Women journalists from Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe have launched a monthly e-zine called Africa Woman. The aim of this online magazine is to give African women the means to take their future into their own hands and to become major players throughout Africa. It is also aimed at promoting the main contributions women have made to the continent.

CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights has called on the Zimbabwean government to return the confiscated passport and resident permit of Andrew Meldrum, the Zimbabwe correspondent of the widely respected UK based Guardian Newspapers. Mr Meldrum is an American citizen and has lived legally in Zimbabwe for 22 years. The Zimbabwean immigration authorities seized the documents following recent failed attempts to arrest Mr Meldrum at night with a view to enforcing a surprise deportation. His lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, has also been threatened with detention after she handed in a letter protesting confiscation of the said documents.

Liberia faces a humanitarian disaster, with war preventing aid workers from helping hundreds of thousands of people and threatening to further destabilise an already fragile region, the chief of the U.N. refugee agency said.

Ten years ago, in an attempt to improve its understanding of investment decisions in developing countries, the World Bank undertook a survey of 80 mining companies. The survey revealed that the main investment criteria, after mineral potential and existing infrastructure, was a satisfactory legal and fiscal framework. This message was enthusiastically embraced across Africa, and legal reform of the mining sector contributed to a more favourable environment for foreign investment. However, a recent study by Groupe de Recherche sur les Activités Minières en Afrique (GRAMA) at the Faculté de Science Politique et de Droit, Université du Québec à Montréal, concludes that these measures have entailed a redefinition of the role of the state that is so profound that it has no historical precedent. The study warns that the various reforms have the potential effect of driving down standards in areas of critical importance for social and economic development, as well as in protection of the environment in the countries concerned.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), has announced a major change of strategy in its campaign to eradicate polio in Nigeria and two other countries. The strategy adopted so far by WHO has been built on routine vaccinations in countries whose health systems can afford it, and mass immunisation campaigns in the developing world. But the spokesman for WHO, Brent Burkholder, said that it was now time for a shift of emphasis. "The shift is just basically that we're focusing now on the endemic countries and the high-risk countries that are remaining," he said.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has begun repatriating more than 5,000 Rwandans living in Zambia as refugees, the UN agency reported last Thursday. The first 16 of the refugees arrived in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, aboard a Kenya Airways flight.

Splits in Malawi's United Democratic Front (UDF) began to emerge this week as another senior official announced his resignation from the ruling party. Last Thursday, Jan Sonke, a UDF lawmaker for the commercial capital Blantyre, cited the party's failure to "reduce poverty, strengthen democracy and improve the economy" as reasons for his resignation.

Teachers in the Central African Republic (CAR), represented by an umbrella union, agreed last Friday to end their seven-month nationwide strike, according to news organisations.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has welcomed a commitment by Zambia to address allegations of widespread sexual abuse of young girls. The international rights group last Thursday reported it had received a letter from the office of President Levy Mwanawasa stating that an inter-ministerial programme would be established to address the issue of sexual abuse.

Only about 100 people with HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Congo (ROC) had access to adequate treatment, Health Minister Alain Moka told medical workers during a training seminar on Monday in the capital, Brazzaville.

Lobby groups last Wednesday said the failure of governments to agree to an independent monitoring system to prevent potential abuses of the Kimberley agreement on conflict diamonds could undermine the credibility of the scheme.

As the world commemorated Press Freedom Day, Zimbabwe’s independent media community highlighted the gross erosion of essential democratic liberty in the country. The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) condemned the government’s persecution of privately owned media institutions and their staff through the selective application of unconstitutional and anti-democratic legislation and its blatant abuse of the publicly owned national broadcasting station, ZBC, and Zimbabwe Newspapers titles as messengers of its own propaganda at the expense of the truth.

