Pambazuka News 502: Twilight of regimes or dawn of new eras?

W E C

Western donors continue to hand out billions of dollars in ‘humanitarian’ and ‘economic’ aid to Ethiopia’s Zenawi regime each year, turning a blind eye to the fact that their handouts are propping up a repressive dictatorship, writes Al Mariam.

Research on HIV/AIDS is on the rise in South Africa, a country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world, while Western research efforts have levelled out, a study has found. Only around two per cent of all research articles produced by the United States, the biggest producer of HIV/AIDS studies, are about HIV/AIDS, according to the study in Scientometrics. By contrast, 5.5 per cent of South Africa's research effort goes towards HIV/AIDS - mainly clinical medicine and social stud...read more

It sounds too good to be true: a biofuel crop that grows on semi-arid lands and degraded soils, replaces fossil fuels in developing countries and brings huge injections of cash to poor smallholders. That is what some are claiming for Jatropha curcas, the 'miracle' biofuel crop. But studies on the ground suggest a lot more research and development (R&D) is needed before farmers can come close to seeing any of the promised benefits.

Association Dynamique Plurielle in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, is working with 250 female first to third year high school students from Savorgnon de Brazzaville High School to fight against sexual harassment in schools. During the project, students will also send alerts about sexual harassment cases via SMS by the students; and a 'listening cell of the organisation at the high school will actively respond. Educational information about the laws will be sent to 250 students; and trivia que...read more

Since the inception of the Internet Governance Forum, the Council of Europe (CoE), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) have been working on a joint initiative on public participation in internet governance. The aim of the CoE/UNECE/APC project is to consider whether there is scope for developing a code of good practice on information, participation and transparency in Internet governance. A code of good practice is...read more

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