Clashes between Somali government forces and Islamist militants have killed at least 28 people and wounded about 60 in the capital Mogadishu. The fighting appears to be the start of a government offensive using troops trained in Ethiopia, analysts say.

Three women in Namibia are suing the state for allegedly being sterilised without their informed consent after being diagnosed as HIV positive. The women say the doctors and nurses should have informed them properly about what was happening. The rights group representing them, the Legal Assistance Centre, says it has documented 15 cases of alleged HIV sterilisation in hospitals since 2008.

Civil Society organizations, including Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, and Partnership Africa Canada, have condemned the state-sponsored harassment and intimidation of a Zimbabwean nongovernmental organization, the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). The group has been instrumental in exposing ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe's notorious Marange diamond fields.

Presentations and readings from his book ‘Selected Pan-African Postcards’ with Dr Ama Biney, editor, and Dr Patricia Daley.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's Pan-African postcards demonstrate his steadfast commitment to Pan-Africanism and his vociferous belief in the potential of Africa and African people.

Date: Thursday 17 June 2010
Time: 5.30–7pm
Place: Rhodes House, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RG

All welcome

We're proud to announce that Sokari Ekine, one of the writers behind Pambazuka News’ weekly ‘Blogging Africa’ column, has been nominated for two awards for her wonderful blog, – ‘Best political blog’ and ‘Best theme’. Join us in supporting her by casting your vote at the Nigerian Blog Awards!

Albert Bourgi

Pierre S. Adjété

Gaza-based Palestinian Civil Society Organisations and international activists called on the international community and civil society to pressure their governments and Israel to cease the abductions and killings in Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla sailing for Gaza, and begin a global response to hold Israel accountable for the murder of foreign civilians at sea and illegal piracy of civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza.

International Human Rights Advocates join the Erlinder family in condemning Rwanda's arrest of US Attorney Peter Erlinder and demanding his immediate release. Professor Erlinder, a faculty member at William Mitchell College of Law in the United States and president of the Association des Avocats de la Defense (ADAD), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Defense Lawyers Association, was arrested by the government of Rwanda under the leadership of President Paul Kagame. Peter Erlinder has been arrested in the course of his representation of Rwanda’s opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire.

The World People's Movement demands that United Nations climate change negotiations be inclusive, transparent, and equitable, and include the proposal expressed by the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 20–22).

A microbicide that researchers are pinning their hopes on is safe for use in pregnant women, according to a study presented at the Microbicide 2010 conference taking place in the United States this week. Study participants applied a single dose of tenofovir gel two hours before birth by cesarean section.

Making services for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) available without addressing the factors that keep mothers from accessing these services was an exercise in futility, experts told a press briefing in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

South African farmers have not received government support for 10 years, but Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson intends to change this by pushing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) restrictions to the limit to do so. State assistance to agriculture has been a controversial issue for many years in the WTO and is on the agenda in the current Doha round of negotiations. Of particular importance are support measures for agriculture in developed countries that render products from the developing world uncompetitive.

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), in collaboration with FARA, Yam-Pukri, CAFAN, AYF, ANAFE and PAFPNET, is organizing an essay writing contest on Youth and ICTs in Agriculture and Rural Development, aimed at identifying innovative solutions on challenges faced by
youth in agriculture and rural areas using Information and Communication Technologies.

Kenya should encourage the use of bamboo in building affordable shelters, especially for 60 percent of the population who live in poorly constructed dwellings in rural areas, says a specialist. "Poor construction means they [houses] serve as breeding grounds for diseases including malaria, amoebic dysentery and respiratory conditions, which commonly claim the lives of many of their inhabitants,” Jacob Kibwange, project director of an initiative at Maseno University that aims to encourage bamboo exploitation, told IRIN.

Africa’s regulators are increasingly moving to assert their role as the protector of consumer interests in the ICT space. This week the Commissioner responsible for Consumer Affairs told a meeting held by the Liberian Consumers Action Network that it had established a consumer help desk. But if the landscape for ICT consumers is getting more complicated then the responsibilities of companies within the sector is also becoming more demanding.

Surveys of condom use in women based on self-report may be seriously unreliable, to the extent of overestimating true use by 100%, the 2010 International Microbicides Conference has heard. This finding comes from a South African survey, but if it applies broadly it may have significant effects on trial design and mathematical modelling of the effect of microbicides.

Trucks of soldiers and police have entered the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Survival believes this is to intimidate the Bushmen, and perhaps even force them out, because:
1) Gem Diamonds wants to open a diamond mine on their land;
2) the Botswana High Court is now due to hear a Bushman application to reinstate their water borehole.

South Africa is hosting the continent's first soccer World Cup but the mounting anticipation is not drowning out a vicious whispering campaign calling for the expulsion of foreign nationals within hours of the curtain going down on football's biggest jamboree. The local media has been awash with anecdotal stories of conspiracies brewing at taxi ranks, shebeens and markets to bring a pogrom against foreign African nationals, who are blamed for taking jobs and diverting government services, while NGOs concerned with the plight of refugees and migrants are becoming more worried as 12 July - the day after the final game - draws near.

The introduction of a seamless mobile bank account product by Equity Bank and Safaricom on Tuesday promises to open up electronic commerce -- and mobile commerce in particular -- to the mass market. The service, dubbed M-Kesho, will allow users to perform basic banking transactions like deposits, withdrawals, loan applications, processing and reception right from their handsets.

In a move that probes the limits of freedom of expression in Morocco, a group of gays and lesbians is working to raise their community's profile by publishing a trail-blazing magazine. The organisation Kif Kif (Similar) released a limited number of copies of the first edition of Mithly (Gay) in April, without applying for a government licence that they claim would have been denied.