The governing body of AI, the International Executive Committee (IEC) seeks applications for the next Secretary General, who will be a leader in progressing this work, strengthening AI’s position in the international human rights movement, developing partnerships outside AI and building stronger links with AI’s national Sections.

One thing that is very, very notable about the contentions over the Mau, particularly whether and when to evict, or not and why, is the absence of law-based arguments. The occupiers of the moral high grounds, those who have mounted the high horse, carefully avoid the law. They speak as though it actually does not exist. It is as if there are no land laws that can be used to determine various claims. And that ought to make people quite curious indeed.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick travels to three countries in Africa next week to see for himself damage inflicted on the region from the global financial crisis and recession. His visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda will focus on encouraging businesses and donors to invest in Africa, as the global crisis seems to be easing in industrialized economies but is still being felt in most of the developing world.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described as disappointing Kenya's failure to investigate a bout of deadly violence after the 2007 election. Speaking in Nairobi on the first day of her African tour, Mrs Clinton urged the Kenyan authorities to end impunity. At least 1,300 people were killed in two months of violence, but the cabinet has resisted calls for a tribunal.

The UN Security Council should urgently establish a high-level post to fill a leadership gap relating to women and armed conflict, Human Rights Watch has said. A special representative of the secretary-general assigned to this issue would be able to push for protection against sexual violence and to promote equal participation by women in peace talks. The Security Council is to hold a discussion on the issue of women, peace, and security.

Some 12,500 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been uprooted from their homes in the past month by attacks by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the United Nations refugee agency has reported. “The humanitarian situation in this remote part of the DRC remains dramatic,” Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva.

Kenyan female students will now have to undergo pregnancy tests at least once a term if the new guideline launched by the Public Health and Education Ministers - Beth Mugo and Prof Sam Ongeri - are implemented. The Guideline was launched amid rising number of pregnancy related school dropouts. The test is supposed to be voluntary, the guideline said.

A Canada-based rights group has questioned Tanzania's commitment to stop albino murders after courts in the northwest of the African country suspended cases against suspected killers due to lack of funds. At least 53 Tanzanian albinos have been murdered since 2007, with most of the killings taking place in the remote northwest regions of Shinyanga and Mwanza, where superstition runs deep.

The second World Outgames, held in the Danish capital, offered up a veritable smorgasbord of sport, politics and arts while celebrating sexual and gender diversity. But it also reminded participants that bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, sometimes culminating in violence, remains a scourge across the world.

On July 30, only days before this week's visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to Kenya, the first stop on her 7-country Africa trip, the Kenyan Cabinet decided to reject special prosecution of those responsible for post-election violence in 2007 and 2008, whether under a domestic special tribunal or by the International Criminal Court (ICC), to which the case has been referred. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a brief commentary by Muthoni Wanyeki, executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), excerpts from an extended interview with Maina Kiai, the former chairperson of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), and links to a number of other related commentaries and reports.

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) is pleased to announce its 2009 Fellowship in Transitional Justice: a three-week professional development course on transitional justice based in Cape Town, South Africa. This course will be held from November 2nd to November 20th, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa.

A federal jury has convicted former United States Congressman William J. Jefferson, 62, of New Orleans, of using his office to corruptly solicit bribes, in deals mainly in African states, the Justice Department has announced. After hearing evidence for more than one month, a jury found Jefferson guilty on 11 charged counts, including solicitation of bribes, honest services wire fraud, money laundering, racketeering and conspiracy.

Human rights activists and journalists in Ghana on August 3, 2009 converged at the Ghana International Press Centre in Accra for a public forum to expose the Ghanaian public to the political situation in Niger which has brought in its wake dire consequences for democratic institutions in the country including the media. The forum on the theme “Niger-Democracy Under Threat” was aimed at reminding the public of the need to prevent another violent conflict in West Africa, which has in the last decade experienced a number of civil wars with devastating humanitarian consequences.

From 13 to 17 November 2009 hundreds of representatives from civil society, nongovernmental and people’s movements of small scale food providers, Indigenous
Peoples, food and rural workers, youth, women and food insecure city dwellers will meet in Rome to share and articulate their findings, proposals and actions at local, regional and global levels. The timing and location are designed to facilitate interaction with the 2009 FAO World Food Summit and to bring the voices and the lessons of people’s organizations to the ears of the Heads of State and Governments and to the international institutions gathered to discuss how to deal with an increasingly hungry world.

Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, sitting at Gambia's High Court, has pronounced heavy fines and imprisonment against six journalists, including executive members of the Gambian Press Union (GPU), who were charged with criminal libel and defamation of President Yahya Jammeh.

Police have arrested four student leaders after a foiled protest at Zimbabwe's main university over new tuition fees, a human rights group said Thursday. "Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) confirm the arrest and detention of four representatives of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) at the University of Zimbabwe," the group said in a statement.

Six Botswana bushmen found guilty of hunting without a permit on their ancestral land have been set free with a caution, a lobby group says. Survival International said the "attempt by the Botswana government to punish Bushmen for hunting to feed their families has backfired". The San bushmen of the Kalahari have faced years of legal rows for the right to live on their ancestral lands.

Zimbabwe has failed to remove its armed forces from the diamond fields in Marange and to end related human rights abuses there, Human Rights Watch has said. As a result, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) should suspend Zimbabwe immediately. The KPCS, an international group governing the global diamond industry, sent a review mission to Marange in late June 2009 to assess Zimbabwe's compliance with the group's standards, which require diamonds to be lawfully mined, documented, and exported by participant countries.

Access to food for the people of Madagascar remains unreliable because of the impact of natural disasters, which routinely strike the island State, and continuing political tensions, a United Nations report has warned. The joint Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) mission tasked with assessing crop and food security in Madagascar underscored the effect a run of cyclones on the east coast in 2008-2009 and several years of drought in the south has had on the country’s crops.

The Director is a part of a three-person team with the Legal Director and the Administrative Coordinator to ensure that all functions of the Project are met. The Director coordinates the work of a Community Coordinator, two psychosocial workers, 10 legal interns, and 5 translators. The responsibilities are heavy, the environment dynamic, and attentive service requires a commitment to the project. The ideal candidate would be both capable and enthusiastic about the potential for high impact in the formation of a new refugee service-providing organization.