PAMBAZUKA NEWS 137: 2003 - THE WAY IT COULD HAVE BEEN...
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 137: 2003 - THE WAY IT COULD HAVE BEEN...
The following Vacancy Announcements are currently open and crucial for the Court:
* Associate English Translator;
* Associate French Translator;
* Conference Interpreter - English;
* Conference Interpreter - French;
* English Linguist;
* English Reviser/Editor;
* French Linguist;
* French Reviser/Editor.
The ICC website provides more general information on the above-mentioned Vacancies.
With a theme of "Reclaiming the State: Advancing People's Health, Challenging Injustice", the conference will: Present, discuss and review work done and progress towards equity in health in southern Africa post 2000; Present, debate and strengthen the analysis that informs research, policy and practice towards health equity; Resolve on the challenges, policies and actions towards progress in equity in health in southern Africa; and Review and give mandate to EQUINET, its goals, work and organisation.
This distance learning course introduces staff members of (international) development agencies and NGOs to rights-based programming. A rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. Essentially, a rights-based approach integrates the norms, standards and principles of the international human rights system into the plans, policies and processes of programme development.
Ford Foundation International Fellows may choose to study in any academic discipline or field of study related to the Ford Foundation's three grant-making areas, which are: Asset Building and Community Development; Knowledge, Creativity, and Freedom; Peace and Social Justice.
Develop an effective fundraising strategy that fits perfectly with your organisation’s mission, with the help of two fundraising books available from AFP. The Five Strategies for Fundraising Success: A Mission-based Guide to Achieving Your Goals shows nonprofits how to set fundraising goals based on the organisation’s mission and how to select, implement and stay with the right strategies to meet those goals. A companion workbook called Ten Steps to Fundraising Success: Choosing the Right Strategy for Your Organisation, is also available.
The Cottonwood Foundation is dedicated to promoting empowerment of people, protection of the environment, and respect for cultural diversity. The foundation focuses its funding on committed, grass roots organisations internationally that rely strongly on volunteer efforts and where foundation support will make a significant difference.
The Foundation Centre has posted on it's website "The Ten Immutable Laws of the (Fundraising) Universe" by Carl Richardson. For the complete text, see http://fdncenter.org/pnd/tsn/tsn.jhtml?id=47800041. He writes: "In my years of working with a wide range of nonprofit organisations, I've learned that the universe of fundraising can be described by certain "laws," much like the physical universe is described by certain provable statements. Tested by experience, observation, and results, these laws of fundraising determine to a large extent the success of our efforts. If your capital campaign has stalled, your funding proposals routinely go unfunded, or your board has stopped working effectively, the laws described below may point you toward a solution."
Down a steep hill, on the edge of the deep green forest that encircles this village in Central Ghana, a man with a strange growth on his upper arm lies on a wooden bench in great pain. Mary Agykpomaa, a local healer, has just cut a hole in his shoulder and another one in his chest. Now she's squirting a strange potion into one hole and watching it ooze out of the other. Meanwhile, Osei Darkwa, a genial 43-year old man with a slight paunch and vast ambitions, is strolling around, taking pictures of the patients with his digital camera. Soon he'll upload them to his webpage, complete with Java scripts, Flash animation, and a soundtrack of African drummers. "I want the world to know her," he says.
"It is evident that despite best intentions, the project of creating an Information Society is not working. The world requires a more high velocity approach to making ICTs relevant to major development challenges. Women's perspectives can contribute to making the difference between an Information Economy where gambling and pornography account for the most profitable applications and a true Information Society that serves human development."
Delegates from 176 countries and as many as 10,000 representatives of civil society and the private sector attended the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva last week. They dispersed having filled dozens of web sites with documentation of the vast digital divide between rich and poor, declarations of good intentions, examples of promising initiatives, and decisions to postpone controversial decisions on internet governance and a proposed Digital Solidarity Fund, reports the AfricaFocus Bulletin. Two postings this week from the AfricaFocus Bulletin contain a selection of news stories on the Summit from the Highway Africa News Agency. Among the many sites with additional coverage are: http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/about/wsis.htm; http://www.worldsummit2003.org and the official conference website:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/.
"We, women and men from different continents, cultural backgrounds, perspectives, experience and expertise, acting as members of different constituencies of an emerging global civil society, considering civil society participation as fundamental to the first ever held UN Summit on Information and Communication issues, the World Summit on the Information Society, have been working for two years inside the process, devoting our efforts to shaping people-centred, inclusive and equitable concept of information and communication societies. Working together both on-line and off-line as civil society entities, practising an inclusive and participatory use of information and communication technologies, has allowed us to share views and shape common positions, and to collectively develop a vision of information and communication societies."
Rival militias battled over barren desert lands in central Somalia on Tuesday in fighting that killed at least 31 people and wounded 50 others, a spokesman for one of the militias said. The violence came as the U.N. Security Council called Tuesday for the creation of a monitoring group to investigate violations of the U.N. arms embargo against Somalia and make recommendations to strengthen it.
The rate at which Africa is devouring its wildlife is entirely unsustainable, Cameroon's Environment Minister says. He is demanding international action to control the trade, which produces as much as five million tonnes of bushmeat from the Congo basin alone every year.
Human trials of a new type of malaria vaccine are planned for next year after encouraging results in mice. Oxford University scientists are using a combination of techniques to boost the effectiveness of their vaccine, which will be tested on volunteers. Research published on Tuesday revealed that their formula, carried into the body on a virus, produced a strong immune response in mice. No fully effective malaria vaccine has yet been produced by scientists.
