Zimbabwe has dismissed allegation of any fresh farm invasions, a preliminary report of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee fact-finding mission said. The Minister of Industry and Commerce, Professor Welshman Ncube, said the committee was in its second week to determine if there are reports of farm invasions in the country but said present findings have revealed that there are only a “spate of land disputes” as opposed to intrusions.

Nigerian militant leader Henry Okah, who is on trial for gun-running and treason, has accepted a government offer for "unconditional" amnesty, his lawyer told Reuters on Thursday. President Umaru Yar'Adua last week ordered his interior minister to extend the amnesty offer to Okah and promised to release him if he accepted.

Nine candidates are competing for the presidency in Mauritania, in a campaign that runs from July 2nd through the polls on July 18th. Observers believe a balance between majority and opposition leaders in the election – agreed in June's Dakar Agreement – will ensure transparency.

The boom in the acquisition of arable land in Africa by foreign companies and governments has stirred an international debate between international institutions such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and non-governmental groups and independent experts. The debate centres on whether the transfer of land from local farmers to foreign investors represents a development opportunity for the continent.

Portrait artist and social justice activist, Gabrielle Le Roux is seeking an intern / volunteer to coordinate as well as assist with fundraising for the Living Ancestors exhibition to travel further internationally. The Living Ancestors exhibition is a tribute in portraits and stories to the world’s oldest woman, Ma Pampo, 126 years old and nine other women over the age of 100 in the Caribbean Island of Dominica. Living Ancestors has been exhibited in the Caribbean, South Africa, Uganda, Amsterdam and is currently at the Museum of London Docklands [http://tinyurl.com/lbbb65]

cc Israel is practising both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), an interim report released by the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) suggests. Based on 15 months of research, the report reviews Israel’s practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid in international law. Violations of international prohibitions on colonialism cited include Israel’s policy to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently and its appropriation of land and water in the OPT. Laws that give privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantage Palestinians in the same territory based on their identities are among the examples of apartheid highlighted in the study.

The seven members arrested in Bulawayo on Wednesday 17th June appeared on remand in Bulawayo Magistrate’s Court on July 3. The state was not prepared with either the docket or state witnesses. They have been further remanded out of custody until 22nd July.

‘Six villagers were shot, two fatally, by security guards at the North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime district. The incident happened this afternoon in circumstances that remain unclear. It brings to 11 the number of villagers who have been shot dead at the Mine since July 2005. No one has ever been held accountable for these deaths and no investigations ever carried out. Meantime over forty villagers and hundreds of livestock are reported dead after drinking water from River Thigithe that flows through the Mine. The allegations of deadly poisons causing deaths have largely been conformed by official delegations that have visited the areas this week.’

As the rich Group of 8 (G8) nations convene in L'Aquila, Italy this week, world hunger will once again take center stage. The United States will likely announce a "significant" increase in funding for agricultural development aid, along with multi-year commitments from other G8 countries. This follows the G8's admission of failure in tackling hunger at its first-ever farm conference in Treviso, Italy in April 2009.

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) is pleased to announce its 2009 Fellowship in Transitional Justice: a three-week professional development course on transitional justice based in Cape Town, South Africa. This course will be held from November 2nd, 2009 to November 20th, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Leaders of eight African countries -- Angola, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Egypt, Algeria and Libya -- will take part in the G-8 Summit that opened Wednesday in l'Aquilla, Italy, a European spokesperso n announced in Brussels. The African leaders will Friday participate in a working session on food security. According to a report of the European NGO Action Aid, countries should devote at least US$ 23 billion per year by 2012 to food crisis in order to reduce by half, hunger in the world by 2015.

As a matter of substance, SAIFAC and Constitutional Law of South Africa (CLOSA), the Centre for Human Rights hope to push the boundaries for legal debate within South Africa. One way to accomplish this end is by having lawyers, judges, legal academics, and academics from other disciplines engage in meaningful discourse about subjects that do not – for better or worse – engage the majority of public lawyers in this country.

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released a study indicating that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The interim report, which will form part of a discussion at an upcoming HSRC conference on the subject, titled Re-envisioning Israel/Palestine, on 13 and 14 June in Cape Town, serves as a document to be finalised later this year.

Google has unveiled a new service designed to provide information via SMS to cellphone users in Africa, where mobile handsets are prevalent but Internet penetration is low. The Internet search and advertising giant noted that Africa has the world's highest mobile phone growth rate and that mobile use on the
continent is six times higher than Internet penetration.

This guide presents advocates with a collection of popular online services that can be used for advocacy quickly with little to no technical support. There are services for publishing photographs and video, for setting up a campaign blog or for using mobiles to communicate in a group. An amazing amount of functionality and tools are available simply by connecting to the Internet and opening up a web-browser. You don't need to have a lot of technical expertise to try some of these. You also don't need much money, these services are offered at low- to no-cost.

Much attention has been focused on China’s growing presence in Africa. But Iran too has been seeking expanded ties on the continent. Just this month, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad expressed Tehran’s readiness to expand all-out relations with African countries. “The Islamic Republic of Iran sees no limits for the expansion of ties with African countries,” and sharing its experiences with them, Ahmadinejad told his Kenyan counterpart in New York. “Iran has always sought to boost ties with African countries in all arenas,” Ahmadinejad added.

Counsel for seven journalists including Gambian Press Union (GPU) executives, accused of defaming President Yahya Jammeh on July 8, 2009 asked the Banjul High court hearing the case to free their clients because the charges preferred against them were “invalid” and “defective”.

The Darfur Rehabilitation Project and Cutting Edge Art & Culture Works presents Blue Tales, Other Narratives and Beyond: The Art of Khalid Kodi, New Works of Story Telling, Saturday July 11, 2009 from 3-7PM at the Church of the Covenant, 310 East 42 Street, NY (between 1st and 2nd, next to Tudor Hotel). The exhibition is open to the public and features small and large scale paintings, drawings, and mixed media on paper. Sudanese food and music will be shared for this very special inaugural benefit /art sale. A portion of the proceeds will support the Darfur Rehabilitation Project and Cutting Edge Art & Culture Works.

Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire speaks from her jail cell in Israel. She was taken into custody along with twenty others, including former US Congress member Cynthia McKinney, when the Israeli military boarded their ship in international waters as it tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza

A group of forty-one (41) Congolese refugees and asylum seekers (men, women and children) have this morning finally fled Namibia for their lives to an undisclosed destination through the neighboring Republic of Botswana. The group includes 23 children between the ages 1 and 17. According to NSHR’s latest information, the group is stranded, without food, in ‘no[wo]man’s’ land between Namibia and Botswana, some 300 kilometers east of the Namibian capital of Windhoek. NSHR has appealed to the Government of the Republic of Botswana to “accord them all the necessary assistance on humanitarian grounds”.