On May 3, 2003, the South African chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-SA), ARTICLE 19- Global Campaign for Free Expression, South African National Editors Forum (SANEF), Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), Wits Journalism School and the Wits Media Studies Programme will host a panel discussion on censorship laws at the Wits Graduate School for Social Sciences and Humanities from 08:30 - 12:00.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed great concern over the deteriorating press freedom climate in Cameroon following the detention of three journalists from Cameroon's only independent daily, "Mutations", and the closure of the private radio station Magic FM.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) protested the seizure of the weekly "Indorerwamo"'s ("The Mirror") first issue and called on Internal Security Minister Jean de Dieu Ntiruhungwa to return the seized copies of the newspaper immediately. "This prior censorship demonstrates that press freedom is not guaranteed in Rwanda," said Robert Ménard, the organisation's secretary-general, in a letter to the minister.

On 14 April 2003, Ato Melese Gessit, the former editor-in-chief of "Gemoraw" newspaper, was fined 11,000 Ethiopian birr (approx. US$1,300) by the Third Criminal Bench of the Federal High Court. He is accused of violating Articles 10(1) and 20(1) of Press Proclamation No. 34/85 and Articles 480(b) and 580(1) of the Penal Code. Melese was charged with publishing and disseminating three contentious articles.

Non-Profit Resource Training invites registrations for the
following workshops to be held in Cape Town.
* 13 - 15 May: Creative and Constructive Approaches to Conflict.
* 28 & 29 May: How to Write the Winning Funding Proposal.
* Inquiries: (021) 685 7726 or email: [email protected]

The Journal of Peacebuilding and Development is a new tri-annual publication for the sharing of critical thinking and constructive action at the intersections of conflict, development and peace. Aiming to develop theory-practice and North-South dialogue, JPD's authors and editorial staff represent global scholarship, practice and activism.

In the decades after 1945, as colonial possessions became independent states, it was widely-believed that imperialism as a historical phenomenon was coming to an end. The six essays collected in this volume demonstrate that a new form of imperialism was, in fact, taking shape—an imperialism defined not by colonial rule but by the global capitalist market. From the outset, the dominant power in this imperialism without colonies was the United States. Magdoff’s essays explain how this imperialism works, why it generates ever greater inequality, repression, and militarism, and the essential role it plays in the development of U.S. capitalism.

Whatever the other shortcomings of representative democracy, one issue that clearly remains largely unresolved is the participation and policy impact of women. This comparative study examines two African countries, South Africa and Uganda, both of which have attained greater women's political participation than most African - or indeed Western - democracies.

We would like to receive copies of the newsletter so as to share information with other stakeholders. Keep up the good work.

Fredrick Ouko
Kibera Community Youth Programme, Kenya

I am a senior reporter covering health issues. I hope the newsletter will help me by widening my understanding of health issues. I also look forward to contributing to the newsletter.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) Uganda, in collaboration with the Associazione Volontari per il Servizio Internazionale (AVSI), is pursuing a United States Department of Labor solicitation entitled "Combating Child Labor Through Education." The primary objective of this proposal is to improve access to quality education as a means to combat child labor in Northern Uganda.

Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is an international, non-governmental development organisation for African women based in the UK with an East/Horn of Africa sub-regional office in Kampala, Uganda. AMwA was founded in 1985 by a group of African women resident in the UK. Translated from Swahili, the name means `solidarity among African women', signifying African sisterhood. AMwA coordinates local, regional and international initiatives, and builds the individual and organisational leadership capacities of African women through leadership development programs, networking, information and advocacy. AMwA serves as a resource and research forum on issues affecting African women. AMwA is hereby seeking an African woman who is a motivated self-starter.

What's the best way to avoid spam email? Hide, says the Centre for Democracy and Technology. In its report, "Why Am I Getting All This Spam?" CDT outlines techniques used by spammers and explains the results of simple techniques used to circumvent the unwanted messages.

Thousands of people in Liberia's coastal city of Greenville have fled the town in fear of rebel attacks, civilians in Monrovia have said, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Many had reportedly fled into jungles after hearing that an unknown rebel group calling itself Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) had advanced to nearby Sinoe County.

