"As the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank celebrate their 60th anniversary this year, movements from all over the world are mobilizing to express vigorous opposition to their policies and operations. We are now calling for coordinated actions on October 1 to 12, 2004 of the peoples, and to dub these days of October as the Worldwide Days of Resistance to the IMF & World Bank."

"Political Federation would make a critical difference, ushering in a fundamental integration of East African states. At the Pan African Movement, we remain more convinced than ever before that integration must be a central component in Africa’s response to an unfair world economic and trading system, which is heavily weighted against the vital interests of African people. To integrate is a question of not just development, but of the very survival of African people."

A US-based press freedom watchdog has urged authorities in Somaliland, the self-declared republic in northwestern Somalia, to release the editor-in-chief of two newspapers arrested at the end of last month. New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that Hassan Said Yusuf, the editor-in-chief of the independent Somali-language daily, Jamhuuriya, and its weekly English-language edition, The Republican, was picked up from his office in Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, on 31 August.

Prime Minister Themba Dlamini outlined the Swazi government's new economic growth strategy in parliament on Wednesday, and also touched on international concerns over democratic reform. The premier called for a programme to improve environmental management, and said a land policy had been developed and was awaiting approval.

A number of African leaders last week used the second African Traditional Medicine Day (31 August) to confirm their commitment to national efforts aimed at ensuring the safety, efficacy and quality of traditional medicines. In a statement, for example, the African Union (AU) Commission called on its member states to ensure that research on traditional medicine is integrated with HIV/AIDS control programmes, as well as with all aspects of development policy.

Kenya had to end rampant public corruption and quickly liberalise state-controlled monopolies or risk being marginalised, even within east Africa, the US ambassador to Kenya, William Bellamy, said at the weekend. He said that besides the rise of HIV/Aids it was no secret why most of the east African country's socio-economic indicators were going down.

This report from the New Economics Foundation argues that a continuing reliance on fossil fuels will perpetuate poverty and could drive a huge 'reversal of human progress.' It stipulates that increased investment in renewable energy could save millions of lives and avert an impending crisis over global energy supplies, and that even a relatively small shift in investment in the energy sector in percentage terms could have hugely beneficial consequences for people's health and economic wellbeing. The report also argues against the current subsidies for coal, oil and gas, which it estimates amount to at least US$235 billion each year.

Namibia is drafting three pieces of legislation that will guide the management of wetlands in the country. A recently launched booklet, 'Wetlands of Namibia', says the three laws will be: the Water Resources Management Bill, Environmental Management Bill and the Parks and Wildlife Management Bill. Lenka Thamae, the Manager for the World Conservation Union SADC Wetlands Projects based at WCU regional office in Harare, has urged Namibia to preserve its wetlands so that they can benefit future generations.

The observation “All Men” by Zainab Bangura in Pambazuka News 172 is food for thought. Sometimes you wonder if declarations on gender equity are genuine and with good intentions. If at all they are then the pace we have decided to work towards them is indeed slow. I just hope our politicians and leaders realize that empty words do nothing to improve situations, but it needs affirmative actions to move where we are and get where we want to be. My sister Zainab has just mentioned a few examples but the situation is the same at all levels, be it at home, village, places of worship, regional levels, whatever level the story is the same, “All Men”! When you try to ask why? The answers are the same “No suitable candidates!”

Nellie J. Mwandoloma, Tanzania

Thanks for your social contribution to development.

Charles Boateng, Ghana

Beyers Naude, an Afrikaner cleric who spent half his life using the bible to justify apartheid before becoming one of the anti-apartheid movement's most important moral voices, died early Tuesday, a family spokesman said. He was 89. South Africa's former white rulers denounced Naude as a traitor and tried to prevent him from spreading his message of racial tolerance. His church marginalized him and many whites ostracized him.

Women ex-combatants from Rwanda have asked for a role in regional peacekeeping missions in Africa. Pointing specifically to the recent Rwandan government's commitment to support regional peacekeeping missions by sending soldiers to help protect African Union cease-fire monitors, they are urging that ex-combatant women be included in such missions, because of their experience of warfare and its particular impact on women, and their interest in assisting women caught in conflict.

