Rwanda is set to become home to the pilot learning centre for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project in Africa due to its outstanding progress in promoting the child user friendly computer on the continent. The centre to be located at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) to be known as the OLPC Learning Centre will be launched on June 9 and it is aimed at supporting Rwanda achieve its objectives of promoting ICT in Education but also act as a reach out centre for the whole of Africa.

The hunter-gatherer Ogiek tribe of Kenya could become the latest in the world’s growing tide of ‘conservation refugees’ if Kenya’s government acts on its threat to evict them from their land in the name of conservation. The Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have said that their government plans to remove the Ogiek from their ancestral land in the Mau forest.

"Our first demand in our new campaign ["Demand Dignity"] is to the G-2 leaders, USA and China. The United States does not accept the notion of economic, social and cultural rights while China does not respect civil and political rights. We call on both governments to sign up to all human rights for all." - Irene Khan, Amnesty International. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains Ms. Khan's speech at the report launch on May 27, and excerpts from her foreword to the report, which elaborates on the same themes.

Trial for a rape case of a gay man known only as Luanda will be heard on 22 June this year following its postponement on Friday 29 May as two of the three accused did not pitch up. On Friday members of the Western Cape End Hate Alliance gathered outside the Blue Downs Magistrate Court to protest against this homophobic attack and to offer support to the victim. Luanda was allegedly raped and left in the ditch of his eMfuleni township home on 26 April last year.

“The crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is deeper than elections,” according to Patrick N’Gouan, national coordinator of a civil society coalition. “Too many people do not eat their fill, cannot educate their children and cannot access health care. All the social and economic indicators have plummeted… We cannot solve all of Côte d’Ivoire’s problems with just politics – and yet this has been the focus of everyone’s energy and resources for the past few years. Meanwhile the people have been sacrificed,” N’Gouan told IRIN on 2 June.

The Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Mr. Edetaen Ojo, has been elected Convenor of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), the largest network of freedom of expression organizations in the world. As Convenor, he chairs the 13-member IFEX Council, the governing body of the Network elected by the general membership.

Implementing a policy of routine opt-out HIV testing led to the diagnosis of 3000 HIV infections in children admitted to hospital in Lusaka over an 18-month period, investigators report in a study published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbours, friends, and family members across Rwanda. Nine years later the killers came home from prison to live side by side again with their victims. The complexities of this homecoming are explored in director Anne Aghion’s emotionally powerful film "My Neighbour, My Killer", where, amongst the green hills and tiled roofs of the village of Gafunda, the memories of those horrors resurface as widows shell beans and peel vegetables.

Amnesty International's report, released in late May, covers economic, social, and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights, stressing the ways in which the global economic recession has exacerbated previously existing patterns of human rights violations. As noted in the launch speech by Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan, this marks a new level of emphasis on economic rights for the organization, and is the basis of Amnesty's new global campaign "Demand Dignity."

The "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) scheme, which has sent over a million US$100 laptops to children in the developing world, has been criticised by researchers who found that, unless they are introduced with care, they become little more than distracting toys in the classroom. The study, conducted in Ethiopia, revealed that students wanted more content on the laptops and teachers were not adequately trained on how to make use of them.

Talk openly about rape. That is the gist of a new campaign in Cameroon, where according to a study an estimated 432,000 women and girls have been raped in the past 20 years. Some 200 rape survivors gathered on 28 May in the capital Yaoundé, several of the women and girls telling their stories during the campaign’s opening ceremony.

AU Monitor

A three-year-old girl has died after being raped by a rebel fighter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where armed forces are committing increasing numbers of sexual attacks, a United Nations spokeswoman said on Friday.

The Libyan government's decision to nationalise a number of private-owned media outlets a few weeks ago continues to stir reactions in Libya and abroad. The decision, some observers say, deals a blow to the country's attempts to reform. The nationalisation decree included Al Libiya satellite TV channel and Al Libiya and Eman radio stations, as well as Quryna and Oea newspapers, all belonging to Al Ghad Foundation, which is owned by Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi.

After 500 young women in Uganda endured genital mutilations in the most recent season for the initiation rite, a physician lawmaker here is optimistic about outlawing the practice this year and finding new income for traditional surgeons.

The fight against gay church leaders is on in Uganda, led by top anti-gay Pastors Martin Sempa, Solomon Male and Michael Kyazze. According to media reports these Pastors say they have received about 150 complaints from alleged sodomy victims who claim to have been abused by a number of church leaders.

As a response to the global crisis and an increased capital basis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already more than doubled its lending to Africa this year compared to the record year of 2008. The Fund accepts less security, larger budget deficits but also demands shorter repayment terms. At a 'Lending for Africa' seminar at IMF headquarters in Washington this week, the Fund's Senior Advisor Roger Nord revealed that record lending programmes had already been initiated. IMF funding for Africa was on a steep rise since the global crisis had started.

A new trial to test the efficacy of a tuberculosis (TB) booster shot for babies is about to start in South Africa, but when your subjects are too young to eat solids, the challenge rises to a new level. Almost 2,800 infants will participate in the two-year trial, in which researchers from the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) hope to prove that a new vaccine can act as a booster shot to improve the efficacy of the only existing inoculation against TB, the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, in use for nearly 90 years.

ITCH Online welcomes contributions from artists and writers to its fourth issue.

The Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC) is working in partnership with the National Community Radio forum (NCRF) to produce a quarterly Amandla! News Diary. The Diary aims to support community media projects in South Africa to set a progressive news agenda and plan for their current affairs programing/ editorial - supporting them to develop a practice of 'peoples media' rather than aping the commercial and public media (following their stories, angles, and sources).