Transforming Civil Conflict (TCC) is offered by The Network University, an initiative of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK. The Transforming Civil Conflict course is a four-week online course in international conflict resolution, taugh entirely through the Internet!

Three varieties of Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce crops during the 2008/9 growing season, leaving up to 200 000 hectares of fields barren of cobs and crop losses across several provinces in South Africa. According the GRAIN SA, the varieties are: MON 810, NK 603 and MON 810 x NK 603. These seeds were sold to commercial maize farmers and provided to resource-poor farmers in South Africa.

The tragedy of Congo's women and girls has slowly emerged in recent years. Tens of thousands have been raped or otherwise assaulted by army soldiers, rebels, or other men. Sexual violence has been used to terrorise civilians by all warring parties. The European Union and other donors have started programs of assistance for the victims that have made a real difference to the lives of some - unfortunately not all - Congolese women and girls. Beyond immediate medical and social assistance, the European Union in Congo also runs programs for military and judicial reform called EUSEC and REJUSCO.

The leader of an Islamist sect at the centre of five days of fighting in northern Nigeria that has claimed hundreds of lives died in police custody last night. Mohammed Yusuf was killed hours after he was captured, according to police officials quoted by news agencies. Mr Yusuf’s death followed an assault on a mosque housing followers of the radical preacher, who demanded stricter imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, across northern Nigeria and the abandonment of secular education.

This report has been compiled by a group of African and international civil society organisations concerned about the lack of transparency in mining contracts, as well as the revenue that national budgets forego because of excessive mining tax concessions as well as multinational mining companies avoiding and evading tax.

East African leaders have emphasized the need to push further the regional integration to prepare the five-member East African Community (EAC) for opportunities to attract larger portions of the foreign direct investments. The leaders, attending an investment conference which ended here Thursday, called for more focus on financial stability, political unity and Africa’s exclusion from the global economy in order to rectify the region’s failure to attract investments.

UN Special Representative for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah has told the UN Security Council that the Somali transitional government is on its heels trying to thwart repeated attempts by extremist groups to overthrow it. "Despite multiple constraints, the government is resisting and repelling multip le attempts to overthrow it and seize power illegally by force," the UN envoy said, adding: "Repeated attacks by Al-Shabaa b and Hizbul-Islam militants have sent the Horn of Africa nation into chaos, with refugees fleeing by the thousands."

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has attended the first national security council meeting to be held since he and President Robert Mugabe formed a unity government in February. Tsvangirai, who had not pushed for an earlier meeting to avoid alienating a military crucial to Mugabe's hold on power, sat with generals who had previously vowed not to work with him at the meeting chaired by Mugabe.

Zimbabwean journalists on 28 July 2009 launched the Zimbabwe Journalists for Human Rights (ZJHR) as part of efforts to curb violations of media freedom and the abuse of journalists’ professional rights with impunity. Speaking at the launch ceremony at the Harare press club, The Quill, ZJHR spokesperson Dumisani Muleya, said the organisation was moulded along the lines of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Large parts of West Africa are struggling to get back online following damage to an undersea cable. The fault has caused severe problems in Benin, Togo, Niger and Nigeria. The blackout is thought to have been caused by damage to the SAT-3 cable which runs from Portugal and Spain to South Africa, via West Africa.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should emphasize human rights on her seven-nation trip to Africa, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to Clinton. The eight-day trip, to begin on August 5, will take Clinton to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde. While in Kenya, Clinton will also meet with the president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.

An April 2009 law that criminalizes homosexual conduct threatens to exacerbate the deplorable treatment of gays and lesbians in Burundi, Human Rights Watch said in a newly publishedmultimedia project. The project, "Forbidden: Institutionalizing Discrimination against Gays and Lesbians in Burundi," consists of printed and online narratives, photos, and voice-recorded testimonies of Burundian gays and lesbians that bring to life the daily struggles faced by the small lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Burundi.

In Sierra Leone, a mother who transmits HIV to her child can be fined, jailed for up to seven years, or both. Human Rights Watch reports that in 2008, several men were arrested in Egypt simply for being HIV positive. New legislation is currently being discussed in Angola that could lead to a three to ten year jail sentence for those who knowingly pass on HIV.

