Most claims of peace violations in the DRC are unfounded, UN secretary general's special envoy Amos Namanga Ngongi has said. Speaking at the official opening of the summit of signatories and heads of state to the ceasefire agreement, Ngongi said the UN had received more than 200 complaints of peace violations and had investigated most of them.

FOLLOWING incessant delays in the payment of government workers' salaries, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) is to probe all Federal ministries and parastatals in the country.

Rejected by the Commonwealth and abandoned by his peers, despised in his capital and banned from most of the developed world, it is just possible that President Mugabe, may now be starting to realise the price of victory in last month's disputed presidential poll.

In the last 50 years, most of humanity has been transformed into urban dwellers, more at home in the city than any other environment. But this rapid rush towards urbanization has brought with it a host of problems, including air pollution, the consequences of which we are just beginning to recognize.

The use of nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in South Africa has come under threat after reports last week of irregularities during trials of the drug in Uganda.

With its focus on stigma and discrimination, the Campaign will encourage people to break the silence and the barriers to effective HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Only by confronting stigma and discrimination will the fight against HIV/AIDS be won.

The aim of this 3rd World Congress is to discuss different issues related to the situation of rural women in a global context, sustainable development, gender and food safety, the impact of the new technologies, empowerment, public policies supporting rural women, etc. It is intended to encourage debate and considerations relating to the search for new alternatives and to exchange different experiences.

UNICEF has donated $2.2 million to support Ethiopian efforts to eradicate polio by 2005. The agency said that the country is entering the final stretch in its race to wipe the disease out.

A series of reports based on new maps covering nearly half of the world's forests concludes that vast areas of remaining intact or old growth and primary forests are being degraded as the result of unsustainable development practices.

With the State Department's announcement Tuesday that the U.S. government will sponsor an Indian scientist as the new chair of an international climate change group, the Bush administration took another swipe at efforts to understand and combat global warming. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri would replace Dr. Robert Watson, a widely respected American scientist who has warned of the human causes of climate change for almost six years.

On March 4 and 5, activists from the U.S. took International A.N.S.W.E.R.’s call for April 20 to be an International Day of Protest Against War & Racism to the Second International Encounter in Solidarity and for Peace in Colombia and Latin America in Mexico City. This call was met with an overwhelmingly positive response, and as a result, demonstrations for April 20 are now planned across the world.

The US government has lent its support to an initiative to educate the Congolese military on preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

African Ministers of Education have inaugurated the African Regional Forum on EFA in Chantilly near Paris. The objective of the Forum is to create a framework for dialogue between African decision-makers in education, national EFA co-ordinators, development partners and civil society organizations. It is chaired by the Nigerian Minister of Education, Abraham Babalola Borishade.

For children, women and men with HIV/AIDS the rights to dignity, life, equality and their inter-connection with the right to health care access, particularly access to medicines including anti-retrovirals stands between us and death. This is particularly true in poor countries and poor communities in wealthy countries. These rights - dignity, life, equality - are essential tools in our struggle to remove the barriers to HIV treatment and health care for all. What are these barriers?

Zidco Holdings, the investment arm of Zanu-PF, which controls a substantial stake in the Zimbabwean economy, was a front for personal enrichment by individuals in that party's top brass, including President Robert Mugabe, Transparency International said this week.

Human rights group Zimbabwe in Crisis appealed for urgent assistance on Friday for at least 50,000 people who it says have been displaced by political violence and land seizures. "We are dealing with a humanitarian crisis and are asking organisations like the United Nations and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to help," said spokesman Kumbirai Hodzi.

The United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday reiterated its "grave concern" over the fate of thousands of children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in southern Sudan, especially in light of the reported abandonment of many of them by the rebel group after a major military offensive by the Ugandan army.

State-sponsored militia are continuing to carry out assaults and acts of sexual violence in reprisals against the opposition. Militias are also controlling the distribution of food supplies in rural areas and it is feared that this is systematically being used as a tool of repression against opposition supporters.

Ethiopia has handed over complete details of where it laid thousands of mines during the war with Eritrea, the UN announced on Friday.

Gunfire erupted last Saturday outside the Johannesburg home of Amos Masondo, South Africa's most powerful metropolitan mayor, when a crowd of about 80 Soweto residents attacked the house. They were protesting water and electricity cutoffs.

