From 15 to 18 June 2009, Niger will host the 3rd edition of the Grand Diplomatic North-South Conferences (GDNSC) initiated by ACECI (www.aceci.org). This 3rd GDNSC having as theme "Translate the MDGs into a poverty reduction law ", is co-organised by the National Assembly of Niger, the Consortium composed of civil society organisations and networks, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in cooperation with Niger’s technical and financial partners.

The objective of the PanAfrican Research Agenda on the Pedagogical Integration of information and communication technologies is to better understand how the pedagogical integration of ICTs can enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Africa. The national reports from participating countries are now available.

Biofuels produced from the crop jatropha may be competing with food production for land and water, according to a new report released by two Friends of the Earth groups as the Jatropha World Summit begins in Ghana. The report – “Jatropha – wonder crop?” – investigates claims made by UK biofuels company D1 Oils about jatropha.

Investigating the impact of the 2003 Extractive Industries Review on a number of African countries, the contributors in this book find that a key dimension of the problem lies in the regulatory frameworks imposed on the African countries by the IMF and World Bank. They aim to convince academics, governments and industry that regulation needs to be reformed to create a mining industry favourable to social and economic development and environmental protection.

En route to the twin summits at the end of the year— the food crisis summit in Rome in November, and the climate crisis summit to be held in Copenhagen in December— the meeting of the FAO Seed Treaty (ITPGRFA) is at the critical nexus of the international community’s ability to respond to the food and climate crises.

, the and ending

By 2011, the International Labour Organisation will adopt an international standard listing the rights of domestic workers. Domestic/household workers want the right to be treated properly as workers. An ILO Convention would be an important step forward.

African synergy is focused on facilitating cultural collaboration across Africa - in every way possible. Our goal is to see a decisive break with the legacy of ‘cultural isolation’ between African countries. To this end, we build arts linkages cross Africa - between French, Portuguese and English speaking Africa – the major fault-lines of isolation – as well between the regions of East, West and Southern Africa. African Synergy works through a network of festivals, venues and arts NGOs, comprising 75 cultural operators in 15 countries. We work in partnership.

The first Kenyan photojournalist to win the CNN Multichoice Journalist Award has been banned by social networking site Facebook. Boniface Mwangi who won the CNN Africa Photojournalist of the Year 2008 is starting up a new Facebook profile after his was deleted last week due to his radical status updates. Commenting on the issue he said, “I was removed from Facebook due to controversial updates calling for political change and the youth to stop hero worshiping tribal leaders who have messed up our country.” One of his last comments before his profile was deleted was “Kenyans elect criminals to parliament all you need is money to get elected.” He had over 1,500 friends.

It has been just over a year since the few weeks of seeming madness in May 2008, when xenophobic violence broke out across South Africa, shocking the nation and attracting international condemnation. However, migrant women in South Africa consider that period as an example, albeit extreme, of what they experience in their daily lives as foreigners in South Africa. Research recently conducted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) on migrant women in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban – before, during and after the xenophobic attacks in May 2008 – found migrant women’s daily experiences of xenophobia far-reaching.

As Ken Saro-Wiwa stood before the hangman’s noose in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil capital, he spoke not just of his imminent death but also of the campaign against Royal Dutch Shell that had won him international attention. Sentenced to death after a deeply flawed trial, he had come to be seen as a martyr by those opposing alleged abuses involving the oil industry in his country. According to fellow activists, his last words before his execution were: “Lord, take my soul but the struggle continues.”

An effort to fight global poverty and hunger may become a Trojan horse to force genetically engineered crops on countries and farmers that do not want them. In the Senate, Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the Global Food Security Act, which increases funding for agricultural research in the developing world, and a companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced soon.

In a particularly infuriating Article, the NewYorkTimes sites developing countries as the toughest places to monetize web traffic for web services like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. The article makes the argument that countries in South America, parts of Asia and Africa, are particularly hard to monetize due to the increased costs of serving rich media (like video and flash advertisements) to low bandwidth regions of the world.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has now documented 40 cases of castration, severe sexual abuses and unlawful detention, which were carried out by officers of the British Government. The actual number of Kenyans who suffered this barbaric treatment at the hands of British officers in fact runs into their thousands. In recent years, following exhaustive research by historians, it has become clear that far from being the acts of a few rogue soldiers, the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of Kenyans during the Emergency Period (1950s to early 1960s) resulted from policies which were sanctioned at the highest levels of Government in London.

What is the media’s role in development and how can they take a more meaningful part in helping rural communities in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to achieve the millennium development goals? These are the core issues to be addressed in Brussels, Belgium from 12 to 16 October, when the ACP/EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), together with its partners, will host an international seminar on the "Role of the media in agricultural development in ACP countries".

Foreign aid for government health projects in Zambia, where most of the national health budget is donor-funded, was frozen last week after allegations of corruption. The governments of the Netherlands and Sweden announced they had suspended aid after a whistleblower alerted Zambia's Anti-Corruption Commission [ACC] to the embezzlement of over US$2 million from the health ministry by top government officials.

In September of 2008, 1300 delegates from all the eight provinces of Kenya created the National Youth Movement at the National Youth Convention. 14 Key resolutions were passed and has been actively recruiting and implementing them through members across the country and at the national level. The National Youth Movement is active and will deliver results as per to the aspirations of the young people who legitimately formed it.

Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.

OI are looking for a consultant to work a total of 30 days over a three – four month period to undertake project work relevant to the OI digital presence. We are preferably looking for someone who can work two days per week. The successful candidate will need to be a highly experienced digital communications professional who is able to come into the post and take over on both digital campaigns work and web managerial tasks with confidence. We particularly need support from a web specialist to help us move forward on some areas of site development.

The Central African Republic (CAR) has been in the throes of a humanitarian crisis for more than a decade. Army mutinies, coups and attempted coups, rebellions, gangs that kidnap for ransom and, more recently, elements of Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army have made life for civilians, especially in the north, extremely challenging, unpredictable, and very dangerous. As IRIN’s new documentary film, Under the Gun, demonstrates, many Central Africans have little say over where they live even.