Dear friends of Walter Rodney,

13 June 2010 will be 30 years since Walter Rodney was assassinated in Guyana. In tribute to Walter Rodney and to rekindle and remind ourselves of his contribution to the understanding of oppression and the forces of oppression, we call on you to organise activities in your community in the month of June.

Walter left us with a simple task. As the ultimate teacher of the nature and art of oppression, he left us with the task of carrying the torch. His message was clear and unambiguous. We have the benefit of his life work of scholarly activism, which can be used by the working people to cut through the maze of the politics of race that consume our societies.

Today, more than at any other time in history, our people, the working people, can begin anew to engage the new phase of the struggle for transformation. To that end we encourage the self-mobilisation of activities across the world under the theme 'Walter Rodney: Racial Unity, Resistance and Transformation'.

The Walter Rodney 30th Anniversary Commemoration Committee can be contacted as follows:

- Guyana: Andaiye at 592 227 7481 or by email: [email][email protected]
- Canada: Jai Parsram at 416 289 1346 or by email: [email][email protected]
- USA: Wazir Mohamed at 765 373 8421 or by email: [email][email protected]
- UK: Luke Daniels by email: [email][email protected]

Co-coordinators, Walter Rodney 30th Anniversary Commemoration Committee Andaiye and Horace Campbell

In the face of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, the United Nations refugee agency has called for increased funding to help those displaced both inside and outside Somalia. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), made the appeals on Wednesday, as the UN Security Council was meeting in an open session at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss the current situation in Somalia.

Nigeria's state-run oil firm NNPC and China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) have signed a $23bn (£16bn; 18bn euros) deal. The two will jointly seek financing and credits from Chinese authorities and banks to build three refineries and a fuel complex in Nigeria.

After 13 years on Zimbabwe's death row, George Manyonga is still waiting to see his lawyer. He saw him once, briefly, the day before his trial, but since then he has been left on his own. He has lost his lawyer and now he is losing hope. "I'm paying a price for something I never committed," Manyonga says.

President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has pledged to promote the emergence an AIDS-Free Generation, to ensure safer motherhood and to eliminate mother-child-transmission of HIV in his country. “These are priorities for the women and children of my country,” President Kabila said as he received a joint mission to his nation by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA’s Executive Director, and Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS’ Executive Director.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party was expected to convene a crisis meeting of its National Council over the weekend, to deliberate on the continued persecution of Treasurer General Roy Bennett, amongst other issues. On Monday the High Court acquitted Bennett of the cooked-up terrorism charges filed against him. The Attorney General initially said he would not appeal the acquittal in the Supreme Court but after some discussion with various ZANU PF big-wigs, he changed his mind.

On Friday 14 May, a deputation from London Coalition Against Poverty visited the South African High Commission to deliver a message in solidarity with their sister group in Durban, the shackdwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Even with the world’s attention focused on their city, the group is experiencing massive repression and its leaders have been driven into hiding.

Ugandan AIDS activists have expressed concern over a decision by the Ministry of Health to back an HIV/AIDS bill that would criminalize the deliberate transmission of HIV. Last week, State Minister for Health in charge of General Duties, Richard Nduhura, appeared before the parliamentary committee on HIV to explain the government's position on the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill (2009). Nduhura backtracked on his earlier position that portions of the bill would lead to discrimination and undermine the rights of people living with HIV.

Prompted by a rapidly deteriorating situation and growing displacement in Somalia UNHCR is seeking additional funds to ease the plight of Somali refugees in neighbouring Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti and those forcibly displaced inside their country. The two supplementary appeals being launched in Geneva address the increasing needs in Somalia and four neighbouring countries as well as the extension of the Ifo camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Including an additional US$ 60 million being sought today, UNHCR's overall budgetary needs in Somalia and its four neighbouring countries in 2010 presently amount to US$ 424.7 million. So far this year, UNHCR has received 36 percent of its global comprehensive needs budget.

Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to halt the forced eviction of 200 families in the north-east of the country as part of a road widening project. Without prior notice, bulldozers arrived to demolish the homes in Zerzara slums in Port Said on Tuesday, 4 May 2010, leaving fifteen families homeless and another 200 at risk.

A fresh controversy is brewing ahead of a 4 August referendum on a proposed new constitution for Kenya, following the illegal alteration of the draft document to empower the country’s spy agency to curtail person freedoms. Kenya’s Attorney-General Amos Wako has admitted that the country’s spy body, the National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS), had approached his office to insert a new clause, empowering the agency to curtail personal freedoms on national security interests.

Heavy shelling rocked Somalia’s capital today, killing 15 people and wounding dozens, as rebels fired mortars at the country’s lawmakers meeting for the first time this year, medics said amid a chaotic session that saw the Speaker ousted.

Madagascar's leader Andry Rajoelina has said he will not stand in elections to be held later this year, in an attempt to end the country's political crisis. Mr Rajoelina, 35, who seized power in March 2009, has been facing pressure to find a solution to the deadlock.

Niger's military government has started an unprecedented drive to distribute free food to one million of the nearly 10 million of its population facing hunger due to failed rains last year, it has announced. The United Nations said late last month donors had only covered a third of the $190 million aid needed to stave off a possible famine in the West African state, which consistently ranks among the poorest nations in the world.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has accused Ethiopian politicians of resorting to threats and intimidation against many Ethiopian journalists in lead up to forthcoming next general elections envisaged for 23 May 2010. “Election times are always a risky period for journalists in many African countries at a time where media have a crucial role for the consolidation of democracy,” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office. “Ethiopian political leaders must respect media as an independent watchdog of the democratic process with the sole duty to inform the citizens,” he added

The semi-autonomous African archipelago of Zanzibar will hold a July vote on whether to change its constitution to allow rival parties to form coalition governments, after a decade of bitter party politics.

Donorland has been littered with pilot projects over the last ten years that took interesting technology and ideas and sought to make them work in the unforgiving African context. All too often they had little idea of what potential users actually wanted and once the funding ended, the water closed over them and that was that. There is now a second generation of ICT4D projects that seem to have learnt the lessons of these early failures.

Governors of Central Banks in the East African Community (EAC) have commended the growth rate of regional economies, saying this has played a major role in keeping the countries stable despite the global financial crisis. The Governors from all five EAC partner states were speaking on Monday during the 13th meeting of the Monetary Affairs Committee (MAC), held in Arusha, Tanzania.

Survival has urged the World Travel and Tourism Council to withdraw Wilderness Safaris from the list of nominees for its annual awards. Wilderness Safaris has been nominated for the Council’s annual Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, to be announced on the 26th May, in the ‘Global Tourism Business’ category which recognizes ‘best practices in sustainable tourism’.

Amid growing concerns over the impact of the economic downturn, the International Labour Office (ILO) warned in a new study that efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour are slowing down and called for a “re-energized” global campaign to end the practice.