The feminist organization expresses deep concern about the rising levels of fundamentalisms that continue to oppress women and girls and relegate the gains made in the women’s rights struggle. The kidnap of the girls reinforces the notion of using women’s bodies as weapons of war.

Millions of people around the world are burning with outrage under imperialist oppression. Islamic fundamentalism tragically channels this explosive discontent into mindless violence that offers nothing positive. This nightmare will only get worse, unless people fight to take their societies on a radically different path.

They point out that organizations located in the communities they serve have the trust, networks, and cultural understanding to accomplish what international organizations cannot.

The conference aims to examine the past and current approaches to peace, security and development in Africa in light of confronting the new challenges and the opportunities offered. Key themes focus on the emerging security challenges, technology and innovative approaches to peace and security and celebrating African successes and development.

With “Food Safety” being the theme of this year’s World Health Day on April 7, 37 laureates of the Right Livelihood Award from across the world have endorsed a declaration on the future of nutrition, denouncing Golden Rice and Genetically Modified Bananas as “false miracles” to achieving food security. Golden Rice is a genetically engineered rice variety offered by GM proponents as a cure for Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), while GM bananas are proposed to compensate for a lack of Vitamin A and iron.

There is serious concern about the protection of migrants in South Africa, especially African migrants. It seems that people from other parts of the continent can be killed with impunity.

A petition has been launched demanding that French universities not succumb to pressure to ban anti-apartheid activist and scholar Prof Farid Esack.

By Dhiru Soni, Ahmed Shaikh, Anis Karodia and Joseph David
2015-03-16, Issue 718

This week the government of Joseph Kabila has been arresting young people in sustained efforts to frustrate their organizing for change.

A third woman has reported Standard Group journalist and PEN Kenya Secretary General Tony Mochama to Nairobi's Central Police Station for alleged sexual assault. The alleged assault occurred on September 21st 2014, at the National Museum, during the Westgate Memorial Service of Storymoja Hay Festival. The OB Number is 74/17/3/2015.

Farmer organizations, indigenous groups, trade unions and other civil society organizations, under the umbrella of Our Land Our Business, call World Bank’s annual Conference on Land and Poverty a sham.

The Pan African Congress was held 21 years after the previous one. Its resolutions capture the Congress’s desire to re-ignite the Pan African spirit, enthuse commitment to our African identity and inject energy into the Pan-African Movement.

The Network in Defense of Humanity say the US threat against Venezuela is explicitly a declaration of war against the Bolivarian Revolution and a step forward in the US escalation to crush the anti-imperialist voices.

The November issue of the International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter (formerly the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter) is out. Find the full newsletter .

Twenty-five experts have petitioned the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare Ogoniland an ecological disaster zone and clean up the environment. The petition, signed by environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey and other laureates of the Right Livelihood Award, (often referred to as the the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), comes as controversy ignites over reports that a Nigerian oil company, Belema Oil, may recommence oil extraction in Ogoniland, over 20 years after Shell suspended its operations. For the full petition please click .

This convergence will derive key proposals for social action for full transformation of the structures and relationships that lead to violence in Kenya. It is expected that the outcome of the dialogue will be tools for partners seeking to achieve long-term results to post conflict transformation in Africa.

A coalition of 76 civil society organisations from within and outside Africa has written to the African Union seeking immediate publication of the report of the AU Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan (AUCISS), whose findings they believe will make a critical contribution to the the peace process in the war-torn nation.

Leading human rights organisations including Crisis Coalition, Zimrights and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have expressed their utter sense of shock at this latest development.

The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR), Osun State Chapter hereby calls on the authorities and Prof. ‘Tale Omole-led administration of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife to reinstate six student activists currently under politically motivated suspension.

The students’ body says the unsanitary conditions of school toilets in poor urban neighboruhoods and in rural areas have remained unchanged 21 years after the end of apartheid.