Priority will be given to qualified applicants from Senegal, other West African French-speaking countries and Maghreb region.

This Thursday marks the United Nations recognised International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and in an effort to raise awareness about his important issue, Earthlife Africa will be gathering at the Fountain, St. Georges Mall, Strand Street end in Cape Town, on Saturday, 27 November, between 10am and 1pm, to raise their concerns and spread awareness. 'Little known impacts of nuclear radiation on women and children, especially women that are pregnant, must be brought out into the open,' said Earthlife Africa Cape Town’s Gray Maguire. 'The ongoing threat to the unborn in our country is at a higher level than ever before, given plans to build multiple nuclear power stations across the country..

Egyptian authorities must independently investigate, without delay, allegations that a young man was tortured to death at a police station in Alexandria, and guarantee the safety of another young man still in custody there, Amnesty International has said. The family of Ahmed Shaaban, a 19-year-old man, allege that he died after being tortured and physically abused by police officers at Sidi Gaber police station on 7 November.

Namibia's land redistribution programme has progressed at a snail'space, with farms not changing hands as fast as government would have wanted. White commercial farmers and inflated prices of land have emerged as a bulwark against much vaunted promises for land. Ongoing flare-ups over ancestral land in cases which have been dramatised by direct defiance of court rulings are only a microcosm of a much bigger problem. The plan by government for blacks to own land is flagging, observers and analysts have concluded.

Few people from Southern Sudan who live in the north are turning out to enrol as voters for the referenda on the future of the south, the chairperson of the United Nations-appointed panel monitoring the process said today, citing various reasons for the dismal turnout, including lack of awareness and uncertainty. The people of Southern Sudan are scheduled to vote on 9 January on whether the south should secede from the rest of the country, while the final status of Abyei will be determined in a separate vote on the same day, as set out in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended two decades of war between the north and the south.

With the help of a Micro-grant awarded by Rising Voices, AZUR Development organisation trained communication officers of different AIDS organisations in Congo in digital story telling, podcasting, and the creation of blogs. The goal was that these participants would document the stigma and discrimination of people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS in Congo and use them as an advocacy tools.

Burundi is cracking down on civil society, media, and opposition parties in the wake of troubled local and national elections from May through September 2010, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. The 69-page report, 'Closing Doors?: The Narrowing of Democratic Space in Burundi', documents abuses including torture, arbitrary arrests, banning of opposition activities, and harassment of civil society groups.

The Humbo plateau, some 400 kilometres south of Ethiopia's capital, is in the most densely populated part of Ethiopia. It's a dry and dusty district that has experienced frequent drought; average rainfall is 800-900 mm and temperatures routinely rise to 40 degrees. The stripping of trees has made the low-lying areas susceptible to flooding. But a Clean Development Mechanism project initiated by international development organisation World Vision has organised 40,000 people in the worst-affected areas to regenerate and protect 2,700 hectares of forest land.

The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), a coalition of 20 IFEX members, is deeply concerned that five years after hosting the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Tunisia remains one of the most repressive countries for independent journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders. Access to the Internet is heavily censored, independent websites are blocked or hacked, and emails and phone calls are intercepted.

This paper discusses the relevance of the issue of sexual orientation to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, while recognising the controversial nature of the subject, and suggests ways in which the commission can proceed.

How respect for human rights and effective law enforcement can go hand in hand was the subject of a workshop for 26 officials of the Kenyan Administration Police that took place at the Kenya School of Law in Nairobi from 25 to 29 October 2010. What democratic policing means and its consequences for law enforcement officials including issues of human rights, police deontology and ethics was a key topic that included a discussion of examples from police services in other countries.

'On October 24th, I went to Entebbe Airport to catch a South African Airways flight via Johannesburg to Namibia. Airline officials said I needed a transit visa through South Africa...Under the new rules, passengers are required to disembark, enter the transit lounge and re-board the plane. You need a transit visa to do this...However, the new visa requirements do not apply to British, Americans, Irish and other Europeans (or nations of white people); so my colleagues going to the same conference from the United States and Europe faced no problem transiting through that country.'

Maritime authorities have created a security corridor for ships entering the Port of Mombasa to counter piracy attacks on Kenya’s territorial waters. Vessels will be required to wait at the four identified co-ordinates, which according to the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) is a corridor of 10 by 20 nautical miles from the Port of Mombasa. 'The area is a security zone within which patrols by the Kenyan Navy have been enhanced to provide security for vessels waiting berthing at the port,' KMA director Ms Nancy Karigithu said.

A total of 1,000 doctors are to be hired to improve the delivery of health services, according to the Health Service Commission. There are about 2,000 doctors employed by the government. But this number is still low, since many health units depend on junior health workers.

When Victoire Mpelo fled his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, practising medicine again was probably one of the last things on his mind. Yet, some 10 years later, the doctor is kept busy every day, looking after fellow refugees in Namibia's Osire settlement. Meanwhile, the nearby Osire Secondary School, headed by another refugee, Come Niyongabo from Burundi, is ranked among the top secondary education establishments in the country.

The Tunisian blogosphere has witnessed a period of stagnation since April. Indeed, the month was a black one for Tunisian bloggers as more than 100 blogs have been censored by the authorities, discouraging the rest of the bloggers, who have become reluctant to write on their blogs. Since then, blogger Arabasta, proposed to launch an online campaign to urge Tunisian internet users to create blogs. Some bloggers supported the initiative, which other bloggers have rejected it. Seven months later, the campaign is now being launched under the name ‘7el Blog’ (Tunisian dialect) translated in English as ‘Launch a Blog’.

ENGAGINGMEN.NET is a practitioners' portal for people around the world who are interested in engaging boys and men in gender justice, supporting women's empowerment, ending violence against women and the spread of HIV/AIDS, promoting responsible fatherhood, healthy relationships, and more.

Kenyan citizens feel strongly that they have not been involved in the procurement processes at Local Authorities (LA’s) as per applicable laws, a new survey report commissioned by the Kenyan Alliance of Resident Associations (Kara) and supported by USAID/PactKenya now reveals. A majority (76 per cent) of members of the public in all LA’s sampled had not seen a copy of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 and Regulations of 2001/2006.

Join New Tactics in Human Rights for an online 'Tactical Dialogue on Participatory Research for Action' from November 17 - 23 2010. Participatory action research is research which involves all relevant parties in actively examining together current action (which they experience as problematic) in order to change and improve it. Participatory research can create credible and critical documentation at the grassroots level. Not only can the information be utilised in advocacy and lobbying efforts, the research process itself can serve to create a network of activists, informing organisations working on issues that impact study participants, and directly benefiting the people themselves. This dialogue will be a space to share resources, challenges, approaches and ideas for using participatory research for social change.

Patients are at risk of developing resistance to Tuberculosis medicine due to lack of access to quality treatment, according to a report presented at the 41st Union World Conference on Lung Health. TB patients should ideally receive a six months fixed dose combination regimen at the cost of around US$26 per patient but in some countries this is not the case according to 'Falling Short: Ensuring Access to Simple, Safe and Effective First-Line Medicines for Tuberculosis'.