The Aids virus is killing more than 1,000 teachers each year in Mozambique, adversely affecting the education of a generation of students, the country's education minister has said. Aires Aly said that the disease is the single biggest threat to the development of the education sector.

Reporters Without Borders has published a list of the first 68 people to sign the petition, which will remain open until Moussa Kaka is freed. Send a message of support to this address to sign : [email][email protected] The manager of Radio Saraouniya and Niger correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters Without Borders, Kaka was arrested on 20 September and charged with “complicity in a conspiracy against state authority” because he had been in frequent contact with the Tuareg rebels of the Niger People’s Movement for Justice (MNJ), including one of its leaders.

As World Bank President Robert Zoellick prepares for his first meeting with the Bank’s shareholders this weekend, a new IRN report reveals that the Bank approved more than US$ 800 million for nine hydropower projects in fiscal year 2007. This is more than it provided for renewable energy and efficiency projects combined. As the Bank jumps back into the big dam business and neglects better energy and water solutions, the legacy of its past dam projects tragically lives on.

There is now growing evidence of the role that ICT can play in enhancing development. In spite of this enabling potential and role, ICT is yet to be widely mainstreamed to assist developing countries in addressing traditional development problems with innovative solutions and approaches that are both effective and more easily scalable and replicable.

Good journalism can shape public opinion and act as a lever for policy change. Based on findings from six countries in Africa and South Asia, Making poverty the story analyses the serious political, commercial and professional obstacles to stronger media coverage, highlights where the media have played a part in raising debate, and identifies what civil society and other policy actors could do to support more effective reporting.

Police on Tuesday severely assaulted and injured more than 30 members of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) political pressure group for attempting to march to Parliament to protest against constitutional reforms agreed between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition last month.

Yemeni policemen are stealing money and jewellery from African migrants arriving to Yemeni coasts on a daily basis, say refugees and locals. Somali and Ethiopian refugees at the Mayfa'a district of Hadhramout, about 800km south-east of Sana'a, said policemen stole their money after their arrival last week.

Aid agencies working in Sudan's Darfur hope incoming United Nations and African Union peacekeepers will help protect them, but there are also fears they could spark new violence against unarmed relief staff. The 26,000-person hybrid force is due to arrive in Darfur in the coming months against a backdrop of escalating violence targeting the world's largest humanitarian relief operation.

Around half a million women die annually before, during or shortly after giving birth - and almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries. Campaigners argue that these deaths are both preventable and have repercussions that echo far beyond the woman's immediate family and community.

Malawi's government is calling on all sexually active people in the country to take an Aids test, saying this would help it combat the pandemic. About 14% of Malawi's 12m people are believed to be HIV-positive but more accurate figures would help planning and enable people to get treatment.

Pambazuka News is a prize-winning electronic newsletter on social justice. It is produced by a pan-African community of some 300 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators. We are seeking an a dynamic and energetic editor whose primary task will be leading on the development of Pambazuka News as the principal platform of progressive and critical political analysis in Africa.

For further details see the link below.

One of the world’s most respected scientists is embroiled in an extraordinary row after claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked outrage with his comments, made ahead of his arrival in Britain.

Using data from a 2004 household-based survey of children, this paper examines differences between boys and girls in self reports of food insecurity in Zimbabwe. Previous studies have taken only the views of the household head into consideration in categorizing the food insecurity status of the household. By so doing, the possibilities of differential experiences of food insecurity by individual household members were ignored.

Artists for Human Rights recently presented its International Human Rights Hero Award for 2007 at the Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood, Los Angeles USA. among the recipients of this year’s award was Sammy Jacobs Abbey, Director of the International Centre for Conflict and Human Rights Analysis (ICCHRA). His 2007 International Human Rights Hero Award was in recognition for successfully implementing Human Rights Education and leadership program in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, at the United Nations and all over the world, providing hope to thousands of youth and potential leaders.

The successful candidate will be expected to manage and oversee the execution of the project in all its aspects, including: financial and research management; reporting to EAPPCO, ISS, the steering committee and donors; managing donor and partner relations; overseeing and building the project team in terms of project design, quality control, methodology, capacity building and dissemination of results through publications, briefings, media and seminars

"One of the key predicaments of the ongoing social and political transition in the world today is the subversion of language and ideas to create political smoke screen or delusion or to give a semblance of social and political legitimacy for the hegemonic discourse.” John Samuel argues that the use of the term Civil Society is being used as a smokescreen to give “social and political legitimacy for the hegemonic discourse".

Words are like flowers. Flowers have their own colour, texture and smell. Not every kind of flower blooms in every climate or soil. It's the same with words. Their colour, texture, smell and meaning arise organically from a particular socio-historical and cultural milieu. When demand exceeds the supply of flowers, there arises a market for manufactured flowers. Plastic flowers need neither soil nor climate; they transcend space and time. They may sometimes look like the real thing. But they can never feel like the real thing.

So it is with words in the postmodern condition. There are all too many plastic words, good for decoration and intellectual pleasantries, and little else. One of the key predicaments of the ongoing social and political transition in the world today is the subversion of language and ideas to create political smoke screen or delusion or to give a semblance of social and political legitimacy for the hegemonic discourse. Often progressive-sounding words and phrases are used to conceal the reality on the ground or to create a virtual or projected sense of select images and discourse. The reshuffling of meanings and the subversion of political semantics has become the order of the day. This has become a part of process of creating the new pornography of politics. The very term Civil Society is major protagonist in the post-modern politics of delusive power-plays and elusive semantics. They together often create political and policy mirages.

The term ‘Civil Society’ is contested terrain. Over the last fifteen years it has been used to denote everything from citizens’ groups and activist formations to highly institutionalized non-governmental organisations and foundations. There is another dimension to this process of subversive politics of words from the point of view of the history ideas and the political economy of knowledge.

Civil society as a concept originated in 18th-century Western Europe. It was a theoretical construct useful in analyzing and understanding the emerging socio-political economy of the industrialized west in the 18th and 19th centuries. The concept was resurrected in the late-'80s amidst the ruins of the authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe. It was born-again in the manufacturing shops neo-democratization ventures in the North. During the second coming of the concept, more stress was laid on producing and marketing the civil society in different colours and shapes, rather than on reflecting the very validity of the idea in relation to real-life situations and experiences. The civil society is being paraded as the new panacea for issues such as poverty, human rights, gender equity and `good governance'.

