With support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the University of KwaZulu-Natal has extended and refined its grants programme to stimulate research in Population Studies and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa over the 2004-2005 periods. Interested researchers are requested to contact Millicent Atujuna for further grant and application details at [email protected] or visit the following website: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/grants.

The Global Fund for Women (GFW) aims to support women's groups that advance the human rights of women and girls. GFW is a grant making foundation supporting women's human rights organisations around the world working to address critical issues such as gaining economic independence, increasing girls' access to education and stopping violence against women.

Subscribe to the IRR news network to get customised news emails delivered to your inbox for free. You can choose to receive IRR news stories either weekly, daily or immediately when they're published. If you select the daily or weekly options you'll receive an email every morning or every Friday with all the new stories in the form of a headline and the first paragraph. Click on the headlines you want to read and your internet browser will start automatically, taking you to the full story. If you select the immediate option, you will receive the complete story in the body of your email as soon as it has been published.

The Eduplex Primary School in Pretoria, South Africa, has become the first school in Africa, and one of the first schools in the world, to be equipped with Automatic Frequency Synchronisation (AFS) technological devices, fixed into classrooms and assembly centres to assist learners with hearing problems.

Emerging markets such as Africa and South America have created a lot of interest for international telecommunications companies that are trying to generate new revenues and recover from the slump that has affected businesses. These previously underserved markets are ready for a telecommunications boom and the mobile industry has already started reaping the benefits, as it constitutes approximately 50% of all communication in Africa.

As part of reforms to build investor confidence in Nigeria, the nation's envoys, as well as trained law enforcement agents, are to be co-opted into the war against e-mail scams. The e-mail scam is one method used to defraud victims by luring them with promises of business deals running into millions of Naira.

The war in Congo, estimated to have killed three million people and involving armies from seven different countries, is coming to an end. But, as United Nations troops move into areas previously ravaged by war, the true horror of what was wrought on the population is now emerging.

Obesity is so revered among Mauritania's white Moor Arab population that the young girls are sometimes force-fed to obtain a weight the government has described as "life-threatening". A generation ago, over a third of women in the country were force-fed as children - Mauritania is one of the few African countries where, on average, girls receive more food than boys.

The International Organisation for Migration has launched a US$2 million, three-year initiative to foster a regional partnership on HIV and AIDS in mobile populations in Southern Africa. The initiative will include assessments and research across the region, which has some of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, as well as raising public awareness of the vulnerability and needs of groups on the move.

Liberia's interim justice minister has rejected the idea of a war-crimes court for the West African nation, saying it would do nothing to promote reconciliation after 14 years of bloodletting. Justice Minister Kabinah Janneh's refusal is significant in part because Nigeria has indicated it might turn over ousted Liberian President Charles Taylor, now living there in exile, if Liberia had such a court. A war-crimes court "will not help peace in the country; it will not foster the kind of reconciliation we need," Janneh, a former rebel leader, told The Associated Press.

The latest U.S. State Department call for progress in the stalled Ethiopia-Eritrea peace accord - issued this week and coming on the heels of similar expressions of concern by European diplomats last week - is welcome news for those fearing the renewal of war. But it doesn't go nearly far enough. The absence of even the barest suggestion of consequences to either party for blocking the accord renders the statement toothless, charges a briefing from the think-tank Foreign Policy in Focus. Four years ago, Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed to put the border dispute that triggered what became one of the most costly conflicts in African history to binding arbitration. “Today, with Ethiopia balking at the results, the two states are on the verge of going back to war, as the U.S. twiddles its political thumbs in the hope that the problem will somehow go away,” says the briefing.

Officials at the heart of the Goldenberg inquiry stand accused of taking bribes of up to one million shillings from key players in the scandal. The bribes were offered by people anxious to influence the outcome of the inquiry by tilting evidence yet to be heard, sources said last night. The dramatic claims of corruption brought the inquiry to a sudden halt in its 133rd day as the commission announced a one-week adjournment.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Rights Week’s keynote speaker Nontombi Naomi Tutu gave a speech on the importance of honesty when dealing with racial differences. She phrased America’s suppressed prejudice as “internalized racism” and addressed South Africa’s current racial status by claiming that in twenty years, it would be “better than America’s,” because the nation was formerly under apartheid but now the citizens were able to be open and expressive about their differences, thus exploring shared ground.