While the ninth Conference of the Parties (COP-9) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held between 1-12 December in Milan, Italy had a rocky start, it ended on a positive note, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Calling the Protocol "an unrealistic and ever-increasing regulatory straitjacket," US Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky had written in a major financial newspaper that the "only acceptable, cost-effective option" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was the American way. This viewpoint was argued vigorously (albeit unconvincingly, according to most observers), by the 60-strong US delegation in Milan. Days later, an advisor in the Russian presidency, "thought out loud" that Russian ratification was unlikely. Nevertheless, these statements did not detract Parties from keeping the process on track. In fact, the overwhelming message from the high-level segment was that the Protocol is the "only show in town." COP-9 not only highlighted the division between developed and developing countries, but also the leadership and initiative gaps between negotiators and constituency groups. While resolving differences on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis remains complex, the significant number of side events signals a change towards a more positive outlook for future COP sessions.
Couples in Cameroon are in a frisky mood following the end of a two-month strike during which women refused to have sex with their husbands. The 6,000 women in the north-west of the country were protesting against the destruction of crops by cattle.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has given the N2 Wild Coast toll road the go-ahead. Director General Chippy Olver said his authorisation was subject to stringent conditions to ensure the possible negative impact of the road on the environment was minimised. Cathy Kay of the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA, said her organisation would challenge the decision on the basis that 'the whole process was fatally flawed'. She said by giving the road the green light Olver had indirectly sanctioned the mining of heavy minerals on the Wild Coast. Olver has denied the road had anything to do with facilitating mining and his department would remain 'vehemently opposed' to it. Appeals could be lodged with Environmental Affairs And Tourism Minister Valli Moosa within 30 days.
The UN refugee agency has evacuated its non-essential staff from western Ethiopia after violence that left an estimated 30 people dead and dozens injured. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said the local hospital had been “overwhelmed” after a weekend of fighting in Gambella, 800 km west of Addis Ababa.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will repatriate refugees from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) using the Oubangui river which, besides serving as the border between the two countries, has been closed to human traffic since September, a senior UNHCR official said on Monday.
The Botswana government has denied claims by a Namibian human rights NGO that a group of Caprivian "refugees" were "abducted" from Botswana to face high treason charges in Namibia. Presidential press secretary Jeff Ramsay told IRIN on Tuesday that the group of eight Caprivians were "de facto illegal aliens" and had been lawfully deported to Namibia on 13 December.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Monday launched a national campaign to promote education of all girls. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, speaking at the "All Girls to School" campaign launch in the capital, Kinshasa, underlined the importance of educating children, especially girls, to national development.
Almost half a million children in Ethiopia are dying each year from easily preventable diseases, international health officials revealed on Tuesday. Ethiopia has the sixth largest number of children dying annually – with only India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo faring worse.
West Africa’s HIV-AIDS pandemic has often been overshadowed by the higher infection rates in southern Africa. But the WHO’s latest global HIV-AIDS update warns strongly against complacency. WHO points out that while infection rates have remained broadly stable in Sahelian countries like Mali, The Gambia and Niger, which all have prevalence rates of less than two per cent, the figures are markedly less optimistic in Cote d’Ivoire, where adult prevalence rates have been estimated at between 10 and 12 percent.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that Zimbabwe's humanitarian and economic crises could dramatically reverse its impressive post-independence education gains. To mark the launch this week of the global report, "State of the World's Children", UNICEF Zimbabwe on Friday called for urgent attention to be paid to keeping children, especially girl children, in school.
Sixty per cent of Nairobi’s two million inhabitants live in informal settlements. Kibera, home to around 700,000 people, is the largest of these. It is very overcrowded, and littered with rubbish. As it is an illegal settlement, the government provides no basic services. In the poorest areas of Nairobi, Kenya, the demands of parents have encouraged the new government to abolish fees in public schools. An Oxfam programme has also recognised that gender equitable education means more than access, and is attempting to address the specific problems which girls face.
A legion of volunteer community activists in Swaziland are identifying orphans and vulnerable children - many of them affected by AIDS - and seeing to their nutritional, medical, educational and psychological needs. "The community worker is called 'lihlombe lekukhalela', which means 'shoulder to cry on'. They are the person who children know they can go to for assistance.
A New Domestic Relations Bill under debate in parliament is generating intense debate, with a section of the public accusing the government of trying to interfere with their freedom in order to garner support from women in the 2006 elections. The Bill proposes that, for a man to marry a second wife, he must get the consent of the first wife and approval from district councils.
It is the third day of a peace building and conflict management workshop at Gulu teacher's centre. Most of the participants are women who belong to the Grassroots Women for Development (GWARD), an NGO in Gulu. Others are members of the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The meeting is mainly focusing on health in the internally displaced people's camps, women and children's rights in the camps and nationalising the war in the north.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has begun identification of 16 sites for construction of HIV/AIDS detection-prevention-treatment centres across the Central African Republic, an official told IRIN on Friday. Funding for the programme would come from the HIV/AIDS Global Fund, the UNDP resident representative, Stan Nkwain, said. "This is a legitimate ambition given the extent to which HIV/AIDS is ravaging the population," he said.
