Applications are now open for the RVI’s first Great Lakes field course, to be held from Saturday 17 to Friday 23 July 2010 in Bujumbura, Burundi. The course is a fast-track, graduate-level introduction to the history, political economy and culture of Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Taught in English and French by a distinguished faculty of international and regional specialists, the course follows in the tracks of the acclaimed annual RVI courses on Sudan and the Horn of Africa. For more information please see Courses or download a prospectus here. The application deadline is 7 May 2010.

The ambassador of the Republic of Congo to Cuba, Pascal Onguemby, rejected the lies included in an anti-Cuba resolution recently approved by the European Parliament. Addressing participants in the inauguration of the Eleventh International Conference on African Culture in the Americas that began today in Santiago de Cuba, the African diplomat spoke on behalf of the ambassadors from Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and Mozambique, as well as the cultural attaché from Angola.

TechSoup Global, the U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides technology resources and knowledge to NGOs around the world, and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization (CSO) reporting, have announced that they will combine operations in order to strengthen their respective capacity-building programs for civil society. The two organizations share a mission to benefit global civil society through the provision of technology, information, and resources.

In January, 2010, a team from Cultural Survival's Global Response program went to Kenya to document a year-long pattern of brutal police assaults on the Samburu people of northern Kenya. These assaults, which include killing, raping, beating, and wholesale robbery, take place in an atmosphere of racial prejudice and discrimination against pastoralist tribes that resist assimilation and westernization in order to maintain their unique cultures. Kenyan police forces operate with impunity throughout the country, but in northern Kenya their brutality targets a specific ethnic community in violation of their rights as Indigenous Peoples.

KONI – The Panafrican Alliance of Colombia is a non-governmental organization based in Bogota. In the spirit of pan African solidarity and cooperation, Koni has designed and availed a platform of technologies and tools for the exchange of ideas, methodologies and strategies of development on the African continent, and its Diaspora in Colombia

The public outcry of alleged entrenched corruption in Tanzania’s National Housing Corporation (NHC) appears to have reached catastrophic proportions with helpless victims alleging that the vice is so extensive and deeply rooted to the marrow of this giant state corporation

Civil society organisations in Angola gave a lesson of citizenship, courageously marching to say “Don’t Push Down My House”.The demonstration finally and peacefully took place in the coastal city of Benguela. Despite of the ban announced by the provincial government, the march managed to break the silence and voice the protest against the brutal house demolitions and forced land evictions that have become a regular occurrence in Angola in the last years.

The proposed media law is a monster, says Dr George Lugalambi, chair of a coalition fighting to preserve press freedom in Uganda. Publishers and journalists would have to apply annually for a licence, which could be revoked at will in the interests of "national security, stability and unity," or if coverage was deemed to be "economic sabotage."?

Rich countries have threatened to cut vital aid to the developing nations if they do not back the deal agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, it has emerged. The pressure on poor countries to support the US, EU and UK-brokered Copenhagen accord came as 190 countries resumed UN climate talks in Bonn in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.

South Africans are facing tough times. It is a time when there is no humanity, a time when no one in government is interested to listen to your story if you are a poor person. There are good thinkers in this country, but if their ideologies are coming from the bottom up, from poor communities, no one is prepared to listen carefully.

On the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle, April 17, FIAN International together with many other civil society actors calls for an immediate stop of land grabbing. A new report published by FIAN International documents the findings of two research missions on land grabbing to Kenya and Mozambique, and concludes that land grabbing violates human rights.

FEMNET has been spearheading the process of mobilizing women in Africa to engage in the monitoring of the aid effectiveness agenda. The purpose is to ensure that gender and human rights perspectives in the aid effectiveness agenda take centre stage in the discourse. The other objective is to influence donors implementing the PD and AAA to adopt gender equality and women’s empowerment indicators as one way of assessing development effectiveness.

The 19th African Human Rights Moot Court Competition will be held at the University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin from 4 - 9 October 2010. The deadline for Faculty registration was 28 February and individual registration is 15 May 2010.

When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarised and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa, as well as toward other parts of the world.

Help give Nigeria a voice at Chevron's Annual General Meeting this year by donating your frequent flyer miles or proxy vote to the JINN delegation. Each year, Chevron stakeholders gather for the company's Annual General Meeting at the end of May.

Shareholders have the opportunity to speak--or to donate their shares to allow others to speak at the meeting as their proxy. JINN needs your help in increasing Nigeria' representation at the meeting by providing proxy votes and frequent flyer miles. If you own shares in Chevron and wish to donate your proxy vote, or if you have frequent flyer miles on any airline, please
contact Abby at (415) 990-0792 or [email]abby@justiceinnigerianow.org

Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies is now offering its globally renowned Masters program of postgraduate coursework to students around the world. Graduates enjoy challenging and rewarding careers in aid and development, in NGOs large and small, think-tanks, governments, universities and beyond.

In the wake of a continent-wide upsurge in homophobia with Zimbabwe’s leaders Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai being the most recent to put there voices to it, Rev. Pieter Oberholzer and gay Christian activist, Victor Mukasa, were chased away “like lepers” from a consultative meeting on homosexuality held on 16^th March in Malawi. They’ve been attending on invitation of secretary-general Canaan Phiri of the Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), who organised the event.

The "post amnesty" process that is supposed to be rehabilitating militants in the Niger Delta continued to face questions throughout March. Matters were not helped when a gathering of government and Niger Delta leaders associated with the process in Warri, Delta State, was interrupted by two car bombs planted by disgruntled militant

International agency Oxfam is deeply concerned with the recent detention of one of its staff and two colleagues from the Ngorongoro NGO Network (NGONET) by authorities in Loliondo, following protests by local women about alleged violations of land rights in the area. The three were detained on 12 April and released the next day on bail. Oxfam calls on the authorities to hold an immediate investigation into the detentions, and take steps to address the concerns of local communities amid growing tension in the area.

Authorities in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have begun repatriating hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, officials have reported. "These are people who decided they wanted to return but could not afford to do so," said Mohamud Jama Muse, director of the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in Bosasso, Puntland's capital.