Thandanani Children's Foundation (TCF) is a well-established NPO situated in Pietermaritzburg. KZN. The present Director has been in the organisation for 8 years and is leaving at the end of March 2004. TCF therefore wishes to employ a new Executive Director of calibre and with experience in the NPO sector and children's issue; who is dynamic, a powerful leader and is business minded.

The six-day World Social Forum (WSF) which concluded in Mumbai Wednesday, highlighted the need for urgent action, beginning with a global anti-war march on March 20, and a movement against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank between April 22-25, which marks the 60th anniversary of the two institutions. The forum that attracted 100,000 participants from 132 countries closed with cultural performances and messages of solidarity from across the world.

The Project Officer will be responsible for writing progress reports and proposals for fundraising, facilitating production of training materials and publications, facilitating the implementation of program activities and production of materials. The Field Officer will be responsible for the provision of information to support the organisation 's education, research and advocacy programme.

Nigeria's creditors have for the first time acknowledged the country's pressing need for debt relief. The Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO) Muhtar Mansar said: "The IMF have done a very detailed study on debt sustainability analysis, taking into account Nigeria's budget projection situation and it shows that Nigeria really needs debt relief." He also said that there was a lot of sympathy for Nigeria on the issue, particularly from the UK, the country's largest creditor from the Paris Club. Twenty-five per cent of Nigeria's Paris Club debt belongs to the UK.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) in Namibia has deplored alleged indiscriminate, inhuman and degrading treatment as well as blatant disregard for the rights of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. In a show of solidarity following recent claims of abuse against Nepalese asylum seekers, NSHR executive director Phil ya Nangoloh said: "Although these very ugly allegations are no surprise to us, such allegations are an embarrassment to human rights organisations on the African continent, such as NSHR…”

Three years after the end of Sierra Leone's devastating civil war, the living conditions of the majority of the people is getting worse by the day, as the economy shows no signs of picking up. "These are indeed troubling times," explains Ibrahim Sesay, a spokesperson for the Consumers Association of Sierra Leone in the capital Freetown. "The cost of living has skyrocketed and people are suffering, with unemployment on the increase, low incomes and rising costs of goods on the market," Sesay adds.

Mediators at the Somali peace talks say that a "breakthrough" has been achieved, with all factions agreeing to set up a new parliament. They also agreed that Somalia, which has been wracked by 13 years of fighting between rival warlords, would have a federal system of government. A group of warlords returned to the talks on Monday and agreed to the deal.

When Jasper Simalie suffered from severe respiratory complications two years ago, his family had no reason to fear for the worst. They had their hopes pinned on Zimbabwe's affordable health care service, which enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best in Southern Africa. And it delivered. The condition returned to haunt him last year, and this time the family made frantic but futile efforts to find affordable treatment. Simalie's illness forced him to stay at home for three months. He was retrenched, and left with only enough money to pay his way back to his rural home in the northwestern province of Binga. Hospitals, according to Simalie, "are now a place to die - they refer everyone to a filthy deathbed under a hardworking but underfunded home-based care system."

Four days of rioting by secondary school students in Libreville last week highlighted a growing frustration with education cutbacks in Gabon, a country that grew rich on oil, but which is now struggling to cope with a steady decline in production. The country's main technical school remains closed after four days of rioting over cutbacks to a free student bus service in which one student was killed.

Many women and girls amongst the thousands of people in the north who flee their homes each night to seek shelter in town centres fearing attacks and abduction by Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels are sexually abused, an advocacy group has reported. The New York-based Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC) said in a statement that the "night commuter" girls and women had reported that those sexually abusing and harassing them were mainly youths and government soldiers.

Maria do Ceu Silva Monteiro, a 38-year-old woman judge, has been appointed president of the supreme court of Guinea-Bissau, filling a post that had been vacant for more than two years. She was elected on Monday on a six to one vote by other senior judges in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people on the coast of West Africa.

