KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER 19
KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER 19
Amnesty International today took note of the presidential decree pardoning 47 people arrested over last Easter and called for an impartial and independent investigation into the shootings, beatings and arrests by the Sudanese riot police on April 11, 2001.
An historic meeting of Ministers of Water Affairs from the Nile Basin countries has ended with agreement to cooperate on seven basin-wide projects. The meeting marks an important milestone of the Nile Basin Initiative
(NBI), an unprecedented partnership which has united nine African countries in pursuit of sustainable development and management of the River Nile water resources.
The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), the largest association of fundraisers in the world, has announced the development of principles for the E-Donor Bill of Rights, a document which lists the rights that donors should expect and demand when making an online charitable gift.
The Steering Committee of the Global Campaign for Ratification of the Convention on Rights of Migrants last week agreed to begin focused campaign activities on six countries being Bangladesh, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau and Zambia . The aim is to achieve the entry into force of the Convention by the time of the World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia. For information, please contact Jonathan Hepburn.
This compilation of 'information sheets' and 'funding sheets' has been prepared to raise awareness and gives an overview of European strategies and actions on the growing problem of trafficking in women. It covers elements common to various types of trafficking in human beings and concentrates on the issue of trafficking in women.
The European Campaign on Women Asylum Seekers is launched to draw attention to the type of persecution women experience and by doing so to exert pressure on Member State governments and the European institutions to develop a gender-sensitive European Policy on Asylum, in which women can claim asylum in their own right, based on their own experience of persecution as legitimate reasons for seeking and obtaining asylum in any of the EU Member States.
Published by the Co-operative for Research and Education (CORE) US $40. 13 advocacy case studies from the region, dealing with issues including human rights, women's rights & political participation, rights of disabled people, land reform, civic education & election monitoring, HIV/AIDS, and landmines. Contact Phiroshaw Camay.
A "critical" humanitarian situation is unfolding in the Angolan central highlands as a result of "persistent insecurity" that has driven people off their land, an OCHA statement has warned.
When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings open in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2001, officials will point proudly to the roughly $20 billion in debt that they have promised to cancel since their heavily-protested meetings last year. These promises take a step in the right direction, concludes a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based research organization. But even full cancellation would only be a Band-Aid for a broken system.
An embarrassing report from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund released over the weekend casts a dark shadow over their Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, showing little confidence that the controversial debt package will provide an end to the debt crisis for the countries involved.
African anger over tough and "dogmatic" conditions imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund is absent from the Bretton Woods institutions' spring meetings for the first time in many years.
The Tanzania government has formed a four-man task force to investigate a massive corruption scandal involving government officials suspected to have pocketed millions of Tanzania shillings in compensation to some 900 people relocated from a gold mining area in Geita, Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Transparency International Kenya convened an open forum last week to discuss whether Kenyans should think of an amnesty for economic crimes.
The German Ambassador has described Kenya as the fastest collapsing economy in Africa after Zimbabwe. Whereas the Ugandan and Tanzanian economies were growing at 5 per cent, Kenya's has been declining for the last few years, says Mr Jurgen Weerth.
Women in politics in Botswana are unhappy with the way the media in this country covers them. They say they have experienced that their issues do not always receive supportive and positive coverage.
The Advocacy Project's newsletter 'On the Record' describes the drama of campaigns, and is distributed free of charge to thousands of subscribers.
Hundreds of Nigerian women and girls have been lured into prostitution in Europe and the Middle East, where they are vulnerable to abuse and violence. The following pages profile those who are campaigning to put an end to this insidious trade.
Somalia: Africa's newest market is tiny and awaits a full peace. For the optimist, Somalia is nearer to being busy reborn than busy dying. In
these circumstances it's hardly surprising it has been one of Africa's last countries to get connected. Abdi Mohammud describes the currently tiny size of the market, the fierce competition for it and the prospects for future growth.
COSATU has organized the 2001 May Day celebrations that will take place in its various regions countrywide. The theme of this year’s May Day is “Stop the job loss bloodbath! Create quality jobs; Fight poverty!” We are calling on all workers to attend these events to celebrate the victories that workers have achieved throughout the world.