A summit bringing together the ANC and its alliance partners has announced an ambitious short-to-medium term programme of action to accelerate growth and development in South Africa.

"The Commission's initiative in focussing on the right to education initially raised in the realm of education an inevitable question: "what can the human rights approach contribute?" Obviously, we never intended to duplicate what was already done in education, our mandates are this Commission's thematic procedures, and this is the Commission on Human Rights, not on education. We had to prove that the human rights profession had something to contribute to education, that we had (to use a term seldom employed within this Commission) a comparative advantage."

HelpAge International launches State of the world's older people 2002 on 8 April 2002 as the Second UN World Assembly on Ageing opens in Madrid. This Assembly, the first UN global conference on ageing since 1982, will agree an International Plan of Action on Ageing, setting the course of international policy for the next 20 years.

South Africa has a history of very high levels of violence which dates back to the apartheid era, if not further. A women is raped every 35 seconds, estimates the South African Police Service. Gender-based violence (GBV), and its link to HIV infection, is very gradually being discussed in the public domain, but educators have no choice but to provide learners with the basic skills to cope with the dual threat of gender violence and HIV/AIDS now. But how, and when, can this be done within an education system?

These materials are designed to improve international and local capacity to address GBV among refugee and internally displaced populations. Training tools, manuals, and other literature listed here have been selected specifically for their quality and relevance for work with refugee and IDP GBV survivors, though many resources may have wider applicability.

A technical committee, meeting to prepare for Somali reconciliation talks, ended its deliberations on Friday by establishing the terms of reference for the conference. Sources close to the meeting, held in the Kenyan capital Nairobi from 3-5 April, told IRIN the terms of reference included agreement on cessation of hostilities, recognising steps made so far in national reconciliation, discussing the concerns of the neighbouring states, and abiding by the outcome of the conference.

A draft plan of action: Proposals made by Justice Sans Frontières ( JSF ) of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Sunday that his party would not co-operate with the government of President Robert Mugabe, which he described as a "military junta." We cannot be expected to co-operate with such a regime," he said. "If they don't want to talk about new elections, then there is no need to even start negotiations," said Tsvangirai.

Joseph Mwale, a Central Intelligence Officer accused of killing MDC activists Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika in Buhera during the June 2000 parliamentary elections campaign, is reportedly spearheading retributions on MDC supporters in Chimanimani.

Strategic Partnerships for Women's Empowerment in Africa will help African businesswomen through a programme combining entrepreneur development and business skills training with HIV/AIDS education. This is the first Africa initiative linking entrepreneurship and financial independence for women with HIV/AIDS education and prevention.

The United Nations World Food Programme has strongly protested the decision by the Government of the Sudan to deny access to the agency's flights to 43 locations in southern Sudan, where some 1.7 million people are in dire need humanitarian assistance.

As the international leaders meet in the Hague this week to discuss the UN Convention on Biodiveristy, activists are finding it difficult to get the biotech genie back in the bottle. Not even negative world opinion has slowed the development of a new generation of genetically modified plants and animals.

Some 4,800 families have been displaced in Rushubi town in Isare District, in Bujumbura Rural, east of Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, a humanitarian source reported local authorities as saying on Wednesday.

Concern is mounting in Madagascar that the strangulation of the opposition-held capital Antananarivo by a blockade laid by the army and government supporters, could spark a humanitarian crisis in the city.

The Nigerian government has so far failed to conduct any investigation or prosecution into the massacre of more than two hundred unarmed civilians by the Nigerian army in Benue State in October 2001, Human Rights Watch has charged in a report.

The current window of opportunity for peace in Sudan could be missed if efforts are not made by the international community to revitalise a comprehensive peace process, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG).

A one-day summit held in Lusaka, Zambia, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peace process ended on Wednesday evening with no new commitments made by the participating regional leaders.

Angola's peace plan could fail if the government does not have the capacity to meet the needs of UNITA soldiers and their families during the demobilisation process, a UNITA parliamentarian told IRIN on Wednesday.

Ghana's parliament has extended by six weeks the state emergency imposed in the northern Dagbon traditional area, where fighting between two clans last week left a traditional ruler and 28 other people dead.

In the United Nations and within bilateral development agencies there is increasing discussion of what has become known as the human rights approach to development. The approach asserts that development should be seen as the process by which people can fully realise all their human rights and that the approach should be reflected both in process and outcomes. The human rights approach has something to offer to communities and NGOs preparing to sit down with their governments to participate in planning national anti- poverty strategies. This brief introduction outlines the principle features of the human rights approach to development and its relevance to grass roots advocacy on poverty.

