Besides holding one of the most difficult jobs in the European Union, president of the European Commission Romano Prodi has also put his name to a book about African rainforests. The dense humid forests of central Africa represent the second largest block of rainforest left on earth - second only to the Amazon forest in Latin America. The forests, which stretch over about 670,000 square kilometres of the Congo, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, are among the richest wilderness areas on earth in terms of biodiversity.

Mmino, a South African-Norwegian Education and Music Programme, invites proposals for music and music education projects in South Africa. Mmino provides funding to support the development of music in South Africa.
For more details contact Anriette Chorn at tel 011 838-1383 or email: [email protected]

This collection of thirteen case studies by international scholars examines the strategies whole societies adopted to slavery over a period of five centuries.

It is generally accepted that humans should be assured of the basic human rights of security and subsistence. Therefore, access to clean air and water, land capable of growing uncontaminated food, and a climate that fosters growth are inherent human rights. In this provocative book the author states that the current thrust in both ethics and the law, to a separation between human rights and environmental rights, is profoundly misguided.

This timely volume shows that, despite the global spread of neo-liberal economic ideology, the need remains to understand variations in cultural values and political institutions. Are human rights claims prompted by similar values and aspirations? And even if human rights are universal, what are the consequences of claiming them in different historical, cultural and material realities? How does liberal individualism suit different traditions that value sociability, negotiation and conviviality? The contributors to this book address such questions with original research in a variety of African countries whose diversity compels careful thought about the meaning of universal values such as democracy and rights.

"According to the unanimous testimony of the Ancients, first the Ethiopians and then the Egyptians created and raised to an extraordinary stage of development all the elements of civilization, while other peoples especially the eurasians, were still deep in barbarism. The explanation for this must be sought in the material conditions in which the accident of geography had placed them at the beginning of time. For man to adapt, these conditions required the invention of sciences complemented by the creation of arts and religion."

AIFO is a grassroots organisation with 45 groups spread all over Italy and has decided to focus on issues linked to Africa in 2005. As part of the initiatives, it is planned to organise a tourneé of a small group of 4-5 persons from Africa involved in theater/music/dance shows to be organised with different AIFO groups during the second half of January 2005 in different Italian cities. Groups linked with NGOs involved in health care and human right issues in Africa, groups with disabled persons and groups with women will be given preference. AIFO will cover all expenses for air-travel and stay of the group in Italy for this period. An additional contribution for the activities of the NGO is also possible. It is an opportunity for groups involved in such activities to showcase their work and get wider publicity in Europe. Groups from French or Portuguese speaking Africa are equally welcome to apply. Interested organisations please send a brief write up about the group, possibly with one or two pictures to Dr Sunil Deepak at [email protected] before 5 September 2004. Information about AIFO at http://www.aifo.it/languages/english/homeenglish.htm

Written with energy and honesty, this powerful, thought–provoking memoir describes a life dominated by an abusive father, and explores some of the African traditional customs that are still expected of women today. Set in the province of KwazuluNatal, South Africa, Zazah Khuzwayo tells of the frustrations of growing up with a loving, intelligent but uneducated mother. Zazah paints a picture of a difficult and painful life, but at the same time it is inspiring to watch how she develops a fighting spirit and learns to stand up to her father.

This issue includes:
* Two cheers? South African democracy's first decade by Morris Szeftel
* A Political economy of land reform in South Africa by Ruth Hall
* Women's human rights & the feminisation of poverty in South Africa by Kristina Bentley
* The arms deal scandal by Terry Crawford-Browne.

The Cry of Winnie Mandela is a powerful story that links the lives of four ordinary South African women with that of Winnie Mandela – all women who waited for their husbands during the many years of the struggle.This is the first publication from Ayebia, a new publisher ensuring that African writers continue to reach where Heinnneman's African Writers Series left off. Njabulo S Ndebele is the author of the celebrated Fools and Other Stories, a children's book Bonolo and the Peach Tree, and The Rediscovery of the Ordinary, a collection of highly influential critical essays. He is currently the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. ISBN: 0954702301 Price: GBP8.99

This volume examines the prospect of an African regional human rights system as a means to foster the realization of establishing universal human rights norms in Africa. The author argues that although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the role the United Nations plays in promoting global awareness of human rights has had a positive influence in Africa, their institutional, financial and political impediments undercut the ability of a global system to address adequately the crisis in human rights violations occurring in Africa today.

In most of the countries of the world, there are many examples of appropriate forest management, in which environmentally sustainable use is assured while benefiting local communities. This type of management is generically known as "community-based forest management," although it adopts different modalities in accordance with the socio-environmental diversity of the places where it is developed. This publication (also available in Spanish and French) aims at supporting and promoting this type of approach.

