Isis-WICCE will be actively participating in the 16 Days of Activism by hosting a cyber dialogue on its newly revamped website. As an organisation, we have had the privilege of working with women’s activists globally. Therefore, we would like to call upon our networks to create a forum where members can share their thoughts, opinions, and statements on the theme of ‘militarism and violence against women’.

Participants will be invited to contribute in the cyber dialogue which they can also share within their networks. The dialogue will commence on the first day of activism and continue for 16 days with every other day providing a new engaging question.

The theme of the 16 Days of Activism is pertinent to the work of Isis-WICCE. We have seen how conflict and post-conflict situations create atmospheres and situations where militarism increases violence against women, especially taking into consideration the role the military plays as either perpetrators of violence or as their mandated role in protecting them. Thus, it is important to open up a discussion on the structures of violence that do exist and navigate a way forward.

This is a call for all parties who are interested to visit the Isis-WICCE Blog beginning on 25 November 2010 to participate in the dialogue.

On 16 November 2010, Morocco and Mali, on behalf of African and Islamic (OIC) states, introduced an amendment to the General Assembly resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings deleting specific reference to killings due to sexual orientation.  This is a retrogressive step following the inclusion of this reference in the 2008 resolution.  While continuing to specify killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons and of refugees, indigenous people and other groups, the amendment to the 2010 resolution has replaced mention of sexual orientation with 'discriminatory reasons on any basis'.  The amendment passed 79-70 and is expected to be formally adopted by the General Assembly next month.

Sixteen Days of Activism campaign is the period 25 November and 10 December when activists raise heightened awareness around gender violence. The campaign began in 1991 and since then has brought various stakeholders including gender activists, civil society, governments, private sector, Faith Based Organisations, communities and development partners to find lasting strategies to end gender violence. Visit the Gender Links '16 Days of Activism 2010' page for information on this year's campaign focus, resources, events and articles.

The Tunisian blogosphere has witnessed a period of stagnation since April. Indeed, the month was a black one for Tunisian bloggers as more than 100 blogs have been censored by the authorities, discouraging the rest of the bloggers, who have become reluctant to write on their blogs. Since then, blogger Arabasta, proposed to launch an online campaign to urge Tunisian internet users to create blogs. Some bloggers supported the initiative, which other bloggers have rejected it. Seven months later, the campaign is now being launched under the name ‘7el Blog’ (Tunisian dialect) translated in English as ‘Launch a Blog’.

The United Nations estimates that 95 per cent of aggressive behaviour, harassment, abusive language and denigrating images in online spaces are aimed at women and come from partners or former male partners. Other surveys show that the victims of cyber-stalking are predominantly female. APC Women and Inter Press Service Africa co-hosted a media roundtable on 17 November entitled ‘Click Against Violence: Taking 16 Days of Activism Online’, to discuss online Gender Based Violence and resources available to cover the issue.

The International Journal of Transitional Justice invites submissions for its 2011 special issue titled ‘Civil Society, Social Movements and Transitional Justice,' to be guest edited by Moses Chrispus Okello, Senior Research Advisor, Refugee Law Project and Coordinator, Beyond Juba Project, Uganda and Lucy Hovil, Senior Researcher, Citizenship and Displacement in the Great Lakes region, International Refugee Rights Initiative.

On 13 November, independent reporter and filmmaker Nicolas Rossier, conducted an exclusive two-hour interview with former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the hills of Johannesburg. He spoke with the former president about his life in forced exile, Haiti’s current political situation, and his possible return to Haiti. This is an excerpt of the interview. The interview was re-posted to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network, with permission of Nicolas Rossier.

The exit of multinational British Petroleum from the Tanzania market faces stiff opposition from its workers who want to know their fate before any transfer of assets is made. According to sources in the petroleum sector, workers are up in arms accusing management of ignoring their pleas for a negotiated settlement.

