Nigeria's biggest fraud case has been dismissed after the judge said he had no jurisdiction to hear it. The case involved three Nigerians accused of stealing more than $242m from a bank in Brazil by allegedly persuading a senior bank official to send the money for what they claimed to be a new airport in exchange for a $10m commission. Abuja High Court judge Lawal Gumi decided on Monday that as the offences had not taken place in the Nigerian capital he had no jurisdiction to try the case.

About 5 000 Rwandan refugees in Zambia have refused to go home under a United Nations repatriation scheme saying their lives were still in danger, a United Nations official said. A senior Zambian government official said that Lusaka was planning to revoke the refugee status of Rwandans who refused to go home.

As part of a major restructuring of the national courts system, the government of Rwanda appointed 223 judges on Tuesday to courts at the district and provincial level, as well as to the newly created high court. The move follows the recent election of 18,540 officials to serve in mediation committees, known locally as Abunzi, which will handle disputes between members of the public before such cases are placed before national courts of law.

A United Nations commission has landed in Cote d'Ivoire to investigate human rights abuses during the first four months of civil war that followed the September 2002 rebellion, a UN official said on Friday. Cote d'Ivoire has been split between a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north ever since the 2002 rebellion, but diplomats have confirmed that the team will be working on both sides of the ceasefire line. More than a year after the official end of fighting, the peace process is deadlocked and disarmament has yet to begin.

Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, warned his country this week to expect expanded state security powers affecting the internet and telephones. In his opening of parliament address he announced that his government would introduce a Security of Communications Bill to control the Internet and telephones, claiming that it would 'bolster the security of our nation.'

Lesotho would pursue bribery cases against multinationals on one of the world's biggest dam projects despite the lack of foreign support, attorney-general Lebohang Fine Maema said on Monday. Maema said the tiny kingdom -hailed for its battle against corporate graft - had been largely fighting alone, despite pledges of financial support from developed countries.

The Sudanese government has said it is making plans to move about 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Northern Darfur back to their towns and villages, prompting agencies to reiterate that relocation must be voluntary. Sudanese officials in Al-Fashir, Northern Darfur, said the government wanted to return the IDPs to between six and eight urban centres in the region, but did not specify when, the UN reported on Tuesday.

This publication was developed by Raising Voices in collaboration with UN-Habitat’s Safer Cities Programme. It emerged from the proceedings of the first supra-regional dialogue on GBV prevention held in Uganda in September 2003. It explores five key strategies of GBV prevention through practical examples of innovative projects from a variety of NGOs in the regions. It also summarizes key lessons learned in GBV prevention and includes an advocacy tool: The Kampala Declaration: Prevent GBV in Africa.

Female Genital Mutilation is practiced in 26 African countries, as well as some areas in the Middle East, Asia and South America. Although the practice is banned in most of these countries, it flourishes, with countries like Somalia where the FGM rate is nearly 100 percent, and Ethiopia where the rate is over 90 per cent. Rough estimates suggest that about half the women in Africa have undergone this rite. This is the introduction to the latest edition of the End Violence against Women newsletter that focuses on FGM. The newsletter is produced by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Visit http://www.endvaw.org or sign up for this newsletter at http://www.endvaw.org/join.htm.

This paper addresses the gender element within Kenya's current PRSP document. The authors - the African Women's Development & Communication Network (FEMNET) - argue that there is no detailed cognisance of the gendered dimensions of the proposed policies, or anticipation of gender implications of the outcomes in reference to the different poverty dimensions. FEMNET attributes this to an inadequate exposure to gender issues. In order to address this the authors argue for appropriate tools that would show expected outcomes of addressing gender equality.

In the last two months we have seen concerted attempts at reviving global trade talks which collapsed in Cancun, Mexico last year. This article from the SEATINI bulletin argues that the Doha round cannot be about anything other than development. At any rate, the Marrakesh Agreement which established the WTO speaks of a “need for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed countries among them secure a share in growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development.” The outcome of any negotiations cannot be considered legitimate if they trash the concerns of the poor countries.