What is this civil society all about? Whose civil society are we talking about? There is no one answer or even set of answers. The colour and smell of the term will change according to the convenience of the various proponents. As a result of such ambivalence, the second coming of the civil society conceals more than it reveals. Civil society, we are told, is synchronous with democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, good governance and opportunity for economic growth. But what do all these goodies entail? Whose democracy? Whose freedom of expression and choice are we talking about?

The new holy trinity of the State, Market and Civil Society can be capable of concealing the structural inequalities, marginalization and patriarchy, and reduces complex reality into neat spaces. There is an underlying tendency to homogenize the world according to an idealized notion of governance that skips the entire historical process of marginalization and unequal distribution of power in the socio-economic and political arena. The problem with such an ahistorical theorization is that anything and everything outside the market and the State can be considered civil society. So the Islamic Taliban, Sangh Parivar in India and all such fundamentalist formations as well as small self-help groups, neighborhood associations or professional groups can be considered part of civil society. A mega-million non-profit organisation with huge corporate structures and tens of thousand of staff or a mega billion Foundation is as much part of civil society as a small NGO or a small community organisation. This is an interesting logic wherein sharks, sardines and shrimps all say we are fish, though the sharks would like the freedom to swallow sardines and other small fish.

This nebulous concept had its origin in western political theory. The pre-18th century concept emerged in the tradition of Aristotle, Cicero and modern natural law. Till the 18th century, civil society was considered "a type of political association which placed its members under the influence of laws and ensured peaceful order and good government". The discourse on civil society took a critical turn in the 18th century, as a corollary to the discourse on emerging capitalism as well as liberal democratic movements. The ambivalence of this concept is partly because it was an analytical tool used by both the proponents and critics of modern capitalism. On the one hand it served as a convenient tool to legitimize the market outside the sphere of an authoritarian and mercantile State and on the other; it was a tool to rationalize the sphere of individuals and associations to assert their freedom and rights.

One can see three broad varieties of definitions and interpretations of this term. There is a tradition that can be traced back to John Locke, Thomas Paine and De Tocqueville -- the liberal tradition. Though there are differing nuances within this tradition, one of the significant aspects is that civil society is considered a `natural condition' for freedom, and a legitimate area of association, individual action and human rights. Thus the notion of civil society came to be seen in opposition to the State: it allowed space for democracy and the growth of markets.

The classical political economy tradition of civil society emanated from the works of Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith and J S Mill. This stream of thinking perceived civil society as a sphere for the satisfaction of individual interests and private wants. This perspective stressed the primacy of individualism, property and the market. The third stream of civil society discourse can be traced back to Hegel, Marx, Gramsci and Habermass. This stream can be seen as a critique of the liberal and classical political economy tradition. This perspective interpreted civil society as a historically-produced sphere of life rather than the natural condition of freedom. This tradition questioned the notion of an idealized civil society and recognized the internal contradictions and conflict of interests within civil society. For Hegel, civil society was sandwiched between a patriarchal family and the universal State. Though Hegel questioned the idealized notion of civil society, he tended to idealize a universal State. By challenging the idealization of both State and civil society, Marx argued that the contradictions within civil society are reproduced within the State. For Marx, the State is not merely an external force that confronts civil society, but the reflection of it, wherein different interest groups penetrate the State to rule. Both Hegel and Marx pointed out the role of the elite in defining the character of civil society. Gramsci emphasized civil society as the realm of public opinion and culture. It is the public sphere where hegemony is created through consent and coercion.

In the second coming of the civil society in the late-'80s and through the '90s, the predominant trend has been a resurrection of the tradition of Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, with a doze of De Tocqueville's liberalism. The new civil society discourse is often misused as a poaching ground by the New Right to rationalise and legitimize the privatization of the public services and to reduce the State as a support mechanism to the market.

The other part of the story is that the Civil Society is also being used to denote new democratization, grassroots politics and new way for citizens’ participation and engagement in the process of governance and affairs of the state. While the term Civil Society has broader social and political connotations, the tendency is often to equate the Civil Society with NGOs. The very world of NGOs themselves are very heterogeneous and with multiple institutional, social and funding power relations at play. The NGO world is increasingly looking like an Orwellian Animal Farm, wherein everyone is supposed to be equal but some are more equal than others. This becomes all the more problematic given that many of the new-generation NGOs are more like private enterprises in the public domain. The problem occurs when such groups or entities develop a universalistic claim based on an imagined or assumed legitimacy.

The various political and knowledge traditions behind the term Civil Society co-exit w and often intermingle to create new sense and meaning to the term civil society. This often makes the concept fluid and ambivalent.

The new civil society discourse is also a symptom of the crisis in social theorization. Instead of looking for fresh theories to address the profound socio-political and economic transition, the tendency is to resurrect concepts and theoretical frameworks from the residue of the Enlightenment in the 18th century...

We are in the transitory phase of a new epoch. The notions of nation-state, market, civil society, reason and progress that emerged during the Enlightenment are beginning to get transformed. In the new paradigm shift, we once again go back to the lived experiences of communities and individuals to search for new ways of looking at the transition of the world. We need a new language, a new set of insights and a fresh sense of humility to look at our past, present and future. What we need is to rediscover ethical communities within our societies and the world. We can still question injustice or rights violations based on the whole range of humanizing ethical traditions.

When we have the potential to grow our own beautiful flowers and organic words, why must we be deluded by plastic flowers and words?

* John Samuel is a human rights activist and is currently International Director of Actionaid, based in Bangkok.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

An experienced community/civil society coordinator with expertise in community engagement and liaison, conflict management, media, civil society, and dealing with pastoral communities, especially in Eastern Africa. The successful candidate will, among other tasks, coordinate and manage intra and cross community/border peace meetings in the pastoral area.

Requirements:
. 3+ years campaigning experience and a track record in achieving change
. The willingness and confidence to challenge powerful governments and corporations
. Imaginative, analytical problem solving . An innovative approach to devising campaign strategies and communications
. The ability to lead, manage and motivate staff within a core campaign team
. Drive, self-motivation, dedication, a high degree of initiative and teamwork
. A belief in peaceful direct action and the aims of Greenpeace
CLOSING DATE: 24 OCTOBER 2007.

