Deportations to and from Uganda encompass a largely unreported world of human rights abuses, writes Bernadette Iyodu. Those returning are commonly immediately regarded as a threat as potential political dissidents, while those deported from Uganda face a murky world of debilitating bureaucracy and detention.

Is democracy possible here in the UK?

13 May Post-Election Reflections
Reflections on what the recent UK election tells us about the health, or
otherwise, of democracy in the UK with:

Firoze Manji, Editor in Chief, Pambazuka News
Colin Leys (Goldsmiths and Queens University, Ontario, author of
Market-Driven Politics, 2000)
Hilary Wainwright, Editor, Red Pepper
Heather Wakefield, UNISON
Chaired by Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London

5.30pm Goldsmiths main building RHB 309

For more details, write to Nick Couldry, n.couldry[at]gold.ac.uk of visit

Responding to an article by Beth Maina and Cenya Ciyendi, Nzilani writes that ‘the anti-constitution campaign by various church leaders in Kenya is an attempt to exert their authority and power in the face of the government’. Ciiru Njehu hopes Kenyans will ‘recognise the hypocrisy of the church leaders’, while K?riak? wa K?nyua says it ‘is time for the “voiceless” to speak-out for themselves’.??

Slowly by slowly and amidst controversy the loop against corruption in Tanzania’s elections is becoming tighter as the new Elections Expenses Act 2009 becomes operational. The Act which was controversially tabled in December 2009 and approved in February 2010 seeks to control the use of funds and curb illegal practices in the nomination process, election campaigns and elections processes.

At 11 p.m. on 2 January 2008, back from Nairobi, Kenya, an exhausted Ory Okolloh — a Johannesburg-based Kenyan lawyer in her thirties — posted the following message on her blog: “For the reconciliation process to occur at the local level the truth of what happened will first have to come out.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, IMF and Africa agree on public investment borrowing modalities, China shifts its Africa investment strategy, Tata Africa to start assembly plant in Nigeria, and Vodacom’s DRC investment turns sour.

World Economic Forum on Africa - The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced that nearly 1,000 participants from 85 countries will take part in the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa in Tanzania's commercial capital city of Dar es Salaam 5-7 May 2010. President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete will host the meeting, which this year explores the theme "Rethinking Africa's Growth Strategy.

Participants at the recent 6th Partnership Platform Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, have agreed that Africa needs speedy and effective measures to eradicate poverty and hunger.

CODESRIA/SEPHIS collaborative programme is pleased to announce the 7th edition of its Extended Workshop on New Theories and Methods in Social History which is scheduled for the 2nd – 12th of November 2010 in Dakar, Senegal. The theme of the workshop is: “Historicizing Gender & Sexuality in the Global South”. The Workshop will be organised around the comparative experiences of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Skeletal academic activity enveloped Tanzania's public universities Thursday as lecturers joined a strike to press for better retirement benefits from the government. While the government remained silent about the strike, a meeting of seven public higher learning institutions held here has agreed to go ahead with the strike.

After years of slow growth and outright despair at whether broadband would ever take off on the African continent, research suggests that the market is inching ever closer to a tipping point, according to US-based Reportlinker.com professio nal search engine. 'As submarine cables find their way along Africa's coastlines, the continent is slowly but inevitably emerging from what we have long referred to as the Dark Ages of African bandwidth, an era of bandwidth bondage of sorts, characterized by excessively high prices, near-zero broadband penetration rates and self-defeating regulatory models,' the firm said Tuesday.

Nigerians have praised acting President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to remove the much criticised election chief Maurice Iwu. Opposition Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora told the BBC that his removal was “the beginning of electoral reform”.

A South African team facilitating power-sharing talks between Zimbabwe’s feuding political parties is expected in Harare Thursday as part of continuing regional efforts to break a deadlock threatening to derail the country’s fragile coalition government.

Uganda's Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya and several other ministers should be prosecuted for embezzling government money, a leaked MPs' report says. The allegations against them centre on contracts awarded for the Commonwealth summit held in Uganda in 2007. The 174-page draft report was given to Uganda's two main newspapers ahead of the president's meeting with parliament's public accounts committee.

Niger is threatened with total crop failure in some areas and the situation is worse than the 2005 crisis, the UN humanitarian chief has told the BBC. But John Holmes said the new government is co-operating in aid efforts.

The leader of Southern Sudan's second largest party has told the BBC there was "massive rigging" in Sudan's recent landmark elections. Lam Akol, head of SPLM-Democratic Change, and the leaders of eight other southern parties have decided to challenge the result in the courts.

Sierra Leone has launched a free healthcare plan for pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers and children under five years old. The country has some of the world's highest maternal and child death rates. Doctors blame this partly on health service fees and the cost of medication, and hope the healthcare plan will help save lives.

The Somali Journalist Rights Agency (SOJRA) concerns the desperate pleading for help from the prominent and well respected Somali journalist who is currently in exile in Athens, the capital of Greece. A journalist Mohamud Mohamed Hallane, who is well known in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia and in lower Shabelle region contacted SOJRA on Thursday April 29th, 2010 and requested for help while he faced an unkind condition during his dash for freedom.

