Spain has sent several hundred African migrants back to Senegal from the Canary Islands, officials say. Six planes flew them from the island of Tenerife to Saint-Louis in the African country's north-west. The migrants were among more than 30,000 Africans who landed in the Canaries in 2006 after dangerous sea journeys in open wooden boats. Most of those on board were Senegalese, but others were said to be from Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali and Mauritania.

Non-white South Africans are at least 10 times more likely to be stopped for further questioning by immigration officers when entering Britain than their white countrymen, according to research published by the Home Office. The report also shows that non-white Canadians are nine times more likely to be stopped than their white countrymen, and that non-white Americans were more than twice as likely to be stopped as they came off flights.

Voluntary Youth Philanthropists (VYP) is a Kenyan based organization, with active regional networks that has been lobbying for good governance and youth participation since its inception in 2000. The theme for the Peace Camel Caravan 2007 is “Youth leading change”. Its mission is creating awareness on leadership and peace in Kenya, targets 5 million people directly and indirectly in all eight provinces. It will start in April 2007 in Nairobi and with support vehicles will cover 1,500km in 15 days, according to AfricaFiles.

From Iraq to Nigeria, multinational corporations are ignoring human rights, entrenching a culture of abuse and impunity that is difficult to eradicate, a leading anti-apartheid activist warns. Kader Asmal, a former South African minister of education, says the abuses run from environmental degradation around the world to the more than 90,000 security contractors, engaged in murky multi-billion-dollar businesses, in war-torn Iraq.

"Does Microsoft intend to continue to break the law by filing software patents in South Africa?" This was the question Derek Keats of the University of the Western Cape asked Microsoft national technical officer, Potlaki Maine, in an open debate held at Freedom to Innovate South Africa's workshop on software and business method patents last Friday (January 19).

The provision of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as a key component of the global response to HIV/AIDS, yet little is known about the impact of this intervention on the welfare of children whose parents receive treatment. In this working paper CGD post-doctoral fellow Harsha Thirumurthy and his co-authors use longitudinal household survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program in western Kenya to provide the first estimate of the impact of ARV treatment on children’s schooling and nutrition.

This paper examines the role that may be envisioned for the courts in Angola with respect to the poor. Looking at the period from 1992 - 2004, it analyses the factors that are necessary for getting social rights litigation successfully through the courts and identifies the type of impediments which exist. The paper finds that the failure to implement social and economic rights in Angola is not primarily due to constitutional limitations, but rather due to the lack of resources among the poor as well as to lack of human and technical resources within the justice system itself.

This report discusses the evolution of the concept of a river basin in order to give a more politicised view of integrated water management. The paper argues that the river basin has been associated with various strands of thinking and sometimes co-opted or mobilised by particular groups to strengthen the legitimacy of their agenda. The author argues that the river basin is a political and ideological construct where the environment and political/administrative systems meet.

This World Health Organization paper defines the Stop TB Strategy which underpins the second global plan to stop TB (2006-2015). The goal of the strategy is to reduce dramatically the global burden of TB by 2015. It aims to achieve universal access to high-quality diagnosis and treatment; reduce the suffering and socioeconomic burden associated with TB; protect poor and vulnerable populations from TB; and support development of new tools and enable their timely and effective use.

Population Services International (PSI) is the world's leading non-profit social marketing organization, operating in more than 60 developing countries. PSI creates demand for essential health products and services by using private sector marketing techniques and innovative communications campaigns to motivate positive changes in health behavior.

An international coalition of free expression groups has urged new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to remind Tunisia of its obligations under international law to respect freedom of expression and other human rights. The IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG) says more than one year after Tunisia hosted the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the state of free expression is as poor, if not poorer, now than it was when the conference was held in November 2005.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has reiterated its deep concern regarding the situation in Guinea. Whilst the Guinean inter-union group was meeting in Conakry to take stock of the situation following the bloody repression that had claimed 30 lives on Monday, its leaders were summoned to the palace of President Lansana Conté on Tuesday afternoon.

Kumasi, with a population of one million, is the second city of Ghana and the capital of the Ashanti Region. The city is growing rapidly both in area and population. This is affecting the natural environment and the livelihoods of the people living in rural areas around the city.

African countries are spearheading ways to tackle climate change and have important lessons for how others can cope in future, says a soon to be released report. The report by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, United States, shows how certain countries are integrating climate information into development and planning. This helps them to manage climate risks such as flood and drought, reports SciDev.

The International Fellowships Programme (IFP) provides opportunities for advanced study to exceptional individuals who will use this education to become leaders in their respective fields, furthering development in their own countries and greater economic and social justice worldwide. To ensure that Fellows are drawn from more diverse backgrounds than ever before, IFP will actively recruit candidates from social groups and communities that lack systematic access to higher education.