Funding applications from thirty NPOs in the arts sector have been announced as successful by the Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) for their current funding cycle, reports the Witness. More than R1,2 mn will be distributed, due to donations from the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

When: 28 September 2004

Where: Crowne Plaza, Johannesburg

The Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa (CAFSA), will be hosting its first Corporate-Community Involvement (CCI) conference entitled, 'Companies in Communities - Sharing Innovation,' in Johannesburg.

Numerous reports have described the “hand-in-glove” manner in which the Government of Sudan and the nomadic ethnic militias known as the Janjaweed have operated together to combat a rebel insurgency in Darfur. Human Rights Watch says it has obtained copies of government documents whose contents sharply contrast with the Sudanese government's repeated denials of support to the Janjaweed; on the contrary, the documents indicate a government policy of militia recruitment, support and impunity that has been implemented from high levels of the civilian administration.

Zambia has the "potential" to meet five of its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, according to a new UN progress report. The country can provide all its children with access to primary education; potentially halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria; reduce child mortality; and provide more of its population with safe drinking water and basic sanitation. However, the 2003 MDG annual report said Zambia was unlikely to meet three of its goals: halve hunger as well as poverty, and reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters.

Some 6,692 children are out of the education system, in Chongoroi District, 156 kilometres away from the town, due to lack of schools and classrooms in the region. According to a source, the District needs 37 primary schools, adding that only 3,535 pupils out of the over 10,000 enrolled at the present academic year are attending classes.

A recent report by the think tank Panos has warned that the growth of mobile phones has been concentrated in urban areas and is creating a widening communication gap between rural and urban communities. The report argues that Universal Access must not slip off government agendas and that service provision must not be left to the market alone, which perceives there to be little profit in spreading the networks to thinly populated rural areas. As one example, the report cites the situation in Malawi in which the teledensity is one in 200 on average for the whole country, but taking out the four major towns, this figure rises to one in 1,250. Other countries covered by the report are Uganda, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Zambia.

More than 50 million people in the world have fled their homes because of conflict and disaster, but do not receive the help given to international refugess because they have not crossed into a foreign country. The United Nations said on Tuesday many internally displaced people (IDP) live in abject conditions, ignored by their governments and the international community. "This is a massive global humanitarian problem -- something on the scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis but getting much less attention," said U.N. official Dennis McNamara, new head of a unit set up to tackle the issue.

The Nigerian Inspector General of Police, Mr Tafa Balogun, announced this week that: "In the last 12 months a total of 900 policemen caught extorting money from motorists have been sacked by the force." He made the announcement at the formal inauguration of the 'Committee on Police Performance Monitoring', a civilian oversight outfit set up by the Minister of Police Affairs, Broderick Bozimo.

Leaving education entirely in the hands of market forces entails ignoring that it is a right recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The debate then focuses on accepting education as a common good and the importance that it has and must have for the development of any society. In this sense - and to judge from how things are evolving - the McDonaldization of education may result in research being driven not by what serves the public interest, but rather by what is profitable for large corporations. Read this feature on education by clicking on the URL provided.

According to a June Unicef nutrition fact sheet, the slow national trend of improvement in nutrition across the sub-region in the 1990s ceased and after some worsening starting in the late '90's, deteriorated sharply with drought in high HIV/AIDS prevalence areas. There has been limited recovery in Zimbabwe linked to the humanitarian response, and possibly Malawi, however, there is evidence of progressive deterioration overall. The fact sheet says approximately 5% of children in southern Africa less than 59 months may have HIV/ AIDS and may be failing to grow as a result. The increasing levels of malnutrition overall in young children may measure a mix of HIV/ AIDS and deprivation - the indirect impact of HIV/ AIDS on malnutrition is linked to worsening poverty.

A day after the deadline for all Somali groups to show mediators at a reconciliation conference how they would share seats in a proposed parliament, delegates from two of the country's four major clans were still haggling over how to distribute the posts, sources close to the mediators said. Foreign ministers of IGAD member states, who met in Nairobi on 15 and 16 July, had given all clans until 20 July to hand in their lists showing how the seats they had been allocated in the proposed 275-member Somali Transitional Federal Assembly would be distributed among their subclans.

Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye has announced details of a draft power-sharing agreement after years of civil war. The proposal suggests the national assembly and government be composed of 60% ethnic Hutu and 40% Tutsi. The deal is due to be signed next week and will form the new constitution ahead of elections due in October. But the Tutsi Uprona party has rejected this, it wants seats to be given to parties as well as ethnic groups.