A judge in northern Ghana has sentenced a 70-year-old woman to five years in prison for violating a ban on circumcising girls, saying the tough sentence should deter an "outmoded custom." Ghana in 1994 outlawed the practice of cutting away parts of girls' sexual organs, but the long-held rite of passage has continued in parts of West Africa, mostly in rural areas where education campaigns are only beginning to reach largely illiterate and highly traditional populations. Prosecution is rare, throughout West Africa.

Hadija begs for money in the bustling alleys of the ancient walled city of Rabat, Morocco's capital. "My husband repudiated me when I was three months pregnant," she says. Under Morocco's old family code Khadija's husband and thousands of other Moroccan men could verbally divorce their wives at any time, and their decision was legally binding. Khadija was thrown out of her family home.

A computer virus spread via e-mail has been described by security experts as the "largest virus outbreak in months". The malicious worm, called Mydoom or Novarg, has clogged networks and may allow unauthorised access to computers.

The image of companies working hard to make the world a better place is too often just that - a carefully manufactured image - says Behind the mask: the real face of corporate social government, a report timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum of business leaders, meeting in Davos in January 2004. The report, by Christian Aid, targets the misuse of ‘corporate social responsibility’ - or CSR - which is now seen as a vital tool in promoting and improving the public image of some of the world's largest companies and corporations. But, according to the case studies in this report - featuring Shell, British American Tobacco and Coca Cola - the rhetoric can also mask corporate activity that makes things worse for the communities in which they work. For example, Shell in Nigeria claims that it has turned over a new leaf there and strives to e ‘good neighbour ', says the report. Yet it still fails to quickly clean up oil spills that ruin villages and runs 'community development' projects that are frequently ineffective and which sometimes even widen the divide in communities living around the oilfields,” says Christian Aid.

The view most people have of colonialism and imperialism is largely negative. So any charge that a group, individual or government is guilty of them is bound to be resisted strongly by the recipient. Recently, in New York City, a broad charge of eco-imperialism was laid at the feet of the environmental movement. The Congress of Racial Equality (Core ) blames government officials, aid agency bureaucrats as well as sandal-wearing greens for mass disease and death in the poorest countries of the world because they export their most vile regulatory policies.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has condemned the raid by several dozen police officers on the offices of the independent daily "Awoko", in the capital, Freetown, on 21 January. Three journalists were manhandled by police during the raid. The raid came after three journalists from the paper went to the scene of an accident, in which a police car collided with another vehicle, during a police operation against illegal street vendors.

The management of the state-owned Ondo State Radiovision Corporation (OSRC), in southwestern Nigeria, suspended nine senior journalists on January 21 for an indefinite period of time. The affected journalists include news director Seinde Omokoba and his deputy, Sanya Adeleye. The others are Taiwo Fagbuyi, Akinwale Oshodi, Franklin Olaleye, Daisi Ajayi, Remi Olagookun, Daiso Ifaleyimu and Bola Akinrunjomo, all of whom hold various positions as editors, reporters and newscasters. The suspension letters, which were signed by OSRC board chairman Clement Adebambo, accused the journalists of "dereliction of duty." In a telephone interview, however, Oshodi told the Media Foundation for West Africa-Nigeria that the journalists were suspended for giving prominent airtime to an aborted strike over increases in petroleum product prices, which had been planned by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for 21 January.

Zimbabwe's chief justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has "fast-tracked" an application by the state's media watchdog for the independent Daily News to be shut down until the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality of official press controls, lawyers said. Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser to Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe which owns the Daily News, said Chidyausiku, widely seen as a government supporter, had decided to hear an "urgent application" from the government-appointed Media and Information Commission in his chambers. The commission is asking Chidyausiku to bar the Daily News from publishing until the court hears the commission's appeal against a high court ruling in October that dissolved the commission on the grounds that it was "biased" and "improperly constituted."

