In West Jerusalem, a group of young people attacked two Palestinians in the centre of town, punching and stabbing them, killing one and seriously injuring the other. In Bnei Brak, a group of religious youth jumped two Sudanese refugees with pipes and knives, injuring one moderately. In both cases, the Israeli police did not report the incidents as racist attacks. The two events this past weekend represent a dangerous trend occurring in Israel in recent years, says this article from the Alternative Information Centre.

The American Political Science Association (APSA) is accepting participant applications for its fourth Africa Workshop, entitled 'Representation Reconsidered: Ethnic Politics and Africa's Governance Institutions in Comparative Perspective.' It will take place 23 July to 6 August, 2011 at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi. The organisers, with a grant secured from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will cover all the costs of participation (travel, lodging, meals, daily stipend, and materials) for up to 23 qualified applicants (20 African, plus 3 based in the US). Professional fluency in English is absolutely required. Because the workshop will have a strong cross-regional component, US-based PhD students with expertise in either Africa or Latin America are encouraged to apply. African scholars of all social science fields with a graduate degree and limited professional experience are welcome to submit applications.

Application forms and additional information is available at:

Born out of the optimism at the new millennium that Africa’s time had come, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a tool designed to promote good governance on the continent, is built on the belief that the continent does not lack ideas to advance its development, but that states have struggled to live up to their principles and implement their policies. The APRM rests on the fundamental belief that good governance is a precondition for taking Africa out of its spiral of conflict, underdevelopment, poverty and increasing marginalisation in a globalised world. Looking in the rear-view mirror almost a decade after the APRM was first conceived, Grappling with Governance: Perspectives on the African Peer Review Mechanism explores how this complex process has evolved from theory to practice in a variety of contexts. In a combination of case studies and transversal analysis, multiple voices from different African civil society actors - mainly analysts, activists and journalists - examine the process from their specialised perspective. The chapters tease out what can be learned about governance in Africa from these experiences, and the extent to which the APRM has changed the way that governments and civil society groups engage. The book is available for purchase on