Climate change is now threatening development goals for billions of the world’s poorest people – with a clear danger that recent gains in reducing poverty will be thrown into reverse in coming decades. A staggering 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century. That is the sombre message of 'The climate of poverty: facts, fears and hope', a new report from Christian Aid, which calls on the UK government to lead rich countries in taking urgent action to curb global warming.

This opinion piece makes an analogy between a speech by former US president Reagan and a recent statement by an IMF staffer on the IMF's policies in Africa. In the article entitled, "Building on the foundations of growth," the Managing Director of the IMF, claimed that Africa’s economy was on the road to recovery.

The practice of paying bride price is one of the factors contributing to women in Tanzania suffering sexual abuse, battery and denial of their right to own property, a study conducted by the Tanzania Media Women Association says. The association's report is based on a survey it conducted between January and March in 10 of Tanzania mainland's 21 regions. The survey showed that young men who could not afford bride price ended up living with women and having children without formal marriages.

Although Zanzibar's Kataa Malaria initiative has reduced the malaria caseload on the island, misinformation about the safety of insecticide-treated bed nets - a cornerstone of the programme - has left many people exposed to the disease, which kills one million people around the world each year. In December 2005, Tanzania became one of 15 beneficiaries of a US $1.2-billion initiative to fight malaria in sub-Sahara Africa, where 90 percent of all global malaria deaths occur. United States President George W Bush's Malaria Initiative (PMI) is funded through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). As a beneficiary, Zanzibar received 240,000 long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets for local distribution to pregnant women and children up to age five years, the groups most vulnerable to the disease.

There was much optimism when, on 15th March 2006, the General Assembly of the Untied Nations finally adopted the draft resolution that created the new Human Rights Council to replace the old and ineffective Human Rights Commission. Of course, few believed that this new Council would be even close to perfect - but even the harshest critics realised the potential of the Council to be a marked improvement over its predecessor, which, among other serious shortcomings, had shamefully failed to act during the genocides in Rwanda, Burundi and the former Yugoslavia.

It was good to read the article on the visit of Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem to the Pan African Parliament (PAP). It is good that I have finally found space to air my views on the PAP. Firstly, I concur with the sentiments that there is a need to publicize the existence of the PAP as the majority in our various countries are not even aware that there is the existence of such an institution in Africa. Publicizing the PAP will certainly enhance the desires of oneness and strengthening the mindsets of all of us towards a unified Africa. This will build us more than ever and the potential of this PAP towards unifying Africa is certainly understated.

Secondly, I would like to comment on the process of representation on the PAP. Why can’t it be mandatory that we have elected leaders to represent us from each country? The election process should happen at the same time from each country. The criteria for being elected should be that each candidate should have served a full term in their own countries. The elections should be given full attention with a mandate required from all districts in every country. If I feel that I have the power to elect a representative from my country to represent me at Continental level, I will be sure to have an interest in what that MP is going to say or contribute in the PAP.

Therefore I would like to call upon all Africans to support my call for all Nations to conduct elections for their Pan African Parliament candidates. These elections need not be expensive as we could use our existing infrastructure at district level and get civil society and civic bodies to organise and mobilize for the administration of such an election. It is by carrying out such activities that the local people will feel the importance of the PAP.

Thirdly, should the above-mentioned proposal be accepted by all, it will give room for the members to have full allegiance to the PAP and not consider it as just another activity through which to get an extra allowance.

This is how we as a continent will be able to build our continental leadership. This is a call for our leaders to start investing seriously in the PAP.

In a span of four years, 3,390 of Kenya's 30,000 registered nurses migrated to Europe and the United States. During this period between 2000 and 2004, about 1,200 nurses were leaving Kenya for greener pastures every year, the National Nurses Association of Kenya (NMAK) says. Nurses have long been overworked and underpaid and found themselves ripe for easy pickings with the attractive pay offered by clinics in countries that have so willingly absorbed them.