The human rights approach to development sees poverty as a denial of human dignity. No surprises there. The approach also recognises poverty as a denial of our human rights economic, social, cultural, civil and political - and argues that this brings something different and potentially powerful to existing efforts to overcome discrimination and to end poverty.

Human rights are legal expressions of our human dignity and they place obligations, or duties, on others mainly but not exclusively the State. While we all have responsibilities to respect the rights of others, it is now widely accepted that States have the specific obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights.

The obligation to respect requires the state and its agents not to violate the rights of individuals or tolerate discrimination in law, policy or practice.

The obligation to protect rights obliges the state to prevent the violation of rights by other individuals or non-state actors. Where violations do occur the state must guarantee access to legal remedies.

The obligation to fulfil involves issues of public expenditure, governmental regulation of the economy, the provision of basic services and related infrastructure and redistributive measures.

The human rights approach to development uses existing, internationally agreed, human rights standards as a framework for development policy and practice. The human rights framework is not about imposing a single model of development. It emphasises participation and the right of people to choose their own path recognising that the realisation of human rights is a shared goal.

Within their borders, States have a responsibility to focus their development efforts on realising human rights with a priority being given to the poor, marginalised and vulnerable - those currently most denied their rights. International development efforts should focus on assisting States to meet their human rights obligations again with a priority focus on the poor, marginalised and vulnerable.

At a very minimum international human rights standards impose a responsibility on international agencies and governments providing aid and development loans to ensure that their policies and practices do not have a negative impact on the capacity or ability of states to meet these obligations.

The approach encourages people to use agreed human rights standards to assert their rights and to determine their own development. It outlines how international human rights agreements can be used practically by actors in the development process to analyse their development needs, to set development objectives, to guarantee participation, to demand accountability and to call for solidarity.

It therefore has particular relevance to the current focus of development agencies on poverty and to the process taking place around the formulation, adoption and approval of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).

A recent study by Fantu Cheru, the UN's Independent Expert on Structural Adjustment and Economic, Social and Cultural rights not only found many flaws with the process of participation in the PRSP process to date, but found scant reference to human rights.

This is despite the formal commitment of the governments involved, donor and recipient (or lender and borrower) to human rights and the fact that these governments make up the Executive Boards of the World Bank and IMF. Human rights do not feature explicitly in the charters of these international institutions, yet these Institutions place heavy emphasis on the rule of law and should respect the legal obligations of States to human rights standards.

Most bilateral development agencies now give great prominence to both participation and the promotion of human rights through aid to complement their formal legal commitments. These policy commitments need to be reflected in the international financial institutions the governments finance and sit on the board of.

The human rights approach demands that policies to address poverty need to be judged against the requirement for States to realise specific economic, social and cultural rights progressively over time and to the maximum of available resources (including resources available through international development assistance).

Looking at each of the rights in these standards, including the right to an adequate standard of living, the right not to suffer discrimination, the right to health and the right to education it is possible to capture the different dimensions of poverty, to understand and respond to poverty as more than simply an absence of income or basic necessities but as a lack of choice and control as well as resources.

The emphasis on participation by development agencies and in the process of drafting Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) does provide NGOs and communities with new opportunities to put human rights on the table for discussion – not as a separate concern, but because poverty is a human rights issue.

NGOs participating in the PRSP process can ask for information on the likely impact (particularly on the poor and vulnerable) of suggested policies and programs on the right to social security, the right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living and other specific human rights.

They can ask what human rights agreements their government is already committed to and how the PRSP will help realise these rights. They can ask UN agencies about the comments of UN human rights treaty bodies (that monitor implementation of human rights at the national level) with relation to their country and ask how these comments are to be reflected in the PRSP and in development planning. They can ask particular bilateral agencies (such as UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Canada) with strong human rights policies for help in finding information and analysing poverty from a human rights perspective.

They can ask their NGO partners in developed countries to make similar approaches to their official development agencies and to ask that their country's representative on the World Bank and IMF raise these questions when they consider the PRSP for approval.

Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of the Bretton Woods Institutions, the commitments of national governments to respect, protect and fulfill human rights have yet to be properly reflected in the policies and practice of some of the most powerful international institutions they control, the IMF and the World Bank.