Only about seven per cent of Grade 6 pupils in Namibia's schools are literate, according to a newly released United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report on girls' education and development in Namibia. The goal of providing education for all in Namibia has not yet been achieved, the report states. Despite sizeable investment by Government and its partners, Unicef found the quality of Namibian education to be low.
Globalization has been a mixed blessing for human rights around the world, undermining the economic power of national governments but strengthening a sense of world community, according to a new analysis from the United Nations University. The Globalization of Human Rights report says progress on social and economic human rights is being undermined by the growing power of the global marketplace and the erosion of the ability of national governments to protect citizens from economic fluctuations. At the same time, however, globalization is fostering a greater sense of world community and international solidarity, leading to, for example, unprecedented collective interventions in internal national conflicts on compassionate humanitarian grounds.
The Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) has allowed its branches to negotiate with their university councils over a pay stand-off but insisted only national officials would call off the strike. The union said the strike - now in its second month - could only be called off after members were satisfied over "new salaries the Government will offer".
At the official launch of a national campaign to end child sexual exploitation in Madagascar, UNICEF and International Labour Organisation (ILO) presented the resumes of three studies that highlighted the sexual exploitation of children in Madagascar. According to the UNICEF-sponsored study, between 30 per cent to 50 per cent of all sex workers in two of country's main cities, Nosy Be and Tamatave, were children under the age of 18.
The Pambazuka News staff wish all our subscribers warm greetings and best wishes for the season and the New Year. This will be our last edition for 2003 and we will return with our next edition scheduled for 08 January 2004. Thanks for all your support during 2003, and particularly to those who have made donations to Pambazuka. Keep them rolling in!
Since 2000, when Zimbabwe took a plunge both economically and politically, freedom of expression has become a victim as the government intensifies efforts to control and influence the flow of information, says the The State of the Media Report, an assessment of the media environment carried out by the Media Institute of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe Chapter (MISA-Zimbabwe). The report looks at the operational environment of media practitioners and media organisations. Particular attention is paid to media and freedom of expression violations as these demonstrate the extent to which the media is free or otherwise in a given state. "The repressive media environment currently prevailing in Zimbabwe reflects on government's attitude and policy towards the media, a negative attitude that has been buttressed by the promulgation of repressive laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA)," says the report.
Ali Lmrabet, the jailed editor of two banned satirical news magazines in Morocco, has started another hunger strike just five months after he agreed to end a fifty-day fast which left him in a seriously weakened physical condition. According to reports he was joined in his protest by fellow-inmate Mohammed el-Hourd, managing editor of the weekly Asharq. Lmrabet began the hunger strike on 30 November in protest against their mistreatment and to demand recognition of their status as prisoners of conscience.
Efforts to close the “digital divide” between rich and poor societies and create “knowledge societies” will fail unless developing nations embrace freedom of expression, the Director General of the World Association of Newspapers said Wednesday. “In more and more countries, the struggle for freedom of information, freedom of expression, freedom of the media, is today being fought out on the internet rather than in print, where it has traditionally taken place,” said the WAN Director General, Timothy Balding, in a speech to the World Electronic Media Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.
Message de vie Radiotelevision (RTMV), a Kinshasa-based religious broadcaster owned by Pastor Fernando Kutino's Army of Victory Church (Église Armée de Victoire), resumed its broadcasts on 14 December 2003 after six months of forced silence. RTMV spokesperson Dede Kubiala told said that "those in charge of RTMV chose to resume broadcasting of their own volition since no official act prohibited them from doing so. The station had been forced to close after it was ransacked and its television equipment was confiscated by the Congolese National Police (PNC)" on 10 June.
The EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy concurred to the broad assumptions that the failure of Cancun was like an accident, which involved 148 cars on their way to a wedding. In explaining the accident, he forgot to mention (although casualty levels still not clear) that some of the victims escaped unhurt and they stood aside instead of helping those who were hurt. Among those who escaped unhurt, some were wearing helmets and others were putting on life jackets. Those who were hurt, most of them wore ordinary clothing and had no any other form of protection. But all of them still need to go to the wedding. And those who escaped unhurt should not just stand aside and assume that those hurt will uplift themselves. The unhurt must do something to ensure that everyone goes to the wedding where there is plenty of food and drink. Unfortunately, we are seeing a situation where the law of the jungle is being applied: survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit, yet all of them want to celebrate together at the wedding. This is the stark reality that we find developed and developing countries in after the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, says this editorial from the Seatini Bulletin.
Earlier this year a critic of the movement for global economic justice wrote a letter with several challenging questions that were sent to the email listserv of Mobilisation for Global Justice. The series of questions and answers available through the URL provided are based on the response composed by Soren Ambrose, Senior Policy Analyst with the 50 Years Is Enough Network. Questions relate to the austerity packages of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and cash crops.
Strategies that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have pursued over the last three to four decades have all sought to raise not only the Human Development Index but bring about comprehensive development as well. These strategies started with national development plans and inward looking import substitutions and protectionist policies. This review from the Malawi Economic Justice Network provides an overview of the process, outcomes and content, within the region's socio-political context, examining the pathways that were available to different stakeholders for engagement in the process, and how this participation and strategies are reflected in the policy outcomes. The paper further endeavours to catalyse thinking in analysing how the relationship between the conception and practice of the 'popular' Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers to previous initiatives such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), the advent of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), let alone the new opportunities offered for poverty reduction in Africa.