Tanzania is still suffering from the hangover of state control of the media, which was practised from 1965 until 1992. According to a report by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) entitled, So This is Democracy? The State of Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in Southern Africa for 2005, under the multiparty system there has been a dramatic increase in the number of privately-owned newspapers competing with government media. However, the report says that the weak economic base of media owners has also led to alliances between the state, private media owners and business tycoons at the expense of press freedom.

As Kenya hosted the 114th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) last week, the question of whether the congress would help persuade parliamentarians to focus on economic and social issues, remained debatable. To the African Members of Parliament, the hope was that the gathering of over 1,500 delegates from 143 countries would address pressing issues such as political conflicts and the proliferation of small arms, poverty and HIV/Aids with the objective of galvanising international support for various countries. But most speakers at plenary sessions concentrated on giving country profiles rather than offer mechanisms on how parliamentarians can address issues closer to the heart of the voters.

The Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) is organising and hosting a conference from 12 – 15 June 2006 with the theme “South Africa’s Unemployment Crisis: Overcoming Unemployment – Strategies for giving effect to the Right to Work.” Participants will include activists from Right to Work Campaign Forums from 6 provinces, a host of older and newer social movements, international guests and individuals committed to eradicating unemployment. They will deliberate on mass unemployment – a key feature of neoliberal capitalist globalisation – and the strategies for combating unemployment in South Africa and internationally.

Mountain glaciers in equatorial Africa are on their way to disappearing within two decades, a team of British researchers reports. Located in the Rwenzori Mountains on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the glaciers will be gone within 20 years if current warming continues, the researchers report in this week's online edition of Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers blamed an increase in air temperatures in recent decades for contributing to the decline of the ice fields.

The question is what is the feminist agenda within the ICTs and gender debate. The issues of women's sexuality, representation and exploitation are obvious. The connection that needs to be made is to shift the understanding of ICTs from a ghettoized area relevant only to those who are privileged enough to have technological access, to the larger framework of women's human rights, which includes violence against women.

As work on economic, social and cultural rights (ESC) grows by leaps and bounds around the world, a large number of organizations and individuals have expressed interest in learning more about how budget analysis can contribute to their work. The guide "Dignity Counts" aims to provide guidance to civil society organizations on how to use budget analysis as a tool to help assess a government's compliance with its ESC rights obligations.

A study by the Simon Wiesenthal Center entitled "Digital Terrorism & Hate 2005" reported a 25% annual increase in websites promoting racial hatred and violence, which indicates that the problem of racism and xenophobia is growing over the Internet. These disturbing developments have naturally informed the global fight against racism. A significant number of international instruments acknowledge and attempt to address the problem without limiting freedom of expression.

The new edition of IWGIA's Yearbook The Indigenous World has now been published in English and Spanish featuring country reports and a section on international processes relating to indigenous peoples.

A group of Malians deported from France is due to hold a march to protest at the visit of hardline French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy this week. The planned march follows a statement from Malian MPs, calling on Mr Sarkozy to call off his "undesirable" visit. Mr Sarkozy wants to reduce illegal immigration and has been behind the deportation of many Malians.

Police in Kitwe yesterday (May 15) arrested seven pupils from Mindolo High School and Mama Monty Basic School after they ran amok and destroyed school property. The pupils also temporarily blocked the Chingola road using rocks and threatened to stone motorists, who were forced to turn back on either side of the road. The pupils were protesting over the current strike by teachers in Kitwe.

The government of Sudan is to provide scholarships for Sierra Leoneans to study in Sudan in various fields of study. The scholarships will cover traveling to and fro, lodging, feeding, allowance, tuition and other expense for students pursuing courses in engineering, computer, medicine and Islamic Studies.

Nigerian blogger Chippla (http://chippla.blogspot.com/2006/05/need-to-amend-nigerian-constitution....) explains that there is more to the constitutional amendments in Nigeria than extending Obasanjo’s tenure from two to three years.

“By infusing an extension of the presidential term of office into the constitutional amendment, the administration of Mr. Obasanjo hijacked a very good exercise. Given that the so-called third term agenda (which appears to be practically dead) has come to overshadow the entire constitutional amendment debate, one is left wondering if the other amendments will go forward, should they receive the necessary backing of the national and provincial legislative assemblies.”