The – an Afro centric internet networking and information exchange platform, calls for submission of poems for its forth-coming book ‘African Reflections’, a collection of poetry & prose by African Authors Its aim is to encourage and promote the writing of emerging as well as more experienced African creative writers, as such, entrants will be judged on ability rather than experience.

ARC International and the Coalition for African Lesbians (CAL) is excited to announce an international conference entitled "International Dialogue on Gender, Sexuality, and HIV/AIDS: Strengthening Human Rights Responses in Africa and around the globe ." Deadline is 24th October 2007

Batonga Foundation. Led by West African singer, songwriter, and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo, Batonga’s mission is to provide girls with secondary and higher education so they can take the lead in changing Africa. It is currently operational in five African nations: Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali and Sierra Leone.

“The latest global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. These figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000.

Africa Public Health Rights Alliance Issues Maternal Death Scorecard At Start of Women Deliver International Conference on Investing in Women’s Health.

Relentless Increase in African Maternal Death Could Be Equated To Genocide By Inaction – Says Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now” Campaign.

* Health financing Scorecard indicates that average annual per capita health expenditure of $13.5 in bottom 10 countries is equal to a night’s cinema expenses in the top 10 countries.
* Health worker scorecard indicates that more developed countries that steal health workers from less developed countries instead of training theirs are culpable for maternal deaths.

In a statement ahead of it’s scorecard to be launched on the second day of the Women Deliver International Conference on Investing in Women’s Health holding in London from 18 to 20 October, Rotimi Sankore Coordinator of the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now!” Campaign stated that:

“The latest global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. These figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000. Maternal deaths dropped in every other continent over the same period. In Europe from 4,800 to 2,900, and in the America’s from 21,000 to 16,000. We are very concerned that the prevalent maternal death risk also reflects a much bleaker picture of overall reproductive health in Africa.” “The scorecard based on the 2005 figures and latest comparable global health financing and health systems data[1] shows that in the bottom 10 countries globally - all of which are African except Afghanistan, maternal death risk is between 1 in 7 (Niger) and 1 in 15 (Mali). In the top 10 the risk is between 1 in 47,600 (Ireland) and 1 in 13,800 (Switzerland). Possibly every family in the bottom 10 countries will suffer 1 maternal death. Overall 1 in 23 African women have a lifetime risk of maternal death compared with 1 in 2,300 in Europe. This is not acceptable and African governments have to act without delay to end this waste of African women’s lives.” Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) and APHRA 15% Campaign partner underlined that: “The scale of maternal death anywhere is tied to two key factors: overall levels of sustainable health financing, and the ratio of health workers to the population especially midwives, nurses and doctors. The scorecard shows graphically how lack of both combine to undermine the lives of African women. In the top 10 countries, government health expenditure far surpasses private expenditure, while in the bottom 10 citizens are mostly left to fend for themselves. If deliberate state action to exterminate a social group is interpreted as genocide, its difficult not to infer that persistent inaction could mean the same. The practice of government without responsibility in Africa must stop” “International human rights law calls for health systems that are available, accessible, acceptable, and of good quality. Governments must make it an urgent priority to build and support public health systems that integrate primary and reproductive health care with guarantees of sexual, reproductive, and all other rights of women. This is the only way we will turn the tide on maternal deaths,” emphasised Frank Donaghue, Chief Executive Officer, of Physicians for Human Rights and APHRA 15% Campaign partner.

“It is also crucial to highlight that women’s health is not only about Maternal Deaths” added Felicita Hikuam Global Programs Manager of the Worlds Aids Campaign and APHRA 15% Campaign Partner. “There is a direct link between lack of sexual and reproductive health and rights and a wide range of issues including HIV and AIDS which is now one of the leading killers of women. Women are still not able to universally uphold their rights to: choose their partner, decide to be sexually active or have consensual sexual relations, have consensual marriage or decide whether or not to have children. Lack of education, economic dependence, poverty and lack of legislation to protect women in many parts of the world means that women, especially young women, are still very vulnerable to sexual abuse, and subsequently, HIV infection. These issues must be addressed alongside issues of maternal deaths and as part of reproductive health and rights.” Key Notes for Editors:

One of the key MDGs is the reduction of maternal death by 75% between 1990 and 2015. The APHRA 15% Campaign scorecard not only shows how bleak the present situation is, it also indicates what needs to be done if the lives and dignity of African women are to be protected and the MDG target for reducing MM is to be met.

The Scorecard underlines that to reduce their disease burden and improve overall public health including reproductive health, African countries must drastically raise investment in health to :

* Meet the 2001 Abuja pledge to allocate 15% or more of annual budgets to health (excluding external resources)

* Increase annual per capita expenditure on health to a minimum of $1000 over 5 years in the first instance.

* Increase and maintain percentage government expenditure on health (as against private expenditure) at between 50% and 90% (excluding external resources) in order to approach similar levels in top 10 countries.

* Ensure that a minimum of 10% of GDP excluding external resources is spent on health.

On Health Systems / Workers - Invest in infrastructure, training and retention of personnel towards ensuring: ü A minimum density of 3 doctors per 1000 between now and 2015.

* A minimum density of 10 nurses per 1000 between now and 2015.

* A minimum density of 1 midwives per 1000 between now and 2015.

* A minimum density of 1 pharmacist per 1000 between now and 2015.

* Appropriate levels of dentists, public health, community health, scientific and technological staff.

The most developed countries must show sincerity in their offers of development aid and:

* Stop subsidising their health systems with African health workers and professionals and immediately end official policies recruiting health workers from where they are most needed.

* Raise their own domestic expenditure on health, education and training to meet domestic needs.

* Ensure that dependency is ended sooner by asking African governments to match aid by meeting the Abuja 15% pledge to ensure sustainable health financing.

* Ensure that health development aid is holistically targeted at the intertwined problems of reproductive health, child mortality, HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.

ENDS Support the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance 15% Now campaign for sustainable financing for health in Africa -

For Further Information Please Contact the Following: Internationally / At the Conference in London: Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now! Campaign Int. office: +44 207 424 5744; Or Africa Office +234 1 4925568, email: 15percent[at]africapublichealth.org.