The impact of this conflict on the people of Darfur has been atrocious. Massive human rights violations committed in the region include: extra-judicial executions, unlawful killings of civilians, torture, rapes, abductions, destruction of villages and property, looting of cattle and property, the destruction of the means of livelihood of the population attacked and forced displacement. Clicking on the link provided will take you to an interview with Victoria Eluzai, a founding member of the Sudanese Young Women Empowerment Network (SYWEN), who discusses the situation in Sudan.

i asked her to tell me her story
she started by looking away –
gazing back into that darkness when she knelt to pray.
the planes dropped the bombs before daybreak -
the janjaweed stormed with the dawn.
those who could
fled to the forest
to hide till they’d gone.
returning to ruins by moonlight
she found she was orphaned and then -
there they began
their exodus out of
sudan.

Boy is an adaptation of Collen’s 1996 Creole novel Misyon Garcon, and was therefore seemingly unwritten in English in order to be re-iterated in relation to the Creole native to Mauritius. Before we have even read a word of Boy, we have been pitched into the middle of a linguistic exchange; a dialogue that interfaces languages (French, Creole, and English) in order to both showcase the linguistic mosaic of Mauritian identity, as well as posit these languages in a larger spectrum of political power. With Boy, Lindsey Collen’s own sensitivity to language is also evident, as she seems to be writing first as an activist whose writing has been censored, threatened and banned, and subsequently as a novelist, and in this respect, Collen has not departed from the political role that has traditionally defined African novelists.

If you are a mid-level or senior programme manager, social worker, senior government officer or planner, a health care professional, or have an interest in ageing issues, then this course is for you.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa on Wednesday said that the government by next month plans to provide antiretroviral drugs free-of-charge to people living with HIV/AIDS in the country, Xinhua News Agency reports. Mkapa made the announcement during a ceremony in which the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Tanzania $87.9 million to fight HIV/AIDS, according to the country's Daily News newspaper, Xinhua News Agency reports.

More than 120 people have died of cholera in western Chad and nearly 3,000 cases of the water-borne disease have been reported since an epidemic broke out at the start of the rainy season in mid-June, the government told relief agencies this week. "At yesterday’s coordination meeting, the Chadian authorities said they had recorded 2,895 cases of cholera and 123 deaths throughout the territory," Geneviève Salise, the Cholera Coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium told IRIN by telephone from the Chadian capital N’djamena.

Eight months after its launch, people living with HIV/AIDS say Angola's programme to fight the epidemic is inadequate and moving too slowly. The US $160 million national strategic plan, a five-year collaboration between the government and the United Nations, is focused on prevention, building institutional capacity and helping HIV-positive people.

It is a simple matter to give a child a gun, drug him up to the eyeballs and tell him to kill your enemies. But Father Henry de Penfentenyo, a Roman Catholic priest who runs a youth centre in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire, says it takes his large team of carers several weeks, and usually several months, to rehabilitate each one to the point where he or she can be sent back home safely.

On September 3 2004, a new regional newspaper, “The Southern Times”, was launched in the Zimbabwean resort town of Victoria Falls following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on media cooperation between Zimbabwe and Namibia. The MOU between the two countries was signed in February this year culminating in the joint venture between Zimpapers whose flagship is The Herald, and the New Era of Namibia, which will give birth to the Southern Times project.

Mr. Methaetsile Leepile was awarded the prestigious MISA Press Freedom Award for 2004 for his involvement in the establishment of the first vernacular Setswana newspaper in Botswana. His achievement was celebrated for its contribution to the promotion of indigenous language systems in the media in the sub region. At the same time, MISA paid tribute to Mr. Leepile's illustrious career in media development in the region - a career which spans over more than 20 years.

Journalist Mbuyi Tshibwabwa, who is also known as "Mbote ya Kabambi" ("The Big Hello"), has been in hospital since 22 August 2004 after being severely beaten at a military court in Goma, North Kivu province's main city, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Tshibwabwa is a military journalist and host of the local television show "Armée et peuple" ("The Army and the People").

Total aid flows to education have declined at the beginning of the present decade. The current level of US$1.5 billion of support to basic education is still far short of the roughly US$7 billion per year required to meet the universal primary education (UPE) and gender goals. How should governments and the international community translate their commitments into real resources?

