The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act was an unacceptable piece of legislation, a meeting of the National Journalists and Media Workers Meeting jointly organised by the Media Institute of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Foreign Correspondents Association, Federation of African Media Women in Zimbabwe, The Media Monitoring Project and the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe has resolved.

Deputy-president Jacob Zuma has met with the Treatment Action Campaign leadership, the second positive indication in less than a week that Government was grappling with providing anti-retrovirals in the public sector. In a significant move, Zuma and director-general for health Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba met with the TAC representatives led by national chairperson Zackie Achmat and national secretary Mark Heywood at Tuynhuys last Tuesday night.

Ethiopia has reacted strongly to United Nations assertions that the security of peacekeepers stationed in the region has been seriously threatened by Ethiopian villagers and militia. Officials were angry about reports earlier this month that UN troops overseeing the ceasefire that ended a 30-month territorial war were threatened by armed villagers and militia along the disputed border with Eritrea.

French troops last Sunday created a buffer zone stretching through the centre of Ivory Coast to secure a fragile ceasefire in a month-long uprising that has left rebels in control of half the west African nation.

Recent developments in the long process towards peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should provide an opportunity for a determined effort by the international community to involve itself to bring to an end one of the most murderous wars on the African continent, says a civil society statement on the DRC distributed by lobby group Africa Action.

Early results of a study on conservation and community conflict by the Jane Goodall Institute indicate that conflicts between local communities and conservation authorities ensue over land rights and ownership, competition between livestock and wildlife for water, access to forest resources, the struggle over crop raiding by ecotourism species, misunderstandings about conservation project purpose and methods, and other mistaken assumptions. Preliminary findings present a strong case for increasing attention to deep-rooted conflicts through use of reconciliation techniques and standardizing meaningful integration of communities' and conservation's agendas.

The Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University has released a report on an expert workshop it held in December 2001 to discuss human rights NGO capacity building. The report includes principles and assumptions guiding human rights capacity building work, critical issues in program design and implementation, and examines questions related to hierarchy and power dynamics the emerge in the context of capacity building.

The Zimbabwe government has banned Oxfam and Save the Children from distributing urgently needed food aid, United Nations officials confirmed this week. Despite reports that people are dying of starvation, President Robert Mugabe's government has refused to allow the two charities to deliver food supplied by the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

Cooperation by large and small development groups to overcome River Blindness disease has improved health and expanded agricultural land throughout Africa, and constitutes one of many development success stories.

An internal report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has found that nearly $1bn disappeared from Angolan Government finances last year. The sum is far greater than the value of humanitarian assistance sent to the country this year and the report adds that over the past five years a total of over $4bn are unaccounted for.

A concerned mother took southern Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III of Swaziland, to court this week, challenging the selection of her daughter as his bride. Lindiwe Dlamini told the Mbabane High Court on Tuesday her daughter, Zena Soraya Mahlangu (18) was abducted by two men employed by the king of Swaziland, a small kingdom landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique.

The Youth League of the Botswana National Front - the left of centre main opposition party in Botswana - has issued a press statement condemning the treatment of the Gana and Gwi 'Bushmen' from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).

The UN Human Rights Committee this week began its examination of the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Togo. In its alternative country report entitled "Violence against Women in Togo", which has been submitted to the Committee, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has expressed its grave concern at the widespread violence against women in the private and community spheres as well as at the hands of state officials.

Why do racial, religious, ethnic and national identities have such purchase on the lives of so many people, and why are they still at the centre of so many major conflicts at the beginning of the twenty-first century? What form is racism taking amidst the inequalities, refugees and mass migrations of today's global capitalism? How does the American state - as both the manager of the world capitalist order and as the embodiment of an all-too-often chauvinist national identity - fit into the picture of 'Fighting Identities'? What is the role of the scientist and the intellectual today in relation to racism, oppression and 'fighting identities'? Can the Left - from the anti-globalisation movement to new working class parties - develop structures and strategies to support the legitimate aspirations and demands associated with these identities, and integrate them in struggles against the global capitalist order?