The controversial Communal Land Rights Bill was passed unanimously by parliament's committee on land, but gender and land rights activists have vowed to step up their fight against it. Preparation of constitutional challenges to the Bill's provisions on Tuesday shifted into top gear, after the committee adopted the Bill, which gives traditional leaders more power than ever in communal areas, including the allocation of individual land transfers. The adoption confirmed fears expressed last week by activists that the Bill would be bulldozed through parliament as an election sop to chiefs.

The World Health Organisation said last Wednesday it planned to boost programmes aimed at curbing the growing pandemic of tuberculosis and HIV co-infections, with the main focus being in Africa, where 70 percent of the world's 14 million people who are co-infected live. "Tuberculosis (TB) is perhaps the greatest and most deadly opportunistic infection associated with AIDS," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive directions of the UNAIDS programme. "By tackling TB and HIV together, we can have a significant impact on improving the quality of life of people infected with HIV, while also controlling TB and preventing new infections."

The Genetic Engineering (GE) industry is facing a shrinking global market as more and more countries adopt biosafety laws and GE labelling regulations. Moreover, as a result of widespread and mounting consumer rejection and the difficulties experienced by Monsanto in obtaining regulatory approval of its GE wheat, it has decided to pull out of the European cereal market.

Africa and Asia are the new frontiers for exploitation by the agro-chemical, seed and GE corporations. The potential for US agri-business to profit from hunger in Africa through, ostensibly the provision of food aid, technical assistance, capital investment, agricultural research and the funding of biosafety initiatives are enormous. The United States' Agency for International Development (USAID) appears to be at the forefront of a US marketing campaign to introduce GE food into the developing world. It has made it clear that it sees its role as having to "integrate biotechnology into local food systems and spread the technology through regions in Africa."[1]

Through USAID, in collaboration with the GE industry and several groups involved in GE research in the developed world, the US government is funding various initiatives aimed at biosafety regulation and decision-making in Africa, which if successful, may put in place weak biosafety regulation and oversight procedures. USAID is also heavily involved in funding various GE research projects in a bid to take control of African agricultural research.[2]

Biosafety under threat

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety finally came into force, after years of negotiation, on 11 September 2003. This international binding environmental agreement is specifically designed to protect human health, the environment and biodiversity from the risks posed by GMOs. It was countries from the South, and the African group in particular, that consistently championed biosafety and reaffirmed the right of importing countries to ban or severely restrict imports of GMOs in the face of scientific uncertainty, based on the precautionary principle. To date, 65 countries have ratified the Protocol, with many more ratifications expected before the first Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol takes place February 2004, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia[3]. Only 18 countries in Africa have so far ratified the Protocol[4] but many more could be persuaded to do so, in order for them to qualify for one or other of the numerous biosafety capacity building initiatives taking place on the continent.

However, the hard earned victories won under the Biosafety Protocol may be under serious threat from these GE 'biosafety' initiatives. There is an ever present danger that African countries will be overwhelmed by the volley of technical experts they are peppered with by USAID and GE industry money and expertise, that they will succumb, despite their valid concerns, to these formidable forces. The fad is the drafting of national biosafety frameworks. With their failure to prevent the Biosafety Protocol from coming into existence, the opportunity to exploit the implementation of the Biosafety Protocol to promote weak and ineffective biosafety legal regimes and redirect capacity building towards GE rather than biosafety, has been seized in an attempt to garner much needed support for this dangerous technology.

Examples of USAID's Biosafety Initiatives in Africa

* USAID through the Association to Strengthen Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) facilitates collaborative research between their 10 member countries[5], US public and private sectors and international agricultural research centres. It has developed a model for regional technical reviews within these member countries in close collaboration with national biosafety focal points.[6] The concern is that this initiative may well be used as a launching pad to foster regional acceptance of GE through weak biosafety regulations, and thereby promote the technology transfer and private sector investment in GE in Africa.

* USAID's Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP) has established a partnership with seven Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries - Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - to similarly provide technical training in biosafety regulatory implementation. Its ostensible goal is to promote conformity with the science-based standards of the World Trade Organisation's Sanitary and Phyotosanitary agreement and the Biosafety Protocol.[7] Needless to say, taking into account the US's WTO challenge of the European Union's de facto moratorium on GMOs, it is anticipated that every attempt will be made to ensure that biosafety regulations are consistent with the US interpretation of the WTO rules, rather than the Biosafety Protocol.

