KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER NO 15

The Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter has grown rapidly. Along with it, the services provided by Kabissa – space for change in Africa – have also grown. But what are these services? Since we continue to receive requests for information, we thought it might be useful for us to tell you a bit more about Kabissa.

Kabissa is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of African non-profit organisations to use the full potential of the Internet in the interest of building civil society and democracy in Africa. We operate on the principles of inclusiveness and collaboration, and invite all organisations and initiatives that share our goals to join as members and partners.

BACKGROUND
Access to the Internet in Africa has grown substantially over the past few years. According to a recent survey, at the end of 1996 only 11 countries had Internet access, but by November 2000 all 54 countries and territories had permanent connectivity and the presence of local full service dialup ISPs. The total number of computers permanently connected to the Internet in Africa (excluding South Africa) finally broke the 10,000 mark at the beginning of 1999 and in January 2000 it stood at almost 12,000, an increase of 20%. While the cost of establishing local e-mail accounts has fallen recently, the cost of website hosting, Internet domain names and similar services is frequently very high, and frequently out of reach of many non-profit organisations in Africa.

Many of us working in the non-profit sector have been inundated with requests from African NGOs seeking assistance in setting up websites, training in the use of the internet, access to resources on the internet, training in proposal writing, management training, and help with establishment of electronic mailing lists. In our early work with International Alert and the World Organisation Against Torture, we have run workshops and provided technical assistance to human rights organisations to enable them to exploit the potentials of the Internet for their own purposes.

Through this process we became aware of the difficulties such organisations had in establishing websites and accessing resources on the Internet. In response, we decided to invest our own efforts and resources in establishing an entity called "Kabissa" (meaning "complete" in Kiswahili). We set up an Internet server in order, initially, to provide free website and e-mail hosting for non-profit organisations in Africa. Now we are finding that Kabissa has filled other gaps in service, in particular in empowering African non-profits by enabling them to share essential information through this newsletter.

SERVICES PROVIDED BY KABISSA
Interest in the initiative has grown rapidly. Within a year, we had more than 250 user accounts on Kabissa, including 30 separate domain accounts. Our website now has thousands of pages, receives over 400,000 hits per month (averaging over 340 visits per day). We currently register five new members each week.

Kabissa currently provides the following services, all of which are provided free to African non-profit organisations (except domain registration and hosting for which we make a modest charge):

- Web space accounts (ftp)
- E-mail mailbox accounts (pop3/imap4)
- Automated mailing lists (majordomo)
- Web-based access to website files hosted on Kabissa
- Web-based access to any e-mail mailboxes
- Web-based access to Kabissa mailing list administration
- www4mail server enabling users to retrieve web pages via e-mail
- Participation in the largest human-edited directory on the web (dmoz.org), providing access to more than 330,000 websites
- Website promotion (dmoz.org, AfriPromote banner exchange, search engines)
- Web-based domain availability check (whois)
- Domain registration and hosting (low-cost)

We have also developed "Best Practice" documentation designed to demystify the technology and enable African non-profit organisations to develop the confidence to control the resources that they access through Kabissa.

KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER
In addition to providing access to the above services, Kabissa also established this electronic newsletter, designed to enable members and others to share up-to-date information about events, news, and resources available of relevance to the non-profit sector in Africa. The growth of the newsletter in terms of content, breadth and reach has been extraordinary. Within months of establishing it, the weekly mailing went to more than 400 subscribers. In December 2000, Kabissa and fahamu merged their respective newsletters, resulting in a subscriber base of more than 700. Today, the Kabissa-fahamu newsletter reaches 2,500 individuals in NGOs, international organisations and networks, funding agencies and foundations, governments, and the private sector. Free advertising space is provided for non-profits. Based on our research and excellent reader feedback, we are constantly innovating the contents of the newsletter, which now has nearly 20 printed pages and has 21 sections for categorizing the information.

