The Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Mary Ann Wyrsch concluded on Thursday a two-day assessment visit on the general refugee situation in Liberia and expressed concern over the increasing number of refugees in the country as a result of the conflict in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire.

Zimbabwe's main civic groups have backed the blistering attack on President Thabo Mbeki by Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader, saying they were all frustrated by Mbeki's timidity in dealing with President Robert Mugabe. They spoke after Tsvangirai expressed his frustration with Mbeki to diplomats on Thursday, telling them that Mbeki was denying the existence of tragic circumstances in Zimbabwe and cheered Mugabe in the name of "a dubious African brotherhood".
Related Links:
* France defies UK over Mugabe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2688005.stm
* Mugabe’s grip tightens
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=37&o=14877

The United States last Friday signed a deal with Djibouti that gives US troops in the Horn of Africa country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A new report from Minority Rights Group International (MRG) expresses serious concern over the treatment of minority communities in Namibia who remain disadvantaged, marginalized and at risk in a country of extreme disparities in wealth, high unemployment and dangerous levels of rural poverty. MRG's report highlights the detrimental affects of development policies which fail to consult minority groups or consider the impact on their lives and means of livelihood.

The pursuit of voluntary principles or guidelines regarding companies' responsibilities and obligations in the human rights field should be complemented by the development of a binding instrument guaranteeing the cessation and non-repetition of a violation. This is the view of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) with regards the drafting of the 'Norms of Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights' by a UN sub-commission.

America's top trade official, Robert Zoellick, went to Africa to preach the new gospel. Free trade is good for your economies, he told representatives of 31 countries assembled in Mauritius to mark the second anniversary of the US African growth and opportunity act, a regional trade pact allowing them special access to America's markets. Africa would "benefit greatly" from reducing or even eliminating subsidies and other barriers to trade, Mr Zoellick told the meeting. Pity then, that the message doesn't seem to have got through to America's farmers - who received an 10% increase in subsidies last year - or for that matter the American steel industry, which George Bush protected from foreign competition with punitive tariffs on imports.

Former vice-president and defeated presidential aspirant of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Alex Ekwueme, has called on all Nigerians across political divides to join hands in confronting the PDP.

Scores of township schools are facing closure or are standing empty despite widespread overcrowding of classrooms around South Africa. Hassan Lorgat, spokesman for the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, said pupils were leaving township schools because they thought schools in the suburbs offered better education and were less dangerous.

Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia are ironing out the details of an environmental initiative that aims to share natural resources and their management in the underdeveloped trans boundary region linking the three countries. The ZIMOZA trans boundary natural resources management initiative will see the participating regions of Luangwa in Zambia, Zumbo in Mozambique and Guruve in Zimbabwe combine efforts to develop the area by building schools, health centres, boreholes and other amenities.

The Ministry of Health, listed among the most corrupt institutions in the country, will ensure corrupt staff are sacked and prosecuted, the Minister, Charity Ngilu, has warned.

For the San people who live in the forests of Makhulela, about 120km west of Plumtree town in Bulilima District, the transition from abandoning their traditional life of hunting and gathering to that of cultivation and rearing livestock has left them trapped in a time-warp.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has expressed concern at a report, commissioned by the Department of Labour, that reveals that 36% of children in South Africa are involved in child labour, as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

With responsibility for Christian Aid's Burundi Programme, you will manage the staff and field office, develop Christian Aid's policy and programme, and contribute to the strategic planning of the wider team.

Save the Children has been successfully working in Angola since 1989 and our programme has brought widely recognised improvements to children's lives. Our work has included pioneering work in family tracing as well as nutrition, management of health systems and strengthening community social structures. As the Programme Director, you will be critical in leading the programme forward in a new direction in response to the changes in the context in Angola since the ceasefire in April 02 and subsequent cessation of civil war.

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa is a pan-African NGO that works towards the promotion and protection of human rights and development, through the implementation of African human rights treaties. The Institute will hold its Fifth Annual Workshop on Procedures of the African Regional Human Rights system. The workshop will give participants practical, concrete knowledge of how to use African human rights treaties and enforcement mechanisms in their work.

Today, in most African countries, only limited public health expenditures reach the poor. Decreasing social and health budgets, often inadequate and poor quality health services, as well as cultural problems, are major constraints for many poor to gain access to health care services. The main objective of this program is to increase knowledge on the monitoring and evaluation aspects of health micro-insurance schemes in Africa.

