Applications are now being invited for the Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) 2004-05 Fellowships for law school graduates and practicing attorneys in Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland who have a strong interest in and commitment to women's rights. This unique program offers African women's rights advocates an opportunity to come to Washington, DC, USA for 16 months to earn an advanced law degree at Georgetown University Law Centre and complete a work placement focused on women's rights.

In a 4 February 2004 letter to Liberian President Gyude Bryant, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed its concern over the recent criminal charges brought against journalists working for the private weekly newspaper "Telegraph". On 16 January, editor-in-chief Philip Moore Jr., managing editor Adolphus Karnuah and sub-editor Robert Kpadeh Jr. were arrested and brought to the Magistrate Court in the capital, Monrovia, where they were charged with "criminal malevolence".

The media’s lack of professional resilience when covering elections was illustrated again by the way in which they handled the Gutu North by-election, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) in its latest bulletin. "The media generally gave scant attention to the election and, as a result, omitted pertinent information on the electoral process, which the ruling party has manipulated in the past to tilt the outcome in its favour." None of the Press investigated the state of the voters’ roll, said MMPZ, or why the opposition had been refused access to the consolidated roll.

On 3 February 2004, the media and public were barred from attending hearings of a tribunal investigating allegations of professional misconduct levelled by President Levy Mwanawasa against Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mukelebai Mukelebai. Judge Esau Chulu, the tribunal chairperson who sat with Judges Philip Musonda and Charles Kajimanga, ruled that the proceedings would be held in camera, despite an application by Mukelebai's lawyer, Vincent Malambo, that they be open to the public.

Women's already fragile land rights were being further eroded in a global context of privatisation, World Bank-sponsored land reforms, HIV/AIDS, changing employment and international trade patterns, and the food crisis in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa. This was the general consensus of issues raised in presentations and discussions at a workshop last year on Women's Land Rights in Southern and Eastern Africa.

The African Caribbean and Asian Society (ACAS), Sussex University, presents: A Public Meeting with speaker Explo Nani-Kofi of the African Liberation Support Campaign Network (ALISC), Thursday 19 February 2004, 6pm - 9pm Lecture Hall A1, Sussex University, Falmer, near Brighton Train from Victoria to Falmer, changing at Brighton. Sussex University is very near Falmer station Further info: [email protected] [email protected]

Kenya has been reduced to a walking nation, with hundreds of thousands of people covering long distances on foot to work and home everyday. Some walk over 20 kilometres a day. The sight of winding streams of people, from as early as 4.30 a.m., heading to work have become the order of the day. The crisis heightened on Feb. 1 after Kenya’s minibus taxis, known as matatus, refused to adhere to new rules meant to restore sanity on the road. Last year, the government launched a massive campaign to restore discipline and safety in the public transport sector, which had been characterised by disorder.

The leader of Ivory Coast's former rebels has said he will not stand in presidential elections next year. Guillaume Soro's announcement comes amid reports of a split in the New Forces movement and follows the fatal shooting of another senior official.

Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is improving so fast that United Nations troops can leave this year, President Joseph Kabila has said. Some 10,000 UN troops are in the DRC to monitor a peace deal which ended almost five years of war. Despite the peace deal, parts of eastern DRC in particular remain dangerous with many different armed groups killing, raping and looting.

Kenya's minister for land on Monday threatened to repossess tracts of idle land and redistribute it to thousands of landless people. Land ownership is an explosive topic in Kenya, with successive governments being blamed for failing to tackle the problem of inequitable land distribution.

Africa's urban poor, often struggling to eke out a living in unplanned and expanding shanty communities, are at the back of the queue for water and sewerage services from underfunded local authorities. But, as recent serious outbreaks of cholera in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe have demonstrated, the lack of access to safe water and proper sanitation are critical public health issues.

It is a few minutes before lunchtime and a disorderly queue of dishevelled youths in ragged clothes has already formed outside the doors of Thuthuka, a drop-in centre for street children in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo. Thuthuka has led Bulawayo's initiative to help its homeless children by also providing life skills education and counselling at the drop-in centre, as part of a city-wide taskforce trying to address the growing phenomenon.

Confusion has again engulfed assertions by President Thabo Mbeki on progress towards ending Zimbabwe's political crisis, with a senior opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader denying it has agreed to an early election. Mbeki said on television on Sunday that the MDC and Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF had agreed to bring the next election forward to March next year. His comments follow a recent insistence, also disputed by the parties involved, that Zimbabwe's protagonists were about to start formal negotiations to end the crisis.