INFORMATION SHARING DATABASE
In addition to the Internet Services and the e-mail based Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter, we also maintain a database on our website for the purpose of organising and sharing information relevant for Africa.

Information already in the database includes:

- Member directory of African non-profit organisations, most of which are hosting websites on our Internet Server
- Partner directory of organisations collaborating with Kabissa
- Internet Domains hosted on Kabissa
- Mailing List/eNewsletter directory
- Software Resources

We are working on "portalizing" the information and interfaces provided through the Kabissa website and the Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter. Users of the site will be able to log in to customize their own home page, as seen on many other portals. African non-profits eligible for free Internet accounts and mailing lists will be able to use the portal interface to manage their accounts. We will be able to administrate users, allocate access and posting privileges, and monitor and evaluate the usage of our website. These are standard features on portal websites these days.

What sets Kabissa apart from other typical portals is that we intend to innovate in directions that enable African organisations to share their information using means and media relevant and appropriate for them. For this purpose we are gathering information about useful software that is freely available under "open source" licensing agreements.

Our goal for the Kabissa database is to enable African organisations to take control of information-sharing opportunities provided by the web, e-mail, cdrom and print. All four media are tremendously important for Africa:

- The web is ideal for collaborative maintenance and organising of information amongst organisations that have made the investment to be "information providers".
- E-mail remains by far the most relevant Internet application, used far more than the Web or any other service. For Kabissa users, E-mail is and shall remain for some time the most efficient means for transmitting and receiving current information.
- CDROM provides offline access to the "search and browse" capabilities usually reserved for the web. Thousands of pages of information can be shared in this way, along with large software programs and other files that otherwise would have to be downloaded from the Internet at prohibitive expense.
- Print is a media that is too often overlooked in this age of sexy Internet applications. While the web is ideal for maintaining and organising information, when it comes to getting practical information, the most handy source remains a telephone book or some other printed publication.

We are developing our database so that we can provide access to essential information through a portal website and CDROMs and print publications. At the same time, we have a view to enabling organisations and individuals in Africa to perform the same function for their community. This would require training, but it would also require new software to retrieve, organise and output relevant information using your own computer.

STRENGTHENING THE CAPACITY OF AFRICAN ORGANISATIONS
All of our efforts are intended ultimately to contribute to strengthening the capacity of African organisations to carry out their important work. In this context, we are pleased to be involved in the Adilisha Project, established by Fahamu, which seeks to strengthen the campaigning, advocacy and organisational capacity of human rights organisations in southern Africa through the development of computer and internet based distance learning materials. Kabissa has been involved in providing support for the project’s information and communication technology work, including the development of appropriate databases, hosting and technical maintenance of the project’s websites and mailing lists. Kabissa also assists in sourcing information on human rights in Africa (disseminated through the Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter) and provides expert input, through the Adilisha Advisory Board, to the development of a CDROM-based training course on the 'Use of the Internet for Advocacy and Research'.

COLLABORATE WITH US
As we are working with Adilisha and our other partners, so we also want to work with you. Join us to create an African platform for information sharing and collaboration using the Internet. If your organisation provides services in Africa that contribute to this end, we would love to hear from you.

REGISTER YOUR FREE KABISSA MEMBERSHIP ACCOUNT

Organisations working in the African non-profit sector are eligible for Kabissa Membership. Kabissa Members are listed in our member directory, and are eligible for free standard Internet accounts on the Kabissa Internet server. This provides you with web space and mailboxes for your staff, and support for standard scripts such as forms (see FAQ). If you already have a website, you may choose to place a 'mirror' (or copy) of your website in your Kabissa account.

REGISTER YOUR INTERNET DOMAIN ON KABISSA
http://www.kabissa.org/domainreq.html>http://www.kabissa.org/domainreq.html
Domain hosting is available on Kabissa at low cost. We can register domains for $70 (we recommend those ending in .org) and host them on Kabissa for a $35 setup fee and $60 annual hosting fee. You can also transfer your domain to Kabissa or host domains you wish to register independently. Hosted websites and mailboxes are linked directly with member Internet accounts.