* USAID has awarded the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS), a consortium, $14.8 million to assist developing countries to enhance Biosafety policy, research, and capacity.[8] Included in this list of developing countries are a number of countries in East and West Africa. The International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) heads the consortium. The consortium is reported as having amongst its goals, the rendering of assistance "to governments in making science-based decisions about the effects on biodiversity of introducing GMOs into the environment" and assisting such countries in regulating and conducting experimental field trials. If this is the case, then these goals are preposterous as they are unashamedly aimed at usurping decision-making powers of countries and their sovereign rights to perform regulatory functions. It is extremely ironic that the US, still not a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and cannot therefore ratify the Biosafety Protocol (and will not do so in the foreseeable future) should want to promote biosafety in Africa and the implementation of the Biosafety Protocol.

It appears that the US and the GE industry are pursuing a well-orchestrated strategy in Africa to lower resistance to GE and gain acceptance of this extremely controversial technology. These initiatives may be given considerable impetus by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) plan to establish a high level advisory panel aimed at "facilitating trade in GM products between African countries by harmonizing biosafety regulations". [9] However, this panel has not yet been established and its terms of reference made public. The direction that such panel would therefore take will reveal itself in the future.

It is worthwhile also to mention that the United Nation's Environmental Program (UNEP) with funding from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is conducting a worldwide capacity building project involving more than 100 developing countries, several from Africa.[10] The main objective of this project is "the preparation of National Biosafety Frameworks in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Biosafety Protocol."[11] Its overall efficacy in capacitating African countries to establish sound biosafety frameworks remains to be seen. Crucially, the nature of its linkages with the USAID/GE industry biosafety projects if any will also become apparent with the passage of time.

Finally, what remains to be seen, is the extent to which South Africa's biosafety law will be used as a basis to harmonise biosafety laws on the continent. Zimbabwe, the only other country aside from South who has biosafety laws in Africa has already followed South Africa's example. South Africa's Genetically Modified Organisms Act is a poor example of biosafety regulation.[12] It is in effect, merely a permitting system designed to expedite GM imports into the country and releases into the environment. It specifically mandates that biosafety risk assessment involve no more than a paper audit, which entails a review of the 'safety' information generated by the corporations during product development.

Africa's redeeming assets

While on the surface, this picture appears bleak; there is a groundswell of NGOs, consumers, farmers, government officials, parliamentarians and scientists opposing GE in Africa. Benin for example, has imposed a moratorium on the imports and cultivation of GMOs.

Last year, several countries in Southern Africa resisted and seriously questioned the donation by the US through USAID, of GE food aid. Zambia refused to accept the food aid and effectively took a decision to ban the distribution of food aid within its borders. Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe requested that all US imported GE maize be milled prior to distribution in order to prevent its inadvertent use as seed. Lesotho and Swaziland authorized the distribution of non-milled GE aid but not before it warned the public that the grain should be used strictly for consumption and not cultivation. This saga played an important role in heightening the debate within Africa on the health, social, economic and environmental impacts of GE crops. An offshoot of this is the publication by the SADC Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and Biosafety of their recommendations regarding GE food aid. These are significant because a key recommendation is that donors of GE food aid should comply with Prior Informed Consent principles and the notification requirements of the Biosafety Protocol. This is extremely important, given that the World Food Program has admitted that it has, since 1996 been delivering food aid that included GE food products, without warning the recipient countries.[13] It also calls for the African region to develop harmonized policy and regulatory systems based on the OAU African Model Law on Safety in Biotechnology (Model Law), and the Biosafety Protocol.