Extremely valuable. Thanks.

Thank you for the last edition of Pambazuka! Much appreciated and widely dispersed! I read with vivid interest the sober and chilling summary made by Caplan on Rwanda and it brought back plenty of memories. I note with interest that a number of committees have formed albeit outside Rwanda to commemorate the massacre. I always view such events with some misgivings. I tend to fear that such events become the grounding for a culture of disaster such as that perpetuated by the Jews and the Shoa who seem decidedly unwilling or unable to move on. But I acknowledge that it is only ten years since the atrocious events, which is to say early days. I won't talk about reconciliation since I don't believe that any one who is not directly involved is qualified to even articulate the word in such a situation. However, I think it would be good if people could move on and one thing that helps is to be able to clear the damage suffered. To again have a roof above one's head, to be able to buy food and clothing, to till the land, etc, in short to get back to normal life. But this requires material and financial means. (Not talk! talk! talk! It doesn't feed anybody!)

About 17 percent of Mozambique's teachers are HIV positive, considerably higher than the national average of 13 percent HIV prevalence among people aged between 15 and 49, declared Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi in Maputo on Monday. Speaking at the opening of a seminar on education and AIDS in Maputo, Mocumbi said that this will lead to the death of 1.6 percent per year of the country's teachers.

Six African heads of state and government have confirmed to attend the forthcoming summit of the first African Peer Review (APR) Forum and the 9th Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) on Feb. 13-14, Rwanda News Agency reported Tuesday. According to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) secretariat in Kigali, heads of state and government who so far have confirmed their attendance to the summit include Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, John Kuffor of Ghana and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

A recent meeting brought together 125 participants from 34 countries to strategise against the proliferation of US military bases worldwide as a result of the "war on terror". The meeting provided a space for people to share their experiences living with US military presence and present their own local struggles to confront it. More importantly, the conference gave them an opportunity to put their heads together and begin thinking about a joint and collectively coordinated global campaign against US bases.

A new scheme to pay hospital bills for all Kenyans will take effect on July 1, Health minister Charity Ngilu revealed this week. Ngilu said membership to the National Social Health Insurance Fund will be compulsory and free for poor Kenyans. Unlike in the past when medical cover was only available to people in formal employment, unemployed Kenyans and those in the Jua kali (informal) sector will now benefit, Ngilu said.

Once again the military regime of Khartoum has proved that old habits die-hard. By trying once again to solve the Darfur crisis through the barrel of the gun is a clear indication that Khartoum has learned nothing from the 20 year-old-war it fought against its own citizens in Southern Sudan. Despite agreeing recently that a ceasefire is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, and despite claiming this week that the "war in Darfur" is over, the regime has stepped up its military operations in the province and with the same token has rejected the invitation to a conference on Darfur proposed by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss non-governmental peace group, to be held February 14 and 15 in Geneva.

While fighting the so-called "insurgents" the Sudanese armed forces and other paramilitary units – the Popular Defence Forces - have simultaneously targeted civilians, allegedly accused of supporting the rebellion. More than 600,000 people have fled from their destroyed villages and have taken refuge in other towns in makeshift camps under trees with almost no food, water or shelter, while more than 100,000 fled to neighbouring Chad. Khartoum announced that major military operations in Darfur are over but villages are still being attacked and burned by the Janjaweed, the Khartoum-backed armed militias, and government Antonov planes continue to bomb indiscriminately villages as near as 60 kilometres from Al Fasher, the capital of Northern Darfur.

A ceasefire negotiated in neighbouring Chad (Abeche 1) seeking to end the conflict collapsed because the government has not kept its part of the deal, i.e. stop all its military operations and especially rein in the Janjaweed. In fact Osman Youssef Kibir, the governor of North Darfur, has admitted that militiamen acting in the name of the government executed civilians in his province, although he denied that the government bore any responsibility for their acts. Last week, the government overrun a number of camps held by the fighters of the Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE), one of the fighting factions in Darfur. Then it turned its wrath against the other faction, the Sudan Liberation Army and has surrounded Jebal Marra, their stronghold, with the full might of its armed forces and its allies.

