the other hand, spent most of his life living on borderline between East, West, and the Rest. As a thinker, citizen, and writer, he towered quietly over our time with extraordinary luminosity. He also had a prodigious capacity for understanding people no matter where they came from. A sign well defined in his work of art, Season of Migration to the North, where the narrator intones: “They [the Sudanese people] were amazed to learn that Europeans with some differences were much like us, marrying and raising children in accordance with tradition and that generally they were a moral and honest people.” A humanist voice at its best! This is not the nonsense one finds in shabby screeds likes the “clash of cultures” or “what went wrong?” Suffice it to add that Salih had an unbounded energy for waging struggles on behalf of the truth—the truth not only of usually unrecorded social suffering, but also the truth about the institutional obduracy that lurks insidiously beneath the surface of things, and a persistent endeavor of his last years the callous posturing of so-called realistic, or pragmatic writers.

When the incidents of cholera in Zimbabwe were first reported, the government in that country went on a denialism trip. It insisted that the disease was nowhere nearer to reaching epidemic proportions and that there was no humanitarian crisis in the country. This response was an effort to dismiss the view that the outbreak of cholera was a consequence of social policy failures and a result of the general decline of the Zimbabwean economy. Such obfuscation and obscuration of social reality by neglecting the systemic and structural factors behind problems is typical of the responses of the political establishment to crisis situations. Very often the easiest escape route is to blame it all on the ignorance and negligence of the poor or to find a scapegoat.

We have three arms of government in Kenya:

1) The Executive
2) The Legislature
3) The Judiciary

These three arms of government are supposed to be independent, complementing each other in the functions of state.

The Executive is normally an elevation of members of the Legislature to new roles. You are voted in as a member of the house, get appointed to the cabinet, then join the president in the executive wing of government.

Those in the Executive are meant to execute the wishes of the Legislature. In Kenya, the Executive in most cases overrides the Legislature and oftentimes operates as if it is above the law.

Francio Guadeloupe explores the meaning of activism by reflecting upon personal encounters of human rights abuses in Brazil, South Africa, and the Netherlands. Narratives of discrimination and brutality lead Guadeloupe to believe that a clear split exists between activists in the West and the non-West, a split which we must work towards eliminating. Guadeloupe suggests that an activist recognises the equality of humanity; whether one demands the right to be perceived as human for oneself or for others, an activist, in so doing, demands human rights for all.

Kasahun Woldemariam’s book, , has recently been published by Africa World Press.