On 18 November 2009 Jan Egeland gave the tenth annual Harrell-Bond lecture. Mr Egeland is the former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The lecture was entitled 'Beyond Blankets: in search of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced.'

One of the key settings that is often a point of contact for women, including survivors of violence and HIV positive women, is health systems. It is for this reason that it is critical that an essential package of services delivered should be part of a comprehensive response to the two interlinked crises of HIV and violence against women and girls. What does this entail?

The Story of Cap and Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled, entertaining look at the leading climate mitigation strategy being imposed by elites at the Copenhagen summit and in Washington and most other capitals and financial centers. Host Annie Leonard introduces the people at the heart of this scheme - energy traders and Wall Street financiers.

The Copenhagen summit is set to begin, and all the preparations should have been completed - most of all, a draft of the final outcome. Instead, it seems the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are further apart than they had been, two years ago when the Bali Action Plan, was launched.

With the worsening of the global food crisis, general international agreement has emerged regarding the importance of smallholder agriculture in the battle against hunger and poverty. However, public debate has been highly restricted and increasingly dominated by conventional, market-led, and corporate approaches to aid and agricultural development.

As Angola celebrates 34 years of independence on 11 November, Khadija Sharife looks at the legacy of war, oil and geopolitics in a country where the future of its chief export, oil, has already been mortgaged.

It appears that former president Moi’s tenure at Kiptagich 900 hectares in the Mau may be ending soon. Writing in the Standard on Sunday newspaper, Juma Kwayera claims that the Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s communications office issued a despatch as follows: “On Monday we are sending emissaries to Moi to surrender the Kiptagich Tea Plantation or we take it by force.”

Zimbabwe's battered economy is on track to expand for the first time in a decade this year and to grow by 7 percent in 2010 as key sectors such as agriculture and mining start to recover, the finance minister said on Wednesday.

Chenjerai Hove is considered to be one of Zimbabwe´s foremost writers, and a volume of critical essays on all aspects of his work is being planned for publication by Africa World Press in association with Weaver Press. this is a call for proposals for contributions towards this planned critical volume.

The Twenty Ten project is inspired by the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the media opportunities this has to offer. It will be the first time that the FIFA World Cup competition takes place on the African continent. Football plays a vibrant part in life in communities across the continent. Taking a cue from this, Twenty Ten aims to give African journalists a voice, both in Africa and worldwide, by offering them an opportunity to express their own views of African reality, as opposed to having to depend on foreign news organizations.

The Africa Group took the lead in Barcelona in demanding that there be progress in the Kyoto Protocol group on the numbers for emission reduction by developed countries. They insisted that this group focus first on the "numbers", and then only after that deal with other issues.

For 41 years the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights has worked for a more peaceful and just world. On Monday evening in a ceremony at the White House Magodonga Mahlangu and WOZA, represented by WOZA co-founder Jenni Williams, were presented with the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award by President Barack Obama and Mrs Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy.

"We are the children of an illusion that consisted in believing that the independences of our countries signified the end of colonization." -- Interview with Houria Bouteldja, spokesperson of the decolonial movement in France known as the "Mouvement des Indigènes de la République"

Researchers on Northern Kenya severely contest the Cultural Survival Report to the UN Human Rights Council on the Samburu: The truth will only be known by an Independent Investigation into the Violence in Northern Kenya, says watchdog Mars Group Kenya.

The ruling Swapo has taken a comfortable lead as results of last weekend's national elections continued to trickle in. Also, the opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) is fast emerging as the new official opposition.

The ICC Prosecutor has issued a notice by which he informs victims of alleged crimes committed in Kenya during the post-election violence of 2007-2008 that he will request authorization from Pre-trial Chamber II to open an investigation into such alleged crimes, in accordance with Article 15(3) of the Rome Statute and Rule 50 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

Jacob Zuma, the President of Africa’s most powerful democracy since April 2009, and the recently chosen ‘African President of the Year’ (Sapa 2009), arouses strong passions from his supporters and detractors. A longtime ANC official from a humble peasant background in what is now Kwazulu-Natal province, Zuma was picked by the ANC to be the country’s deputy president under Thabo Mbeki in 1999.

HIV/AIDS remains a major health and development challenge in Africa. According to the 2009 AIDS Epidemic Update by the UNAIDS and World Health Organization, 22.4 million Africans live with HIV/AIDS. At least 1.9 million Africans contracted HIV in 2008 and 1.4 million died of AIDS in the same year. Every day in Africa, about 5200 Africans contract HIV and at least 3800 Africans die of AIDS.

Ekklesia is calling on on Christians around the world, and particularly Christian leaders, to oppose the extreme and violent “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” proposed in Uganda by signing this . Ekklesia calls on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to end his silence on the matter, to condemn the bill in public and to urge Ugandan Christians to oppose it.

A new report entitled: Public Broadcast Services in Africa Series has urged the government of Zimbabwe to commit to media reforms. Citing the highly controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which established the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Commission, a body that has immense power to make or break all media in the country; the report, launched in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, urges the government to place top priority in ensuring that: ‘Laws inhibiting the free operations of the media are repealed without delay.’