The Bretton Woods Project and partners from around the world are launching imfboss.org, a new website dedicated to tracking the leadership selection processes at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With the IMF's current Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan involved in a media storm, the debate over the IMF's anachronistic and unfair selection process has been reopened.

As health experts gathered in Geneva to attend the 64th World Health Assembly (WHA), global civil society organisations called on World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr. Margaret Chan to address widespread concerns about corporate conflicts of interest regarding global water governance, health and nutrition policy.

Thousands of farmers in Western Kenya are attracting global attention after being the first group in Africa to win financing from the World Bank (WB) to use agriculture to fight climate change. The farmers, spread in 45,000 hectares of land in Bungoma, Malakisi, Bondo, and Kisumu, will receive Sh28 million (US$350,000) from WB's BioCarbon Fund to adopt environmentally-friendly agricultural practices that cut carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

The winter edition of the Rural Women's Movement (RWM) newsletter contains articles on a strategy to resolve hunger and unemployment in Africa, halting rape and abduction of girls, and news of RWM's activities and achievements.

Hector Rodriguez, vice-president of the 'Social Area Council of Venezuela', confirmed the Venezuelan government’s commitment to maintaining its reconstruction efforts in Haiti and sent a message of solidarity to the Haitian people on behalf of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. In an interview with Latin American news channel TeleSUR, following the inauguration ceremony of the newly elected Haitian president, Michel Martelly, Rodriguez said that they would 'continue working for the dignity, the life, of this brother nation', so that Haiti would 'keep moving forward'.

According to Dutch Defense Minister Hans Hillen, in an interview with Dutch business news radio station BNR: 'It is a disgrace and it truly annoys me that a bunch of Somali pirates with their $2000 dollar fishing boats, a few Kalashnikovs and some RPG’s (rocket-propelled grenade) can keep the western world’s high-tech navy ships and commercial fleet busy for months and months. Of course those small boats and those pirates don’t stand a chance with the modern navy ships and our well-equipped navy sailors, but the sea at that location is so huge, that it is impossible to guard it all.' When the interviewer Niels Heithuis of BNR asked the minister if sending ground troops to Somalia might be the answer to this problem, Minister Hillen reacted: 'No, please don’t call our plan sending ground troops. That would be overly exaggerated. We just want to order some marines to go to the Somali beaches and "play a little bit with the pirates’ boats". When they are finished, the pirates won’t bother us anymore'.

The head of the US Department of Agriculture recently announced an incentive program that would subsidise up to 75 per cent of the costs for establishing new US agrofuel plantations, in an 'effort to promote production of fuel from renewable sources, create jobs and mitigate the effects of climate change'. This 'incentive' is a hand-out to agribusiness, and despite the industry’s 'green' fuels hyperbole agrofuels could actually have a negative impact on atmospheric carbon when land use changes are factored in. These subsidies are a public handout to Monsanto, Cargill, BP and Chevron, says this article on the website of the Institute for Food and Development Policy.

We are seeking a dynamic, highly motivated and creative young feminist to serve as our executive director. Reporting to the board of directors, the executive director will provide overall leadership in the strategic direction of the organisation through its office in Nairobi.

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and its partners l’Action contre l’impunité des droits humains (ACIDH) and Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) have filed a communication before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights against the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complainants allege that the events that took place in the south-eastern remote town of Kilwa and the subsequent failure of the DRC state to ensure reparations to victims are in violation of several guarantees of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The subject of child abuse and its long-term implications in adulthood has been widely studied in literature in different areas of the world and across different cultures, notes this article in the The Arab Journal of Psychiatry about a study that looked at Egyptian university students. It found that a large proportion of the sample reported both child abuse and several long-term pathological consequences of abuse in adulthood. 'The problem seems to be serious in this middle class sample and it remains possible that these problems could be worse in lower social classes.'