Participants in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Seminar on “Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press”, held in Windhoek, Namibia, from 29 April to 3 May 1991, declared: “Consistent with article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the establishment, maintenance and fostering of an independent, pluralistic and free press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation and for economic development.”

This “Windhoek Declaration” marked a highlight in the so-called second wave (of democratisation) on the continent. Ironically, it was also at Windhoek - almost thirteen years later (end of February 2004) - when Zimbabwe's Minister of State for Information and Publicity signed a co-operation agreement with his Namibian counterpart on closer collaboration, including a planned joint weekly newspaper on regional issues.

In an in-depth interview offered to the local state-funded newspaper “New Era” (5 March 2004), he praised the Presidents of both countries “as two leaders that have remained steadfast, committed, not only as nationalists but also as Pan-Africanists, and as global leaders”. He urged both countries to pursue the common task of “doing justice to the kind of solidarity that was born during the liberation struggle, and which must be upheld today and in future”.

He further identified the following common challenges: “We are here to cement these historic bonds and ties, and look at the new challenges that we are facing, as we in particular begin to consolidate the economic objectives of our liberation struggle, and identifying the critical role of information, information not only in terms of the press, the print media, but also the electronic media and other multimedia platforms that are new, that are being used and that are accessible to these generations that may be prone to losing the bigger picture of the essential story.”

The Honourable Minister was not always using such language. As a Zimbabwean scholar still abroad he stated at a Conference on Robben Island as late as February 1999 that “it would be a mistake to justify the struggles for national liberation purely on the basis of the need to remove the white minority regimes from power and to replace them with black majority regimes that did not respect or subscribe to fundamental principles of democracy and human rights (…) ruling personalities have hijacked the movement and are doing totally unacceptable things in the name of national liberation. Being here at Robben Island for the first time, I am immensely pained by the fact that some people who suffered here left this place only to turn their whole countries into Robben Islands.”

Only three years later, in March 2002, he - now in a ministerial rank - praised the results of the Presidential elections in his country as an impressive sign “that Zimbabweans have come of age that they do not believe in change from something to nothing. They do not believe in moving from independence and sovereignty to new colonialism, they do not believe in the discourse of human rights to deepen inequality.”

Rhetoric of such calibre has earned Jonathan Moyo the label 'Goebbels of Africa'. This is certainly too demagogic itself, given the historically unique dimensions of German holocaust to which the Nazi propaganda minister relates and associates with. But name calling of this kind documents the degree of polarisation and level of dissent in the Zimbabwean society today. The current clamp down on the independent media in Zimbabwe is certainly neither exclusively nor decisively the result of a personal vendetta by a previously progressive scholar.

Jonathan Moyo is just one - though admittedly due to his track record notably exotic - example of relatively high profile calibre representatives of a post-colonial establishment seeking own gains by populist rhetoric covering up their selfish motives. They have become part and parcel of a set of deep-rooted anachronistic values within a system of liberation movements in power. After seizing legitimate political control over the state, these turned their liberation politics under the disguise of pseudo-revolutionary slogans into oppressive tools. Their “talk left, act right” seeks to cover the true motive to consolidate the occupied political commanding heights of society against all odds preferably forever - at the expense of the public interest they claim to represent in the light of deteriorating socio-economic conditions of living for the once colonised and now hardly liberated (and even less emancipated) majority.

Sadly enough, it was the same Jonathan Moyo, who at an early stage of the sobering post-colonial realities in Zimbabwe offered courageous and sensible analytical insights into these processes. While being a Lecturer at the Department of Political and Administrative Studies of the University of Zimbabwe, he presented thought provoking and painful reflections on the liberation war (chimurenga) with all its dubious ambiguity.

Read this from a paper in late 1992: “There can hardly be any doubt that the armed struggle in Zimbabwe was a pivotal means to the goal of defeating oppressive and intransigent elements of colonialism and racism. However, as it often is the case with protracted social processes of a conflict with two sides, the armed struggle in this country had a deep socio-psychological impact on its targets as well as on its perpetrators. (…) For the most part, the armed struggle in this country lacked a guiding moral ethic beyond the savagery of primitive war and was thus amenable to manipulation by the violence of unscrupulous nationalist politicians and military commanders who personalized the liberation war for their own selfish ends. (…) This resulted in a culture of fear driven by values of violence perpetrated in the name of nationalism and socialism.”