Weary and frightened villagers straggling from the bush in western Ivory Coast have told of dozens of killings and wanton abuses after a surge of fighting that has soured hopes of peace, reports Reuters. It is hard to get a precise toll for recent deaths from the accounts of people limping into the French-protected town of Duekoue.

One in five African children die before they reach their fifth birthday, a conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa heard on Tuesday. Experts warned that many of the children die simply because of the poor environment they are forced to live in.

The Zimbabwe government has denied reports that President Robert Mugabe is preparing an exit plan for himself, saying the reports are "at best wishful". This follows news reports that Mugabe, who has been president since 1980, hinted at retirement during an independence day interview earlier this month. He was quoted as saying: "We are getting to a stage where we shall say fine, we settled this matter (land redistribution) and people can retire."

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) distributed last Friday non-food items to more than 500 Burundian families who were displaced when rebels shelled Kanyosha Commune, Bujumbura Rural Province, the agency reported.

A new rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia (M0DEL) has attacked the strategic southeast Liberian coastal town of Greenville, while an older rebel group hit Tappita in the northeastern county of Nimba.

The death rate for children in Tanzania has fallen by more than 25 percent following the implementation of a pilot three-year community project aimed at curbing malaria, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported last Friday.

The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe affects more than half of the country's 11.6 million people. As it has worsened, so to have the number of reported cases of child abuse. "The effects of two years of severe drought, increasing poverty, the devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic and economic decline have left children especially vulnerable to abuse," said Dr Festo Kavishe, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Representative for Zimbabwe.

Trade union officials last Thursday said up to 70 percent of the country's businesses remained closed on the second day of a three-day national strike. "Banks, stores and factories across the country have continued to heed the call to shut down. This is a promising sign that the strike has achieved what it set out to do. We expect that the success of this action will increase the pressure on the government to make some significant changes," the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary-general, Wellington Chibebe, told IRIN.

Central African Republic (CAR) leader Francois Bozize announced last Friday that he would step down as president after a transition period of between 18 and 30 months.

Effective tools to control malaria are available now but are not being accessed by the populations in need. The prime example is insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs). Most malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite at night. Thus ITNs have been proven to reduce malaria infection and death rates by forming both a physical barrier against mosquitoes and, in the words of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘generating a chemical halo’ around the bed, repelling and killing mosquitoes. However, for people in rural Africa, bednets are hard to get hold of. In these areas, access is often restricted to those with money to buy them from urban centres, or to those taking part in isolated research projects and localised bednet programmes.

Angola on Monday launched the biggest health campaign in the country’s history, aiming to inoculate seven million children against measles. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Health, with key financial, logistical and training support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the campaign seeks to vaccinate every child aged between nine months and 15 years, a UNICEF statement said.

- Seven months after Zambia rejected genetically modified foods and banned American transgenic food donations from entering its territory, the Zambian government has developed a National Biosafety and Biotechnology Strategy Plan.

You would have to be brave, foolish, or very hungry to eat the fish that God's Time is catching in his net. "I catch up to 1,000 fish sometimes," said God's Time, whose curious name is not uncommon in these parts, as he reached into a jerry can tied to his waist and pulled out a small bream. Environmentalists say there are few ways that the state has failed the people of Nigeria's oil-rich southeast more than the mess that has been made of the ecosystems in one of the world's great patches of mangrove forest.

ERC-L is a monthly e-mail newsletter about new resources for human rights education and training on the web site of Human Rights Education Associates (HREA). HREA's Resource Centre consists of: a Library; a Forums section with various discussion lists related to human rights and human rights education; a Human Rights Education Links section; and a Databases section. If you have questions or feedback, please contact us at: [email protected].

The international community must assume its moral and legal responsibilities to help end the devastating conflict that continues to plague the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Amnesty International said in a new report. The report details the human cost of the conflict and underscores the exploitation of the DRC's natural resources as the biggest single factor perpetuating violence in the country.

Doctors and nurses have borne the brunt of the HIV/Aids pandemic but have received inadequate training to cope with the disease. A new project aims to change that by providing African health workers with the skills to better treat HIV/Aids patients.