KABISSA FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
http://www.kabissa.org/faq.html
The Kabissa Frequently Asked Questions page is your "first port of call" for questions with Kabissa membership and making your start on the Internet. Section headings are:
1. Communicating with colleagues within your country and abroad
2. Accessing Information on the Internet
3. The use of Internet in the African non-profit sector
4. Kabissa Membership
5. Using Kabissa Electronic Mail Accounts
6. Using Kabissa to Make your Organisation’s Information Available
7. Using your Kabissa Website
8. Taking advantage of Kabissa Website features
9. Promoting your Organisation on the Internet
10. Setting up an Internet Domain Name for your Organisation
11. Making payments to Kabissa

Tagged under: 15, Contributor, Features, Governance

While girls are focusing more on their futures and are prepared to study
hard, boys are still adopting anti-work 'laddish' attitudes which hold back
their educational development, according to new ESRC-funded research.

Countries that promote women's rights and increase their access to resources and schooling have lower poverty rates, faster economic growth and less corruption than countries that do not, says a recently published World Bank report, EnGendering Development - Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources and Voice.

The members of the United Nations should adopt an international treaty to expedite the tracing, recovery and repatriation of wealth stolen from developing countries and transferred abroad, declared the representatives of Transparency International from 11 African countries, following a meeting held in Nyanga, Zimbabwe, on 1-4 March 2001.

Tagged under: 15, Contributor, Corruption, Governance

One dilemma that continues to puzzle development workers in Africa is how to get rural communities to participate in identifying their collective problems, analyzing them, ranking / prioritizing and generally initiating and managing sustainable projects with a high chance of solving these problems both in the short and long term.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved in principle a three-year arrangement for Ethiopia under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF)1 for SDR 87 million (about US$112 million) to support the government's 2000/01-2002/03 economic program.

"It is within the capacity of the countries concerned and the international community to eliminate famine and tackle food insecurity in the Horn of Africa," says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the start of a meeting of donors on the Horn of Africa initiative.

Newsletter of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)

Thank you for sending this newsletter to us. We appreciate it greatly.

God only knows where you got my e-mail address..but I am glad you did. I worked for Botswana Council of Nongovernmental Organisations once and since then I love working with NGOs. Though I am currently residing in London, I am still in close contact with NGOs in Southern Africa.

After your newsletter N° 11, we failed to open the other numbers we received, I don't know why. Could you please send me again.

Our response: see

Trade policies need green angle, say officials Government ministers and high-level officials from over 70 countries this week declared that environmental issues should be taken into account during negotiations on new trade agreements.

Stalemate in the Western Sahara. Stand-off in Sierra Leone. The headlines go on. What hope is there that conflict-torn parts of Africa will pull themselves out of a vicious cycle of poverty, human rights abuse and violence? A United Nations watchdog attempts to point the way for the international community.

The United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights this week announced her decision not to stand for a second four-year term in the world's top human rights post. But, once out of office, will she regret it?

Namibian President Sam Nujoma's attack on homosexuals this week could lead to violence against innocent citizens, says a local human rights group.

Senegal's highest court yesterday ruled that Chad's exiled former president, Hissène Habré, could not stand trial on torture charges because his alleged crimes were not committed in Senegal.

Most United Nations staff from Europe and North America were offered higher-level jobs at the time of their recruitment than their counterparts from Asia, Africa and Latin America, says a new report by a UN working group.

The World Bank has admitted providing technical support for a controversial West African gas pipeline prompting an outcry from local environmentalists over its backing of potentially damaging energy projects.

Two dozen journalists were killed in the line of duty last year and 81 serving stiff jail sentences at the end of the year were the apparent victims of retaliation by governments which found their work too inflammatory or embarrassing, according to latest figures from a global press watchdog.