South Africa's largest teachers' union welcomed a decision by Commonwealth countries last Thursday to clamp down on the poaching of educators from developing countries. Education ministers of 23 Commonwealth states agreed to a series of measures that will guide the process of international teacher recruitment. The Commonwealth protocol does not ban recruitment from developing countries altogether, but is intended to end the organised targeting of poorer countries by wealthier ones seeking teaching staff.

Residents in the southern Somali port of Kismayo are reported to be nervous that forces loyal to warlord General Morgan are planning an assault. The advance is being resisted by the Juba Valley Alliance militia, and there were reports of skirmishes outside the town on Sunday. General Morgan has refused to join the latest Somali peace talks, or take up a seat in the planned transitional parliament set up in Kenya last month.

"The Government of Sudan is pursuing the high-risk strategy of seeking a solution on its own terms in Darfur, anticipating that international interests in the Naivasha process will allow it to prevail. It may yet be proven right. It has made only modest progress in implementing its commitments in Darfur, focusing its efforts on building an international coalition opposed to sanctions. The practical obstacles to ensuring security are considerable, but the GoS needs to demonstrate much more goodwill and determination." This is according to a briefing on Sudan by Justice Africa.

The world has changed dramatically since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA. A progressive and development-oriented global agenda which was beginning to define the post-Cold War era, in the form particularly of the United Nations Millennium Summit and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), has since then receded.

"The Organisation of African Unity (OAU)’s success in achieving the political independence of the continent has not brought with it economic freedom. Thus the continent still faces major challenges of poverty alleviation and development. However, this can be explained by the deficiencies of the post independent African states in achieving economic development for its citizens, a major challenge for the African Union (AU) and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) program. Throughout the world, regional integration has gained momentum and is seen as the panacea to dealing with the shortcomings of the state. This paper seeks to examine Africa's efforts and challenges at building coherent regional groupings and offers lessons for the AU."

A Mauritanian human rights committee, after a three-year delay, finally has been able to report on the progress in the fight against slavery, female genital mutilation (FGM) and racial discrimination in the country. While the Committee mapped grave problems, authorities in Mauritania keep denying there are any matters of concern.

Families forced to flee violence in western Ethiopia need more humanitarian support to help them rebuild their shattered lives, Oxfam America urged. Hundreds of people were reported killed in communal fighting that flared up in December in Gambella, western Ethiopia, and continued during the early part of this year, government officials said. As many as 15,000 were reported to have fled to neighbouring Sudan. The fighting, which was sparked by an attack on a vehicle in which eight government workers were killed, fuelled existing tensions between ethnic groups in the area.

Long-standing plans by the Zimbabwean government to draw water from the Zambezi River to supply drought-prone Matabeleland region risk igniting "hydro-politics" that could end up degenerating into a serious conflict in the sub-region. Diplomats, international lawyers and hydrologists said government could not draw water from the 3 000-kilometre river to Bulawayo without the approval of eight Southern African Development Community (Sadc) countries whose territories lie in the Zambezi basin.

The United Nations mission in Democratic Republic of Congo faces a stiff test when its first disarmament programme in the vast central African country starts in the northeastern Ituri province on Monday. An estimated 50,000 tribal militiamen are due to start laying down their weapons, but their leaders have remained non-committal and a flare-up of violence in the troubled province points to trouble ahead for the scheme.

For 3 days, from 27 to 29 August 2004, more than 30 women combatants or former combatants belonging to rebel armed groups from some twenty war-torn countries, accepted an invitation by the organisation Geneva Call to come together and share their experiences and ideas concerning international humanitarian law. Are armed conflicts the preserve of men? Are women merely innocent victims or symbols of peace? What are the roles and the responsibilities of women fighting for armed groups? Do women have more respect for human life? What do they know about humanitarian law? Are they particularly sensitive to humanitarian principles? Are they able to convince male combatants to respect these norms? These are just some of the questions addressed by the gathering.

Stand Up For Africa (SUFA) is a UK-based African-led organisation dedicated to work towards the eradication of poverty and suffering in Africa. SUFA’s current area of focus is in the Child Slave Trade (a desperate measure, born out of poverty) in various parts of Africa. The Charity was set up in August 2003. Please find out more about SUFA at www.standupforafrica.org.uk.

