Despite efforts by civil society and the government, violence against women remains an ever-present problem in Morocco, a women's rights NGO announced on 27 October. To reach its conclusions, the Chama Centre for Refuge, Counselling and Legal Advice documented 302 cases of gender abuse over the period 2009-2010.

Issue 51, 29 October 2010 of the South Bulletin, produced by the South Centre focuses on key issues missing from the G20 Agenda. Articles deal with recent emerging issues in the global economy – the currency chaos, volatile capital flows, and a new protectionism in the U.S. The Bulletin also reports on:
- The slow progress in the UNFCCC climate talks in Tianjin, China;
- The South Centre’s conference and Board meeting in China;
- Impact of the global economic crisis on LDCs; and
- Yasuni initiative to leave oil in the ground to fight climate change

Zambia's efforts to strengthen its education system will come to little if no way is found to retain skilled teachers like Caroline Chisenga. She is a maths teacher with ten years of experience under her belt. She has recently upgraded her teaching qualifications with a full degree. But she has one eye on leaving the country in search of higher pay.

How do you prepare a tent to stand up to a hurricane? That is the question faced by hundreds of thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors living in fragile outdoor camps who are bracing for a hurricane forecast to hit the poor, stricken Caribbean country over the weekend. 'This camp won't stand up to a big wind,' said Jean Sincio, a coordinator for a camp of flimsy tents built in the grounds of a school. It is one of hundreds of tent and tarpaulin settlements in the wrecked capital Port-au-Prince housing more than 1.3 million people left homeless by the 12 January quake.

Kenya is forcing Somalis fleeing conflict back across the border in violation of international law, the United Nations' refugee agency said on Wednesday. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said some of the 8,300 Somalis stranded at a border post in north eastern Kenya had already begun crossing the frontier into no-man's land. It said most were women, children and elderly people.

The poor countries must have an exit policy away from aid dependency especially since the North will be cutting their aid as a result of the global crisis. Moreover, the South and its political leaders must think more for themselves, listen to their own experts and redefine development. This message was conveyed by South Centre chairman Benjamin Mkapa at the closing ceremony of the conference on the Global Economy in Beijing on 4 August.

Barack Obama has renewed sanctions against Sudan's government, keeping pressure on Khartoum to stick to the timetable for holding a referendum on southern independence. However, the US president also held out for the prospect for reconsidering Monday's decision if Sudanese leaders made progress in resolving the country's north-south dispute and improved the situation in the troubled Darfur region.

President Yoweri Museveni kicked off his election campaign in Luwero district, where he asked residents not to vote for the opposition because it cannot solve Uganda’s problems. Addressing rallies in Bamunanika, Luwero town and Wobulenzi, Museveni said it was only the Movement government that had a track record of solving the country’s problems.

Luíz Araújo

Rafael Marques de Moraes

Chief Sumani Amidu of Kpachaa village in northern Ghana, has sat by as over half of his 100 villagers abandon him to seek new jobs and sources of food for their families. Three years ago the chief sold the village land for GH¢100 for a promise that never came. Now forced to farm himself to keep the children of the village alive, each morning on his 40-minute walk to the village’s last farm ing plot, he passes his old farmland now owned by a Norwegian biofuel company.

Indian buyers who visited the country last week to seal diamond deals have pledged to lobby their government to endorse Zimbabwe's gems ahead of the Kimberley Process meeting scheduled for Israel early next month. Surat Rough Diamond Sourcing India Limited said it would put its weight behind Zimbabwe as the KP meets in Jerusalem, Israel next Monday to determine whether Zimbabwe should be allowed sell its diamonds from Marange.

KwaZulu-Natal Province remains the epicentre of South Africa’s HIV epidemic but new research reveals that nearly a third of hospitals surveyed had not started a single HIV-positive infant on antiretroviral treatment in several years. The research, presented at this week’s Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Africa Conference in Johannesburg, was conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand’s Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health (MatCH) Unit, with the government.

The African Union (AU) Tuesday called Sunday's presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire a historical breakthrough, and urged the country's leading politicians to stay calm and accept the poll results without resorting to violence. 'This is certainly a historic vote, which marks a crucial step in the process for a way out of the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire,' said Commission Chairperson, Jean Ping. Nearly six million Ivorians went to the polls for the first time in several years to elect a president to run their country.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced a Rwandan businessman to 30 years in jail for his part in the bulldozing of a church which killed around 2,000 ethnic Tutsis during the 1994 genocide. The tribunal, backed by the United Nations, found Gaspard Kanyarukiga guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity.

US$5,000 has been awarded from the Take Back the Tech! Fund to four outstanding South African Women’s organisations that are set to make an impact on the high levels of violence against women in the country. The four different projects will work with young black women in townships, black lesbians, rural para-legals and survivors of violence to increase awareness, reporting of incidents, and help survivors of violence on their healing journey.

Reporting to the Head of International Grants and managing a small team, you’ll lead on the delivery of our trade and climate change programme strategies, and the development of our social investment strategy as well as playing a critical role in strengthening corporate and other relationships that will enable us to fulfill our mission.

Luca Bussoti

Paulo Rogério Nunes

Land administration policies in Zambia are heavily centralized. The 1995 Lands Act that regulates Zambia’s land policy stipulates that all land is to be held in trust by the president, and most of the poor people live on customary land as they cannot afford to obtain a leasehold tenure. There are organisations trying to rectify this, however. The Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA), a network of NGOs working for pro-poor land policies, has previously criticised both post-independence and present land legislation as being inadequate, of not listening to the poor that to a large degree tend the land, and of focusing too heavily on liberalising land markets.

The Sudanese government should charge or release Darfuri activists arrested between 30 October and 1 November 2010 by national security agents in Khartoum, Human Rights Watch has said. The arrests underscore the government's continued use of repressive laws to target human rights defenders from Darfur and to restrict information about the ongoing abuses there, Human Rights Watch said.

The Southern African Young Women’s Festival ran between 25 and 28 October. Young women were brought together to share experiences, energise each other and celebrate their youth and the potential they have to advocate for social justice in their respective communities. The Festival was a platform to equip young women with the practical skills they need for effective advocacy for women’s rights and included many exciting activities including the launching of the 16 Days national campaigns of activism.