A United Nations-led inter-agency mission to Angola has reacted with alarm to the numerous allegations of human rights abuses it heard on its six-day visit.

The Sudanese government has denied claims by British development agency Christian Aid that atrocities are being committed by its forces in areas around oil fields.

Staving off conflict and finding paths to peace are top of the agenda at a meeting of lawmakers from the European Parliament and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

European parliamentarians have passed an emergency resolution calling on 39 pharmaceuticals firms to drop their lawsuit against the South African government over a law aimed at opening the way for cheaper AIDS drug production.

United Nations peacekeeping troops last week took control of the strategic Sierra Leonean town of Lunsar, marking a major step in the UN's effort to occupy territory held by the anti-government Revolutionary United Front.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, has called on the World Conference Against Racism - to be held in South Africa later this year - to come-up with practical ways to make a "seminal difference" in the fight against racism and xenophobia around the world.

Two years after Macpherson reported into the handling of the Stephen Lawrence case, the Institute of Race Relations reports that racial violence is becoming more serious and prevalent. Nineteen people have lost their lives in the UK in racially motivated attacks since February 1999. Increasingly, serious racial violence is being perpetrated against members of newly-arrived and asylum- seeker communities. Despite the fact that half of Macpherson's recommendations were about racial violence, especially how the police and Crown Prosecution Service should act over such cases, families of victims remain dissatisfied with the lack of will to take such racism seriously. Commissioned for London Boroughs Grants - a funder for London's voluntary sector - this report, Counting the cost, suggests that, although most voluntary groups are beginning to tackle the ways their personnel and structures contribute to an inadvertent racism, in line with Macpherson's definition of 'institutional racism', they have yet to meet the challenge of racial violence. Advocacy and support from community groups, concludes the report can, "transform a case into an issue. And the issue, in turn, can influence the policy agenda."

More than a year after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Sir Nigel
Rodley, visited the country to assess the condition of police cells, the
situation seems the same, if not worse.

Women rights activists have protested against President Yoweri Museveni's
decision to ask Parliament to restore the electoral college system for
electing district women MPs.

"We strongly support universal adult suffrage and the secret ballot as modes
of electing district women representatives. We therefore object to the
presidential veto against this (electoral colleges) and call upon MPs to re-
affirm the position they adopted in the Parliamentary Elections Bill 2000,"
the Coalition for Political Accountability to Women (COPAW) said yesterday.
New Vision.

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)report that the Namibian government
has slapped an advertising boycott on "The Namibian" newspaper, claiming the
newspaper is too critical of its policies, the paper reported on Friday 23
March 2001.

The Zimbabwe government will not accept the report of the International Bar
Association (IBA) following its recent inquiry into the independence of the
judiciary, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. A spokesman said whatever
the findings of the IBA, the team had already demonstrated that it was
partial by refusing to consult all stakeholders on the issue of the
judiciary. One of the team's members compared Zimbabwe's fasttrack land grab
to apartheid policies.

The Law Association of Zambia in conjunction with the Church, that is to say
the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC), The Christian Council of Zambia
(CCZ), The Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and the Non-Governmental
Organisations Coordinating Committee (NGOCC) and the People gathered here,
having deemed it necessary, expedient, imperative and desirable to promote
and conduct a debate in relation to the intimation by the ruling party, the
Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) to amend the Republican
Constitution to provide a third term of office in order to facilitate the
eligibility of the incumbent President FTJ Chiluba in the forthcoming
Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.

Newly-appointed SADC Executive Secretary Prega Ramsamy was on Friday sworn
in by Namibia's Chief Justice Johan Strydom in the presence of the current
SADC chairman, Namibian President Sam Nujoma.

Holds regular monthly self-help group meetings, in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth & Potchefstroom. If you stutter or have a family member or friend who stutters and would like to join a self-help group near you, please contact the Speakeasy National Office for details on 011 883 0292 or email.