That's the question. And it arises since Clarin.com from Argentina has set up a public weblog, where anybody can add a comment. The weblog site is hidden in a tiny link on the front page, which takes you to the weblog front page. There you can see news items, all of them about technology issues, and you can post what you think. As in a forum. So, can we talk about this as a weblog? What's the difference?

Many of us have talked about organising a critical civil society response to the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Durban 11-13 June. Our demonstration last year was a landmark event in terms of the struggle against corporate globalisation. Unlike previous demonstrations we have adequate warning this time that the meeting is happening and the comparative luxury of 6 weeks to pull together a response. Click on the link for more details.

The Government is making arrangements to repatriate Sh160 billion stashed in the secret foreign accounts of 10 Kenyans. Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi said most of this money was stolen from public coffers. Kiraitu noted that this money is more than what the country collects annually in taxes.

HIV/AIDS is the greatest single threat to Africa's development. AIDS kills more than 5,000 people every day in Southern Africa, destroying local communities and national economies. But the crisis is still not a priority for the international community. Action for Southern Africa, in a joint campaign with the Trade Union Congress (TUC), is lobbying the British government to take a lead in the war against HIV/AIDS by supporting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Join Actsa's campaign.

There were substantial flaws in some of the critical stages leading up to the elections which tended to undermine the credibility of the process, says a preliminary report from the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 170 human rights and civil society organisations. Preliminary election-day reports received from TMG monitors all over the country indicate a large voter turnout in most of the states and substantial improvements in the arrangements made by the Independent National Electoral Commission for conduct of the elections. The TMG observes that there were cases of electoral violence and numerous reports of electoral fraud in some parts of the country. Since this report is being issued ahead of the final release of all the results from the elections and the receipt and final analysis of all the data from TMG monitors in the field, the TMG will refrain at this stage from making a final determination as to whether the elections were free and fair. Also included in this posting are two reports on the conduct of police during the recent elections held in Nigeria.

The U.S. and British led war in Iraq is now a significant chapter in world history. It adds to the conflict level in the Middle East. The short and long-term triggers to the war may be debatable; the consequences on health and development issues in Africa are not. Support for this view is widely shared in development circles. For example, James T. Morris, Executive Director, World Food Programme, said in an April 7 speech to the United Nations Security Council in New York: “Continuing funding shortfalls for food emergencies in the DPRK (Democratic Peoples’ Republic of the Congo) and Afghanistan and future demands in Iraq further darken the (humanitarian assistance) outlook for Africa”.

Africa is known for many good things; clearly defined and publicly reinforced geo-strategic interests are not among these. Many African countries are plagued with internal strife, famine, high external and internal debts, weak economies as well as poor human development indices. Many depend, perhaps too willingly, on foreign aid for basic survival. The World Bank estimates for example that African countries on average receive three dollars per capita from donors for every dollar of GDP expenditure on health and social development. With such levels of dependency, can most African countries stand up to the implications of the Bush doctrine, which implicitly demands that nation states choose sides in the conflict?

Americans like all humans can be friendly and supportive as well as singularly vindictive. Post 9/11, the present Bush administration is the face of American friendship or enmity that the world sees. For now, that face seems stone hard in the relentless pursuit of perceived enemies of the U.S. As a sampler, Nigeria’s military assistance pact with the US was reported suspended unilaterally by the Bush administration recently. The poor human rights records of Nigerian soldiers sent to quell internal civil unrests were the official American reason offered for the suspension. The timing however has raised the allegation that the suspension was provoked by Nigeria's stated support for a multi-lateral approach to the war against terrorism but not a unilateral American-led war against Iraq.

As the US understandably diverts more of its resources to war efforts and seeks to fund rising budget deficits at home, it is conceivable that development assistance funding cuts would be implemented against ‘unsupportive’ nations and multi-lateral development institutions.

So, at the risk of clairvoyance, here are some predictions for health and development in many African countries as war in the Middle East progresses and the Iraq post-war period unfolds:

1. Given the present high dependency of most Africa countries on bilateral and multi-lateral donor funding for population, nutrition and health (PNH) activities, many may well kiss these activities goodbye unless they willfully undertake a major paradigm shift and target more internal resources towards the promotion of their PNH activities. The alternative saving grace (assuming external dependency is considered inevitable) would be for the EU, Japan and other non-U.S donors to step in and fill inevitable funding shortfalls.