Shell has boasted record profits for the first quarter of 2003, as well as the "highest hydrocarbon production in recent history ". While Shell's directors and shareholders will be celebrating the figures, the profits may generate less enthusiasm among poor, vulnerable communities around the world whose health and local environment is suffering as a result of Shell's aging and polluting refineries and depots. The news comes just one week after its Annual General Meeting was dominated by representatives from communities around the world who are suffering as a result of living next to the company's polluting refineries.

Swaziland is facing a water crisis after hoped-for summer rains failed to materialise, and a dry autumn is expected to be followed by a rainless winter. Coming on the heels of last year's severe drought, the impact of the water shortage is already being felt, and is expected to worsen a national food emergency.

The Vice Chairperson for Non Governmental Organisation Gender Co-ordination Network Emma Kaliya says it is disappointing to note that while Malawi as a nation has preached about the 30 percent inclusion of women by 2005, during the recent cabinet reshuffle, the opposite has happened. Kaliya said the percentage of female Ministers has dropped from 24 percent to 17 percent due to the new appointments, which have only targeted men while most appointed female ministers have been deputised.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa released its annual publication, "So This Is Democracy? State of the media in Southern Africa" in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. This is the ninth consecutive year in which MISA has issued this publication that records incidents of press freedom violations monitored by MISA in the previous year. The current edition therefore details press freedom violations in 2002.

The National Association of People Living with HIV/Aids has intensified its struggle by targeting individual Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) affiliates who are responding negative to their demands, says Thanduxolo Doro, NAPWA Deputy Director and Spokesperson.

Recently, a draft report prepared by the University of Malawi together with UNICEF-Malawi on the project: ‘What Every Adolescent has a Right to Know’ has been commended by many who have read it. The project aims at finding out the information gaps of adolescents on HIV/Aids prevention, which will assist in the development of an information package for the youth and put in place programmes of interventions in the fight against HIV/Aids for them.

Since apartheid collapsed, the Afrikaners have been a lost and divided race. Some have formed an unlikely alliance with the ANC, while the extreme right are blowing up anything they disapprove of. Now even moderates want to create a new homeland. Novelist Christopher Hope reports in the Guardian UK.

I appreciate your efforts, keep it up!

Uwem Robert Otu
African Youth Movement on the Environment, Lagos, Nigeria

Eddie Mupeso, the head of Zambia's state broadcaster, has been arrested and charged with abuse of office. Mupeso is the latest in a long line of high profile public figures held in the country's widening anti-corruption crackdown.

The impact of the deadly Sars virus in Africa would be devastating and the continent cannot afford to see the disease spread there, warns a World Health Organisation (Who) spokesperson. Christine McNab told journalists that one of the UN agency's long-running fears was that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) might take a grip in developing countries where health systems were severely deficient or precarious.

This report documents that internally displaced women and girls in Sierra Leone have suffered an extraordinary level of rape, sexual violence and other gross human rights violations during their country's civil war, with half of those who said they came into contact with RUF (Revolutionary United Front) forces reporting sexual violence.

The Board of Directors of the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF) has agreed to launch a multi-year global anti-corruption program based on the development by civil society of low cost projects that can have a major impact,” stated PTF Chairman Kumi Naidoo, the Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the global civil society non-governmental organisation, which is headquartered in South Africa.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must acknowledge that although it may have set out to conduct free and fair elections, not everything went according to plan. INEC should be bold and honest enough to admit its errors and successes. The INEC cannot seriously claim that elections have been successfully conducted in states such as Rivers, Enugu and Delta. In some other states, including Anambra, Abia, Benue, Imo and Plateau, where the election results have been willfully falsified, INEC must quickly review the process and restore the legitimate votes recorded.

I take this time to introduce to you our youth group based in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya and known as Kibera slums. For starters, this is one of the largest informal settlements in the world and is mainly inhabited by low income earning people. Within this bigger slum, we saw a need for starting a youth group that shall respond to the needs and concerns of youth given the fact that they had been greatly marginalized.

