Just when people were beginning to think that it was never going to happen in the life of this administration, the federal government literally poured out broadcast licences, early last week.

Triangle Project, a progressive NGO based in Cape Town servicing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) community, is looking for a part time counsellor.

Fair Share remains committed to contributing to effective, accountable and democratic governance responsive to the needs of marginalised people, and invites interested parties to purchase a copy of
the 2002/3 National Budget Book.

Organisations in Africa are invited to participate in the Africa Pulse/SANGONeT regional ICT capacity survey. Those that participate will all benefit from the results. The survey form is online.

Nominees should be women, currently active and have over the years demonstrated a passionate interest, campaigned for and stood firm for the defence of women's and girl's human rights in Kenya. The award is intended for women whose contribution may not obviously have been recognized at the national level. According to a statement from COVAW (K) "the nominating organization or individual must have direct experience of the nominees work."

"Human rights defenders and political opponents in Guinea Bissau are facing a sustained clamp-down on peaceful opposition and criticism of government policy," Amnesty International have warned, adding that the government was also increasingly interfering in matters outside its jurisdiction.

the Preliminary Report of the 2000 Namibia Demographic and Health Survey has recently been published. The report contains around 40 pages. Chapter 1 provides a brief background, while the methodology is described in Chapter 2. The main findings of the survey are contained in the third chapter, which highlights the most important results at output and outcome level. Chapter 4 provides a summary and concluding remarks. The key results appear condensed in table form in Annex 2. The report may be downloaded from the website of the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services.

This conference is a platform to support the unity of all African women organizations, women's organizations of churches, and the women of youth organizations, in an international sisterhood. Issues on housing, childcare, education, transportation, and clean drinking water will be at the forefront of the conference.
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 2002, 10am-6pm
VENUE: Howard University Downing Hall Auditorium, 2300 6th St. NW Washington, DC 20059, USA.

On 16 January 2002, a Sudanese court ordered the editor of the English language newspaper "Khartoum Monitor" to pay a five million Sudanese pound (approx. U$1,950) fine over an article published in the paper that accused the government of facilitating slavery.

"Burundi's new transitional government must not waste an historic opportunity to end the blight of torture and impunity," Amnesty International has said as it made public a Memorandum addressed to Burundi's transitional authorities and the international community.

Amnesty International have called for the immediate and unconditional release of three peace and reconciliation activists - Laurien Ntezimana, Didace Muremangingo and Ignace Ndayahundwa - arrested by police and held at Butare central prison, southern Rwanda, on 27 January and 2 February.

Interview with Irma van Dueren of NOVIB (the Dutch Oxfam). Novib recently
completed an evaluation of its Gender Route Project. This project worked with several of NOVIB's NGO partners to help them improve their work in promoting gender equality.

A new report released by the ICFTU has condemned the deplorable situation faced by working people in Malawi and challenged the government to meet its obligations to protect its citizens. Despite having ratified all of the eight ILO conventions on core labour standards, the situation for the hundreds of thousands of child labourers, women and for the majority of workers in general, remains as miserable as ever.

The Prize($500 per laureate) honours creative and courageous women and women's groups around the world for their contributions to improving the quality of life in rural communities.

Among the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS identified, inadequacy of gender sensitive and responsive HIV & AIDS policies and programmes was highlighted. In response, one of the main recommendations was that HIV & AIDS policies and programmes must integrate gender.

An editorial in This Day (Lagos) criticizes CNN for suggesting that recent ethnic clashes in Lagos and the explosion at a munitions warehouse have led to a eagerness among the Nigerians to see a resumption of military rule. Last weekend CNN Bureau chief in Nigeria, Jeff Koinange, reported, "people are tired of democracy and now want the military back."

The impact of the conflict on children is devastating, depriving thousands of vulnerable young people of anything approaching a normal childhood, the Refugees International (RI)nongovernmental organisation (NGO) said on Wednesday in its bulletin entitled "Children in the Eastern Congo: Adrift in a sea of war and poverty".

This classic paperback is available once again- and exclusively-from Harvard University Press. This book is the story of the life of Nisa, a member of the !Kung tribe of hunter-gatherers from southern Africa's Kalahari desert. Told in her own words -- earthy, emotional, vivid -- to Marjorie Shostak, a Harvard anthropologist who succeeded, with Nisa's collaboration, in breaking through the immense barriers of language and culture, the story is a fascinating view of a remarkable woman. Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674004329, 2000.

The NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York, extends an invitation to the following events during the 46th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (March 4-15, 2002). There is a registration deadline of 22nd February 2002, and advance registration is necessary for all.

