Economic Development at the Cost of Indigenous Land

The notion of economic development has affected the general welfare of indigenous groups worldwide. The major conflict has been on land ownership claims on which they have occupied for many years and government quest to bring about economic development. The indigenous groups have struggled to retain their lands despite appealing to both customary and international laws. The paper argues as to whether customary law and international law are vital sources for indigenous land claims. It also presents empirical cases to land claims while making these arguments within the context of economic development

El derecho como denuncia : abogados y política en los primeros ´70

El trabajo se propone una reconstrucción históricamente situada de la politización de una generación de abogados que asumieron la defensa de presos políticos en los tempranos setenta. Identifica los ámbitos y espacios de socialización profesional y política, entre fines de la década del ´50 y el ´60. Analiza las estrategias de denuncia que, junto con la defensa de presos políticos, contribuyeron a modelar la identidad del abogado políticamente comprometido y su proyección en la esfera pública a principios de los ´70. Explora las tramas y redes de relaciones forjadas por este grupo de profesionales con otros actores movilizados en favor de la defensa y la libertad de los detenidos políticos, en el marco de la conformación de un frente antirrepresivo y antidictatorial.Fil: Chama, Mauricio. Universidad Nacional de La Plat

Race and crime conflict in news coverage in Britain: The Voice tabloid newspaper

The Voice tabloid newspaper was founded in 1982 by Jamaican - born accountant Val McCalla. It is a diaspora media that campaigns for black immigrants in Britain especially on matters of race discrimination at the hands of the law enforcement agencies. During the 1980s, and in the wake of the Brixton riots, the tabloid secured huge circulation figures. Over its three decade reign, it has come to be known as ‘Britain’s Best Black Newspaper’ and has served the black community by giving them a voice where other mainstream media have largely failed. It has over the years been a thorn in the side of the establishment, campaigning on numerous issues and championing the plight of black people nationwide. Its main news is a mixture of features, sports and celebrity interviews. This paper looks at how the tabloid attempts to resolve the race and crime conflicts that surrounds the coverage of the black community focusing on the 2011 London riots. It discusses its role and contributions to the diaspora black community in the resolution of conflict in news as presented by the mainstream media

The Study on Medicinal Plants and Their Uses to Treat Human Ailments in Damot-Gale District, Wolaita Zone, South Ethiopia

This study was conducted in Damot-gale district between October 2015 and July 2016. It was focused on the investigation of traditional uses of various medicinal plant species of the study area. A total of 80 (60 male and 20 female) informants, aged between 21-96 years old were identified from 13 kebeles. Relevant information was collected by using semi-structured interview, field observation, field guided interviews, group discussion and open ended questions. The collected data was analyzed using preference ranking and paired comparison methods. 77 medicinal plant species were identified and collected from wild (natural habitats) and home gardens. The reported medicinal plant species were distributed in 35 families. The category of reported species includes trees 19 (24.66%) species, shrubs 23 (29.87%) species, herbs 30 (38.96%) species, climbers 2 (2.59%) species and succulent 1 (1.29%) species. The most important parts utilized for preparation of remedies were leaves from 42(54.55%) species, roots from 15(19.48%) species, seeds from 15(19.48%) species, flower from 8(10.39%) species, barks from 7(9.09%) species and fruits from 6(7.79%) species.  Knowledge of medicinal plants is wider among elderly women and men while the young are comparatively less knowledgeable. This indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants was gradually disappearing due to the secrecy, unwillingness of the young generation to gain the knowledge, disinterest of the young generation in traditional medicine and the influence of modern education. Local administration, NGOs and other stockholders must involve in awareness creations on traditional healers to transfer their knowledge to the next generation without secrecy and biodiversity conservation. Keywords: Ethnobotanical knowledge, Home garden, Medicinal plants, traditional healers

Economic Development at the Cost of Human Rights: China Nonferrous Metal Industry in Zambia

The international human rights system is primarily based on the relationship between the state and its citizens. The overarching question is where the responsibility for human rights does and should lie in a world where the movement of human beings, goods, and capital are increasingly transnational in scope. The amount of responsibility that powerful actors like international corporations should have for protecting human rights is unclear. How this responsibility should be understood in relation to the responsibility of the state to protect its own people from human rights violations and also pursue strategies to hold international corporations accountable is also debated

Explanation for defeasible entailment

Explanation facilities are an essential part of tools for knowledge representation and reasoning systems. Knowledge representation and reasoning systems allow users to capture information about the world and reason about it. They are useful in understanding entailments which allow users to derive implicit knowledge that can be made explicit through inferences. Additionally, explanations also assist users in debugging and repairing knowledge bases when conflicts arise. Understanding the conclusions drawn from logic-based systems are complex and requires expert knowledge, especially when defeasible knowledge bases are taken into account for both expert and general users. A defeasible knowledge base represents statements that can be retracted because they refer to information in which there are exceptions to stated rules. That is, any defeasible statement is one that may be withdrawn upon learning of an exception. Explanations for classical logics such as description logics which are well-known formalisms for reasoning about information in a given domain are provided through the notion of justifications. Simply providing or listing the statements that are responsible for an entailment in the classical case is enough to justify an entailment. However, when looking at the defeasible case where entailed statements can be retracted, this is not adequate because the way in which entailment is performed is more complicated than the classical case. In this dissertation, we combine explanations with a particular approach to dealing with defeasible reasoning. We provide an algorithm to compute justification-based explanations for defeasible knowledge bases. It is shown that in order to accurately derive justifications for defeasible knowledge bases, we need to establish the point at which conflicts arise by using an algorithm to come up with a ranking of defeasible statements. This means that only a portion of the knowledge is considered because the statements that cause conflicts are discarded. The final algorithm consists of two parts; the first part establishes the point at which the conflicts occur and the second part uses the information obtained from the first algorithm to compute justifications for defeasible knowledge bases