Morocco's "march towards light" as its literacy programme is called is brightening up as official figures go, but with far too many shady areas still. Two years after the launch of the programme intended to eradicate illiteracy by 2015 in line with the Millennium Development Goals, officials claim that illiteracy has diminished to 38 percent of the population of 30 million, from 80 percent in 1960 and 48 percent in 1999.

A group of forty Bushmen have managed to return to their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve this weekend, despite a heavy police presence and attempts to persuade them to stay in the relocation camps. All the Bushmen in the convoy were allowed into the reserve by the wildlife guards at the gates, although some were only issued with temporary permits.

Guinea's long borders and central position mean analysts view it as a regional lynchpin, saying serious domestic instability could easily spill over, ending tenuous progress towards the consolidation of peace in Liberia and Sierra Leone, which both experienced devastating civil wars in the 1990s.

The embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives, Edwin Snowe, Jr. has called on the Ministry of Justice to relax activities leading to investigating the alleged bribery involving lawmakers and re-direct its investigation to the disappearance of the chairs of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker from the Centennial Pavilion.

The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project investigates the role and the impact of the news media on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa. We offer two annual 4-6 month fellowships to working journalists to undertake longer term and in-depth research and writing outside of the newsroom. The writing that results from these fellowships is published in a wide range of media and peer-reviewed journals, posts Journalism.co.za.

Amnesty International's global Urgent Action network provides an effective and rapid means of preventing some of the most life-threatening human rights violations against individuals. Tilahun Ayalew (m), Anteneh Getnet (m), Meqcha Mengistu (m), all officials of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA) are prominent members of Ethiopia's main teachers' trade union, which has been critical of the government. Tilahun Ayalew and Anteneh Getnet are reported to be in custody, and are believed to have been tortured. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience, detained solely for the non-violent expression of their opinions and trade union activities.

Africa is facing many challenges during the current decade. The challenges are both external and internal. This demands continuous review of plans and programmes deemed necessary to address these challenges. To effectively redress the current situation in coherent manner, the AUC strategic plan has been updated and consolidated with the newly identified programmes/ projects, which reflects the African Continent’s ambitions. The AUC Strategic Plan for the period 2004-2007 defines the core business of the Commission within the African continent as mainly to achieve accelerated Continental Integration and to squarely set the Commission as a prime mover of Africa’s socio-economic development and integration endeavors.

The United Nations security council is planning to cut its peacekeeping force which monitors the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The UN wants the military force based on the disputed border cut from 2,300 to 1,700, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN envoy, said on Tuesday (16 January 2007).

Fighting between unidentified groups in Central African Republic’s crisis-ridden north has left one million people in need of humanitarian assistance, the majority of which have been directly exposed to conflict, said the country’s Humanitarian Coordinator, Toby Lanzer, on Tuesday (16 January 2007).

Leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have said they want to leave southern Sudan - where they have assembled for peacetalks - and return to Uganda. Monday's (15 January 2007) statement comes after the LRA's ended peace talks with Uganda on Friday (12 January 2007).

An increasingly grim security situation in northern Central African Republic threatened the progress made since elections in 2005, Toby Lanzer, United Nations Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in that country, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon (16 January 2007).

The Rift Valley Fever, a virus that has killed nearly 80 people in Kenya, has spread to the Somali border town of Doble, where thousands of refugees fleeing conflict are assembled, officials said on Friday (12 January 2007).

After the traumas of war and forced exile, HIV is an additional hardship for many refugees living in the small huts of clay and straw in a camp at Molangue, Central African Republic (CAR), near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Rising levels of rape and sexual exploitation of women and teenage girls in Liberia have sparked concern by both the government and women's rights groups.

Africa's premier air carrier, South African Airways (SAA), is fighting to regain its credibility by penalising its officials indicted in a sex scandal. With claims of a sex scandal among the carrier's top management, SAA is degenerating into a haven for sex pests such as rape and harassment, critics say.

A shortage of paediatric testing kits and specialised medical staff in Zambia is causing delays in rolling out antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for children infected with HIV/AIDS. Despite the National AIDS Council (NAC) having enough ARV medication to treat about 19,000 children, only about 5,000 are able to access the drugs.

As a tense and at times violent nationwide strike continued in Guinea this week, Human Rights Watch called on Guinean security forces to exercise restraint in responding to demonstrators and to ensure that their fundamental right to life, and freedoms of expression and assembly are respected.

Zim Online reports that a special parliamentary committee on Tuesday (16 January 2007) said it plans to begin probing members of President Robert Mugabe’s Cabinet suspected of involvement in “shady diamond and gold deals”. The police confirmed they were investigating several top officials they suspect of illegally dealing in precious minerals.