The situation in Darfur is far from being "under control", as claimed by the Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir. The rebellion will continue as long as Khartoum refuses to acknowledge any political motivation for the unrest in the province, rejects a political solution to the crisis and blaming it instead on "armed criminal gangs and outlaws", who it says are aided by tribes from Chad.

Much of the tension in Darfur results from the same issues that led Southern Sudan to take up arms back in 1983 -- a central government that exploits local resources, imposes its cultural beliefs on the indigenous African population and consistently plays off local tribes and ethnic groups against each other for short-term gains. The Darfur Liberation Front -- which later changed its name to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) -- took up arms last February because the Khartoum government had "introduced policies of marginalisation, racial discrimination and exploitation that had disrupted the peaceful coexistence between the region's African sedentary and Arab nomad communities". Since the rebellion erupted the province is a war zone, with tremendous suffering inflicted on the civilian population by the army and the armed militias. SLA complains that the government in Khartoum, like all its predecessors, is dominated by the northern Arab elite and has ignored their needs. They argue that Darfur too should be offered a slice of a power-sharing deal and that its natural resources developed for the benefit of the local population. Calling for a separation of state and religion, the SLA/SLM have spelled out their objective "to create a united democratic Sudan" where the unity of the country will ultimately be based on the right to self-determination of the various peoples of Sudan. Also, they are asking for the establishment of an economy and a political system that addresses the uneven development and marginalisation that have plagued the country since independence. Yet these claims have had no effect on the government. It continues refusing to acknowledge the political motivation for the unrest and accuses Eritrea and the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) of supporting and arming the rebels.

Darfur is the most underdeveloped region in the country and is prone to drought and famines, two factors which have fuelled conflict between nomadic Arab tribes, armed by the government, militias and local African villagers. Libya, who backs the Zaghawa, "a useful long term leverage weapon against N'djamena" according to Al Fazzan, the former Libyan ambassador to Cairo and who is now representing his country in Damascus, has offered to solve Darfur's "tribal dispute" by inviting the Arab herders and pastoralists of Darfur into Libya. There, they will receive new territories, pastures and water points and even the Libyan nationality. Tripoli wants at all costs to unite with Sudan and Egypt and recently Kadhafi has proposed a draft constitution for a tripartite union to form the Golden Triangle, his 35 year-old dream. Sudan may be an oil producer at the rate of 330,000 barrels per day, but the oil bonanza has only begun in 1999. With the exception of the capital, there is practically neither proper health services nor education and no communications infrastructure in the country. Neglected by successive governments, the peripheral regions - Darfur, Kordofan, Nuba Mountains and the Eastern Province – can easily claim to benefit from "sustained UNDERdevelopment".

Parallel to the issues of neglect and underdevelopment, racial discrimination and exploitation have poisoned inter-tribal co-existence. Pastoralism and farming have historically been and remain the most viable economic sectors in the province. It could be argued that land has long been at the heart of many conflicts in Africa, either between the indigenous black African populations and new comers - the case of Zimbabwe – or between farmers and pastoralists like in Darfur. During British colonial rule, the conflicts over pastures and water points were solved through the local tribal administration. Good neighbourhood still prevailing in those days, the pastoralists were allowed to move into the grazing areas with their cattle, sheep and camels, only after farmers had harvested their fields. But at independence, in the rush to modernise the country and move away from "old traditions", the new rulers of Sudan dismantled the local tribal administration and never replaced it. In the early 1980s, as drought and underdevelopment reduced pastures and water resources, the struggle for survival intensified for the nomadic pastoralists. During the 1986-89 premiership of Sadiq Al-Mahdi (Umma Party) the problem resurfaced when the nomadic tribes of the region, commonly known as the Baggara, moved indiscriminately into farming lands. These actions were made possible by a deliberate government policy and with the tacit approval of local government officials. The Baggara were even given weapons to "defend" themselves in case they were attacked by the indigenous farmers. Needless to say that often the weapons were used to take over lands and water points from the indigenous farmers.

Since then, Darfur has been the scene of attacks by armed groups on indigenous farmers. The present government reacted by detaining incommunicado in various prisons around the country, community leaders and alleged critics of its policies in the province. Following unrest in and around Geneina, Northern Darfur (2001) where hundreds of Massaleet were killed and dozens of villages burnt to the ground, Special Courts were established to deal with "murders, armed attacks and banditry". These courts have handed down death sentences and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments – cross amputation, public flogging - after unfair and rushed trials.