Plant-frugivore interactions in a heterogeneous forest landscape of South Africa

Seed dispersal by animals is a very important ecological process, especially in tropical and sub-tropical forest landscapes where up to 90% of fleshy fruiting plant species depend on this process for the transportation of their propagules to suitable habitats. Frugivorous birds are among the most important vertebrates consuming fruits, thereby contributing to natural forest regeneration. However, changes in quality of forest habitats and structure of the surrounding matrix have been shown to disrupt the structure of single-pair seed dispersal interactions. Changes in forest habitats can also alter the functional diversity of dispersers within these seed dispersal communities and can have far reaching implications for natural regeneration processes of plants. To assess the overall effects of forest patch quality and matrix habitat on ecological processes and functioning, I compared (i) the structure of plant-frugivore interaction networks and (ii) functional diversity of frugivore communities within the studied networks among forest patches surrounded by dissimilar matrix habitats in and around Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve in South Africa. In addition, I experimentally tested the impact of seed ingestion and treatment in the digestive tracts of avian frugivores on germination to assess their legitimacy as seed dispersers. During the plant-frugivore networks study, I compared the network structure in a large scarp forest surrounded by a natural forest matrix with those of two small natural forest types, one surrounded by natural grassland and the other by sugarcane agriculture in relation to both forest patch quality and matrix habitat. Overall, I recorded a total of 54 avian frugivorous species involved in fruit removal activities on 31 fleshy fruiting plant species. Network structures across forest patches did not vary with matrix habitat. Instead, they were similarly robust and strongly influenced by forest patch quality. These findings suggest that the structure and stability of plant-frugivore interaction networks is rather determined by local forest patch quality than by surrounding matrix habitat. During the functional diversity study, I compiled data on three functional traits related to seed dispersal, namely body mass, gape width and degree of frugivory for the frugivore species observed in the seed dispersal networks. I then tested the effect of forest patch quality and matrix habitat on three measures of functional diversity as well as on species richness of frugivore communities. Results suggest that all forest types sustained a comparably high functional diversity among the seed disperser communities. Overall, functional diversity and shifts in functional composition were rather determined by forest patch quality than by matrix habitat. During the seed ingestion experiment, I collected fruits from sixteen woody plant species and I fed them to four avian frugivore species. Defecated seeds were planted and their seedling emergence and germination probabilities were compared with those of ripe manually depulped seeds and whole fruits. Results show no difference in seedling emergence and germination probability among the birds and remained similar across all treatments. The results suggest that the effect of frugivorous birds on natural forest regeneration is more on seed transportation, than enhancing germination of dispersed seeds per se. Overall, findings from the first two studies suggests that forest patch quality is an important driver of both network stability and functional diversity among frugivore communities. Therefore, given high habitat quality, forest patches surrounded by variable matrices can be of conservation importance in highly heterogeneous forest landscapes. Thus, as the seed ingestion experiment has shown that frugivorous birds are legitimate dispersers, the sustenance of seed dispersal processes will largely depend on maintenance of forest patches of high quality and with less restrictive matrix habitats

Perennial crop farming and food security in Kigezi: a case study of Kigezi highland tea

This study critically examines the contribution of tea growing in Kigezi region and how it affects the growth of other crops that are meant for food consumption. It underscores the performance of tea as a cash crop and as a means of generating foreign exchange for the country as well as a source of employment. This study establishes that the tea sector has not in any way affected food security in the region of Kigezi and has instead improved household incomes, been a source of employment and boosted revenue for households. The sector has however registered some challenges like limited faith among the out growers who prefer their own traditional crops. There have also been challenges of lack of coordination from stake-holders like NEMA, the district local governments and government ministries, departments and agencies. The study recommends to government that policy makers design a comprehensive tea policy that streamlines conflicting agencies and also learn best practices from neighboring countries like Kenya where the sector has performed immensely well. Farmers also need constant sensitization on the benefits of the cash crop

Debunking the local government malaise under the decentralization policy in Uganda: an analytical treatise

Several years have passed since Uganda approved decentralization both as a tool of good governance and as a policy of poverty reduction however many regions and districts in the country, including the city authorities, continue to stagger in poverty and development melancholy. Studies conducted at the local/district level show that high levels of poorness and underdevelopment remain. This development paradox is the subject of this article. A review of the current literature and interviews with stakeholders in local government institutions in Uganda, unveil that conflicts, limited resources and continued fragmentation of districts by politicians have been impediments to progress. Hindrances also included the socio-economic and the political. It also portrays gerrymandering and a decrepit state of affairs. This study suggests the sovereignty of local governments, expansion of resource bases through robust methods such as taxation and the institutionalization of public sector reform programs to ensure a sustainable base for social services delivery