The Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) is accepting applications to its 2nd Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ), an annual week-long residential programme with a focus on Transitional Justice issues in the context of Africa. The Institute, which is scheduled to take place from 20th – 27th November 2011, in Kitgum, Northern Uganda has as its theme: 'Whose Memories Count and at What Cost?'

It is the time again when we seek entries for the prestigious FitzGerald prize for young African journalists. This offers a scholarship for a promising, young (under 30) African journalist or aspirant journalist to do a post graduate BA hons degree at the University of The Witwatersrand ’s Journalism Programme in Johannesburg, starting in early 2012, and to join Reuters thereafter for a period of work experience.

Somalia, which has not had a functioning government in almost two decades, is listed as Africa's deadliest country for journalists with 34 journalists killed since 1991, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Despite these killings and daily death threats, a few reporters remain in the country to provide the world with an inside view of the fighting that plagues Somalia.

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the , a monthly publication that provides a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News. You can also read the newsletter on our new blog and

'Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sent another of its missions to Swaziland to try to put the Mswati autocracy on track to getting a cash bailout to try to stave off its financial meltdown. The IMF mission revealed that the government has only about a month of spending power left. And it issued stern warnings and rebukes to the king’s puppet Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini about the government’s failure to change its wasteful spending habits.'

Reflecting on the new era of constitution making in East Africa, the Katiba workshop will focus on: the history and legacy of postcolonial constitution making in the East Africa region, the social, political and economic considerations in drafting contemporary constitutions and the problems and challenges of implementing new constitutions. Speakers and Panel Chairs: Dr Willy Mutunga, Prof Yash Pal Ghai, Prof Goran Hyden, Prof Jill Cottrell Ghai, Dr Ambreena Manji, Prof Patrick McAuslan, Dr Linda Musumba, Prof Wanjiku Kabira, Prof Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Dr Ben Sihanya, Abubakar Zein.

AwaaZ is a magazine published tri-annually out of Nairobi, Kenya, under the Institute of Kenya South Asian History and Culture (IKSAH). The latest issues contains articles on:
- Judicial reforms and the difficulties ahead.
- Evictions, social justice and the constitution.
- Marginalisation of the Lamu people.
- Justice or the LGBTI community in Kenya.
- Making the constitution of Kenya the constitution for Kenyans.

Egyptian officials are warning that the country, just emerging from a popular uprising that ousted the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, could be facing a major economic crisis with lagging international aid and foreign investment. General Mahmoud Nassr, a member of the Supreme Military Council, which is running the country’s interim government, told an economic conference in Cairo last week that foreign direct investment (FDI) has come to a standstill while Western rating agencies race to downgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating. The poverty rate has also worsened to 70 per cent, Nassr added.

The South African government has announced the closure of the only refugee reception centre in Johannesburg, amid warnings that this will have a serious impact on the thousands of refugees flocking across the border every week. 'It is unacceptable that poor and marginalised refugees will have to travel to Pretoria, at great personal cost, to receive permit extensions and other services,' said Sicel’mpilo Shange-Buthane, the Director of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa.

North and south Sudan have agreed to set up a demilitarised zone along their shared border, as the south moves closer to independence. The announcement, made by the African Union (AU) on Tuesday, comes 10 days after the north seized the disputed Abyei region, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee. Alex de Waal, an AU adviser who has facilitated negotiations on security issues between Sudan's north and south regions, said the parties agreed to the move on Monday during talks in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

The Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA), an organisation consisting of researchers and activists, issued a statement on the situation in Africa on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2011. The statement calls on the peoples of Africa and its diaspora to ramp up resistance, both locally and globally, and to unite on the basis of internationalism and Pan-Africanism.

ARTICLE 19 has called on the East African Community (EAC) to hold a special session on Uganda to discuss the country’s ongoing grave human right violations, including frequent attacks on freedom of expression. 'ARTICLE 19 believes that the seriousness of the current situation requires the East African Legislative Assembly to immediately convene a special session to address attacks on journalists, human rights defenders and the media in the country. During May 2011 alone, at least nine people have died in Uganda following brutal attacks by state security agents, and many more were injured, including journalists.'