'We have just heard that three vehicles were burnt during a protest in TR Section, Khayelitsha, today. One of them contained stationery for the matric exams. We want to make it absolutely clear that this protest was organised by the ANC Youth League and not by Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape. We only head about it for the first time when we started to get calls from the media.'

Other Worlds is working to document the ways that communities and social movements, together with their allies around the world, are working to build just economic, environmental, and political alternatives out of the ruins of the earthquake. You can read the ongoing reporting coming out of that work in the 'Another Haiti is Possible' archive on the Other Worlds website.

Labour unions suspended their three-day warning strike aimed at forcing the government to enact into law and implement a national minimum wage of 18,000 naira (about $120). The strike was called off Wednesday after an emergency meeting between the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) of Nigeria. They agreed to suspend the strike for three weeks on the understanding that President Goodluck Jonathan would place the Minimum Wage Bill before the National Assembly for speedy legislative process after the National Council of State meets on it November 25.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's call for the Cape Town Opera not to perform in Tel Aviv should be listened to, write members of the Gaza community. 'Do the Cape Town Opera members completely ignore the fact that instead of showing solidarity with us the voiceless and imprisoned, they will instead be performing to war-makers and Israeli soldiers and reservists?'

President Yoweri Museveni kicked off his election campaign in Luwero district, where he asked residents not to vote for the opposition because it cannot solve Uganda’s problems. Addressing rallies in Bamunanika, Luwero town and Wobulenzi, Museveni said it was only the Movement government that had a track record of solving the country’s problems.

The fourth in an ongoing series of updates from the Global Campaign for Pretrial Justice is available. It is intended to track developments in the field and facilitate information sharing among practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. The includes:
- The Rule of Law and the MDGs
- Access to Justice and the New Kenyan Constitution
- Locked Up and Forgotten - Prison Overcrowding in South Asia
Write to [email][email protected] to find out about subscription.

The economic upswing in Zimbabwe is luring workers under 18-years-old to the now bustling mining town of Shurugwi, about 350km south of the capital Harare in Midlands Province. Tinashe Mugwira, 15, left home in January this year and walked the 50km to Shurugwi in search of work at the mines in the mineral belt known as the Great Dyke, where gold, chrome and nickel are found. 'I had always heard that these Chinese were employing young children for as long as they can work on the mines, so I decided to come here when I stopped going to school after my father fell ill and my mother could not raise money for food,' a skinny Mugwira told IRIN.

While people die of cholera in Haiti, the poverty industry is profiting from the hardship, says this letter and commentary.

A four-week service delivery protest in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, has spread to Philippi, with hundreds of residents barricading busy roads with burning tyres over the weekend. The protest was set to continue last night, according to Eric Notana, chairperson of the Philippi People's Forum.

Efforts by the political left to shape the debate on a new growth path were dealt a heavy blow when cabinet’s big guns stopped far short this week of backing radical interventions in the economy. Just more than a month after Cosatu called for radical interventions – including having 'ownership' over the
balance sheets of the central bank by a new state bank, tightened exchange controls and redistribution of income in key employment sectors – the government has turned a deaf ear.

Nearly 300,000 health workers are fanning out across Africa this week to reach 72 million children as part of a United Nations-backed bid to drive polio out of the continent. Vaccinators will go door-to-door in 15 countries to deliver two drops of oral polio vaccine to every child under the age of five in areas considered to be at highest risk of polio, a highly infectious and sometimes fatal disease that spreads from person to person.

With Zimbabwe’s diamond industry still shrouded in secrecy, the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) and three Zimbabweans have petitioned South Africa’s New Reclamation Group for access to information that will shed some much-needed light on its controversial mining operations - and prove whether any of its promises to local communities have been fulfilled. In particular, the petitioners are asking for information relating to whether communities that were forced to relocate were consulted and have been given compensation, whether the requisite schools and hospitals have been provided and whether environmental and safety standards are being complied with.