ARTICLE 19 has recently highlighted the critical issue of the right to information for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The international NGO delivered practical training sessions on the Right to Information for internally displaced persons to regional leaders and representatives of local community based organisations. Over 20 participants from the Coast province attended the training sessions held in the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza regions of the country. The program aims to build the capacity of IDP leaders and civil society organisations to request and utilise government held information.

Walter Rodney's classic study, 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' has just been republished by Pambazuka Press. You are invited to a Panel Discussion on the book at the Cipriani Labour College, CLR James Auditorium, on Wednesday June 13 at 6 PM. Click on the link for more information.

This is to invite you to Kilombo 2012, which is an event on Africa, Africans and Social Justice. This is going to be an annual event and the first which is Kilombo 2012 will lay the foundation for launching the Kilombo Centre for Civil Society and African Self-Determination.

Angola is bankrolling a concerted campaign to secure SA's efforts to win support for Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to lead the African Union (AU) with a $200,000 pledge to finance lobbying ahead of the AU summit. Oil-rich Angola, signalling its foreign policy ambitions on the continent, has combined in the campaign with SA, which is chartering aircraft to take teams of cabinet ministers to lobby around the continent.

Kenya has been plunged into mourning after Internal Security minister George Saitoti and his assistant Joshua Orwa Ojodeh were killed in a helicopter crash in Ngong Forest. The accident occurred on Sunday minutes after they had taken off from Wilson Airport in a new police helicopter, heading for a fundraiser in Mr Ojodeh’s Ndiwa constituency. The cause of the crash was yet to be established.

Malawi, one of Africa's poorest nations, has made significant progress in improving the survival of newborns and is on track to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal number four - to reduce the deaths of children up to the age of five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. This is according to a new report released by Save the Children, which identifies how newborn infants have been overlooked by global efforts intent on improving child and maternal health. While newborns make up 40 percent of child deaths annually, they receive just six percent of development aid. According to the report, Malawi has the highest rate of pre-term births in the world (18 per cent). Roughly a third of all newborn deaths are due to complications that arise from such births.

Chad residents scrape the bottom of the barrel on most every indicator on the Human Development Index, despite vast oil wealth. In his new book 'Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power', Pulitzer prize-winning author Steve Coll examines ExxonMobil’s influence in poor countries.He examines the bankrolling of oilfields in southern Chad in 2001 that were conditioned on the use of revenues to eliminate poverty.

An uphill battle against mining, waged since 2007 by the impoverished South African Amadiba community, last year appeared to have been won. Now it's beginning again. A local subsidiary of Australian firm Mineral Resource Commodities has renwed its application to prospect for mineral sands along the Transkei's Wild Coast. The traditional owners of the area are outraged.

Egyptian liberals have walked out of a meeting to select members of a panel to write the country's new constitution, charging Islamists of trying to take seats allocated for secular parties. The walkout could throw the writing of the constitution, which would lay out the powers of the presidency, into further disarray at a time when uncertainties mar both the course of the presidential runoff election on June 16 and 17 and the legality of parliament.

According to a report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), pneumonia and diarrhoea are the leading killers of children under five years despite the fact that there are a number of cost effective interventions to curb these illnesses. Far fewer children are dying today than 20 years ago – In 1990, 12-million child deaths were recorded, compared to 7.6-million in 2010.

A Nigerian civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked the Nigerian government to prosecute 16 foreign companies involved in bribery in the country. In a statement made available to PANA in Lagos Sunday, SERAP said it would seek leave of court for an order of mandamus to compel the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Mohammed Adoke, to act if the companies are not prosecuted 'within 14 (fourteen) days from the receipt and/or publication of this letter (to the AGF).'

The second issue of the Thinking Africa Newsletter for 2012 is available. Articles include:
- uBuntu, the Law and Public Secrets
- Conference on Land Practices reminder
- uBuntu and Subaltern Legality
- Programme of the Thinking Africa 'uBuntu: Curating the Archive' colloquium, 9-20 July 2012.

After weeks of countrywide public hearings on which hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ rands were spent, the department of justice and the select committee on security and constitutional development received a rude wake-up call on the controversial Traditional Courts Bill, reports City Press. Most of the provinces either rejected the bill or asked for massive changes. In what can be described as a victory for rural women, who have waged war against the bill since it was tabled in 2008, the department of justice will have to go back to the drawing board.

Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura is forming a new press unit of police to act as an ombudsman for complaints by journalists and as a public relations department. 'The inspector general is committed to professionalizing the police force,' Simon Kuteesa, who will run the new unit, said. 'We are not re-inventing the wheel here - it's all part of a strategic initiative.' The new unit is expected to be operational in three months, he said.

Amnesty International has called on Egyptian authorities to investigate reports of sexual assaults on women protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, to counter the impression that no one will be punished. There has been a rise in violent attacks against women since demonstrators returned to the square 10 days ago to protest verdicts against toppled president Hosni Mubarak, his sons and security aides. Mubarak escaped a death sentence over deaths of protesters, and he and his sons were acquitted on corruption charges.

Bestowing an honour on America's first black president might seem an uncontroversial choice for post-apartheid South Africa. But what was good enough for the Nobel peace prize committee is just the latest trigger for acrimony in the polarised city of Cape Town. Its decision to grant president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, the freedom of the city has provoked a growing backlash from rival parties, churches, Muslim groups and trade unions, who branded it a 'political gimmick'. They warn that if the couple ever set foot in Cape Town to accept the award, they will be greeted by mass protests drawing attention to America's human rights record.

The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, which happens to be the sole telecommunication service provider in Ethiopia, has deployed or begun testing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) of all Internet traffic. This post analyses the results on web access, following on from previous analysis of censorship in China, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

Gay Biafran activist Joshua Odeke was billed for forced deportation from the UK on 7June 2012.
He fled Nigeria due to his political activities there, namely his involvement with the non-violent Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which campaigns openly for Igbo tribe freedom and an independent state. Joshua is deeply worried about returning to Nigeria because both his father and brother were killed by authorities because of their involvement with MASSOB.

As the number of African children adopted by people outside the continent reaches record levels, experts, activists, government officials and academics have called for the practice to be stemmed, warning that adoption was too often motivated by financial gain rather than the best interests of the children involved. Between 2003 and 2011, for example, at least 41,000 African children were sent abroad for adoption from Africa, according to a study entitled 'Africa: The New Frontier' for Inter-country Adoption by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF).

The continued arrival of refugees fleeing post-election violence and militia activities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in western Uganda, and the government’s efforts to resettle them, have created a land row that has already cost the life of a government official. Alphonse Nteziryayo, commander of Rwamwanja settlement, in Kamwenge district, had accompanied humanitarian aid workers to assess the land the government had set aside for the settlement of Congolese refugees in Uganda when he was attacked and killed by squatters, who had settled there.