The Model Law is a set of holistic and stringent biosafety rules drafted by a number of African biosafety experts crafted specifically to protect Africa's biodiversity, environment and the health of its people from the risks posed by GMOs. The African Union Summit held in Maputo during July 2003 pointedly encouraged African countries to use the Model Law as a basis for biosafety regulation.[14] The adoption of the Model Law in Africa will give countries leverage to resist attempts by the powerful GE industry to use Africa as experimental and dumping grounds for their products. Africa's biodiversity and the health of its people, can only be protected from the risks posed by GMOs if Africa as a whole, subscribes to common and uniform biosafety standards, based on the precautionary principle.

These gems are important contributions towards maximizing Africa's chances to limit the risks posed by GE. It is clear, however, that much needs to be done. One of the key challenges for African civil society in particular, is to embark on strategies and initiatives directed at influencing and shaping policy, legislative and procedural frameworks on the continent and engage national and regional bodies such as SADC and NEPAD.

* Mariam Mayet is an environmental lawyer, with a BA, LLB, LLM (Wits) and heads the African Centre for Biosafety. This article was published in the current edition of the Third World Resurgence, Issue NO. 159-160. It is reproduced here with permission of the author. Click on the link below for references.

Funding relationships are often problematic:
- The funders who have the money are based in the North (or are branches or affiliates of Northern organisations, controlled from the North), and they have their own agendas which they wish to pursue.
- The NGOs who are seeking money are based in the South, often desperate for money in countries where there are limited sources available to them. This means that they will want to take whatever money is offered, and on the terms and conditions on which it is offered, whether or not it is for exactly what they want to be doing.

Unequal funding relationships exist everywhere, but are far more pronounced in the South, and especially in Africa from the Sahara to Zimbabwe – partly because there is much less funding around, and partly because there is much less indigenous tradition of NGO activity which pre-dates the rapid rise of international development aid over the past 30 or so years which has developed a consequential need for local partner organisations.

The effect of this is that it pushes Southern NGOs into a dependency relationship with their funding partners. They are always in a position of having to “beg for money” and be subservient. And the tune is definitely being called by “he who pays the piper”. And because the funders control the distribution of money, this gives them a position of power often leading to a certain arrogance.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below. Michael Norton is the founder of the Directory of Social Change in the UK. He has also founded and co-founded a number of organisations promoting community involvement amongst young people and social entrepreneurship. He also runs a number of development projects in India.

* Norton will be speaking on this topic at the 5th International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation, on 26th –28th March 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He will be presenting workshops on: ‘How to raise funds successfully in your local community’, and ‘Communicating your need’ in addition to co-presenting a discussion forum on ‘Expanding the donor base: do Northern NGOs and Southern NGOs face the same challenges?’

* Use the following URL for programme and booking information on the 5th IWRM – sectionid=5&subsectionid=70

South Africa's most influential AIDS pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) slammed the government on Tuesday for delays in rolling out a planned anti-retroviral (ARV) drug program. Amid mounting pressure from home and abroad, President Thabo Mbeki's government agreed last November to give sufferers anti-retroviral drugs which can prolong life and stave off full-blown AIDS in people with the HIV virus that causes it. The long-awaited announcement was universally welcomed after years of controversial debate about the science of HIV/AIDS, but now activists are unhappy about further delays.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa announced his government will provide free anti-retroviral drugs to about 100,000 patients by next year through the public health system. In a state-of-the-nation address to parliament, Mwanawasa said 10,000 HIV-infected people have so far been put on anti-retroviral therapy provided by the government.

A high-powered African National Congress delegation led by Deputy President Jacob Zuma met with the Inkatha Freedom Party leadership in Durban to look at ways to repair damaged relations between the two coalition partners ahead of the elections. The meeting was held at a presidential guest house in Morningside, Durban, on Tuesday, and came as relations between the two parties reached the lowest point.

Nigeria launched an anti-corruption drive last week when five former government officials charged with accepting bribes appeared in court for a test case of the country's desire to clean up its image. One of the judges did not turn up and the trial was postponed. But this nevertheless signalled a new determination by President Olusegun Obasanjo to tackle graft on the same day he visited London for Commonwealth talks.

