FIDA-Uganda is seeking to recruit a Chief Executive Officer with a passion for social transformation for women’s rights, legal excellence, along with strategic vision, drive and excellent people skills.

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...

It was French interference in the election of the African Union Commission chairperson which cost the incumbent, former Gabonese foreign minister Jean Ping, his job. Asked about foreign interference, Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi declined to mention France by name, but told reporters that it was indeed outside pressure that angered enough African leaders to deprive Ping of the necessary two thirds majority. Ping faced a challenge from South African Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, backed by SADC (Southern African Development Community).

Twitter announced last week that it would begin restricting tweets in specific countries if they violated local laws, setting off claims of censorship by IFEX members Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). Previously, Twitter had to remove a tweet from its entire network if it received a takedown request from a government. But the company said in a blog post published on 26 January that it now has the ability to selectively block a tweet from appearing to users in one country.

The Department of International Relations and Co-operation says it will investigate threats against South African companies with investments in Nigeria by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). The movement has threatened to attack the holdings of companies including MTN, Africa’s biggest cellphone network operator, and SacOil, an oil and gas exploration company, saying that President Jacob Zuma is interfering 'in the legitimate fight for justice' in the Niger River delta region.

The UN refugee agency said Friday 3 February it was alarmed by recent reports that Congolese civilians have been tortured and killed by armed groups entering camps for the internally displaced in the volatile province of North Kivu. The agency called for more security in and around the camps.

Three African transgender and intersex rights advocacy organizations have formed an alliance to enhance the trans and intersex movement on the continent. The organizations include South African based Gender DynamiX (GDX), Uganda’s Support Initiative for People with atypical Sexual Development (SIPD) and Transgender and Intersex Africa (TIA).

The organisation Greenpeace has chosen the firm Mercadona as one of the worst firms of 2011 due to the fact that this company has taken advantage of the resources of Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco, and in acquiring 30 million tins of sardines, Mercadona has been supporting the occupation and thereby the ensuing oppressive rule by Morocco.

The Canadian Association Against Impunity (CAAI), expressed its profound disappointment with last week’s decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal overturning the decision of the Quebec Superior Court in the case against Anvil Mining Limited. While acknowledging the difficulties that the victims have encountered in their attempt to obtain justice, the appeal Court ruled that they lack the necessary legislation to allow the case to proceed in Quebec. Anvil Mining, a Canadian corporation, is accused of providing logistical support to the Congolese army who raped, murdered and brutalised the people of Kilwa in the DRC. According to the United Nations, an estimated 100 civilians died as a direct result of the military action, including some who were executed and thrown in mass graves. The CAAI, an NGO coalition representing relatives of victims of the 2004 Kilwa massacre, filed a class action in 2010 against Anvil Mining for its alleged role in the massacre. Anvil Mining denies any wrongdoing.

This edition of The Real News Network interviews the authors of a new report that calls for sweeping agricultural reform. The report states that the fundamental causes of the global food crisis remain. 'We sit poised on the verge of another food price spike that could push millions into poverty and hunger,' says one of the authors. Three of the main issues raised are the use of biofuels, which have driven up demand, financial speculation in the food system and land grabs.

Africa Today on KPFA 94.1 FM carries an interview with Yao Graham, executive director of the Third World Network in Accra, Ghana. Graham has written extensively on development and the role of extractive industries in Africa.

The International Refugee Rights (IRRI)’s experience over the last seven years is that in the enthusiasm to embrace the promise of international justice there has often been inadequate space for honest reflection on the practice and reality of international justice, particularly from the perspective of local advocates and local communities in Africa. This lack of debate has, not least, stunted assessment of how the objectives of international justice might be more effectively pursued. In response, IRRI is launching a discussion paper series entitled 'Just Justice? Civil society, international justice and the search for accountability in Africa'. The series will reflect local perspectives on international justice as it is being experienced in Africa.

More than a billion people in the world still lack access to electricity, while another one billion have unreliable access stalling efforts for improving health, livelihoods and conserve the environment. Findings from a new research published by the Worldwatch Institute (WI) urge governments and development organisations to invest in electrification to achieve critical health, environmental, and livelihood outcomes, a statement released by the Institute said.

The black market for foreign exchange and fuel is booming in the midst of an acute scarcity in Malawi. The shortage is so severe that even the Consumer Association of Malawi, an influential consumer rights body, has come out in support of the black market. Malawi continues to reel under severe economic problems after the country’s major donors cut aid to the country last year. Up to 40 percent of Malawi’s national budget has been dependent on donors and donors funded 80 percent of the country’s development budget.

Kenya's military has struck al Shabaab targets in one of the most devastating attacks against the al Qaeda-linked insurgents since it launched an operation in Somalia to crush the rebels last October, a Kenyan army officer said on Saturday. Military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said the force estimated that more than 100 al Shabaab fighters were killed in the attack. Al Shabaab dismissed the military statements as propaganda.

This February, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), in partnership with the Applied Research Center’s Drop the I-Word campaign against the pejorative 'illegals', will be hosting an online nationwide book discussion about the critically acclaimed book 'The Warmth Of Other Suns', by author and Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson. The book chronicles the Great Migration, in which an estimated six million African-Americans migrated to cities in the north and west to escape oppressive conditions of the south’s Jim Crow caste system between the 1910s and 1970s.

It did not come as a surprise that the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament (INTA) voted in favour of the EU-Moroccan Agriculture Agreement on the 26 January (23 votes in favour, 5 votes against, one abstention). By voting overwhelmingly in favour of the agreement, the members of the Committee have clearly rejected the report by the French Green, José Bové. From his point of view, the agreement does not bring any good, neither for Morocco nor for Europe, in the sense that it only serves to reinforce an 'export-based industrial agriculture at the expense of family farms and small-scale farming on both sides of the Mediterranean.'

The latest edition of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid newsletter produced by the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Network is now available on their blog. The latest issue includes the following highlights:
- United States practice advisory concerning asylum applications for long term residency or family reunification put on hold under the Tier III provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act
- Somalis in Kenya suffer the consequences of Kenyan war in Somalia
- Life in exile: challenges facing refugees and organisations working to support them in Cape Town
- Arbitrariness regarding access to the asylum procedure in Bulgaria
- Longing to repatriate or resettle? Bhutanese refugees in Nepal
- How language testing used to authenticate asylum claims fails to recognise the reality and complexity of language.

A number of truce initiatives succeeded to temporarily stop the violence near the Ministry of Interior (MOI) as sporadic clashes continued on Sunday. A tense calm earlier in the day followed fierce clashes on Saturday night despite other calls for calm. Hundreds of women organized a march in downtown Cairo, taking off from Qasr El-Aini Street in the vicinity of the Cabinet and the People's Assembly condemning the violence. (http://bit.ly/zM7Vde)

Egyptians have continued a sit-in outside the country's state TV building to protest the media's pro-junta programs, calling for the purging of the state media from anti-revolutionary officials, Press TV reports. The protesters believe that even after the popular revolution which led to the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak back in February last year, the state media outlet is still the voice of the country's ruling junta and part and parcel of its propaganda machine.