Parliament has passed a Bill seeking to establish an autonomous National Commission on Gender and Development. The commission will co-ordinate and facilitate gender mainstreaming in national development. It will also initiate legal reforms on issues affecting women.

The Community Agency for Social Enquiry, a leading South African research NGO, invites applications for our 2004 Internship Programme. The Programme is a six-month internship aimed at young graduates who are planning a career in research and are committed to development in South Africa.

The Algerian government has set up a commission to revise the north African country's family code to improve women's rights, an official said on Monday. Under the current code, based mainly on Islam's strict Sharia law and adopted in 1984, women must submit to male protection throughout their lives.

Trade negotiations should recognise the legitimacy of values that can't be expressed in monetary terms, particularly in discussions on the forest sector, says this paper from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), which argues that sustainable forest management (SFM) - related priorities should inform countries' negotiating objectives and strategies in trade negotiations, even if forest issues do not explicitly feature in them. Trade liberalisation in both agricultural and forest products, affects competitive land use values, which influence the levels and types of forest use.

São Tomé and Principe, one of Africa's smallest and poorest countries, is poised to reap a windfall of up to $200m - 50 times annual average export earnings. But the prospect of new wealth has already heightened instability in the island state, where there have been frequent changes of government in recent years and concerns about corruption.

We of the Ijaw Council for Human Rights (ICHR), committed to reclaiming the humanity of the peoples of the Ijaw and other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta wish to draw the attention of peoples of good conscience to the so called "award" of Good Corporate Citizen by the United States Secretary of State, to Chevron on October 15, 2003. This action by the United States government is not only self-opinionated, but represents another clear demonstration of contempt for the peoples of the Niger Delta in preference for oil as it attempts to deny the atrocious activities of Chevron.

Several South African National Defence Force (SANDF) bases and their troops were identified in 2001 to help carry out a plan to overthrow the state, the Pretoria High Court heard in the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday.

Trade in belts, shoes, and ladies bags made out of reptile skin is no longer a lucrative business in Senegal. The international treaty banning all exports of such items has meant a serious downturn for vendors in the craft market in the capital, Dakar.

The government of Burundi and the country's largest rebel group are due to resume talks in the South African capital, Pretoria, on Wednesday. A transitional government delegation are meeting leaders from the main rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) to iron out what is being billed as a final agreement.

Government schools in Guinea-Bissau reopened on Wednesday after the World Bank agreed to provide an exceptional US $2.5 million loan to pay teachers 10 months of salary arrears. The school system of this former Portuguese colony in West Africa has been paralysed for most of the past two years by a series of teachers' strikes.

Displaced people in western Uganda’s Bundibugyo District are struggling to cope with the arrival since March of some 11,000 refugees from the war-torn Ituri District of neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a report by the Kampala-based Refugee Law Project (RLP).

Former United States President Bill Clinton has announced a deal with four generic-drug companies to slash the price of AIDS drugs in parts of the developing world.

The World Health Organisation was this week due to reveal the first details of its global strategy to bring low-cost HIV/AIDS drugs to 3 million people in poor countries, a plan that top officials said will eventually include endorsement of pills that combine three antiretroviral drugs in a single tablet, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Protesting University of Zambia students this week disrupted a senate meeting convened to consider a 100 per cent hike in tuition fees. The students stormed the senate chamber when word went round that the university governing body was meeting to discuss the proposed increment for the 2004 academic year.

An outbreak of measles this month in all four of Swaziland's regions has health organisations scrambling to immunise children in populous urban townships.

Former South African President, Nelson Mandela, has launched a global fundraising campaign for HIV/Aids in Africa, Independent Online reports. The campaign is dubbed "46664 - give one minute of your life to stop Aids" and was launched in London on Tuesday. 46664 was Mandela's prison number during his incarceration on Robben Island. The campaign will use global telephone networks and the Internet to raise funds and awareness of the impact of Aids in Africa.

The European Union is to fund 3.8 billion birrs ($440m) worth of development projects over the next five years, State Minister for Finance and Economic Development Mulu Ketsela said on Wednesday.

In Nigeria, the Internet may soon no longer be a phenomenon exclusive to urban communities. Using VSAT satellite communication systems, a government campaign plans to send buses from village to village, inviting people to use the Internet aboard.

The Building Digital Opportunities programme (BDO), which aims to identify and help remove some of the key barriers to poverty-focused ICT for development, has been received with an overall positive appreciation, providing important ICT-focused support to development and poverty reduction, says a new study.

