Many children around the world experienced violence and discrimination as a regular part of their school experience, reports Human Rights Watch. In some cases, school officials participated in acts of intolerance, ostracization, and violence directed at particular youth because of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, social group, or other status. In others, authorities failed to intervene to protect students from harassment and attacks by their classmates.

An embarrassed government was yesterday forced to postpone a decision on the sale of a £28m military air traffic control system to Tanzania when it emerged at a highly charged meeting of senior ministers that the hardware has already been built at a UK factory after reassurances from the Ministry of Defence that the deal would be nodded through.

The Health Department has decided to appeal against a court ruling compelling the government to provide the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women.

December 18 - an online network for the promotion and protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Provides interactive tools, including databases, documents and a search engine.
[Source: The Drum Beat]

Sponsored internationally by William M. Mercer, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Awards programme includes development communications, with a new division covering communication programmes focused on economic, social, environmental, and Third World development, including population and health issues. Deadline: February 6, 2002

DATE: 18-22 February, 2002
VENUE: Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM
A current concern and priority for managers and senior practitioners in the NGO sector is how to build the capacity of their organisations and that of their partner organisations. Southern and Eastern NGOs, other civil society groups and Northern NGOs and official agencies seek to develop and implement strategies that focus not only on programme performance but also on strengthening organisations. This course takes an Organisational Development Approach to Capacity Building, focusing on the strengthening of the organisation as its central theme. Deadline of applications: 18 January, 2002.

Governance resources available now online, which feed into the Montreal International Governance Meeting.

The International Human Rights Academy (IHRA) is to be held from 3 April to 20 April 2002 on Robben Island, Cape Town under the auspices of the Law Faculty of the University of Western Cape (UWC), the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghent (RUG), and the Law Faculty of Utrecht University. The
Norwegian Institute of Human Rights (NIHR), Oslo will also co-sponsor the course. The Belgian Government has generously supported the programme.

New on-line publication: Human Rights and Social Development: Toward
Democratization and Social Justice / Democracy, Governance and Human Rights
Programme Paper Number 5 - October 2001 / United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD).

The Living for Tomorrow Bibliography of background information, projects and
analyses, articles, books, resource packs useful to the project. This can be accessed selectively (via key words, such as gender, women, men
and masculinity, heterosexuality, youth, education methods, post-soviet, HIV/AIDS, safer sex).

Trevor Huddleston CR Memorial Centre - New post. 50-55,000 R pa inc. Expanding NGO is seeking experienced administrator for offices and community based projects Sophiatown, Johannesburg. Mature, highly motivated person, fluent English and at least one other SA language. Computer literate, proven skills in basic accounting systems. Send cv & letter of application with refs by noon 7 Jan. Interviews 21 Jan.Start 1 March 2002.

The African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) consists of practitioners and promoters who believe the adaptation and adoption of conservation tillage principles is a cost effective method of reducing and reversing the environmental degradation and food insecurity devastating Africa. ACT NOW! is ACT's electronic update on events and findings which may assist accelerate this process.

South Africa has finally started to voice alarm and impatience over the crisis in Zimbabwe, but Pretoria lacks guaranteed leverage to ensure political and economic normalisation in its northern neighbour.

Kenyan women's groups accuse the security forces, sent to quell the ongoing unrest in the Kibera slum, of rape, arson and robbery. More than one hundred women marched to the Presidential Office, Thursday, to demand government intervention to end the violence.

There are increasing indications that the US has honed a hit list of countries to target for military action in rogue regions across the globe where it believes terror cells flourish. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times which details the possible targets, Somalia, where central government hardly exists, is causing increasing concern in Washington.

This article will be punishable by up to two years in prison under the new media law that Robert Mugabe is likely to push through Zimbabwe's parliament this week. For a start, it quotes the Herald newspaper in Harare - a government propagandist rag with little regard for the truth or its plummeting circulation - for the want of a response from Zimbabwe's minister of information about the coming legislation.

A number of South Africans of Jewish descent have chosen to express themselves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "as a matter of conscience and concern for the safety and well being of the Israeli and Palestinian Peoples and for world peace". This is the text of their declaration.