The Rwandan government's decision to deny a work visa to Human Rights Watch's representative in Kigali demonstrates a pattern of increasing restrictions on free expression in Rwanda ahead of August's presidential elections, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch will appeal the decision and continue working on human rights issues in Rwanda.

Against the backdrop of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's spring meetings this weekend, numerous groups have chimed in on the need for and direction of a new World Bank energy strategy. The bank's review of this strategy, according to which it makes decisions on loans to energy projects in developing countries, is ongoing and is due to be finalised early next year. For now, though, it remains under fire.

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has denounced the prevailing climate of insecurity in Nigeria which led to the murders of three newspapers journalists during sectarian violence which has gripped Africa’s most heavily populated nation.

The top United Nations envoy to Somalia today appealed to members of the nation’s Parliament to put aside their infighting and to instead focus on meeting the population’s needs and bolstering security. “I am following, with great unease, the unhelpful debate about parliamentary issues now taking place in Mogadishu,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said in a press release.

South Africa – home to the one-sixth of the world’s population living with HIV – today unveiled an ambitious campaign to prevent and treat the virus, a move hailed by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The drive seeks to test 15 million people for HIV by next year, a six-fold jump in just two years, as well as reach 1.5 million people with antiretroviral treatment by June 2011, up from 1 million last year. Nearly 6 million people – or 18 per cent of all adults – in South Africa live with HIV, the largest population of people in the world.

Political tension in Masvingo’s Mwenezi district was said to be high, after a 15 year old schoolboy exacted his own revenge last week Sunday by killing the ZANU PF thug who murdered his father in 2008. An MDC official in the area told Newsreel that Nhamo Machacha was stabbed in the stomach by the fifteen year old, after a scuffle broke out at a church service.

South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team jetted into Harare Thursday in aother attempt to diffuse rising tension between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. South Africa was appointed by the SADC to facilitate the removal of obstacles which hinder the full implementation of the Global Political Agreement.

South Africa's "willing-buyer willing-seller" land reform programme is not working and the government will introduce new ways to give more land to the black majority, President Jacob Zuma has said. After the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa's government set a target of handing over 30 percent of commercial farmland to black people by 2014 as part of a plan to correct racial imbalances in land distribution caused by apartheid.

South Africa should start looking for alternative solutions to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes, a study has found. Using DDT to curb the spread of malaria has been proven by researchers to pose a huge risk to human beings with those consuming chicken, fish and vegetables produced in DDT-sprayed areas at risk of developing illnesses such as cancer.

In preparations for the next elections Kenya has made changes to their voting systems, changing it from a paper based model to an electronic version. As of the 12th of April 2010 to the 21st may 2010, Kenya’s Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) will register voters electronically for the first time ever in 18 selected constituencies. The pilot will cover the 18 constituencies of Kamkunji, Langata, Mvita, Malindi, Dujis, Wajira East, Isiolo South, Imenti Central, Mbooni, Nyeri Town, Kikuyu, Eldoret North, Nakuru Town, Ainamoi, Ikolomani, Webuye, Kisumu Town West and Bonchari.

Negotiations towards an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and various southern African countries resume in Brussels this week, although compromises are unlikely, players say. The discussions will be observed with keen interest to see what approach the EU’s new trade commissioner Karel de Gucht will adopt.

In a number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, widespread HIV infection has already translated into full-blown AIDS epidemics. The effects of this disaster on lives and livelihoods are dramatic, yet the economic consequences are difficult to measure using conventional approaches. Although past and current consequences of the epidemic, and responses to these, can be empirically studied, our knowledge of the overall socio-economic impact of HIVAIDS remains deficient. This study focuses on Malawi, as a representative case. It addresses both the short and long term impact of HIV/AIDS by bringing together and analysing findings from qualitative and quantitative studies on the spread and impact of the epidemic.

Cultural leaders in the country have, for the first time, spoken out on the contentious Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, urging the MPs to pass it in order to safeguard the country’s values and traditions. Under their umbrella body, ‘Forum for Kings and Cultural Leaders in Uganda,’ the custodians of culture expressed anger with the way western countries have put the government on pressure to throw out the Bill.

A landslide in western Kenya after relentless heavy rains has killed 10 people and more may be buried in the mud, the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) said on Friday. KRC said the latest deaths took the number of people killed by floods and landslides in Kenya so far this year to 100. El Nino weather patterns across east Africa are blamed for the wild storms that have hit east Africa's biggest economy. A massive landslide in neighbouring Uganda killed scores of people in a remote village in March.

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) of the University of the Western Cape, Isandla Institute and Studies on Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) with support from the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) of the Office of the Presidency, and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) form a partnership to host a three-day national conference on structural poverty to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 - 22 September 2010.

Sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, thousands of perpetrators who confessed their roles before the traditional Gacaca Courts have been released and sentenced to community service, but survivors say this is an inadequate punishment. "The punishment should be [close] to the pain those inmates inflicted," Theodore Simburudali, the chairman of the genocide survivor organization, Ibuka, said.

