The remains of what is thought to be the oldest settled agricultural community in Africa have been discovered on the outskirts of the Eritrean capital, Asmara. Experts say the sites are of "global importance", and believe they could change the way the history of the Horn of Africa is viewed.

Britain's Secretary of State for International Development Ms Clare Short has again alleged that the controversial purchase of a $40 million air traffic control system for Tanzania was not transparent. Speaking in the House of Commons last week, Ms Short said that it was right for Britain to have withheld part of its aid commitment to Tanzania for this year because of the deal.

Southern Sudanese hopes of attaining their own independent state have suffered two setbacks within a matter of days. In his report on Sudan, U.S. special envoy John Danforth dismisses the option of secession, enshrined in the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Declaration of Principles. These seven brief proposals, agreed in 1994, have formed the basis of subsequent peace negotiations aimed at ending Sudan's decades-old civil war. Instead, Danforth argues that it is more ''feasible'' and ''preferable'' for Sudan to remain one country, with southern Sudanese living under a government that respects their religion and culture. Samson Kwaje, spokesperson for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), says he is unhappy with Danforth's conclusions.

The world's richest countries failed last year to meet their commitments to reducing poverty, a new report says. The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that represents the 29 most industrialised countries reveals a 2.3 billion dollar drop in aid from member countries last year from the year 2000.

Royal Dutch Shell, the British-based oil giant, have insisted that it was not aware its aviation fuel was being supplied to Sudanese combat aircraft one year after its chairman publicly pledged that the company would "take steps to ensure" that such supplies were cut off.

Critical teacher shortages could cripple education in South Africa, the World Bank, teachers' unions and opposition parties have warned.

A landmark agreement to provide the at least 32,000 government schools countrywide with free access to computer software was signed between government and computer giant Microsoft, in Cape Town, today.

About two thirds of all couples around the world - or some 650 million people - use some form of contraception, according to new statistics released by the United Nations. Worldwide, 62 per cent of the more than 1 billion married or 'in-union' women of reproductive age are using contraception, but there are great variations among regions. In Africa, only 25 per cent of married women use contraception, while in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean that figure is between 66 and 69 per cent. These statistics are featured on a new wall chart entitled "World Contraceptive Use 2001," issued by the UN Population Division as part of its ongoing monitoring of world use of family planning.

In Dot Org Media's 7th Issue, the focus is on listservs: Sometimes known as e-mail lists or e-mail discussion lists, Listservs are powerful tools for collaboration, idea sharing, networking and community building. Learn more in this excellent article which provides some great resources.

At the meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Task Force proposed 3 initiatives to be piloted in Ghana.

Pleas by the Eastern Cape Hark project for donations did not fall on deaf ears and it received a boost of R15 000 for its community outreach programmes. The project has been funded by Standard Bank and offers hearing screening, diagnostic testing, hearing aid fitting, evaluations, counselling, school placement and parent training for care givers of hearing impaired children.

Japan has pledged more than US $26 million for a major road construction project in Ethiopia. The project will spur economic development and help reduce poverty in the area.The project is expected to be completed within three years.

The Labour Department has committed R62 million over the next five years to the Thuthuka skills project to improve the quality and teaching of mathematics and accountancy.

The EC has allocated 2.6 million euros (about US $2.3 million) to support peace initiatives in Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia under its Rapid Reaction Mechanism (RRM).

South African women held a conference to assess conditions after the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), which was held in Durban from 31 August to 7 September, last year. They also assessed preparations for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)to be held in Johannesburg from 26 August to 4 September.

A union representing the
rights of self employed women
hosted its first Mpumalanga
conference this week.The
objective of the union was primarily to build unity and self-empowerment amongst women whose work was not officially recognised in the formal sector.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance announced plans for a three-day protest against Western Cape premier Peter Marais, who has come under fire for his views on homosexuals.

Reporters Sans Frontieres and the association of independent press editors in Niger, ANEPI, have called for the release from detention of three media bosses accused of defamation by government officials. Publisher Abarad Mouddour of La Roue de l'histoire, and the private weekly's owner, Sanoussi Jackou, were arrested on 18 May after being accused of defamation by Niger's minister of trade, Seini Oumarou. Sanoussi also heads an opposition party. The third detainee, Abdoulaye Tiemogo, was arrested on 17 May, one week after conducting a radio show on the private Tambara FM. His guest, Jackou, had accused Prime Minister Hama Amadou of ethnic and regional bias in the nomination of high-ranking government officials, media sources said.

The SABC has outlined a plan to create a R1.5 million multimedia communications and information hub for the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, which takes place in Gauteng in August. As the official broadcaster for the event, the SABC has designed an information hub that will produce TV, radio, Internet and SMS news and information for delegates to the summit.