In the United States: Physicians for Human Rights Barbara Ayotte, Director of Communications w) [617] 695-0041, ext. 210 , email: bayote[at]phrusa.org In South Africa: World Aids Campaign Tel: + 27 21 466 7827, (Or Netherlands International Office Tel: +31 20 616 9045), email: waccapetown[at]worldaidscampaign.org

In Nigeria: Women Advocates Research & Documentation Centre (WARDC):
Tel: +234 1 8197344 , womenadvocate[at]yahoo.com or wardc[at]womenadvocates.org

The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance [and the “15% Now!” campaign] launched on December 10 2006 - International Human Rights Day - is the first to articulate Public Health for Africa as a Rights and Development issue across Africa and beyond. It brings together actors from various key sectors of civil society.

The Campaign is based on the premise that “we all have to be alive and well to exercise any other rights in any meaningful way” and therefore that Right to Health and to Healthcare is arguably the most crucial right of all as articulated by both the constitution of the World Health Organisation and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Current social development and health indicators from international and African institutions show that over 8 million African lives are lost annually to preventable, treatable and manageable health conditions and diseases. Child Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Maternal Mortality, and TB mainly account for these.

Any loss of life to disease is bad enough. The annual loss of populations equivalent to entire African countries - and over a few years greater than the losses from all modern day global wars and conflicts combined is both unacceptable and unsustainable, and brings Africa closer to the slippery slope to collapse of society and extinction.

The key objective of the Alliance is to engage the African Union, sub-Regional Economic Communities such as the East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) etc, their institutions / member countries, and the African public towards: 1) Promoting greater awareness and understanding of African Health Issues and; 2) Adopting Comprehensive Health Policies based on a Public Health Rights and Development philosophy - and mobilising and committing resources for sustainable implementation.

The Alliance will also engage global stakeholders and actors including donors, the UN, EU and their institutions, World Bank, IMF, and international Non-governmental Institutions and organisations especially those concerned with health, social and economic development.

[1] Health Finance, Health Systems and Maternal Death Data from WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and World Bank. Latest comparable figures are for 2004 and 2005 respectively. Figures have been computed by sources to ensure comparability and are therefore not necessarily official statistics of individual countries, which may use alternative methods.

* The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance (APHRA)

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Swiss missionaries played a primary role in explaining Africa to the literate world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book emphasises how these European intellectuals, brought to the deep rural areas of southern Africa by their vocation, formulated and ordered knowledge about the continent.

Today's development agenda is ever more focused on results. This book raises questions about how results and outcomes are evaluated, and reflects on notions of 'success' in colonial and contemporary development policy. The first part of the book examines colonial attempts in Kigezi, in south-western Uganda, to introduce cash crops, soil conservation practices, and tenure reforms.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has suspended food distribution in the Somali capital after Government forces invaded the UN compound in Mogadishu and abducted the local head of the agency in a move immediately condemned by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has reported that for the first time in years countries in sub-Saharan Africa are actually growing faster than the global economy, but added that conflict and lack of capacity are two of the main challenges faced by the continent in achieving economic progress and development.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/Madame-Auguste.jpgVoudou Priestess Madame Evonne Auguste spoke to Sokari Ekine last August, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Madame Auguste is a member of Famm Voudou pou Ayiti (Voudou Women for Ayiti). In the interview she explains that Voudou is both a religion and a philosophy and speaks about the relationship between voudou and liberation theology. She also discusses some of the reasons behind the demonetisation of the religion and why Famm Voudou pou Ayiti want to establish their own school.

Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe and kindly provided by .

The two sides in Sudan's national coalition met on Thursday to try to salvage their fragile peace deal after former southern rebels walked out of the government, but the talks adjourned with no resolution. "There was agreement to complete discussions on the outstanding problems in the deal," presidential spokesman Mahjoub Fadul said after the meeting in Khartoum. He did not specify when the talks might resume.

Brazil has announced that it would nearly double a $1.3 billion credit line to Angola in a move to drum up business for Brazilian firms and help the African nation rebuild its economy. Brazil, keen to expand its influence in Africa and tap into the impoverished continent's vast mineral wealth, has been providing a revolving credit line to oil-rich Angola since 1995.

Chadian rebels attacked government troops in the eastern town of Goz Beida on Thursday, humanitarian workers said, just two days after the government declared a state of emergency in the remote border region. "Since 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) there has been shooting on the streets and fighting in town," said one Goz Beida resident who works for a foreign aid agency.

The decision of the Nobel Literature Prize committee to name Doris Lessing as this year’s laureate should raise red flags in the minds of those concerned with the integrity and cultural autonomy of African literature, writes Wandia Njoya. The fact that Lessing has finally received one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the Western hemisphere comes as no surprise, since she has been proposed for this award before but has been bypassed by previous laureates. What should raise eyebrows, however, is the historical and political context within which the committee finally decided to recognize the octogenarian.

City councils had a moral duty to spend money rolling out broadband networks to cover all their citizens, in the same way that they had a duty to provide water, sewerage and electricity, speakers at a technology conference have said. The right to broadband Internet access and affordable phone calls was just as great as the right to other municipal services. Any government that did not fulfill that need was doing its citizens disservice, speakers said.

Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's newly-announced government includes a record number of female ministers. A total of seven will lead ministries ranging from energy to culture, compared with only two in the previous government.

The FOSS Awards were inspired by a love and appreciation of Free Software., and a desire to share this with more people. Ian Gilfillan, who conceptualised the idea, writes: “As a student, I only learned proprietary software. It was only much later in my own explorations that I began to explore the world of FOSS. The openness, spirit of sharing and willingness to assist were an inspiration, and allowed me to learn much more, and to create for myself, than would otherwise have been possible.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/43763-from-jhelum-to-tana.j... a personal journey to find her history and identity, angered by the lack of recognition given to Indians in Kenya's fight for independence and inspired by a portrait of her great-grandfather, it took Neera Kapur-Dromson five years to create the book, “From Jhelum to Tana.” A fourth generation Kenyan of Indian origin, Neera Kapur-Dromson was born in Nairobi, where she grew up. At the feet of gurus in India, she studied the art of Indian classical dance. She continues to perform Odissi, a style of dance from the eastern state of Orissa, and regularly writes articles on socio-cultural subjects; From Jhelum to Tana is her first book.