The ICASA conference is the forum where every 2 years, African Scientists, Health providers, social leaders, political leaders and communities come together to share experiences and updates on the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The next ICASA (13th ICASA) conference will be held in Nairobi Kenya from 21st - 26th September 2003. Abstracts are invited for presentation at the conference.

'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' (Pambazuka News 96, Section 12) is by the late Walter Rodney, not Patrick Wilmot, who is alive, living in London, and an editor of News Africa, according to their website. A new edition of Walter Rodney's ground-breaking work is available from East African Educational Publishers.

The prevailing political and economic cataclysms of Zimbabwe demand high priority action from the international community. Peace and security in the country is no longer a mere threat, but breeched in real terms, with dire implications internally and regionally if the atrocious human rights violations in the country are permitted to persist or escalate. The offensive politically motivated violence and blatant contempt for justice, law and order is the direct result of Robert Mugabe’s untenable governance policies.

For the first time since the end of the Angolan civil war, poverty is mapped in the country. New national statistics have shown that between 68 and 69 percent of Angolans live in poverty, although it is expected that real numbers could be even higher.

Young people in Zimbabwe have a lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, says a recent research article. In a country where roughly one-third of adults have HIV, the National AIDS Council (NAC) estimates that more than 50 percent of all newly-reported HIV infections are among people under age 18. Yet the country's young people are generally unaware of the risks of infection.

Marooned off Africa's western coast, the 150,000 people of São Tomé e Príncipe scrape a living from cocoa, fish, aid and tourism. But oil firms, sniffing with seismic ships, think billions of barrels may lie beneath the island-state's territorial waters. Oil could change everything in this former Portuguese colony. This week, for instance, the president, Fradique de Menezes, sacked a parliament that had been planning to curb some of his powers—including his power to negotiate oil deals. An election will be held in April.

The removal of gender discrimination and the promotion of gender equity remain central elements within the Higher Education Link scheme.  The Gender and Development (GAD) small projects fund supports projects that specifically target gender issues. These projects focus on gender and development and are intended to either add a gender dimension to an existing Higher Education Link or to stimulate interest in a gender area in a particular country to form the basis for future HE links activity.

For more than thirty-five years, Thomas W. Dichter has worked in the field of international development, managing and evaluating projects for nongovernmental organisations, directing a Peace Corps country program, and serving as a consultant for such agencies as USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. On the basis of this extensive and varied experience, he has become an outspoken critic of what he terms the "international poverty alleviation industry". He believes that efforts to reduce world poverty have been well-intentioned but largely ineffective. On the whole, the development industry has failed to serve the needs of the people it has sought to help.

US-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is planning to file a complaint with the SA Competition Commission against pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, in a bid to widen access to AIDS drugs. The attorney representing the foundation in SA, Musa Ntsibande of law firm Strauss Daly, said that the complaint would argue that Glaxo abused its dominant market position in contravention of the Competition Act, and was engaging in excessive pricing of its drugs to the detriment of the consumer.

Thirteen percent of the people in this south-east African country have HIV: approximately 1,100,000 people. Close to 500 people are newly infected each day. An entire generation of Mozambicans is in mortal danger. Médecins sans frontières (MSF) runs five HIV-identification projects in Mozambique. Starting this month (January), MSF will open a new service in the country: treatment with anti-retroviral therapies; medicines which, although not able to eradicate the virus, can prolong the lives of HIV+ people for many years by effectively suppressing it.

Since she fled her war-torn homeland more than 10 years ago, Somali refugee Zahara Mohamed Ali has learned a brutal lesson: "When you are a refugee, you become subject to all kinds of violence. You can always be mistreated."

Despite talk from WEF officials that this evidently exclusive organisation is moving towards openness and inclusion, African officials and NGOs here are complaining that the "elitist" gathering has failed them.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has expressed “deep concern” about increased questioning of the prohibition of the use of torture in countries that had previously vigorously upheld the absolute nature of this prohibition. This was now enabling the nations allied in the so-called "war against terror" to actively engage in the use of torture, either through their security services or those of states known to have poor human rights records.

Confronted with Western criticism (which, after all, reflects the public's desires and thus the success of these films in Europe), films by directors of African descent intrinsically have to prove their ‘Africanism’. Only then can they receive the holy unction, the recognition of their "authenticity", begins this article in the online version of CHIMURENGA, an arts, politics and culture magazine.

101.7 Mama FM, 'The Voice to Listen To' is the first radio station run by and for women in Africa, and one of three in the world. Mama FM is a community radio station aiming to address the plight of the underprivileged through developmental interactive communication and broadcasting gender sensitive educational programmes. Covering a radius of 400 km and 13 million people in Uganda, the station broadcasts in English, Kiswahili and local languages.