Nowadays, the erstwhile critical scholar represents the same mindset he had questioned. According to a news report by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), he used a press conference on 30 April 2004 in Bulawayo to threaten, “there was enough space in Zimbabwe's prisons for journalists caught dealing with foreign media houses”. As “terrorists of the pen” they would be targeted next. The report quotes the Minister as saying: “President Mugabe has said our main enemy is the financial sector but the enemy is media who use the pen to lie about this country. Such reporters are terrorists and the position on how to deal with terrorists is to subject them to the laws of Zimbabwe.” This is tantamount to paranoia and indicative for the recent efforts to censor even private communication.

As the mere distribution of and access to information can be damaging to the security interest of those represented by the Minister, the next onslaught is directed against the private ISPs (Internet Service Providers). The state owned telephone-company announced early June 2004 that ISPs had to enter new contracts stipulating that they as service providers prevent or report to the authorities anti-national activities and malicious correspondence via their telephone lines. If they fail to do so, they will be liable, i.e. penalised.

This follows earlier appalling interferences resulting in the closing of independent newspapers and the imprisonment or expelling of journalists on a systematic scale. The government and its executive branches are eager to emphasise that this repression is in compliance with the existing (and for such purposes enacted) laws and hence fully within “legality” (which, of course, is a far cry from legitimacy). This simply shows that the “rule of law” can apply in the absence of any justice. It is the strategy of the ban that constitutes the rule of law. It does not even spare government friendly media productions and displays the intolerant, all-controlling nature of the system.

One prominent example is the banning of the live broadcasted television production “Talk to the Nation” in mid-2001, which was sponsored by the National Development Association (NDA). The explanatory statement by an official of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is a remarkable example for the “innocence” of a totalitarian mindset: “Live productions can be tricky and dangerous. The setting of the NDA productions was professionally done but maybe the production should not have been broadcast live. You do not know what someone will come and say and there is no way of controlling it.”

Along such an understanding, media operating independently or beyond direct control of government were increasingly hampered and closed down, as the prominent example of the Daily News showed. On an alleged breach of a legal clause under the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Media and Information Commission (MIC) has now in June 2004 closed The Tribune for at least one year. Its publisher, himself a former ZANU-PF MP, was reportedly suspended earlier on by the ruling party for “disrespecting” ZANU-PF top structures as he had denounced AIPPA in his maiden address to parliament.

It therefore does not come as a surprise that the latest annual overview on the state of media freedom in the Southern African region by the Media Institute of Southern Africa - issued on the World Press Freedom Day (26 April) - records more than half of all 188 media freedom and freedom of expression violations in 2003 among the ten monitored countries in Zimbabwe alone.

International agencies committed to the freedom of press and the professional ethics of independent journalism are in agreement that the situation in Zimbabwe is intolerable. It prompted the Annual General Assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI) on 18 May 2004 in Warsaw to adopt the unanimous decision “to retain Zimbabwe's name on the 'watchlist' of nations that are seriously eroding media freedom”. And the Board of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) condemned at its 57th World Newspaper Congress in Istanbul early June 2004 the “attempts to silence independent media”. At a meeting in Windhoek during early June 2004 a total of 24 newspaper editors from eight countries in Southern Africa organised in The Council of the Southern African Editors' Forum (SAEF) suspended its Zimbabwean wing.

The narrowing down of the post-colonial discourse to a mystification of the liberation movement in power as the exclusive home to national identity and belonging finds a corresponding expression in the increased monopolisation of the public sphere and expressed opinion.

Amanda Hammer and Brian Raftopoulos, co-editors of a recent volume on “Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business” summarised this in their introduction as “efforts to control or destroy the independent media and to silence all alternative versions of history and the present, whether expressed in schools, in churches, on sports fields, in food and fuel queues, at trade union or rate payers' meetings, in opposition party offices or at foreign embassies.”