Jhelum is a river that flows through Miani, a little town in Punjab now in Pakistan. This is where Lala Kirparam Ramchand, the author's mother's grandfather, was born. His ashes were released into the Tana - a river in Kenya, eastern Africa, which flows out into the Indian Ocean. India was where he was born; Kenya was where he spent the better half of his life. It was where he experienced Kenya's wilderness - hunting zebras and dodging lions during the building of the railway; and the enchantment of Kenya's old coastal towns - Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa. He started a thriving business, gave rise to many generations, endured the Second World War, the end of colonialism, and survived outbreaks of cholera and malaria. “From Jhelum to Tana” is a personal account of Kapur's family history from 1898 - the time her great-grandfather sailed from India to Kenya in a dhow - till today. It is more than a personal family story being passed down.

Kapur, using her vibrant imagination and through many conversations with her mother, extended family, and friends, pieces together each family member's individual personality, re-living their lives a century ago. She traveled different continents, explored libraries, old towns, and archives and read numerous books to produce both a family story and a historical documentary, where the twists and turns of family life are intertwined with African and Indian legends and the political and global scenario at the time. The thorough research that has been done is clearly visible. Interwoven into this family story is a history of many nations and many races - Kenya, India, Europe and their ethnic communities. In this rich and informative book, Kapur re-tells history as seen from the point of view of an ordinary citizen, and touches on issues such as race, culture, values and politics. The book is aimed at focused readers who take the effort to shift their thinking back and forth from one era, one country, and one continent to another.

The author gives our ancestors a personality, a character. She put herself in her ancestors' shoes and took the time and effort to ask questions that are not frequently asked; questions about infidelity, family politics, traditions and home truths. Kapur exposes intimate family stories, and in the Asian community, where people like to keep certain things secretive and private, this is a very daring thing to do. But she feels she has to, and she should. “So many people refused to divulge information,” says the author. The book quenches curious minds, answers complex questions and raises just as many. It leaves the readers with a different mindset and it serves as the perfect platform to begin one's own introspection into your family roots, your country's roots - the country you were born in, live in or work in. This book is important not only for Kenyans and South East Asians, but generally for migrants and the diasporas; it opens eyes, and provides an insight into many cultures and traditions. It has facts, figures and priceless information about cultures and periods of history hardly known to even our descendants. Adding to its honest wholesomeness, on the one hand the book is emotionally and spiritually involving and on the other hand, it raises issues of universal philosophical value.

In the realm of African-Indian writing, fiction writer Moyez Vassanji takes the lead, and after the acclaim he has received, it is difficult to surpass him. In that respect, Kapur's choice of writing a memoir/biography is perfect.

Conversely, due to the myriad of topics and mass of information contained in this book, some areas lack continuity of story making the book seem patchy. A reader may get lost with all the relations, which is especially possible when it involves large Asian families. It is the type of book that one must read a second time to get a full grasp of.

In Nairobi, in her mother's garden surrounded by jacaranda trees, Kapur and her mother spent long hours at the breakfast table discussing the generations gone by. In this same garden I sat with the author. Talking to her was like going behind the scenes into the making of a saga; an essential piece of literature that will make part of history. There could not have been a more appropriate time for this book to materialize… Our globalized, multi-cultural environment is literally driving us to search for or cling to our identity and roots; to appreciate other cultures through sharing. Kapur could not have said it better, “As people of different cultures we must look at our common identities, and rather than always picking on our differences, concentrate on our similarities.”

* Heer Raja is a passionate young woman, driven by curiosity and striving to be authentic. She has a huge fascination with the human mind.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

"In this fascinating history of the Guardian, South Africa's famous anti-apartheid newspaper, James Zug tells the story of a political publication that not only reported events but also helped to shape them. Between 1937 and 1963, the Guardian was the sole voice of dissent in the South African media, and Zug shows us how it played an essential role in the struggle to end apartheid."

The Detention Monitoring Advisor will: Provide advice and training on effective visits to places of detention which have the purpose of preventing torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. In the context of the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT), analyse existing or proposed visiting mechanisms to provide advice on their strengths and weaknesses as preventive bodies. Develop the in-house expertise on National Preventive Mechanisms emerging from the OPCAT. Deadline for application: 11 November 2007.

The Researcher will be based in Goma, eastern DRC, and responsibilities will include, but are not limited to, monitoring violations of human rights and international humanitarian law; curbing abuses through monitoring, investigating and documenting human rights violations in DRC (with a focus on the eastern provinces); applying sound judgment to investigation, reporting and advocacy work; writing and publicizing concise and accurate reports, briefing papers, letters, press releases, op-eds and submissions to international bodies as needed, with a quick turnaround time; developing and implementing local, regional and international strategies to bring violations to the attention of the government and the international community and change abusive laws, policies and practices. Apply immediately.

Applications are invited from nationals of non-OECD countries for a number of two-year fellowships to work on development and the role of developing countries in the world political economy. Up to six such fellowships will be awarded in each of the next five years, beginning in September 2008, for a year’s study at Oxford followed by a year at Princeton. Post-holders will be provided with appropriate stipends sufficient to cover full living costs. The programme intends to establish a network of leading scholar-practitioners in global governance.

Our client, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) has launched a new Rwanda Investment Climate Project (RICP) aimed to strengthen and speed up the pace of investment in climate reforms in the commercial justice, business registration and land registration sectors. The Project Director will be held accountable for project delivery and achievement of its mission. Manage project resources to ensure all the three project components (commercial justice, business registration and land registration) are implemented efficiently and effectively within set timeframes as well as mantain goodwill and effective stakeholder support.

STUDENTS’ UNION. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
October 14, 2007
Press Statement:

Release Akinola Saburi, Dairo Olatunde and Taiwo Hassan Now!!

The students' union of Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU) Ile-Ife condemn in absolute terms, the abduction of two union leaders - Dairo Olatunde (public relations officer) and Hassan Taiwo Hussein (National Coordinator of the Education Rights Campaign, ERC) for unjustified reasons. They were abducted at Sport Centre of the OAU while leaving the campus. According to information, they were seriously beaten up and forced into a station wagon car by the men suspected to be members of State Security Service (SSS) and the university's security unit called crackers at the instance of the vice chancellor, Prof. Michael Oladimeji Faborode. We do not know their destination till now.

