Learn why the carbon trading gamble and ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ won’t save the planet from climate change and why African civil society is resisting. Read the second EJOLT report, 'The CDM in Africa Cannot Deliver the Money', by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and Dartmouth College Climate Justice Research Project. A dozen researchers from around the globe, under the guidance of Professor Patrick Bond, explain in full detail – and through case studies from South Africa, Niger, Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, the DRC and Tanzania – why the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is failing. The West’s strategy to reduce emissions is causing more harm than good to Africa - the continent that contributes the least to climate change but that suffers the heaviest toll. Disguised as a ‘solution’ to the climate change crisis, the CDM is now creating a second injustice above this existing injustice.

The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) must act immediately to investigate and prosecute abuses against the Tawargha community of black Libyans, said Amnesty International today, after another Tawargha man was tortured to death in a Misratah detention centre. The body of 44-year-old father of two Barnous Bous’a was delivered to his family on 16 April. It was covered with bruises and cuts, including an open wound to the back of the head.

The bitter split between two warring ZANU PF factions has widened following the hotly disputed District Coordinating Committee (DCC) elections in most of the country’s provinces. The elections, that have seen many candidates linked to Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa romp to victory, have however been marred by reports of violence, intimidation and vote-rigging. Signs of growing structural fissures in the ¬former ruling party have emerged with key members belonging to Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s camp openly disputing election results from the restructuring exercise.

Policy makers and academics often pay little attention to environmental drivers of migration in Egypt. This paper demonstrates that environmental factors are often the hidden cause of the migration of Egyptians from one region to another. The analysis is situated in the broader studies on migration, and also shows why the findings of this study are significant. The paper makes recommendations that will hopefully help policy makers in understanding the causes of environmental migration and assist them in developing policies to address the problem of environmentally induced migration in a sustainable way.

So far this year 14 schools have been burnt down in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northern Nigeria, forcing over 7,000 children out of formal education and pushing down enrolment rates in an already ill-educated region. In a video posted on YouTube in February, Boko Haram, the Islamic jihadist group based in Nigeria, called on their followers to destroy schools providing Western education.

An education strategy released by UNHCR in February recognized the 'huge unmet demand for higher education among refugees' and made improving access one of its goals over the next five years. Although part of this approach involves doubling the current 2,000 scholarships a year available to refugees through the German-government-funded DAFI programme, a key element of the strategy is to make use of internet technologies and partnerships with academic institutions to reach much larger numbers of refugees through distance learning.

For its ninth annual meeting, the CPA now invites the submission of papers and panels that will engage various aspects of this question of regional race/ethnic change or stability as a result of major tremors and aftershocks in the capitalist world economy.

Malian scholars, librarians and ordinary citizens in the rebel-occupied city of Timbuktu are hiding away priceless ancient manuscripts to prevent them from being damaged or looted, a South African academic in contact with them said. Cape Town University's Professor Shamil Jeppie said he was in daily contact with curators and private owners safeguarding tens of thousands of historic texts in Timbuktu, the fabled desert trading town and seat of Islamic learning overrun by Tuareg-led rebels on April 1.

In 2011, Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd. (Socfin SL) secured 6,500 hectares (ha) of prime farmland for rubber and oil palm plantations in Malen chiefdom in Pujehun district in the south of Sierra Leone. The firm is now seeking an additional 5,000 ha in expansion plans in the Malen region or neighboring chiefdoms. The initial investment, estimated at $100 million, with promises of job creation, compensation for lost farms, and construction of infrastructures, has enjoyed high-level government support.

The talk will provide an overview of the reality of land grabs in Africa, based on extensive research and advocacy conducted by the Oakland Institute. Learn about resistance from impacted communities, grassroots and national organizations in Africa, and solidarity networks.

Africa is not cashing in enough from its large gold resources, despite the spiralling price of the precious metal over recent years, according to a working paper published by the African Development Bank (AfDB). The paper, entitled ‘Gold Mining in Africa: Maximizing Economic Returns for Countries’, points out that gold mining is a significant activity in at least 34 of the continent’s 54 countries. A key factor is unfair concession agreements, say the authors of the paper, which severely limit the gains from gold mining that remain in the producing countries. This particularly applies to the royalty rate stated in the agreements.

'We oppose the dominant economic and financial model that is in favour of privatizing and commoditizing water and sanitation services. Capitalist, extractive development has created dramatic and profound economic, social, and environmental crises. This approach, which considers water to be a commodity like any other, is unjust and ineffective in providing access to water and sanitation to all, and goes against the will and interests of the people.'

To celebrate the fact that the late Manning Marable has been awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for history for his ground-breaking book, Malcolm X – a life of reinvention, Race & Class has made available for free the seminal articles that Professor Marable wrote on the politics of the black working class in the US. The free downloads are:
- ‘Rethinking black liberation: towards a new protest paradigm’ (Race & Class Vol. 38 no. 4, 1997)
- ‘The divided mind of Black America: race, ideology and politics in the post-Civil Rights era’, with Leith Mullings, (Race & Class Vol. 36 no. 1, 1994)
- ‘Memory and militancy in transition: the 1993 march on Washington’ (Race & Class Vol. 35 no. 3, 1994).

A diary belonging to Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, which dates from the mid-1960s, and has been at the centre of a long legal battle between an American businessman and an African scholar from Kenya, will soon be returning home. The Kenyan, who describes himself as Africa’s 'Indiana Jones' has convinced the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania in the US that the diary rightly belongs to Ghana and to the Nkrumah family and should be returned to Africa.

As President Obama seems to be ready to give a green light to Colombia for the implementation of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement this weekend, under the guise of improvements in labour conditions and human rights, the Black Communities Process in Colombia (PCN) raises the question: what will it take for the Obama administration to understand the severity of Afro-Colombians’ human rights?

Small scale farmers mobilised against the corporate take over of the food chain on 17 April, reports this press release from La Via Campesina.

Leading a dedicated team to accompany the development and implementation of campaign strategies led by progressive African social justice movements, the Utetezi Director will support innovative strategies to amplify grassroots demands and realize people-centred change.

Location: Nairobi, Kenya or Dakar, Senegal.

Deadline for application: May 7, 2012.

For further information, please the job description and person specification.

To apply, please send the duly completed application form attached to: [email protected].

Three stories on the Farm Radio Weekly website deal with 'land grabs', which are in many cases violations of farmers’ land rights. The first story is from Burkina Faso and tells how land owned by small-scale farmers is being granted to influential 'Sunday farmers'. The government gambled that encouraging investors to create large modern farms would help achieve food self-sufficiency. But few large land owners are even using their new land for farming, and smaller farmers are increasingly locked out of the land market.

Kenya’s battle to end food shortages may be won with the introduction of drought-tolerant maize in the next five years, scientists have said. This will make it the third country in the continent after Egypt, South Africa and Burkina Faso to use genetically modified (GM) crops for increased farm yields.

A policy paper is to be presented to the annual World Bank conference on land and poverty in Washington DC in the United States, which focuses on the confrontation between peasant producers and investors in the Mozambican province of Zambezia. Written by Simon Norfolk and Joseph Hanlon, the paper looks at divisions in the Mozambican government over whether it should support foreign investment to promote a technological leap in agriculture, or if it should support small scale farming to increase productivity.