Such desperate initiatives to enhance control signal at the same time a lack of true support among the population, who otherwise could be allowed to speak out freely. The repression of public opinion beyond the official government propaganda is therefore an indication of the ruthless last fight for survival of a regime, which has lost its original credibility and legitimacy to an extent that it has to be afraid of allowing a basic and fundamental principle of human rights - the freedom of expression.

* Dr Henning Melber is Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden and has been Director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000. Before studying Political Science and Sociology he was trained as journalist (1971/72) and sacked from the local German newspaper in Windhoek (1972) for disputes over political and professional-ethical reasons. He joined SWAPO of Namibia in 1974. This is the shortened introduction to the forthcoming “Media, Public Discourse and Political Contestation in Zimbabwe”, published in the “Current African Issues” series with The Nordic Africa Institute.

* Please send comments to

The South African Centre of International PEN and New Africa Books intend to publish a series of annual volumes of new creative writing by writers living in South Africa and in other SADC countries. They wish to encourage young writers to express the vitality and diversity of our Southern African society through lively literature for a global audience. For the first book, New Writing from Southern Africa 2005 they seek contributions in the form of short stories only. These must be written in English.

While jobs are central to reintegrating conflict-affected groups, reconstruction, peace building and tackling the serious human security threats unleashed by armed conflicts, the issue continues to receive inadequate coverage in post-conflict debate and action. This book examines the complex decent work deficits after armed conflicts and proposes an integrated strategy for addressing them. The contributions of several ILO staff and external consultants offer, together, a comprehensive picture of the key issues that require serious consideration as well as effective practical approaches that can be adopted. They cover, for example, the nature of the labour market and other features of the post-conflict situation; the heterogeneity of the crisis affected groups and their specific concerns, such as youth, women, refugees, internally displaced people and ex-combatants. In addition, this volume also includes a number of vivid country case studies from the different regions of the world, especially Africa which provide valuable lessons. For copies, please contact ILO's Crisis Response and Reconstruction Programme, CH-1211, Geneva 22.

When grievous harm happens, a rebalancing is bound to occur, whether it is orderly and lawful or disorderly and unlawful. Shattered Voices contends that language is requisite to any adequate balancing, and that a solution is viable only if it provides an atmosphere in which storytelling and subsequent dialogue can flourish. Shattered Voices offers an important and thoughtful analysis of the efficacy of the ways human rights abuses are addressed.

This course will aim to help prepare participants for work in conflict areas and to make their work more effective. Participants will be familiarised with contemporary theories of conflict and conflict resolution, acquainted with a range of relevant information on conflict on the Internet and introduced to practical issues and debates within the field.

"If we only ever see Northern donors as the people with the money, that's the only place we will ever apply ourselves to getting funds. And yet there are other people and groups of people in the world who do have money. It may just be a matter of opening our eyes to see this, and when looking, do so creatively. Quite often we don't see the possibilities, because we are too caught up in the realities. It may be worthwhile asking someone else what they can see." This is according to a presentation by Ruth Osborne from Promotions for Non-Profits, originally made at the Community Information Network of Southern Africa Conference 11-14 August 2003.

The Global Campaign for Education is an independent coalition of NGOs and trade unions campaigning for the right to free, good quality education and immediate action on the Education for All goals. Their email bulletin is produced as an information resource for activists and practitioners. To subscribe, send a message with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line to:
[email][email protected]

Women'sNet is hosting a SADC regional workshop to build awareness on the use of open source software in women's organisations. Talking to tectonic (www.tectonic.co.za) about the conference, the organisers declared that 'being able to use information technology strategically and effectively is an important source of empowerment and skills development for women who often feel isolated and disempowered by rapidly advancing technological change.'

The Third Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union has concluded its deliberations at the UN Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, the Head Quarters of the Union.

The Assembly is the highest decision -making body of the Union. Since the inauguration of the Union in 2002 the Summit has become an indication of the level of commitment of the leaders to the renewed enthusiasm for African Integration and Pan-Africanism. Most member states were represented by their Presidents, Prime Ministers or Heads of State. There were also many CSOs from Africa, the Diaspora and international organisations in attendance and also numerous advocacy and other parallel events on the back of the Summit.