Prof. Rogers' ROOTS Trips-Africa Brazil Cuba
- Multidisciplinary; each Program has it own Theme. 29 Programs in 2001 & 2002: 1 to 4 Weeks
Apply Now. Depart from NYC June-July-Aug-Sep-Dec-Jan-Feb
A Conference organised by the SAEG (South Africa Education Group) c/o Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern Africa. Venue: Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way London. WC1. Date: Saturday 19th May 2001. 9.30-5.15pm. SPEAKERS/ WORKSHOP LEADERS to include:
Mr Thami Mseleku, Director General, South African Department of Education. Professor Colin Bundy, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand. Professor Shula Marks, SOAS, University of London. This conference will examine changes in education in South Africa since 1994, paying particular attention to the strategies formulated to address social justice and the eradication of the apartheid past. It will look to future developments and specifically at forms of partnerships that are emerging in the country to
address quality education and social transformation, and the different partnerships being developed between South Africa and the United Kingdom.
MFI Travel Scholarship for Gordon Conference. The International Board of the Malaria Foundation International (MFI) is pleased to announce the Vanessa Botterill Memorial Travel Scholar-ship. This award has been established in memory of a young English woman who died from malaria in Kenya in 1997. The 2001 award is for two junior scientists, who are citizens residing and working in a sub-saharan African country, to participate in The Gordon Research Conference on Malaria at Queen's College, Oxford, UK, 5-10 August 2001. The application deadline is 15 May 2001.
26 August - 8 September, 2001 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD), Management Sciences for Health (MSH), USA; Essential Drugs and Medicines
Policy Department (EDM) of the World health Organization (WHO) and INRUD Zimbabwe announce a training course on Promoting Rational Drug Use, to be held on August 26 - 8 September, 2001 at Victoria falls in Zimbabwe, one of the natural wonders of the world.
takes place on May 23-4, bringing together scholars and activists from Africa, Europe and North America
The International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD), Management Sciences for Health (MSH), USA; Essential Drugs and Medicines
Policy Department (EDM) of the World health Organization (WHO) and INRUD Zimbabwe announce a training course on Promoting Rational Drug Use, to be held on August 26 - 8 September, 2001 at Victoria falls in Zimbabwe, one of the natural wonders of the world. The course fee of US$3,000 covers tuition, course materials and shared accommodation in a four-star hotel. Applications and fees are due not later than 20 July, 2001.
The Spring Conference offers a critical chance to analyse the problems and set out our priorities prior to the expected June General Election. We can begin to build the foundations of our future together despite New Labour's attempt to sow divisions amongst us, especially through its legislation towards refugees - a practice responsible for countless deaths, splitting of families through forced dispersal programmes, unlawful detentions and imprisonment of innocent people and destitution via the shameful and discriminatory voucher schemes.
Both positions have an ending date of October 2002. The positions will be located at HIV InSite's new facilities at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 4150 Clement Street. These positions will be classified as
public administration analysts, with a salary range of $3,275 to $5,408. UCSF offers a generous benefits package and is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.
£35,000 per annum + benefits. London based. We're looking for a professionally qualified Accountant as our new Director of Finance. Someone with at least five years' post qualification experience
who is IT literate and who has preferably worked within a Charity/NGO.
Are you interested in teaching about the global economy in your classroom? This five-day institute will focus on an inter-disciplinary approach to teaching about economic and social globalization in grades 6-14. Join community and business leaders, master teachers, and other experts to examine multiple perspectives on globalization issues and learn how to bring these critical debates into the classroom.
University of Western Cape, South Africa, starting as soon as possible, applications are invited from suitably qualified and experienced persons. Appointments will be for one year in the first instance but with a strong possibility of renewal.The project will involve a mixture of research and advocacy.
Provide leadership and technical expertise to develop and guide technical assistance, communications, and policy advocacy projects and programs on global HIV/AIDS.
Contact: Michael J. Lavelline
In July 2001, the Global Development Network will become an independent organization outside of the World Bank. Presently, the GDN is hiring for a couple of positions to staff the new Secretariat, to be located here in Washington, DC, beginning on July 1, 2001. For more details, visit the website.
As its Spring Meetings end in Washington, the World Bank is in the final stages of planning a major new web initiative. The Bank claims that the site (the Development Gateway) will contain all points of view on over 130 development topics. The site aims to attract a wide audience of officials, NGOs, journalists and researchers in many countries, to become the "premier web entry point on poverty and sustainable development".
