***Two new blogs from South Africa’s shackdweller movement. The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is an umbrella body for 15 community organisations. The body was formed in 2000 with the aim of

of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.

***Shackdwellers: Housing Struggles Worldwide is a collection of feeds from housing movements world wide some general movement reports and a little commentary. This is a work in progress which also supports Abahlali, Ota Benga Alliance (DR of Congo) and Fazel Khan who was dismissed in 2006 for criticising the University of KwaZula Natal - the site reports on lack of academic freedom and freedom of expression in South African universities.

***More food riots in Haiti. The riots started in Les Cayes and have now spread to Port-au-Prince and Gonaives as up to Cap Haitian. UN forces have been deployed on the streets and at least 5 people have been killed with more injured.

The Causes: via AIDG Blog

* The cost of staples such as rice, beans, food and condensed milk have increased by 50%. The majority of Haitians (80% of the population) live below the poverty line and most of Haiti’s food is imported.
* Humanitarian aid has been held up in customs, with much simply rotting. .
* Oh and of course, the Haitian government is broke, flat broke.

***The Greatest Silence: Rape in the DRC

shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shatters the silence that surrounds the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson travels through the DRC to understand what is happening and why.