This report suggests that the racist attacks that occurred in South Africa in 2008 were rooted in the micro-politics of townships and informal settlements. The author argues that violence was used as a means to drive foreigners out of South Africa and thereby decrease competition for jobs and other scarce resources.

The potential of mobile telephony to transform Africa will only be achieved if the development of other infrastructure keeps pace, says a study. The number of mobile phone subscribers in Africa soared from 16 million in 2000 to 376 million in 2008, with 60 per cent of the population using them in 2008 compared with 10 per cent in 1999.

iCON Women and Young People’s Academy (IWYPLA) is pleased to announce its Call for Applications for the “2010 ICON WOMEN IN BUSINESS TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP FELLOWSHIP” programme.

The XXV ILGA World Conference will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, between the 4 and 9 December 2010. The theme of the conference will be “Building the way forward in times of crisis”. In the last few years and since the last World Conference in Vienna in 2008, it has become even more evident that our movement can be very vulnerable to crises, them being political, social, or economic ones. However, unstable conditions can also represent turning points and opportunities for the movement to further the human rights agenda of LGBTI people.

African journalists have adopted a declaration calling on governments, the African Union journalists’ trade unions and the international community to join forces in promoting the safety and protection of journalists in Africa. The Addis Ababa Declaration was adopted at the conclusion of a two-day regional workshop on the “Safety and Protection of African Journalists” hosted by the African Union Commission and organized by the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) at the African Union Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A set of U.N. goals aimed at drastically reducing poverty and hunger worldwide by 2015 are achievable, despite setbacks caused by the global financial and economic crises, a draft document said. The 27-page draft declaration on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals is expected to be formally adopted at a September 20-22 summit meeting at the United Nations which U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders are expected to attend.

Google held a very well attended G-Kenya event for developers. But this has been just one of several things that have been happening on the continent that show a renewed focus on services and apps development. There is fertile ground for African tech innovators but they need to decide what prize they will be seeking, writes Russell Southwood.

Social movements from around the world are mobilizing for the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP 16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will take place in Cancun from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The COP 15 in Copenhagen demonstrated governments' incapacity to tackle the root causes of the current climate chaos. At the very last moment, the US undemocratically pushed through the so called "Copenhagen accord", in an attempt to move the debate out of the UN and the Kyoto promises and to favor even more voluntarily free market solutions.

Kenya’s Gay community celebrated the promulgation of the New Constitution and applauded President Mwai Kibaki for signing it into law to take effect henceforth. After the promulgation of the new law, the gay community converged in a leafy suburb of Nairobi to launch independent condom and water based lubrication distribution system for the Men having Sex with other Men (MSM) Program, dubbed Safe Sex Express Theme.

Conditions in Mugunga camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma are tough, but tougher still are those endured by hundreds of people from the Bambuti Pygmy community living just outside the camp. “We can’t plant seeds here,” said Bambuti chief Mupepa Muhindo, scratching the ground, which is littered with lava from a 2002 volcanic eruption. “It's not possible to cultivate the land.” The Bambuti are believed to be among Central Africa’s oldest inhabitants. For generations they were nomadic forest-dwellers, living off the land, hunting and gathering.

Human rights advocates have commended the stance taken by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), granting the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) a consultative status at its council stating it is as a milestone for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. The decision made on 19 July 2010 saw IGLHRC become the tenth organisation working primarily for LGBTI human rights, gain such status at the United Nations following solidarity actions of over 200 NGOs from 59 countries who endorsed a letter to all United Nations member states, demanding fair and non-discriminatory treatment.

The fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya got a massive boost this week after the Global Fund released $60 million to help the East African country to combat the virus and malaria. The funds were part of the round seven HIV/AIDS funds of which the government had already received $18,343,450, officials said.

A Darfur rebel group has said it was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas in Sudan's west. "A group of LRA attacked our forces in Dafak in South Darfur yesterday," Haydar Galucuma Ateem, vice president of the Darfur rebel Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), told Reuters from Qatar-based peace talks.

Many cases of tuberculosis (TB) in patients starting HIV therapy will be missed if screening for the disease relies on 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, investigators from South Africa report in the October 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Over 30 laureates of the Right Livelihood Award, known as the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’, have signed an open letter to President Khama of Botswana urging him to allow the Bushmen access to water. The appeal comes as world experts arrive in Stockholm for World Water Week, and ahead of the Right Livelihood Award conference in Bonn, 14-19th September. It follows the UN’s adoption of water as a human right in July.

The impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the economic, social, cultural, political and individual spheres of life is widely accepted and recognised world over. ICTs give the young generation a whole range of opportunities; socializing and exposure, employment, getting information, doing research etc. It is widely accepted that the use of ICT can have a major influence on how learners approach learning, now and in the future.

In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, a new centre offers sounding board for Chinese firms pursuing African investments, China holds workshop on investment in Africa, SA and India to team up for business into Africa, Biofuels companies buy African land, cause deforestation, and food-output loss, and the $400m Africa-Brazil cable is on its way.

The United Nations is dispatching a senior staff member to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as senior officials express outrage at the recent rape and assault of more than 150 civilians by rebels based in the remote and troubled east of the country. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallström, condemned the attacks, saying they demonstrated the widespread level and systematic nature of sexual violence in the DRC.

Kenya is set to become the first East African nation to develop regulations on the management of electronic waste (e-waste), following a national conference held at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi. The aim is to minimize the impacts of the unsafe disposal of electronic products on public health and the environment.

Ethiopia's Director General of the Environmental Protection Authority, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, is among the 15 world-class experts named to serve in the Food and Agric Organisation (FAO) food security committee. Egziabher and the other experts will serve in the FAO High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) Steering Committee.