The ABILIS Foundation provides grants ranging from €500 to €10,000 for projects initiated by organisations that are run by persons who have a disability. Organisations that are run by parents of children with disabilities can also apply.

For Southern Sudan, the greatest challenge lies in getting off the aid bandwagon, and investing oil and other domestic revenues in building the infrastructure, institutions, and human resources needed to bring about peace and prosperity in this war-torn region, writes Rasna Warah in the Daily Nation.

Soaring demand in China and political unrest in Madagascar are fuelling illegal logging for hardwoods in the African nation, a report concludes. Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) talked to loggers, government agencies and traders to compile their report. In China, they discovered beds on sale for $1m, made from Madagascan wood.

As the number of children known to have been poisoned by lead continues to mount, a UN team has recommended the government help communities clean up the informal gold-mining sector, rather than quash it altogether. Some 400 children have died of lead poisoning over the past six months, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but many thousands more are suspected to have been poisoned. Official figures will be released only once the US Center for Disease Control has finished its two-month survey.

Angola has deported nearly 200 Congolese citizens, according to humanitarian reports, prompting fears of a new wave of mass expulsions that saw tens of thousands displaced last year. Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo were allies during the latter's 1998-2003 war, but relations have been strained in recent years due to rows over border demarcation and oil rights.

Ian Smillie’s new book on conflict diamonds in Africa ‘tells the story of a small group of international actors taking on the most powerful forces and institutions on the planet’. Exposing the ‘dilemmas and fault lines of international social justice action, in a deeply intimate and detailed fashion’, it ‘relates an important chapter in the long struggle for global corporate accountability in the resource extraction sector,’ writes Brian K. Murphy.

Mugabe Inc. has once again, in anticipation of forthcoming elections, vigorously begun to engage in exploitation through 'primitive accumulation' of resources via war vets, corrupt corporate execs and political cronies, writes Khadija Sharife in this article for Harvard International Review. Prior to the discovery of diamonds, specifically in Marange the big kahuna was land. This time around, legal concessions to Marange have been voided, with two South African companies granted right of access via fraudulent licenses.

Miners work at the physical edges of our consumer society, writes Peter Bosshard from International Rivers, in this Huffington Post article. 'Like the canary in the mine shaft, they are sentinels for the triumph, toil and tragedy of the global economic system. Only days after the miraculous rescue of the Chilean miners, Chinese supervisors shot and wounded 11 workers in a coal mine in Zambia on 15 October. The labour conflict casts a dark shadow on the track record of Chinese overseas investors.'

All the latest news about Africa's engagement with China, India and other emerging powers. Stories this week include a plan by South Africa for a Cape-to-Cairo trade deal; Attempts by China to block a UN report on Darfur; Attempts by South Sudan to assure China on oil investments; Predictions that Chinese investment in Africa will slow this year and concern by India over Kenya's anti-counterfeit law.

State-owned trading firm MMTC Ltd, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco) and the conglomerate Bharti Enterprises plan to join the growing number of Indian entities engaged in commercial farming in Africa. Cheap land and labour costs in Africa are attracting a number of Indian firms with interest in agriculture. A large number of people in East African countries such as Kenya work in the cultivation of tea, coffee, corn, vegetables, sugarcane, wheat and fruits, among other things.

Recently, an Angolan asylum seeker died during his deportation from the United Kingdom. But this is not an isolated case. According to a report by the UK Institute of Race Relations (IRR), 'Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010', 44 people have died since 2006 as a consequence of the iniquities of the immigration/asylum system. Another seven died at the hand of racists.

Using the example of apartheid South Africa, Khadija Sharife reveals the history of how huge oil companies have used flags of convenience in the shipping industry to secure corporate capitalism.

It is not much to look at - a small pitted brass coin with a square hole in the centre - but this relatively innocuous piece of metal is revolutionising our understanding of early East African history, and recasting China's more contemporary role in the region. A joint team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists found the 15th Century Chinese coin in Mambrui - a tiny, nondescript village just north of Malindi on Kenya's north coast.

We are seeking a dynamic professional for a key specialist position in Dakar, Senegal. As the Senior Program Specialist, you will collaborate in managing research activities that support broader Program challenges around promoting inclusive growth, including labour market issues, institutional frameworks for investment, competition and entrepreneurial activity, and the role of social protection policies. Reporting to the Program Leader and the Regional Director, you will develop, manage and monitor a portfolio of research projects in West and Central Africa. As part of a global team and a corporate Program Area, you may have selected responsibilities for projects in other regions as well as working in collaboration with the Think Tank Initiative. You will also interact with experts in the field and represent IDRC in a variety of fora, draw attention to new developments in economic policies and research, and play a key role in the progress of strategic thinking in this area.

China has tried to suppress a UN report that says Chinese bullets were used in attacks on peacekeepers in Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region, diplomats said on Tuesday. The UN Security Council's Sudan sanctions committee will discuss the latest report and recommendations from the so-called Panel of Experts on Sudan. The group monitors compliance with a 2005 arms embargo in place for Darfur.

A new international treaty on the safe use of modern biotechnology has just come into being, but developing countries say the real challenge lies in how its lofty ideas can be transferred into practical realities. The new supplementary protocol provides international rules and procedure on liability and redress that countries can seek for environmental damage to biodiversity resulting from the importation of living modified organisms (LMO).

The Ethiopian government is using development aid to suppress political dissent by conditioning access to essential government programs on support for the ruling party, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. Human Rights Watch urged foreign donors to ensure that their aid is used in an accountable and transparent manner and does not support political repression. The 105-page report, 'Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia,' documents the ways in which the Ethiopian government uses donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate the power of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

A new manual: 'The Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture: Implementation Manual' addresses all the questions on implementation of this innovative international human rights treaty. Drawing on initial good practice from all world regions, the manual is designed to serve as a practical reference tool for international, regional and national stakeholders involved in OPCAT ratification and implementation.

In the latest news involving Africa's engagement with China, India and other emerging powers: Asian giants extend assistance to Ghana; No prominent African politician congratulates Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo; China keen on investing in Sudan; China urged to withdraw funding from Ethiopian dam; Exim Bank gets $150 mn to push India-Africa trade; Uganda seeks easier study visas, job permits in India; India’s total trade with COMESA rises more than three-fold; Russia's LUKOIL wants more oil from Ghana and Nigeria Approves $2.5 Billion Sale of Nitel to Dubai's Minerva.

Jean Gregoire Sagbo is Russia's newly elected councilman of Novozavidovo, a rural community about 65 miles north of Moscow. Russia is still entrenched in the enigma of racism and plagued with systemic violence. But among the 10,000 residents here, 48-year-old Sagbo, though an immigrant from Benin, is perceived as a Russian who cares about his adopted hometown, reports