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Human rights monitors are travelling around Liberia documenting crimes of sexual violence during the country's 14-year civil war in a project backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Over three months, 22 monitors will interview a random sample of 4,000 Liberians and give the results from those interviews to the country's soon-to-be established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the agency announced on Tuesday.

The South African government has undermined its promising initiative to provide anti-AIDS drugs to prevent HIV among rape survivors, putting lives at risk amid a dual epidemic of sexual violence and HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. The 73-page report, "Deadly Delay: South Africa's Efforts to Prevent HIV in Survivors of Sexual Violence," documents how government inaction and misinformation from high-level officials have undermined the effectiveness of South Africa's program to provide rape survivors with post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP)-antiretroviral drugs that can reduce the risk of contracting HIV from an HIV-positive attacker.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, a campaign against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been launched throughout Somalia, where an estimated 98 percent of all women have undergone the ritual. The campaign is being led by four networks of Somali women’s organisations, namely the Coalition of Grassroots Women's Organization (COGWO), IIDA Women's Development Organization (IIDA means celebrate in Somali), We Are Women Activists (WAWA) and NAGAAD (roughly translated in Somali as 'Stay Rooted'). The networks represent nearly 90 grass-roots women's groups, Maryan Abdulle Qawane of COGWO told IRIN.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has announced that come June this year all their support for Sierra Leonean refugees reluctantly refusing to come will stop. This was disclosed by the new UNHCR Public Information Officer, Rachel Goldstein-Rodriguez during a question and answer session at the UNAMSIL press briefing last week. She said although UNHCR is not forcing the refugees to return home, they have nevertheless on several occasions been encouraging them, as according to her, "the Agency will soon stop all relief supplies to Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and Liberia that do not want to return home."

From pre-independence Zambia to independence from British colonial rule in 1964, in times of the slave trade as well as the fight for independence, Zambian women and young girls have faced discrimination and violence at the hands of the slave traders, the state, the community and family. Every year, thousands of Zambian women face violence from their relatives when their husbands die. Most Zambian women and children suffer violence in their home and most cases are not reported to the police.

Twenty-six-year-old Lucia stands confidently in front of a class of about 30 children aged between 12 and 18, asking them a series of direct questions about sexual practices, sexual transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Lucia (not her real name) belongs to Kindlimuka (meaning "wake up" in Ronga, a local language), a non-profit association of people living with, or supporting those with HIV/AIDS. Lucia is HIV-positive. She has participated in training to give lessons to pupils aged 13 to 18 in a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) supported project, which began five years ago.

Lesotho's Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili at the weekend became one of the first heads of state to publicly test for the HI virus as he kicked off a free national HIV testing programme. Mosisili, joined by other members of his cabinet, said that with his test he hoped to stem the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Central African Republic's labour union federation, the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Centrafricains, has rejected a government decision to slash civil servants' salaries in an effort to reduce state spending, a union official told IRIN on Monday. "There are other ways to generate money for the public treasury without cutting civil servants’ salaries," Sonny Cole, the union's secretary-general, said.

A report from the Auditor General's office in Rwanda says that several government ministries and parastals were involved in irregular tendering procedures in 2002, causing the country to lose millions of dollars and frustrating the government's efforts to reduce high levels of poverty nationwide. "The findings indicate that some public officials continue to cause the government losses by dodging the National Tender Board in order to siphon government funds for their own interests," the report for 2002, which was released last week, said.

Swaziland's banned political opposition parties have slammed the indefinite postponement of the opening of parliament, saying it showed that the kingdom's highest democratically elected body had no real power. "This 'postponement' is actually a suspension of the legislative branch of government. Parliament used to be a rubber stamp for palace policy, but now it has ceased to exist," an official of the People's Democratic Movement told IRIN.

Several hundred students went on the rampage in the capital of Guinea-Bissau after police used baton charges, tear gas and shots in the air to break up a demonstration by secondary school pupils protesting at a strike by their teachers. Eyewitnesses said several dozen students were arrested in the disturbances that took place last Thursday. Bissau’s main avenue was closed to vehicle traffic and the city’s main market was shut down as a result of the clashes.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has had an uneasy relationship with civil society from the beginning of his term in office. However, matters worsened recently when he accused AIDS activists of monopolising the funds provided by donors to fight the pandemic. Mwanawasa told a two-day AIDS conference attended by United Nations officials and cabinet ministers from across Southern Africa that most civil society groups were composed of family members who got donor funding under the guise of AIDS prevention programmes. He also lashed out at the United Nations for favouring civil society in the distribution of AIDS funds.

