Indian engineering firm Angelique International will build two hydro power plants in Cameroon as part of a 125 billion CFA francs ($251.5 million) aid deal, the central African country said late on Tuesday. State-owned Export-Import Bank of India will loan the money to Cameroon, the second such deal signed between the Gulf of Guinea nation and Angelique in the past two months.

The world's eyes are on the Middle East, but due south, in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is flaring up once again. The good news is that Somali pirates, who had given the world's navies a lesson in intransigence after brazenly attacking 111 merchant vessels in 2008, have released a Japanese-operated South Korean-owned bulk carrier, as well as a three other ships this week.

The Sino-Indian 'Hand-in-Hand 2008' military exercise that concluded recently at Belgaum in Karnataka may have hit headlines, but is no revelation to those who have observed India's military diplomacy in recent times. China apart, India has engaged many countries this year alone, under the rubric of military diplomacy. While the Navy led the show, with many bilateral and multilateral exercises, the Air Force and the Army too engaged themselves in significant joint exercises.

China has had a number of dealings with South African weapons manufacturers over the past decade, most of which have not resulted in actual weapons purchases. However, several recent Chinese-made military technologies bear suspicious resemblances to their South African counterparts.

Zambia plans to invite bids to explore for oil within six months in the hope of capitalising on what it says is “huge potential” to strike black gold beneath the soil of one of the world’s poorest countries.Already Africa’s biggest copper producer, Zambia’s parliament has approved a legal framework for exploration and the government has held preliminary talks with oil companies ”mainly in Europe and some in Africa”, Kalombo Mwansa told the Financial Times late last year in his last interview as mining minister before switching to home affairs in a new government.

The Congolese authorities are to seek funds from the Leadership for Conservation in Africa (LCA) for the development of ecotourism around the Odzala-Kokoua (PNOK) national park, situated in the north-western part of Congo, official sources in the Congolese capital told PANA.

The Togolese government has increased assistance to the private press to 350 million CFA francs this year from 75 million CFA francs in 2008. The government said on Thursday the assistance would help the press improve performance through several components, namely training and equipment.

The Government requires Sh 32 billion to meet the shortfall caused by a poor harvest, among other things until the end of August. When making the appeal, at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, President Kibaki said an assessment from Kenya Food Security Steering Group indicates that Kenya requires Sh37 billion to meet all the needs of the current food emergency.

President Kibaki has been urged to convene a crisis meeting following a wave of corruption scandals in the country. Officials from the National Anti Corruption Steering Committee said the proposed meeting with all agencies tasked with fighting graft should provide leadership in resolving these scandals.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have gathered at the football stadium in Mogadishu to celebrate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from the city. The stadium was a former Ethiopian base and Islamist and clan elders called for Somalis to solve their own problems and not resort to more violence.

The leader of South Africa's governing party, Jacob Zuma, is to appeal against a court ruling which resurrected corruption charges against him. Mr Zuma's lawyer said he would approach South Africa's highest court to have the charges dropped. On Monday, the appeals court quashed an earlier ruling that threw out charges in connection with a 1999 arms deal.

Governments around the world tend to force poor people off well located and therefore valuable urban land and into peripheral ghettoes. From New Orleans to Bombay and Johannesburg the story is the same. One motivation for this is to transfer valuable land from the poor to the rich to create a subsidy for elite development at the direct expense of the poor.

The incoming Obama administration will need to put human rights at the heart of foreign, domestic, and security policy if it is to undo the enormous damage of the Bush years, Human Rights Watch said in issuing its World Report 2009. US leadership in promoting human rights will be vital, Human Rights Watch said, because at present the most energetic and organized diplomacy addressing human rights is negative - conducted by nations trying to avoid scrutiny of their own and their allies' abuses.

Ubuntu’s open source project-hosting service Launchpad will release its underlying code as open source software on July 21. The announcement comes via the Launchpad News. The most recent Launchpod podcast talks with Launchpad Ombudsman Karl Fogel about the decision.

The outgoing President of Ghana, John Kufuor, commuted all death sentences in the country. Amnesty International welcomed the action and urged the new President of Ghana, John Atta Mills, to seize the moment and take immediate steps to abolish the death penalty in law.