A delegation of over 40 American fundraising specialists is coming to SA to facilitate the transference of expertise. There will be a full days programme of presentations and discussion groups on all aspects of fundraising, facilitated by both American and South African specialists, leading towards an exchange of ideas and information.

12 April 2001 - this all day workshop is a must for anyone starting out in the fundraising profession. You will be given insights into new trends in fundraising and the fundraising cycle; the importance of planning to fundraise, how to identify potential donors and how to write corporate proposals, plus lots more information on income generation. Full details and booking forms from SAIF National Centre 011 884 0351 or email.

SANGONeT is a facilitator in the effective and empowering use of information communication technology (ICT) tools by development and social justice actors in Africa. We aim to share information, build capacity and link people and organisations through the use of ICTs. We have over a decade's experience in servicing civil society organisations in Africa.

(Johannesburg, March 27, 2001) In schools across South Africa, thousands of girls of every race and economic group are encountering sexual violence and harassment that impede their access to education, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today.

How can technology planning support your organization's communications
goals? Where can you find support in developing a plan? How does technology
planning fit into your overall organizational planning? This discussion
with technology experts and nonprofit colleagues will help you determine
when and how it makes sense for your organization to develop a technology
plan. Pose your questions to tech experts, share your own experiences and
find out, for example, how other nonprofits are using technology plans to
advocate for funding.

KABISSA-FAHAMU Newsletter No 14

Where have, according to figures released by humanitarian agencies, some 1 million people been massacred over the last year? Where have more than 2 million people been 'displaced' i.e. made refugees within their own land? You wouldn't think that so many humans could suffer so without an international clamour in the media. Unless, of course, those people are African, and more specifically, Congolese.

The new self-appointed president, Joseph Kabila, son of the late Laurent Désiré Kabila, may appear more peaceful than his father, but he is unlikely to prevent the various contenders in the the war from heading to renewed confrontations. The quarrelling and fighting over the wealth of that country continues to boil.

But at the same time, is there hope? Is there some solace in the fact that the country that has drawn into its vortex of terror the armies of Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda, some of these troops have begun to withdraw?

What will that leave behind? Hardliners are said to be in control of Kinshasha, unwilling to engage in dialogue with the various factions. The country's infrastructure - such as it has been - is torn apart. "Transition", "reconstruction", or even "reonciliation" remains a distant dream.

People often say that Africa's suffering is caused by its poverty. What Congo suggests is that the suffering - and poverty - are both caused by the potential wealth of its natural resources - or rather, by the fight for control over that wealth.

Five countries involved in the DRC conflict were set to disengage their troops on Thursday, in keeping with a UN Security Council resolution adopted last month. The Harare Disengagement and Redeployment Plan, signed by all parties to the conflict, thus goes into its next phase: Disengagement and Verification, the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) stated in Kinshasa.

Tagged under: 14, Contributor, Features, Governance

GEMENA, Congo, March 15 -- On the day all sides in the Congo war were to begin pulling back from front lines, several hundred Ugandan soldiers assembled on the steamy airport tarmac here singing and cheering. In two years, they had penetrated as far into Congo as any invader, and now they were preparing to go home.

GOMA, Congo (AP) - Pledges from six nations and their rebel allies to pull back forces in war-ruined Congo were put to the test Thursday, with Rwanda the first to say it had started withdrawing from key battle zones. Thursday's U.N.-monitored disengagement deadline is a key test to a long-stalled cease-fire for Congo, which has seen its mineral-rich territory carved up and 2 million of its people sent fleeing by the 2 1/2-year civil war in the heart of Africa.

Tagged under: 14, Contributor, Features, Governance

New Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila has called on the UK and Europe to put pressure on Uganda and Rwanda to completely withdraw their forces.

Tagged under: 14, Contributor, Features, Governance

The World Bank first and the Hutu-Tutsi civil war later have led the Batwa pigmies to near extinction and years of suffering, without this being reported by the world mass media.