Chippla goes on to explain some of the main amendments such as direct allocation of funds to local governments, changes in citizenship for non-Nigerian men married to Nigerian women, recognition of other languages in government other than English and human rights although these do not include rights of homosexuals.

Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (http://ayaanhirsiali.web-log.nl/log/5841271]Ayaan hirsi ali) is apparently on her way to the US to work for a conservative think tank called the American Enterprise Institute. She will be resigning her position as MP following a disclosure that she lied when applying for asylum from Somalia.

“Ms Hirsi Ali's quitting of Dutch politics and the Netherlands follows on from a television documentary, shown last week, which reported that she lied in the early 1990s about how she fled her native country, Somalia, in order to gain asylum in the Netherlands. Since the broadcast, there have been calls from various quarters for her to lose her Dutch passport.”

According to the blog report, Ms Ali herself has been at the forefront of legislating for stricter immigration laws particularly against those that lie to enter the Netherlands, which makes the supposed revelation an embarrassing one. She claims that it is open knowledge that she came via Kenya to the Netherlands and not directly from Somalia. This is quite common as many Somalis and Sudanese refugees first left for Kenyan refugee camps before coming to Europe.

Cyblug (http://abujacity.typepad.com/abuja_and_beyond/2006/05/the_language_of.html) takes issue with the language used by foreign media reports on the recent gas fire explosion that took place in Lagos in which 200 people were killed. For example. describing Lagos as a “dilapidated port city”.

“I would be the first to admit yes it is a ‘Dump’ but where is the need for adding this dilapidated bullshit in the mix, there are newer parts of Lagos that are not dilapidated and run down so why mention this at all? Baltimore City, (Maryland in the US) is a dilapidated port city but I never hear it being described as this in news reports.”

He also objects to people being called scavengers: “…someone drilling holes in oil pipelines to sell at a higher price by the border is not a scavenger. Call him vandal, a thief, an opportunist or as we say in Naija an oil bunkerer.”

Egyptian Chronicle (http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2006/05/image-is-powerful-than-10...) continues with reports on last Thursday’s “Bloody Thursday” when protestors were arrested in Cairo. She publishes a number of photos showing police brutality against the protestors.

“I was shocked at first because if you look carefully you will find that the officers and soldiers are spurning the young man who is wearing what can be considered the colours of the Egyptian flag…The first impression, the first thought that came to mind was ‘what those bastards were doing with our flag?’, then I noticed it was a human being , and after that I saw the pictures of the chase between the young man and the police ended in this scene, it turned out that the young man was wearing red t-shirt and black trousers, the white colour was the colour of this inside shirt.”

AfroBlog (http://afrorise.blogspot.com/2006/05/should-africa-look-to-latin-america...) responds to a BBC World “Have Your Say” programme question on whether Africa should look to Latin America, with reference to the socialist President of Venezuela and the newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia.

“For Africa it would be ideal to learn from the experiences of Latin America but realistically newly independent nations in Africa have scarcely learned from the experiences of some of the first independent states in Africa, so how can we expect the continent as a whole to learn from the experiences of another continent and apply them? I think one of the major differences is the level of civic engagement in the political arena in Latin America and particularly when it comes to mass mobilization. These are the people who are electing presidents like Morales and Chavez.”

One Arab World (http://onearabworld.blog.com/716778/">One Arab World) comments on a new Egyptian law that gives security forces the power to arrest and detain people without charge. The government is defending the action by highlighting the need to prevent acts of terror.

