The Government of Liberia, with support from United Nations agencies, will launch a week-long measles vaccination campaign on Wednesday targeting all children in Nimba County, which hosts over 30,000 refugees who fled the political turmoil in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. As of the end of January, five Liberian children between one and five years old had died of measles, two cases had been confirmed by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), and just over 100 suspected cases had been reported.

With Hosni Mubarak on a tentative footing, a US which once propped him up would now turn to a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) it regards as ‘moderate’, writes Samir Amin. But with the fundamental economic conditions which produced the social unrest in the first place unlikely to change much, and with the working-class and peasants’ movement yet to be fully involved, the same problems will remain, Amin concludes.

The is alarmed by the increasing spate of violence involving uniformed officers and civilians. Recent shocking actions involving assault of police officers by civilians and extra-judicial killings by the police are particularly concerning.

The , are saddened and outraged to learn of the brutal murder of comrade David Kato in Kampala, Uganda yesterday, 26 January 2011. We join activists in Africa and across the world in condolences to fellow comrades in Uganda, his loved ones, family and friends.

Following the brutal murder of acivist David Kato, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the entire Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community stand together to condemn the killing and call for the Ugandan government, civil society and local communities to protect sexual minorities across Uganda.

In support of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (currently in exile in South Africa), hundreds of signatories to a petition have demanded that the United States, the United Nations and the Haitian government stop blocking the leader from returning to the land of his birth. A letter from Aristide himself precedes this call.

The Angolan government is preparing to renew efforts to eradicate polio with support from global partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has made polio eradication its top priority. Angola succeeded in stamping out polio for three consecutive years at the beginning of the century, but a strain of the virus prevalent in India reappeared in 2005 and has since spread to the neighbouring countries of Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) member states are set to discuss the human rights situation in Rwanda for the first time, at the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR), that will be held on 24 January 2011 in Geneva.

Books which were banned under the Ben Ali regime are now beginning to be available in book stores in Tunis. Librairie el-Kitab in Tunis is now working to establish contacts with publishers to provide books for free to intellectuals and commentators in the country as part of the effort to establish a new democratic Tunisia.

Zimbabwe's fiscal cupboard remains bare and the unity government will struggle to meet its wage bill for public sector workers in January 2011, finance minister Tendai Biti told the inaugural Global Poverty Summit in Johannesburg on 19 January. Public sector unions are threatening a national strike and have refused an 18-26 per cent salary increase offer by government that would increase the lowest-paid worker's monthly income from $128 to $160. The unions are demanding a minimum monthly wage of $500.

There is a need to outline a programme of demands in the area of housing. Through struggle in the Western Cape some demands have come to the fore, and they might be considered to be elements of a programme in the area of housing. The discussion available through the link provided, from the Conference of the Democratic Left, held recently, may not even include all the demands that have been raised by different communities in the Western Cape, so should not in any way be regarded as definitive even of recent Western Cape experience.

The ecological and economic crisis of South Africa’s transnationalising capitalist economy is also reflected in increasing hunger, increasing food prices, unhealthy diets and polluting agro-processing food production. Advancing an Anti-Hunger and Food Sovereignty Campaign challenges this reality and politicises the food question in a more consistent way. Such a campaign has to be advanced bottom up, through a participatory democratic logic for democratic left politics. These campaign notes, presented at a Conference of the Democratic Left in South Africa, intend to promote such a process and emerge out of the Gauteng Democratic Left conference held in March 2010.

This paper, from the just-concluded Conference of the Democratic Left, presents a perspective and argument for organising the democratic left initiative as an anti-capitalist political front. It is anchored in the premise of maximising the unity of social and ideological forces against post-apartheid and global capitalism. To stimulate debate, discussion and resolution on the political form question for the democratic left initiative this document covers the following themes:
- A strategic approach to fronts;
- Learning lessons from the history of political fronts;
- The case for a United Democratic Left Front for South Africa;
- Key issues for a Democratic Left approach to building a political front through struggle.

It is time that the people take their destiny into their own hands, writes Mazibuko Jara. 'Can poor and working people, working with middle class people committed to social change, open the path to a new politics that can change this country? Can a modest national conference under an umbrella of democratic left politics offer any hope for the majority and those interested in social change in this country? This 1st National Conference of the Democratic Left, which will follow two weeks after the celebration of the ANC’s 99th anniversary in January 2011, is a milestone in a maturing long-term political process.'

A new campaign on the theme, 'Socially Responsible African Media' has been launched in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, by a group of trade unions fighting for the rights of journalists and other media workers in Africa. The group consisting of Federation of African Journalists, (FAJ), Uni Africa and their partners like the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and media-related groups across the continent are leading the campaign over a three-year period.

The European Union has offered to help organise elections in Tunisia following its democratic uprising that culminated in the flight of leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia. However, asked whether this 'solidarity' extended to other democracy movements across north Africa, the commission refused to be drawn regarding other regimes in the region.'We cannot speculate on situations that are not ongoing,' said foreign affairs spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic.

Associate Programme Officer (Advocacy): The job purpose is to contribute to the achievement of RCK mission of improving refuges welfare by influencing polices, systems, structures and practices of the Government, UNHCR and partners though lobbying and advocacy.

Associate Programme Officer (Information and research): The job purpose is to contribute to the achievement of RCK information/ research programme by assisting the programme officer in coordinating and performance of activities such as sourcing of materials, liaising with the media, research institutions and disseminating information.

The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) plans to picket a Massmart shareholders meeting to show opposition to the group's impending deal with Walmart, reports South Africa's Daily Times. Massmart's shareholders are expected to vote for the global retail giant's offer to acquire 51 per cent of Massmart's shares at the meeting. The anti-Walmart coalition includes the Congress of South African Trade Unions, social movements and civil-society organisations.

This paper explores social movements’ roles in challenging relationships of poverty and inequality. It begins by examining the motivations, emergence and strategies of these movements. The author then argues that movements are highly relevant to poverty reduction dialogue because they challenge the dominant way in which it is understood, and suggest alternative means of achieving it. Cases from Bolivia, India, Peru and South Africa are considered.

Luleki Sizwe, a small, all-volunteer group that campaigns for LGBT people, is based in Cape Town’s mostly poor black townships and rural areas. The organisation works with and supports women who have been victims of what has fast become a ubiquitous form of targeted sexual violence in South Africa: 'corrective rape' against gay women or women suspected of being gay, as a form of 'curing' them. A campaign of the organisation has garnered 130,000 signatures worldwide.