The West African economic and political grouping Ecowas has described as 'unfortunate' the decision by Liberia’s main opposition to boycott the 8 November presidential runoff and urged Liberians to go to the polls. In a statement, the Economic Community of West Africa States cautioned the country's political leaders against inciting their supporters to violence and vowed to endorse any result that would emanate from a poll that would be certified by international observers.

‘Governments meeting at this year’s UN Climate Conference in Durban must end years of delay and meet their moral, historical and legal obligations,’ a group of movements and organisations have said, in the lead-up to a Week of Global Actions for Climate Justice from 20-26 November. ‘In the year ahead, our solidarity and collective action is extremely crucial. Climate change is already having devastating impacts globally and is accelerating. The window for preventing the breach of tipping points and stopping climate catastrophe is rapidly closing.’

Date: Saturday 5 November 2011
Venue: Café Ganesh, Observatory (corner Trill Road & Lower Main Road). Cape Town, South Africa.
Time: From 10am to 6pm
Free entry

Remember, remember, the fifth of November, as this is the date when South Africa will play host to its first ever Anarchist Book Fair, taking place in Observatory, Cape Town, at Café Ganesh (corner Trill Road and Lower Main Road).

Comrades, armchair anarchists, committed revolutionaries and book lovers are invited to come and learn about this exciting philosophy and its proud history of resistance. You can swing by any time between 10am and 6pm to check out a wide range of radical literature, music, movies, talks and more.

There will be over 12 stalls and collectives taking part including –The Missing Shelf, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, CrimethInc South Africa, Intsangu Clothes, Amandla! Magazine, Soundz of the South, Feminist Alternatives and Botsotso. The Sympony Way Pavement Dwellers will also be there showcasing their extraordinary book "No Land! No House! No Vote!"

On Wednesday 26 October 2011, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum’s Public Interest Unit (PIU) successfully applied for a default judgment on behalf of its client, Mr. Weston Katiyo. Mr. Katiyo is a victim of Organised Violence and Torture (OVT). He was awarded compensatory damages for shock, pain and suffering, loss of amenities of life, unlawful detention, loss of property and contumelia in the sum of US$12,168.00 by the High Court of Zimbabwe.

This gripping and highly readable story of the Asians’ last days in Uganda interweaves the stories of Mahmood Mamdani’s friends and family with an examination of Uganda’s colonial history and the subsequent evolution of post-independence politics. The British colonial policy of divide and rule ensured that race coincided with class, effectively politicising the category of race.

All nations, governments and people who ‘believe in the concepts of international law and morality’ should ‘forcibly register a strong and profound protest against the manner in which the operative principles of the United Nations and the fundamental precepts of international law were flouted and desecrated by the powerful nations of France, Britain and the United States of America (and their NATO allies) in their actions against the people, government and nation of Libya’ over the period of February to October 2011.

The Ugandan government and public officials are increasingly placing illegitimate restrictions on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to silence critical voices, Amnesty International said in a new report. 'Stifling Dissent: Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in Uganda' describes how journalists, opposition politicians and activists face arbitrary arrest, intimidation, threats and politically motivated criminal charges for expressing views deemed critical of the authorities.

A bunch of the world’s leading impact investors have joined forces with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to invest $25m in a new growth fund to support African agriculture. Over the next five years, Pearl Capital Partners (PCP), a specialised African agricultural investment fund manager based in Kampala, Uganda, will invest the AACF’s $25 million in at least 20 agriculture-related businesses in East Africa. The fund is supported by $17 million in equity investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The discovery of massive diamond deposits in Zimbabwe has led to hundreds of media reports exploring the abuse of human rights and grandscale corruption. It can be difficult to keep up to date with events as they unfold, or to tease out the key story as it unfolds. Activist group Sokwanele has produced a full report that aims to synthesise this glut information into a single report providing an accessible and wide ranging overview of events, meetings, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and the network of the people involved in the story.

