The Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) condemned Brazil for illegal wiretaps of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) in the southern state of Paraná.

Eugène Tavares

Honorat Aguessy

I’ve recently been on two dates where the men asked me what I want in a man. Confidently I replied “a self-sufficient and self-assured man who doesn’t feel the need to maintain me, a pro-feminist who supports, and feels the feminist movement is a worthy cause that should be upheld in our relationship and society at large, an open minded man whom reading books is a lifestyle and a man who is able to move between masculine and feminine traits with great fluidity.”

Owino Odhiambo left his tiny Kenyan village less than a decade ago to immerse himself completely in American culture. Equipped with American citizenship, two degrees, and five years experience working as a dedicated graphic designer in New York City, Owino is currently unemployed. "My entire village sponsored me to come to America. In turn, I am expected to support them but now, without work, I can hardly support myself," says Owino, the oldest of ten siblings and first in his family to travel outside his village.

Following the evictions and burning of the houses of Maasai communities in Loliondo, these You-Tube films, and part II, provide documentary evidence of the abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Government of Tanzania and Ortello Business Company.

UNITAR is pleased to announce its course calendar for 2009 intended for a global audience of finance sector and trade officials. Each course will be conducted by UNITAR over the internet and will last up to six-weeks. High quality training content will be provided by UNITAR for each course, which will form the basis for study, discussions, group work and individual assessments.

AwaaZ Issue 2/09 - The Bombay Africans!

Contents:
- Cover Story: The Bombay Africans
- Linguistic Evidence of Bantu Origins of the Sidis of India by Abdulaziz Lodhi
- Alternative Angle: Paradise Revisited by John Sibi-Okumu
- Memories of a Diplomat – Bhupinder Liddar
- Contemporary India-East AfricaRelations

o Introduction by Gerard McCann
o Asian Diaspora in Nyanza Province ofKenya by Gordon Onyango Omenya and Mildred A J Ndeda
o Race Relations between Kenya’s Africans and South Asians by Zarina Patel

- Four Generations of the Naidoos in the South African Struggle
- Native African, Wananchi by Ramnik Shah
- The Asian Debate in East African Literature by Mwalimu Makokha
- Bats and Balls: Dr Saleem Rana: Farewell to a distinguished Sportsman and Doctor
- Dialogue through Dance by Neera Kapur
- Origins of a Passage to East Africa by Jarat Chopra
- Art Installation by Prina Shah
- Shailja Patel’s Bwagamoyo – The Father: Part II of Migritude

Book Reviews:
o Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji reviewed by Sunita Kapila
o Settlers Cookbook: A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reviewed by Warris Virani
o Success with Asian Names by fiona Swee-Lin Price reviewed by John Sibi-Okumu
o Scram from Kenya by James Franks reviewed by Ramnik Shah
o Reading of M G Vassanji by J K S Makokha
o African Identity in Asia by Shihan de Silva by Shehina Fazal
- Footsteps: Bantu Mwaura (1969-2009) and Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (1961-2009)

AwaaZ Magazine
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AwaaZ is environmentally responsible. It recycles, reduces and reuses all its material

Kenya has launched a multi-million dollar appeal to help restore a vital forest resource which is threatened with extinction due to human encroachment. The appeal to save the Mau Forests Complex was launched late Wednesday by the Government of Kenya at a Partners Forum hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Thousands of MDC supporters will on Sunday converge at the White City Stadium in Bulawayo to celebrate the party’s 10th Anniversary. Morgan Tsvangirai, who will be accompanied by the entire MDC’s national leadership will give a key note address at the rally.

The European Union and South Africa should take steps to enhance cooperation on international human rights issues when they meet this week, Human Rights Watch said in letters to South Africa's minister of international cooperation and the prime minister of Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency.

Kenya is facing a new urban time-bomb, with millions of Nairobi residents suffering a daily struggle for food and water as the divide between rich and poor widens, international aid agency Oxfam warned in a new report. A combination of falling household income, rising prices, and poor governance is making life a misery for the poor majority in Kenya's capital, the report on 'Urban Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya' said.

With two new United Nations reports detailing human rights abuses – including possible war crimes – carried out by both Government forces and rebels in the volatile far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the world body’s top rights official has stressed the urgent need for reforming the country’s security and judicial systems.

Campaigners say they have found serious discrepancies in reports of Sudan's oil revenues which could mean Khartoum's government was underpaying its strife-torn south by hundreds of millions of dollars. The findings by UK-based Global Witness could spark a political storm in Sudan, where relations between its Muslim north and mostly Christian south have remained tense since the end of their two-decade civil war in 2005.

Since the source of the Nile is in Uganda, and Ali Mazrui’s professorial career began at Makerere University in Uganda, Mazrui has often described his entire academic career as “a child of the Nile.” His Inaugural Lecture when Makerere appointed him Professor was entitled Ancient Greece in African Political Thought but was in fact a salute to Uganda and the Nile in the history of civilization.

One of the most prevalent stereotypes in the debate about human rights and conflict transformation has been that of two fields clashing, expressed in the idea that the normative nature of human rights standards may complicate the practical demands of peacemaking. This article moves beyond “justice vs. peace” and proposes that applying a perspective of human rights in conflict transformation brings it closer to its aims – by forcing greater emphasis on structural conditions, especially the role of the state, systems of governance and issues of power.

August saw the continuation of the chaos in Zimbabwe, with ever more breaches of the GPA being recorded, the majority of which fell into the following categories:
* wanton politically motivated violence, or violence driven by politicians or petty officials, * harassment, and deprivation of freedom, of individuals through contrived arrests on spurious charges, * widespread corruption involving senior public and uniformed figures, * the deprivation of the right to Freedom of Expression, and the abuse thereof, * violent, unconstitutional, invasions and seizures of property and farms, and * deliberate attempts to derail the Constitution-making process.

IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowship grants for scholars whose lives or careers are threatened in their home countries. The fellowships support temporary academic positions at universities, colleges and other higher learning institutions in safe locations anywhere in the world. Applications are due by October 12th 2009.

As riots by supporters of Uganda's dominant Buganda kingdom over its (kingdom) disagreement with the government continued in various parts of the country, amid fears that dozens of lives may have been lost, President Yoweri Museveni has opted for dialogue to end the violence.

The ECOWAS Parliament has called on ECOWAS and the African Union to "intervene immediately" for the restoration of constitutionalism in Niger, where President Mamadou Tandja has changed the country's constitution to allow him to run again when his second term runs out in December. The call was contained in a resolution of the ECOWAS Parliament, adopted Wednesday at the current 2009 Second Ordinary Session held in Abuja, the seat of the parliament.

The UN children's agency says child mortality is decreasing, but the rate of decline is not enough. A new report says more than eight million children under five died last year with pneumonia and diarrhoea the two leading causes of death. Unicef says 40% of under-five deaths take place in just three countries - Nigeria, India and DR Congo.