Kampala (Reuters) - Uganda has put its neighbour and former ally Rwanda on a list of "hostile states" which are banned from financing candidates in the imminent presidential election, President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday.

KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) -- Rwanda has accused Uganda of harboring "anti-Rwanda elements" but said it would not be dragged into an unnecessary conflict with its neighbor and former ally.

A new round of fighting which erupted last week when armed rebels crossed into northern Liberia from Guinea - beating back government reinforcements sent to the area - has forced between 15,000 and 20,000 civilians to flee their homes.

Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans voted for local officials in nationwide balloting last week, but the election was flawed as many voters had no meaningful choice at the polls, says a rights watchdog.

By Simon Denyer, Monday March 12 1:32 PM ET KAMPALA (Reuters) - Results trickled in from Uganda's hard-fought presidential election on Monday amid reports of vote rigging in one district and intimidation elsewhere.

Monday March 12 2:31 PM ET By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer KATETE, Uganda (AP) - Scores of would-be voters in southwestern Uganda, the home of President Yoweri Museveni's main challenger, said they were denied the right to vote in Monday's presidential election and claimed Museveni supporters stuffed the ballot boxes.

March 9, 2001 Nairobi (Reuters) - Leading Kenyan bookshops said on Friday that they were worried about stocking a novel by John Le Carre which contains critical references to President Daniel arap Moi's government.

Although often overlooked by international development groups, traditional leaders still wield considerable power in many African countries - despite the rise of elected governments. John Eberlee reports on the role of chiefs in post-colonial Africa.

The main political opponent of Uganda's incumbent president Yoweri Museveni has hinted that he is to take "political action" to pressure the new leader to annul his landslide poll win this week following allegations of malpractice.

A UK-based charity is today calling on foreign oil companies to immediately suspend their operations in Sudan and for oil giants BP and Shell to divest their shares in companies linked with atrocities in the country.

Turnout was high in yesterday's presidential election in Uganda where the incumbent Yoweri Museveni is heading for another term in office in spite of having lost much of his popularity.

World leaders in health philanthropy will convene in London for an Inaugural Global Health Philanthropy Summit, to be held at the Royal College of Physicians from 9-11 May 2001. The Academy for International Health Philanthropy's Summit will address how philanthropists can make a greater and lasting impact on world health by pooling knowledge and by more effective targeting of their support. Registrations applications are available at the AIHP website or by e-mail.

One of the world's biggest drugs companies yesterday relaxed its patent over two Aids drugs, allowing manufacturers in South Africa to produce cheaper copies for local use, after protests from the scientific community.

Ghana remains without any of the drugs that allow people with AIDS in rich countries to lead full lives. Efforts by an Indian company to market them in the country failed when a drug multinational issued a patents challenge. Eugenia Adofo visited an Accra hospital to speak to a patient.

Increased desertification and drought represent a serious threat to human health. The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed this concern at the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) which was held in Bonn, Germany (11-22 December 2000).

The South African government announced yesterday that it will not declare HIV/AIDS a national emergency, a move that under World Trade Organization rules would have allowed the country to import generic drugs "regardless of objections from drug firms claiming abuse of patent rights," Reuters reports (Reuters, 3/13).

June 11 - 15, 2001 As more research is conducted in developing countries, ethical issues that reflect differences in cultures, politics, wealth, standards of care, individual and group rights, and priorities are surfacing with increasing frequency. The present ethical codes are not always sufficient for the broad new set of problems faced by funders of international health research, members of Ethical Review Boards, government agencies, and researchers themselves.

The Health Systems Trust launched the South African Health Review 2000 on the 1st of March 2001. This is an annual publication that provides an annual and longer-term review of health policy developments in South Africa.

March 12, 2001 Nairobi, Kenya (Pana) - Alarmed by a typhoid and malaria outbreak which has so far claimed over 90 lives and continues unabated, residents of Embu town, Kenya's Eastern provincial capital, conducted a general sanitation exercise on Saturday.