The number of people fleeing fighting and reprisal attacks by Rwandan Hutu Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) South Kivu Province has increased by up to 600 percent in a few weeks, say humanitarian officials.

Nearly 150 CSOs write to IFC urging consultations with individuals and communities directly impacted by its projects as it reviews three years of implementation of the Performance Standards. BIC was among a coalition of 150 organizations who signed onto a letter urging the International Financial Corporation (IFC) to ensure consultations with individuals and communities directly impacted by its projects in the review process of its Policy on Disclosure of Information and its Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability Policy (Policy & Performance Standards).

Guinea-Bissau's electoral body has declared Malam Bacai Sanha as winner of Sunday's presidential run-off vote. Sanha, former head of state (1999-2000) and candidate of ruling party PAIGC, scored 224, 259 votes (63%) defeating rival Kumba Yala, another ex-head of state, who got 129,973 votes.

Egyptian police shot dead an African migrant trying to cross the border into Israel on Friday, security and medical sources said, the latest killing in an upsurge of violence at the sensitive frontier. The man, who was shot in the chest and right leg, was announced dead on arrival at Egypt's Rafah hospital, a medical source said. His nationality was not immediately known.

61 families living in the settlement of Tumbleweed, Howick, have been threatened with imminent, unlawful eviction by the municipality and the local Inkosi. Three armed police officers and a representative of the municipality told the community that they had 24 hours to vacate the area, or an eviction team would return tomorrow and on Friday with bulldozers to demolish their homes. All will be left homeless.

A meta-analysis of data on vaginal practices and HIV infection from ten African cohorts has found that both vaginal washing with soap and wiping the vagina with cloths, tissues or paper were associated with an increased risk of acquiring HIV, researchers reported at the Fifth International AIDS Society conference in Cape Town last week. The use of products to dry or tighten the vagina, often referred to as ‘dry sex’, did not however have a statistically significant association with HIV infection.

The Moroccan government reshuffled its cabinet on Wednesday (July 29th) to restore its parliamentary majority. King Mohammed VI appointed one minister of state and three junior ministers.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) could further raise its growth forecast for Africa next year to reflect an elevation in demand in China and some industrialised nations where signs of recovery are beginning to show. According to Antoinette Sayeh, Director of the IMF’s African Department, the end of the global recession is still some way off and African economies are feeling the dramatic decline in demand, investment, and commodity prices.

Cairo's airport has been unusually busy the past month as Egypt's security apparatus steps up its campaign against online political activists. Several prominent Egyptian bloggers have "disappeared" from the airport's arrivals hall, while others report suspiciously long delays that they claim were cover for state security officers to search their laptops and luggage.

Reporters Without Borders deplores physical attacks on journalists by supporters of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) at Lusaka international airport. The facts of incident were not disputed by President Ruphia Banda, who condemned the assault. “The president’s comments are reassuring, but apologies are not enough and concrete measures are now needed,” Reporters Without Borders said.

The Community Education Computer Society (CECS), an ICT training NGO established in 1985 in South Africa, is conducting two-day workshops on free and open source software (FOSS) in five Southern African countries. Workshops will build awareness of FOSS and build capacities to conduct OpenOffice Writer courses in Lesotho, Malawi, and Namibia; and build partnerships with organisations and individuals in Angola and the Democractic Republic of Congo, to translate the FOSS portal to Portuguese and French.

At the community centre in Mukuru, a slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, teenagers spend hours engrossed in a video game, but they are not battling other-worldly forces with super-human weapons; instead, they are finding their way through a familiar-looking city, trying to negotiate real-life situations and learn how to avoid HIV infection.

In trade, investment and development assistance news this week, China signs a construction contract with the Tanzanian government to build a cardiac surgery treatment and training center in Dar es Salaam, and funds a car plant in Angola.

China Development Bank plans Brazil, Russia, Egypt Offices, increasing its economic and political footprint in Latin America and elsewhere, and Beijing courts the Middle East with Arabic TV channel.

