Olivier De Schutter

The landmark 30 th Durban International Film Festival brings together films and filmmakers from around the world in a celebration of the diversity and magic of cinema. Across eleven intense days DIFF will present over 200 screenings at venues across the city of Durban and in surrounding communities. While the selection of fascinating, passionate and entertaining films forms the centre of the festival, an extensive programme of free workshops and seminars – this year based at the Royal Hotel - will prime a new generation of South African filmmakers.

The African Network of Professionals ,(ANOP) is calling for participation in its major event – “The Congress of African Professionals”. The congress will be held in Accra, Ghana on 11th - 13th November, 2009 at Accra, Ghana. The theme of the Congress is “Professionalism in Africa: Problems and Prospects”. There will be a pre-congress workshop on the 10th November, 2009 at same venue.

It is no myth that repressive regimes are becoming increasingly more savvy in their ability to effectively employ sophisticated filtering, censoring, monitoring technologies (often courtesy of American companies like Cisco) to crack down on resistance movements. In other words, political activists need to realize that their regimes are becoming smarter and more effective, not dumber and hardly clueless.

The winner of the 2009 will be announced on Monday 6 July at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Caine Prize, widely known as the ‘African Booker’ and regarded as Africa’s leading literary award, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

The 2009 shortlist comprises:

- Mamle Kabu (Ghana) ‘The End of Skill’ from ‘Dreams, Miracles and Jazz’, published by Picador Africa, Johannesburg 2008
- Parselelo Kantai (Kenya) ‘You Wreck Her’ from the St Petersburg Review, NY 2008
- Alistair Morgan (South Africa) ‘Icebergs’ from The Paris Review no. 183, NY 2008
- EC Osondu (Nigeria) ‘Waiting’ from Guernicamag.com, October 2008
- Mukoma wa Ngugi (Kenya) ‘How Kamau wa Mwangi Escaped into Exile’ from ‘Wasafiri’ No54, Summer 2008, London.

Two HIV-positive Namibian women who allege they were sterilised against their will in public hospitals are seeking redress through the courts, the first of more than 20 known cases, according to the International Community for Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW). The ICW raised the alarm over what it terms forced or coerced sterilisations among HIV-positive women more than a year ago, after hearing accounts of it through its regular forums for HIV-positive young women.

Where many have tried and failed, now the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called on Madagascar’s political rivals to consider peaceful dialogue to end months of political crisis. Heads of State of the 15-nation regional body met in South Africa on 20 June to consider the political and security situation in the Indian Ocean Island after the last mediation attempt by the African Union (AU) collapsed on 16 June.

Twenty female detainees in the central prison in Goma, a large town in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were raped during a recent riot, officials have said. "Twenty female prisoners were raped on Monday [22 June] night during an attempted prison escape by a group of militia sentenced to long terms and jailed in the prison," Oscar Kasangandjo, the public prosecutor in Goma, told IRIN.

It has become a given – test more people for HIV and you'll get more people on treatment earlier, plus cut down on risky sex. But recent research on the behaviour of people who test HIV negative, has led some doctors to question the testing gospel. Speaking at the monthly meeting of the South African HIV Clinicians society, Dr Francois Venter said what seemed a strong relationship between increased testing, treatment and behaviour change is not necessarily valid in the South African context.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a statement by the Washington-based Africa Faith and Justice Network, a participant in the coalition lobby effort for the billin the UC Congress, but an outspoken opponent of the military option; the full statement from the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative; an open letter from Resolve Uganda stressing the need for U.S. support for reconstruction; and additional references to recent analytical background material from the Enough Project, Conciliation Resources (London), Institute for Security Studies (Pretoria), and Ronald Atkinson's two-part series in the Independent.

The human rights body has urged the Angolan government to halt unlawful detention and torture of people suspected of rebel activities in oil-producing province of Cabinda. According to the 27 paged report released by Human Rights Watch today, Angolan armed forces and state intelligence officials have arbitrarily arrested 38 people belonging to the Liberation Front of the Enclave of Cabinda accused of state security crimes in Cabinda between September 2007 and March 2009.

Rwanda’s traditional `Gacaca’ courts, set up in 2001 to try some of those responsible for the 1994 genocide and to decongest the prison system, wind up on 30 June, but questions remain as to how much they achieved. Gacaca courts have tried at least 1.5 million cases (with about 4,000 pending). However, at least 100 genocide survivors, have been killed - most of them after testifying against suspects in these courts, according to the umbrella organization for survivors, IBUKA.

The University of South Africa (UNISA) together with Gay Umbrella, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisation in the North West Province, have joined forces in a two year systematic research project that will provide important insights into the rural perspective of gays and lesbians. The project is set to focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals in rural areas of the North West Province with a view to get a closer look at their lives and the challenges they face on a daily basis in terms of empowerment.

The baby was born and 12 days later died on a dilapidated upper floor of the Adjamé market in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan. The mother, Aminata*, is barely 15. She does not know who the father is. Aminata exchanges sex for money – so she can eat, she said. Aminata is among scores of young girls – some as young as 10, according to a local NGO – who sell their bodies at Adjamé market, known locally as ‘Biêlôgô’; in the Dioula language, lôgô means market and biê means the female sex organ.

Developing drought- and parasite-resistant sorghum hybrids are just some of the achievements of 2009 World Food Prize Laureate Gebisa Ejeta, a professor of agronomy at US-based Purdue University. The Ethiopian scientist — announced as the 2009 Laureate on 11 June — was responsible for Africa's first drought tolerant and high-yielding hybrid sorghum varieties, which improved crop productivity and birthed a commercial sorghum seed industry in Sudan.

Tension remains high in Kenya's southwestern district of Kuria East, on the Tanzania border, where at least 6,000 people have been displaced by inter-clan fighting, humanitarian officials said. "Although there is relative calm in the district, with no reported incidences of attacks or torching of houses in the past few days, tension remains high in the area," James Kisia, deputy secretary-general of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), said on 24 June.

A vast stretch of African savannah land that spreads across 25 countries has the potential to turn several African nations into global players in bulk commodity production, according to a study published by FAO and the World Bank. The book, entitled Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant - Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond, arrives at its positive conclusions by comparing the region with northeast Thailand and the Cerrado region of Brazil.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has launched a USD$ 8 million initiative to help build the disaster resilience of 600,000 people living along the Zambezi river in seven southern African countries. The Zambezi River Basin Initiative (ZRBI) is a response to "a dramatic increase in the numbers of floods along the river basin” according to Farid Abdulkadir, IFRC disaster management coordinator for the southern Africa region.

In a new wave of outsourcing, Indian firms are acquiring swathes of farmland in poor African countries to produce food meant to be exported to India. But food policy experts are lambasting the strategy as “ neo- colonialist”. They say such deals exploit the natural resources of poor countries who are themselves facing acute food shortages.

Education is the forgotten aspect of post-conflict humanitarian aid and aid for refugees”, New Security Foundation Chairman Dr Harold Elletson told delegates at a ground-breaking session on ‘post-conflict distance learning’ during eLearning Africa in Dakar, Senegal. With these words, he initiated a debate which should prove to be a hot topic at this year’s Security and Defence Learning Forum in Berlin.