This policy paper by the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) reflects what is known so far about HIV/ AIDS and food security and describes the practical considerations thus far identified that are necessary for successful project implementation. The authors state that little work has been carried out on how food, and specifically food aid, can be best integrated into programmes designed to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on poor households' food security.

There has been a whole host of petitions and letter writing campaigns about Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to stoning to death for adultery in August 2002. Many of these are inaccurate and ineffective and may even be damaging to her case and those of others in similar situations, says the organisation BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights, which is responsible for initiating and continuing to support the defences of cases like Ms. Lawal's. The organisation has requested an end to the Amina Lawal international protest letter campaigns for now. "The information currently circulated is inaccurate, and the situation in Nigeria, being volatile, will not be helped by such campaigns."

Unlike being a murderer, being a 'terrorist' is often a function of being on the wrong side of power rather than possessing any inherent and universally disagreeable qualities or having committed a readily identifiable act. This is according to a statement by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) about a submission to the South African Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security on the Anti-terrorism Bill, B12-2003.

Fighting has intensified in Burundi in the months before the transfer of power to a new president, Human Rights Watch says in a new briefing paper, "Transition in Burundi: Time to Deliver." There have been military operations in nine of Burundi's seventeen provinces in the last two months.

The irregularities reported in this month's Nigerian elections are a mix of elementary and intermediate techniques - deplorable, but all too common around the world. Whether their total effect was enough to call the election a stolen one is a call for statisticians to make. But seen in stark political terms, any judgment of the election has to take into account not just the voting process, but the context - those endless organisational difficulties, not to mention the high cost -and the most vexed question of all: whether the fraud made any real difference to the outcome.

Dispatches from Durban, a powerful new book by Los Angeles-based activist and theoretician Eric Mann, reminds us of the excitement and importance of the UN World Conference Against Racism. Through a collection of firsthand commentaries, Mann provides insight into the issues of racism and white supremacy, the role of the U.S. government in the conference, the nature of and contradictions within the United Nations, as well as the implications of neoliberalism for the struggles for genuine national liberation. As such, Mann helps the reader appreciate the context of the WCAR, and especially why progressive and anti-imperialist forces world-wide chose it as a point of concentration for a major mobilization.

The focus of this conference will be to examine best training practices used in international healthcare settings, with particular emphasis on family planning and reproductive health in Africa. In addition, training practices that have been employed successfully in sectors other than healthcare will be examined and discussed for their applicability to reproductive health programs.

The 3rd International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Health Systems Trust (HST), a South African-based NGO, the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA), an international consortium of initiatives to support health equity. The meeting will bring together researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop an international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world. The 3rd International Conference theme is “Pathways to equity in health: Using research for policy and advocacy”. The Conference will explore this theme through a varied program of plenary sessions, forums, poster sessions and scientific sessions. We invite and welcome your participation in the effort towards advancement of knowledge, fostering of the exchange of experiences and promotion of equity in health.

An estimated $4,9bn spent on reform of public sectors in Africa has not been justified by results. Foreign donor support for public sector reform in Africa, while substantial, was not perceived to have had much long-term effect, a pan-African conference of ministers of public service and administration has heard.

Nelson Mandela has dedicated the brand-new Nelson Mandela Foundation House in Johannesburg to the late ANC father figure Walter Sisulu. The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) previously operated from Mandela's Houghton home, but it expanded to such an extent that new premises were needed. Therefore the R15-million Nelson Mandela Foundation House was built a short distance away.

Sundowns president Patrice Motsepe has contributed R50 000 to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) towards the Disaster Fund set up to help families of the victims of last week's bus tragedy on May Day. More than 60 workers attending a May Day rally drowned when their bus took a wrong turn in QwaQwa and plunged into a dam. Only 10 people survived the tragedy that has shocked the entire nation.

