Os lucros e riquezas obtidos pela exploração dos recursos naturais do Congo Oriental continuam a alimentar a violência, a pilhagem e o sofrimento da população congolesa.

A review of: (1) Fred Pearce, The Landgrabbers. The New Fight over Who Owns the Planet, Eden Project Books, London, 2012, pp.xii + 388, £20; and (2) GRAIN, The Great Food Robbery: How corporations control food, grab land and destroy the climate, Pambazuka Press, Oxford, 2012, pp.164, £14.95.

The organisers of the campaign to name and shame the worst Olympic sponsor have announced preliminary voting results that show mining company Rio Tinto in the lead with BP in second place and Dow Chemical third. People have voted in the thousands on the Greenwash Gold website and final results will be announced and medals awarded just before the start of the games.

South Africa is silent as members of the LGBTIQ community are attacked and killed, while Islamist militants are destroying treasured historical buildings in Mali. It is all ‘thoughtlessness’.

02 July 2012 - The Democratic Left Front (DLF) fully endorses the call for support issued jointly by Abahlali BaseMjondolo (AbM) and the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) for the mass occupation of the ward councillor’s office in the Zakheleni shack settlement (in Ward 88 in Umlazi). This call for disciplined and peaceful occupation of the office is part of intensifying mass mobilisation and pressure against the ward councillor (Nomzamo Mkhize) and the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.

29 June 2012 - Two Sudanese men currently detained in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre in London have been on hunger strike for 37 days in protest against their indefinite detention, and are determined to continue until they are released. Visitors and human rights activists supporting their cases are extremely concerned for their health.

Through The MasterCard Foundation, students may apply for a scholarship that will cover the costs related to the attainment of a Bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University (ASU) including: tuition; round trip airfare from the student’s home country to Phoenix, Arizona; housing; food; living expenses; and experiential learning abroad.

A complete application for The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at ASU is available at Scholarship applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until 15 July 2012.

The US government’s heightened preoccupation with “terrorists” is out of proportion with the threat these groups actually pose to the United States. So what exactly is America’s military adventures in Africa about?

The Berghof Foundation has announced the release of 'Giving Peace an Address? Reflections on the Potential and Challenges of Creating Peace Infrastructures' by Ulrike Hopp-Nishanka. It is the lead article in their Handbook Dialogue 'Peace Infrastructures – Assessing Concept and Practice'. The article defines and narrows the emergent concept of 'Peace Infrastructures' as networks of organisations established by conflict parties with the aim of building peace. Thus, it argues, infrastructures for peace have a great potential to contribute to peacebuilding, by strengthening the ownership and commitment of the stakeholders to the conflict.

Journaliste en Danger (JED) says it is outraged by the prolonged and illegal detention of Bruno Kabwe, interim director of Radio Parec, a community radio station based in Kalemie, in Katanga province, on the orders of a colonel of the armed forces (FARDC). According to information obtained by JED, Bruno Kabwe was arrested on 22 June 2012 and was immediately taken into custody at the headquarters of the 61st Brigade. He remains in detention and is prevented from having visitors. Kabwe is accused of having made 'rude' comments about Jean-Marie Izumbu, the colonel in question and the commander of the 61st Brigade of the FARDC.

Hundreds of families from villages in Somalia's Bal'ad District, in Middle Shabelle Region, have been displaced following recent fighting between African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and Al-Shabab insurgents, say officials. 'Our settlements are now the front line between the AMISOM/TFG alliance forces and Al-Shabab and we don't know where to go,' Hussein Mayow, a father of six, told IRIN. The displacement followed 25 June clashes in Bal'ad, about 40km northwest of Mogadishu, with the worst affected areas being the villages of Wala-Moy and Hamar-Daye, said an official with the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Youth and Sport, who preferred anonymity.

Nigeria’s health services halved the maternal mortality rate between 1990 and 2010, but in parts of the predominantly Muslim north, which is less socio-economically advanced, women are 10 times more likely to die in childbirth than in the oil-rich, predominantly Christian south. Maternal health personnel are calling for more appropriate interventions to bridge the gap. Reasons for the divide mirror those in many West African states: too few referral facilities and health practitioners - especially midwives - and inadequate antenatal equipment; too few clinics and poor roads that make accessing clinics difficult and expensive; poverty and cultural barriers to visiting hospitals.