Armed conflict and deliberate government strategies have largely been responsible for the long history of wars and of famines in Sudan. The current fighting, primarily along ethnic lines, is the result of that strategy. For almost twenty-five years, famine and scorched earth policy have been regarded as the outcome of a political process of depleting a region from its native population and transferring the resources of the region from the weak – the indigenous people - to the politically strong – Khartoum northern elites.

Various armed militia groups, the Janjaweed in the case of Darfur and the Muraheleen in the Nuba Mountains and in Southern Sudan, have been the vehicles for the regime policies and have been utilized as proxies by Khartoum. Their task is to attack and plunder the people of a given region and take their reward – the war booty - in the form of looted cattle, crops etc. A few years ago, these groups did not have any political agenda in Darfur, but today this has changed. Their political agenda is to assist the government in 'arabising' the region and taking over its natural resources – oil and minerals. The army and the security forces, the specially created Popular Defence Force (PDF), support these militias whose main task is to terrorise and isolate the local populations by forcibly preventing them from working in their fields and looking after their animals. By burning crops and looting cattle, the Janjaweed militias have created and maintained artificial scarcities of food, driving the farmers from their land and pushing them towards urban centres or to the arid, desolate parts of the province. It is true that the raiding, displacement, and asset destruction did not affect all parts of Darfur simultaneously but they have created a situation of extreme instability whereby ordinary economic activities and survival strategies became impossible.

In addition, the nature of inter-tribal clashes in Darfur has been exacerbated by an inflow of arms from neighbouring countries, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR). Tribal groups, militias, dissidents, rebel groups as well as ordinary civilians have easy access to small arms. However, in this particular instance, local politicians as well as the central government have fuelled the rivalry between farming settlers and semi-nomadic communities. Neighbouring states also have interests in Darfur. The Zaghawa of Darfur have helped Idriss Deby gain power in N'djamena in 1990 and with their kin tribe in Chad they form the backbone of Deby's army and security forces. Libya has its own agenda, especially since Col Kadhafi has turned its attention to Africa and to the mineral-rich Sahel countries. In Northern Darfur, bordering Egypt and Libya, lies Jebal 'Aweinat, one of the richest mineral regions of the entire Sahel with foreseeable deposits of uranium, while Southern Darfur is known for its oil, iron ore and copper deposits.

The government has come under serious criticism from humanitarian and human rights organisations about attacks on civilian targets and the deteriorating security situation in Darfur. There is no circumstance that justifies deliberate attacks on civilians or military operations that endanger civilian lives. These are all grave violations of human rights and the laws of war. But since the Sudanese leaders and their friends, especially Libya, which became a member of the UN Human Rights Commission last year, have halted the work of the UN Rapporteur for human rights in Sudan during the Commission annual meeting in Geneva (April 2003) violations of human rights have doubled in Darfur. Already in November 2002, Gerhart Baum, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Sudan, expressed concern over the slow progress achieved by the Khartoum government in redressing the human rights situation. He referred particularly to the negative role of the nomadic Arab tribes (mainly the Baggara and Misariyyah) from which government formed Muraheleen (nomadic) militias, which were deeply implicated in abductions and the targeting of civilians. Yet this has been crippled because civilians' cattle and grain are looted, agriculture land devastated, homes burnt, mills destroyed. Thousands of Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleet are unable to go back to their villages, plant or replace their herds.

During a consultative meeting that took place in Nairobi in January between Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Ahmed Diraige, the leader of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA) and former governor of Darfur (1980-1983) the government accepted that a ceasefire would be agreed and implemented under the supervision of international monitors, and negotiations opened with the Darfur fighters in order to reach a political settlement to the issue. But it seems that diplomatic and political solutions have been put aside and the government will pursue its military policy.

* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.

The e-Government Gateway portal will be made available through the existing government web site (www.gov.za), building on the familiarity that South Africans already have with government information.

Nigeria and other developing countries have been advised on strategies to employ to ensure that their interest is protected at the next World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting coming up end of 2004 or early 2005 in Hong Kong. Ms Aileen Kwa a trade analyst with Focus on the Global South, based in Geneva, noted in a statement sent to Vanguard that the developing countries' negotiators, trade unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have worked very hard since the WTO's inception to improve upon its inequitable rule, but still, the rules have not been changed to their benefit in any way.

