An acute shortage of water resources has hit Kenya pushing the country into a crisis as water sources dry up in what experts say is a looming ecological disaster. The shortage has been complicated by drying up of water sources including rivers, lakes , dams ,wells and springs and worsened by a an ongoing 10 month drought.

Madagascar's foreign minister has said that the Indian Ocean island's army-backed government was ready to hold elections before the end of 2009 if the "means" were available. Madagascar has been rocked by political instability since Andry Rajoelina took power in March from then president Marc Ravalomanana with the help of dissident soldiers -- a move that was labelled a coup by many countries and regional blocs.

Google's new Chrome operating system (OS) will be good for people who live on the Internet. However, Joburg Centre of Software Engineering (JCSE) head Barry Dwolatzky questions whether it will be good for developing economies. The US Internet search giant announced it had released the first version of its Chrome OS, aimed at netbooks, which are mainly used for accessing the World Wide Web.

A new joint initiative of ESCR-Net and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law seeks to provide advocacy and educational resource of first-hand human rights documentation on the impacts businesses have on human rights around the world. Send your contributions.

"You are sick and it is the weekend. You have a fever and you're sweating and vomiting so you fear you have malaria. You need medical attention. All the money you have is what is in your pocket, a total of $3.59. You never went to school so you do not know how to read or write. You live in the Kibera slums."This was one scenario played out on a leafy Washington campus, as students in the summer program at the Washington International School struggled to understand life on the edge for children in Nairobi's notorious slums.

In this book, gender justice activists from Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN Kenya) share their personal experiences as individuals and as Changemakers. Besides personal stories told by activists, this publication also includes short briefs on the work of MEGEN Kenya, highlighting the challenges, successes and lessons learned in different program areas.

A group of forty-one (41) Congolese refugees and asylum seekers (men, women and children) have this morning finally fled Namibia for their lives to an undisclosed destination through the neighboring Republic of Botswana. The group includes 23 children between the ages 1 and 17. According to NSHR’s latest information, the group is stranded, without food, in ‘no[wo]man’s’ land between Namibia and Botswana, some 300 kilometers east of the Namibian capital of Windhoek. NSHR has appealed to the Government of the Republic of Botswana to “accord them all the necessary assistance on humanitarian grounds”.

In Kenyan history, the land issue has been an emotive issue. To address this problem, the government embarked on the formation of a national land Policy through a widely consultative process with the aim of producing a policy whose vision was to guide the country towards efficient, sustainable and equitable use of land for prosperity and posterity.

The Special Nigerian edition of the methodological workshops that is on offer for 2009 is designed for doctoral students and young, mid-career African researchers based in Nigeria. The working language to be employed during the workshop will be English. The session will be led by a director who will be assisted by a team of three lecturers, all with an acknowledged expertise in the application of social science research methods.

Leaders of churches in West Africa have cautioned the political authorities in the sub-region against signing the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) by African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in its present form. The leaders said the EPA in its current form was not beneficial and would not give member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) enough political and economic leeway to improve production of staple foods.

Portrait artist and social justice activist, Gabrielle Le Roux is seeking an intern / volunteer to coordinate as well as assist with fundraising for the Living Ancestors exhibition to travel further internationally. The Living Ancestors exhibition is a tribute in portraits and stories to the world’s oldest woman, Ma Pampo, 126 years old and nine other women over the age of 100 in the Caribbean Island of Dominica. Living Ancestors has been exhibited in the Caribbean, South Africa, Uganda, Amsterdam and is currently at the Museum of London Docklands [http://tinyurl.com/lbbb65]

cc Israel is practising both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), an interim report released by the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) suggests. Based on 15 months of research, the report reviews Israel’s practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid in international law. Violations of international prohibitions on colonialism cited include Israel’s policy to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently and its appropriation of land and water in the OPT. Laws that give privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantage Palestinians in the same territory based on their identities are among the examples of apartheid highlighted in the study.

The seven members arrested in Bulawayo on Wednesday 17th June appeared on remand in Bulawayo Magistrate’s Court on July 3. The state was not prepared with either the docket or state witnesses. They have been further remanded out of custody until 22nd July.

‘Six villagers were shot, two fatally, by security guards at the North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime district. The incident happened this afternoon in circumstances that remain unclear. It brings to 11 the number of villagers who have been shot dead at the Mine since July 2005. No one has ever been held accountable for these deaths and no investigations ever carried out. Meantime over forty villagers and hundreds of livestock are reported dead after drinking water from River Thigithe that flows through the Mine. The allegations of deadly poisons causing deaths have largely been conformed by official delegations that have visited the areas this week.’

As the rich Group of 8 (G8) nations convene in L'Aquila, Italy this week, world hunger will once again take center stage. The United States will likely announce a "significant" increase in funding for agricultural development aid, along with multi-year commitments from other G8 countries. This follows the G8's admission of failure in tackling hunger at its first-ever farm conference in Treviso, Italy in April 2009.

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, 2009 to November 20th, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Leaders of eight African countries -- Angola, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Egypt, Algeria and Libya -- will take part in the G-8 Summit that opened Wednesday in l'Aquilla, Italy, a European spokesperso n announced in Brussels. The African leaders will Friday participate in a working session on food security. According to a report of the European NGO Action Aid, countries should devote at least US$ 23 billion per year by 2012 to food crisis in order to reduce by half, hunger in the world by 2015.

As a matter of substance, SAIFAC and Constitutional Law of South Africa (CLOSA), the Centre for Human Rights hope to push the boundaries for legal debate within South Africa. One way to accomplish this end is by having lawyers, judges, legal academics, and academics from other disciplines engage in meaningful discourse about subjects that do not – for better or worse – engage the majority of public lawyers in this country.

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released a study indicating that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The interim report, which will form part of a discussion at an upcoming HSRC conference on the subject, titled Re-envisioning Israel/Palestine, on 13 and 14 June in Cape Town, serves as a document to be finalised later this year.

Google has unveiled a new service designed to provide information via SMS to cellphone users in Africa, where mobile handsets are prevalent but Internet penetration is low. The Internet search and advertising giant noted that Africa has the world's highest mobile phone growth rate and that mobile use on the
continent is six times higher than Internet penetration.