“The Emergency Laws, an Egyptian version of the Patriot Act on steroids, are what some claim to be what stands between us and the terrorists and what others claim to be the main source of breading terrorists. Very little in the actual law is very shocking in this day and age of global terrorism (albeit it was implemented before it was internationally acceptable to impede basic rights in the pursuit of security). It is the implementation that is hair raising. The Emergency Laws are what everyone in the Egyptian Security Apparatus, from the Interior Minister on down, hides behind and justifies their actions with…The ‘far right’ everywhere have a strategic tendency to push draconian measures the population would normally shun during times of panic that typically ensue acts of terrorism. After Sinai this was inevitable.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

African leaders meeting last week at a special summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, threw down a challenge to their governments by setting bold new targets to be achieved by 2010. At the end of the gathering to review progress in implementing the 2001 Abuja Declaration on AIDS, TB and Malaria, a major resolution was passed, declaring that at least 80 percent of those in need, especially women and children, should have access to HIV/AIDS treatment, including antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, care and support.

Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang used her quarterly briefing to chastise the media for lending coverage to Jacob Zuma’s shower comments, for reporting “only on HIV/AIDS” and for discounting her claims on nutrition. She was updating the media on progress being made by Government’s social cluster in Pretoria. The minister also revealed that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) health ministers were in the process of establishing an AIDS fund “to do certain things”.

Reporters Without Borders welcomed as an "important signal" the decision to put Nyimpine Chissano, older son of ex Mozambican president, Joachim Chissano, under investigation in connection with the inquiry into the November 2000 murder of Carlos Cardoso, according to a statement, reports The step will allow the justice system to probe the possible implication of the former head of state's son in the murder of the country's best known investigative journalist, editor of the daily Metical, who was investigating a massive financial scandal at the time of his death.

A United Nations Security Council resolution has paved the way for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Sudan's western Darfur region and threatened sanctions against any parties standing in the way of peace. In a resolution adopted on Tuesday, the Council called on the African Union (AU) to agree with the UN and other regional and international bodies on a strategy to strengthen its 7000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur before a UN mission is deployed.

Britain is waiting for a European Union report on Uganda's February presidential and parliamentary elections, before deciding on whether to release 15 billion pounds ($9.375 billion) withheld last year. The money was part of $73 million that donors cut or diverted from aid to the government citing concerns over the high public administration costs and the talk of a level political playing field.

The World Bank has approved a massive $200 million grant to the Tanzanian government towards its poverty reduction programme. The Fourth Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC-4) is aimed at helping the government provide incentives to implement key economic, social and institutional reforms to strengthen the overall performance of the economy and contribute to poverty alleviation. A key outcome of the reform programme, which is also supported by 13 other donors, over the period 2006-2010, is to sustain high rates of economic growth in the range of 6-8 per cent annually. If achieved, the World Bank says that this will "translate into a significant reduction of poverty incidence in the country."

Europe has struck a deal with Morocco, a partnership agreement that gives European fishermen the right to take 60,000 tonnes of fish a year from Moroccan waters, reports the United Kingdom's The Times Online. "This deal is part of a new rape of African resources by Europe and it is the more shocking because it is being done as politicians throw billions of dollars of aid at the continent," the article says.

Money flowing into UK bank accounts from developing countries has surged in the past few years, dwarfing Britain's official aid budget, figures show, reports The Independent newspaper. The scale of the exodus of capital from countries with major social problems will raise fears of massive corruption and money laundering that will hurt the welfare of the world's most vulnerable people.

MS-Training Centre for Development Cooperation is calling for applicants to a course on Sustainable Livelihood Approaches to Poverty to be offered from 5th to 23rd June 2006. For further information on this course please contact the Course Administrator at [email][email protected] and visit our website

The editors of a second anthology in the series Women Writing Resistance seek writing by African women regarding resistance to particular challenges or oppressions faced by women in Africa today. Of especial interest are personal narratives, testimony, interviews, short stories, poetry, short plays, folktales, and lyrics. Visual art considered. Topics may include HIV/AIDS; FGM; sharia law; poverty and lack of access to education, health care, credit, political power; armed conflict, rape as a weapon of war and displacement; challenges of emigration and exile, legal or illegal; polygamy, abuse and lack of power in heterosexual relationships; resistant sexualities; intergenerational conflict and resistance; tradition vs. modernity; more. Contact: Tayo Jolaosho at [email][email protected]

The Zuma rape trial was going to raise many questions and bring divisions. I'm actually responding to the four women respondents who expressed their strong opinions in Pambazuka News 254 and starting with the featured interview with Delphine Serumaga.