The latest issue of 'News from the Nordic Africa Institute' has a special dossier on CODESRIA, as a way of celebrating CODESRIA's 30th anniversary: interviews of the former and current presidents of CODESRIA, Professors Mahmood Mamdani and Zenebeworke Tadesse, two new members of the CODESRIA Secretariat, Francis Nyamnjoh, Head of the Publications and Communications Department, and Ebrima Sall, Head of the Research and Documentation Department, and an interview with Professor Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, the famous writer.

The tiny African kingdom of Lesotho declared a state of emergency Wednesday and appealed for more food aid, saying thousands of people would otherwise face severe shortages because of prolonged drought. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said the mountainous territory's population of around 2 million required 57,000 tons of food products to feed some 600,000 people who would need aid until the 2005 harvest. "The severe drought during the 2002/2003 cropping season led to untimely planting of food crops, and the last winter saw neither rain nor snow throughout the season," Mosisili said.

Domestically, Ghanaian democracy is thriving amidst a virulent opposition that is gearing to stage a come back to the political podium. Parliamentary and Presidential elections are billed for 2004 and the atmosphere is (as it has been since the 2000 elections) already rife with politics. Ghanaians seem to talk and live politics every day. Local FM radio talk shows have all been about politics, dominated by the scramble for visibility and consolidation of gains by officials, supporters, or sympathizers of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) or the opposition and former ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). The picture of Ghana painted above is quite rosy, but is the impression as positive under the surface? This article takes a cursory look at the strengths of the present Ghanaian dispensation, the stakes, and the grey areas of the Ghanaian drive towards democracy and economic consolidation as a West African peace house.

The Refugee Law Project (RLP) is an autonomous project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University located in Kampala, Uganda. Through its departments of Legal Aid and Counselling, Education and Training, and Research and Advocacy, the RLP raises awareness of the plight of the approximately 160,000 officially registered asylum seekers and refugees in Uganda and strives to ensure enjoyment of their human rights. The RLP is currently inviting applications for the post of Research Fellow for citizens of the East African region. The Fellow would operate within the Department of Research and Advocacy and be responsible for assisting in the continual refining of the project's research agenda. The position would involve carrying out field research at both fundamental/policy and investigative/individual levels throughout Uganda, analysing collected data, and contributing to various publications of the RLP including its Working Paper series and Policy Paper series.

Kenya's Sudanese refugees have mixed feelings about returning to their war-torn homeland. Many want to go home as soon as negotiators sign a peace accord, while others are worried about finding schools and other infrastructure. Many young Sudanese refugees in this camp have never seen their homeland. The only thing they know about their native southern Sudan comes from their families, in stories told many times over during 12 years of exile in the middle of a semi-arid desert.

Over 300 primary school teachers in Delta State this week stormed the state House of Assembly and held legislators including assembly workers and visitors hostage for over three hours in protest against non-payment of their due entitlements. The placard-carrying protesters barricaded the gate thereby preventing entry and exit from the assembly complex.

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute
which brings together some 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six
weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. CODESRIA is seeking applications for the following posts for the Gender Institute 2004: Director (senior scholars known for their expertise on the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it); Resource persons (senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it); Laureates (African social scientists who have a minimum qualification of a Masters' degree, with a proven research capacity and who are currently engaged in teaching and/or research activities are invited to send in their applications for consideration for admission into the Institute). For more information, please contact the CODESRIA Gender Institute: [email protected].

The management of the state-run Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT) in the Tanzanian commercial capital on Wednesday closed the college and suspended all 619 students after accusing them of vandalism. The students on Sunday stormed the college's stores and destroyed foodstuffs and harassed cooks, saying meals were unwholesome. They also accused the institution's administration of mismanagement.

This paper is the result of a study commissioned by Sida on the status and current trends in adult basic education in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The study included a review of relevant documentation in several languages, an electronic survey with key respondents throughout the world, personal interviews and a few field visits. The process also included a five-week bilingual on-line forum on the topic, with over 300 subscribers from all over the world.