Britain’s Home office has denied allegations that it is trying to dump failed Somali asylum seekers on Tanzania, with a spokesman dismissing as speculation media reports that thousands of Somalis who had failed to be given political asylum in the UK could be sent instead to Tanzania. In Dar, the Home Affairs minister confirmed that consultations with the British government over a request to set up a camp in Tanzania for screening Somali asylum seekers were going on, also adding that there were some alleged Tanzanian nationals in the UK who pose and continue to live in the UK as Somali refugees. Somalis made up the largest number of refugee applicants to Britain last year but the numbers are still tiny (around 6,000 in 2003) compared with the numbers that Tanzania has to host, over 600,000.

Angolan Social Welfare minister, Joao Baptista Kussumua, this week analysed with representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva the situation facing Angolan refugees, within the framework of the programme of repatriation of nationals living in foreign countries. "The fact that a high number of fellow countrymen have returned and that about a million are still abroad, presses the Government into convincing the United Nations on the best format to reintegrate the Angolans returning home, now that the war is over," he said.

The white rugby player who refused to share a room with a black team-mate has been cleared of racism by the South African Rugby Football Union. The president of the union, Brian van Rooyen, said he was sorry for what had happened to Geo Cronjé at the Springbok training camp last August. He said the union would officially announce that no racism was involved in Cronjé's refusal to share a room with Quinton Davids, an incident which led to punishment drills for both players and expulsion of the two from the training camp.

As an individual living with HIV for 20 years, I have been working to break down the barriers of fear and discrimination for nearly a decade now. I believe there is a serious problem stemming from the lack of media coverage, when it comes to educating people about HIV/AIDS. How can there be any real understanding about HIV/AIDS and HIV prevention, without the necessary information reported? HIV/AIDS reported in the news is minimal, at a time when it needs to be at the forefront! Why is this? HIV is a global problem which demands attention yet those of us working tirelessly are unable to get articles or /letters published in newspapers, events covered, or messages conveyed to help educate the public.

A screening of a documentary about Nigerian drug syndicates in Durban has sparked a new wave of allegations on South Africans' seemingly deep-rooted xenophobia about Nigerians, who maintain that the lowest 10% of their country's lower social class sets the perception for all their nationals. This has damaging implications for the majority, including issues such as credibility in business, ease of getting visas and even access to credit. Drug syndicates have been operating in SA since the 1980s. By the time Nigerian professionals began arriving in numbers mostly in the mid1990s the tone for Nigerians had been set and has proved difficult to counter.

Schools in developing countries are beginning to get computers and access to the Internet. They are using them in teaching and administration; learners can also use them to become computer and Internet literate. This report evaluates the activities of SchoolNet Namibia and argues that programmes like this should aim to provide affordable access using open platforms, pay attention to longer term cost of ownership issues, leverage change through partnerships, work closely with governments, involve school principals and teachers, and seek to ensure that necessary capacities are developed in schools themselves.

Two-day preliminary discussions on the process, content and themes of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Tunis, Tunisia from 16 to 18 November 2005, are due to start in the Tunisian capital. The informal meeting is organized by the Government of Tunisia and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in anticipation of the preparatory meeting agreed upon in Geneva on 12 December 2003 by the Heads of State and Government.

One of the questions raised in the ongoing debate in Pambazuka News on the International Criminal Court (ICC) is whether or not it is cogent to argue that ending impunity does not necessarily mean that prosecutions will have to be pursued in every case (Pambazuka News 144: Africa and the ICC: Is Africa ready and waiting?) It was suggested that there could be cases in Africa where it might genuinely be expedient or a requirement of justice that amnesties rather than prosecutions are pursued. The ensuing deliberations have turned the spotlight on the meaning of justice and the role of amnesties. According to the ICC statute, it looks like there is not only the possibility but also absolute necessity for the Prosecutor to consider other options besides prosecutions.

