On 3rd January more than 1000 backyarders from Delft and other areas of Cape Town, who occupied N2 Gateway houses in Delft before Christmas and were granted a stay of eviction by the Cape High Court, return to the Court. They claim that the order through which first the Cape Town City Council and then Thubelisha Homes tried to evict them was invalid and hence the evictions were illegal. They want to stop the evictions altogether.

We speak in the name of Kenya’s governance, human rights and legal organizations, as well as the concerned citizens who have contacted and chosen to work with us over the last two weeks.

We have been meeting and organising for the past two weeks in order to understand and make public what happened with the counting and tallying process of our Presidential vote, as well as the nature of the violence experienced across the country since. With respect to the former, it has been our considered and informed opinion that the electoral malpractices—and illegalities—experienced invalidate the swearing in of Mwai Kibaki.

We are Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice, an initiative which has been meeting and organising for the past two weeks in order to understand and make public what happened with the counting and tallying process of our Presidential vote, as well as the nature of the violence experienced across the country since. We have also continually reiterated the need for the Kenyan Police Force and the General Service Unit to respect the right of all Kenyans to the freedoms of expression, assembly and association to respond to concerns raised—in a legal and legitimate manner.

Famine looms large in parts of Eastern Province due to lack of rains. Crops, especially beans and maize, are withering, sparking panic among farmers. A spot check in parts of Machakos, Makueni, Kitui, Yatta, Kangundo, Kibwezi and Mwingi districts showed that most farmers did not expect to harvest anything.

This is the agreement ODM says its leader Raila Odinga and President Kibaki were to sign to end the political impasse brought about by the disputed presidential election results. It was to be witnessed by mediator John Kufuor who is the President of Ghana and also the chairman of African Union, British high commissioner Adam Wood, US ambassador Michael Ranneberger, French ambassador Elisabeth Barbier and the local head of the European Union.

A leading Kenyan political science academic, Prof. Ali Mazrui, has accused President Mwai Kibaki of plunging the relatively peaceful East African nation into tribalised bloodshed by grabbing state power through a "civilian coup". "This (Kenyan post-election scenario) is a civilian coup at a presidential level," Prof. Mazrui, who is the director of Global Cultural Studies at State University of New York in the US, said.

The crisis of violence and disorder in Kenya since the election [1] of 27 December 2007 poses hard questions to members of the country’s political class of all parties and ethnicities. It also raises the issue of what can and should be done now to meet the needs of Kenya’s citizens and the interests of truth, justice and democracy.

Gabon has temporarily banned the activities of up to 20 non-governmental organisations for their alleged interference in politics. Interior Minister Andre Mba Obame said the ban would be lifted as soon as each NGO clearly defined its mission and structure with his ministry.

The Reach Out concert on January 13 will be a fund raising effort through which, with your help we can achieve several objectives:
1) Help those displaced and affected by the election violence.
2) All gate proceeds from the show will be donated to the International Red Cross and Pamoja Youth Foundation to aid in the support of displaced persons due to election skirmishes in Nairobi .
3) To provide a platform where local artistes and participants can join hands in a single united effort to show the world that Kenya is united and peaceful regardless of ethnicity or political influences.
4) To provide an avenue for Kenyans to contribute to the ongoing relief efforts by:-direct donation to the International Red Cross, who will be on-site-donate blood through the Blood donor Service of Kenya
5) To regain a sense of normalcy where our city will regain it's vibrancy. Please forward this mail to more people so they too can join hands and Reach Out to help our brothers and sisters in need.
KENYA NI YETU!

The Global Zimbabwe Forum in partnership with its local regional affiliate, the Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum would like to confirm that it successfully participated in a public protest outside the Kenyan High Commission in Pretoria, South Africa.

The wave of violence that engulfed Kenya after the presidential election has been widely described as tribal or ethnic in nature. But analysts in the east African country point to basic economics as the true cause of the unrest. Widespread violence and a humanitarian crisis were triggered by the 30 December announcement that incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won a hotly contested presidential poll amid opposition claims of rigging and international observers' reports of serious irregularities in the vote-tallying process.

In view of the growing crisis in Kenya as a result of the stolen elections, we at Pambazuka News have decided to devote a blog site to provide space for up-to-date information about what is happening.

Dear Friends,

here are two petitions for you to sign:

http://www.petitiononline.com/kenya08/petition.html

Please endorse and then send them far and wide for others to do likewise.

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. It provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a changemaker and presents compelling stories that explore the fundamental principles of successful social innovation around the world. The Changemakers Collaborative Competitions open new avenues for funders in their decision-making, while providing exposure for changemakers around the world.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to continue to allow unsuccessful asylum seekers from Zimbabwe to remain in the UK, and to continue the suspension of forced removals to Zimbabwe. Deadline to sign up by: 18 April 2008.

We, civil society activists engaged in a wide range of peoples’ movements and organisations in Africa and Europe met in Lisbon from 7-9 December 2007 to express our opposition and resistance to the neoliberal free trade and investment policies that European and African governments are implementing in our countries, and which they propose as a framework for the “Africa- EU Strategic Partnership”.

I am 47 years old, married with children. I have a son and two daughters age 24, 19 and 14. I got married at the age of 19. When I got married I was already working. I started to work in the age of 15. I come from a poor family. My parents drink heavily and used to fight everyday. When I grew up I looked for a job. When I married I had been working for four years. In our culture or tradition women they must bow down and worship their husband as king. I had to give him my salary even though he was working too. He earned a lower salary than me.

I started living with my husband in 1984, and we were in love and were very happy. The problem started after we got married in 2004 when he became ill. In 2005 he started beating me and forcing me to have sex with him even when I told him I was not well. He accused me of having another man, and hit me so hard that I ended up at the clinic to get help for my husband. Indeed they did not help me for they wrote me a referral letter to take him to Baragwanath Hospital.

The question of whether marital rape is recognised or not by Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments, as a matter of policy, should be put to rest, says Pamela Mhlanga. International organisations and agreements recognise marital rape as a human rights violation and six SADC countries have domesticated this position in their criminal justice systems.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged its member unions worldwide to express their solidarity with the journalists locked out by The Guardian management in Nigeria. The 800 journalists and other workers took strike action on November 6 after negotiation with The Guardian management over a pay rise and better working conditions broke down. The Guardian online and print editions have not been published since.