This site was set up as a response to a call for a debate concerning setting up an African Network of those working on truth, justice and reconciliation issues in Africa. With discussion papers, message board and discussion lists.

The POLICY project is seeking an individual that will have primary responsibility for providing expertise in economic and financial evaluation and promoting innovative evidence-based policy interventions in planning and finance in the area of reproductive health. The candidate should have experience in the areas of family planning, contraceptive security, and/or safe motherhood. In addition s/he will be expected to spend approximately 10 percent of time on HIV/AIDS related issues. The selected individual will be an employee of RTI International, but will be located in The Futures Group International Office in Washington, DC and will work closely with Planning and Finance Team members on the POLICY project.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has recently launched an online Africa ICT Policy Monitor website aimed at providing a central easy-to-use, linked, African regional website containing essential national and regional ICT policy information for communication advocates to promote and use the right to communicate, and for civil society and especially to understand Internet Rights issues. The website is aimed at civil society organizations, NGOs, communications advocacy organisations, human rights workers, and civil society content providers. We believe that the service will also be of benefit to mainstream and alternative media, politicians, ICT policy makers, Internet users, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and the community radio sector.

At least 5,000 people have been trapped since 31 March in the town of Kindamba, in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo (ROC), and the Congolese government has not yet granted the international community access to assess humanitarian needs there, the office of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator reported on Monday.

The Legal Resources Foundation have published this information in light of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [Chapter 10:27] is now in operation. If you are a citizen of Zimbabwe or lawfully resident in this country, you have a right to examine, and to obtain copies of, certain documents and information kept or controlled by "public bodies".

This is a consolidated Land Aquisition Act which takes into account the amendments passed by Parliament and Gazetted on Friday 10th May 2002, with immediate effect. [Acts 3/1992, 15/2000(1), 14/2001(2), 6/2002(3). This consolidated Act states the law as from 10th May 2002.] An act to empower the President and other authorities to acquire land and other immovable property compulsorily in certain circumstances; to make special provision for the compensation payable for agricultural land required for resettlement purposes; to provide for the establishment of the Derelict Land Board; to provide for the declaration and acquisition of derelict land; and to provide for matters connected with or incidental to the foregoing. Download the Land Acquisition Act from the www.kubatana.net web site.

The government has created a potentially explosive situation by inviting two labour umbrella bodies to accompany its delegation to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) annual conference in Geneva next month. In the past it has invited only the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to represent the workers, and the Zimbabwe Confederation of Employers (ECZ), the employers. This time, for the ILO conference from 2-20 June, the government has invited its own creation, the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), one of whose top officials is the high-profile war veterans leader and chief of municipal police, Joseph Chinotimba.

Our THURSDAY DISCUSSION SERIES has been very badly affected by gossip or innuendo that suggests that The Book Cafe has been "banned" etc.. etc.. The truth is sadly that political discussions are now regarded under the new law as "public gatherings" requiring ZRP permission. We have resolved to continue because a 5-year tradition of free and open democratic discussion is too important to abandon, at probably the most critical juncture. Where discussions have a political content we will obtain permission. Otherwise we continue as normal. We have taken all reasonable steps to protect ourselves and our patrons from any trouble. We are perfectly aware that the new law represents, in practice, a form of suppression of freedoms of speech and assembly. We hope that you may share our conviction that democacy is an elusive right unless it is practiced. That there is NO option BUT to continue to exercise the right of a community to discuss matters which concern their lives, even under exceptionally difficult circumstances.

Southern Africa Institute of Fundraising announces a three-day training course in "Resource Mobilisation and Fundraising Development" to develop skills and competency as well as to acquire a recognised qualification. For more information and Bookings - Contact Noeleen Mullett at 011 794 5224.

Libya and Sudan, two of the seven countries on a US list of designated "state sponsors of terrorism," came closest to meeting Washington’s demands for co-operation after the 11 September attacks on the United States, the State Department said in a report released this week. The annual report "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001" - bigger than ever at 179 pages - says 2001 was the deadliest year for terrorist attacks because of the 3,000 people killed by suicide hijackers in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

A Survey of Civil Society Organisations Worldwide by Civicus.

Despite many apparently positive signs, however, there is no evidence of improved income shares for developing country exporters. In fact, some new research (discussed in the latest Trade and Development Report 2002 (TDR) produced by UNCTAD) suggests that product diversification in itself ensures neither more dynamic exports nor even higher incomes from such activities. The report argues that while the share of developing countries in world manufacturing exports, including those of rapidly growing high-tech products, has been expanding rapidly, the income earned from such activities does not appear to share in this dynamism.

