Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo has introduced his model skirt that is just two inches below the knee in a bid to quell the storm over the miniskirt row. Mutula’s new move unveils a skirt length which appears long enough to sooth the anger of clerics and conservatives, and short enough to appease the teenagers. He chose Rwathia Girls Seconday School to unveil the official skirt length recommended by his ministry. Mutula said that the Rwathia administration erred in imposing changes without consulting students, and that is why he supported the students. The Rwathia students who went on strike three weeks ago had complained that their new purple skirts were too long, ugly and not meant for their age.

Led by Community Media For Development Productions, Youth Fit Africa is a new online magazine featuring sport, fitness, and health information for youth, by youth. The magazine was launched with a two-day basketball tournament and fitness event with ten under-19 clubs; winning teams received a full team kit sponsored by Swoosh, and there were sponsored prizes and giveaways courtesy of NBA Africa, PVM Energy Products, and Umoja. YFA includes feature stories, youth profiles, health and fitness tips, events, and opportunities.

FEMNET is a pan-African regional women’s rights network that has been in existence for 24 years and has been at the forefront championing gender equality, equity and women’s rights through delivery of critical information, and strengthening linkages and collaboration among women’s organizations. Femnet is advertising five jobs, including Head of Capacity Building; Knowledge Management Officer; Member Liaison Officer; Finance Officer and Assistant Translator.

Successive Somali governments have not accounted for nearly $238 million, the bulk of which constituted bilateral assistance, according to an audit report made available exclusively to the East African.

A 'Right to Know, Right to Education' fact sheet has been made available by Idasa for parliamentarians. The brochure is intended to provide the necessary information to parliamentarians to advance the right to education and the right to information.

Two South African human rights organizations, BDS South Africa and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance, have thrown their weight behind the consumer boycott of a South African company, Karsten Farms, which is complicit in the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

Kwame Dawes, Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, is pleased to announce the establishment of the African Poetry Book Fund. Starting in January 2014, the Series will publish four new titles by African poets each year. In addition, the Series will publish an anthology every few years representing themes, ideas and poets from across the African continent. Of the four books published, one will be a winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, and a second will be a new and selected volume by a major African poet. The winner of the Sillerman prize will also receive a $1000 in cash.

This course provides a policy lens on social exclusion and marginalisation, providing a theoretical framework for understanding the process by which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged. Furthermore, the course will look at the ways in which systematic discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, caste, descent, gender non-confirmation, age, disability, HIV status, migrant status or where they live, shaped certain communities’ social prospects, access to services and ability to mobilise in defence of their rights.

Fixed-term contract to December 2013
Location: London (six months) relocating to regional hub for the remainder of contract
Salary: £60,072 per annum pro rata (London);
Appropriate competitive salary when based in the regional hub

At Amnesty International (AI) we fight injustice on a global scale. To do that well, we need strong and coherent leadership across each of the regions in which we operate. Developing and rolling out our programme strategy for the Africa region that’s exactly what you’ll provide.

Human rights organisations have condemned the acts of violence committed on 26 June 2012 against Dr. Stephen Ulimboka, Chairperson of the Special Committee of Doctors, and called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry mandated to shed light on the circumstances of this aggression so that its authors can be brought to justice. Dr. Ulimboka was kidnapped and beaten while leading a strike by doctors seeking improved working conditions in public hospitals.

Following the increasing resort to indecent expressions among political activists in elections-related and general political discussions, particularly on radio, and their possible implications for peaceful elections, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) embarked on the project 'Promoting Issues-based and Decent Language Campaigning for a Peaceful, Free and Fair Elections in Ghana in 2012.' Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has now made available the first quarter report of the project, which is available from their website.

The SACP's national conference ended in a political game of cat and mouse between general secretary Blade Nzimande and Kgalema Motlanthe. The conspicuous absence of top SACP leaders – including its general secretary Blade Nzimande – at the party's fundraising gala dinner in Durban, has been interpreted by some within the ANC-led alliance as a calculated political move to embarrass Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe ahead of the ANC's crucial elective conference in Mangaung in December. Nzimande is a vocal Jacob Zuma supporter and is being pushed by some of the president's backers to stand for ANC deputy president in Mangaung. Motlanthe, meanwhile has the backing by a significant faction within the ANC, particularly its youth and veterans wings, to contest Zuma for the top spot as party president.

The verification report into Limpopo’s textbook debacle, compiled by professor Mary Metcalfe and her team, has unearthed even more rot in the education department. The report estimates that 280 schools in the province are still without the required textbooks. The verification team sampled 411 schools – 10 per cent of the total number of schools in the province. They could only get proof of delivery receipts from 93 per cent of the schools sampled.

A new supply of African blood diamonds is threatening to entrench the rule of Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe, just as Britain and other European countries plan to lift sanctions against the regime, it has been claimed. Human rights charity Global Witness says money is being siphoned from diamond mines to finance a 'parallel government' and its secret police force in Zimbabwe, helped by a Chinese businessman. It comes as a row brews over plans to lift travel restrictions and partial asset freezes imposed on some of President Mugabe's ministers by the EU.

What is the relationship between economic development and rights violations? What limits are there on the international community and on the use of force in serious human rights crises? How do we reconcile the need for understanding and the urgency of action? What is the real impact of technology on the enforcement of rights? These four questions, which figure prominently on the agenda of human rights organizations from the Global South, constitute the themes of the debates and exchanges of ideas at the 12th International Human Rights Colloquium – Innovation in Human Rights: Rethinking Agendas and Strategies in the Global South.

A tribute to the pan-Africanist Ugandan leader and towering intellectual, one of the last of the liberation struggle luminaries.

A long-time comrade of revolutionary figure Dani Wadada Nabudere provides an in-depth view of the Ugandan leader’s life and often uncelebrated achievements.

The Jubbaland State Conference held in Nairobi Kenya on June 28-30, 2012, is part of the overall web of obstruction strategy unfailingly pursued by Ethiopia to prevent any chance for the rebirth of Somali state accountable to its people in the foreseeable future.

Debate is raging about the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), a set of principles established by the United Nations in 2005 but still in a formative stage as regards implementation. A recent conference discussed R2P.

Every 40 hours in the United States one Black woman, man or child is killed by police, and by a smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes. These are the startling findings of a new Report on Extrajudicial Killings of Black People released July 9, 2012.