Gender and Development, the international journal for development practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and feminist activists is planning the July 2002 issue which will focus on Climate Change.

YOWEDI, a forum for the promotion of social justice and the empowerment of women and youths towards a better and greater Nigeria, requests assistance in the areas of capacity building, networking and sponsorship, and asks that NGOs furnish them with further information covering their organization.

Violence, gender inequality, and high rates of HIV transmission are three major problems at all levels of South African education. Gender inequalities play out in a variety of different types of violence: girls are raped by boys and boys are the main perpetrators of sexual assault but boys can also be the victims of assault by other boys. Yet, many interventions reflect the perception that boys are perpetrators and girls are the victims. How can the gap between rhetoric and practice in addressing boys' and girls' vulnerability be addressed?

Comprehensive AIDS education can make pupils aware of the need to protect themselves against infection. It can also bring about gradual changes in the wider social environment, making safer sex more acceptable. But what is the best way to introduce AIDS education to schools with scarce resources and a packed curriculum?

The World Bank has approved an additional $500 million loan for African countries to fight HIV/AIDS, bringing the total loan amount under the bank's Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program (MAP) for Africa to $1 billion for the current fiscal year, the AP/Nando Times reports.

South African President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address said that the government will increase its efforts to halt the spread of HIV, but added that the efforts will focus on prevention and not the use of antiretroviral drugs, the Associated Press reports.

The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, the country's "leading body" for specialist physicians, today issued a statement saying it supports the use of nevirapine to prevent vertical HIV transmission and that failure to provide such treatment is "unethical," Agence France-Presse reports.

Two hundred and fifty thousand children under the age of five are living with the HIV/AIDS virus in Ethiopia, according to the ministry of health.

A Rwandan Roman Catholic priest wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity has given himself up to the international tribunal for Rwanda based in the Tanzanian town of Arusha.

Corruption is far from being just the scourge of the Third World. It is quite common in Europe as well, so common in fact that it is almost an assumed perk of high office. Is corruption a Third World disorder? Not if the French are any guide.

As part of the World Social Forum the International People’s Tribunal on Debt convened between February 1 and 2 in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande del Sul, Brazil. Jubilee South, the Jubilee South Brazil Campaign joined with the American Association of Jurists, the Committee for Third World Debt Cancellation, the Ecological Debt Creditor’s Alliance, Ustawi and the World March of women, among many others, joined together to organize this international tribunal. Social movements, churches, unions, professional organizations, NGOs, political parties and renown personalities are brought together in the Jubilee South network extending to 45 countries of the South and enjoying the support of diverse entities in the North. The International People’s Tribunal convened in order to determine and rule upon the responsibility of Banks and Transnational Corporations, Governments in the North, the IMF, the World Bank and other international financial institutions for the crime of illegitimately indebting the countries and peoples of the South. This has generated a high cost in human lives, the destruction of our productive capacity, the quality of life of our peoples, with increases in poverty, infant mortality, social exclusion and grave economic and environmental damages. This Tribunal in addition to ruling on evidence as regards the illegitimacy of the debt, identifying the principal responsible culprits and their respective roles, also assumed the task of proposing alternative paths to secure debt repudiation and cancellation.

The only way to really describe the World Social Forum (WSF), that just ended here in Brazil, is a global political "carnaval." Not that there was much of the glitter and hedonism associated with that most famous Brazilian street party which begins later this week. Rather, inside the conference halls and out, this astounding event--part political convention, part art and music festival, part intellectual gathering of social movements, was in a state of nearly perpetual celebratory protest for five days and five nights.

In anticipation of the meeting of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) at the Elysée Palace on February 8, 2002, Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders - RSF) has addressed a letter to the five heads of State in charge of the steering committee: Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria), Mr Hosni Moubarak (Egypt), Mr Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), Mr Abdulaye Wade (Senegal) and Mr Thabo Mbeki (South Africa). RSF wishes to draw their attention to repeated violations of freedom of the press by several NEPAD Member States.

Concern that the European Union (EU) and the United States are taking the demands of the largely black African population of southern Sudan off the agenda is rising among a broad coalition of activists critical of the Arab National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Khartoum. A new peace process is sidelining those who favor tougher sanctions against the Sudan regime and who believe that negotiations to end the 19-year-old civil war must consider the autonomy demands of southerners in Sudan.

The Story of Africa tells the history of the continent from an African perspective. Africa's top historians take a fresh look at the events and characters that have shaped the continent from the origins of humankind to the end of South African apartheid. See the rise and fall of empires and kingdoms, experience the power of religion, the injustices of slavery, and chart the expansion of trade between Africa and other continents. Hear what it was like to live under colonialism, follow the struggle against it, and celebrate the achievement of independence.