Malaysian-run textile factory Ramatex is once again being accused of unfair labour practices - this time by several hundred of its Asian workers. Filipino workers feel so strongly about their working conditions that they have sent an appeal to their government through its South African embassy. A petition signed by nearly 700 employees cites poor wages, cramped living conditions and health concerns as their most pressing grievances.
Swaziland's banned political parties and pro-democracy groups are conceding they may have harmed their cause by boycotting recent parliamentary elections. "If you are in the wilderness, you need all opportunities to be heard. All platforms, even government bodies, must be utilised," Ntombi Nkosi, president of the women's league of the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC), told IRIN.
The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said on Wednesday it was talking with the authorities in neighbouring countries to prevent Liberian combatants from crossing the border with their weapons to escape disarmament. UNMIL Deputy Force commander Major General Joseph Owonibi told reporters that a delegation from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) would arrive in Monrovia on Saturday to discuss ways of preventing weapons from crossing the border.
The authorities in Madagascar remained tight-lipped on Wednesday over whether the government would seek to extradite Didier Ratsiraka from France after a court had sentenced the former president to five years in prison for his role in last year's political crisis. Ratsiraka, who fled the country at the height of the political upheaval, did not appear in court at Monday's hearing.
A local official in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke has expressed concern over a security threat posed by Rwandan Hutu militiamen, known as Interahamwe, who have staged raids in the province in the last month, looting property in two communes. "Interahamwe militias have been hiding in the Kibira forest neighbouring the communes of Mabayi and Bukinanyana for about a month now," Benoit Ntigurirwa, the Cibitoke governor, told IRIN on Wednesday. The Interahamwe fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cibitoke Province is on the border with the DRC and Rwanda.
Opposition leaders in Sudan have warned against a bilateral peace agreement between the government and rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) that does not directly address the grievances of Sudan’s marginalised northern populations. “If the peace process is a bilateral process, it will be a very temporary peace that will unravel very soon,” said Sadiq al Mahdi, leader of the Umma party which enjoys wide popular support in the violence-wracked western Darfur region.
Long-standing president Jose Eduardo dos Santos is once again firmly established at the helm of Angola's ruling MPLA after he was elected without opposition to the party's presidency. The congress, which ended last week, voted in Dos Santos by acclamation, paving the way for him to run again in national elections he has said will not be held before 2005. "Dos Santos is very firmly in the saddle," said Herman van der Linde, consultant at South Africa-based Executive Research Associates.
Investigators tracking the plunder of Kenya's resources during the regime of former President Daniel arap Moi have discovered that between $1 billion and $4 billion were shipped abroad illegally. The man leading the investigation said Wednesday that the goal of the probe was to retrieve as much as possible. "We have reached a stage where the Kenyan people have a right to know that this is an issue that we are taking extremely seriously, and to which we are applying the very best resources available,'' John Githongo, permanent presidential secretary for ethics and governance, told The Associated Press.
Zimbabweans trying to leave the country in search of economic opportunities are having to deal with government officials whom they allege are turning their plight into profit, IRIN has learnt. Rising incidents of graft by public officials has coincided with Zimbabwe's worsening economic conditions, according to the anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI). It ranked Zimbabwe as among the world's most corrupt countries in a report released in October.
President Thabo Mbeki was due in Harare this week on his Mission Impossible - to try to find a solution to Zimbabwe's growing crisis. The precise nature of his mission is unclear. A senior South African official said he would try to place "back on track" talks between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Automatic weapons-fire and rocket explosions echoed across Republic of Congo's capital in an outbreak of fighting late Wednesday, officials said. It was not immediately clear who was involved in the clash, which appeared to be centred in the southern Bacongo neighbourhood of Brazzaville, government spokesman Alain Akoulat told The Associated Press. There were no reports of casualties. Two rebel factions in Brazzaville - a rebel group supporting former Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas and another rebel group supporting renegade pastor Frederic Bitsangou - battled briefly in the same neighbourhood on Saturday.
The vote is still new to most of South Africa’s blacks, but after just a decade of democracy many of the poorest among them are already unconvinced of its power to deliver better standards of living. Veronica Rasi, a domestic worker in Cape Town says she has refused to register for next year’s elections because the government has not delivered on its promises. “What’s the use of voting – it hasn’t brought me any benefits. The ANC and the other political parties only know us when they need our votes – otherwise we don’t see them.”
Robert Mugabe squandered millions last week in a desperate bid to address the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) after being denied the opportunity at the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria. Mugabe and his cronies lived it up at one of the city's plushest hotels - La Réserve, a spa on the shores of Lake Geneva. According to The Times of London, rooms at La Réserve start at £380 a night, with the presidential suite costing £4 500.
Children in Zimbabwe are to become the latest victims of President Robert Mugabe's destruction of the economy, with fees at state schools about to go up at least 10 times. When the new school year begins next month many families will be faced with paying nearly half their income to send just one child to school.
Zimbabwe's only private newspaper, shut down at home by President Robert Mugabe's government, issued a defiant one-off edition in the Nigerian capital Abuja for the opening of the Commonwealth summit. You can read the full edition by visiting the page: http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=8164
The cost of corruption represents five percent of the world economy - or more than 1.5 trillion dollars a year, according to World Bank figures published at a UN conference on corruption. Daniel Kaufman, director of global governance at the World Bank Institute told reporters on Wednesday that the figures were an approximate calculation - since corruption was largely clandestine - yet "realistic".