The first issue of the 2003 volume of Human Rights & Human Welfare is now online. It currently features three robust essays by Richard McIntyre, Paul J. Magnarella, and Todd Landman, covering some recently-acclaimed titles by Michael Ignatieff, Richard Falk, Patrick Hayden, and George F. DeMartino, among others.

Researchers in South Africa were astonished as rural youngsters quickly taught themselves how to operate their first computer without any formal instruction. Run by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and supported by the Department of Science and Technology, the project was designed to find out whether rural South African children had the cognitive skills to understand computers without any formal training.

Police picked up three journalists from the privately owned Monitor newspaper for questioning, in connection with a story the newspaper published in its October 18-21, 2002 edition. The story links Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa's brother, Harry Mwanawasa, to corruption.

A new variety of genetically superior eucalyptus trees has been introduced in Kenya, a move that could save Kenya's forests from further depletion. The trees are being introduced to rural farmers in an initiative spearheaded by the National Agriculture and Livestock Extension Program - an extension initiative funded by the Swedish International Development Agency.

Two SABC journalists were allegedly assaulted and held captive by teachers at a school near Lomanyaneng, North West Province. The two radio journalists, Ms Lexi Herholdt and Ms Nthabiseng Makhongoana told the South African chapter of MISA that they were investigating a story of a school principal who refused to give learners reports because of non-payments of school fees.

Two international news agencies, Reuters and Agence France Press, have obtained accreditation for their bureaux and news staff in Zimbabwe, after submitting the stipulated fees in US dollars to the Media and Information Commission. The American news agency Associated Press refused to do so and closed its bureau, although it retains two correspondents.

In the book 'The digital divide in developing countries: towards an information society in Africa' the editors have brought together a selection of articles centred around the changing communications landscape and the digital divide in Africa. Some authors point at the possibilities of ICTs for Africa to become part of the global information society. Others are warning for too optimistic scenarios and are arguing that the way to go is long, difficult and problematic. In general this book is presenting an overview of the different discourses and scenarios linked to the information society in Africa.

I think the Newsletter is a welcome and long overdue perspective on NGOs. My students in the "NGOs and Africa" course will love it. Thanks.

Dr. J. Ayo Langley
Department of African Studies, Howard University, Washington DC, United States

The three East African countries have developed an action plan to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing on Lake Victoria. Directors of fisheries from the three countries said they have established regular cross-border meetings involving fishermen, law enforcement agencies, fisheries officers and local authorities from both sides of the border.

The people of Ochigba community in Ahoada East Local Government, Rivers State, have staged a peaceful demonstration over the attitude of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to an oil spillage in the area two months ago.

The influx into Uganda of Rwandan refugees expelled from Tanzania continues unabated, breaking down the screening capacity at Uganda's border posts. Refugee rights' lawyers have called on the governments of Uganda and Tanzania to intervene to avert conflict between the refugees and locals who are increasingly competing for land.

By all appearances, migration has stepped up in the past two decades. Is it correct to say that migration is one of the problems of globalisation? What effect does this movement have on local economic growth? Does it contribute to sustainability in any way?

President Bush in his State of the Union address proposed spending $15 billion over the next five years to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, a plan which includes $10 billion in new money, the Boston Globe reports. Aids activists remain sceptical.

Commending the Congo for its frank acknowledgement of serious obstacles to gender equality, expert members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women also stressed the need for the Government to take concrete measures to eradicate the deeply entrenched traditional practices and customary laws that continued to subject women to unfair treatment.

Despite a 2002 power-sharing agreement between Congolese parties, serious fighting continues in Eastern Congo, particularly Kivu and Ituri Provinces, where the population is suffering enormously under an almost complete absence of international attention. Unless peace-building processes are crafted specifically for the East and made central to the transitional government’s program, the headlined political agreements and other peace accords that have been brokered will remain never implemented words on paper says a report from the International Crisis Group, which warns against Congolese elections until serious progress is made in the peace process.

The authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, have lifted the ban on two BBC reporters, according to a senior official in the region's commercial capital, Bosaso.

Liberia's Catholic Justice and Peace Commission on Wednesday reported that extensive instances of human rights abuses and violations including arbitrary arrests of civilians by government forces were committed in Liberia in 2002.

A section of women leaders in Kenya has accused members of the country's constitutional review team of trying to delay the review process "for personal gains" after commissioners called for the rewriting of the draft constitution.