A 2006 study by several Chinese research institutions showed that almost 90 percent of the country's top leaders in sectors encompassing finance, foreign trade, property development, construction, and stock trading were princelings, and China's ambitious $124 billion effort to provide basic health coverage for the vast majority of its 1.3 billion citizens by 2011 is a brimming opportunity for large global drugmakers.

This increasing interest in Africa demonstrated by rising Chinese FDI to the continent, presents opportunities and challenges to the development prospects of sub-Saharan African countries. There is therefore a need to carefully identify and analyse these developments if sub-Saharan African countries are to maximize the positive effects of the opportunities and ameliorate the adverse effects of the challenges. This paper by Olu Ajakaiye, Raphael Kaplinsky, Mike Morris and Felix F. N’Zue, focuses on China–Africa investment relations drawing insights from the AERC scoping studies.

The main focus of this publication by Peter Kagwanja is the link between South Africa’s grand pan-African ambitions, especially in the area of peace, security and governance, and its own capacity to pursue these objectives. Specifically, the paper examines Pretoria’s involvement in Africa, and internal capacity to support its mediation, peacekeeping and strengthening the abilities of African institutions for peacemaking.

If anything is to be deduced from the current face-off between the Yar’Adua government and striking staff unions of tertiary institutions: Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Union (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), it is that the ruling class in Nigeria is incurably politically treacherous and intellectually backward.

The Coalition of an Effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Coalition) was founded in 2004 and brings together a group of African human rights organisations, individuals and national human rights institutions. Its mission is to influence effective, efficient, independent and credible African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Coalition was registered in 2007 in Tanzania and is headquartered in Arusha. The Coalition is recruiting an Executive Secretary to provide strategic and operational leadership.

When the film Blood Diamond came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?

Kenya's cabinet is expected to meet Monday to review a bill establishing how the masterminds of the country's post-election violence will be punished. Presidential immunity against prosecution, should Mwai Kibaki be implicated in the violence, is one of the most controversial highlights of a bill that has seen previous cabinet discussions on the matter end in a stalemate. Under the Kenyan constitution the president is immune from prosecution while in office: the bill seeks to strip away this immunity.

Africa has been "gravely affected" by the global economic downturn and its growth rate will halve this year due to collapsing commodity prices and a decline in donor funding, a new report has said. The 2009 African Economic Outlook finds that after half a decade of above 5 percent economic growth, the continent can expect only 2.8 percent growth in 2009. The annual report covers 47 of the 53 African countries and is a key document that influences government policy and donor spending.

To highlight the global campaign to end warehousing, KANERE interviewed Merrill Smith, the Director of Government Relations and International Advocacy for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and the Editor of the World Refugee Survey. KANERE posed three questions relating to the UNHCR, greatest successes, and a refugee free press.

On 29 to 30 July 2009 Khumbulane Magagula, Johannes Mahlangu and Themba Mvubu will reappear at the Delmas Circuit Court on the charges of robbery with aggravating circumstance, rape and murder of lesbian soccer player Eudy Simelane, whose body was discovered with multiple stab wounds on 28 April 2008 in Kwa-Thema, Ekurhuleni. The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project together with partner organisations plan to have hundreds of activist and supporters from Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Delmas picketing outside and following the proceedings inside the Court.

As global economic downturn staunches the flow of investment from China and the West, African interest in India as an alternative source of funding is growing. Renu Modi reports back to Pambazuka News on a recent conference aimed at fostering partnerships between India and Africa. African delegates at the conference highlighted the need to consider direct budget support for investments in development sectors such as health, capacity development and poverty alleviation, rather than simply focusing on high level project finance opportunities.

In the wake of a UN report on extrajudicial killings, the prospect of intervention by the International Criminal Court on post-election violence and the formation of a Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission, Maina Kiai, former chairperson of the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights, speaks to Pambazuka News’s Firoze Manji about what the future holds for Kenya. As long as politicians operate under the notion that ‘the big man makes the country’ rather than institutions, cautions Kiai, it will remain impossible for the country to end impunity without outside assistance.