2. In the ensuing five or more years, African countries should expect more pressure to remove subsidies on social goods, devalue national currencies and promote more privatization of water, power, education and health. These standard structural adjustment policies recently repackaged as Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSP), have been shown to worsen rather than uplift health, education and development indices generally in Africa.

3. Given American anxiety about rising costs of the war and with massive reconstruction estimates running from $20 billion per year for the first several years to $600 billion over a decade, it is no surprise that the World Bank and the IMF have been conveniently charged with managing war and rebuilding funds. African countries should (regardless of their economic problems) expect to contribute willy-nilly in paying for the Iraq war and for post-war reconstruction.

4. Among the many specific consequences of adjustment policies, World Bank/IMF funds management duties and diversion of humanitarian assistance funds to rebuild Iraq, Africa should expect:
a) The prevalence of AIDS and AIDS-related diseases to increase as the poverty index worsens and the external funds which now drive prevention activities and access to anti-retroviral treatment declines.
b) Subsidy on socially-marketed condoms to be removed at source or its level reduced and free condom distribution to be constrained, resulting in condom scarcity and increase in open market pricing beyond the reach of the "common man". Prior gains in family planning and control of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS would suffer setbacks.
c) Further drop in immunization coverage with worsening infant and childhood mortality/morbidity as donor funding for free or subsidized distribution of childhood vaccines reduces.
d) Poverty-induced girl trafficking and prostitution to rise as poverty worsens locally and the externally-funded micro-credit and other women empowerment projects get less funding. Mainstreaming women into the development agenda of most African countries will likely suffer setbacks.
e) Worsening unemployment rate especially in the pool of non-governmental organisations in health, development and human rights activities as most of these organisations and their projects are largely dependent on external donor funding.
f) More aggravated drain in health manpower to developed nations with consequential reduction in the local manpower pool for services delivery.

The litany of adverse consequences is long, but some challenging policy-related questions beg to be asked. Must health and development in Africa be inevitably worse off in the ensuing years as a result of conflict in the Middle East? Is there a silver-lining for Africa in the conflict? Necessity is said to be the mother of invention and the war may well present African countries with a forced opportunity to reform their high dependency on donor funds from the North. Such funds, rather than supporting sector-wide reforms, drive health and development assistance programs project-by-project. These projects are not always coordinated with national health plans and policies. African countries would do well to seize the opportunity to re-examine and publicly redefine their respective national and geo-strategic interests, restructure their resource mobilization and allocation process and look more inwards for their health and development solutions.

* What do you see as some of the impacts of the invasion of Iraq on Africa? Send your comments to

* References
1. Morris, J.T. Iraq - Africa: Double standards? World Food Programme 2003; 7 April http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/how_run/ED/speeches/030407.pdf Accessed April 11, 2003
2. Better Health in Africa. World Bank. Washington DC;
1999.
3. Oloruntola, T. Military reform in troubled waters.
Daily Independent, Lagos. 2003; 28 March http://odili.net/news/source/2003/mar/28/303.html Accessed March 30, 2003
4. Colgan, A. Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa. Africa Action 2002; 18 April http://www.africaaction.org/action/sap0204.htm Accessed April 11, 2003
5. Dunphy, H. Finance Leaders Back U.N. Postwar Plan.
Associated Press 2003; 12 April http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=530&ncid=530&e=3&u=/ap/20030412/ ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_iraq_aid Accessed April 13, 2003
6. Thom, A. Rich countries deplete Africa's medical resources. Health-e News, South Africa 2003; 10 April http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/16/1/74.pdf Accessed April 2, 2003

* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This paper has benefited from valuable critiques from some public health scholars. To them, immense gratitude. Please share freely. Comments welcome.