Nigeria is set to launch Africa's first trial programme to use cheap, imported, generic Aids drugs to combat the disease sweeping the continent. Aiming to tackle the effects of an epidemic now affecting almost 3,5 million Nigerians, and more than 28 million Africans, the programme will start in 18 federal health centres on a limited number of patients.

Though democracy is still fragile, basic freedoms and civil liberties are expanding throughout the continent, say the Global Coalition for Africa's annual report.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued a clarion call for the rights of the individual, declaring that "the sovereignty of states must no longer be used as a shield for gross violations of human rights".

As the 16 days of activism against the abuse of women and children come to an end on 10 December, the Congress of South African Trade Unions thanks all those who joined the campaign and took a stand against the rising tide of violence against the most vulnerable sections of our society.

Details are emerging about a clash between police and students in Lubumbashi in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two students were killed on Saturday when police opened fire on a demonstration involving an estimated 500 university students.

The Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN) has launched a US $4.3 million-project whose goal is to increase the use of computers and other IT equipment in the country's schools.

UNIFEM set up a network of African Women Economists at a seminar on 'Fostering African Women’s Participation in Economic Policy Formulation and Monitoring,' held in Saly Portudal, Senegal from 29 October-3 November. Over 50 people from Central and West Africa attended the seminar, including governments representatives, technical advisors on economic and trade issues parliamentarians, journalists, UN officials, women activists and members of NGOs.

A planned 665 mile (1,070 km) pipeline from southern Chad to Cameroon's Atlantic coast promises riches for both countries - especially for dirt-poor and landlocked Chad whose economy could be transformed by around $2 billion in royalties over 25 years. But the scheme has drawn criticism from human rights and lobby groups worried about environmental damage and that revenues will not benefit ordinary people. Some campaigners have urged a halt until a firmer regulatory framework can be created.

Delegates of African countries attending the conference on fresh waters in Bonn are agreed on inter-state management of water bodies running through their countries. They also agreed in plenary discussions that the concerted management of watercourses shared by many countries was the best way to avoid misunderstandings, which could sometimes lead to armed conflicts.

There some signs that the strong concerns raised by civil society groups over the proposed EU definition of terrorism is having some effect on the original proposal put forward by the Commission which clearly extended the definition of terrorism to include protests and other democratic activities.

An HIV advertisement that depicts the remorse of a man who infected several women before testing positive, has led to threats to against the actor Sibusiso Mhlongo. Some viewers are apparently unable to tell the difference between the television character and the actor himself.

Over the past few months, columnist Colbert King of the Washington Post had used his columns to expose Christian Broadcast Network head Pat Robertson's gold mine quest and relationship with President Charles Taylor.

As more and more NGOs work with online services, email has become an effective tool to provide support for developmental questions that ask for an immediate response. Quest-Consult operates with a network of European and African experts working online to support NGOs in the field.

The week witnessed government’s endorsement of yet another draconian piece of legislation, termed the Public Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill to deal with perceived wayward journalists. This comes just a few weeks after the government announced that it intends to amend the electoral law; after President Robert Mugabe used his presidential powers to amend the Land Acquisition Act to legalise the controversial land reform programme; and lately, after the government approved the controversial Public Order Security Bill.

On Friday 30 November 2001, the Botswana government published the contents of a draft Mass Media Communications Bill in the government gazette. MISA Botswana reports that local press groups, worried that the media bill proposed by the government would restrict free and independent reporting, have called for a public meeting to air their concerns and hear the public's perspective. The meeting will take place on 13 December.

This paper focuses on the relationship of trade, on the one hand, with gender and poverty, on the other, within the context of the human development paradigm. Specifically, it examines the impact of trade liberalization on gender inequalities (primarily via employment, wages and the care economy) and the impact of gender inequality on trade performance. These interactions are discussed in light of main-stream literature on trade, growth and poverty reduction, which defines poverty in terms of income or consumption and largely ignores gender. The paper also considers the policy implications of a gender-aware approach to international trade analysis and the current world trade regime.

The 12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa opened in Burkina Faso amid calls for improved access to treatment, Agence France-Presse reports. Six thousand delegates -- including public health workers, scientists and government officials from around the world -- will focus on "community solutions" to the African HIV/AIDS pandemic at the five-day meeting.

