Teachers in Federal and Unity Schools yesterday commenced their indefinite strike to protest the plan by the Federal Government to sell their schools to private managers.

Several military personnel and civilians are being held illegally for prolonged periods and often under inhumane conditions, according to the human-rights watchdog (L'observatoire congolais des droits de l'homme) in the Republic of Congo. In a new report, the organisation denounced the arrest in February 2005 of 13 army officers and warrant officers for the alleged theft of weapons from a military camp south of the capital, Brazzaville.

Thousands of Ghanaian senior secondary school teachers have been on strike since classes resumed in September, but in a twist of roles students are taking the podium. Teenagers are lecturing classes, have formed study groups or follow individual daily school plans as their teachers stay home to demand better pay and other benefits. The strike is affecting 360,000 senior secondary students nationwide.

Twenty migrants have drowned while trying to reach the Canary Islands, survivors of a boat sinking have told Spanish police. The survivors - seven adults and four children - said they were picked up by a merchant ship after their boat broke up on the high seas before dawn. They said they were then brought to a port on the Gran Canaria. Some 25,000 migrants, mostly from west Africa, have arrived in the Canary Islands this year. Up to 3,000 people are said to have died during the trip.

Computer labs are a necessity to enhance effective mathematics and science learning but in many South African schools they don't exist or are sparsely resourced. This last week, however, three Dinaledi schools in the North-West province were supplied computer laboratories through a partnership between Inkululeko Technologies, the Shuttleworth Foundation, Sahara Systems, and the North West Department of Education.

Educators who carry on despite hardships such as war and poverty are being honoured on World Teacher's Day, observed on 5 October. This story highlights a partnership between UNICEF and the Windle Trust to train teachers in Southern Sudan. At the age of 67 Clara Royo, a primary school teacher is going back to school. Like nearly every other teacher in Southern Sudan, Ms. Royo has almost no formal training.

During the week of 3 October 2006, four detectives from the police's Law and Order section visited the Harare distribution offices of "The Zimbabwean", a weekly newspaper published in London, and demanded certain information from the proprietor before confiscating some documents. They were particularly interested in the previous week's issue, although they did not specify which article had attracted their attention. In it, the front page story, headlined "ZNA top brass slam corrupt ZRP", had outlined the tensions between the army and the police after the arrest of a former colonel for alleged corruption at the state grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board. The detectives took away documents pertaining to the importation of the weekly newspaper from South Africa, where the southern African edition is printed.

Fahamu is seeking a Policy Analyst / Editor to work with its AU-Monitor project. The main purpose of the post is to strengthen the ability of African CSOs to engage constructively with the AU and its organs in the interest of promoting justice, equity and accountability.

The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, with nearly 120 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. We are currently looking for highly motivated staff who will be working for our Horn of Africa project. These analyst positions are for positions focusing on Eritrea and Ethiopia; and Sudan. Please click on the link below to view the adverts.

Many an observer has recognised the positive contribution of the UN Decade for women that culminated in the 1985 Nairobi 3rd World Congress on Women where over 300 resolutions were passed on forward-looking strategies for the advancement of women globally, strategies that were complemented by the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Sadio Toure didn’t have a typical summer vacation. Even though the 18-year-old was on her school break, she delighted in finding herself in a classroom setting, learning to use a computer and attempting science experiments in a laboratory for the first time. “We didn’t have any [laboratory] practice sessions in our school,” said Toure.

Roger Mancienne, editor of the privately-owned weekly "Regar" and Secretary-general of the opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP), told Reporters Without Borders he was released on the morning of 4 October 2006, after being held for nearly 24 hours in the central police barracks in Victoria.

Kewe Thiam is the exception to the rule that most Senegalese girls don’t make it to high school. Sitting with a group of her peers, Thiam’s is the only female hand that shoots up, along with those of a dozen boys, when asked who among them goes to school. “The girls here want to go to school, but their parents don’t have the means. They can’t afford the inscription fees or the supplies,” says Thiam, 20, speaking for the girls around her who haven’t had the opportunity to learn French, the language of instruction in Senegal.

The ABA seeks a Deputy Director of its Morocco Program, with primary responsibility for management of a gender- and human rights-focused curriculm development project. The Deputy will also assist with the management of a human rights legal clinic at a university near Rabat, and with selected aspects of the overall management of the Morocco program.

Under the guidance and supervision of the UNFPA Country Representative, the HIV/AIDS programme specialist will work with the UNFPA team, national counterparts, UN system agencies, multi and bilateral development agencies, civil society and communities to contribute to the development and implementation of national HIV/AIDS-related plans, policies and programmes within UNFPA's priority areas of work.

The GBV Coordinators in Africa and Asia will be responsible for managing and implementing grant-funded GBV projects and for integrating GBV into CCF's overall program strategy. The GBV Coordinator must have experience, comfort, and confidence working with children and adults in emergency and post-conflict situations. The GBV Coordinator must be able to work closely with other CCF Program Coordinators.

The Forum on the Participation of NGOs in the Ordinary Sessions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights is one of the main advocacy tools that the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies uses to promote networking among Human Rights NGOs for the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa.

Over 500 orphans of the Frauenshuh International Christian Orphanage Center located in Palm Community in Barnesville are appealing to President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf and the authority of the Ministry of Health to ensure that the center remains in operation as anything contrary would hamper their educational endeavor.

Teachers all over the country will celebrate World Teachers Day Wednesday (October 5). Mohamed Swaray, a senior teacher at the Prince of Wales Secondary School Tuesday said his challenges, as a teacher is to ensure that the pupils should understand what he is teaching.

A group of 17 Guinean migrants intercepted by the Moroccan navy as they attempted to reach the Canary Islands in small open boats, have been helped to return home voluntarily by IOM. The group, who had begun their sea journey to Europe from the Senegalese coast before being intercepted towards the end of August, had been stranded in the coastal town of Dhakla until their government asked IOM to provide voluntary return assistance for the group.