Ghana’s Immigration Service is getting tough with illegal immigrants drawn to the country by the robust economic growth and its stability and has now set a deadline to start flushing them out. Most of the illegal immigrants are said to have entered the retail business and gone into illegal gold mining whilst others have targeted oil services, irking many locals who accuse them of stealing their jobs.

Press release
Pambazuka Press and GRAIN
17 May 2012

Pan-African publisher Pambazuka Press in collaboration with GRAIN, a small international non-profit that works to support small farmers, is to launch a vital text in the studies of food, land and climate, The Great Food Robbery: How corporations control food, grab land and destroy the climate. Available worldwide in May 2012, this publication marks the five-week countdown to Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

After the failure of the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban last December to formulate a united response strategy, there are mixed feelings on what Rio+20 will be able to achieve. But what is clear is that all participants will need to be well informed. ‘Everyone should read The Great Food Robbery – every citizen, every political leader – to understand how agribusiness, which has created hunger and disease, is now contributing to the biggest resource grab since Columbus,’ said Dr Vandana Shiva, physicist, internationally renowned activist and founder of Navdanya International. Shiva is one of many high profile academics from around the world who have endorsed The Great Food Robbery. Others include Dr. Hans Herren, Naomi Klein, Eric Holt-Giménez, and UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter.

Henk Hobbelink, of GRAIN, in his speech to the Swedish government upon receiving the Right Livelihood Award stated the latest trend in global land grabbing for outsourced food production is just one facet of a much greater attack. ‘Land grabs for mining, tourism, biofuels, dam construction, infrastructure projects, timber and now carbon trading are all part of the same process, turning farmers into refugees on their own land.’

The Great Food Robbery is an advocate for the rural communities that have fed the world for millennia. It examines how agribusiness is driving today’s global food crisis and highlights the culpability of the industrial food system regarding the climate crisis, revealing how land grabbing is being fuelled by a financial industry unconcerned by its exploitation of the world’s poorest.

GRAIN has collected materials on topics ranging from agribusiness and food sovereignty to land grabbing and the climate crisis to produce The Great Food Robbery. It is an essential introduction to understanding the powers that are controlling our food system and crucially offers the means to challenge the status quo. It will be of interest to activists, academics, students, journalists, development and NGO professionals.

???FOR INTERVIEWS:

Contact

- Aaron O'Dowling-Keane (Ms.)
Publishing and Marketing Coordinator, Pambazuka Press
Tel: +44 (0)1865 727006 x204
Email: [email][email protected]
www.pambazukapress.org

- Dexter X
Information worker, GRAIN
Tel: +1 (0) 514 585 3987
Email: [email][email protected]
www.grain.org

NOTES TO EDITORS:

GRAIN supports small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. In 2011, GRAIN was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (the Alternative Nobel Peace prize) for ‘its worldwide work to protect the livelihoods and rights of farming communities and to expose the massive purchases of farmland in developing countries by foreign financial interests’.

BOOK DETAILS

17 May 2012
9780857491138
Paperback
GB pounds 14.95 / US dollars 24.95 / CAN dollars 24.95
216 x 279 mm
164 pp

Date: 24th May 2012

Venue: UN Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

In honour of notable Pan-African civil activist - the late Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem (6 January 1961 – 25 May 2009)

PANELISTS

1. Prof. Horace Campbell
2. Prof. Mohamed Salih
3. Dr. Kayode Fayemi
4. Dr. Funmi Olonisakin
5. Mr. Napoleon Abdullahi 6. Dr. Patricia Daley
7. Mr. Brian Kagoro
8. Mr. Ahmed Rajab
9. Ms. Uduak Amimo

For registration and attendance please contact :

Ms. Abijah Yeshaneh (email: [email][email protected] or 011 544 3536) or Mr. Gideon Gamora (email: [email][email protected] or 011 544 5479).

Last day for registration 21st May 2012.

Organized by the Governance and Public Administration Division (GPAD/UNECA)

An international group of research organisations are collaborating on a project to boost Internet access in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. The project was discussed at a meeting of the board of the Global Research Alliance (GRA) - an international organisation that seeks to align the efforts of its members with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals - in Sydney, Australia, this month that looked at new strategies for improving access by the developing world to science and innovation.

The Saudi Labor Ministry has begun taking steps toward canceling the highly controversial individual kafala, or sponsorship, system, the Saudi newspaper Al-Eqtisadia reported on Monday, quoting a ministry official. The sponsorship system, which is applied in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, raises concerns over foreign workers’ rights.

The WSF Free Palestine will be a global encounter of broad-based popular and civil society mobilizations.