Ministers from countries within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met recently in Lusaka to discuss the progress made towards the proposed tripartite free trade agreement (FTA). The meeting’s discussions centred on the ways to establish a single market by way of a tripartite FTA and thereby promote and attract both cross-border and foreign direct investment. COMESA, SADC and EAC include a total of 26 countries, some of which are already members of more than one of the region’s trade blocs, and a tripartite pan-regional FTA would open up a market of 580 million people.

The Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa is seeking a Program Officer to promote state compliance with governance and human rights standards at the East African Community (EAC) and African Union (AU).

Venue: Cyprian Ekwensi Cultural Centre, Garki, Abuja
Date: 25th May 2011

MEMORIAL SYMPOSIUM

THEME: “Linking Elections to Good Governance – Don’t Agonise,
TIME: 9:00am to 1:00pm
PANEL CHAIR: Mallam Kabiru Yusuf
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State

SPEAKERS: Dr. Chidi Odinkalu (Open Society Justice Justice Initiative), Dr. Hussaini Abdu (ActionAid Nigeria), Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi (Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative), Dr. Siddique Abubakar (A. B. U. Zaria), Amb. (Hon). Nkoyo Toyo (Member House of Representatives), Dr. Otive Igbuzor (African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development), Oronto Douglas (Presidency), Dr. Mohammed Kuna (INEC) and Dr. Abubakar Momoh (Lagos State University). Chair Organising Committee: Dr Kole Shettima

Morocco's February 20 Movement, which spearheaded demonstrations across the kingdom, is preparing for fresh protests in Casablanca. The next one is set for 22 May in Sebata and Ben M'sik. On 29 May, a demonstration will take place in the city centre. The march will be followed by a five-hour sit-in which the young people describe as a warning to the authorities to meet their demands.

In the context of the International Year for People of African Descent, the Anti-Discrimination Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is launching a Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent from 10 October to 4 November 2011. The Fellowship Programme will provide participants with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the United Nations Human Rights system and its mechanisms, with a focus on issues of particular relevance to people of African descent.

Documents revealing the torture of Mau Mau Kenyans directed by the British authorities were a 'sort of guilty secret', a report says. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the papers should now be made public. The internal review found some Foreign Office officials had chosen to ignore the documents' existence. It comes as the High Court is due to rule on a compensation case brought by four Kenyans over alleged human rights abuses in the 1950s and 1960s.

Karia presents an 'in tribute' event featuring a presentation by Dr Jeffrey B. Perry based on his biography 'Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918'.

During the discussion he will refer to Theodore W. Allen’s work 'The Invention of the White Race', which he edited.

Centerprise
136-138 Kingsland Road
Dalston, London, E8 2NS
Friday, 20th May, 2011
7:30 – 10:00PM

Donations: £3.00
Restaurant on site

Bookings, and other information from Karia Press: [email][email protected]
Tel: 0750 4661 785
Books will be available for sale at the event.

If you wish to order a copy(ies) of the book(s) in advance, please email or call for availability and prices.

To get to the venue:
London Overground: Dalston Kingsland or Dalston Junction.
Buses: 149, 76, 243, 67, 236.

Facebook is launching a resource center to help non-profits use the social network. The site will include educational materials, tutorials and a downloadable non-profit guide geared toward raising awareness and funds for causes specifically through the social network.

Amid growing concern about al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) acquiring weapons from Libya, the Algerian army launched a large-scale surveillance and security operation along the joint border. Algerian military leaders met in Djanet to discuss ANP preparedness for possible security problems along the border with Libya, El Khabar reported. The defence ministry tasked the Ouergla and Tamanrasset regional commanders with monitoring security and humanitarian issues related to the influx of refugees.

Journalist Ian Birrell writes in the London Guardian: 'Returning home from a Saturday afternoon walk with the dog, I did what has become almost a reflex action and checked Twitter. Bizarrely, there was the president of Rwanda having a go at me over disparaging comments I had made about an interview he gave that morning. This was strange enough - not least since his missives to me were peppered with the sort of text abbreviations used by teenagers (such as "Wrong u r..."). Even stranger, we then traded tweets over human rights and repression in his central African nation, his foreign minister even joining the fray.'