In early December 2003, representatives of 95 countries gathered in panama hats amid the ancient Mayan ruins of Merida, the capital of Mexico’s Yucatan, to sign the landmark UN Convention Against Corruption. The convention takes the unprecedented step of compelling governments to return stolen assets to the countries from which they were taken. That’s an important point of departure. It paves the way for efforts to repatriate funds stolen by deposed dictators like Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, Nigeria’s Sani Abacha and Liberia’s Charles Taylor. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the signing conference, ‘Corrupt officials will in the future find fewer ways to hide their illicit gains.’ This article in the February edition of the South African Institute of International Affairs electronic journal of governance and innovation looks at the fight against corruption on the African continent.

Not long ago, the Internet's ability to provide instant, inexpensive and perfect copies of text, sound and images was heralded with the phrase ''information wants to be free.'' Yet the implications of this freedom have frightened some creators -- particularly those in the recording, publishing and movie industries -- who argue that the greater ease of copying and distribution increases the need for more stringent intellectual property laws. The movie and music industries have succeeded in lobbying lawmakers to allow them to tighten their grips on their creations by lengthening copyright terms. The law has also extended the scope of copyright protection, creating what critics have called a ''paracopyright,'' which prohibits not only duplicating protected material but in some cases even gaining access to it in the first place. In addition to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the most significant piece of new legislation is the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, which added 20 years of protection to past and present copyrighted works and was upheld by the Supreme Court a year ago. In less than a decade, the much-ballyhooed liberating potential of the Internet seems to have given way to something of an intellectual land grab, presided over by legislators and lawyers for the media industries.

In response to these developments, a protest movement is forming, made up of lawyers, scholars and activists who fear that bolstering copyright protection in the name of foiling ''piracy'' will have disastrous consequences for society -- hindering the ability to experiment and create and eroding our democratic freedoms. This group of reformers, which Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, calls the ''free culture movement,'' might also be thought of as the ''Copy Left'' (to borrow a term originally used by software programmers to signal that their product bore fewer than the usual amount of copyright restrictions). Lawyers and professors at the nation's top universities and law schools, the members of the Copy Left aren't wild-eyed radicals opposed to the use of copyright, though they do object fiercely to the way copyright has been distorted by recent legislation and manipulated by companies like Diebold. Nor do they share a coherent political ideology. What they do share is a fear that the United States is becoming less free and ultimately less creative. While the American copyright system was designed to encourage innovation, it is now, they contend, being used to squelch it. They see themselves as fighting for a traditional understanding of intellectual property in the face of a radical effort to turn copyright law into a tool for hoarding ideas. ''The notion that intellectual property rights should never expire, and works never enter the public domain -- this is the truly fanatical and unconstitutional position,'' says Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the intellectual hub of the Copy Left.

Rights activists in Angola have accused the authorities of riding roughshod over civil liberties after demonstrators this week were prevented from staging a protest against alleged government graft. According to the protest organisers, police on Tuesday cordoned off access to the venue for the demonstration, a central square in the capital, Luanda.

Some of the wildlife which had disappeared from Kenya's drylands are starting to return, thanks to the efforts of environmental agencies and the government. The area around Lake Baringo in the country's Rift Valley used to be a great source of biodiversity. But overgrazing in the past 50 years turned it into a barren wasteland - a disaster the area is only now starting to recover from.

Families in the rural villages of Malawi face many challenges. Most are subsistence farmers who struggle to feed their children. Education levels are generally low – a third of the males and two-thirds of the females cannot read or write. Hunger and disease kill many thousands of people – particularly children – every year. One of the most common killer diseases is malaria, which accounts for as much as 15 to 20 percent of deaths among school-age children in the region. But a new Save the Children program has bought down death rates from malaria by 72 percent in some villages.

The cholera epidemic in Mali has been brought under control in most of the country, but continues unabated in the Mopti region, where a further 11 people died of the water-borne disease in January, Health Ministry sources said. The sources told IRIN last Thursday that 156 new cases of cholera were reported in the Niger river valley in and around the city of Mopti, 450 km northeast of the capital Bamako, between 1 and 26 January.

It is deplorable that Zimbabweans should continue to be displaced from their homes on the basis of their political opinions and beliefs in violation of the Constitution which guarantees every individual's “right to assemble freely and associate with other persons and in particular to form or belong to political parties”, says the latest report from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum on political violence for December 2003. The report said violence continued in Kadoma Central into December 2003 following the holding of a by-election over the weekend of 29-30 November 2003. "Members of the opposition party, MDC, reported being abducted, threatened and assaulted while votes were being counted. A number of incidents reflected a lack of political tolerance between supporters of the two contesting political parties with MDC supporters claiming that they were abducted to a Zanu PF base at a school in the area where they were beaten."