ICC was established to bring to justice perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. The ICC statute affirms that ‘the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished’. Toward that goal, the Prosecutor is empowered to receive information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court, examine them and conduct investigations and prosecutions. In deciding whether to initiate an investigation, the Prosecutor is enjoined to take into account ‘the gravity of the crime and the interests of victims’. Having done that, he or she is obligated to consider whether ‘there are nonetheless substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice’. There are two all-important points to note here. Firstly, the Prosecutor must consider whether an investigation may not serve the interests of justice, and secondly, a determination not to proceed may be based solely on this consideration. Even if the Prosecutor were to initiate an investigation, the ICC statute says that, upon investigation, he or she can conclude that there is not a sufficient basis for a prosecution because ‘prosecution is not in the interests of justice’. This suggests that although the general approach is that ICC crimes must not go unpunished, there might be exceptions.

The fact that the ICC statute may not envisage investigation, prosecution and punishment in every situation where it is apparent that ICC crimes have been committed could mean that other sorts of justice may be resorted to. And so justice forms that generally aim to move away from criminal verdicts and toward reconciliation come into play. Justice according to ICC is largely built around prosecution and retributive justice. But one can capture certain other nuances of ICC justice that transcend the traditional retributive understanding. The key factor in tackling the problem is to determine the circumstances under which an investigation or prosecution might not be in the interests of justice as conceived in the ICC statute.

Some are worried that alternative remedies would open the floodgates to many perpetrators. Such a possibility must be slight because the bottom-line is that decisions must be based on the interests of justice. Thus, whilst in principle some ICC crimes can go unpunished, in practice it would be extremely difficult to predict which circumstances would make an investigation or prosecution incompatible with the interests of justice. For that reason, it can be argued that one is not opening a Pandora’s box when one suggests that amnesties might be worth considering in certain special cases.

Whether or not it would be in the interests of justice not to pursue investigations or prosecutions in a given situation is largely a question of fact rather than law. It is for the Court to establish the justifiable facts of the matter. In this regard, the ICC statute guidelines say the Prosecutor should take into ‘account all the circumstances, including the gravity of the crime, the interests of victims and the age or infirmity of the alleged perpetrator, and his or her role in the alleged crime’. This appears to suggest that the views of the affected population are crucial in the determination of decisions relating to initiating investigations or prosecutions. There could be cases, for instance, where amnesty might be acceptable if it does not deny effective remedy to the victim. However, there is need to consider how the impunity gap can be reduced in light of the possibility that there could be situations where ICC investigations would not serve the interests of justice.

The Sudanese government has arbitrarily detained two human rights activists, apparently for their work in the war-torn region of Darfur in western Sudan, Human Rights Watch has said. Both are feared to be at risk of inhumane treatment, miscarriage of justice and possible execution. Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, the head of a voluntary organisation that provides humanitarian assistance and human rights training, was arrested on December 28 and has been charged with a variety of capital offences against the state. Saleh Mahmud Osman, a human rights lawyer, was arrested on February 1, 2004 and has been held without charge.

Africa remains caught in a "commodity trap," says a new report on trade performance and commodity dependence from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Africa is less competitive than in previous decades even in traditional primary commodities, its trade position undermined both by competition from Asia and Latin America and by agricultural subsidies in rich countries. Market solutions have aggravated this structural vulnerability, and it is time to reconsider a greater role for both national and international state actions, UNCTAD concludes. A recent issue of AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release from UNCTAD and brief excerpts from the 84-page report.

A new initiative to restore the Nairobi Dam and its waters back to health has been launched. The project, called the Nairobi Dam Trust Initiative, aims to raise up to $600,000 to clean up the reservoir so that it can be again an important source of clean and healthy drinking water as well as a magnet for water sports enthusiasts, fishermen, picnickers and bountiful bird life.

"Time is on our side." (Pambazuka News 146: Zimbabwe: Four years after the plunge) WRONG. Every minute of procrastination allows Mugabe's regime to further entrench and more and more people suffer. A whole generation of youth are being indoctrinated through rape and torture.

The government has announced that parliamentary elections would be held before March next year. The Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP) fears that the main political parties will concentrate their energies on winning the elections and shift their attention from addressing the deepening political and socio-economic crisis. "The same conditions of impoverishment and political tension will be carried over to the period after the election. There is need to focus on the national crisis and not elections because the crisis of governance is deepening. ZLP's considered view is that without a new electoral framework and a new democratic constitution, the elections will be far from being free and fair."

