Expectations on President Muhammadu Buhari are many and very high. But he must straightaway tackle the problems of endemic corruption, insecurity and the power crisis.

Joint statement of the Civil Society Organizations Reference Group (CSORG) and the National Civil Society Congress (NCSC) on the continued state harassment and intimidation of human rights organisations and the alleged deregistration of Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), Haki Africa and the Agency for Peace and Development in the pretext of fighting terrorism.

In a heartless case of police brutality, a Nairobi officer shoots dead a teenage boy in cold blood in a slum as the boy pleads with him to spare his life. Human rights defenders in the area are demanding justice.

His Excellence Mr Mohammed Salem Ould Salek, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Saharawi Arab democratic Republic

Keynote address: The latest development on the question of Western Sahara

Date: Friday 12 June 2015
Time: 14:00-16:00
Venue: Forum 150, HSRC, 134 Pretorious Street, Pretoria

Ambassador Maitland, Chief Director of the Central and North Africa Directorate at DIRCO
Presentation title: A renewed role of the African Union in Western Sahara

Ms Catherine Constantinides, Lead SA Executive, Archbishop Tutu African Oxford Fellow and Social Cohesion Advocate for the Department of Arts & Culture
Presentation title: The story of a forgotten people; my recent experiences in the refugee camps

Kindly RSVP by 11 June 2015 to Sam Lekala at [email][email protected]; Tel: 0123169753; Cell: 0823281464

The international conference in Barbados hopes to bring together scholars/researchers, activists and policy makers to interrogate the philosophical, political, socio-cultural and economic thoughts and legacies of these Africanists.

President Kenyatta is steadily returning Kenya to authoritarianism. His government has tried to muzzle the judiciary and arm-twist County Governments. It has initiated repressive policy actions aimed at restricting the space of civil society, civil liberties, media freedom and independent critical voices.

The organisations say that African governments and international donors support to African agriculture increasingly focuses on the extension of corporate led food and agricultural systems to the detriment of small-scale food producers, who produce 70% of the food in Africa. Read the full statement .

Nearly 200 organisations from around the world have asked Nigeria’s new head of state to do everything in his power to bring back the girls captured and held in captivity for over a year now by the militant group Boko Haram. Read the letter .

If the economic and human rights situation in Ethiopia is really as rosy as it is painted by the EPRDF government, how come hundreds of thousands of its youthful population are risking their lives to flee the country and die in the deserts of the Sahara, Sinai and Arabia, beheaded by fundamentalist lunatics in Libya and killed in South Africa?

For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism. Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.

The project falls within a framework of rapid transformation and conversion of the Nacala Corridor, at the epicentre of a struggle for control of land and water by large international corporations, including international cooperation agencies.

As spaces to engage in issues related to social justice and human rights continue to shrink on the continent and globally, the granting of observer status to the Coalition of African Lesbians is a milestone in the African human rights system and indicates commitment from the Commission to the principles of the African Charter on Human Rights.

Kellom’s killing clearly demonstrates that the systems criminalizing Black communities, people of color, and immigrants are integrally related in America. There must be an end to government-sanctioned violence in all communities.

The NGOs are concerned that not enough is being done throughout the continent to promote the rights of women enshrined in domestic laws and in African Union protocols and policy documents.

Drawing on decades of on-the-ground experience as a high level negotiator in bodies such as the World Trade Organization, Tandon challenges prevailing orthodoxy, insisting that, for the vast majority of people, and especially those in the poorer regions of the world, free trade hinders development and visits relentless waves of violence and impoverishment on their lives.

I appreciate to make your case. I am happy to hear you refer to pragmatic PanAfricanism. Whatever cannot be built piece-by-piece is a project at-risk. Only a Napoleon of sorts can build such a continental government.

Some of the hurdles to a united Africa - and I use "united" with reservation - are language/cultural diversity, dictatorial or corrupt politicians, religious extremism, and perceptions of racial divide between black and Arab Africa.

The United States of America was practically envisioned to be a unity of white, English-speaking, Christian, free-market and democracy loving immigrants. The Americans did not have as many hurdles as we Africans.

Let's be pragmatic about our future, Africa !

Saint John
[email][email protected]

to the Government of Burundi via Embassy of Burundi in Kenya on the prevailing political
crisis and violence.

Over one hundred organisations have issued a statement addressed to World Bank president, Jim Kim, questioning the Bank’s support for a multinational chain of low-fee, profit-making private primary schools targeting poor families, which Kim recently praised as a means to alleviate poverty.

The loss of lives, injuries to persons and damage to private property and the dignity of foreign nationals living in South Africa are a grave violation of their rights protected under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Awethu! joins the call for an urgent end to the xenophobic atrocities bedevilling the country.