Before we close out the year we have to give a nod to the  Centre for Development of People (CEDEP) in Malawi, has won the 2010 AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) HIV, TB and Human Rights Award. ARASA is a partnership of over 50 civil society organisations working together to promote a human rights based response to HIV and TB in the SADC region. In 2010, CEDEP was instrumental in successfully mobilising international and regional support for the release of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, arrested in Malawi on December 28 2009, on charges of “gross indecency and unnatural acts” after they engaged in a same-sex civil union. They were sentenced to 14 years imprisonment with hard labour, but received a Presidential pardon following pressure from regional and international bodies. CEDEP winning this award is also especially relevant in the current climate of increasing anti homosexuality in the region. Just in the last few weeks news of a wave of anti homosexuality has once again hit the region with countries moving with co-ordinated purpose to eliminate the rights of sexual minority groups. At the United Nations, African and Arab nations succeeded in deleting three words from a resolution that would have included gays in a denunciation of arbitrary killings. Surprisingly, South Africa also supported the removal of these words from the draft resolution – given that South Africa’s Constitution–as an exception in Southern Africa–protects the rights of sexual minorities.–Brett Davidson.

Further Reading

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

What Portugal forgets

In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

Trump tariffs and US Imperialism

Trump’s April 2025 tariff blitz ignited market chaos and deepened rifts within his own coalition. Beneath the turmoil lies a battle between technocrats, ultranationalists, and anti-imperial populists, all vying to reshape—or destroy—American global power.