18th May, 2012 Royal Commonwealth Society in London

8.30-18.00hrs

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

• Dr AlisonBisset
• Prof .ColmCampbell
• Mrs CarlaFerstman*
• Mr CourtneyGriffiths*
• Mr DonaldDeya
• Mrs FatouBensouda*
• Prof. HansKo?echler
• Hon. JusticeAwaNanaDaboya*
• Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo*
• Prof. MaxduPlessis
• DrPaulMoorcraft
• Dr Sarah Nouwen
• Prof.StephenChan
• Dr Suleiman Baldo
• Prof. Susana Sa? Couto
• Prof. Tim Alley
• Dr William Pace

*To be confirmed

As the ICC approaches its tenth anniversary and makes its first conviction, we cordially invite you to participate in an engaging and enlightening one- day debate to review the effectiveness of this highly controversial court. Through this forum we will assess the role of the court and its impact especially in Africa, where all of its indictments have been made. We will look at alternative solutions in the administration of justice to achieve reconciliation and the restoration of peace. Bringing together some of the most knowledgeable and experienced experts from the fields of law, academia and civil society, as well as policy makers, this unique one-day forum will seek to determine whether the court has met its mandate, how it works and its impact. We will also discuss what can and should be done to resolve and deal with some critical issues which affect the stability of many countries across Africa and the world.

ATTENDANCE IS FREE BY INVITATION

Registration is essential:

or contact Toma?s Paquete at +44 (0) 20 7841 3237 or [email][email protected]
Organised by IC Events

Based on the Wikipedia model, FarmAfriPedia is a platform for different stakeholders in the agricultural sector from the African continent to collectively learn and share from each other; and especially on issues pertaining to best farming practices using local content.

Two human rights groups in Uganda have launched a documentary entitled 'She is My Son - The Pain of being an Intersex person in Uganda.' At the launch the groups urged the Uganda government to protect intersex people by making available information on intersexuality to families. The two organizations, Support Initiative for People with atypical Sex Development (Sipd Uganda) and Uganda Health and Science Press Association noted with concern that many intersex people are denied their full potential in life for simply being who they are.

Primary school has been free since 2003, with the help of 19 billion dollars of donations from the UK, Canada, and the World Bank, with the World Food Programme, UNICEF and Kenyan NGOs providing advice, training and support. In terms of enrolment numbers, it has been a great success. Enrolment rates in Kenya are up to 97 per cent. Less great is that there are now up to 70 children in each classroom and the free primary school fund has been plagued with government corruption, says this Panos feature.

One of the most significant human rights organisations in Swaziland has called on the Times Sunday to take action against its columnist who wrote hate speech against homosexuals in the newspaper. The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (the Coalition) condemned the writer Qalakaliboli Dlamini who used words such as ‘satanic’ and ‘evil’ in an article about homosexuals in the kingdom.

The 2012 Africa Progress Report is available. The report's purpose is to provide an overview of the progress Africa has made over the previous year. The report draws on the best research and analysis available on Africa and compiles it in a refreshing and provocative manner. Through the report, the Panel recommends a series of policy choices and actions for African policy makers who have primary responsibility for Africa’s progress, as well as vested international partners and civil society organisations.

Although Zimbabwe is a mineral-rich country, mine laborers and owners say that profits aren’t enough to cover costs, leading to low or little pay and unsatisfactory working conditions. The government has implemented laws aiming to reform both issues, but fee hikes to boost federal revenue have been problematic, says this article from the Global Press Institute.

The African Peacebuilding Network (APN) of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) invites research grant applications from African researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners working on conflict and peacebuilding at universities and research institutions or regional governmental and non-governmental organizations in Africa.

To celebrate the African novel and its adaptability and resilience, Kwani Trust announces a one-off new literary prize for African writing. The Kwani? Manuscript Project calls for the submission of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The prize seeks fresh, original work that explores and challenges the possibilities of the novel.

The spy chief for South African police, Richard Mdluli, has been moved from his powerful post pending the outcome of an investigation against him, the police minister said Wednesday. Mdluli has been embroiled in controversy since he was charged with murder and corruption in 2011. The charges were provisionally withdrawn earlier this year and a court inquest opened. Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa told lawmakers that the inspector general of intelligence would further look into claims that Mdluli was spared a trial due to political meddling.

An independent United Nations expert has urged the Tunisian Government to ensure that human rights, especially the right to education, are kept at the heart of the historic reforms taking place in the North African nation. 'Tunisia is at a turning point in its history,' the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, stressed at the end of his first fact-finding mission to the country. 'If it fails to secure in its new Constitution and its new laws the highest standards of protection of human rights, particularly the right to education, Tunisia will miss a historic opportunity,' he added.

The Burundi government has rejected a recent critical report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on 'the escalation of violence in Burundi' describing it as 'a declaration of war'. A statement said: 'As the previous reports were seen by the Burundi government as simple signs of provocation, the one which came out on Wednesday 2 May...is a true declaration of war against the Burundi people bound, according to the NGO, to disappear if it continues to live with the leaders it elected in the last elections.'

Mobile technologies, which play an increasingly important role in Africa’s education systems, are set to stimulate debate at this year’s eLearning Africa conference in Cotonou, Benin, from 23-25 May. Through a range of interactive expert-led sessions, participants at eLearning Africa 2012, the Continent’s leading conference on ICT for development, education and training, will explore the challenges, opportunities and success stories of mLearning.

An exhibition to be held in Nairobi aims to allow present and future generations of Somalis to learn about their rich heritage so that they can work towards restoring and preserving it.