From the very first notes of her a cappella solo that introduce this album, it's clear that Amira Kheir is not afraid to take risks. Born in Italy of Sudanese parents and now residing in London, Amira draws upon her own multicultural background to create a unique and compelling acoustic amalgam. View From Somewhere is her debut album, but it's not happened just by chance. Rather this recording is a signpost on an ever-extending road, and since 2009 Amira has performed at the Albany for the London Jazz Festival, the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the African Music Festival, and at the Southbank for the Celebrating Sanctuary Festival.

Topics of inquiry can include but are not limited to:
- How race relations impact the accessibility to land and land distribution in marginalized communities.
- How ethnic minorities define their rights and access to land in the age of economic neoliberalism and market fundamentalism.
- Have land deals, as experienced in many African countries, for example, undermined or increased social stratification in terms of class, gender, and ethnicity?
- How is the current trajectory of land grabs changing the nature of land use and land rights and the structural balance of production, social norms, and gender roles?

Identity serves a large demographic that includes the LGBT community in Kenya, sex workers and likewise, the straight population.

A group of 30 African smallholder farmers who participated at a Via Campesina training on agro-ecology in Ghana have issued the following statement, reaffirming their commitment to food sovereignty.

Despite a partial victory for Fahamu and others who have raised the? alarm over stripping tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees of ?protection, individuals and organisations are still encouraged to endorse an to halt the measure.

As a British journalist based in London, Lara Pawson says she feels increasingly uneasy about media representations of the politics and people of southern Africa. She even wonders whether international journalism serves any purpose any more.

Making some simple, basic changes in education policy can result in many more girls attending school, experts said at a meeting here this week on Gender Equality in Education. Take the case of Kenya. The United Nations says that the country has made huge strides towards the goal of education for all by incorporating gender awareness in school administration. 'We offered free lunches, but not only that, we make sure that sanitary towels were available in schools, and that decreased absenteeism enormously,' Kenya’s minister of education, Prof. Sam Ongeri, told IPS.

Global Press Institute (GPI) has announced that Gertrude Pswarayi, a GPI reporter on their Zimbabwe News Desk, won this year’s 2011 Kurt Schork Award in the local reporter category for her piece 'Political Rape Survivors Come Forward in Advance of 2011 Election', an article published last December about women who were raped and exploited in Zimbabwe.

There are only four weeks left until the closing date for all Stage 1 2012 STARS Impact Award applications: the deadline is 1pm GMT, Monday 7 November 2011. To apply to the 2012 Impact Awards, visit you can apply online or download the application form. If you have any questions about the application process, contact us at: [email][email protected] The STARS Impact Awards identify and support local organisations that achieve excellence in the provision of services to disadvantaged children and that demonstrate effective management practices.

The Spine Africa Project focuses on three objectives: the treatment of those afflicted with spinal conditions, the education of local medical personnel, and social change. Each of these three factors contributes individually to what seems to be an exclusively medical epidemic. Visit their website for more information.

Former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya has been granted bail pending trial, after spending a week on remand. Bukenya is charged with abuse of office for his role in the award of a deal worth Shs9.4b to supply 204 executive vehicles four years ago during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to Motorcare.

14 October will see the launch of the book 'The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive
Accumulation and the Peasantry'. The launch forms part of a day-long event taking place at Nyerere theatre one at the University of Dar es Salaam, which will see top academics discussing the theme of the book. Click on the link provided to access the full programme.

A network of Pan-Africanists from Ubuntu Pan African Network and Pan Africanist Unity groups are initiating an invitation to Cynthia McKinney to serve as the African World Envoy starting 28 October 2011. It has been recognized that Cynthia McKinney, a former US Representative and 2008 Presidential Election Candidate, has contributed her voice and her life to justice and WORLD peace. She is a long time proponent of abolishing NATO and a tireless voice against the genocidal exploitation of humans and the environment by multinational companies and the West.

AFRODAD has published a new report entitled ' Ecological Debt: the case of Tanzania'. The report interrogates and defines the concept of ecological debt, it traces the origins and applicability of the concept in Africa and more specifically in Tanzania, it identified the fact that repayment of Third World financial debt is having destructive effects on natural environments.

Thousands of children in Zimbabwe, who were forcibly evicted from their homes six years ago, are still not receiving proper education, a rights group says. The government had promised 700,000 families a better life when it demolished slums in major cities in 2005 under Operation Murambatsvina. But Amnesty International says many children are now worse off, attending 'makeshift' schools in new settlements.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the Action Group of Families of the Disappeared in Algeria (Collectif des Familles de Disparus en Algérie, CFDA), and the Algerian Human Rights League (Ligue Algérienne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme, LADDH) have strongly condemned the intensifying harassment campaign against trade unionists and human rights defenders in Algeria. 'Our organisations call upon the Algerian Government to put an end to all harassment directed against human rights defenders, including union leaders and to suspend all judicial procedures launched against them.'

Uwezo Tanzania has completed its second Annual Learning Assessment and has found results similar to its first year: only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level Kiswahili story, only one in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level English story and only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can add, subtract and multiply at a Standard Two level.

This issue includes the following articles:

- Introductory essay, by Nancy Peluso and Christian Lund.
- Alice Kelley, UC Berkeley, Conservation Practice as Primitive Accumulation.
- Catherine Corson, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA, Territorialization, Enclosure and Neoliberalism: Non-State Influence
in Struggles over Madagascar’s Forests.
- Nancy Peluso, UC Berkeley, Emergent Forest and Private Land Regimes in Java.

There was total compliance 26 September to the one-week nationwide warning strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, disrupting examinations in the nation's premier university, University of Ibadan, University of Jos and paralysing academic activities in others. The warning strike is in protest against Federal Government's alleged refusal to implement the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement which will be due for re-negotiation in six months. The agreement, among others include 26 per cent funding of education, wage improvement and upward review of retirement age of professors from 65 to 70 years.

Over six million Moroccan children set off to schools a few days ago. This year, the beginning of the school term was accompanied with lively debates over the future of the kingdom's state education system. Moroccans have voiced little confidence in state education and are critical of both teachers and the government's strategy in this sector.