A three-day Stakeholders’ Meeting on the Domestication and Implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa was successfully concluded in Kigali, Rwanda with the adoption of a communiqué containing recommendations and strategies for strengthening the domestication, implementation and reporting on the Protocol fostering and protecting African women’s rights.

Former president Moi should be arrested and prosecuted for ‘annexing and dividing the Mau Forest to his own tribe’ when he knew that it was one of Kenya’s most important water catchment areas, writes Isaac Newton Kinity, in an open letter to the country’s president and prime minister. Around 450,000 Kikuyus who lived and worked on forestry stations in the area were evicted in 1985, to make way for Kalenjin settlers under the Moi government. The Mau Forest was the source of several rivers, but after Kalenjin settlers cut down thousands of acres of trees, many of the rivers dried up and drought began ‘to hit Kenya’, says Kinity. Recognising the ecological importance of the Mau Forest, Kenya’s environment minister has now called for the eviction of Kalenjin settlers. Kinity argues that if the government intends to compensate Kalenjin settlers, it must first compensate the Kikuyu who previously inhabited the forest.

The June issue of Refugee rights carries the following articles: Repatriation or Else: Closing the Mtabila Refugee Camp in Tanzania; World Refugee Day Celebrations in Africa—Civil Society Initiatives; World Refugee Survey 2009: Limited Progress on Refugee Rights in Africa; Justice and Reconciliation after Genocide: The Search for Co-existence in Rwanda on Film; International Community Moves to Address Worrisome Dynamics in Sudan; The Principle of Complementarity under Scrutiny: The ICC Rules DRC Unwilling to Prosecute Katanga in Attack of Bogoro Village.

EISA and the UN Electoral Assistance Division (EAD) are implementing a project on Development of Sustainable Voter Registration Methodologies. The project is funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It aims to promote development and awareness of sustainable and cost effective voter registration models, particularly in developing and post conflict countries. It will do this by analysing the relative costs, sustainability and effectiveness of low, medium and high tech approaches to voter registration.

Egypt receives some of the highest annual solar radiation in the world, yet the desert country remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. "There is a lot of unachieved potential here," says Amr Mohsen, chairman and CEO of Lotus Solar Technologies, an Egyptian firm specialising in solar applications. "The sun is not only strong, but you have everything you need to produce the cheapest kilowatt hour in the region."

In the last four days approximately three thousand houses have been demolished and the same estimated number of Angolan families has been forcibly evicted in the (commonly called) Bagdad neighbourhood, in the Sector 5 of M’Bonde Chapéu, in the Kilamba Kiaxi municipality of Luanda.

Taking to the streets is often the last resort, says William Gumede, and the community protests against poor service delivery sweeping across South Africa are evidence that ‘democratic institutions within the ANC’ and ‘broader society’ have failed the country’s poorest. ANC leaders whipped up expectations of immediate pro-poor reforms under a Zuma administration, which the current recession has put out of reach. If Zuma is to retain the support of the people, Gumede tells Pambazuka News, he must curb the lavish lifestyles of government officials, weed out corruption and provide emergency packages in the most depressed municipalities across the country. Most importantly though, says Gumede, the renewal of the ANC’s internal democratic processes must be made real now.

As protests against poor service delivery spill out across South Africa, Mphutlane wa Bofelo is irked by leaders who suggest that a third force is at play, mobilising communities against their local and provincial governments, with the implication that the poor are incapable of self-organising to improve their lives. There is a third force, wa Bofelo tells Pambazuka News, but it is not some ‘amorphous, abstract animal’ – it is ‘poverty, homelessness, hopelessness and despair’, and the ‘arrogance and indifference of the rich, the elites and the governing classes.’

‘The Kibaki and Raila-led regime set up in February 2008 has conned and let down Kenyans by short-changing us of our democratic aspirations and derailing our efforts at implementing good governance, sustainable economic strategies, deepening a human rights culture and rooting out corruption, crime and insecurity,‘ Onyango Oloo tells Pambazuka News. Now, says Oloo, its time for Kenyans to work together to find ways to reclaim their country from the ‘power vampires’ and remove them from office by peaceful means.