Pambazuka News 436: Climate colonialism and the new scramble for Africa

How does intimate-partner violence affect Kenyan women's rights? How can the government, NGOs, and the legal and healthcare systems support abused women? This paper from the Institute of Development Studies explores links between intimate-partner violence and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights in Nairobi. Significant gaps exist between formal legal rights and the realities experienced by individuals. Legal reform, improved services for affected women and better coordination among ser...read more

The Kenyan government should rapidly fulfill its February 2009 pledge to provide more land for its mushrooming Somali refugee population, and donors should step up their financial support for the refugee camps, Human Rights Watch has said. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced four months ago that Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya had made a commitment to provide land to help relieve congestion in three chronically overcrowded camps near Dadaab in northeastern...read more

Heavy fighting has erupted in central Somalia between a pro-government Sufi Muslim group and Islamist hardliners. At least 10 people have been killed in fighting near the town of Webho. The clashes come after the Sufi Ahlu Sunna Waljamea sect pledged to defend President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed at a meeting of moderate Islamic leaders.

A US-based international Christian relief organisation says it believes more than 90% of its aid to Liberia went missing in a massive fraud scam. World Vision's Vice-President Geoff Ward told the BBC the losses came to more than $1m and pledged to make "every effort" to avoid a repeat. A former senior World Vision official in Liberia and two other workers have been charged over the alleged fraud.

The security forces in Guinea-Bissau have shot dead a minister and candidate in this month's presidential elections. The authorities say Baciro Dabo died in an exchange of fire when he resisted arrest over an alleged coup plot. But his supporters say he was asleep next to his wife when men in uniform burst into his house at 0400 local time (and GMT) and shot him several times.

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