The EAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) on 6th July 2010 at the EAC Headquarters. The EAC Deputy Secretary General (Productive and Social Sectors) Mr. Jean Claude Nsengiyumva signed on behalf of the EAC Secretariat while Ms Marren Akatsa-Bukachi (Executive Director) signed on behalf of EASSI.

From 5 – 16 July 2010, a special online forum being hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization’s e-agriculture.org initiative, and will discuss the issues surrounding gender, ICTs and rural livelihoods. The forum will also be moderated by the APC’s Jennifer Radloff as part of the Gender, agriculture and rural development in the information society. (GenARDIS) project. Join e-agriculture and GenARDIS for this forum, which will look at what has and has not worked, good practices, as well as the critical area of capacity building and what can be done to empower men and women to play a bigger role in ICTs for agriculture and rural development.

An initiative by the Tanzanian government hopes to reduce HIV transmission along the country's expanding road network by targeting construction crews and the communities that surround them. "The government requires that road construction companies implement HIV prevention services for their workers and for the community because this is one way through which HIV can very easily spread in a community," said Moses Kisimo, community HIV/AIDS coordinator in the northeastern district of Tanga. "The strategy is: Construct roads and also prevent the spread of HIV."

Global Women's Strike and other solidarity organisations call for signatures in support of a return for exiled Haitian former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the June edition of the , a monthly publication that aims to provide 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.

The e-Newsletter follows recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from other constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal aid NGOs; and stories of struggle and success in refugee legal aid work. It welcomes contributions from legal aid providers, refugees, and others interested or involved in refugee legal aid.

The Land Centre for Human Rights has received dozens of complaints of some temporary workers in the governmental sector and the private sector, which were affected by the violation of their rights to decent work and the lack of safeguards to protect them from displacement, segregation. To make it worse, the government agencies use such employment without editing work contracts to them, or to give them health and social insurance, in a violation to the law and conventions of international labor organization.

The new international cocoa agreement will provide a positive shake-up in the cocoa market and ensure better prices for stakeholders, including small farmers. It also strengthens the participation of civil society and the private sector in the cocoa industry, according to Guy-Alain Emmanuel Gauze, Côte d’Ivoire’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva and president of the UN cocoa conference.

According to the World Refugee Survey 2009 statistics, the five East African Community States host a combined population of 949,000 refugees. Of this number, about 300,000 are citizens of East African States living as refugees in the territory of other Community member States. As conflicts in traditional refugee-producing Community member states abate and their citizens return home, conflict in previously tranquil states like Kenya have injected more refugees into the Community pool.

The East African Caravan on Maternal Health was launched on July 3rd, 2010 at the Kibera D.O Open Grounds, Kibera, Nairobi. It will travel from Kenya, through Tanzania and Rwanda, before culminating in Uganda just prior to the African Union Summit where African Heads of State and Government will discuss issues of Maternal and Child Health.

Governments and international agencies urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food production and save the climate,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, while presenting the findings at an international meeting on agroecology held in Brussels on 21 and 22 June. Along with 25 of the world’s most renowned experts on agroecology, the UN expert urged the international community to re-think current agricultural policies and build on the potential of agroecology.

Two police officers are to be prosecuted for their involvement in a young activist's death in Alexandria on 6 June 2010 but the charges being brought against them do not include murder. The activist, Khaled Mohammed Said, was beaten to death outside an Internet café after being arrested by two plain-clothes police officers. His family and local human rights organisations say he had just posted a video online showing police officers sharing the proceeds from a drug deal.

In Thohoyandou, Limpopo, South Africa, a High Court judge decided on a court application which was served on members of the Venda royal family, chiefs, the Minister of Rural Development and various government departments to halt the defilement of a sacred waterfall. The complainants are members of Dzomo la Mupo (voice of the Earth) – elders and custodians of Venda sacred sites – plus members of the Ramunangi clan in whose area the Phiphidi Falls are situated.

As the Landless People's Movement in Gauteng we welcome the independent research report by Jared Sacks into political violence against our movement in Gauteng. We have been suffering from serious repression in Protea South, in Harry Gwala and in eTwatwa. The story of our struggle and the repression of our struggle has not been told. The world may have been watching South Africa for the World Cup but the repression of our movement has passed unnoticed. Therefore we welcome this report and the light that it shines into the darkness of our country.

When African delegates arrived in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, in May for the first review conference of the statue that established the International Criminal Court (ICC), they were aware that some in Africa believe that the court unfairly targets political figures from the continent. Indeed, all five cases currently being handled by the court, which is based in The Hague, involve African leaders. It was therefore notable that delegates from 30 African countries ultimately agreed that the charge of “unfairness” is flawed.

With African heads of state due to convene this month in Kampala for the latest African Union summit, the People’s Health Movement is asking people to sign its petition to ensure members of government work to respect budgetary targets for development goals.

Fahamu Refugee Programme & UNHRC invites lawyers and legal advisors to a course aimed at arming them with the information, networks and resources they require to represent those accused of witchcraft. Participants will learn how to best represent those whose claims to asylum are based upon accusations of witchcraft, an emerging area of refugee law in which there is a need for specialised knowledge and training.

4-5 September 2010
Oxford, United Kingdom
Registration fee: £150
If you would like to attend, please submit a completed to Fahamu by 21 August 2010.

Despite the important achievements so far in the field of women rights and the continuous efforts from both the state and the civil society to protect and promote these rights. Yet some traditional practices that seriously violate women rights still persist. Among those practices, is female circumcision, which is still unfortunately widely spread in Egypt. The government started recently combating this phenomena under increasing international pressure, where it is considered as a serious violation of women rights.

Award-winning French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin is the author of "The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption and the Control of Our Food Supply" (The New Press) and the creator of the film by the same name. In a review of these two projects, Leslie Thatcher writes: "What Marie-Monique Robin most effectively documents are the perverse effects - the moral, social, technological, economic and market failures - of Western society's economic organization, most specifically with respect to science and the products of science and, ultimately, with respect to the preservation of the public commons and human life on the planet.

Pastoralists across East Africa are set to benefit as the region’s national borders are relaxed amid joint efforts to mitigate the risks associated with their migration. "With the coming into effect [on 1 July] of the common market protocol, pastoralists like the Maasai, the Pokot and the Somali who do not believe in borders as they have kin in more than one country will enjoy better freedom of movement across the borders," Augustine Lotodo, a member of parliament in the East African Legislative Assembly said. The protocol allows free movement of people, goods, services and capital across the East African Community’s five members: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi.

Tension over the future of Abyei, a flashpoint region roughly the size Lebanon on Sudan’s north-south border, erupted into armed violence and street demonstrations this week. On 5 July, gunmen mounted an attack near the village of Tajalei, about 30km northeast of Abyei town, killing five people, a police officer and four civilians.