The International Council of the World Social Forum and the African Social Forum and the Senegalese Organizing Committee launch a public consultation until September 10th to finalize the thematic axes of the centralized edition of the WSF, to be held in Dakar, Senegal, on February 06-11 2011. This methodological proposal was defined after Mumbai (Maharashtra, India), five years ago.

Zimbabwe's government netted around $71 million from a major sell-off of rough diamonds from its controversial Chiadzwa diamond fields, the country's mining minister has said. On Wednesday, Zimbabwe resumed full-scale diamond exports by auctioning close to 1 million carats to international buyers at Harare airport.

Angolan lawyer Suzana Antonio da Conceiçao Nicolau Ingles, was unanimously elected by the National Assembly as the chairperson of the National Electoral Commission (CNE). She was elected during the third extraordinary session of the National Assembly, led by speaker Antonio Paulo Kassoma.

An estimated 5,000 refugees troop into the country every month, according to the United Nations. Most of them find their way through the porous Kenya-Somalia border (4,000) to cap the number of foreigners seeking asylum in Kenya at 400,000. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that a contingency plan had already been put in place in case the situation in Somalia worsened.

French officials have condemned a senior soldier who was filmed threatening a Togolese journalist. In a video released on YouTube, Lt Col Romuald Letondot is shown ordering the journalist to delete images from his camera during a protest in Lome.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has just released a document on the media for its National General Council (NGC) meeting, scheduled for September. The document, entitled 'Media transformation, ownership and diversity', claims to build on a resolution adopted at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference, as well as a me

By the time Thandi Khumalo* brought her seven-month-old daughter to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, help came too late. The infant had developed acute diarrhoea and kwashiorkor, a condition caused by severe protein and calorie deficiency, and died a few days after being admitted.

Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru and Guyana will devastate tribal communities by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International. The first global assessment of the impact of the dams on tribes suggests more than 300,000 indigenous people could be pushed towards economic ruin and, in the case of some isolated Brazilian groups, to extinction.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for immediate and unconditional release of Thierry Ndayishimiye, Director and Publisher of the private weekly magazine Arc-en-ciel, who was arrested on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 and detained at the central prison of Mpimba in Bujumbura, capital of Burundi. “It is unacceptable to imprison a journalist for slander which in this case is not even proven”, said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office. “After the cas of Kavumbagu who is awaiting life imprisonment, this arrest manifestly shows the authorities are determined to muzzle the media in Burundi”.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun a major round of feeding for 670,000 children under the age of two and their families in drought-stricken Niger, where as many as eight million people need assistance. People in the West African nation are experiencing severe food shortages as a result of a prolonged drought that has caused crop failure and livestock deaths.

While some senior politicians in the coalition government bury their heads in the sand, professing ignorance about incidents of violence, it is the ordinary villagers in remote areas who are facing the reality of ongoing ZANU PF sponsored political violence. After a recent attack by ZANU PF supporters in Chipinge two MDC activists, Perpetua Pedzisai and Tsvakai Muzhambi, were said to be battling for their lives at clinics in Murambi and Sasu. According to a statement released by the MDC the attacks were an attempt to bar the activists from participating in outreach meetings, taking place to try shape the content of a new constitution.

Google Uganda has launched two local language operations enabling about five million people access services in native languages. The launch of the Runyakitara and Luo languages at Makerere University in Kampala brings to five the number of local languages available on the Google Uganda domain.

This research reveals that Low Income Countries such as Ghana remain under the influence of the Bank, especially regarding the management of their primary industries and natural resources and in relation to the design of sensitive policy areas such as fiscal policy and public sector reform. August 2010.

Aid agencies are still barred from Kalma, the largest settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan’s Southern Darfur State, 10 days after the government blocked the UN and NGOs from distributing food and medical aid to an estimated 82,000 IDPs. Tensions in Kalma rose on 25 July, at the conclusion of the latest round of peace talks in Doha, Qatar, with some IDPs claiming they were not fully represented. Protests inside the camp pitted the detractors, mainly the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) of Abdul Wahid Mohamed el-Nur, against supporters of the negotiations.

A new report by the UN International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Thursday said global youth unemployment in 2009 soared to a record high and is expected to climb even higher as the year progresses. The report, entitled: 'ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth 2010', said that, 'of the world's 620 million economically-active youth, between the ages of 15 and 24, 81 million were out of work at the end of 2009, the highest number ever'.

The Board of Directors of the World Bank (WB) ap proved a loan of US$ 25.5 million for Mauritania for the additional financing of the programme of urban development (PDU), a source close to the bank announced. These funds will serve to support the efforts of the Mauritanian government to improve the access to basic infrastructures in urban areas, particularly for the disadvantaged zones.

Sierra Leone's human rights body has urged the government and the special court in The Hague to "retrieve the blood diamonds" that Naomi Campbell was given by war crimes accused Charles Taylor. "We have urged both parties to contact the South African government for the diamonds to be handed over to Sierra Leone," human rights commissioner Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff told journalists.

Investigators in Uganda have arrested four men who they say masterminded twin bomb attacks that killed more than 70 people last month. The men, all of them Ugandan, admitted their involvement in the Kampala attacks during a news conference. They all spoke of their role in the attacks that struck a restaurant and a rugby club - the venues hosting fans watching the World Cup football final.

Umuorie Isimiri Community is located in Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State. Umuorie Isimiri is an hour and 20 minutes drive from Umuahia, capital of Abia State. It is a community of about 5,000 people, made up of mostly farmers. Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Isimiri Flow Station in Umuorie Isimiri Community is by the Imo River at the boundary between Abia and Rivers State. ERA monitors visited the community on 3 August 2010 to ascertain SPDC level of compliance with a court judgement delivered by Court of Appeal Owerri, Imo State ordering it to pay special damages of N1.49 billion to the community for oil spill and environmental degradation.

While an estimated 880 000 people – most of them young children – die each year of malaria in the developing world, we may underestimate the potential effects of continued DDT use on future generations. In South Africa, as in several other developing countries, the use of the powerful insecticide DDT is allowed for malaria control in high-risk areas such as KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.