M’du Hlongwa explores the role of NGOs in the struggle for social justice. “Even some NGOs call us criminal when we speak for ourselves. We are supposed to suffer silently so that some rich people can get rich from our work, and others can get rich having conferences about having more conferences about our suffering. But the police never come to these conferences. These conferences are just empty talking.”

South Africa does not think of the poor. The poorest of the country are the majority but we are kept voiceless. The poorest I am talking about are the shack dwellers, the street traders, the street kids, the flat dwellers who can’t afford the rent and the ‘unemployeds’ from Cape Town to Musina in the Limpopo Province and from Richard’s Bay on the Indian Ocean to Alexander Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

We always say that the fact that we are poor in life does not make us short-minded. We know that our country is rich. There are all the minerals like gold and aluminium, the water and the forestry, the trade and the industry, the agriculture, the art and the culture and the science and the technology.

The Freedom Charter said that the wealth of South Africa should benefit the people of South Africa but it is not like that. The land of our ancestors was taken for the farms and the forests. Our grandparents and parents worked on those farms and in the mines and factories and houses. Now we are either trying to make a living selling to other poor people or we are the servants who come quietly into the nice places with our heads always down, to keep them nice, and to keep them working for the rich. Most of our time goes into just trying to survive. To get some little money, to get water, to see a doctor, to rebuild our homes after they have burnt down, to get our children into school or to try and stop evictions. We shouldn’t be suffering like this.

Our shacks are flooded during heavy rains. Sometimes they are even washed away because the City won’t let us build proper structures or build proper houses for us in the city where we need to be to work and study. And our shacks get burnt down in fires because the City thinks that we don’t deserve to have electricity. We are always losing our belongings in these fires and sometimes loved ones, especially children and old people, are lost. The constitution says that everyone must have adequate shelter. We don’t have adequate shelter and the situation is not getting better. Now the city is trying to evict us and is leaving people homeless on the side of the road. How many lives will be destroyed before our voices are heard? How many children will drown in rivers on the way to school because ‘there is no budget’ to build bridges while casinos, and airports and theme parks have huge budgets? Who will do something about the fact that the police who are supposed to protect the people are always abusing us? Is it right that they come into our houses and ill-treat us, insulting us, stealing from us and hitting us? Who will do something about the fact that even when our youth finish grade 12, they just sit at home because there is no work and because our parents can’t afford to send us to university? Who will turn our economy from something that lets the rich get richer off the suffering of the poor into something that lets all the people make a better life?

The politicians have shown that they are not the answer to our suffering. The poor are just made the ladders of the politicians. The politician is an animal that hibernates. They always come out in the election season to make empty promises and then they disappear. But we know that lies are for the time being but truth is for life. These guys get into power by lying to us and then they make money. They don’t work for the people who put them up there. In fact our suffering ends up working for them. Their power comes because they say that they will speak for us. That is why in Abahlali [Shack Dwellers Movement] we started to say ‘Speak to us and not for us’ and why we vote in our own elections for people who will live and work with us in our communities and without any hopes for making our suffering into a nice job.

We know that our country is rich. We know that it is the suffering of the poor that makes it rich. We know how we suffer and we know why we suffer. But in Abahlali we have found that even though we are a democratic organisation that gets its power from the trust of our members and have never hurt one person, the government and even some NGOs call us criminal when we speak for ourselves. We are supposed to suffer silently so that some rich people can get rich from our work, and others can get rich having conferences about having more conferences about our suffering. But the police never come to these conferences. These conferences are just empty talking. When we have big meetings where we live, the police are even in the sky in their helicopters. These conferences demand our support but they never support our struggles. We are always on our own when the fires come, or when the police come, or when the City comes to evict us.

I want to say clearly that I am a Professor of my suffering. We are all Professors of our suffering. But in this South Africa, the poor must always be invisible. We must be invisible where we live and where we work. We must even be invisible when people are getting paid to talk about us in government or in NGOs! Everything is done in our name. We are even told that the 2010 World Cup is for us when we can’t afford tickets and will be lucky to watch it on television. The money for stadiums should go for houses and water and electricity and schools and clinics. Even now shacks are being destroyed and street traders are being sorely abused by the METRO and SAPS police to make us invisible when the visitors come. This World Cup is destroying our lives. I call 2010 ‘The year of the curse’. South Africa is sinking. It will only be rescued if the poor take their place in the country.

But before 2010 is 2009. This is the year of the National Elections in our beloved country. When the elections come I want to see who will be queuing in that hot or rainy day to vote. I see voting as the same as throwing your last money in a flooded river. I believe that many people who voted before want to go and ask to get their X’s back. Abahlali sensed this early and in the 2006 local government elections we said “No Land, No House, No Vote”. We said that whenever we have voted for people who say that they will speak for us, they hibernate afterwards. We said that we would struggle for land and housing against all councillors. We said that we would make ourselves the strong poor by building our settlement committees and our movement.

