This urges all to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)

From 3 to 14 May 2010, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) will organise a training course on the treaty monitoring bodies and the universal periodic review (UPR). The course will be conducted in parallel to the 44th sessions of the Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the 8th session of the UPR.

Three flow stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta have had to be closed after a pipeline was sabotaged, according to Royal Dutch Shell. The company said the Jan. 30 leak on the Trans Ramos oil pipeline was due to sabotage, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. A represnetative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta told a Nigerian newspaper at the end of January that it was ending a truce agreed in October 2009.

This is a call for the forthcoming South African Sociological Association (SASA) Congress, hosted by the University of Fort Hare, 13-16 June, in East London. Papers should be related to the theme is “Sport, Leisure, and Development in the 21st century: Opportunities and Challenges”; however, if you have a paper idea that doesn’t exactly fit, please go ahead and submit it to me or one of the other working group conveners. If your abstract is accepted we WILL find a space for it.

The Urgent Action Fund-Africa, a Pan-African women’s human rights organisation, notes with great concern Uganda’s draconian Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009, the ongoing parliamentary debates and the suggested amendments to the Bill.

In March 2010, the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. Gender Links, the African Woman and Child Feature Service, Gender and Media Southern Africa and the Gender and Media Diversity Centre will be collaborating to produce a conference newspaper for the event.

Fridah Awour Agolla has sold vegetables in Nairobi's Mathare slum for 20 years. In better times, her stock sold out every day. But lately market forces have begun to bite even harder for the millions in Kenya who live in such squalid, neglected settlements.

Kenyan MPs have agreed to scrap the position of prime minister in a draft constitution being drawn up as part of a power-sharing deal. The role was created following post-election riots in 2007 to allow coalition partners to share power.

Violations of civil and political rights by Sudanese security forces throughout the country are seriously undermining prospects for free, fair, and credible elections in April 2010, Human Rights Watch has said.

Djibouti has announced to send 450 troops to Somalia next month as to join the African Union peacekeepers mission in that country, the foreign ministry said.

Millions in West Africa's arid Sahel belt could face famine this year unless the world acts quickly to help, the European Union's humanitarian aid arm has said. The warning came as Niger confirmed the veracity of a leaked government forecast that half its population will face food shortages this year after a dive in grain production, but said it had enough food stocks to care for the most needy.

A Human Rights Watch report has revealed details of health care providers withholding care or engaging in treatment that intentionally inflicts pain on patients for no medical reason. World report 2010 details major human rights violations in more than 90 nations and territories worldwide. It is a record of investigative work carried out by the organisation in 2009.

A new telecoms tax epidemic is sweeping across Africa adding to the already high tax levels imposed on operators on the continent. This time the tax is being levied on inbound international calls and will increase their costs by between 20-100%. This will make the cost of doing business with Africa rise significantly in a time of global economic downturn.

People with HIV who selected treatment partners to support their adherence were more likely to return to the clinic to collect further doses of antiretrovirals, and showed a higher rate of viral suppression after six months of treatment, but showed no longer-lasting advantage in terms of viral suppression, CD4 cell counts or mortality, Nigerian and American researchers report in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

The book Urgency Required focuses on urgent issues of gay and lesbian liberation, taking a historical perspective and reflecting worldwide geographic diversity. Employing the term ‘LGBT-persons’, the acronym used for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, it explores concepts and strategies for taking steps towards decriminalization and equal rights and treatment regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

The testimonies of women who survived sexual violence during post-election conflict in 2008 should be heard, say advocates. The magnitude of the crimes committed against women because of their gender must be recorded and prosecuted to prevent such violence from occurring again.

New vaccination programmes against rotavirus are starting to have a positive impact, and could eventually prevent hundreds of thousands of child deaths a year, according to a new report.

South Sudan's former rebels have chosen a northern Muslim as their candidate in April's presidential election, the country's first multiparty poll since 1986. The candidacy of Yassir Arman was announced by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, which leads the government in the semi-autonomous south, on Friday after lengthy talks among party officials.

Malili – a 5,000 acre East African technopolis – is a city built up for technology firms and it’s the Kenyan government’s way of creating a regional ICT brand. The Malili project is modeled off of other large technology and research parks around the world. One often cited in comparison is Smart Village Cairo, which currently hosts 120 companies and 20,000 professionals and they’re expecting that to increase to 500 companies and 100,000 professionals by 2012.

The announcement in late 2009 that the government had approved a new HIV/AIDS policy in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was widely welcomed by AIDS and human rights lobbyists as long overdue. A November 2009 statement by the SANDF noted that the new policy made provision for the "recruitment and selective deployment of HIV-positive members" of the military and complied with a High Court ruling in May 2008, which found the previous policy of excluding HIV-positive people from recruitment and foreign deployment unconstitutional.