Traditional medicine is becoming more popular in the north and up to 80% of people in the south use it as part of primary health care. The situation has given rise to concerns among health practitioners and consumers on the issue of safety, above all, but also on questions of policy, regulation, evidence, biodiversity and preservation and protection of traditional knowledge. The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a global plan to address those issues. The strategy provides a framework for policy to assist countries to regulate traditional or complementary/alternative medicine (TM/CAM) to make its use safer, more accessible to their populations and sustainable.

In his first major policy address on expectations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held this August, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity as five key areas where concrete results can and must be obtained. By concentrating on these five areas, the Secretary-General said, in a speech delivered by his wife Nane Annan at the American Museum of Natural History, the Summit could produce an ambitious but achievable programme of practical steps to improve the lives of all human beings while protecting the global environment.

An educational seminar entitled Democracy, Earth Rights and Ecotaxation was held in Dakar, Senegal on March 7, 2002. The seminar was an opportunity to consider how land rights ethics and taxation policy can work together to support green initiatives, policies and agendas.

When Mercy Makhalemele's husband died of HIV/AIDS seven years ago her home was taken away after the insurance company refused to pay out his life cover. "At the time, I decided not to fight it because I had too many things to deal with," she told PlusNews. As the executive director of a local community organisation, Makhalemele has been working with members to create a burial scheme for people with HIV/AIDS. Through her work, Makhalemele said she has encountered people who have been treated with injustice and a lack of respect, because of their status.

The acronyms littered on walls and signposts bear testimony to the work NGOs and UN agencies have been doing to help make life livable for refugees in southern Guinea. From medical centres to latrines, from canteens to technical schools, most essential services were initiated by the humanitarian community. But the people spearheading the fight against drugs in Kountaya, one of the refugee camps in Albadaria, southern Guinea, are neither NGO officials nor UN staffers. Their Community Action Against Drug Abuse (CAADA), is an association formed by refugees themselves.

Genocide suspect Ferdinand Nahimana led one of the 'public salvation committees' formed to purge ethnic Tutsi from Rwandan educational institutions in the 1970's, Alison Des Forges, a Rwandan historian and Human Rights Watch advisor, yesterday told judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Evaluations of sexually transmitted infection (STI) programmes often ignore the series of hurdles that patients have to overcome before they are cured. So they tend to overestimate cure rates. Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the National Institute for Medical Research and the African Medical and Research Foundation, Tanzania, attempted a more accurate estimate of STI programme success in Mwanza Region, Tanzania.

Our current knowledge about risk factors for poor birth outcomes is based almost exclusively on hospital data. How relevant are these findings in developing countries where most babies are born at home? A study by the UK University of Southampton examines factors linked to premature births, underweight babies and Caesarean section deliveries in Kenya.

id21 needs a dynamic communicator with knowledge of health issues and international development. Excellent writing and editorial skills essential, plus relevant academic or equivalent experience. Full-time post initially for one year but with the possibility of extension. Closing date: 29 May. Interview date: 11 June. For further information contact Personnel
.

The Chief Judge (CJ) of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Mohammed Saleh, has called on area court judges to shun corruption, abuse of power and other acts of indiscipline. Saleh, who said the judges must appreciate their nearness to the grassroots, spoke in Abuja at the opening session of a five-day national workshop for area and Sharia court judges, organised by the National Judicial Institute (NJI).

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a special report today calling on the government of Mozambique to step up its inquiry into the killing of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso. The report, "The Murder of Carlos Cardoso," was written by CPJ Africa program coordinator Yves Sorokobi and is based on new interviews and extensive research conducted by a CPJ delegation that visited Mozambique last year.

Six NGOs yesterday appealed to President Moi not to give assent to the controversial media law. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, Shelter Forum, Kituo cha
Sheria, Intermediate Technology Development Group, Basic Rights Campaign
and Chemi Chemi ya Ukweli said they had publications on community
development which they would find difficult publishing should the new law be approved.

We the participants of the Conference on Community Rights held at The Valley Trust, 1000 Hills, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, between 1 - 8 March 2002, who came from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe, discussed the rights of local communities, and make the following declaration:

1. Human beings are an integral part of the community of life on Earth. Human well-being is derived from and depends on the health of this community. Accordingly, we must ensure that human actions do not destroy the web of mutually enhancing relationships that create the earth community.

2. The human species is social and the individual cannot live a solitary existence. We, therefore, believe that the local community is essential for the survival of the human species, and local communities create and use knowledge in partnership with other life forms to meet society's basic needs of food, health, clothing and shelter.

3. The Industrial system has alienated us from the rest of the earth community and is increasingly privatizing biological, land and water resources. This privatization is destroying rural local communities and their natural resource base.

4. Many local communities have maintained an intimate relationship with the ecosystems on which they depend and have shared timeless connectedness with all life. It is, therefore, fitting that the local community is humanity's best manager of land, water and biodiversity. Privatisation and so-called free trade destroy this connectedness. By allowing the destruction of our local communities, we condemn other living organisms to accelerating extinction and further impoverish local communities.