Armed conflict between warring states and groups within states have been major causes of ill health and mortality for most of human history. Conflict obviously causes deaths and injuries on the battlefield, but also health consequences from the displacement of populations, the breakdown of health and social services, and the heightened risk of disease transmission. Despite the size of the health consequences, military conflict has not received the same attention from public health research and policy as many other causes of illness and death. In contrast, political scientists have long studied the causes of war but have primarily been interested in the decision of elite groups to go to war, not in human death and misery.

There are only a few hundred mountain gorillas left in the wild, making them one of the rarest large mammals on earth. Their survival stems partly from the efforts of the famed American researcher Dian Fossey, who brought their plight to the attention of the world before her murder in 1985.

AITEC have announced the launch of their 6th West Africa Computing, Communications and Broadcasting Exhibition and Conference from 16-18 May 2002. Under the Theme : ''Developing a knowledg society for West Africa '' this high profile international event is expected to attract key decision makers throughout the region. Now established as Ghana's principal event for the ICT and broadcasting industries and the main source of information for computing, communications and broadcasting professionals from throughout West Africa, the event last year attracted almost 7,000 high quality visitors including government and corporate users, NGO's, educational associations, network broadcasters and home computing consumers.

Reports have emerged since South African energy giant Engen sold Engen Petroleum Rwanda in December that it was forced to abandon its operations in Rwanda following death threats against its senior management.

UNEP is coordinating the production of ten thematic papers for the Global Mountain Summit (BGMS Bishkek, Kirgystan, Oct. 28- Nov. 1, 2002), which will form the basis of the Bishkek Mountain Platform, an action plan for future sustainable mountain development. The themes of these papers are listed below. Leading international figures in sustainable mountain development have been commissioned to act as lead authors in order to prepare the first drafts of these papers. However, it is recognised that only with a much wider input and gathering of knowledge and best practices from mountain ranges in all regions of the world can these papers truly contribute to the future of sustainable mountain development.

Pierre Schori, head of the European Union observer mission to Zimbabwe's already bloody election campaign, failed to get his accreditation yesterday amid new incidents of violence. "We are in contact with the Government," Stefan Amer, his spokesman, said. "However, our mission has to be accepted as it is. We won't negotiate that."

Fears were raised yesterday that Zimbabwe's regime could seek to step up its curbs on the media after it emerged that the Independent's Harare correspondent wrote a misleading story about his treatment by the police. The Media Institute of Southern Africa, a journalists' lobby group, accused Basildon Peta, 30, of "giving grounds" for "further repression" after he filed a detailed account of being held overnight in police cells last week.

The offices of Zimbabwe's only independent daily and those of a company that printed opposition election campaign material were petrol bombed early on Monday in the country's second largest city. The incident occurred amid an increasingly tense run-up to presidential polls on March 9-10.

Despite claims to the contary, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the United States (US) intends to use Kenya, and particularly the Kenyan coast as its base as it launches an attack against the neighbouring Somalia. Some 3,000 US military personnel from the Marine Corps and the US Navy have been strategically deployed across the Somalia border, in the remote Kenyan islands of Pate and Manda, increasing fears that the first phase of the US war against terrorism in Africa, is in the offing.

The Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) based in Harare, Zimbabwe (www.tarsc.org) announces the creation of a new site linked to the TARSC website specifically developed for young people to engage in discussion and problem solving on issues related to their reproductive health. The website Auntie Stella: Teenagers talk about sex, life and relationships can be reached through the TARSC address above or directly on www.auntiestella.org. The site has been adapted from the print version of Auntie Stella which has been successfully used by youth in and out of school.

Over the last few months there has been increasing evidence of the youth militia involved in organized violence of having received formal training in torture techniques. However, a new and very disturbing form of torture has emerged in the last few weeks, with even more long-term ramifications for the victims than the physical and psychological trauma sustained with physical torture. Forced rape by men, witnessed both by the perpetrators of the violence and others, is being imposed on the victims, with the victims being forced to have sexual intercourse with other victims, either heterosexual or homosexual, with the perpetrators “supervising” the act.

There were fewer viruses in January, but there's worse to come, say software security companies. Read this article for more information - and keep on updating your anti-virus software.

Thousands of 'red hands' will be planted in the grounds of the United Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva on 12 February to mark the entry into force of a new UN treaty prohibiting the use of children under 18 in hostilities.

The presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone, due to be held on 14 May, will consolidate peace in that country according to the United Nations Mission there.The Mission - known as UNAMSIL - has been urging more Sierra Leoneans to sign up for the voter registration process before it closes shortly.