It was exciting, and a little strange, to find good news . I hadn't picked this up, here in the U.S.A., where the Angola 3 and I live. I'd been paying a lot more attention to Africa, because I pay a lot of attention to mining, everywhere, but especially in Africa.

I sent your piece to the editor of the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, which hopes to have their website back up tomorrow, October 15th, and they were glad the news surfaced in Pambazuka. Hugely important case in African American history.

*Thanks Ann Garrison for passing on the article - Pambazuka Editors

Sokari Ekine interviews Tunji Buhari, an environmental campaigns worker for Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Friends of the Earth, Nigeria. Buhari is based in Lagos and has been working with ERA on their anti-tobacco campaign.

Fahari Afrika is a community based youth organization of performing artists and was formed in the year 2004 through a strong network of Dancers and singers.At this home of theater we boast of young teams of youths with a lot of potential and energy with high discipline who can work and have managed to work both locally and internationally with a professional approach

Struggling to make an impact on your target audience? Are issues unresolved despite your best efforts? Do the internet, mobile phones or information design present exciting possibilities in advocacy but difficult to take advantage of? The Info Activism camp, to be held in Bangalore, India from February 19 to 25, offers rights advocates the chance to make a greater impact in their work.

The ABM Western Cape has created a website for Khayelitsha Struggles as part of its project. The website is created and managed by people that are living at Khayelitsha, most people that are currently working at this project does not even have metric and some of them are still at high school. The website will not only focus at housing struggle only but will at broader social, economic and environmental issues and will focus on internal(khayelitsha) struggles.

The City Wide Shack Fire Summit called by Abahlali baseMjondolo was initially scheduled to be held in the Foreman Road settlement. It had to be moved to the Kennedy Road settlement after the Foreman Road settlement burnt down on 13 September leaving thousands destitute and homeless and Thembelani Khweshube dead. The Summit was attended by shack dwellers from all over Durban and from various organisations.

October the 15th is Blog Action Day 2008. Blog Action Day is a nonprofit, grassroots movement of thousands of individual bloggers coming together for one cause. This year's theme for Blog Action Day is Poverty. We have registered the Sokwanele blog - This is Zimbabwe - to participate in the action, and we are inviting YOU to send us items written by you that we will publish throughout the day on our blog.

Community leaders from across Gauteng will meet with newly elected Ekurhuleni Mayor Ntombi Mekgwe to show her the devastating impact of government policy in the informal settlement of Makause on the east of Johannesburg. The visit will take place on the 16th October, the eve of the United Nations' International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

On Saturday 4th afternoon, the Symphony Way community was once again invaded by about 15 police officers from the city's notorious Land Invasions Unit. This time, they attempted to illegally destroy a resident's home without a court order and without the permission of the City.

The article, , provokes audience to analyze the current situation by re-thinking the post-colonial history in a broader spectrum of the whole of Southern Africa. I would like to add the same is to be found in the history of other countries of Tiers Mond. One point is that many countries are affected by the unconcious heritage of the "revolutionary movement", or the effect of double-edged sword.

Secondly, as the generation growing up in post-revolutionary age, we should learn how to read "patriotic form of writing history" which has turned the independence struggle into a myth, such as Zimbabwe's Chimulenga, such as China's socialist mainstream.

Thirdly, more importantly and more explicitly, winners turned to criminalize the loser, as the recent Angolan hisotry has revealed. Yet for long-term reconciliation, all these seemingly critical conclusions at that historical time need a second thought, will be or are being questioned, such as in China's case as China's peaceful talking across the Taiwan Strait is going on faster than ever in recent years.

As Henning Melber underlines in his discussion of Pambazuka’s commitment to social justice, solidarity is a multi-faceted notion of shifting meaning and use for its appropriators. Reviewing the experiences and intellectual traditions of figures such as Frantz Fanon and John Sanbonmatsu, Melber argues that while solidarity will never be a fixed state of mind, the goal of mediums like Pambazuka will always centre on the struggle for equality, justice and human dignity.

Over 600 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (MOZA) took to the streets of Bulawayo, marching straight to Mhlahlandlela Government Complex to demand the immediate forming of a new government as outlined in the 15 September power-sharing deal. Despite this complex being directly opposite the Zimbabwe Republic Police Drill Hall, no members appear to have been arrested at the time of this release.

The Kenya National Youth Convention (NYC) considers the ongoing MV Faina incident to be an exemplar of the reckless and dangerous conduct of national affairs by elements within the Government of Kenya, and calls for an end to the importation of offensive weaponry into the East African region. Such transactions endanger regional security rather than enhancing it.

Angolan authorities files legal action to close down the Angolan non-profit AJPD – Association for Justice, Peace and Democracy. AJPD is one of the non-profits which are most committed to the development of culture of human right in the country. The State relies the lawsuit on unconstitutional arguments and invalid proceedings. AJPD CANNOT BE ELIMINATED!

Gugulethu — About 50 residents from Thambo Square informal settlement have been displaced from their homes to a local community hall as a result of flooding in their shacks (Cape Town’s heavy rain this winter has left a lot of people homeless in the City.

We are meeting at a difficult time for many Kenyans. In fact we are meeting at the crossroad of the history of our country. We are here to decide our future path as delegates of an important convention. We have been brought here because of the acts and omissions of an older generation. A generation that was born before our country was freed from colonial rule, and which has since Independence run the affairs of this country.

The purpose of the Break the Silence Congo Week is to raise awareness about the devastating situation in the Congo and mobilize support on behalf of the people of the Congo. It will take place from Sunday October 19th to Saturday October 25th. The key organizers are students from North Carolina A&T , UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro, University of Maryland, Howard University, Bowie University, and Cornell University.

Angolan authorities filed legal action to close down the Angolan non-profit AJPD – Association for Justice, Peace and Democracy. AJPD is one of the non-profits most committed to the development of culture of human right in the country. The State's lawsuit is based on unconstitutional arguments and invalid proceedings.

AJPD CANNOT BE SHUT DOWN!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1) Send a message to [email][email protected] showing your solidarity. The messages will be printed and delivered to Angolan authorities that do not have an email adress. Suggestion of writing: “Such an active civil society organization towards the practice of human rights in Angola cannot be closed down! Let AJPD keep doing its work!

2) Contact the diplomats of your country in Angola and ask them to express to the Angolan government their solidarity to AJPD. This kind of support has borught great success in the past. Suggestion of writing: “Dear Mr./Mrs., the Angolan government is threatening to close by judicial means AJPD – Association for Justice, Peace and Democracy-, one of the most active human rights non-profits in Angola. I ask you to please express your solidarity of our country to the NGO, once the lawsuit contains unvalid proceedings and unconstitutional arguments. AJPD has shown for several times its commitment to democracy and fundamental rights.”

Here at the link below, please find more information on the case.

Siyanda shack-dwellers, facing eviction from the MR577 Freeway site, are staging ongoing marches to halt building and allocations at the Kulula Housing Project. The contractors have just been stopped from proceeding with the patently unfair allocation of housing that has been undertaken without any form of meaningful consultation. There is a heavy police presence again today and the situation is tense

More than 63 residents were arrested Monday morning for public violence and were to appear on Tuesday at the Vereeniging Magistrate court (they have since all been released without charge). A strong crowd of more than 2000 residents organised by the Orange Farm Water Crisis Committee took to the streets in the early hours of Monday morning, 15 September 2008, to blockade traffic on the Golden Highway. Police opened fire with rubber bullets injuring demonstrators and arresting residents randomly.