As 2003 draws to a close, the conflict in northern Uganda shows no sign of abating. For the past seventeen years the north of Uganda has been mired in a conflict that is difficult to understand. Since the National Resistance Movement (NRM), now known as the Movement, came to power in 1986, the government has been bogged down in numerous armed conflicts. However, unlike those that came before it and even during it, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony has managed to survive, where other armed groups negotiated peace talks, surrendered under amnesties or were just wiped out by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).

Ostensibly the LRA fighting in Acholiland, northern Uganda, demands freedom from discrimination for the Acholi people and the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. While it is true that historically the Acholi people were discriminated against, the actions and deeds of the LRA, however, belie their demands as they continue to commit atrocities against the civilian population of northern Uganda reminiscent of the RUF in Sierra Leone.

The civilian population is often the deliberate target of the rebels: They are abducted as the rebels forcibly recruit children for use as soldiers and sex slaves, houses are burnt and villages and camps for internally displaced persons (IDP), which have extremely limited access to food and water, are targeted by the rebels for food and medicine. New figures show that from June 2002 to July 2003 8,500 children were abducted. People are unable to harvest their fields, leading to an increased pressure on humanitarian agencies to provide aid and other relief supplies. However, many agencies are unable to operate in such an insecure and volatile environment and lacking secure access to remote areas are usually restricted to the towns. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) remains the only agency that, with a military escort, can reach the majority of IDPs. Many of the major roads that link the north to the rest of the country are highly insecure and prone to frequent rebel ambushes. As the countryside becomes depopulated and agricultural production ceases, combined with the lack of services, IDPs and refugees are suffering from severe cases of malnutrition. The conflict is stretching resources of many districts and is having a severe impact on water, sanitation, health, and education services.

This conflict remains one of the most intense long-term conflicts within the region. Why does northern Uganda continue to be mired in a bloody and barbaric conflict when other armed conflicts such as in Sudan and Somalia have pursued peace with the backing of the international community? Why has this conflict been forgotten by the outside world while it is uprooting and slowly killing entire communities?

The few details known about the LRA and its structure hamper any real effort towards effective peace talks. The recent ‘peace talks’ were conducted with one group within the LRA, although it was not apparent whether they had the full backing and authority of Joseph Kony. It is often agreed that unless Kony himself is involved all peace talks are bound to fail. Very little is known about Kony. Stories from escaped or captured abducted children continue to show that Kony believes that he has mystical powers and communes with the Holy Spirit. Like Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement, out of which grew the LRA, Kony believes that he endows his forces with magical powers to defeat the UPDF. However, the reality is very different. Far from being a committed force, many of the rebels are abducted children forced to commit horrific atrocities against one another, and often against members of their own family or village, in order to sever all ties with their community.

The Ugandan government has historically both fought against and then tried to negotiate peace with the rebels. Both strategies have failed, but continue to be reflected in the government’s present actions. Although President Museveni has been to the north twice to oversee operations of the UPDF, who are a permanent presence in the region, their ability to engage with the rebels remains sporadic. Their presence is limited to certain areas and their forces are often thin on the ground. Deadlines issued by the government as to when the conflict will end belie the fact that ambushes, looting, killings and mutilations by the rebels steadily continue, and in some areas increased. Their poor track record also gives rise to allegations that those with a vested interest in the conflict continue to manipulate it to their own ends. As long as fighting the rebels is a legitimate reason for continued and increased spending in the defence budgets, an end to the conflict may not be in the interest of those in the UPDF leadership with immediate access to these funds.

Poor communication from both sides continues to overshadow any formal negotiations without a neutral third party to mediate. At the start of the year, talks between the Presidential Peace Team (PPT) and the rebels had collapsed even before formal negotiations could begin. The PPT, led by former Premier Prime Minister Eriya Kategaya, is now a defunct body languishing in Kampala without a new chairman and no direction. Likewise the sincerity of the government in negotiating is crucial to making peace a reality. The actions and words of President Museveni continue to reflect and dictate the attitude of the government. Looking at the rebels as terrorists, his scepticism of any successful peace talks, and his conviction that only a military solution can wipe out the rebels all highlight his reluctance to involve the international community – for their involvement would give the rebels a mantle of legitimacy and justification for the conflict.