Three of the world’s leading human rights organisations have lashed out at African leaders for failing to take action in Zimbabwe, in the strongest criticism yet of the ongoing support for Robert Mugabe. The International Bar Association (IBA), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have this week all released strong statements condemning the continued inaction of African leaders in the Zimbabwe crisis.

Ivory Coast held ceremonies to mark northern rebels officially returning local tax collecting and administrative powers to the central government on Thursday but true reunification and post-war polls remain elusive. Thursday's deadline was the latest test of a troubled process aimed at reuniting the world's top cocoa grower, which was once the region's most stable country but has endured years of crisis since it was divided by a 2002-2003 war.

As the holder of this new and high profile role at the Nairobi Office, you will be central in driving AI’s human rights and growth agenda in Kenya. You will be responsible for providing strategic and political advice to the movement and lead AI’s work in Kenya in conjunction with colleagues at the International Secretariat in London and the Regional Office in Kampala.

You will work as part of a Project Team and in collaboration with youth focused civil society organisations in Kenya you will mobilize young people nation-wide for human rights activism and grow a Youth Network linked to wider AI's Africa Youth Networks.

Zambia's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) received more than 2,000 corruption complaints from the public for 2008, the ACC yearly report states. "The commission investigated a number of cases last year. Arrests were effected and cases brought before the courts of law where sufficient evidence was established," ACC acting director Rosewin Wandi told IPS. "Between 60 and 70 percent of reported complaints were against government officials, while about 20 percent were against officials in the private sector."

The Society for Aids in Africa (SAA) and the International Aids Society (IAS) call on Senegalese government to immediately release and drop charges against 9 men sentenced recently for 8 years each in prison based on sexual orientation. Among those arrested work towards providing critical HIV prevention, care and treatment services among men who have sex with men (MSM).

Thousands of Kenyans who fled their homes following a wave of violence triggered by the disputed general election last year are still languishing in temporary camps. More than 1,500 were killed and another 300,000 displaced in post-election clashes fought predominantly between members of Kenya's two main tribes - the Luo and the Kikuyu.

Reporters Without Borders notes that Nsimba Embete Ponte, the editor of the biweekly L’Interprète, was released on completing a 10-month prison sentence for “insulting” President Joseph Kabila by referring to rumours about his health in a series of articles.

Poverty poses a major obstacle for farmers in Ethiopia to adapt to climate change, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said. "The poor do not have the necessary technology and resources, in terms of money and so on, to be able to change and adapt," Meles told a national climate change conference in Addis Ababa.

As Senegal's parliament prepares to debate possible changes to rape laws, civil society groups say legislative reforms will not be enough to combat sexual violence against women and children. “It is not enough to put rapists in prison and change the laws," Adama Sow of the Senegalese NGO Action Group Against Child Rape (GRAVE) told IRIN. “That is needed, of course...but we also need to change mentalities. If not we will never overcome this problem.”

For the first time in years, John Phiri*, a health extension worker in Malawi's central Salima district, does not have to fill in a stack of forms during his monthly round of collecting data to monitor nutrition levels in the community. Now he whips out his mobile phone and texts the data, including the height and weight of the children in the area, while covering his beat.

The inhabitants of Sam Ouandja, an isolated diamond mining town in the northeast of the Central African Republic (CAR), were exposed to their first ever HIV awareness campaign in 2007. The focus was on HIV testing, but more than a year later, those who tested positive are still waiting for the arrival of HIV/AIDS services.

Nearly 15 years since apartheid ended, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies, or electricity.

But A Place in the City will overturn all your assumptions about ‘slums’ and the people who live in them.

In this film, shot in the vast shack settlements in and around Durban, members of , the grassroots shackdwellers’ movement, lay out their case – against forcible eviction; for decent services – with passion, eloquence, and sweet reason. The film captures the horrible conditions in which shackdwellers live – but it also captures Abahlali’s bravery and resilience, in a political climate where grassroots campaigners like them are more likely to be met with rubber bullets than with offers to talk.