Is it coincidence that they are all women? I'm not surprised by their diatribe, needless to say that I'm a man, but that does not really fashion my views on this one. There are parts of what they say I agree with and some (most in fact) that I don't and think that they are emotional, misdirected and confuse issues deliberately for the cause of fighting women's rights at the expense of reality and common sense. We all know that our society is "patriarchal", but we're trying hard to change that.

The Judge takes huge flak, unjustly as he was only doing his job, but there is recognition that he was "fair" and his judgment "correct". The alleged "gap in his understanding" is imaginary…the judge was aware of each and every piece of evidence led before him! People must realise that cases are won because there is strong and unassailable evidence, but rape is always difficult as it is the word of only two people against each other. I don't agree with the statement that the judgment was a "setback for women's rights" in general.

I agree that "Khwezi's" dignity suffered and will be difficult to reclaim, but nevertheless the legal system has done its best to "protect" her under the circumstances. Her name or picture may still not be published without consent, she is kept under extended witness protection even after the trial, and she is starting a new life away from SA at the state's expense.

It would be sad if indeed the judgment means that women who are abused are intimidated to approach police and courts, but the flip side also is that in such cases people may not abuse the system by claiming non-existent rapes, or fulfill other agendas via bogus rape charges.

Interesting that a Sunday paper published views from the public about the Zuma judgment and his aspirations for presidency. More important is that the majority (49%) "agreed with verdict, 40% didn't" and again a majority 51% "accepted Zuma's apology for his behaviour", only "42% didn't". These perceptions are likely to change over time. It is two years before the issue of the presidency really comes up for any serious contention. Besides, the ANC is capable of dealing with this issue within their structures, without any individual influence.

Floods have killed nine people, displaced thousands others and destroyed a cemetery in Burundi's northwestern province of Bubanza, following a week of heavy rainfall that caused two rivers to burst their banks. The government and the United Nations Mission in the country, known as ONUB, have started to provide to help the affected families and to divert the floodwaters back to the riverbeds.

Many tourism businesses realise that the principles of sustainable development can make good business, as well as moral, sense. Increasing numbers of tour operators are accepting that they have a responsibility to society and the environment, globally and locally, as well as to their shareholders.

Small and medium enterprises account for a huge proportion of the businesses and jobs in the world’s forests. These enterprises can be easy for poor people to set up, but without support, the challenges of being small threaten their survival. The best way forward is usually finding a common cause and working together as an association.

People living in the rural highlands of Ethiopia suffer from land degradation, low agricultural productivity and poverty. Finding solutions to these connected problems requires policymakers to understand the potential impacts of different interventions.

In the Mao era, China dealt with Africa as part of a show of solidarity with countries that shared some of China's experience of Western oppression. However, these links were fostered in an ideologically charged time, when China sought to display affinity with other socialist countries and to demonstrate an almost nihilistic aversion to the institutions and norms of international relations. Although it joined the UN in 1971, any real alteration of China's foreign policy did not come until the Deng-initiated reforms post-1979.

"Publish or perish" is the warning given many academics at the start of their careers. But it's publication of a very particular kind that scholarly researchers crave. They hunger for their discoveries to achieve immortality in something seldom found on the shelves of your neighbourhood bookstore: specialised academic journals, speckled with footnotes and dense with terminology.

An unusually heavy influx of undocumented immigrants, who arrived on the coasts of Spain's Canary Islands over the weekend, has highlighted the ineffectiveness of wire fences and other police measures designed to keep people from sub-Saharan Africa from seeking a better life in Europe. Between Friday and Monday (8 to 12 May), the Civil Guard and local police intercepted and detained more than 500 people who arrived in Spain in canoes and "pateras" (precarious, low-floating wooden boats designed for shallow waters). Most were coming from Mauritania and Morocco.

