News

For the first time in the University of California history, the UC Berkeley Student Senate has approved a bill to divest from two US companies in response to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and to Israel’s siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The Senate bill directs both the UC Regents and the Student Government to divest from two American companies, General Electric and United Technologies*. In addition, the bill creates a task force to look into furthering a socially responsible investment policy for the UC system. However, the bill has been vetoed, and in their campaign to override the veto on 14 April, led by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Student Senate are up against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] that has launched a drive to take over student government at the UC Berkeley.

In Kumbwada, a curse has assured that only women will reign, locals say. And so far, the current queen pronounces, it has worked out better this way. In Nigeria's conservative Islamic north, women are barred from ruling, except in the kingdom of Kumbwada. Here, an ancient curse keeps males off the throne, according to locals. Male pretenders who dare to try will be buried within a week.

In her urgent call to action concerning “the wind of state homophobia [that] has swept over the African continent”—particularly its most “draconian” manifestation in Uganda’s anti-homophobia Bill—Cesnabmihilo Aken’ova remarks, “One cannot but wonder where the new bill is coming from.”  In addressing this question, we need to pay attention to external as well as internal forces.  Not surprisingly, we find lurking behind homophobic panics and public morality crusades, in Africa as elsewhere, a complicated mix of neocolonial, economic, and domestic policing agendas, writes Rosalind P. Petchesky*

Press Statement: On 06 April, 2010, Yosma Altunbey, a mother of six living in the village of Çığırgan in Kars, Southeast Turkey, was subjected to a brutal physical assault by her husband and his brother. She managed to escape to her parents’ house and filed an official complaint against the perpetrators at the gendarmerie station. According to reports, Gendarme Specialist Sergeant K.T. tried to make her withdraw her complaint, threatened her and eventually assaulted her himself when she refused.