This Global Press Institute article says that few rape cases result in conviction in Cameroon. 'Doctors, police officers and lawyers say frequent false reports make it difficult to confirm when rapes occur. But this culture of skepticism leads to underreporting as victims say they doubt anyone will believe them.'

This video report for the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) on the mistreatment of asylum seekers in Israel was submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on 30 January 2012. It presents evidence of racial discrimination towards African asylum seekers and refugees who have walked across Israel's open border with Egypt.

In just under two decades of liberation, South Africa is now gripped by the deadly politics of character assassination, rapacious self-enrichment and factionalism. The ideals of the anti-apartheid struggle have been lost in public life.

How genuine is the anger that has been expressed in some quarters about Africa accepting a gift of the new African Union headquarters from China? There are so many other issues of urgent concern around the continent that the critics should direct their wrath to as well.

The winner, who fled Jamaica a year ago following homophobic death threats, vows to continue with the struggle for LGBT rights in honour of the the fallen Ugandan activist.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/568/Unknown.gifThe company contracted to market Angola overseas is owned by the president’s children. While two-thirds of the population survives on less than $2 a day, the president and his protégés plunder the country.

Time has come for politics of accountability and inclusion. The country’s top leaders need to move away from their ethnic enclaves and promote reconciliation and healing as Kenya heads to the next election.

Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls a near majority of seats in the Egyptian Parliament, won more than half of the committees of the Lower House on 31 January. The Speaker of the Parliament Mohammed Saad el–Katatni, also a member of the FJP, announced the results of the internal elections of the parliament’s sub-committees, where 9 out of 19 committees are to be headed by senior members of the FJP bloc.

Cape Town has been awarded the right to host the World Design Capital 2014 (WDC2014), but the City of Cape Town’s recent announcement that it will lead the management and coordination of WDC2014 threatens this vision, writes Gavin Silber of the Social Justice Coalition. 'The City is one of the main providers of Cape Town's basic services including sanitation, water, electricity, roads, safety and (increasingly) housing. It also approves most design plans. As a service provider, whose leadership will always have re-election as a foremost concern, it should not be leading this process; it is a plain conflict of interest. The city has too much vested in promoting its own way of doing things to the exclusion of critics.'

The 18th African Union summit ended 31 January in the Ethiopian capital with adoption of a series of agreements concerning Africa's economic, political and security issues. Africa will speed up its infrastructure development and put related policies and laws in place to boost the integration process, according to the 'Declaration on the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa.' The declaration said the summit recognises 'the vital role of infrastructure and related services in the political and social-economic development, and physical integration of the continent', especially given the population growth and economic demand.

Senegalese riot police fired tear gas to break up a tense, thousands-strong rally 31 January in Dakar demanding that President Abdoulaye Wade drop plans to seek a third term in office. Opposition groups united under the June 23 Movement (M23), had called for mass resistance after a decision last Friday by the country's top judges allowing 85-year-old Wade to seek a third mandate in the February 26 polls. Thousands had gathered by late afternoon in a square in the working class suburb of Colobane, where tension rose and angry youths hurled rocks at scores of riot police keeping watch from afar.

Power tariffs will remain high despite the anticipated commissioning of Bujagali Hydro Electricity Dam in July, State Minister for Energy Simon D’Ujanga said. The Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) last month increased consumer tariffs by 36 per cent and commercial dues by 69.7 per cent.

Bargain prices on Ethiopia's prime farmland! Who's down for some land grabbing?! Anybody? This spoof commercial follows a Human Rights Watch report stating that the Ethiopian government under its 'villagization' program is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare, and educational facilities.

The trial of murdered rightwing leader Eugene Terre'Blanche resumed in the Ventersdorp Magistrate's Court on 30 January. Just before lunch there was a standoff between AWB supporters attending the trial and black residents over the singing of Bobbejaan klim die berg by the AWB to which the residents responded with Awuleth' Umshini wami. Chris Mahlangu and a minor are accused of beating and hacking 69-year-old Terre'Blanche to death with a panga and metal pipe in his farmhouse on April 3 2010. Both have pleaded not guilty to murder, housebreaking and robbery with aggravating circumstances. Mahlangu claims he acted in self defence. The teenager has denied involvement in the crime.

Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties walked out of parliament in protest as the election commission members were sworn in earlier on Wednesday, the state news agency Angop reported.

Libya will do all it can to protect its 75 per cent stake in Zamtel, the fixed-line telecoms firm in Zambia, whose government announced plans last week to seize Libya's stake in the firm, Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said Monday. 'The Zambian government has taken a unilateral action by nationalizing this company,' Khayyal said, adding he had spoken to his Zambian counterpart about the issue at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital. The previous Zambian government had sold the 75 percent stake to LAP Green Networks for $257 million in 2010. Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said: 'Definitely this money is Libyan money, and owned by the Libyan people. We will exercise all our efforts to protect this money.'

Malawi has dropped 67 places on the 2011/2012 press freedom index as a result of the 'totalitarian tendencies' of President Bingu wa Mutharika, French based media watchdog Reporters Without Boarders (RWB) has said. Malawi is now at position 146 alongside Indonesia out of 225 assessed countries.