A nationwide campaign to vaccinate 750,000 children against measles in The Gambia has been a resounding success, health officials said on Wednesday. "We are very glad with the response we got. We are still compiling the figures, but at least 90 percent of our target was attained," Robert Nimson, deputy manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), told IRIN.
Nigeria's House of Representatives will hold a public hearing next week on allegations that polio vaccines used in a recent nationwide vaccination campaign contained elements that could cause infertility and HIV/AIDS. Aminu Safana, chairman of the Committee on Health and Human Services of the lower house of the federal parliament, said in a statement on Wednesday that the hearing had been set for next Monday. Polio vaccination has faced widespread resistance in the staunchly Muslim north, where groups of Islamic fundamentalists have alleged that the vaccination programme was part of a plot by western countries to reduce the population of Muslims by spreading infertility and the HIV/AIDS virus.
Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them. Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals. The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide. But The Observer has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.
The 46th National Council on Health meeting taking place in Yenagoa has heard that Nigeria's health system ranked among the worst in the world. The Minister of Health, Prof. Eyitayo Lambo, said in his address that the health situation had recorded appreciable improvement in the early 1990s but had then nose-dived to an all-time low. "Nigeria's overall health system performance was ranked 187 among the 191 member states by the World Health Organisation while most of the country's disease burden is due to preventable diseases."
An article by South African author and journalist Riaan Malan arguing that horrific HIV/AIDS figures are computer-generated estimates that appear grotesquely exaggerated when set against population statistics has kicked up debate about the severity of Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis. Malan argues that it is time to question some of the claims made by the Aids lobby, arguing that their authority comes from computer-generated estimates that are far from accurate. "Give them their head, and they will commandeer all resources to fight just one disease. Who knows, they may defeat Aids, but what if we wake up five years hence to discover that the problem has been blown up out of all proportion by unsound estimates, causing upwards of $20 billion to be wasted?" In response, Malan was accused by one subscriber to a popular South Africa discussion list of playing a game that is an "intellectually, politically and morally dishonest" one. For the original article, visit http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec192.html. To track the debate, join Debate: SA discussion list at http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate.
Civil disobedience is the deliberate, discriminate, violation of law for a vital social purpose. It becomes not only justifiable but necessary when a fundamental human right is at stake, and when legal channels are inadequate for securing that right. It may take the form of violating an obnoxious law, protesting an unjust condition, or symbolically enacting a desirable law or condition. It may or may not eventually be held legal, because of constitutional law or international law, but its aim is always to close the gap between law and justice, as an infinite process in the development of democracy.
For many, the start of a New Year is a time to make personal resolutions for the future. Your Resolution for the World can start now. Send five friends an e-card, and BidClix, a NetAid partner, will donate US$1 on your behalf to a NetAid World Schoolhouse project in Zimbabwe. This project is ensuring that girls, many of them AIDS-affected, can fulfill their right to an education - the key to ending poverty.
On International Migrants' Day, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that respect for the rights of all migrants is an essential component of good migration management. With globalization, trade liberalization, economic integration and the widening gap between rich and poor nations creating ever greater migration pressures, IOM believes that successful migration management only exists when it fully respects the human rights of migrants.
As Kenya enters 2004, it appears likely that the country's education system will come under increased scrutiny. Many teachers want the current syllabus to be overhauled, saying it places undue pressure on staff and children alike. At present, students undergo eight years of primary education, four years in secondary school and an additional four years at university. This constitutes the so-called ”8-4-4” system, which has been in place for nearly 15 years.
Under Kenya’s current constitution, drafted during the colonial era, the president enjoys extensive powers. To reduce these powers - which have sometimes been abused - some Kenyans have called for the current process of constitutional review to allow for the post of Prime Minister. But, others disagree. "There are those around the president who are enjoying power because of their close ties with him. They are opposed to the completion of the constitution review process," says Njeru Gathangu, chairperson of Citizens for Justice, a Nairobi-based pressure group which has been lobbying for a new constitution.
Six people have died from cholera and another 165 are reported to be in a serious condition as the disease sweeps through Zambia's capital, Lusaka. It appears that local authorities have been caught flat-footed by the outbreak. They are now engaged in a frantic bid to contain the disease, which is transmitted through contaminated water and food. Cholera typically occurs in Zambia during the country's rainy season.
I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and let's keep developing our collaboration and co-operation. It was born in Lisbon in last September, an organisation called GUINEÁSPORA, the "Diaspora " from Guinea-Bissau. We have been able to organise a first meeting bringing Guineans from Africa, Europe, and Latin America (Brazil). Our site is www.guineaspora.org.
United States President George W. Bush, other leaders of the G8 group of industrialised countries and political leaders in Africa deserve congratulations for their courage in leading a genuine attempt to deal honestly and respectfully with the problems facing Africa in 2003.
The pace was set when George W. Bush touched down in Dakar, Senegal earlier this year. Following a visit to Goree Island, which acted as a transit camp for Africans during the slave trade, Bush experienced a road to Damascus moment. With tears in his eyes, he said the experience had for the first time helped him to grasp the enormous damage caused by slavery. Clearly his country had benefited in a grossly immoral way and therefore it was logical that reparations should be made for this blotch in the history of his country. He immediately offered reparations – 'apologies are not enough', he said.