Meet Mohammed aged 22. He has never left Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee complex, but that hasn’t stopped him learning how to create and host websites, set up a small business and teach others how to use computers. When he isn’t out interviewing people for a local newspaper produced in the camp, Mohammed can usually be found in the Hag youth ICT laboratory, tucked away in a discreet corner of Ifo2 camp, an extension of Hagadera, one of the three camps that make up the sprawling Dadaab complex.

The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme is facing discrimination charges brought by six former employees. The group, dubbed the KEMRI six, are accusing the programme of exploiting African employees, impeding their career development, and giving preferential treatment and pay to researchers from developed countries. They also allege their work was stolen and given to researchers from developed countries. Many consider the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme to be a model North-South partnership, praising its substantial support of African researchers. But others criticise what they perceive to be a failure to promote African scientists, or to involve them in setting research agendas. According to scientists in Africa and Europe, partnerships between rich and poor nations often generate tensions.

Ben Cousins, co-author of 'Land, Power & Custom: Controversies generated by South Africa’s Communal Land Rights Act' and Research Chair at the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at UWC, recently talked with Talk Radio 702 about the difficulties surrounding land distribution. He stated that the fair distribution of land was an enormously complex issue, but that there was no need to change the Constitution in order to distribute land. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link provided.

One year after South Sudan declared independence, many humanitarian needs remain unmet. Communities lack access to basic health-care services. The situation is particularly difficult in northern regions close to the border with Sudan. Recent fighting in this area has had a direct impact on the availability and price of food, contributing to an increase in child deaths from malnutrition. 'In Malakal Teaching Hospital, there has been a dramatic rise in child malnutrition admissions over the past three months, since fighting escalated,' said Melker Mabeck, the head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in South Sudan.

Rebels from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have taken control of three towns in the country's eastern North Kivu province, a spokesperson for the group has said. The rebels, known as the M23 movement, had taken Rutshuru and the towns of Ntamugenga and Rubare, less than 10km away, on the road to the provincial capital Goma, by midday (local time) on Sunday. The rebels said they did not face any opposition from the FARDC, the DRC's national army.

Six west African leaders have called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate 'war crimes' in northern Mali, in a statement issued at the end of a summit on the crisis there. Over the past week, armed Islamist fighters have descended on cemeteries holding the remains of Timbuktu's Sufi saints, systematically destroying its six most famous tombs, in actions decribed by the ICC as possible war crimes.

A major liberal party in Libya has claimed an early lead in the first free election since the toppling of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a vote that will choose the assembly tasked with writing the country's new constitution. Early reports on Sunday showed that the National Forces Alliance (NFA), a coalition led by former prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, is leading the polls, said Faisal Krekshi, the coalition's secretary general. Jibril, who played a prominent role as rebel prime minister during the popular revolt that toppled Gaddafi last year, resigned his position in October.

Preparations for Angola’s second peacetime polls scheduled for August are being overshadowed by allegations of electoral fraud, state media bias and growing concerns about a violent crackdown on activists and protestors. Human Rights Watch has criticised the government for its heavy-handed response to street demonstrations by former soldiers demanding unpaid military pensions, and the lobby group said that it was worried about a series of violent attacks on youth groups known for their criticism of the government. 'The recent spate of serious abuses against protesters is an alarming sign that Angola’s government will not tolerate peaceful dissent,' said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director.

After weeks of delay, the United Nations released its full annex by the UN Security Council condemning the Rwandan government for its support of Congolese rebels. The 48-page annex, which was leaked partially last week, claims that the Rwandan government was instrumental in the militarisation of M23, a mutinous movement that is allegedly led by, among others, Bosco Ntaganda, a military official wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes relating to the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

The UK Government has been accused of 'immoral' double standards after it emerged that it is encouraging British businesses to do trade deals with Sudan, which means with the regime of a president who is wanted for war crimes. As aid agencies and the UN warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by the Sudanese government was close to breaking point, UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), an agency of the Department for Business, co-operated with a trade mission to Khartoum last week.

A United Nations agency seeking to safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage has rejected its advisors' call to include Lake Turkana on a list of endangered sites. The decision is a blow to Kenyan activists who have been fighting construction of a dam planned for a river in Ethiopia that feeds Lake Turkana.

This study (by Salimah Valiani, Associate Researcher, Centre for the Study of Education and Work, University of Toronto, With a Foreword by Samir Amin) traces the structural forces creating the conditions for the increased supply and demand of temporary migrant nurses around the world. It is argued that technology-driven health care cost escalation, the restructuring of nursing work, persistent undervaluing of nursing labour, and concerted state effort to produce nursing labour for export, put in motion, the global integration of nursing labour markets. Please click for details of launch events in Kenya and South Africa.