The Program Assistant contributes to all aspects of program implementation and administration under the Africa Education Initiative (AEI) Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP) in approximately 15 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The AEI-AGSP supports scholarships and mentoring programs for socially, physically, and economically disadvantaged girls in Africa.

United Nations sanctions on exports of timber and diamonds from Liberia should be lifted if the West African country's economy is to recover from years of war, one of the region's top diplomats said on Monday (15 May). The trade prohibitions were imposed on Liberia during the final years of its civil war, a diamond-fuelled conflict which killed a quarter of a million people, devastated its once vibrant economy and left its infrastructure in ruins.

Floods in northern Tanzania have displaced more than 19,000 people, submerged close to 1,000 homes and destroyed crops, a local government official said on Monday (15 May). The floods in Moshi, near Mount Kilimanjaro, mostly affected residents who had previously been hit by drought, which had threatened up to 11 million people with starvation. "I think we have more than 19,000 displaced. Up to now there are 998 houses that are under water," James ole Millya, Moshi Rural district commissioner, told Reuters by telephone.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation stormed to a record 1,042.9 percent in April, surging into four figures for the first time, official figures showed on Friday (12 May). The world's highest inflation rate is the product of an economic meltdown also marked by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food and rising unemployment. The data had been due for release on Wednesday, but that was abruptly cancelled and CSO officials would not say what had caused the delay. The CSO said on a monthly basis, the consumer price index leapt by 21.1 percent from 19.8 percent in March as prices increased on an almost daily basis, according to Reuters.

This award honours an individual or a civil society organisation in a conflict country or region that has developed groundbreaking and effective initiatives to promote the rights of women and to increase their participation at decision-making levels in peace processes. Winners will receive a sum of EUR 15,000 and a work of art made for the occasion, as well as a tour through the Netherlands to present their work to a variety of diverse audiences.

Police in Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo have threatened prominent woman rights activist, Jenni Williams, with death if she dares organise any more anti-government demonstrations by her Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) group, Zim Online has learnt. Bulawayo lawyer Kossam Ncube, whose law firm Job Sibanda and Associates acts for Williams and WOZA, told Zim Online that they had reported the matter to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights which is expected to take up the issue with police authorities.

The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR), supported by the World Council of Churches, has initiated a resolution for Royal Dutch Shell shareholders to consider at their Annual General Meeting in The Hague and London on 16 May 2006. The resolution calls for ‘a major improvement in Shell’s performance in terms of community and stakeholder consultation, risk analysis, and social and environmental impact analysis’.

This paper starts from the premise that trade may be necessary for sustained industrial development, but it is not sufficient. In the right circumstances, trade liberalisation creates opportunities for development, but other factors determine the extent to which those opportunities are realised. It argues that, to benefit from liberalisation developing countries will need to make public investments in infrastructure and institutions as well as private investment in productive capacity - a point realised by the aid for trade agenda.

The Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PGRF) consists of a series of targets designed to encourage transformation in the economies and policies of the participating countries, with a view of promoting macroeconomic stability, economic growth and poverty reduction with a six year framework. This research paper assess the impact of the PGRF on social services in Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania.

A new United Nations-backed study attempts to affix a dollar value on some nature areas, but critics view the "Eco-nomics" figures with skepticism. The study says that assigning values to nature -- such as $3,500 for a tropical forest in Cameroon and $10,000 for a Caribbean coral reef -- promotes the environment because it counteracts the thinking that ecological systems have no value.

Progressio seeks a Public Fundraising Manager (£32,896 per annum plus benefits). This is a two-year/full time contract, based in Islington, London. This is an exciting new position for a dedicated and skilled individual with strong fundraising skills and a creative mind who is looking for a good career move to prove themselves.

Transparency International (TI) has opened the call for nominations for its annual Integrity Awards. The deadline for nominations is 2 June 2006. "This is the most prestigious global anti-corruption prize," said Sion Assidon, the Chair of the TI Integrity Awards Committee, a member of the TI Board of Directors and a founder of TI-Morocco. He added, "Each year we honour organisations and individuals who have demonstrated exceptional courage, and have shown outstanding leadership."