Museveni has also indicated that the amnesty, under which the rebels can be re-integrated into the community if they renounce their activities, will not be extended to cover the top LRA leadership beyond the end of the year. Therefore, the government’s increasing belligerent and militaristic actions, using more helicopter gunships and ground troops, is in Museveni’s eyes the only real and effective response in dealing with the rebels. This is in direct conflict with the belief of a significant portion of the affected population, religious leaders, in the form of the Acholi Religious Leader’s Peace Initiative (ARLPI), the only body continuing to undertake constructive engagement with the rebels, some MPs and local leaders as well as some members of the international community who have all pushed for peace talks.

There is also a wider regional dimension to the conflict: Sudan has historically supported the LRA in retaliation for Uganda’s support of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). The 1999 Nairobi Peace Accord, although flawed by not involving the two rebel groups in its discussions, ensured the co-operation of each country to end this support. Under provisions of this Accord, in June 2002 Sudan allowed the UPDF, through Operation Iron Fist, to enter southern Sudan to fight and destroy LRA bases. It has never been completely believed that each side fully adhered to provisions in the agreement, most notably the injunction against aiding and supporting rebel groups. It is now certain that Kony has re-established two new camps south of Juba in the Sudan and that some Sudanese military officers continue to provide the rebels with weapons and other necessities. Church leaders and children who managed to escape from the rebels backed these allegations. Relations continue to remain polite but strained and in August both countries withdrew their observer posts set up to monitor and prevent rebel cross-border activity. Although the Protocol to extend Operation Iron Fist was renewed for the eighth time in September it remains to be seen if these new accusations impact negatively on it. What will be interesting is how the outcome, and perhaps the longevity, of the negotiated peace settlement between Khartoum and the SPLA/M will considerably affect relations between the Sudanese government and the LRA.

Since Operation Iron Fist began the rebels have re-entered Uganda. The repercussions of this policy are devastating and it has become the catalyst for the worst humanitarian disaster to date. As a consequence of this policy, the conflict has extended beyond its traditional boundaries of the north – mainly in the districts of Gulu, Pader, Lira and Kitgum – into the Teso region, northeastern Uganda, encompassing Katakwi, Soroti, Kumi, and Kaberamaido districts. There has been speculation as to why the rebels expanded their activities into northeastern Uganda, probably for food, medicines, and because of a low army presence in these districts.

Uganda is now looking at possibly the worst humanitarian crisis since the start of the conflict: insecurity continues with a lack of economic and social activity, displacements of whole villages, and the influx of refugees into the region. Figures are bleak and in no way can convey the misery and suffering by those directly affected by the conflict. The WFP estimates that about 1.6 million people in Uganda are in need of food aid, including over 1.1 million displaced in northern and eastern Uganda, with over 820,000 displaced in the north, the majority of the population. The IDP population within the Teso region has increased enormously since rebel activity began in June. It is estimated that around 300,000 are displaced and are mainly reliant on the host communities.

With increased rebel activity local authorities have established paramilitary groups to help fight alongside the UPDF – the Arrow Group in Teso and the Rhino Defence Unit in Lira. Most recently in September another militia was established composed of Karimojong fighters, from the eastern Karamoja region, a group more well known for carrying out violent cattle raids on its neighbours. However, arming the Karimojong can only exacerbate old tensions and ensure that a region already awash with small arms becomes even more volatile and insecure.

The reactions of the international community to date have been worryingly muted: Although they continue to express concern about the insurgency, there has been no concerted effort beyond rhetoric to find a peaceful solution to the fighting. On his first visit to Uganda in June of this year, George Bush made no overt attempt to push for a peaceful resolution. International institutions have called for an end to the conflict: The East African Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to establish a peace committee to negotiate between the two sides. On 3 July 2003, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the atrocities and called for constructive engagement by all parties and wider international support for the reconciliation process. At the present time no action has been taken to implement any of these resolutions.

Many religious and civil leaders feel the momentum is at present with the rebels, regardless of government’s claims that a military solution is the successful formula to defeat the rebels. It seems that the international community implicitly agrees with the government. What is needed, however, is an immediate ceasefire, guaranteed safe humanitarian access to the region and peace talks preferably outside of Uganda arbitrated by a neutral party.

To the international community, this conflict seems to be just one of many dotted on the African continent. To the people of northern Uganda, it is an every-present danger, keeping them away from their homes, their fields, disrupting their lives and families, forcing them to live in constant fear and hunger. Would it be too cynical to think that the people of northern Uganda are just not dying in sufficiently large numbers to be worthy of the attention of the international community, and jolt someone into action? What kind of disaster will make the international community sit up and take concrete and deliberate steps to ensure peace is brought to the region?