AIDS drug treatment programmes can be scaled up effectively in poor areas, and do not lead to the high levels of drug resistance that many had feared, according to preliminary results from Mozambique. The DREAM (Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS in Mozambique) programme - part of a national strategy to provide antiretroviral drug treatment (ART) to people living with HIV/AIDS - has also confirmed that state-of-the-art laboratory facilities are an important part of monitoring treatment.

Although the modern world has extensive experience with people migrating for political and economic reasons, we are now seeing a swelling flow of refugees driven from their homes by environmental pressures. And with most of the nearly 3 billion people to be added to the world's population by 2050 living in countries where water tables are already falling and where population growth swells the ranks of those sinking into hydrological poverty, water refugees are likely to become commonplace. They will be most common in arid and semiarid regions where populations are outgrowing the water supply.

As the corruption trial of three former ministers Alhaji Hussaini Akwanga, Chief Sunday Afolabi, Dr. Mohammed Shata and others resumes this morning in Abuja, Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the good governance group, has called on the federal government to demonstrate its genuine commitment to the fight against corruption by signing and ratifying the African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption. In a statement released in Lagos, IAP says this case is being widely regarded as a key test of President Olusegun Obasanjo's resolve to deal with endemic corruption in the country, but that for the trial not to be seen as "playing to the gallery" or "window dressing," it is imperative that Nigeria signs, ratifies, domesticates and implements the AU Convention.

The World Movement for Democracy will convene on February 1-4, 2004 in Durban, South Africa, for its Third Assembly. Building Democracy for Peace, Development and Human Rights, is the theme of the Assembly, which will take place at the International Convention Centre in Durban. More than 600 democracy activists, practitioners, and scholars from more than 100 countries in every region of the world, including Belarus, Burma, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Mongolia, Serbia and Venezuela will discuss practical solutions to a wide range of challenges. Kabissa's Kim Lowery will moderate a workshop on Using New Technologies in NGO Networking in collaboration with Rakhee Goyal of Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace.

When a lorry carrying farm workers crashed this month outside the capital, Harare, killing 22 people, a number of children were among the fortunate survivors. The tragedy came at the beginning of the new school year, when a rise in school fees had forced many former farm workers - among the poorest of the rural poor - to pull their children out of school. The children on the lorry, aged between 13 and 18, were seeking piecework on neighbouring farms to earn the money to continue with their schooling.

As the clock ticks closer to a sell-off of ivory stocks in Southern Africa, questions are being asked about why Malawi's legislation has not yet been strengthened to meet the dangers posed by elephant poaching. In 2002, delegates to a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed to a one-off sale of ivory stocks by Botswana, Namibia and South Africa after May this year. Although Malawi will not partake in the 2004 sell-off - also intended to finance conservation - there are fears that the country's laws are too weak to prevent poachers from trying to cash in on the sale. Environmental analysts say the National Parks and Wildlife Act needs to be reviewed so that penalties for illegal ivory trading are brought in line with the gravity of the offence.

In the transition from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the AU, the role of the African human rights system has been neglected. The African human rights structure, comprising the African Charter, the African Commission and the proposed African Court, at present does not form an integrated part of the AU system. The incorporation and strengthening of this system is fundamental to the implementation of a substantive model of democracy, one that goes beyond procedural concerns such as elections and prioritises issues of state legitimacy, popularity, responsiveness and socio-economic rights, says a 2003 Policy Brief, Democracy, Human Rights and State Reform in Africa, from the Centre for Policy Studies.

The National Labour & Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) has been nominated for the “Best Labour Website Of The Year”. The annual competition run by Laborstart, an international union news service, sees union and labour websites throughout the world bidding for the title. The website with the most votes cast in its favour walks away with the sought after title.

More than 11 million children under 15 years of age have been orphaned as a result of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, with that figure expected to rise to 20 million by 2010, according to a report by UNICEF Ireland. In late 2003, an estimated 26.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV/AIDS. Of those, 10 million were young people (aged 15-24) and more than 2 3 million were children under 15. In 2003 alone, about 2,3 million adults died of AIDS in the region - that's the equivalent to over 5,000 people dying every day. Among the most devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is that it is orphaning generations of children - jeopardising their rights and well being, as well as compromising the overall development prospects of their countries.