In line with the Global day of action against the War in Iraq and the occupation of Palestine, the Anti-War Coalition (Gauteng) will be hosting a rally and a festival on the 20th March 2004.

Condoms, which for years have been used for combating the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and stopping unwanted pregnancies, are the latest campaign weapons to remove president Mugabe of Zimbabwe from power. In a bulletin broadcast this week, Zimbabwe’s State controlled radio claims that the US is behind a scheme in which re-branded ‘revolutionary condoms’ with the message “get up, stand up,” are being used to urge Zimbabweans to stand up for their rights and overthrow the government.

Since independence in 1963, Kenya has made impressive gains in improving access to education, driven by substantial investments in education by the government. However, since the mid to late eighties there has been a decline in school enrolment rates, and a reversal of the gains achieved in previous decades. This paper from the Global Development Network explores the reasons for this decline in primary school enrolment. The paper discusses Kenya's education system and traces recent trends in enrolment rates.

Refurbishing an old computer can often be a better option than throwing it away, argues Tony Roberts of the charity Computer Aid. Recycling of electrical goods has become headline news in recent months as the UK consultation on the forthcoming EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive hots up. Research carried out previously by UN researcher Eric Williams proves empirically that re-use is better for the environment than recycling.

President Robert Mugabe's government has terrorised almost every single opposition member of Zimbabwe's parliament with violence, intimidation and jail, according to a new report. A survey of 50 of the Movement for Democratic Change's 59 MPs and of 28 of its parliamentary candidates found that all claimed to have personally experienced human rights abuses in the past three years at the hands of the security services and supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Zimbabwe's suspension and decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth in November 2003 have confirmed the country's status as an international pariah. There has been steady criticism of President Robert Mugabe and his government in the media but scant appreciation of the ways in which violence and repression emerge from the very nature of state structures in Zimbabwe. Pan-African scholar Horace Campbell's new book posits that it is possible to break with the analysis of implicating individuals and to link murder, mayhem and masculinity to the European ideation system inherited by the post-colonial state.

Ibrahim offers a comparative study of the democratic transitions in the Anglophone countries of West Africa, identifying regional trends and discreet factors. He argues that democracy is creeping up the agenda, owing to a determined struggle for human rights and because democracy has been denied to the people for so long. He identifies a number of common issues across the region: the rise of a militarised secular state; a significant increase in public corruption; the primitive accumulation of capital; an intense battle to deepen democracy between civil society and the state; the appropriation of gender politics by the state through the office of the 'first ladies'; and the growing dissidence between elections and political choice.

UNDP and Ethiopia's ICT for Development Authority have delivered the first batch of 1,500 computers to the Ministry of Education as part of efforts to bring information and communications technology (ICT) to more than 160 high schools around the country. UNDP has provided US$3.5 million for the initiative and is seeking support from donors for an equal amount to enable all high schools to get online. Partners include the Ministry of Capacity Building and the Ministry of Education.

The Institute for Human Rights & Development in Africa is a pan-African human rights organisation with its headquarters in Banjul, the Gambia. The Institute specialises in the African regional human rights system, including impact litigation in national and international fora based on African human rights treaties, training and research and publication in the procedures of African treaty mechanisms. The Institute is recruiting a Senior Program Officer to coordinate its program activities.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been working in Burundi since 1996, implementing humanitarian relief activities in water and sanitation, infrastructure rehabilitation, distribution of non-food items, education support, and assistance to vulnerable youth. In 2004, IRC Burundi is consolidating programming in two sectors - Environmental Health and Youth - making an effort to create programmatic and geographic synergies to the maximum extent possible.

This course explores the communication process; the concept of behaviour change; steps in developing a behaviour change communication strategy; understanding the risk factors that expose individuals to HIV; defining desired behaviour and attitude changes; and setting communication goals and objectives.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has called on all national and local politicians to keep the promises they made concerning press freedom as part of the January 2003 Marcoussis Agreement aimed at ending the country's civil war. The organisation said journalists still face a climate of constant lawlessness and that despite advances in the national reconciliation process, arrests, threats and physical attacks on members of the press have not diminished.