Discovering oil in West Africa has been a bonanza for western companies. But can billions of barrels help one of the world's most destitute regions out of poverty? The sleepy tropical island city of Malabo had hardly changed in years. The capital of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation of fewer than 500,000 people, consisted of little more than some moldering Spanish colonial buildings, a few palm-lined plazas and the tightly packed shanty towns which encircle most African settlements. But over the past three years, Malabo has been transformed. Office buildings have shot up, hotels and banks have opened, and foreigners - once a novelty in Malabo - now cram the town's fancy new restaurants. There's so much construction, joke the locals, that if you open your mouth and stick out your tongue someone is likely to build on it. The source of this economic boom can be found buried beneath the nearby ocean floor.

Ethiopian youth, with the sponsorship of UNICEF, on Thursday launched the nation's first HIV/AIDS forum for teenagers.

Privatisation of water services is virtually compulsory for  developing countries: both the World Bank and the IMF impose  it as a precondition for funding assistance. The privatised  water sector world-wide is dominated by a handful of multinational companies. They are not interested in serving the  poorest people, who are not seen as profitable customers.  Water services are becoming the privilege of those who can  pay high prices. 

Discussion list run by the Gender, Research and Training  (GREAT) unit of the School of Development Studies at the  University of East Anglia, UK, which "aims to bridge divides  between gender and development researchers, practitioners  and individuals at dispersed locations." Much of the  discussion is relevant to gender, agriculture and rural  development.

Seeking to address the disproportionate impact of violent conflict on women and girls, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has submitted a series of concrete proposals aimed at protecting their rights to the Security Council for adoption.

Leading international non-profit organization with income-generation mission seeks Program Officer to develop and monitor small-scale irrigated horticulture, oilseed production and processing, tree crops, household energy, village water supply, and village electrification activities in West Africa.

In the absence of a minimum level of equity, no society is ever possible and nor, of course, is a public space. Instead a hotbed of potential conflict develops. Can the media contribute to defuse this? On what conditions? The Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) and the African Institute of Political Geography (AFRIPOG) are organising a conference on: The Media and Conflict Management in West Africa.

Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade announced the dismissal of Latif Gueye, a Senegalese citizen and head of the humanitarian organisation Africa Helps Africa, on national television, accusing him of committing "extremely serious errors" for his alleged role in trafficking AIDS drugs that were meant for Africa but were sold in Europe.

Ogen John Kevin Aliro of the banned Ugandan independent daily The Monitor reports on the end of the state's siege of the paper. The paper returned to the streets on October 18, but only at high cost to the paper's freedoms and leaving the threat of jail and enforced dismissal hanging over its journalists.

It's not really surprising that many nonprofit organizations aren't doing everything they should to keep their computer systems secure. Technology can be quite complicated and intimidating, and even in a strong economy many nonprofit organizations can't afford the expense.

The Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has said the on-going teachers' strike would only stop when teachers are granted better pay and working conditions. The union said the strike would go "a gear up" this week. Takavafira Zhou, the PTUZ president, said neither the arrests, torture and incarceration of the union's leaders nor the dismissal of some teachers in Harare and Bulawayo would intimidate striking teachers from pressing their "legitimate demands."

Over 400 illegal immigrants, most of them Angolan nationals, appeared before an Immigration Tribunal at Ohangwena in the North last Friday. The tribunal, chaired by Namibian Police Commissioner Sebastian Ndeitunga, granted immigration officials the authority to deport them to their countries of origin.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in conjunction with Save the Children-Sweden and other partners, has concluded plans to assist vulnerable children affected by the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, UNICEF reported last Wednesday.

Madagascar dissolved its parliament last Wednesday ahead of parliamentary elections set for 15 December, almost exactly a year after a disputed presidential election which plunged the country into a violent power struggle.

Zambian subsistence farmers are reporting successes with conservation farming which advocates new methods of maximising crops in areas with low rainfall and difficult conditions.

Thousands of civilians continue to flee from the town of Uvira, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), after a rebel group recaptured it on Saturday from pro-government Mayi-Mayi forces.