A leaked cable that has sparked a row between Britain and Malawi could give rise to rural hunger in the impoverished southern African nation. That is the upshot of the spiralling row that has seen Britain suspend aid including its support for a support for a highly successful seed and fertiliser programme in Malawi - and the government in Malawi stick to its guns despite the possible consequences for its people. The row, which we have been reporting on, stems from a leaked diplomatic cable that described Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika as 'autocratic and intolerant of criticism'.

British firms have acquired more land in Africa for controversial biofuel plantations than companies from any other country, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Half of the 3.2m hectares (ha) of biofuel land identified - in countries from Mozambique to Senegal - is linked to 11 British companies, more than any other country. Liquid fuels made from plants - such as bioethanol - are hailed by some as environmentally-friendly replacements for fossil fuels. Because they compete for land with crop plants, biofuels have also been linked to record food prices and rising hunger. There are also fears they can increase greenhouse gas emissions.

AFRICA: SOCIO-POLITICAL UPHEAVALS AND HOPES FOR POLITICAL FREEDOMS
Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA)

Several major events occurred at the beginning of 2011 on the African continent, particularly from a global perspective. Already weakened by its unfavourable historical insertion into the world system, Africa has endured, in the past two most recent decades, the pangs of the implementation of neoliberal austerity measures, the plundering of resources and the logic of the privatisation of war. The continent is now more than ever at a crossroads because of the failure of the neoliberal model, the crisis of capitalism and the exhaustion of the neocolonial mode of growth.

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2011: ARAB SPRING?
Samir Amin

The year 2011 started with a series of crashing explosions of anger of the Arab people. Will this Arab spring start the second phase of ‘the awakening of the Arab world’? Or, will these revolts trample and finally fall through – as was the case of the first phase of this awakening evoked in my book ‘the awakening of the South’? In the first hypothesis, the developments of the Arab world will necessarily fit in the movement of going beyond capitalism/imperialism on a worldwide scale. The failure to do so would maintain the Arab world in its current status at the periphery of domination, prohibiting it from playing an active role in shaping the world.

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EGYPT AND THE STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES: THE PAKISTANI MODEL
Part 3: 2011: Arab spring?
Samir Amin

The three powers which dominated the Middle Eastern scene during the entire period of decline (1967–2011) are the United States – the master of the system – Saudi Arabia and Israel. Three close allies. The three share the same obsession for the emergence of a democratic Egypt. Because a democratic Egypt could only be a social anti-imperialist which would keep its distance with regard to globalised liberalism and would condemn Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to insignificance, while reanimating the solidarity of the Arab people and demanding the recognition of the Palestinian state by Israel.

ARTICLE 19 is very concerned by apparent efforts by the G8, led by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, to impose tighter controls of the Internet. ARTICLE 19 once again calls on all states, including G8 member states, not to violate their freedom of expression obligations by imposing unjustifiable restrictions on the Internet. They should instead follow the recommendations in the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom expression’s new report, which emphasise the applicability of international human right standards to the Internet.

A group of Mauritanian media professionals and bloggers last week announced the creation of a new club aimed at protecting journalists' rights. The club, whose vision is inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seeks 'to encourage journalists to write about topics on human rights in their press reports', according to its founding statement released 22 May.

As South Sudan prepares to become officially independent in July, Reporters Without Borders says it is appalled by recent developments affecting press freedom and appeals in particular to the new country’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, to release the Darfuri journalist Mohammed Arku without delay. Employed by Sudan Radio Service, Arku was arrested by South Sudan’s security services in Wau on 11 May for taking photos without government permission, although the area where he was arrested is not a militarised one.

Viva Palestina Arabia is organising a seven-day summer university in Beirut, Lebabon, at the end of July with internationally known academics, writers, political figures and activists to discuss the unfolding revolutionary events in the Middle East and what they mean for Palestine and the international solidarity movement.

A wide-ranging group of civil society organisations from around the globe has sent a letter to World Bank president Robert Zoellick urging him to open up the proposed Energy Strategy to another round of consultations. 'The Energy Sector Strategy has the potential to serve as a blueprint for low carbon, low impact clean energy scale up, while addressing the need of energy poor populations, which is an area of significant expertise and interest for a number of civil society organizations. Given that the
Energy Sector Strategy document will be significantly changed from the Approach Paper that previously underwent consultation, we believe it would be a mistake to not post the full Energy Sector Strategy document for consultation.'