Opportunity for a pro-active innovator who is passionately committed to social development. The purpose of this low-profile philanthropic foundation is to enrich lives within communities through supporting those who provide resources, services and related research that meet practical human needs and shift the quality of relationships between people.

Mauritania and Mali have issued preliminary estimates of heavy crop damage as governments across West Africa struggle to control a plague of locusts that is growing larger by the day. Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Babah, the director of Mauritania's locust control campaign told IRIN on Tuesday that hopper bands - concentrations of young flightless locusts - were invading fields in the southeast of the mainly desert country, destroying young shoots of sorghum, millet and beans.

Faceless, Amma Darko’s third novel after Beyond the Horizon and The Housemaid, is the tragic story of street children in Accra, Ghana told through a chaotic urban fabric where pressing social issues like the gap between rich and poor, HIV/AIDS, broken families and the role of women in society are all-pervasive.

The story is an investigation of the death of Baby T, a child prostitute whose body is found dumped behind a marketplace, naked, beaten and mutilated. Darko skilfully reveals details about Baby T during the progression of the novel through her younger sister Fofo, herself a street child who comes into contact with group of women who run a documentation NGO called MUTE.

Baby T’s story is heartbreaking and entirely believable, not only in relation to Accra, but also in a global context. She is the third child of Ma Tsumu, born after a brutal beating intended to fulfil the ambitions of an abortion because the father believes that Ma Tsumu is “too fertile”. Kwei, the father, disappears after fathering Fofo, leaving Ma Tsumu to fend for herself with four children. The family manage alone with the two sons bringing home money from fish-related activities. But Faceless is a novel where things only go very wrong when men are involved and when Ma Tsumu takes a lover into her bed in the form of Kpakpo, who earns his keep by “dubious” means, the stage is set for tragedy.

The first consequence of the new lover is that the brothers, unable to stand the new nightly sounds of the shared bedroom, pack their bags and disappear. This leaves Baby T at the mercy of Kpakpo, who sexually abuses her. Hurt and confused, she confides in a family friend, Onko, who brutally rapes her. Ma Tsumu, a tragic figure destroyed by the men in her life, is unable to do anything but take money from Onko, who then continues to live in the same compound as Baby T. Clearly the situation is untenable and Kpakpo has the answer. Baby T can be sent away to a distant relative of his who is actually a Madame – in reality Baby T is sold into prostitution.

Discrimination against women is a constant theme of the novel and symbolically Baby T is representative of the sins visited upon all women in a society where from birth women are discriminated against and made responsible not only for their sins, but for those of men in society. As mentioned earlier, nothing goes right when men are involved and many of the male characters in the novel are murderers, child abuses, rapists – or simply good for nothings.

Even those not presented in this light are trapped in their perceptions of women as caregivers and housewives, such as NGO worker Kabria’s husband, who expects her to be waiting at the door to take his briefcase when he returns from work. Despite the fact that Kabria works a long day, she is still expected to manage the household, cook and take care of the children. Darko is keen to highlight this hypocrisy.

The response of women to their experience at the hands of men varies from Ma Tsumu’s “Because they are animals, They know no mercy…” to the positive engagement of the NGO MUTE, which is made up entirely of women as if to suggest that it is women who must be in control of their response to a warped male world.

But if the fate of women in society is a major theme of the novel, it plays itself out through a street children narrative which allows Darko the scope for powerful social commentary that demonstrates the personal tragedy of each and every child that ends up on the streets. As one of the characters says in quoting assassinated US president John F. Kennedy: “The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.” What is the hope, Darko seems to be asking, if societies can allow the conditions that result in the fate of Baby T?

Darko’s landscape is not entirely bleak: she does offer hope in the form of Fofo, who by the end of the novel looks set on the right road, and in the form of MUTE, whose members are the positive role models of the novel.

It might be said that the solutions offered by the novel are too simple, but Darko does leave enough in the air to suggest that nothing is certain. Indeed, the story is told with just enough skill to keep the reader guessing. While it is true that some of the characters sometimes feel a bit stereotyped, Darko is also capable of demonstrating some character complexity and contradictions, as in the case of the pimp Poison, who is also shown to be a victim through is own abuse as a child, but who now “no longer suffered the pain, he inflicted it.”

