Miriam Makeba, the South African singer and vocal critic of apartheid, died last night after performing in Italy. She was 76 years old. After she left for a tour in 1960, the South African government revoked her passport, forcing her into exile for over 30 years. In those years, Ms. Makeba lived in United States, France, Guinea and Belgium, and served as a constant reminder and voice to the outside world of the struggles for justice, freedom, and equality for black South Africans.

There is nothing as infuriating as dangerous public policy made on circular logic. The latest example of irrational policies coming out of the Bush administration is the decision to withhold condoms, birth control pills, and other contraceptives paid for by the United States from Marie Stopes International, a British non-governmental organization that operates family planning and reproductive health clinics in impoverished nations.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself for having sustained extensive nether-region damage during the birth of my son ten weeks ago AND having the surgery to correct that damage BOTCHED (don't even ask), when I came across this: a Wall Street Journal report from Cindy McCain on the state of things in Rwanda.

Ory Okolloh blogs at KenyaPundit, and also is a co-founder of political sites Ushahidi and Mzalendo. I heard her speak this morning at Global Voices Citizen Media summit on her blogging experiences. Throughout the Kenyan elections and the political violence there, she updated her blog very actively, sometimes every hour. Her blog became the center of controversy.

Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah spoke just now at Global Voices Summit about bloggers who resist government censorship. YouTube and mobile blogging and cameraphones are extremely important. But also, connecting bloggers and photobloggers to the wider struggle for democracy in Egypt. The stakes are very high for the government, and you can't fight in isolation to publish what you like without consequence to your body, to your freedom.

This week, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be facing off in a runoff ballot intended to determine who will be that country's president for the next five years.

Up until the end of April this year, if you had run into former South African footballer Eudy Simelane, chances are that you would have met a happy woman. At 31, Simelane was still involved with the sport she loved as a coach and referee. She was a lesbian in a country in which homosexuality was not only legal, it is enshrined in the Constitution.

If you had asked me a few days ago what an obstetric fistula was, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and told you, "I don't know." Thanks to advances in modern medicine and in obstetric and midwifery care, fistula has been eradicated in North America for over 100 years. Although the condition has been long since forgotten here, there are at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region living with fistula, and some 50,000 to 100,000 new cases develop each year. These estimates are believed to be low.

I just spent $2,200 in the blink of an eye...easiest money I ever spent. Check out our BlogHers Act/Global Giving fundraising widget:

On Thursday, May 15, Blogcatalog.com is challenging bloggers to Unite for Human Rights by posting words, pictures and/or videos. While the words might change from country to country and are sometimes taken for granted, human rights represent one of the universally agreed upon ideas — that all people are born with basic rights and freedoms that include life, liberty, and justice. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

[Updated to add Mad Momma's wonderful post on ways to curb wastage].

My initial idea for a topic for today didn't originally have to do with women who chose to not have children. Originally, I was thinking about today's date. Although Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Rememberence Day) is officially on May 2, because it falls on Shabbat, it is being observed today in Israel. Thus I decided that it would be a good time to write about what women are doing to stop genocide around the world now. This is a very important issue to me as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.