A new report from Global Witness reveals that Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) appears to have received off budget financing from a Hong Kong-based businessman as the CIO and other security agencies continue to prepare to influence elections due to take place sometime in 2013, reports the latest issue of the AfricaFocus Bulletin, which contains a press release on the report from Global Witness, the Executive Summary of the report, and selected additional excerpts.

A new study from Earth Open Source called 'GMO Myths and Truths' - authored by two well known genetic engineers with help from an investigative reporter - conducted an exhaustive survey of hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies. The report concluded not only that GM food crops pose significant, if largely under-evaluated, health risks, but that they have so far failed to deliver on their promise to increase crop yields and lower herbicide and pesticide use.

HIV care and treatment has come a long way in the past decade, write Brian Honermann and Mark Heywood in this opinion piece marking 10 years since South Africa's Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional right of all HIV positive pregnant women to access health care services to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT). 'In 2002, an HIV positive mother would pass on HIV to her baby about 30% of the time. With access to Nevirapine the transmission rate was cut in half. Now, with better drug regimens being used, transmission of HIV from mothers to babies happens in only about 4% of cases during or shortly after birth.'

As European elections show the public increasingly rejecting austerity, critics call on the IMF to focus on the flaws of the eurozone rather than austerity in country programmes. Throughout the past months the prolonged recession in parts of Europe saw unemployment reach record highs and output stall, with concerns that austerity is hindering growth and the prospects to achieve fiscal and debt targets.

The Rio+20 summit from 13 to 22 June was disappointing to many, but it could still succeed through the mandated follow-up actions on a high-level political forum, sustainable development goals, finance and technology, says The South Centre, which gives an in-depth assessment in its latest bulletin. Individual articles include:
- The Rio+20 Summit and its Follow Up
- Rio+20: Summit Adopts Text, Ends With Positive Speeches
- Rio+20: An Inside View on the Tough Fight Over Means of Implementation (Finance and Technology)
- Sustainable Development As An Answer To Economic And Financial Crises
- Food Issues in the Rio+20 Spotlight
- 'It's Not Fair to Require Emerging Countries to Contribute As Much As Rich Countries,' Says South Centre
- Indian PM’s Speech at Rio+20
- Chinese PM’s Speech at Rio+20
- South Centre Seminar in Rio on World Economy

United Nations ambassadors for South Africa and Brazil have demanded more action and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity as part as universal human rights standards, and to combat hate crimes. The Ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations, on behalf of his country and Brazil, delivered a statement on 2 July to the United Nations Humans Rights Council, saying that LGBT rights are part of the Universal standard of Human Rights, and demanding action against discrimination and hate crimes.

Kenyan women match men almost coin for coin in the now vibrant mobile money transfer market, surveys published by an international polling firm show. According to three studies on payments and money transfer behaviour carried out in Kenya and another 10 sub-Saharan African countries carried out by Gallup and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, both genders are involved in mobile money transfers in equal measure.

A coalition of local and international non-governmental organisations in health in Ghana, is asking the government to reject World Bank's proposal to adopt cost-sharing to sustain its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which has been operational since 2003. In its January report titled: 'Health Financing in Ghana at a Crossroads', the World Bank said Ghana's NHIS basic benefit package was financially unsustainable and, therefore, the government must consider cost-sharing. The coalition, which has been at the forefront of the promoting free universal access to health care in the country, said on Wednesday that it did not agree with the World Bank's suggestion, especially when it acknowledges that government expenditure on health is low.

Gunmen killed several people in an attack on two Christian villages in central Nigeria's Plateau State early Saturday, officials said. Although police and army spokesmen could not give an exact toll, one politician said at least 23 people had been killed and blamed Muslim herdsmen for the attacks.

This briefing from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre provides an overview of corporate legal accountability for human rights, summarising trends and developments in this field. The goal is to help a wide audience understand what is happening in different parts of the world.

Government accuses local groups of receiving foreign funds to recruit children into homosexuality.

Haiti is home to one form of slavery propelled by economic desperation. Parents who cannot feed or school their children regularly give them away in the hopes that the family receiving them will offer more than they themselves can.

The way of life of minorities and indigenous communities in East and Horn of Africa is under threat as governments and investors expand natural resource extraction on their lands, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says in its 2012 annual report.

Kenya Railways Corporation has over the past two decades gone from being an exemplar of service and care to leaving behind a greed-driven legacy of retrenchment, dislocation and abandonment of its employees.