These criticisms aside, Darko succeeds in hammering home a powerful message that it is children and the way they are treated that are the true measure of how societies are judged. It is through their eyes that the answers to the myriad moral predicaments that society finds itself in, are to be found.

* Reviewed by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu

* Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers

* Exclusively distributed by African Books Collective
To purchase, email: [email][email protected]
http://www.africanbookscollective.com

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has taken over the investigation of the alleged $180 million bribe paid by a consortium of foreign companies to win contracts for the construction of the Bonny Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant, in Rivers State. In the latest move by the Nigerian government to unravel the bribe case that is also a subject of international inquiry, the House Committee on Public Petition has also recommended that the TSKJ Consortium, the company in the centre of the matter, be barred from working on the expansion of the LNG plant, until the end of the whole inquiry.

The increase in child molestation in Kenya is partly due to lack of education and knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The Kenyan Community Abroad Anti-Child Molestation Initiative or The STOP Campaign, argues that while education and awareness provide good starting points, more needs to be done which will deter the act of rape from occurring and penalize perpetrators through judicial policies.

The swearing-in of Somalia's transitional parliament on 22 August in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and the first meeting of the MPs days later may have gone smoothly, but the real challenges facing the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country have just begun, analysts say. "History is littered with dishonoured Somali peace accords. In fact, no major international peace initiative for Somalia has ever failed to produce one," Matt Bryden, an analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG) said.

The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Guinea and neighbouring Sierra Leone rose to 86 at the end of August, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported. The Geneva-based Federation said in a statement on Monday that 561 cholera cases and 55 deaths had been recorded in Sierra Leone up to 30 August, giving a death rate of nearly 10 percent.

African policy-makers must make employment a top priority in order to counter the adverse impact of globalisation, International Labour Organisation head Juan Somavia said on the eve of a two-day African Union summit on poverty alleviation. "Job creation cannot be left to flow as a result of other economic policies, it must be a targeted objective," he said in an interview before flying to Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, for the conference, which starts on Wednesday. "Growth without employment means aggravating inequality; instead of spreading wealth, it concentrates it," Somavia warned.

International Literacy Day is celebrated each year on 8 September. The aim: to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. The theme of this year's celebration is Literacy and Gender. Today almost one in every seven people is illiterate, and out of a total of 860 million illiterate adults more than 500 million are women. Visit Unesco's website for more information.

The San people of Southern Africa have requested regional authorities to help to develop and promote their languages through the implementation of multi-lingual educational programs which places an emphasis on San languages and the other mother tongues. After a three-day workshop in Windhoek, Namibia on reclaiming San languages in school, San from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa requested their governments to make efforts towards this goal.

Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador Olu Adeniji has said that due to the current trend in the implementation of poverty and employment programmes, Africa may not achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goal to eradicate poverty, fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic and reduce illiteracy. When looking at the current level of development in relation to socio-economic plans, the disparity between developed countries and underdeveloped countries is likely to experience a further increase.

Due to the progress that computers and technology have made, e-learning has become a cost-effective method of improving training standards in both schools and work places. In South Africa, legislation such as the Skills Development Act and modern thinking has made computer-based training imperative in the work place.

The U.N.-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone needs funding to ensure justice for victims of atrocities committed during the country's 11-year civil war, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is resuming the trial of leaders of the government-backed Civil Defense Forces. The United Nations and its member states - particularly the United States and Britain - should fund the Special Court's budget so that it can complete its operations. They should also increase funding to several key areas of the court to ensure that it can deliver justice fairly and effectively.

"We warmly bring you our second monthly update on the activities that EASSI has been engaged in during the month of August 2004. Key among these activities were the Internship Alumni Conference and preparations for the Africa NGO Forum due to take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in October 2004. EASSI has also been involved in a number of networking activities like the 2004 Exchange Programme Institute organized by Isis Wicce. EASSI is also expected to participate in the advocacy training on women engagement with the African Union. The training is organized by FEMNET and is scheduled for 19 - 24 September 2004 and is expected to bring together over 60 participants from Africa." Click on the URL below for more information.