Peter Marais, former mayor of Cape Town and a member of the New National Party, was sworn in yesterday as premier of South Africa's Western Cape province in a power-sharing deal made with the ruling African National Congress and immediately voiced his support for anti-AIDS efforts, Agence France-Presse reports. In his inaugural address, Marais said that "HIV causes AIDS, full stop," a statement that appears to "sho[w] little caution" for the views of South African President Thabo Mbeki.

The first volume of a three volume study "Abortion Policies: a Global Review", prepared by the Population Division of the UN has been published with financial support from the United Nations Population Fund. The study comprised an analysis of abortion laws and policies in every country of the world, both developed and developing. It includes information on the social and political settings, the ways in which these laws and policies have been formulated, and how they have evolved. Information on the incidence of abortion and the setting in which abortion occurs is included wherever possible in order to complement the policy picture.

Public servants should work hard to restore confidence in members of the public that they have the ability to deliver service. Minister of Labour and Home Affairs Daniel Kwelagobe expressed this feeling when opening the 59th Annual General Conference of Botswana Civil Servants Association (BCSA) in Mochudi.

Executive Editor: Salome Misana, Editor: Gail V. Karlsson. This book of case studies was prepared as part of a UNDP project entitled "Energy and Women: Generating Opportunities for Development" which was initiated in February 1999 with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the UNDP's Sustainable Energy Global Programme. The publication looks at critical policy and programme design options to improve women's access to modern energy services based on the lessons learned in the eight case studies presented.

According to AFP (agence France Presse), the Democratic Republic of Congo is going to ratify the Rome Statute as stated by the Minister of Justice Ngele Masudi on December 6, 2001 in Kinshasa. The Minister of Human Rights , Ntumba Luaba, added, "It is in the best interest of the DRC to ratify the Rome Statute for the ICC not only because it is a victim of an unjustified aggression, but also because it is a State of Law which has accepted the jurisdiction of the International Court."

The Freedom of Expression Institute is deeply distressed that Jonathan Ball Publishers have taken a decision not to publish Robert Kirby's novel "Songs of the Cockroach" on the basis that defamation action may be taken against the publishers by the Democratic Alliance and other characters (or their families) mentioned in the novel.

Though difficult to follow at times, this interview with Robert, a 30 year old farmer from the Sabaot people yields interesting and illuminating material, and the narrator describes many of the problems which he perceives face the Sabaot. Intermarriage between his people and the neighbouring Bukusu is, for him, the main reason why there have been changes in his culture, particularly in relation to education, social relations, language, technology, and agricultural practices. Although this has led to what he perceives as positive changes, such as the introduction of new agricultural technology and cash crops, he laments the loss of language and custom, and the social disruption that has come about. This interview highlights the ambiguity the Sabaot seem to feel towards the changes that have been affecting their society, a theme that runs through most of the testimonies in this collection.

In this strong interview, the narrator speaks movingly about her land and the impending move, and especially about being separated from those who look out for her – the informal support network. Her husband died recently and perhaps this has added to her sadness about moving. Some statements are almost biblical in their cadence and style, for example: “It will remain as a rock on my heart when I think of the place that I am being removed from”, and “Truly we do not know as to what caused these dams in the land of God.”

A report to the European Union Electoral Unit on the participation of disabled people in the electoral process of Zambia.

With HIV/AIDS infection rates showing no signs of abating, the urgency for a preventive vaccine has never been greater. Dr Tim Tucker, recently appointed head of the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI), shares some thoughts on the vaccine trials and the road ahead.

Protecting workers' fundamental human rights is one of the principal tasks of the ICFTU, and it is fitting that we should remember the trade unionists who have lost their lives or their freedoms as we celebrate International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2001.

To stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic from becoming a catastrophe, prevention strategies must do much more to reach young people right away, according to a new report from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Hopkins call for a youth-centered strategy follows grim new United Nations statistics that show almost 12 million young people are now living with the deadly disease.

European Union governments should quickly express their opposition to the new American Servicemembers Protection Act (ASPA), passed by the U.S. Senate on December 7, Human Rights Watch urged in a letter to EU foreign ministers.

Twenty-five journalists have been imprisoned because of their work under Joseph Kabila, according to Journaliste en Danger 2001 annual report.