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Unless and until Nigerians institute an abiding faith in their country, dumping short term ethnic interests for the larger, long-term goal of national engagement and development, the road to true nationhood would continue to be a mirage, argues the author of this seven part serial published in Nigeria's The Vanguard newspaper, which takes a very hard look at the Nigerian nation.

A new report challenges the IMF and World Bank's assertion that they are unable to cancel 100% of the debts owed by the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs.) Using rigorous financial analysis, the paper shows that both the IMF and World Bank have ample resources to cancel all HIPC debt, and that this could be done without in any way jeopardising their normal operations, or threatening their credit ratings, says the report by Jubilee Research.

Africa Confidential reports that Colin Powell told the Sudanese National Islamic Front government during a visit to Kenya that it would stay on the US 'terrorist list' until it expelled Hamas and Islamic Jihad, resulting in the following comment circulating on the streets of Nairobi: "If you sign, you get the White House. If you don't, you get Guantánamo Bay!" Meanwhile, the expected signing of a partial Sudan peace agreement during the United States Secretary of State's trip was replaced by the two sides agreeing to agree later.

On April 7, 2003, the New York Times carried a story on a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which up to 966 non-combatant civilians were slaughtered by warring factions in the east of the country. The story, authored by the Associated Press, ran on page A6 and took up less than a full column of newsprint. Amid the flurry of Iraq war coverage many English-language newspapers made no mention of the Congo massacres. It seems unlikely that the New York Times would give similarly cursory treatment to a massacre of 966 civilians in France, Britain, South Korea or Israel. This disparity leaves us with a question: Is Iraq more important than the Congo?

One hundred and twenty five companies and individuals have been listed in a report for having contributed directly or indirectly to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A United Nations committee investigating the plunder of gems and minerals in the DRC said: "Illegal exploitation remains one of the main sources of funding for groups involved in perpetuating conflict." The DRC has reserves of gems, cobalt, copper, gold, timber, uranium and coltan, a component for electronic chips in cell phones and laptop computers.

The Mozambican parliament last Thursday unanimously passed a bill introducing new anti-corruption measures. The bill had passed its first reading at the last parliamentary sitting in April, and in the intervening period the Assembly's legal affairs committee amended it in line with the April discussion.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is celebrating what it calls a “ground-breaking” decision on Thursday by the Competitions Commission that found two giant pharmaceutical firms culpable of charging excessive prices for anti-retroviral drugs and abusing their dominant positions in the market. The firms, GlaxoSmithKline South Africa and Boehringer Ingelheim, will have to appear before the Competitions Tribunal - the commission's prosecuting arm - to defend their contravention of the Competitions Act.

One of the most celebrated achievements of South Africa’s transition to democracy is the Bill of Rights, enshrined in the Constitution, which states that, "everyone has the right to have access to sufficient water." The privatization of water violates that constitutional and human right in every way imaginable. At all levels of life - political, social, economic and cultural - the privatization of water is anti-democratic, anti-social and anti-human. In response to privatization South African activists have created a national coalition against water privatization.

Is the World Bank's approach to land relations gender insensitive? Is it realistic to pin poverty reduction aspirations on the promotion of credit markets and reliance on women's unpaid labour? Does the acquisition of secure tenure rights necessarily benefit poor women? How should advocates of women's rights in Africa respond to the Bank's land agenda?

I would like to get more news from Zambia, specifically what is going on both in the rurals and urbans. Thanks for your collaboration - hoping to network with you till the end.

The government controlled media’s monopoly of daily news output since the banning of The Daily News was again highlighted this week by the superficial and distorted nature of its coverage of the police crackdown on labour protests and the illegal detention of the South African High Commissioner to Zimbabwe by new farmers. Zimbabweans no longer have any mass circulating daily alternative source of information and therefore cannot so easily assess the truth of events as reported in the government media. But it needs no comparison to state that the accounts of both incidents in The Herald and on ZBC reflected only official opinion and reported vaguely on the two events, says the latest update from The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe.

The United Nations has appealed to journalists to stop trying to incite war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It said it was concerned about the increase in media hate comments on the impasse in the peace process between the two Horn of Africa states which it termed as “currently in stasis”.