African regional institutions are taking increasing responsibility for peacekeeping as well as for diplomatic initiatives. But both African and UN officials note that implementing fragile peace agreements will require more not less support from rich countries and from the UN system. Last week's issue of the AfricaFocus Bulletin examines this issue with a variety of background material and references to UN and African Union (AU) documents, including excerpts from recent statements and data on the current status of peacekeeping operations and plans.

The first intergovernmental conference on genocide to be held since 1948 ended this week in Stockholm with political fireworks when the United States was sharply criticized by an Australian diplomat. Before representatives from 55 nations, former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans said U.S. officials had been using the conference to lobby against the International Criminal Court (ICC), the very body created to try crimes against humanity - like genocide. The United States has withdrawn from the Rome Treaty of 1998 that created the ICC. "I'm distressed to hear that the same old squeeze has been put on the national delegations all over again at this conference," Evans said. "And in the otherwise admirable declaration we have emerging from it there is no mention of the International Criminal Court...this is just indefensible."

Michael, aged 25, was abducted by Lord's Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda. His captors beat him on the head with rifle-butts when he was no longer able to carry their loot and left him for dead. Government soldiers found him a week later. "Termites had started eating me alive," he recalls. "They had begun building an anthill on my body." Michael's is one of many personal testimonies published in "When the sun sets, we start to worry...", a book launched by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in conjunction with its Integrated Regional Information Networks.

We at Kwani? kindly request you to donate children's books, particularly by African writers, to the libraries in Mathare North and Eastleigh, run by MYSA (Mathare North Youth Association). Mrs. Anne Moore ([email protected]) is a librarian and has worked very hard to get these libraries organised. The official opening of the Mathare North MYSA Library will be on Sat 27th Feb and will be presided over by Ms Beverly Naidoo, ([email protected]), a children's author from the UK, and Yvonne Adhiambo, Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2003 (www.kwani.org).

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy works to achieve sustainable political change in emerging democracies. It is an agency of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and works closely with the Westminster political parties. Established in 1992, the Foundation is now transforming itself to become an international leader in its field, working in some of the most challenging settings in the world. The WFD is recruiting for the following Africa-specific posts: Programme Director, Programme Manager and Programme Officer.

The Executive Director will be responsible for the overall management of C A S E, including financial matters, procurement of contracts and quality control. The successful candidate will combine highly developed research skills, leadership and managerial qualities. The Deputy Director will assist the Executive Director with both the general management of the organisation and procurement and execution of research projects.

An international advocacy group has criticised Ethiopia for its continuing human rights abuses and condemned foreign donors for failing to help prevent them. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the government "continues to deny" its citizens their basic human rights while the international community takes no action. In its 2004 World Report, the New York-based group said foreign donors who were pouring about US $1 billion into Ethiopia each year were focused on other issues.

Peace groups and officials from the government’s Amnesty Commission have warned that the impending probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into war crimes committed by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels could make a peaceful settlement of the 18-year conflict impossible. "Certainly, this is going to make it very difficult for the LRA to stop doing what they are doing. They have already been branded ‘terrorists’, which isn’t going [to help] to easily persuade them to come," the Amnesty Commission spokesman, Moses Saku, told IRIN.

The Swazi government is to pay the primary school fees of 60,000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The Ministry of Economic Planning and Development revealed last Thursday that in the national population of 960,000 people, there were 200,000 OVC.

The development agency, Christian Aid, is stepping up a campaign to get church and faith leaders to join the fight against the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS in Angola. The UK-based group plans to integrate HIV/AIDS awareness into its current post-conflict food security activities, and believes the church should play a much bigger role in helping people learn about and live with the virus, rather than fuelling the stigma and prejudice that envelops it.

Investors and likely partner organisations are asked to please contact Terry Harnwell through the email address provided to describe their interest in becoming involved in a brand new conservation project in northern Tanzania. 1200 Acres of virgin bush on the borders of Tarangire National Park (in the Manyara-Tarangire migration corridor) have been acquired to set up the project. Project will comprise a Carnivore Rescue & Rehab Centre, Educational Facility, Research Facility and adjoining Lodge.