We got beaten for that by the police. Some of the NGO people said that we were too stupid to understand what elections were for and that we needed ‘voter education’. They need an education in the politics of the poor. They should come and live in a settlement for even just one week before they say that we are too stupid to understand our own politics. Our boycott brought the percentage of voters in the areas where we are strong right down. In these areas the councillors can’t claim to represent the poor and we have made our own organisations, which do represent the poor because they are made for the poor by the poor, much stronger than the councillors. Abahlali is much stronger than Baig and Bachu and Dimba.

I am sure the number of non-voters who choose to work very hard every day struggling in their communities instead of giving trust to politicians will be multiplied in 2009. I will personally be pushing for Abahlali and our sister organisations to take the ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’ campaign into the 2009 National Elections. Oh! South Africa the rich, sinking country! There is no more need to vote for politicians in this country. I always say to people that they should vote if they ever see even one politician doing something good for the poor.

But from the local government to the provincial and national parliaments I only see politicians on gravy trains and holidays and in conferences with the rich. They are the new bosses, not the servants of the poor. They deceive us and make fools of us. They ask us for our vote and then disappear with our votes to their big houses and conferences where they plan with the rich how to make the rich richer. Their entrance fee for these houses and conferences is us. They sell us to the rich. Can anyone show one politician who has stood up to say build houses not stadiums? Can anyone show one politician who has said that Moreland’s land should be for the poor who are still waiting to be a real part of South Africa and not for more shops and golf courses? Can anyone show one politician who has said that it is wrong for the police to beat us and arrest us when we want to march? Can anyone show one politician who has stood with us when the police shoot at us?

Let us keep our votes. Let us speak for ourselves where we live and work. Let us keep our power for ourselves. The poor are many. We have shown that together we can be very strong. Abahlali has now won many victories. Other organisations are working hard too. Let us continue to work to make ourselves the strong poor. Let us vote for ourselves every day.

• M’du Hlongwa lives in the Lacey Road settlement in Sydenham, Durban. He is unemployed and his mother works as a cleaner in a state hospital. He was the secretary in the first and second Abahlali baseMjondolo secretariat but did not stand for election for a position in the 2007 secretariat in order to be able to complete his book on the politics of the poor and to try and gain access to a university to study to be a teacher. However he continues to be an enthusiastic ordinary member of Abahlali baseMjondolo and to do volunteer work each week day morning work for people living in HIV/AIDS. He is 26. For information on Abahlali baseMjondolo visit

• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

All-expense-paid trips are being offered to help ensure that technologists in developing countries have a say in shaping the Internet's architecture for years to come. Given that the Americans and Europeans got to the Internet first, engineers elsewhere have complained they haven't had enough say in some of the Internet's fundamental decisions.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has attributed Africa's environmental problems to activities of other nations, saying, "Many African nations did not contribute to environmental degradation through emissions but suffered debilitating implications due to the activities of other nations."

That sub-Saharan Africa has experienced high growth rates over the past few years is not in dispute, the question is; for how long will it last? For most countries, it won't, according to the World Economic Forum.

When Marie Diongoye Konaté first encountered ITC at an exporters’ association meeting in Bamako, Mali, in March 2005, she was very much struck by the “Buying from Africa for Africa” initiative it was promoting. It was an idea to which Ms Konaté wholeheartedly subscribed.

Africa Online is the subject of a takeover attempt that involves rival Internet service provider Wananchi Online. On Monday (15 January 2007), the bidding group released a statement detailing plans to buy the African Lakes Corporation (ALC), Africa Online's London-based parent company.

The classroom has become a front line in the fight against AIDS in southern Sudan, where many teenagers are attending school for the first time now that the 21-year civil war has ended.

The first day of school could be grim for a bunch of Grade 1 pupils whose classrooms were ransacked and wrecked days before the start of term. Teachers and governing body members at Greenlands Primary School in Bishop Lavis looked hopelessly yesterday (15 January 2007) at what they estimate to be R60 000 in damage.

Relief International, an international relief and development agency with cross-sectoral programs bridging relief and development is in search of a Program Manager (PM) for a USAID funded Child Survival (MCH) Program in Tessaoua District, Niger.

Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW), a youth-led international development agency, is in the process of dramatically increasing its operations and impact. Currently SPW has offices in Australia, India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, USA, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Burundi's Supreme Court has sentenced two people to jail terms ranging from 15 to 20 years and acquitted four others, including former President Domitien Ndayizeye, over charges of plotting a coup.

Somalia's Parliament voted on Wednesday (17 January 2007) to oust powerful speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who fell out with the president and prime minister late last year after he made peace overtures to Islamists.

A Pretoria woman is fighting for her life in hospital after she was allegedly assaulted by Sunnyside police officers, the Pretoria News reported on Wednesday (15 January 2007).