In the past military coups and military dictators dominated the politics of Africa summits of the old OAU. In 1980, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe of Liberia did not even think twice before assassinating the serving Chair of the OAU, William Tubman, and promptly demanding to take Liberia's seat at the Lagos Emergency Summit. General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown by the Nigerian Army while handing over the Chair of the Organization to one Field Marshall Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, self proclaimed Conqueror of the British Empire, in Kampala in 1975.

As the leaders feared insurgencies and military putsch in their countries many sat tight at home not bothering to attend OAU summits. They accumulated contributions due to the organization with reckless abandon. Until the Cairo Summit of 1993 the OAU did not even have a policy to sanction erring members. At that Summit The OAU began to name and shame failing states. The most dramatic effect of this policy was felt at the Durban Summit when the media got hold of the full list of non-paying states. This practice has now been codified in the new Constitutive Act of the Union. There are various sanctions against states that do not pay their dues such as withholding their rights to participate at AU meetings, voting on policy issues, etc. This has improved the efficiency of the payments even if black holes still exist in the funding of the organization especially with its new expansive institutions and noble ambitions.

The truth is that the AU cannot just survive on the formal membership dues of the states. There is no comparable multilateral institution that does. They rely heavily on the generous contribution of the richer member states who are willing to put their money where their mouth is. If Germany and other key EU countries, Japan , Canada and Scandinavian countries withdrew contributions from the UN the organisation would go bankrupt. We have seen the adverse effect of a reluctant and opportunistic US punitive relationship with the UN in the past two decades. The EU will not survive without the huge contributions of the key troika states: Britain, Germany and France.

Therefore the relatively richer countries of Africa have to put their money where their mouth is. Thus the most important item on the AU Summit agenda at the past meeting was the approval of ‘The Vision, Mission and Strategic Plan of the AU’ as put forward by the AU Chairperson, the indefatigable Alpha Konare.

It was accepted in principle but there are still concerns about the implementation including translating the plan into a popular mobilisation document accessible to the vast majority of Africans.

But the funding issue is what is occupying everybody's mind and rightly so. I think this is a red herring because I believe that the resources are there among African states to make it happen if they so wish. It is also defeatist to always put cash before strategic vision. If we agree on our vision and strategy we can now go about the logistical issues in a more coherent way.
There are debates about prioritisation and harmonisation. But the key issue for me is for us to look at more creative was of getting the necessary funds primarily from our own resources. For a start, all the rich states such as Nigeria, South Africa, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Botswana, Angola, DRC (when it gets its act together), etc must dig deeper into their pockets. Even a fraction of some of the looting by the Nigerian or Angolan military/ political elite will go a long way in helping the AU. We could also consider:

- A dollar tax for the AU on all airline tickets to and from Africa deductible at source in member countries.
- Oil producing states in Africa can pledge X barrels of crude oil per day to a Trust fund for the Union.
- Union tax on businesses and labour benefiting from the intra African liberalisation of trade, commerce, freedom of movement.
- Creatively finding ways in which both the historic and immigrant African Diaspora across the world can make contribution both in human and material terms to the AU.

There are countless other means through which the Union can be funded from African sources. After exhausting our internal and Diaspora sources then we could invite others who are genuinely interested in partnering with Africa to come and help in areas we have identified and on terms dictated by us.
It will require great sacrifice and new ways of doing things both at the governmental and civil society levels of our societies. But it can be done, needs to be done and has to be done. If not now, when and if not us, by whom?

The agreement on the strategic plan for me represents a good starting point to mobilise our different forces for this task. Anybody who wants to help us should do so under that plan and not initiate anything else. Africa needs fulfilment of past promises not new ones.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Save the Children, UK

Save the Children UK is seeking a Programme Manager for the rebuilding of its activities in South Kivu, DRC. The successful applicant will hold a university degree in social sciences or management and have at least 2 years experience managing humanitarian programmes with an international organisation in Africa.

International Resuce Committee

The International Rescue Committee is seeking a health co-ordinator with the responsibility for the development, implementation and evaluation of all the organisation's health-related activities in the Kivu and Katanga province as well as for the development of a strategy for IRC health interventions throughout DRC.