Over the past few weeks some 900 residents of the Zimbabwean capital Harare have been diagnosed with typhoid, and about 60 have been admitted to hospital, say health authorities. There have been no confirmed fatalities from the disease, although senior health officials, who declined to be identified, told IRIN they were investigating the cause of some deaths at hospitals.

Mozambique granted concessions to investors for more than 2.5 million hectares (ha) of land between 2004 and the end of 2009, says the Oakland Institute's country report on Mozambique, which forms part of a multi-country study on understanding land investment deals in Africa. 'Mozambique’s history of Portuguese colonialism, three wars, and then the imposition by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund of a harsh neo-liberal economic model led the government in the 1990s to accept the idea that the only way to promote development and end poverty was through encouraging foreign investment. Mozambique was identified by the World Bank as one of five sparsely populated African countries with large tracts of land available for rainfed cultivation. After 2000 rising food and fuel prices and new climate change-related attention on forests triggered the interest of investors in Mozambique, particularly for trees (for paper, timber and carbon credits) and agrofuels (notably sugar and jatropha).'

The African Union has extended the mandate of its top official Jean Ping after an election, in which he was challenged by South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, deadlocked. Intense campaigns had preceded the vote for commission chief which dominated the AU summit in the Ethiopia capital, where leaders gathered to discuss broadening trade within Africa and tackling conflict hot spots.

Google Kenya country manager Olga Arara-Kimani has left the firm days after the Internet giant said it had taken action against employees implicated in a recent data poaching scandal. Arara-Kimani, who had been at the helm of the firm’s Kenyan operations when the scandal broke, said someone had to take responsibility. Two weeks ago, Kenyan online business directory firm Mocality accused Google of fraudulently using its data to sell competing product to clients.

In the context of the recent takeover of South Africa's Limpopo province by the country's national treasury, apparently because the province was bankrupt, the Mail and Guardian newspaper visited the province and have published this multimedia package showing how the lives of ordinary people are effected by a lack of service delivery.

Prominent Senegalese opposition activist Alioune Tine has been released after spending two days in detention. Tine is a member of the opposition June 23 Movement (M23), formed after countrywide protests last year against incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade's plans to run for a third term. Tine told the AFP agency he had been freed without charge.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

The UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has raised concerns about Libya’s armed brigades and the treatment of more than 8,500 detainees, majority of whom are from sub-Saharan Africa. Addressing the UN Security Council on the situation in Libya, Pillay warned that, 'lack of oversight by the central authorities creates an environment conducive to torture and ill treatment'. She urged the Libyan ministry of justice and the prosecutor’s office to take over the detention centres.

'Have you heard from Johannesburg?' is a powerful seven-part documentary series that shines a light on South Africa's history and its implications for global change. It was directed and produced by Connie Field and written by Gregory Scharpen, who are both interviewed in this Walter Turner podcast.

Senegal's opposition has called for more resistance to the court approval of President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to seek a highly disputed third term, after a night of riots in the capital, Dakar. Opposition leaders vowed on Saturday to force the president out of office, threatening to march on the palace in a city reeling from violent riots that left at least one policeman dead, according to local media. The ruling sparked fury in the capital, where protesters clashed with police. Anti-Wade protesters threw stones at police who responded with batons and tear gas after the much-anticipated ruling.

This video shows the police arresting protestors at a 'Taking Back The Common' protest at the Rondebosch Common on 27 January.

Scores of people were bundled into police vans on Friday when police forcibly prevented organisations from setting up a planned three-day summit on Jobs, Land and Housing on Rondebosch Common as a means of highlighting inequality in South African society. Organisations included Passop, Proudly Mannenberg, Gugulethu Anti-Eviction Campaign, the South African NGO Coalition and the South African Council of Churches. Determination to reclaim the common as a public area nonetheless led to clashes with police who sprayed water cannons loaded with blue dye at the demonstrators, a move reminiscent of apartheid police spraying purple dye on protestors marching to Parliament on September 2, 1989. Rihanna Marthinus, 57, a participant from Mannenberg, said the city had been promising to improve services in Mannenberg for years but nothing was being done.

African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping's bid for another term hit a snag Monday after he failed to garner two-thirds majority after four rounds of elections in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Reports from the AU headquarters indicated that the former Gabonese Foreign minister failed to win absolute majority support even after South African rival Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma opted out after three rounds of voting.

This video from The Real News reports on how Israel's Knesset has approved plans to jail asylum seekers for the longest period in the western world.

Advocates for Haitian peasants said a US-based company’s donation of up to 475 tons of hybrid vegetable seeds to aid Haitian farmers will harm the island-nation’s agriculture. The advocates contend the donation is being made in an effort to shift farmer dependence from local seed to more expensive hybrid varieties shipped from overseas. Haitian farmers and small growers traditionally save seed from season to season or buy the seed they desire from traditional seed markets.