* Akintola Odutola, Centre for Health Policy & Strategic Studies (CHPSS)
Lagos, Nigeria Tel. +234-1-470 1255 Fax. +234-1-2635285 Email: [email][email protected] Websites: http://www.datelinehealth-africa.net

Human Rights groups under the auspices of the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All are asking government to come out with strategies that will increase the enrolment of more girls in schools.

The outcome of the elections of April 12 and 19 has again brought Nigeria to the precipice. The elections were generally peaceful, even if not totally violence-free. There were some logistic hitches that were later smoothed out, but by and large, the elections were impressive. The jinx, it seemed, had been broken. But having peaceful elections is totally different from having free and fair elections. One does not necessarily lead to the other. The events of the last few days suggest it is too early to celebrate a successful civilian-to-civilian transition. There is every reason to be afraid for the democratic project in Nigeria, and for Nigeria itself. Lagos' independent This Day urges all Nigerian political parties to adopt a more conciliatory tone and to unite behind the effort to produce real electoral reform.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) investigators are arriving in Angola on Wednesday on the trail of almost $1bn which the IMF believes vanished from state coffers in 2001 alone. The money, an internal report alleged late last year, came from oil sales, the cornerstone of Angola's foreign trade.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) combines civil, political, social and economic rights in one standard-setting document. Subsequent human rights treaties reflect the efforts of the international community to give these rights a legal basis at the national and international level. However, the system of treaties that has evolved since 1948 has been defined by a major chasm between those who view narrowly-defined political and civil rights as the "real" human rights and those who argue that economic, social, and cultural rights are more important. Women's Human Rights advocates are critical of this dichotomy because it goes against the principle of the indivisibility of all rights. Feminist analyses of human rights reject the mainstream hierarchy that privileges civil and political rights over economic, social and cultural rights.

According to the Sowetan, a group of 40 young people had to be forcibly removed from the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF). offices in Midrand. The youngsters allegedly staged a sit in after the UYF refused to commit funds to their project. About 40 young people from the Okwethu Ngathi Corporation (ON Corp), who were demanding millions of rands for their project, refused to leave the Umsobomvu premises, saying they would only do so once a commitment was made that money would be dispersed.

The Cape Times reports that Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane announced one of the largest funded Aids programmes undertaken by a church on Wednesday. The multi-million rand programme aims to reduce the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/Aids.

SABCNews reports that Global Philanthropist and head of computer company Microsoft, Bill Gates, has donated US$28 million for a study on the effectiveness of latex diaphragms.The study seeks to prevent the spread of HIV infection among women by supplying them with latex diaphragms. Recent studies in Zimbabwe, which has a high Aids prevalence, showed high levels of satisfaction with the product among women.

Ethiopia is aiming to harness alternative basic education as a way of tackling the millions of children left out of school, a conference heard on Tuesday.

They first took this unique method of farming to the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa last year and showed the world how this unique farming system could ensure sustainable food security. Small farmers from Africa and Latin America who advocated restrictions on genetically modified foods at the World Summit fell in love with it, and in a small but very significant way, Lesotho’s small farmers using the Machobane farming system are contributing to the fight against famine and unsustainable food security in their own country.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is stunned by the capacity of thirteen capable governments to be so completely hoodwinked by one country's President. It urges the governments of SADC and concerned citizens across the region to go beyond the propaganda put forth by the ruling party in Zimbabwe, and develop their own understanding of the severity of the Zimbabwe situation by listening to and engaging with voices from all corners of Zimbabwe.

We write as a group of doctors working at primary health care clinics in the public sector. We want to state that we have reached the point where we are asking ourselves daily how we can possibly continue working with integrity in the context of our many terminally ill HIV-positive patients not having access to life-saving medications.

We are all well aware of the problems besetting Zimbabwe and more importantly their root cause – the later is only spoken about, by all of us, in hushed tones with trusted friends. In preference to discussing solutions to the problem, business leaders spend their time managing around these problems. Little quality thinking has been directed to how people in business can facilitate the departure of Mugabe’s evil regime and the restoration of democracy in Zimbabwe. Contrary to popular belief, this change does not rest solely in the hands of politicians and activists, but the responsibility also lies squarely at the feet of every Zimbabwean. This letter serves to introduce you to the concept of achieving change, without perpetrating violence, within an oppressive environment.