What was even more shocking, said the president, was that his country continued to support policies that were difficult to justify - in fact, they added insult to injury and continued to build on the injustices of the past. He admitted that the US and Western powers systematically undermined the African liberation movements by slaughtering leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, supporting terrorist movements in DRC, Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere. This newfound commitment to Africa would require serious financial bankrolling, announced Bush, and as a result the war on Iraq would end forthwith to prevent resources being diverted from Africa. Even this would not be enough, however, and he had personally ordered the scrapping of his $400-billion defence budget, which would be diverted towards peaceful activities, rather than killing fields. Following a nightmare about the havoc $400-billion dollars worth of guns would cause, he was no longer convinced that the military-industrial complex held the solution to the world's problems. The US militarisation of the African continent through the establishment of forward bases in the war against terror would be scrapped. Africa needed less, not more, militarisation, he said. The USA would immediately ratify the Rome Treaty for the International Criminal Court: 'There can be no excuse for impunity for those guilty of crimes against humanity.'
The cynical have argued that Bush's announcement was forced upon him by massive and unprecedented popular pressure from across Africa. Whatever the case, Bush's announcement was the culmination of a groundswell of change that nobody could have predicted at the beginning of 2003. South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki announced that he had given up golf. Golf, he said, was an elitist game and an environmentally damaging one at that, which did not befit the image of a president who stood for the people and with the people. Moreover, Mbeki, along with other New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) architects, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, could now see that Nepad was indeed an imperialistic tool (as some ultra-leftists had previously stated). Nepad, if implemented in its current form, would work to serve the interests of the West and further impoverish the African people. The project would have to be reworked in favour of a genuine consultative programme that placed people before profits.
With global and continental leadership in line, seemingly intractable problems moved towards quick resolution. A host of undemocratic and dictatorial African leaders were either summarily removed by bloodless peoples' coups, or fled office after seeing the writing on the wall. Where there are gaps, the African Union has transformed itself from a toothless organisation and firmly laid down the law when required. As we end 2003, genuine people's democracies are sweeping across Africa.
This revolution could not take place in and of itself and needed to be accompanied by radical structural changes. One of these changes involved the onerous debt burden facing many African countries, long acknowledged as a serious obstruction to the development of Africa and responsible for diverting funds away from health, education and the social services. With a new moral fervour evident globally, The Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was scrapped as a complete failure in 2003. In its place illegal debt was immediately eliminated without any unfair terms or conditions. Africa's development of rich industrialised countries through the repayment of debt has therefore ended.
A significant victory of 2003 was the establishment of the Commission on International Financial Institutions (CIFI), which announced that the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank were undemocratic institutions who had failed to function in the interests of the majority of the world population. The commission recommended – and these recommendations were subsequently adopted – that the IFI's be scrapped and replaced by truly representative, democratic institutions designed to operate in the interests of all the people of the world. Investigations into possible prosecutions regarding the harmful policies of the IFI's over the last 50 years and the damaging effects of their Structural Adjustment Policies and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers on Africa are ongoing. There was widespread agreement for the need to distinguish between investment and recurrent expenditure: money spent on education, social welfare and health were vital investments, the returns on which could only be measured over decades. A massive programme of investment has been put in place for 2004. Given the failure of privatisation of services over the last decade, governments were encouraged to nationalise social services, including power, water, health services, etc. This has sparked a vibrant public debate across the region about whether the same approach should be taken with production of other socially necessary products.
The ending of double-speak and spin over the issue of HIV/AIDS is another welcome development that took place in 2003. 'Treat all the People Now!', long seen as a distant dream, has become reality. The year began gloomily as countries failed to meet their commitments to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, then promised more money and failed again to deliver. But the new political climate and unprecedented action by civil society organisations mean that the fund is now topped up and dispensing money in a way that has seen major victories in the war against the epidemic. Treatment is now approaching 100 percent. Furthermore, the control of the medical industry by a handful of enormously powerful and unaccountable multi-national pharmaceutical companies was beaten back in a serious of battles in which the people stood up and demanded their right to be treated.
Another important area with regards Africa that deserves mentioning here is that of unequal terms of trade, long regarded as a sticking point in the development of the continent. In September, Africa stood up to the industrialised countries at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, over unfair trade and refused to allow further onerous conditions to be imposed on them. The result was a humbled United States and European Union. Both finally agreed that outrageous subsidies which would hypothetically speaking allow their dairy herds to take round the world vacation trips while people in certain parts of the world starved, served nobody's interests and were an utter embarrassment to their moral standing, or lack thereof. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellig declared that industrialised countries had long been 'spoilers' and pledged to work towards terms of trade that benefited Africa.
It has been a truly memorable year. There have been major victories leading to decreased militarisation, the spreading of democracy, treatment for those with HIV/AIDS and equitable terms of trade. The benefits in terms of Africa's social and economic indicators are already being felt. Significantly, international legal mechanisms have also been set in place to ensure that never again will Africa, or any other part of the world, be allowed to occupy a position at the bottom of the global development index. No longer will certain power brokers be allowed to glibly take the moral high ground with one hand, while continuing a self-enrichment exercise of plunder and looting with another. Africa can now enter 2004 knowing that, in contrast to a year ago, it will not have to confront the battery of unjust and exploitative policies that kept it in subjection for so long.
* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to
In 2001, Steve Connolly, MD of New Holland Publishers, asked Geoff Hill to interview ordinary Zimbabweans and find out what was really happening in the country. Over the past two years, Geoff sought the views of more than a thousand people -- mostly black -- in Zimbabwe and among the three million exiles now living in South Africa, Botswana and the UK. Geoff spoke to people inside the ruling ZANU-PF party; victims of the Matebeleland massacres of the mid-80s; opposition figures; Mugabe's childhood friends; people who had been tortured and some who had committed acts of torture and murder for both ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC. What emerged was a picture of a country that had gone astray. The resultant book, “The battle for Zimbabwe” looks at what went wrong in Zimbabwe, how to avoid the same thing happening in South Africa and what the world could do to bring Zimbabwe back into the fold.
The underlying problem in Africa is the need for a fundamental paradigm shift. There has been so much mantra for "Poverty Reduction" the emphasis being "poverty" that it has all been internalised by governments and societies in Africa. The paradigm needs to shift into thinking "Prosperity". The reduction of poverty does not necessarily mean people are prosperous or that the country becomes prosperous. With prosperity naturally go development and progress. With poverty, well ... you get what you have now. African minds need to shift into this mode and we will see that we do not and have never really needed "help" from anyone but ourselves. We can, with this kind of mindset, begin to really utilize our own resources to build wealth for our peoples and nations in Africa. We have the brains to make this happen, we only need to blink and the current hypnotic illusions represented by the IMF and other structures as minions of western hegemony would be broken.
Africa needs to log on immediately if it wants to connect to the rest of the world - a formidable task in a region where vast areas do not have electricity, telephones or computers. Although all the capitals of the 54 countries in the world's poorest continent now have Internet access compared to a mere 11 in 1997, its reach is still fractional and the way forward is marred by a slew of problems and setbacks.
The WSIS process was born in 1998 at an ITU plenipotentiary meeting where it was nodded through as the last item on the agenda. Few can have imagined that it would result in a meeting of the kind that has just taken place, writes Russell Southwood from http://www.balancingact-africa.com/. And, says Southwood, ever since the whole process started he has been asking what on earth it was meant to achieve. " It doesn’t matter whether they came from Government, the private sector or civil society, all would privately admit that it was probably going to be something that would achieve very little. The last time I saw someone pitch it publicly the best the speaker could do was to say that the 'trade show' would be an excellent event."
The second UPEACE Curriculum Development Workshop for the Great Lakes and Eastern African region was held in Kampala, Uganda from the 1st to 5th of December 2003, co-hosted with and coordinated by Makerere University, Uganda's premier institution of higher learning. The workshop's goal was to focus on teaching the linkages between justice, human rights and peace. It is the second in a set of three sub-regional workshops being organized in 2003 and early 2004 by the UPEACE Africa Programme, bringing together academicians, researchers, and educators to consolidate knowledge and build the basis for mastering the skills needed for the management, resolution, and transformation of conflict.
The sustainable future of southern African nations was a key issue at the symposium held from 15 to 17 September in Windhoek, Namibia. The symposium's papers are now available for download from the URL provided. Civil society activists, church groups, academics, and policy-makers gathered at the 'Futures for Southern Africa' conference to assess the status of the region and analyse developments after almost 10 years of post-apartheid rule. "We hoped to promote greater inter-regional understanding, strengthen southern African and North-South civil society and non-governmental organisation links and activities, and ensure that policy is directed at understanding and responding to the major challenges in this region," said the organisers.
Beijing has fulfilled its commitment to Africa by cancelling 31 African countries' debts totalling US $1.27 billion. During the second China-Africa trade summit held this week in Ethiopia, China said it would provide enhanced support for Africa, without any political discrimination. Both African and Chinese delegates agreed that there was vast potential for growth in trade between China and Africa, and that this was vital for Africa's development.
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African leaders have declared 12 December to be the International Day of Digital Solidarity as a tribute to the consensus reached by world leaders to adopt the Digital Solidarity Agenda and the Digital Solidarity Fund in the two documents of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 136: PRSPS: POVERTY REDUCTION OR POVERTY REINFORCEMENT?
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 136: PRSPS: POVERTY REDUCTION OR POVERTY REINFORCEMENT?
Older people comprise the fastest growing population in the world. However, their rights are increasingly being abused by family members and society in general due to the weakening of traditions that accorded them respect and ensured their welfare was attended to. The pervading attitude among many people is that older persons have done their time and must be relegated to the periphery to vegetate and die and therefore have no rights to lay claim to.
An innovative health and human rights program in Senegal is on the brink of eradicating a centuries-old custom that involves excising large parts of the female genitalia, a custom which can have a debilitating effect on women's reproductive and general health, as well as their overall quality of life. It's known to most as female genital mutilation, or FGM, and currently some 2 million women around the world are subjected to it every year.
In South Africa, a large percentage of women face a system of entrenched discrimination as they seek to enter the work force. Most women at the community level have no access to economic rights or opportunities, and as a result rank among the poorest in their society. They are ruled by traditional cultural norms that leave them vulnerable to unchecked domestic and public violence. In a country where unemployment and poverty are rife, women are even more vulnerable than their male counterparts, and fight an uphill battle just to stay above the poverty line.
Just as Europeans excused the pillage of the empire with the claim that they were civilising 'savage races', tribal peoples face destruction at the hands of Commonwealth governments that see them as 'backward' and 'primitive', says Survival International. The Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana were evicted in 2002 from their ancestral land and forced to live in government resettlement camps, supposedly for their own good. Botswana's foreign minister has said, 'We can't allow them to be primitive or backward.... [the government has a] responsibility to improve their cultural background.' One Canadian Indian leader has appealed to Botswana 'to learn from Canada's mistakes, and end the misguided policy of trying to forcibly integrate the Bushmen into your cultural mainstream.'