All this is not to suggest that the human rights approach offers a magic panacea that will see resources and policies and power instantly transferred to the poor and vulnerable. Unlike the World Trade Organisation, the UN has no practicable way of imposing punishments or fines on governments that violate or ignore their commitments to human rights. Yet international legal standards, international solidarity, moral suasion and the court of international opinion have proved potent tools in the struggle for civil and political rights. They need to be brought to bear in the struggle for all the human rights of the poor. The PRSP process offers an important opportunity to do this.

If people are interested in finding out more about the Human Rights Approach to Development or more about economic, social and cultural human rights, then the following might publications and websites are a good place to start.

World leaders will gather in New York City in May for a major conference focused on global progress for children and the key role that investment in children can play in building global peace and security, the United Nations has announced.

President Levy Mwanawasa is corrupt, Patriotic Front president Michael Sata has charged.

Ghanaian organisations have mobilised in recent months to prevent the privatisation of their country's urban water supply system. They have formed the Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water in Ghana which argues that the privatisation package is a bad deal both technically and financially. It says the reforms are largely imposed by external interests led by the World Bank and the IMF, which have imposed tough conditions.

Hundreds of Amnesty International’s members in Southern Africa have called on African leaders in general and Southern African Development Community (SADC) diplomats in particular to seize every opportunity to protect the rights of citizens in Zimbabwe. Current discussions on Zimbabwe at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights provide the perfect opportunity at the highest of international fora.

On the 27th of January, an incident that altered the lives of many people occurred in Lagos. On this fateful day, which is now termed "Black Sunday",saw high caliber artillery explosives that were kept in the Ikeja Military Cantonment Armoured Technical Dump going off. The explosions were so great many people thought it was the end of the world or that a war has started. In the panic and stampede that followed so many lives were lost.

The Lagos Explosion Relief Aid Agency is a non-governmental organization whose main objective is to raise funds to bring relief and succour to the tens of thousands of Nigerians who lost everything they worked for their whole life. So many lost their fathers, mothers, children's and properties worth millions of dollars. Factories, Hospitals, Shops and Schools were totally destroyed.

This organization, working in harmony with other international aid agencies is hoping your good self will be willing to assist either financially or materially in bringing relief to fellow human beings, who due to the recklessness and negligence of the Federal government have lost all their possessions. Whatever little amount you contribute shall definitely go along way in helping a family cope with their misfortune.
All contributions shall be duly acknowledged and receipted.
Thank you for your donations. May God bless you more abundantly for your generosity and compassion.

All donations and enquiries should be addressed to the under signed.

* Dr. Stephen Olu Falomo, Coordinator/ Treasurer, The Lagos Explosion Relief Aid Agency

WP is a Young Organisation of Woman Working WorldWide for Peace, Prosperity and Preservation.

Currently we represent an informal group of committed participants and volunteers who develop, assist and nurture women's projects and dreams in Southern Africa.

We are building towards becoming a formal non profit, non denominational intercultural organisation so that our project capacity can be increased. Currently our resources are limited and we are constantly searching for innovative solutions to challenges presented by our working conditions.

We treasure this growing time as a period of vital inspirations and operate by the credo, "Seven times Knock Down, Eight Times get up (Ancient Buddhist Saying).

I look forward to my subscription, this looks like an excellent service, and as Director of the British Council in Botswana, I would be happy to promote its use here. – David Knox, British Council, Botswana

In the 1990s globalization was the buzzword; it promises to become ever more important in the first decade of the 21st century. One view suggest that globalization can be dated back to the beginning of the 1980s, while a second view holds that globalization has a long history that can be traced to the 19th century, if not before. This work offers a categorization of types and stages of globalization that existed before the late 20th century. It also emphasizes the fact that globalization has non-Western as well as Western origins. The contributors bring their expertise to bear on themes that give prominence to China, South Asia, Africa and the world of Islam, as well as to Europe and the United States, and span three centuries. ISBN: 0712677402, 2002, Pimlico.

On 1 April 2002, the Third Criminal Bench of the Federal High court ordered Melese Shine, editor-in-chief of "Ethiop" newspaper and magazine, to appear in court on 17 May for a third criminal charge that has been filed against him. Shine is presently remanded in custody because he has been unable to pay bail of 10,000 birr (approx. US$1,200) for a previous charge.