Security officials in Ghana are cracking down on migrant Fulani herdsmen, accusing them of rape, vandalism, destruction of farms and armed robbery, but conflict resolution specialists say the herdsmen are being manipulated and the government must abide by regional right-of-passage laws.

At St Peter TB Specialized Hospital, high in the mountains of Entoto, north of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, a masked Johannes* is suffering from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and has spent the last month at the hospital. While the doctors are glad he is receiving treatment, they are also worried - Johannes is a bus conductor in heavily populated Addis Ababa, so there is no telling how many people he could have infected before seeking treatment.

A new study of adult mortality tells the tale of HIV over decades and across borders and how treatment may have helped to rewrite the ending. Published in The Lancet’s 30 April early online edition, the study compares adult mortality between 1970 and 2010 in 187 countries.

A new report by Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council (NAC), showing a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people aged 15 to 24 in the capital, Harare, has health experts worried that the country's success in reducing HIV could be unravelling. STIs heighten vulnerability to HIV infection, and this age group is one of the hardest hit. According to the NAC report, more than 24,000 people were treated for STIs in 2009, compared to 8,500 cases recorded in 2008; over 60 percent of the cases were women.

A few days ago, 9000 workers at the Naga Hammadi aluminum factory in Upper Egypt staged a protest, demanding that the Egyptian government raise the minimum wage to LE1200, and calling for a withdrawal of confidence from their official trade union committee.

The workers are pushing for the reinstatement of 25 members of the union sacked last week and a change of management over what they termed as physical harassment by senior managers. The employees are vowing to bring operations at Telkom-Kenya to a halt come Monday May 17 if their demands are not met.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says the controversial diamond mine in Chiadzwa, Manicaland Province, must be nationalised. ZCTU chairman Lovemore Matombo said no single individual or company should be allowed to exploit the diamonds now at the centre of a row between a British company which claims title and the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC).

Josephine Awuor, 34, always looks forward to her turn to receive "merry-go-round" contributions from fellow members of Msingi Bora (Good Foundation), a micro-finance group she belongs to in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum. Meeting weekly, the 23 Msingi Bora members each contribute 50 shillings (60 US cents), which is pooled for members to take loans from. At each meeting, the members also contribute 20 shillings (26 US cents) each - to be given to one member in what they term their "merry-go-round" as they draw lots to determine the order of receiving the money.

The eighth wonder of the world boasts its banality

Tame wildebeest clogging the clean concrete of Mbagathi

Which arrows smartly past low and high rise tenement

It coerces the zooming traffic to slow down and look

At humanity swarming from Kibera’s troubled slumberland

To uncertain industry in Industrial Area

And the motorist’s camera has long-since seen this jaded parade

Far too often for it to remain a juicy titbit

At tonight’s bush dinner table or on Face book

Or to goad righteous anger when State functionaries

In their pubescent dalliance with 2030 Vision

Seek to herd this wildlife into Nairobi National Park

Faraway from the gaze of well-heeled elites …

The sort of innovative strategic thinking, you

Explain to your inquisitive daughter

Which may compete with the Mara’s majestic beauty

And so your imaginative chic daughter twits

Amazed at this constitutional moment’s flaunted profundity

Perplexed by the nightmare of human wildebeest migrating at sundown –

As they trudge on safari from hungry toil at a Processing Zone

To far-off scenic home that’ll assuage their entitlement to shelter

With monkey and hyena lining the dirt route

To their wretched idyll in the Park.

Perched at the very top of an iniquitous global economic pyramid, the world's financial elite are nothing more than parasites leeching off the lifeblood of the world's poor and middle classes, writes Glenn Ashton. While the hold on wealth and resources of the top 20 per cent is deeply concerning, the power of an elite 1 per cent is simply perverse, Ashton stresses.

Building an inclusive South African-ness rests on recognising diversity as part of a broader commitment to a collective identity, argues William Gumede. Debates around 'African-ness' are misguided, Gumede maintains, and the country's true identity should be built on equality, the distribution of opportunities and an inclusive approach to nation-building.

In the wake of the Sudanese elections, the Sudanese Group for Democracy and Elections (SuGDE) and the Sudanese Network for Democratic Elections (SuNDE) offer their assessment of the electoral process and the problems associated with the election.

The escalation of US militarisation in relation to Africa reflects the centrality of counter-insurgency to current White House policy, writes Daniel Volman. The US is keen to avoid direct intervention by building up local capacity to root out terrorist threats, Volman observes. Or, as one senior US military officer put it, '[W]e don't want to see our guys going in and getting wacked … We want Africans to go in.'

South Africa has one of the highest rates in the world of unemployment for comparable middle-income countries, writes Kimani Ndungu, with the latest official statistics showing that by December 2009, around 4.2 million people out of a total labour force of 17 million were officially unemployed. But this figure does not include almost 2 million individuals who have simply lost hope of ever finding a job. For women, says Ndungu, the situation is nothing but drastic.