‘For the first time now’, says S’bu Zikode, Abahlali’s elected leader, ‘poor people have started to speak for themselves. Now, that challenges those who are paid to think for us – who are paid to speak for us.’

At the heart of Abahlali’s struggle is the struggle for meaningful citizenship rights for South Africa’s poor majority. ‘Or does freedom in South Africa,’ asks Abahlali volunteer organiser Louisa Motha, ‘only belong to the rich?’
Made with assistance from Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice through a grant from TrustAfrica.

Edited at VET, Hoxton Square, London
Editor: Duncan Harris
Filmed, produced and directed by Jenny Morgan
© Grey Street Films 2008

Available on DVD: Fahamu ISBN: 978-1-906387-41-9 A place in the city. Profits go to Abahlali and towards production of multiple language versions.

Kanungu resident district commissioner Can. Ben Rullonga has warned residents against using Congolese refugees as house maids or wives. Anybody found using the refugees will be taken to the courts of law, Rullonga said. Rullonga was on Friday addressing residents at Kihiihi in Kanungu district at a ceremony where 2,362 out of 13,000 Congolese refugees were transferred to Nakivale refugee camp in Isingiro district.

The Mauritanian government is guilty of routine and systematic torture, according to a new Amnesty International report. Mauritania: torture at the heart of the state says that the country's security forces have adopted torture as the preferred method of investigation and repression. The report details the methods of torture and lists the exact locations of some torture centres.

For the third year in a row, Radio 1812 will bring together migrant groups and radios from around the world to celebrate International Migrants Day on 18th December. Last year, over 150 radio stations produced, broadcasted and shared programmes on migration, turning the event into a successful opportunity to make migrants’ voices heard across the world.

This is a Call for Papers on “Political Culture, Governance and the State in Africa”, to be discussed at a DPMF Conference at the end of February 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. Papers must reach DPMF by 20th December, 2008. A review committee will select papers to be presented at the conference. DPMF will invite to the conference writers of the selected papers and will cover their fare and accommodation. Papers should be emailed to Christine Wangari at: - [email][email protected]

We, women from women’s rights organisations and networks gathered in Doha before the official Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) to review the Monterrey Consensus, have been working to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the centre of the FfD process.

I met my abuser who I confused as my partner for three and a half years when I was seventeen, on the set of his first big break. He was alive and enthusiastic with a magnetism that lured me and catapulted me back at the same time. We raised many eyebrows in the supposedly new South Africa, me the white suburban Jewish girl from the northern suburbs paired with an unknown ghetto boy with a shady past from the depths of Zola.

I am a 38-year-old woman born in Lubumbashi, who did not enjoy love from her parents. At the age of three, my father passed away and my brother and I had to separate from my mother. The way the culture was then, the husband’s family must take over everything including the children. My mother remarried her husband’s brother and we started our new life with problems in a house with two wives and nine children. I did not understand why my mother had chosen to marry her husband’s brother.

My name is Grace Dimakatso Maleka, I was married to my husband for 20 years. We were blessed with three children, two of whom are still alive. Since we began to live together we did not have a happy relationship, we used to fight every weekend when he came home drunk. Shortly after my first child was born, in 1990, we separated and I went to my mother’s place.

I grew up in the arms of poverty, having just basic meals and two sets of my uniform throughout my primary and high school years. One pair of sandals got me through many years right up to high school. As a Hindi speaking child, I had to live within a certain protocol. I felt as if I did not have any rights. I was not supposed to demand, but to do as I was told. Doing household chores and my schoolwork was not enough. I had to do the homework of my brothers as well.

I am a mother of 4 children. I was staying together with them and my husband. My husband was jealous, and as for me I did not have any suspicions about him. He was cruel and I did not realise that at the time. He used to beat me up for nothing but I was not aware, I sometimes wondered if I was born to suffer.

With rapidly increasing urban populations, cities in Africa are faced with enormous challenges and will have to find ways to facilitate by 2015 urban services, livelihoods and housing for more than twice as many urban dwellers than it has today. A worrying trend with the African urbanization process is that it is a process rooted in poverty rather than an industrialization-induced socio-economic transition as in other major world urban regions.