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) March 14, 2001 Ghana's Food and Drugs Board (FDB) on Wednesday said research has shown that "Always Sanitary Pads" used by women are not infected with the HIV/AIDS as claimed by a story circulated on the Internet.

As a follow up to Dr. Neufeld's request on AFRO-NETS (dated 17 Jan. 2001) regarding African health research networks, please find attached a preliminary listing of inter-country health research networks.

Eight million threatened by meningitis epidemic in Ethiopia 8 March 2001 With some 8.4 million people threatened with a deadly epidemic of meningococcal meningitis - the Ethiopian Red Cross has mobilized thousands of volunteers to begin a major social mobilization campaign on the disease, and to make sure those at risk are vaccinated. "There is serious cause for alarm about the spread of this epidemic. While to date there have been 1,700 cases reported and 140 deaths confirmed, this is probably a serious underestimate of the reality on the ground. Ethiopian Ministry of Health figures that 8.4 million people could be at risk are very realistic. It is vital that we act now," said Dr. Bradley Hersh, a senior medical epidemiologist with the International Federation. The group most at risk is between the age of two and thirty years old.

In June this year, IFAT will hold its sixth biennial international Conference in Arusha, Tanzania, on the theme: The Fair Trade Difference - People, Principles and Partnership. Fair Trade producers are democratically organised or working in enterprises with socially engaged management. Many work in the informal sector producing handcrafts. Others are farmers with smallholdings or growers belonging to co-operatively organised groups. 158 Fair Trade organisations, in 50 countries around the world, belong to IFAT (the International Federation for Alternative Trade) which is a networking body working to improve the livelihoods and well-being of poor people through trade.

COSATU rejects with contempt the suggestion by the Citizen newspaper (13 March 2001) that it "supports the DA on Aids crisis" and that it "has joined the DA in calling on President Mbeki to declare the HIV/AIDS epidemic a national disaster". Siphiwe Mgcina, COSATU Spokesperson

The South African government has turned down calls from the country's largest trade union and official opposition for an AIDS emergency to be declared amid a legal challenge by some of the world's leading pharmaceuticals firms over domestic efforts to make cheap anti-viral drugs.

St. Luke School of Medicine, Ghana and Liberia, West Africa, is now accepting applications for students wishing to study medicine online. The Basic Science curriculum (the first two years of medical school) will be presented online starting with Human Anatomy. This course is scheduled to be begin May 14, 2001, leading to a Doctor of Medicine degree (MD). St. Luke SOM is only one of a few schools in the world to present this curriculum. For info contact Dr. Jerroll.

Tagged under: 14, Contributor, Education, Resources

This message is to inform you of an important international conference that will be held in Athens, Greece, on 24 and 25 May, 2001. The conference title is: THE CHILD: A VICTIM OF WAR, AND A MESSENGER OF PEACE. The event is organized by the Foundation for the Child and the Family (Athens), in cooperation with the International Peace Bureau and the Hague Appeal for Peace.

CICC Team on Aggression, 7th Session of the ICC PrepCom. Submitted by Espen Rostrup Nakstad (ELSA Norway)

At last, there is succour for the women of Enugu State against harmful traditional practices. It will now be an offense for widows and women to be compelled to observe traditional rites that are physically, psychologically and emotionally hazardous to them.

The United Nations food agency has announced that 84,000 refugees who fled Democratic Republic of the Congo for Zambia are facing hunger amid dwindling food supplies.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has suspended its food deliveries in southwestern Guinea following a rebel attack on the garrison town of Nongoa, according to a local spokesperson.

Achieving water security for the sustainable production of food and the support of rural livelihoods while preserving natural resources and ecosystems is one of the key challenges of the early 21st century. The Dialogue on Water for Food and Environmental Security attempts to bridge the gap between agricultural and environmental sectors and to forge agreed-upon, workable solutions to this challenge.