The US on Monday dismissed allegations it had tried to overthrow the government of Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki. Last Friday, the Eritrean government reacted strongly to a statement by the State Department last week accusing it of human rights violations.

When Marita Barassa's husband died in 1990, she knew he had died of an AIDS-related illness. She also knew she was HIV-positive herself. So when his family announced that a cousin would inherit her as his wife, she realised she had to make a choice.

Human rights workers should be globally feted and supported. Instead, however, they are chronically underfunded, goaded to justify every detail of their work, and threatened with dire harm. For these reasons, human rights work requires free software.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) embodies a united vision of a continent on the move, at a time of unprecedented international interest in proposals to move the world's least developed region forward.

“I would like to pledge my support in raising the funds and resources necessary … to place your sculpture at the South Africa Nobel Laureates Peace Memorial.” These were the words of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu when he performed the symbolical unveiling of the statue the angel of the Marquette of the Spirit of Africa in Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Allan Kaplan presents a radically new approach to the understanding of organisations and communities, and to the practice of social development. His approach eschews the conventional instrumental or technicist way in favour of a methodology which embraces the full complexity and ambiguity of social transformation.

As the cotton industry limps back to life in Kenya, experts are warning that only a concerted effort by all stakeholders would see farmers reap benefits once again and help sustain the industry. Ever since the industry hit the ground and many ginneries closed shop in the western Kenyan cotton belt of Nyanza, farmers who had lost hope are slowly streaming back.

Kenya's opposition alliance have named a 71-year old former vice president as their candidate for presidential elections expected in December. Mwai Kibaki, the official leader of the opposition in parliament, will be the candidate for an alliance of more than 12 parties known as the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc).

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned that a severe funding crisis could force the agency to halt a number of its operations unless donor governments provide immediate funding.

"There is effectively a state of anarchy reigning in the diamond fields of Mbuji-Mayi," said Amnesty International, as it launched a new report, entitled 'Democratic Republic of Congo: Making a Killing', about the diamond industry in government-controlled DRC. "Unarmed civilians, including children, are regularly being killed in cold blood, but no-one is ever brought to justice for these killings and nothing is being done to end the killings."

Advocacy is an important part of development programming, and NGOs in the South and East are increasingly looking to develop their advocacy strategies and capacity. This course is designed for the staff of Northern NGOs working in programme management and support (desk or field) and in policy departments.

The Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operative (MUSCO) has blamed Government for the stunted economic growth in the country.

While the food shortage in Zimbabwe attracts major international attention, the internal displacement situation unfortunately remains poorly documented, says the Global IDP Project in its October review of the country.

The National Lotteries Board failed to pitch up for a debate on Social Service Financing organised by the Greater Johannesburg Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum. Speakers attended the debate from the Ministry of Social Development, National Development Agency, and Nedcor. The National Lotteries Board sent a letter/speech, which the attendants refused to read out.

The Manguang-University of the Free State Community Partnership Programme is a collaborative effort started 10 years ago by community members, the University of the Free State, the Kellogg Foundation and the Irish government.The programme offers holistic assistance to poor communities, ranging from health and welfare to skills development and training. It also runs baking, farming, sewing, knitting, dairy, indigenous foods and fishing projects and helps about 80 000 people a year.

GHACEM Limited has stated its corporate willingness to assist develop the media to a point where it can truly and vigorously hold the nation's politicians and all other citizens accountable for their actions.This was made known by Mr. George Dawson-Ahmoah, marketing director of Ghacem, when he handed over a free allocation of 500 bags of cement to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in Accra last Friday.

"This 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 Higher Education links activity. These GAD projects can also be used to supplement existing main link activities, for example the wider dissemination of outputs that illustrate a gender dimension of a project".

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives has accused developed nations of encouraging multinational corporations operating in Africa and other third world countries to offer bribes to win contracts in strategic sectors of the economy.

There is growing concern over the disproportionate increase in the number of women living with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  A paper by the Women Empowerment and Reproductive Rights Centre (WERRC) critically examines factors that promote the vulnerability of women to HIV infection under the patriarchal system in Africa, with a focus on Nigeria.