Furthermore, we condemn the unwholesome closure of the university by the OAU management on a frivolous excuse of giving students "a mid semester break". To further show the intolerant and high-handedness of the Prof. Faborode-led management, heavily armed mobile policemen were drafted to the campus to chase out innocent students after forcing them to abdicate their academic works for no just reason.

The university was suddenly closed down on the night of Wednesday, 10th October, 2007 while students were asked to leave the campus within less than fifteen (15) hours. Students held a congress on the morning of Thursday, 11th October at Awolowo hall and collectively rejected the school closure on the basis that they are not animals who will be forced out of the campus at the whims and caprices of the vice chancellor without due regard to their wishes. Students also questioned the sincerity of the management which refused to grant just one week compulsory lecture free week in February (and rather preferred to close down the campus indefinitely) but is now giving a Greek gift of about two weeks mid-semester break! Yet, it is the same management that will be blackmailing the union leadership of trying to disrupt the academic calendar. We also condemn the closure on the basis that it will cause disruption of the calendar which will lead to mass failure as was witnessed last semester. Consequently, students embarked on peaceful protest to drive home their demand for a review of the closure on Thursday, October 11, 2007. Rather than heed to the request of the students, the Prof. Faborode-led management brought in mobile police men to attack students. This has led to attack on students especially the female students who were in the hall of residence as at the time the police came to campus. According to reports, the students, especially the female students were beaten by the mobile policemen. We are still collating names of those affected.

It is also at this point that Dairo Olatunde and Hassan Taiwo were arrested. We view their arrest as an attempt to stiffen progressive voices on the campus as against the reactionary rulership of Prof. Faborode-ed management. It is worthy of note to state that since the beginning of Prof. Faborode regime, the university has not known peace. In the last six months, three union leaders who are critical of the management style have been arrested/abducted by the management while other leaders are being witch hunted. Also, within the same six months, the campus has been closed down three times while over N20 million has been used to attack the students' union and its leadership. The welfare conditions of students have never been so bad as water is not constant (and not potable) while electricity supply has been erratic, yet hundreds of million was collected from students by the Faborode's administration.

The arrest of Dairo and Hassan to us is an attempt to stop the students from solidarising with their leader, Akinola Saburi who has been illegally arrested by SSS men and whose case is coming up on Monday, 15th October, 2007 at Osogbo High Court. This to us is a violation of Section 40 of the Nigerian constitution and Section 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 which guarantee freedom of expression and association. We therefore condemn the role of the Nigerian police and the SSS for being tools of oppressing Nigerian students. Unlike what the university management wants the whole world to believe that the students' union is causing crisis, it is the management, in connivance with the security agencies - SSS and the Osun State Police Command that has been precipitating crisis in order to attack the union and its leaders.

We see the current attack on the union as a reflection of the undemocratic nature of running our ivory towers and the deliberate under funding of education by the neo-liberal Yar'Adua's government. This is further confirmed by the deliberate criminal silence of the federal government on the OAU crisis while the apparatus of government especially the police and the SSS are being used to intimidate students' leaders who have been at the forefront of the agitation for proper funding of education and egalitarian Nigerian economy; and yet we are made to believe that Nigeria is a democratic state.

Consequently, we demand:
1. Immediate release of Akinola Saburi (OAU students' union president), Dairo Olatunde (Pubic Relations Officer) and Hassan Taiwo Hussein(Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign) and end to culture of victimization. We also demand for N100 million damages for them by the SSS for this illegal arrest.
2. Immediate reopening of the university
3. Immediate removal of the vice chancellor, Prof. Michael Oladimeji Faborode and his kitchen cabinet for high-handedness and gross mismanagement. This is necessary in order to avoid further crisis.
4. Immediate probe of the Prof. Faborode-led management by a democratic committee and arraignment of its officers if found guilty.
5. Improvement in the welfare conditions of students including provision of constant power supply, potable water supply, enough lecture rooms and hostel facilities, etc.
6. End to education commercialization and privatization. For massive funding of education by at least 26 percent of the budget as prescribed by UNESCO.
7. Democratic running of the education sector at all levels to include representatives of ASUU, NASU, ASUP, NUT, SSANU, COEASU, students' unions, etc.

Finally, we enjoin the general public to ignore all propaganda of the university management while we also call on labour and civil society organisations to prevail on the government to take action. OAU students are known to be non-destructive even at the point of the worst provocation; we shall not renege on this principle but we shall not stop in fighting oppression and misuse of power by people like Prof. Faborode. We wish to end by saying that if anything untoward should happen to Akinola Saburi, Dairo Olatunde and Hassan Taiwo Hussein, we shall hold the university management, the Nigerian police and the SSS responsible.

In the struggle for independent unionism, properly-funded, democratically-run education system, nationalization of the Nigerian economy, we shall remain undaunted.

* Signed Ogumah Segun Andrew, Speaker. Oyedeji Nurudeen, Clerk

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/43777-Lovinsky.jpgOn the evening of 11th August 2007 Haitian and global activist, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine disappeared and has not been seen since. Ben Terral of Haiti Action contrasts the Haiti of the US and their proxy army the MINUSTAH with the real Haiti of Lovinsky, the Lavalas movement and the masses of Haitian people.

In the August 9, 2007 Washington Times, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described his late July visit to the Haitian shantytown of Cite Soleil. Ki-moon trumpets armed incursions waged by the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and their success in establishing “security,” and concludes, “I am convinced Haiti is at a turning point. Long the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, seemingly forever mired in political turmoil, it at long last has a golden chance to begin to rebuild itself. With the help of the international community -- and the United Nations in particular -- it can.”

On a July visit to Haiti, most of the people I spoke with were less enthusiastic about the UN presence in their country. On July 28, I observed a spirited demonstration across from UN headquarters on Ave. John Brown in Port-au-Prince. The protest took the form of what Haitian activists call a “sit-in”; such actions are smaller than mass mobilization “manifestations” which involve thousands of people marching. July 28 marked the 92nd anniversary of the 1915 US Marine invasion of Haiti, which many Haitians I spoke to see as a direct precursor to the current UN presence in Haiti, given that MINUSTAH, as the mission is known, was established in 2004 to legitimize the US-backed coup regime which ousted the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. (Aristide remains in U.S.-enforced exile in South Africa.)