5. The most potent instrument in this destruction is the patenting of living organisms. The Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes the rights of local communities and their role in generating agricultural bioodiversity out of wildland biodiversity. Yet corporations are patenting living things and increasingly controlling agricultural production systems. We condemn this act as violence both to humans and to other living things.

6. The rights of Local Communities are being threatened by genetic engineering of crops - a dangerous technology that comes with corporate control, dependence on external inputs, and the undermining of regenerative systems of agriculture and sustainable use of biodiversity. We oppose the introduction of genetically modified organisms in agriculture and the increasing corporate control over Africa's agriculture and biodiversity.

7. The world adopted the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the precautionary principle. Because of genetic engineering's negative effects we are concerned about the pollution of food and agriculture through genetic engineering and the way the biotechnology industry inevitably pursues its interests at the expense of the public good. This has led to the disastrous adventurism in Mexico, where the immensely valuable diversity of maize, developed by local communities over thousands of years, has been polluted with unintended genes from genetically engineered maize, some of which have not even been approved for human consumption. The food-base of the world's communities must be protected from such adventurism. We call upon all governments to provide this protection.

8. Local communities have the inalienable right and responsibility to nurture, manage, exchange and further improve the biodiversity on which their livelihoods are based - for the benefit of themselves, ecosystems and of future generations. This is the basis of community rights, which cannot be made subservient to any other right or responsibility, and includes the right to life, food, land, water, healthy environment and a decent livelihood.

9. Community rights over biodiversity and indigenous knowledge are collective in nature, and therefore cannot be privatised or individualised. Current systems of intellectual property rights applied to biodiversity and traditional knowledge are private and monopolistic in nature and therefore incompatible with community rights.

10. In that context, the initiative of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to develop systems for the protection of traditional knowledge is highly inappropriate. WIPO should work to stop biopiracy that occurs because of biodiversity patents, and not to define the rights of communities which should be done by the communities themselves.

11. Access to water is a natural and fundamental right. It is not to be treated as a commodity traded for profit. People should have the right to freedom from thirst and should have adequate access to safe water for their needs.

12. We call on the global community to urge governments to acknowledge the community rights to land, water and biodiversity, protect them globally and initiate internationally legally binding frameworks for such protection.

13. Communities over millennia evolved equitable and sustainable ways of gathering, producing and sharing food based on cooperation and partnership, to meet their food needs. The present thrust towards corporatization of food production and distribution systems threatens the co-operative nature of communities, jeopardizes their ability to meet their food needs through culturally appropriate and equitable ways and thus destroys their sovereign right to food security.

14. The African Model Law for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources has been endorsed by the OAU Summit of Heads of State and Government in May 1998 in Ouagadougou and re-endorsed in July 2001 in Lusaka. It represents the African position on the protection of local community rights, farmers and breeders' rights and the regulation of access to biological resources. We support this position and strongly urge all African governments to take steps to implement it at the national level.

15. We, therefore, urge the global community to support the implementation of the African Model Law for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources and desist from any activities or policies that directly or indirectly undermine its adoption and operation by African countries.

Dated this 7th Day of March, 2002.

The Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC) has submitted its preliminary report to President Olusegun Obasanjo with a strong recommendation for compensation to be paid to victims of human rights violations as a way of achieving genuine reconciliation.

Zimbabwe’s ruling elite, including the two vice presidents and relatives of President Robert Mugabe, has taken over most of the top commercial farms under the government’s fast-track land reforms, it was established this week.A list compiled from the government’s own advertisements in the state media and reports from commercial farmers shows that among those who have benefited from the model A2 scheme meant to create the new commercial farmer are Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, army commander Constantine Chiwenga, director of prisons Paradzayi Zimondi and even broadcaster Reuben Barwe.

There was a steady build-up of soldiers in two of Madagascar's provincial towns on Thursday as president Marc Ravalomanana reiterated his intention to take military action if the blockade of the capital, Antananarivo, was not dismantled within four days. Aid agencies told IRIN that the southern town of Tulear, and Mahajanga in the north were "extremely tense" as armed forces seem to prepare for what is expected to be a crucial showdown between Ravalomanana's men and backers of former president Didier Ratsiraka.

Controversial German businessman Jurgen Harksen on Thursday unleashed a political storm with a claim that he bankrolled the Democratic Alliance to the tune of more than a million rand. In a morning of dramatic testimony to the Desai Commission, Harksen gave evidence that DA leader Tony Leon was aware of at least one of the donations.

Some 25,000 refugees living in Djibouti are at risk of malnutrition, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday. It said supplies for the refuges were "rapidly running out" and appealed for an emergency 8,000 mt of food to deal with the crisis.