Action Aid

Action Aid are seeking a Country Director for their programme in Sierra Leone. The post holder will be responsible for the implementation and development of AA's mission in Sierra Leone and for directing the work in accordance with sound management practices and AA's development policies and accountability systems.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) is calling for international pressure on the Nigerian government to withdraw a draft anti-union law, which would, amongst other things, deregister the ICFTU-affiliated Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the main national trade union centre in the country. The proposed law would also impose severe restrictions on the right to strike. The 4 million-member NLC is apparently being targeted following its repeated calls for fair prices of petroleum products. Despite being a major world oil producer, the price of these products is spiralling beyond the means of many Nigerians.

The article by Isabella Matambanadzo (Pambazuka News 162) on women and HIV/AIDS was great and brought out the amazing realities of how the pandemic is affecting women in particular. This article "Women and HIV/AIDS" shows that gender cannot be divorced from HIV/AIDS, given the accurate definition of gender. Well done Isabella for continuing with the women's movement.

Failure to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women amounts to a great waste of resources. African governments cannot continue to spend money on conferences which yield no positive results for the people. Let us demand that all African Union member states ratify and domesticate the protocol to ensure women's rights are protected at national level.

Sign the petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at:

Three quarters of Senegalese newspapers were missing from kiosks on Monday in a protest against last week's jailing of the publications director of independent newspaper Le Quotidien, which they described as "a vain attempt to muzzle the press". Le Quotidien's Madiambal Diagne was arrested on Friday, charged with publishing confidential documents, spreading false information and acts which compromise public security.

Health officials began a drive to vaccinate the population of Bobo Dioulasso against yellow fever at the weekend after four cases of the disease were confirmed in Burkina Faso's second largest city earlier this year. Officials said the vaccination campaign kicked off on Saturday. It was expected to last five days and cover about 840,000 people in and around the city, they added.

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) has launched a "2004-2015 Operational Plan" to reduce maternal and infant mortality. By improving access to health care and providing social support networks, the plan will attempt to reduce the infant mortality rate of children aged less than five years by two-thirds by 2015. In addition, CAR hopes to reduce maternal mortality to one-quarter of its present level within the same time frame.

Former employees of three independent Zimbabwean newspapers shut down by the Media and Information Commission (MIC) are struggling to make ends meet. "The situation of journalists and other members of staff who were affected by the closure of the papers is pathetic. We have established that a substantial number of them are living in near destitution," the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists' president, Matthew Takaona, told IRIN.

AIDS activists in South Africa hope that the inclusion of sex workers in an HIV research project will draw attention to the need for outreach programmes targeting this often marginalised group. About 600 female sex workers in and around Durban, the capital of eastern KwaZulu Natal (KZN) province, are expected to participate in the study which begins at the end of July.

As of 12:30 pm on Wednesday, 7 July 2004, the internet site, Sudanese Online has been blocked from viewing. The order to block the website came from the National Security Agency (NSA), and was carried out by the National Telecommunications Corporations (NTC), the major internet service provider in Sudan. Allegedly, the order was due to continued publication of news, reports and discussions by the website that were deemed a national security threat. This is according to the Sudan Organisation Against Torture.

On 8 July 2004, police in Kano State, northwestern Nigeria, released Kola Oyelere, the Kano State correspondent for the privately-owned "Nigerian Tribune" newspaper. Oyelere was arrested by police on 4 July on charges of publishing false information.

The San people, also known as bushmen, have challenged the government of Botswana over their expulsion from ancestral lands in what could be a landmark case for indigenous rights in Africa. The San accuse the government of illegally expelling them from ancestral land by cutting off water supplies and denying hunting permits. Their lawyers say that these measures are unconstitutional, and want water supplies to be restored to the reserve and hunting permits granted. The government's case is that the San left the reserve voluntarily to avail themselves of schools and clinics closer to towns and cities.

The 'grace period' created by the 2002 cease-fire agreement in Angola, has been disappearing in recent months. Two different kinds of land conflicts have been increasing in recent years: occupation by powerful people of high quality land held by rural communities with good access to water; and evictions of the urban poor from the areas where they have settled in Luanda. Those in power, NGOs believe, seem to want to acquire assets urgently and to settle legal matters before the next elections. This is according to an article in the June edition of the Independent Land Newsletter.