Who are the global 1%? What companies do they run? How do they escape accountability? Check out the Transnational Institute's powerful infographic displays that expose the social and environmental costs of global corporate power. TNI, as part of its new Corporate Power project, is producing a series of infographics over 2012 that expose the reality of corporate power, and our need to fundamentally change direction. Download and share these infographics, and watch out for new ones over the coming months.

OSISA, in conjucnction with the Africa Foundations of the Open Society network of Foundations (OSF) is hosting a gathering in Cape Town, 22-24 May 2012, entitled the 'OpenForum: Money, Power & Sex: The Paradox of Unequal Growth'. Under the theme, the OpenForum will provide a space to talk about the economic, social and political implications of the emerging world order. It will also provide space for a range of actors - prominent and well known, as well as younger and newer voices - to take a critical look at the factors that will influence the African democracy and governance agenda over the next decade. Bring your ideas, let’s turn them into action!
The Call for Proposals is available at the following link:

Trade unions are gearing up to advance their fight against the Swaziland regime and the greed of the politicians who voted themselves payoffs and perks worth millions of US dollars. Protestors want the Finance Circular No 1 2010 that authorised the payments scrapped. Swaziland, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is broke and the government is struggling to pay its bills, including wages of public servants. Seven in 10 of the one million population live in abject poverty, earning less than US$2 per day.

With the 18th African Union Summit taking place in Addis Ababa, civil society organizations from across Africa are concerned that the summit’s central theme, 'Boosting Intra- African Trade,' risks being overshadowed and will not get the focus needed to tackle this urgent issue. The organizations said that intra-African trade remains weak, making up only 11 per cent of total trade in Africa. Comparatively, in Asia intra-trade represents 52 per cent and in Europe 82 per cent. Failure to invest more in intra-African trade is likely to harm the continent’s development, the groups said.

Corporate Watch has announced the publication of a clear and concise, 24-page 'Nuts & Bolts' Guide to the ins and outs of the financial sector. From hedge funds to the money markets and derivatives, all of the major players and products are broken down from a critical perspective.

This article takes economist Jeffrey Sachs to task for an op-ed article in the New York Times in which he argued that despite continuing demonstrations against the government’s surprise decision on New Year’s Day to halt state subsidies of oil for millions of Nigerians, things aren’t as bad as they seem. 'Sachs had no idea what he was talking about, his knee-jerk response to the crisis celebrated policies of austerity and economic shock, and the Grey Lady gave none of it a second thought. Neoliberalism, it would seem, is alive and well.'

There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials. 'More than half of the expected harvest was lost in flooding and siltation,' Methode Niyongendako, a consultant with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said. The rains peaked in mid-September and November, exceeding forecasts in terms of volume and frequency, and were the heaviest since October 1961, according to households questioned, added Niyongendako.

jousts with the ruling ideas in society - or public history - to stimulate a re-think of Africans’ predicament and an understanding of its historical causes, and to encourage positive action to rectify current abuses.

Until his death on 20 January 2012, Dudley J. Thompson remained a revered leader of the Afro-American diaspora.

There are at least a million people in the West who live off the aid industry. They have a vested interest in perpetuating it. But it will disintegrate over time and die slowly.

The British government, which 46 years ago fully backed the brutal repression of the Igbo secession attempt is now not opposed to the independence of Scotland. For the Scots, Igbos or any other people, the right to self-determination is inalienable.

President Sirleaf won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and should know that the oppression and exclusion of any group is anathema to Alfred Nobel’s vision of an equal society.

North and South Sudan will not find durable peace so long as the marginalised population in the border States continues to die. There must be stability in Abyei, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan and Darfur.

‘The uprisings in Egypt and everywhere remind us that direct action is an important pillar for the poor and the oppressed all over the world.’

The shocking news that the former Liberian strongman was indeed a CIA informant in the early years of his rise to notoriety calls into question America’s complicity in Taylor’s destruction of Liberia.

Because of the outstanding success of the workshops at last year's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., the ASA will welcome proposals for workshops on a wide range of topics to be held on Wednesday, November 28, 2012, prior to the 55th Annual Meeting.

Last year's workshops were organized by the Library of Congress, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, American University; and scholars from the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health. Topics included health in Africa, governance and development, new technologies in the field of museum studies, and information resources and materials.

To propose a workshop, please visit the to view and complete the application. Submit the completed document as an attachment to [email][email protected] or mail to: Pre-Conference Workshops, African Studies Association, Rutgers University-Livingston Campus, 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854. The deadline to submit applications is March 15, 2012. Applicants will be notified of the Program Committee's decision in early April.

OSIWA calls for proposals that seek to:
1. Foster building of strong governance institutions, processes and structures that are transparent, accountable and intolerant of impunity;
2. Build the capacity of civil society organizations and increase citizen participation in decision-making processes and
3. Promote the protection of fundamental rights and citizenship groups exposed to discrimination.

The programs will be implemented in one or more of these countries: Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Please click on the link provided to access the full Call for Proposals, which contains further links to a detailed strategy to guide the application process and the application documents.