The Kenyan people provided to the African continent and the world an example of peaceful, democratic transition when President Mwai Kibaki, who will open the IPI World Congress in Nairobi, Kenya (1 to 4 June 2003), won a landslide victory in the December 2002 general elections. As Kenya turns a new page, prominent politicians, experts, and leading members of the world's media community will gather in Nairobi to discuss current issues related to the challenges facing Africa and the world, including a very timely subject, "Reporting on Regions of Conflict". In this session, panelists will discuss, amongst other things, recent experiences in Iraq, where news organisations had in place both journalists "embedded" with U.S. and British troops and free roaming or "unilateral" reporters who operated under very different circumstances.

Journalists, webmasters, and students who have been jailed by their governments for simply expressing their views via the Internet should be freed immediately, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch marked World Press Freedom Day, Saturday, May 3, by launching an online campaign to profile Internet dissidents, and to encourage the international community to pressure governments for their release.

ARTICLE 19 released on the eve of World Press Freedom Day a campaign pack on defamation and insult laws in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. This pack is the result of ongoing research that is examining the way defamation or insult suits against journalists have been used in a number of cases brought by public officials/figures. The pack has been designed an developed for Article 19 by Fahamu.

With 54 journalists killed in 2002 and 23 journalists killed since the start of this year, 14 of them during the war in Iraq, the need for increased safety for the media has never been more urgent. According to IPI's statistics, since 1997, 352 journalists have been killed at the rate of nearly 5 per month, many of them in the most appalling of circumstances. In breaking down the total figure for deaths from 1 January 1997 to 19 April 2003, 43 journalists were killed in Africa, 109 in the Americas, 76 in Asia, 85 in Europe, and 39 in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Country Director is required to have a master's degree in International Relations, Public Policy or related field with a minimum of five years of international management experience; or a bachelor's degree with a minimum of seven years of international management experience. Experience in Nigeria preferred – the Director should have excellent knowledge of Nigeria and a realistic view of the economic, social and political conditions in country, not only their effect on the development of reformed election systems, civil society and local governance issues, but also on practical daily living in country.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, which unites leading NGOs working on this issue, is seeking candidates for the position of Great Lakes Regional Coordinator, with significant project management and capacity building experience.

NDI seeks a short-term Political Party Advisor in Mozambique. The political party development program provides support to parliamentary parties, focusing particular attention on equipping political parties with skills and techniques that will enable them to participate effectively in the upcoming local elections scheduled for October 2003.

In the developed world, telemedicine has been criticised as a cost-cutting device that leads to a depersonalised approach to healthcare. It has also been criticised in the developing world as an expensive, high-bandwidth overkill approach that focuses attention away from real problems and sucks up scarce resources. But at a hospital in South Africa telemedicine has proved to be more of a hands-on approach to patient care.

“Not since Pablo Neruda have I encountered a poet who better evidences the heart’s full range. In these lovely lyrics, nothing is ever diminished. These poems, like life itself, show us how we can deepen and reconceive, love, and fail–how we can struggle against “poisoned language” and disfiguring institutions. Some of the poems are so poignant that the heart grows overmuch; others, like the brilliant sonnet sequence, “Madiba,” confirms why we so need poetry in our troubled age. In its music, wisdom, and dazzling exploration of human interiority, Madiba joins that small group of extraordinary books that teach us how to be worthy of our dreams.” –Kenneth A. McClane, W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature, Cornell University

This book by Patrick Chabal, first published in 1983 by Cambridge University Press, and now issued for the first time in paperback with a new preface, tells the story of Amilcar Cabral who, as head of the PAIGC, Guinea-Bissau’s nationalist movement, became one of Africa’s foremost revolutionary leaders.

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) of governments in Southern Africa generally do not consider the long-term socio-economic implications of child poverty, according to the author of a review of PRSPs from the region. The review, "Children First In The Poverty Battle", commissioned by Save the Children Sweden and compiled by Shirley Robinson, critiques the PRSPs of five countries in relation to their focus on child poverty and child rights.