Non-government organisations seeking to have their issues better understood by potential lawmakers instructed candidates in the just-conducted parliamentary elections about social welfare and health matters the members of parliament (MPs) would have to know about once in office. "The time for an education campaign is now, before the MP enters office,” said Doo Aphane, national director for the Swaziland chapter of Women in Law in Southern Africa.

A groundbreaking study by the Ministry of Education on the effect of child abuse paints a disturbing portrait of the state of the Swazi child today, suggesting that up to 38 percent of children might be abuse survivors.

Peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) taking place in Naivasha Kenya have "hit a rock", according to Malik Agar Eyre, SPLM commander and Governor of Southern Blue Nile region. He said the atmosphere remained "cordial and friendly" but there was a deadlock in all three committees discussing the pending issues of power sharing, wealth sharing and the contested areas of Southern Blue Nile, Abyei and the Nuba mountains.

The regional conference on Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation in the SADC Region underscores EISA's work flowing from consensus building meetings convened with electoral stakeholders in the region some two years ago. This culminated in a regional conference held in Windhoek in June 2000 where a regional task team was appointed to draft what was then termed Norms and Standards for Electoral Observation. The Task Team was drawn from Electoral Commissions, academia, CSOs involved in electoral work in the SADC region and the SADC Parliamentary Forum. The Task Team has completed its work and the conference will be a launching pad for the draft document.

We are once again announcing calling for interested individuals to register and or submit abstracts to the 1st International Students Conference on AIDS, scheduled for 2nd-6th of February 2004. The conference is organised by the steering committee of students from the Universities of Dar es Salaam, the Hubert Kairuki Memorial University and the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences and is going to be held at the University of Dar es Salaam Nkrumah and Nyerere halls.

New findings on maternal mortality by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA show that a woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. This compares with a 1 in 2,800 risk for a woman from a developed region. These findings are contained in a new global report on maternal mortality released by the three agencies.

The South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef), the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and the South Africa Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-SA) have expressed disappointment at Hefer Commission chairman Justice Joos Hefer's ruling that former Sunday Times reporter Ranjeni Munusamy will have to testify before the commission. She was subpoenaed to give evidence to the commission about her story that the African National Congress (ANC) investigated National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka as an apartheid government spy. The judge ignored a substantive argument from the three organisations, which stated that media freedom and journalists' lives would be in danger if they were forced to testify and identify their sources.

The postholder will be based at Amoud community-based University in Borama, which is the first institute of higher education to evolve since the end of Somaliland's period of conflict. The post offers an exciting opportunity to a resourceful and dedicated individual to assist in the development and management of information systems for the university, and offer necessary support and training to users.

Beatrice Mtetwa, one of Zimbabwe's top human rights lawyers, said on Friday that she had pressed assault charges against a police officer who arrested her this week after she had undergone an attempted hijacking and was repeatedly punched, kicked and strangled for over three hours.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the October 17 arson attack on the offices of the private, biweekly Independent newspaper, located in a suburb of the capital, Banjul.

Timberwatch, a coalition of Environmental NGOs and individuals, has called on the South African government as well as the timber industry, to halt the planting of new industrial timber plantations in naturally vegetated areas, especially grasslands.

In the sixth edition of Promises Not Kept John Isbister updates his study of the dilemmas of international poverty and the Third World by bringing in a discussion of the effects of the war on terrorism and the “new American hegemony,” and surveys the prospects for justice in a world of globalization.

The maiden issue of Kenya's first literary magazine carries a smouldering tale of a taboo romance between two Kenyans - one ethnic Indian, one African. They cuddle behind the city's Indian haunt called Diamond Plaza. They discuss race and class. They swoon over his Swahili rap music and her homemade spiced kebabs "in a coup of cultural diversity," the author writes.

This is an account of the challenges posed by globalisation on the management of common property resources in Zimbabwe, a developing country whose experiences are relevant to other countries in the southern African region and beyond.

The multinational companies currently being sued in the United States by the non-profit Khulumani Support Group were not merely doing business in apartheid South Africa, they were knowingly aiding, abetting and in effect sustaining the racist regime. So says US attorney Michael Hausfeld, who lodged the so-called apartheid lawsuit in New York on behalf of some 82 members of the Khulumani group.

The Namibia Development Trust is to start work on the delimitation of two conservancies in the Karas Region this week. Conservancies are aimed at allowing communities in communal areas to preserve and benefit from the fauna and flora in their areas.