Several activists began posting photos of dissidents killed by military, police and death squads over the past few decades. The photos were placed on a banner that said in Kreyol, “everytime a militant falls, 1,000 will rise to take their place.”

The protestors danced as they chanted, calling out in Kreyol, “what are we asking? For MINUSTAH to leave!” This was immediately followed by a song about their deposed President, which explained “our blood is Aristide's blood.”

A bitterly angry Haitian woman informed me that her 25 year-old daughter was killed in the middle of the night by the UN during a raid on her neighborhood. She told us, “we will never forget how many people the UN has killed.” On previous trips to Haiti, I spoke to other family members of innocent civilians who became “collateral damage” – picked off for no other reason than that they were in the line of fire when UN soldiers went into assault mode on flimsily constructed, densely packed neighborhoods. In one such raid in Cite Soleil, MINUSTAH fired up to 22,000 bullets, according to declassified documents from the U.S. embassy.

The chanting continued in Kreyol: “Calling George Bush, come and get your thieves!” Then the demonstrators began moving up Avenue John Brown, to another entrance to the UN facility about a city block away.

There Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, the head of Fondasyon 30 Septanm, a Haitian human rights organization which advocates for victims of the 1991 and 2004 coup d'etats against the democratically-elected governments of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, read a statement that included this passage: “Yes in 1915 we were subjected to an imperialist, criminal and ruthless occupation. In the year 2004 we again were subjected to another imperialist, criminal and ruthless occupation, even if the dark forces tried to hide their faces behind the army of a few countries that are poor like us.” Lovinsky then added the Kreyol proverb, “Those who pay the band decide what music to play.”

Lovinsky expressed vehement opposition to President Rene Preval's extension of the UN mandate in Haiti. Though elected by the country's poor majority largely because of his past association with Aristide (he was Prime Minister in the first Aristide administration which ended in the 1991 coup), most activists I spoke to now see Preval as at best ineffectual in standing up to rightist forces. And unlike Aristide, Preval has delivered few concrete gains for the poor masses and appears to have little ability or interest in communicating to them what he plans to do to improve their lot.

At the checkpoint Lovinsky directed his bullhorn toward, Jordanian troops stood poised with weapons at the ready in front of a roadblock covered in razor wire. Brazilian, Nepalese, and Bolivian soldiers had also driven by and scrutinized the demonstration at various points.

It was striking how many different uniformed and plainclothes soldiers and officers, including a Phillipine officer wearing a beret, a French officer, and a man with a U.S. flag on his shoulder, repeatedly photographed the assembled demonstrators. UN occupation forces have worked closely with Haitian police, whose widespread use of torture and extrajudicial execution under the post-2004 coup regime has been widely documented, in reports by the University of Miami, Harvard Law School, the Institute for Justice and Democracy and other organizations. Given that holdovers from the coup period still dominate the Haitian police (as well as the judiciary and most ministries), repeatedly photographing protestors seemed more about sending a message of intimidation than a matter of developing files on the fifty mostly elderly men and women in attendance, none of whom posed any physical threat to the heavily armed UN forces.

While Ban Ki-moon praised the Haitian Senate for passing legislation aimed at “creating a legal climate more conducive to economic development and foreign investment,” Lovinsky had a more grassroots perspective at the UN demonstration: “The bourgeoisie favored an occupation which would bring it big profits.”

Certainly a key factor in Jean-Bertrand Aristide earning the enmity of the small number of Haitian super-rich, who collaborated with the U.S., France and Canada on his 2004 ouster, was his Lavalas Party government's work to provide some measure of economic justice by doubling the minimum wage and pushing elites to pay taxes. The Lavalas motto was “from misery to poverty with dignity,” not “working to create a climate more conducive to foreign exploitation.”

Poor Lavalas supporters were swept up en masse throughout the “interim” coup government of 2004-2006. (One of the more prominent current political prisoners, Lavalas grassroots organizer Rene Civil, who helped mobilize thousands in demonstrations to demand the return of Aristide, was arrested on trumped-up charges after Preval took office.) I spoke to a young man in the horrifically overcrowded downtown penitentiary in Port-au-Prince who has been trying with no success to get evidence of his innocence to a judge. His lawyer told me his client was picked up by police in a sweep after the business he worked in was robbed, then he was the one “suspect” police held on to after scrutinizing his history as a nonviolent Lavalas activist.

Untold numbers of other prisoners who identify as Lavalas remain in jail in similarly dubious circumstances. Some have been inside since the 2004 coup without once having seen a judge. One current prisoner estimated that more than 65% of those in the main penitentiary are there for political reasons. Given that I have heard repeatedly from prisoners and families of prisoners that they were offered freedom for cash payments of thousands of U.S. dollars they did not have, in a very real sense these people have been criminalized for being poor.

Incredibly, the outgoing head of UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Guatemalan Edmond Mulet gave a recent interview in which he admitted how awful jail conditions are: “We are victims of our own success. They are completely overcrowded. They even have to take turns now to sit or to lie down or to sleep because there is not enough room. So they take turns. They sleep for four hours and then are woken up so the others can sleep. It's pretty horrible. And the sanitary conditions, you have cells that were made for four people and you have
40 or 50 in them. And this poses not only security problems, but also on human rights issue as well. So we are hoping some countries will be interested in putting a remedy to this.”

Mulet went on, “One of the problems we have in Haiti is most of the inmates are in preventive detention mode. They have probably never seen a judge, there's no formal accusation, there's no file, there's nothing. Some of them probably stole a chicken and probably the penalty for that would be five days in jail and they've been in jail two or three years."

Meanwhile anti-Aristide death squad thugs, including perpetrators of the April 1994 Raboteau massacre of Lavalas supporters, convicted and jailed under Haiti's democratic governments are still roaming free after being sprung from jail by paramilitaries who did the dirty work of the 2004 coup.

The sense of solidarity the poor still have for Aristide (a Port-au-Prince resident told me, ‘Aristide was trying to help the lower classes -- that's why he was kidnapped”; the graffiti “VIV RETOU TITID,” or “long live the return of Aristide,” was everywhere) is indicative of the resilience of the popular movement for social and economic justice in Haiti. But given that the current UN mission in the country was established to support a status quo at odds with that popular movement, renewing the UN mandate there will only be another barrier to real democracy and progressive change for the vast majority of Haitians.