Three West African nations are expected this week to announce drastic action to save one of the world's richest marine environments from overfishing by European Union and other fishing fleets.

The secretariat of the World Water Assessment Programme of the UN recently issued the following announcement. National and regional consultations will be part of this process, aimed at promoting mulit-stakeholder inputs.

(March 13, 2001) Kenyan Environment Minister Francis Nyenze says that the organizations involved in the campaign to save the country's forests are "playing with the psychology of Kenyans."

International conservationists are urging the Kenyan government to scrap plans to turn more than 67,000 hectares of prime forest into human settlements.

The goal of giving people and communities across the globe up-to-the minute access to high quality environmental information has moved a step closer, it was announced today.

In a quest for new ideas about rapidly changing newsroom organisation, practices and technology, the World Editors Forum sent out a unique appeal: Visionaries Wanted. Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications.

In Ethiopia, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has written to the prime minister to tell him that the watchdog organization "is appalled at the deplorable treatment of independent journalists and news outlets." CPJ contends that Ethiopia has become "Africa's foremost jailer of journalists in recent years."

Police in Mozambique have arrested two businessmen and a former bank manager accused of ordering the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, according to reports.

The chair of a Zimbabwean parliamentary committee on broadcasting rules has accused ruling Zanu-PF members of flouting free speech rights in a raft of new laws to govern public broadcasting in the country.

Unions representing Zimbabwean journalists this week condemned a death threat allegedly made by a war veteran leader against a reporter on a financial newspaper.

The Rockefeller Foundation's Communication for Social Change program released Making Wave: Stories of Participatory Communication for Social Change, a report written by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron. Making Waves is a worldwide examination on the role of participatory communication in development programs. Contact: Brian Byrd.

Your kind attention is cordially invited to our new but growing website on: "Understanding Poverty, Health and Development in Africa". The primary goal of the site is to help ordinary people to easily comprehend the policy and practical dimensions of poverty, its measurement and interplay with health and development.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the second review of Tanzania's performance under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF)[1] arrangement. The decision will enable Tanzania to draw SDR 20 million (about US$26 million) immediately.

Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries Trieste, Italy 11-13 September 2001 One of the key features influencing the use of new technologies in developing countries is the changing character of research and development (R&D), especially in the industrialized countries.

24--26 April 2001 Everyone is invited. We're targeting both the technical and the commercial communities. Also, we would encourage people throughout Africa to attend. Competing Data Warehousing Standards to Merge in the OMG. More information on the OMG and CORBA is available at www.omg.org and www.corba.org. Information about the Meta Data Coalition is available through the MDC Web site at http://www.MDCinfo.com/. September 25, 2000 - Needham, MA - Today, the Meta Data Coalition (MDC) and the Object Management Group (OMG), two industry organizations with competing data warehousing standards, jointly announced that the MDC will merge into the OMG. As a result, the MDC will discontinue independent operations and work will continue in the OMG to integrate the two standards. Until this week, there were two major standards for metadata and modeling in the areas of data warehousing and component-based development.

I have reformatted the outcomes of the "FAO: First International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting ''Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) Servicing Farm Radio: New Contents, New Partnerships", held at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy, from February 19 to February 22, 2001, in a MS Word 97 document.

Experts are warning web users to be on the lookout for a destructive and cunning new e-mail virus.

FreelanceHR has been launched in South Africa by Alan Ahlfeldt and Michael Kriess to alleviate the plight of the freelance worker and the needs of organisations. For only R20 per month, a freelancer can register on the site. There are various categories to choose from and if a category does not exist, one will be created within minutes. Freelancers are in charge of their own pages so it's up to them to keep it up to date. They receive a username and password and they just need to log in and update their details. FreelanceHR markets the site to the industry thus effectively creating a direct link between organisational needs and scarce skills. The service plans to launch in Australia, the UK and possibly the States later this year.

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