Two of the world's leading press freedom groups, the International Press Institute (IPI) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have criticised the failure of the Ethiopian government to inform the domestic media, civil society and the international community of crucial amendments to the draft press law, as well as set out a transparent legislative process for the law. According to information provided to IPI and IFJ, the Ethiopian Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, indicated on 27 February that he intended to submit the draft press law to the Council of Ministers by 5 March. As a result, unless the newly amended law is provided for external comment, there will be no discussion of the law until the bill reaches parliament.

A report from Article 19 explores the right to freedom of information, and specifically the right to access information held by public authorities in Burkina Faso. It looks at existing legal and other obstacles to free access to information. It looks into recent human rights violations where "official reluctance to provide information has prevented those responsible from being held accountable, and has denied the victims' relatives the right to truth."

Janine Umuhoza was seven years old in April 1994 when her parents were killed during the genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died. On that fateful day, she bade the usual farewell to her parents before setting off to school. Later, Hutu militiamen marched onto their home compound and killed her mother, father and other members of the family. However, her two younger brothers and two sisters survived. As the eldest, and a lot sooner than she could have imagined, she became mother to her siblings in a country fraught with danger at the time.

South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma confirmed on Wednesday that the plane held by Zimbabwean authorities and an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea were linked. "Indeed there was a link between the plane and Equatorial Guinea," Dlamini-Zuma was quoted as saying by the South African news agency (SAPA). Zimbabwean authorities on Sunday detained a Boeing 727 carrying 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two Democratic Republic of Congo citizens and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport, Zimbabwean police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena, told IRIN on Wednesday.

The chief prosecutor at the UN's new court for Sierra Leone has repeated claims that the Libyan leader is behind the past decade of war in West Africa. The accusation against Muammar Gaddafi was made by David Crane in an interview with the BBC. Mr Crane said there was a detailed plan by Mr Gaddafi to destabilise several West African countries which had caused widespread suffering in the region.

A clash between troops and unidentified ethnic militants on Tuesday in Nigeria's oil city of Warri left a soldier and four others dead, military officials said. Skirmishes between ethnic militants and soldiers occur frequently in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where militants steal crude oil from pipelines and sabotage oil facilities in a bid to export payoffs from the government and oil multinationals.

One of the world's great centres of primate diversity is now a national park, created in one of Africa's smallest and most densely populated nations. With the help of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the government of Rwanda has recently established Nyungwe National Park, a rich landscape that contains 13 different types of primate, along with 260 bird species, and more than 260 species of trees and shrubs.

The recent announcement by the Namibian government that it will begin to expropriate agricultural land held under freehold title for redistribution has grabbed the headlines. For many landowners and investors, this statement conjured up images of Zimbabwe-style land occupations. Reactions in Namibia have varied from expressions of shock by the Namibia Agriculture Union to praise from trade unions and the Council of Churches. The predominantly white Republican Party, formerly part of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, has described the intention to expropriate freehold agricultural land as “responsible, fair and reassuring”. To call the government’s announcement a “land grab” is an overreaction, argues this commentary published in South Africa's This Day newspaper.

With nimble fingers, Sobo Cgara digs around a plant and unearths a calabash-shaped root full of water. Cgara, 24, is a San guide who shows tourists his people's unique knowledge of the Kalahari at a community-owned game farm near D'kar in Ghanzi district, in central-west Botswana. He is one of the few San youth with education, a job and a future. For centuries and up to the present, the San have been the losers in the conflict between their need for land on which to forage and the demands of cattle ranching.

Following various seminars conducted by NGOs to mark the 8 March International Women's Day, 200 female circumcisers from Kenya's Rift Valley Province have abandoned their tools of trade and vowed to fight the deeply rooted custom. Habil Oloo, a programme officer at the Kenya National Focal Point for FGM (female genital mutilation), which coordinates nationwide activities against the practice, said the development was the fruit of years of struggle by Kenyan NGOs against entrenched traditional attitudes among communities.

A total breakdown of law and order is reported in Darfur, western Sudan, as militias roam the region in gangs of hundreds, attacking one village after another. The entire Jabal Si area, previously home to about 70,000 people living in over 119 villages, had been cleared of civilians, the UN said following an assessment. Many of the displaced, over 90 percent of whom are women and children, have fled to Kabkabiyah town in Northern Darfur.