ADDENDUM:

On Tuesday, September 18, the Bay Area-based Haiti Action Committee (HAC) held a rally in downtown San Francisco to call attention to the unresolved kidnapping of veteran Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

Robert Roth, a San Francisco high school teacher and long-time solidarity activist who took part in a delegation to Haiti in late July (which this writer joined in Port-au-Prince), spoke first at the rally. Roth explained, “It's been over a month since Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine has disappeared. He is a human rights worker, he's a psychologist, he's worked with victims of torture from the coup of 1991-1994. He's continued his human rights advocacy in Haiti during this recent coup in 2004, a coup organized and created by the United States government.”

Roth continued, “When we were there in Haiti, we met with Lovinsky at his house, he talked to us about the current situation in Haiti and how the human rights violations continue against the people. He talked to us about political prisoners, and how they continue to be held in Haiti under the UN occupation, and how they continue to be held under the Preval government.”

Roth added, “He is a deep thinker, and he is a very, very important leader of the people's movement in Haiti. And he has disappeared for over a month, and that's a crime against the people of Haiti, it's a crime against anyone who believes in freedom and justice. It's a crime against anyone who believes in peace and dignity and human rights and all the things that we cherish. And so our hearts are with him wherever he is. And we will not give up. We will not give up our solidarity with Lovinsky. We will not give up hope for his safe return, we will not give up our demand that the authorities in Haiti account for his disappearance, and bring him safely back to his family, his people. And we don't see this as just about Lovinsky. It's about the people of Haiti, it's about the people of Iraq, it's about the people of Palestine, it's about the people of the Philippines, wherever people are fighting for justice. And so we take a moment here to honor him, and we take a moment to let people all over the world now that Lovinsky is with us, we're with him, and we'll continue to be out here until he returns home safely.”

HAC co-founder Pierre Labossiere echoed that internationalist perspective in his comments about “this beautiful brother, psychologist, human rights worker, someone who's at the forefront of the movement for justice, for economic and social justice for the people of Haiti, and for people throughout the world." Labossiere noted that when a member of the July delegation who was helping organize a Human Rights Tribunal on crimes committed during Katrina told Lovinsky of that New Orleans-based solidarity initiative, “Lovinsky said, ‘how do I support it? Let me sign up.’ […] As a matter of fact he was supposed to attend the tribunal when he disappeared three weeks before, the actual tribunal took place. So Lovinsky is one of those brothers who care for people world-wide, he's just … not limited to Haiti. He sees the struggle for justice, and human rights,and equality as a world-wide struggle, and that people need to rally around from wherever you are from and link arms with each other, so we can have a world of peace, a world of justice, where human rights are
respected.”

Labossiere asked the San Francisco protestors to write or call “the US embassy in Haiti, to the Brazilian authorities, who are in charge of the UN mission in Haiti, to the Haitian authorities.” The message: “we need them to exert all their influence – they are very powerful, very influential – with all sectors of Haitian society, from the very top politicians to the underworld, to demand one thing: that brother Lovinsky be returned to his family safely.”

In a September 13 letter to the Brazilian government, Dominican Sister Stella Goodpasture of the Mission of San Jose, emphasized that her appeal was not a request “for the Brazilian mission in Port-au-Prince to crack down militarily as they have in the past. What we are asking for is that Brazilian officials express their concern through any and all channels that the kidnappers should negotiate with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's family and that Lovinsky needs to be released unharmed.”

*Ben Terrall is an activist and a member of Haiti Action –

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

More such messages to the authorities in Haiti are still needed.

Haitian Ministry of Justice
Tel: 011-509-245-0474

UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Tel: 011-509-244-0650/0660
FAX: 011-509-244-9366/67
Or, Fax Office of UN Secretary General in New York: 212-963-4879

United States Embassy in Haiti
Tel: 011-509-223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354
FAX: 011-509-223-1641

Embassy of Brazil in Haiti
FAX: 011-509-256-0900
Email:[email][email protected]
Tel: 011-509-256-9662 or 6208 or 7556 or 7578

Microsoft Research has issued a worldwide RFP to incubate creative and novel healthcare solutions that are accessible, affordable, and relevant for ‘smart’ mobile phones. Microsoft Research will support selected academic research with the goal of advancing the state-of-the-art in ‘smart’ cell phones for healthcare applications. Successful projects must seek to increase the capacity of cell phone-based healthcare solutions in under-served rural and urban communities. They must also take into consideration the social context of application deployment. deadline for submission of proposals is October 29, 2007.

On October 15th, a public hearing on the World Bank will take place in The Hague. The hearing aims to raise the debate on the legitimacy of the World Bank and influence the aid distribution process. The World Bank Campaign Europe, a coalition of more than 70 non-governmental organizations, is preparing a public hearing titled “World vs. Bank,” in co-operation with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. It will take place on October 15, 2007 in The Hague, Netherlands, at the beginning of the week of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank/IMF.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the President of the Republic of Niger to intervene to put an end to the repression on the media after the recent arrest of Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, the editor of a private newspaper accused of “working with Radio France Internationale” and the detention of journalist Moussa Kaka on charges of endangering the safety of the state for suspected links with Tuareg rebels. He faces life imprisonment.

The United Nations Special Envoy to Darfur has called for an end to the “vicious cycle of violence” engulfing the war-torn Sudanese region ahead of major peace talks later this month, warning that any delay to the negotiations between the Government and the rebels would only lead to further bloodshed.

The United Nations refugee agency has condemned the recent deportation of at least 15 Ethiopian refugees by the authorities in Sudan, calling it a breach of the country’s international legal obligations. Sudanese officials handed over the refugees to Ethiopian authorities at the Metema border crossing, about 500 kilometres southeast of Khartoum, on 27 September, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement issued in Geneva that it had only learned of the deportations this week.

The United Nations refugee agency today announced the end of an organized repatriation programme which over the past three years has brought nearly 5,000 Congolese refugees home from the Central African Republic (CAR). The last convoy traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) this weekend carrying just over 130 returnees leaving the CAR capital Bangui. In total, 4,994 Congolese refugees have returned home from CAR.