Professor James Gathii, Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and the Governor George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law at Albany (New York) Law School, has launched a new blog - - focusing on Kenya's efforts to defer an International Criminal Court (ICC) case against the six alleged masterminds of Kenya's 2008 post-election violence.

The final program of the Third Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week for 2011 is available via the link provided.

Hundreds of women from several West African nations converged at the ECOWAS Commission headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday, to demand immediate action from West African leaders holding their summit here 23-24 March. Wearing white T-shirts with the inscription 'West African women demand peace in Cote d'Ivoire', they chanted slogans backing their demand and carried placards seeking urgent action in the West African nation that is now in the throes of post-election crisis that is threatening to push the country into war.

Parliament this week, has been labelled inhumane, ill-conceived and draconian by lawyers and human rights activists, who say that asylum-seekers and refugees will be hard hit by it. 'The Bill favours the rich at the expense of the vulnerable,' said Fatima Khan, the director of the University of Cape Town's refugee rights project. Khan said the Bill allowed for asylum-seekers to be pre-screened at South Africa's border, in spite of the fact that immigration officials were not qualified to do this.

Long known as a 'boy's club', the worldwide media industry continues to struggle with gender equality, with new research showing women are still under-represented in the majority of newsrooms across the globe. The study, conducted over a two-year period for the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), covered 170,000 people in the news media and involved interviews with 500 companies in 59 countries. On average women are underrepresented in all media positions, in sectors ranging from news media ownership, publishing, governance, reporting, editing, photojournalism, and broadcast production.

The UN refugee agency said on Friday (25 March) that up to one million people may have been displaced by the fighting in Cote d'Ivoire as more people fled their homes in Abidjan amid fears of all out war. 'There is escalating insecurity in Ivory Coast's Abidjan, we're seeing a sharp rise in displacement,' said Melissa Fleming spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Commission for Gender Equality says the Employment Equity Act needs to be reviewed. The call came after it emerged that black women had not significantly progressed in occupying positions of executive management in the corporate sector. The latest Women in Leadership Census 2011, which the Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) presented on Thursday (24 March), showed the percentage of female executive managers had increased, but the number of black women appointed had decreased. The census focuses on JSE-listed companies, state-owned enterprises and government departments.

'Women farmers have a wealth of knowledge about agriculture and biodiversity and significant contributions to make to debates about food security, food sovereignty and the right to food,' says this paper from Isis International entitled 'Women - Right to Food, Food Security, Food Sovereignty'. 'More than ever, organising women farmers has become an important strategy towards a clearer understanding of the issues, enhanced knowledge and capacities, and stronger solidarity. Many of these tasks begin with making men understand women by providing gender-sensitivity among husbands, leaders of farmers’ organisations, and other members of the communities.'

The main challengers in Benin's disputed presidential vote have filed appeals over results showing incumbent Boni Yayi won with 53 per cent, the constitutional court said Saturday (26 March). Tension has risen in the small west African country since the vote, with police firing tear gas to disperse opposition protesters in the economic capital Cotonou on Thursday (24 March).

The Nigerian woman with a famous last name is now 64 and could be home with her grandchildren, but she is here instead, at a dilapidated police barracks urging officers' wives to take a stand. 'This is time to say enough is enough,' said Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, a cousin of the late Fela Kuti, the iconic Nigerian musician, and a longtime activist for democracy and women's rights. Ransome-Kuti has now decided to take her struggle to the campaign trail by running for senate under an opposition party banner in the economic capital Lagos.

Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month. After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges.

Ethiopia has little time for critics of its large-scale land-leasing policy, insisting the millions of dollars of foreign investment will create jobs, improve domestic agricultural expertise and reduce both poverty and the country’s chronic food insecurity. The policy, part of a five-year Growth and Transformation Plan, has led to the cheap leasing of thousands of square kilometres. Detractors complain of forcible relocation of local pastoralist populations, poorly paid work on the new farms, environmental degradation and a failure to deliver on promises of better infrastructure.

Free Gender is a black lesbian organisation based in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town. Their blog contains news about LGBTI issues and events.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has said the killing of Mohammad 'Mo' Nabbous in the city of Benghazi highlights the increasing risks to the safety of journalists covering the Libyan conflict.
Nabbous, who ran the Voice of Libya channel (Libya al-Hurra), died on Saturday during the attack of forces loyal to Colonel Moammar Gaddafi on Benghazi. The IFJ is also concerned over reports that staff of the AFP news agency and the international broadcaster Aljazeera are missing or in detention. Nabbous became the second journalist killed in Libya after the murder of Aljazeera cameraman Ali Hassan Al Jaber who was shot dead by unknown attackers while returning to Benghazi from reporting on an opposition protest.

Hospital and pharmacy workers have told IRIN that many medicines and other supplies are scarce weeks after the European Union applied sanctions, blocking vessels arriving at Côte d’Ivoire’s ports. About 90 per cent of medical supplies in the country come from Europe - 80 per cent by sea, according to Christine Adjobi, health minister in the cabinet of incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo.

The bicycle has become a symbol of hope for hundreds of women who have been trained in repairing one of life’s favorite transport modes. More than two hundred women from around the Bwindi National Park, in the country’s southwest, have been taking part in a two-week course on bicycle repair, organised by the group Ride 4 a Woman. The idea of the workshop is simple: to help disadvantaged women gain new, marketable skills and at the same time promote an environmentally-friendly form of travel, namely, cycling.

Community representatives from all corners of Africa spoke out last week about their frustration with the slow pace of international action and the urgent need to use local and indigenous knowledge alongside modern science in how we prevent and adapt to climate change.

Over a thousand claimant families who are claiming in excess of 18,000 hectares of land in the Weenen, Mooi River and Estcourt areas have waited since 1998 for the claim to be settled, according to the Association for Rural Advancement. 'In 1998 three communities (the AmaThembu, the AmaChunu and the Motane) submitted claims for restoration of land in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act (Act 22 of 1994) to the Provincial Commissioner in KwaZulu-Natal. Despite it being in the interests of all parties to resolve this matter speedily, the Commission took three years merely to confirm and gazette two of these claims and a staggering seven years to do so in respect of the third claim. This was the start of a pattern of inaction and delay on the part of the Commission that has persisted until the present.'

The US predicted the outbreak of violence in the 2007 General Election 10 months before Kenyans cast their votes. In a cable posted to Washington on February 5, 2007, ambassador Michael Ranneberger warned that the increasing tribalisation of Kenyan politics could plunge the country into chaos in the run-up to the elections.

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a leading non-profit that uses international law to defend the right to a healthy planet, has announced the release of a new report, 'Fossilized Thinking: The World Bank, Eskom, and the Real Cost of Coal'. The report examines the economics underlying the Bank’s $3 billion loan to support a massive new coal-fired plant in South Africa. Specifically, the report evaluates whether the Bank adequately considered the impacts the 4,800 MW Eskom Project will have on human health and the environment and the likely economic costs of these impacts. The Bank’s operational policies require that these ‘externalities’ be taken into account to determine whether a project’s long-term economic benefits outweigh its costs. CIEL’s analysis reveals that, at least in this case, the Bank failed to adequately address and quantify important negative environmental effects, such as water scarcity and quality, air quality, and transboundary impacts.