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is pleased with Kenya's stand on corruption, especially in the judiciary. The visiting IMF first deputy managing director, Dr Anne Krueger, said that the measures the government had introduced had confounded sceptics on its commitment to reform. However, she warned that fighting corruption was a continuous process as "attitudes do not change overnight."
Nigeria's labour minister was sacked last Thursday after being named as a suspect in the highest-profile corruption investigation so far undertaken by the country's three-year-old anti-graft agency. President Olusegun Obasanjo fired Hussaini Akwanga shortly after the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it was probing allegations that he and six others took bribes from French firm SAGEM (SAGM.PA).
Hopes of Nigeria recovering looted funds totalling about three million pounds from Britain - where it has been stashed away by Nigerians - have arisen. The indications emerged from a meeting President Olusegun Obasanjo had with British Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, who was in Abuja to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
Worldwide trading of greenhouse gas emissions more than doubled over the last year to about 71 million tonnes, with governments and multilateral agencies accounting for more than half of the purchases, according to a World Bank study released Thursday. That is a tiny amount of worldwide energy-related carbon emissions, which are expected to rise to a total 8.3 billion tons by 2010 from 6.6 billion tons in 1996, according to U.S. government data.
The 54th scientific conference of the Association of Surgeons of Eastern Africa (ASEA) has heard that there are currently less than 100 surgeons practicing in Uganda for a population of about 24 million, a surgeon to patient ratio of 1:30,000.
“The Quest for Quality: Learning from the African Experience” is the theme of the biennial meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) that opened last week in Grand Baie in Mauritius. The four-day meeting planned to discuss the conclusion of a study on the challenges posed in improving quality in the process of Education for All in Africa. “If we do not pay sufficient attention to improving the quality of education, the movement in favour of basic education for all could result in a terrible waste,” according to the study.
Africans must become more active in campaigning for HIV/AIDS treatment initiatives in their communities. This was the key message emerging at a special discussion forum with Zackie Achmat, co-chair of the Treatment Action campaign, in Harare, Zimbabwe on Thursday, December 4, 2003. SAfAIDS (Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service) and HIVOS hosted the forum. The meeting was intended to be an opportunity for Zimbabweans to learn more about South Africa’s experiences in the treatment campaign and explore practicable solutions for the Zimbabwean situation.
The HIV/Aids epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has already orphaned a generation of children - and now seems set to orphan generations more. Today, over 11 million children under the age of 15 living in sub-Saharan Africa have been robbed of one or both parents by HIV/Aids. Seven years from now, the number is expected to have grown to 20 million, according to the report Africa's Orphaned Generations, that reports on the life circumstances of today's orphans with new data and fresh analyses.
Humanitarian agencies working in conflict zones are recognising that however much they attempt to be impartial deliverers of emergency assistance, they are also important political and economic actors. Could a political economy perspective help them to better anticipate and monitor vulnerable people's assistance and protection needs and to improve programme responses?
Is it time that education in emergencies occupied a more prominent place in humanitarian thinking? How can education help protect the physical and psychological wellbeing of children in war-affected or displaced communities? How can such children act to help protect themselves? What are the risks for kids and for agencies running education programmes in war-affected environments?
Is water privatisation being over-promoted? Is private sector participation (PSP) in its current forms likely to promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to provide the poor with reliable, affordable and sustainable, safe drinking water? How do members of poor communities affected by the process judge PSP?
Côte d'Ivoire is a heavily indebted poor country (HIPC). How does this impact on government use of foreign aid? What is the relationship between aid and the debt burden? And what are the policy lessons in terms of making aid work more effectively in Côte d'Ivoire and other HIPCs?
"Through our observation of the process, Civil Society has identified two main problem areas that impede progress in the WSIS: 1. How to correct imbalances in riches, imbalances of rights, imbalances of power, or imbalances of access. In particular, governments do not agree on even the principle of a financial effort to overcome the so-called Digital Divide; this is all the more difficult to accept given that the summit process was started two years ago with precisely that objective. 2. The struggle over human rights. Not even the basis of human life in dignity and equality, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights finds support as the basis for the Information Society. Governments are not able to agree on a commitment to basic human right standards as the basis for the Information Society, most prominent in this case being the freedom of expression."
The Group of 20 will be working on a critical programme the following week, in a bid to spur the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha trade negotiations that collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, in September. The talks ended in a deadlock after developed nations and an alliance of developing nations failed to agree on key issues such as market access, domestic support and export competition in agriculture.
"We, in the Leadership Office of the Hamadab Affected People ( LOHAP) have been campaigning over the last ten years to get the implementation of this project postponed until its historical, cultural and social impact together with its environmental consequences, have been well studied and evaluated, to avoid any irrecoverable historical losses."
"In the past, we were told that large dams bring development. Now the dam lobby claims that large dams are essential to "alleviate" poverty and close the gap between South and North. The last 50 years has shown this to be a fraud. The global large dam era has been marked by a sharply growing and unacceptable inequality between South and North, and between rich and poor. We denounce the fallacy that hydropower and large dams are essential to slow global warming and adapt to its impacts."
Africa is facing an enormous water crisis afflicting 300 million Africans and claiming 6,000 lives a year, a major summit heard on Monday. Water scarcity is also rapidly increasing the dangers of “social and political conflict” among booming city populations, senior United Nations officials warned.