The African Publishers Network, established in 1992, brings together national publishers associations and publishing communities to strengthen indigenous publishing throughout Africa. APNET is a pan-African, non-profit making network with a Secretariat in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. APNET now has membership of 47 countries.

Brian Chikwava, from Zimbabwe, has won the fifth Caine Prize for African Writing for ‘Seventh Street Alchemy’ from Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare 2003. The result was announced by the Chair of the judges, Alvaro Ribeiro, at a dinner held this evening (Monday, 19 July) in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Brian is the first winner of the Prize from Zimbabwe.

KMT is Ayi Kwei Armah's seventh novel. It covers a lot of ground: ancient Egypt, Africa, Africans, intellectuals, scholars, education, scholarship, production and reproduction of knowledge, relationship between power and knowledge. On the inside cover Armah presents KMT as follows:

"KMT is a novel structured on an epistemic premise: that it is possible to envision Africa's multimillennial history as one coherent continental narrative, embracing all our space and time. The protagonists articulating that vision form a corpus of professional intellectuals whose destiny it's been to preserve Africa's consciousness, and whose fate it has also been, century after century, to betray the continent's most ancient values in the interests of personal survival. These are the scribes of ancient Egypt, the griots of the medieval empires, and the academic scholars of the age of structural adjustment. What those ancient values are, why they got suppressed, in what form they survived suppression, whether future generations can revitalize them - these are the issues addressed in this innovative novel."

The twenty-four chapters are divided into three unequal parts. Part one (the scholars) starts with the narrator (Lindela) confessing to the contradiction she had lived through: on the one hand trying to run away from her mission in order to achieve peace of mind, and on the other hand, so to speak, the mission constantly presenting itself and calling on her to act. What had caused her to seek forgetfulness was the loss of her best friend while attending a school (Whitecastle school) set up by well-meaning white colonizers to train future native leaders. Her dilemma is a familiar one: a witness of a crime who cannot help but respond to her conscience and speak the truth, whatever the cost.

Lindela's friend is named after the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South Africa under Apartheid --Biko. Just like his namesake under Apartheid, Biko the young student, is intellectually brilliant, so much so that he becomes a threat to the teachers. The parallels between the BCM leader and Armah's Biko are striking, and the end is sadly predictable: in the confrontation between knowledge and power, the latter cannot but win and crush knowledge. To be intellectually superior to those who considered themselves at the top of the pyramid can be considered by the latter as one of the worst possible offences. And, thus, punished in the most severe form.

* Reviewed by Jacques Depelchin. Click on the link below for the rest of the review.

Purple Hibiscus packs in a dense and intellectually challenging story that broaches some of the larger themes that preoccupy people anywhere in the world - life and death, the ambivalent meaning of familial love, domestic violence, religion, history and politics. In Adichie’s work, the latter refers specifically to Nigerian politics. This is a powerful and unsettling novel, at times emotionally demanding. It is populated by a number of strong characters, most of whom we retain in our minds well after turning the last page. An ambitious work of imagination, it leads readers into making sense of some complex and difficult issues, not least ethical considerations.

When grievous harm happens, a rebalancing is bound to occur, whether it is orderly and lawful or disorderly and unlawful. Shattered Voices contends that language is requisite to any adequate balancing, and that a solution is viable only if it provides an atmosphere in which storytelling and subsequent dialogue can flourish. Shattered Voices offers an important and thoughtful analysis of the efficacy of the ways human rights abuses are addressed.

This widely acclaimed and highly regarded book, embraced by students, scholars, policy makers, and activists, now appears in a new edition. Using the theme of visions seen by those who dreamed of what might be, Lauren explores the dramatic transformation of a world patterned by centuries of traditional structures of authority, gender abuse, racial prejudice, class divisions and slavery, colonial empires, and claims of national sovereignty into a global community that now boldly proclaims that the way governments treat their own people is a matter of international concern and sets the goal of human rights for all peoples and all nations.

SAUTI ZA BUSARA (Sounds of Wisdom) is a free four-day feast of top-quality music, theatre and dance. This unique and exciting festival is free and takes place in Forodhani Gardens on the seafront of Zanzibar’s historic Stone Town. Held annually around the middle of February, its main aim is to bring people together in celebration of the wealth and diversity of Swahili music. The majority of groups participating are from the East African region and islands, with some invited artists from other parts of Africa and the world.

Adonis& Abbey publishers in London publish books and journals on Africa. One of their journals, African Renaissance, is doing a special edition on African identity, Africanness, and the relations between different 'national' and 'cultural' Africans in the Diaspora on the one hand, and between the latter and the Continent on the other and would like to invite contributions for the August/September edition of the journal. The journal is a cross between an academic publication and any higher-end news features magazine. The deadline for the submission of articles, which should be between 1000 and 2000 words, is July 10, 2004. For more information contact Dr Jideofor Adibe on [email protected] or visit www.adonis-abbey.com.