Ever wanted to know and share ideas on how we as contract or casual workers can organise and bash the boss? Then come and see this movie.

Venue: Cape Town Democracy Centre, 6 Spin Street, Cape Town

Date: Saturday 16 October, Time: 2pm

For more information, Contact Sheina at [email]iww-ct@live.co.za

Stigma has allowed a disfiguring microscopic worm to thrive in Kenya's coastal region, but with adequate funding, the spread of lymphatic filariasis (LF), also known as elephantiasis, could easily be stopped in the east African country with the help of just a couple of pills a year. Spread by mosquitoes, elephantiasis can cause severe swelling of the limbs, breasts, and scrotum as well as thickening and hardening of the skin.

The second issue of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch is a powerful tool to put pressure on policymakers at the national and international level to take the human right to food and nutrition into account. The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch provides a platform for human rights experts, civil society activists, social movements, the media, and scholars to exchange experiences on how best to carry out right to food and nutrition work, including lobbying and advocacy. The 2010 version notes the unacceptable number of 925 million people suffering chronic hunger in a world that has enough food for all and the dramatic increase of land grabbing.

An Ethiopian diplomatic source in Jeddah has told Gulf News that Saudi authorities had deported 725 Ethiopians who had been detained at a deportation centre of the Saudi Passport department following a riot that erupted at the facility that led to the escape of many prisoners last Wednesday. Security forces are still continuing a search for several detainees who fled the detention centre.

The international campaign 'fair flowers - for human rights' has demanded living wages and sufficient protection against highly toxic pesticides for flower workers. Salaries which do not reach a living wage and lack of protection against highly toxic pesticides are still a daily reality for many flower workers in the global flower business, says the campaign. 'While consumers in Europe enjoy flowers as a symbol of love and friendship, the flower workers' human rights to adequate food and health are constantly being violated.'

Liberia holds its second post-war presidential and legislative elections in October 2011. The first, held in 2005, was a landmark: it was the first free and fair elections in the country’s long history. Since then Liberia, previously wracked by bloody petty wars, has been largely stable, though very fragile. The 2011 elections will probably be just as important as the one in 2005 as their successful conduct will determine when the UN, which still maintains about 8 000 troops in the country, will finally withdraw, says this situation report from the Institute for Security Studies.

Zambia's communications authority on Wednesday reversed its decision to shut down five main Internet service providers, saying they would be allowed another chance to renew their licences. The firms were ordered on Tuesday to shut down by the end of the week, after regulators said they had not renewed their operating licences. But the order raised fears that Zambia could be cut off from the Internet.

While improved access to anti-retroviral therapy in South Africa has enabled infected AIDS orphans to live well into adulthood, it has created new challenges as the generation emerges to take their place in the workforce.And a lack of forethought has resulted in certain challenges not being addressed, says a new study by Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme (GAP) on children living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

Diop Olugbala (aka Wali Rahman) will be sentenced on Wednesday, 13 October to a possible 10 years in prison for speaking out on behalf of the rights of the black community. A press conference and demonstration will be held prior to Olugbala’s sentencing hearing. Endorsing and participating in Wednesday’s press conference and demonstration will be the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, African Socialist International, Pan Africa of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, Black and Nobel Bookstore, Pastor Donna Jones of Cookman Methodist Church, Top Dollar CEO of the Dollar Boys and Alison Hoehne of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.

For HIV patients in Africa, monthly trips to refill antiretroviral (ARV) prescriptions cost time and money that may be in short supply. But a new strategy being pioneered in Mozambique is easing the burden of monthly refills for patients and the health system. Developed by health workers with the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the strategy centres on self-formed, community-based groups of ARV patients who work as a team to collect their drugs and monitor each other for treatment adherence and general health.

The refugee and displacement problem is one of the most complex humanitarian issues facing the Middle East, aid workers say. Elizabeth Campbell, senior advocate at US NGO Refugees International, believes it is likely the Middle East hosts the highest number of refugees and asylum-seekers in the world. She underlined the need to find lasting solutions: 'Any time that people remain uprooted and have not been afforded basic rights or pathways to durable solutions, it is a humanitarian crisis. In this article from IRIN, the refugee challenges of the countries in the region are profiled.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) has launched a new advocacy campaign to combat sectarianism in Egypt under the slogan, 'Reject Sectarianism'. The organisation said that the campaign is a joint movement and an appeal for collective action to eliminate sectarianism and strengthen the values of equal citizenship and shared existence.

Ratepayers could end up paying for Cape Town stadium's operating costs after Sail Stadefrance walked out on a 30-year lease to manage the property. The city will take over management of the R4,4-billion stadium. Sail Stadefrance said it had projected 'substantial losses' if it took up the project.

Zimbabwe's health minister says the southern African country needs $700 million to restore health services shattered by a decade of political and economic turmoil. At the launch of the nation's biggest health investment and funding appeal, Dr Henry Madzorera said the 'systematic decrease' in basic health care destroyed services once seen as among the best in the region.

Tidiane Kassé

Sana Guy

Fidh

Franklin Lamb

The Egyptian government is hoping to cultivate wheat and other cereals on fertile land in African countries to feed its growing population of over 80 million. In early September it signed a deal with the Sudanese government to give Egyptian companies access to Sudanese farmland. 'Growing essential crops like wheat in other water-rich African countries where fertile land is in abundance is an important solution,' said Ayman Farid Abu Hadid, chairman of the state-run Agricultural Research Centre, which signed the deal on behalf of the Egyptian government.

Ugandan health workers are concerned by the growing number of HIV-positive teens who are abandoning their HIV treatment after turning to bogus religious leaders. 'Over the years we have noticed a growing trend of adolescents and caregivers who have withdrawn from treatment with a belief of having been cured of HIV/AIDS in church,' said Cissy Ssuna, the counsellor coordinator at Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Uganda, which treats more than 4,000 HIV-infected children, 750 of whom are adolescents.

Although media coverage of South Africa's 9 August women's day touched on some important topics relevant to gender empowerment, the coverage overall lacked a sense of commitment, regularity, urgency and persistence in demanding answers, and would have benefitted and had greater impact from a more in-depth, urgent, analytical and demanding approach. This is according to an analyses of media output of the event by the Media Monitoring Africa.

The latest edition of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court is available. It contains the latest relevant news, interviews and schedule of events.

The fourth European conference on African Studies (ECAS) will be convened in Uppsala on 15-18 June 2011. Professor Issa Shivji (Dept. of Law, University of Dar es Salaam) and Professor Oyeronke Oyewumi (Dept. of Sociology, Stony Brook University, USA) have been announced as the keynote speakers for the conference.