Prison Radio’s mission is to challenge unjust police and prosecutorial practices which result in mass incarceration, racism, and gender discrimination by airing the voices of men and women victimized by an unjust criminal justice system. Sign up for Prison Radio's email newsletter to receive regular updates including links to Mumia Abu-Jamal's latest essays, upcoming events, and breaking news about the case.

The international organisation that governs top-level Internet domain names is taking bids on the creation of '.africa'. Supporters say it will promote African businesses better than individual country names such as ‘dot-ke’ for Kenya or 'dot-za' for South Africa. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - or ICANN - is in a period of change following the announcement six months ago that Internet domains currently dominated by dot-coms will be opened up to dot-anything. That means there could soon be a continent-wide dot-africa domain.

'The announced withholding of US dues owed for 2011 will immediately affect our ability to deliver programmes in critical areas: achieving universal education, supporting new democracies and fighting extremism. So I call on the US administration, Congress and the American people to find a way forward and continue support for UNESCO in these turbulent times.'

The latest cover story of the New African examines the fight for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, featuring old and rare official records of British parliamentary debates in June 1806 in which both Houses of Parliament accepted that the UK, as a nation, had sanctioned and encouraged the slave trade and therefore it had responsibility to not only abolish it, but also 'atone' for it.

The 2011 Human Development Report argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together - and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals. Past reports have shown that living standards in most countries have been rising - and converging - for several decades now. Yet the 2011 report projects a disturbing reversal of those trends if environmental deterioration and social inequalities continue to intensify, with the least developed countries diverging downwards from global patterns of progress by 2050.

The Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law at Oxford University are very pleased to announce that admissions are now open for five scholarships for candidates from African Commonwealth countries to study for the part-time Masters in International Human Rights Law at the
University of Oxford, starting September 2012. The course website can be found at and details about the scholarships, including eligibility criteria and how to apply, can be found on the Fees and Funding pages at

Botswana should decriminalise homosexuality and prostitution to prevent the spread of HIV, ex-President Festus Mogae has told the BBC. Mogae, who heads the Botswana government-backed Aids Council, said it was difficult to promote safe sex when the two practices were illegal. A government spokesman on HIV/Aids told the BBC homosexuality and prostitution would remain illlegal until the government concluded wide-ranging consultations to see whether there was a need to change the law.

The first international farmers’ conference, whose objective is to strengthen the fight against land grabs in Africa and other parts of the world, will be held in Sélingué from 17 to 19 November 2011, and will bring together almost 200 farmers affected by land grabs as well as numerous other participants, including researchers, political figures, and NGOs resisting the unprecedented land-grab offensive by large businesses and hedge funds, among others, that compromises the ability of people to feed themselves.

Hundreds of SPLM-North fighters were killed in clashes with the Sudanese army in South Kordofan state, local governor Ahmed Haroun said. 'Several hundred members of the movement were killed this day in an assault on the city of Teludi that was repelled by the armed forces,' the governor of South Kordofan, an oil-producing state and scene of frequent clashes, said. An army spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, said 'this morning more than 700 rebel fighters together with 12 officers tried to attack Teludi (east of the provincial capital Kadugli) to occupy it'.

Education is priority number one in Tanzania: the education budget has grown, primary school enrolment is close to universal, and secondary school enrolment is expanding fast. But, writes Rakesh Rajani, head of Twaweza, a ten-year initiative to promote citizen agency and improved service delivery in East Africa, millions of children are not learning. 'According to the large-scale and independent Uwezo Survey, 7 out of every 10 children in Grade 3 cannot read Swahili at their level, 8 out of 10 cannot do math and 9 out of 10 cannot read English. Even after seven years, when they have completed primary schooling, half the children cannot read Grade 2-level English.' So, after 50-odd years of advice and studies and reforms and programmes, why have the experts not managed to deliver a system where children are learning?

Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka has said 'tougher times were still ahead' for Uganda. Her statement comes on the back of rising inflation which currently stands at 30.5 per cent up from 28.3 per cent in September. The high inflation trend has reduced real incomes and increased the costs of living and doing businesses in Uganda.