A number of civil society groups have been discussing the Development Gateway over the last year and have concluded that its approach is flawed and will do little or nothing to help people who currently lack the ability to get their voices heard on the internet. In recent weeks major NGO networks in South Africa and Latin America have taken formal positions not to join the Gateway.
A new briefing from the Bretton Woods Project, a London-based NGO which has been following the Gateway for over a year, presents extracts from current Gateway planning documents and the reasons why the Gateway is being contested. These include:
1) the site's chosen topic sections are too rigid and do not represent the way that many people in developing countries view development issues;
2) it is impossible to choose editors who will be trusted by the wide range of people the Gateway aims to serve;
3) the claim that the Gateway will contain only "high quality" material is controversial, while quality remains undefined;
4) the multi-million dollar site will compete unfairly with existing internet sites;
5) the site's interactive features will help promote the opinions of people in richer countries and office-based workers in developing countries;
6) the Gateway's independent governance arrangements are too little, too late
Many of these points have been raised with the Bank's Gateway team, which has proved unwilling to engage with questions about the fundamentals of their initiative. Unless they change their approach, civil society groups will have little option but to use the internet and e-mail to challenge the Gateway, while continuing to build up independent sites. The briefing ends with some suggestions and an appeal for people to help with this.
I'd like to thank Kabissa for the opportunity to post this note about the consultation meeting on the Development Gateway, which was held in South Africa on February 15, 2001 and hosted by SANGONeT. Please see the link below to the report we prepared on the meeting. In addition, I'd like to clarify a few related issues --
We reiterate our appreciation to SANGONet for having agreed to host the consultation meeting and having invited the 15 organizations that attended.
The two Bank representatives who attended the meeting felt that it had been a substantive and useful exchange of information and views on the Gateway. They heard the many thoughtful concerns and critiques raised about the Gateway governance, editorial policy, and content management approach, and did their best to clarify the issues and respond to the questions.
In terms of the reference to the meeting, which appeared in the second edition of the Gateway's monthly newsletter, it is important to clarify that the Gateway publication did not actually state or intend to imply that the meeting participants endorsed or backed the Gateway, only that a constructive exchange had been held. We acknowledge in the meeting notes (see link below) that several of the groups present at the consultation meeting, including SANGONet, stated at the outset that their participation in the meeting did not imply endorsement of the Gateway. On the other hand, we have been criticized in the past for not consulting civil society enough on the Gateway, thus whenever we do hold these meetings we try to report on them as fully as possible.
In this light, we prepared notes on the meeting and posted them on the Gateway site. While the meeting notes are succinct, they attempt to portray the meeting as objectively as possible.
Please go to the following link to access the meeting report:
http://www.developmentgateway.org/aboutus/feb2001
We welcome comments on the meeting notes. These can be sent to [email protected]
Thanks
KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER 18
KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER 18
I've been very impressed with what Kabissa is offering to the non-profit sector in Africa. Congratulations on such an important contribution. I've referred your site to many of my African counterparts and was wondering if you do work or know of another organization that provides these kinds of services in other regions of the world, specifically Central/South America.
Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.
Keep up the good work!! :-)
OUR RESPONSE: I am not aware of other similar initiatives in Central/South America. In particular, it is rare to see a service that provides free standard Internet accounts to non-profits, and I think our database-driven newsletter is also an unusual service.
I really appreciate the work that you do in bringing all sorts of things that we need to know in and about Africa to our attention. So I'm sorry to contact you with a grouse, but NIGERIA was mentioned in two items in this newsletter, and the stories seemed to have nothing to do with Naija. The first, on request for famine relief, was actually about NIGER - indeed, wouldn't it have been obscene for the Nigerian government to call for famine relief? The second was about a South African HIV/AIDS report - if we don't have the links to the Internet, we might not be able to see any connection.
Despite this, please keep up the good work - It's not always possible to read ever issue down to the ground, but when one does, it is rewarding.
OUR RESPONSE: Thank you for writing. We appreciate your encouraging feedback, and of course also for pointing out the items incorrectly associated with Nigeria. How embarassing! These have now been corrected for the online edition.
CLO can help us to make sure Nigeria is better represented in the newsletter. Please make sure that relevant news and information that CLO produces or comes across is submitted to our editor ([email protected]). You can also help to spread the word about the newsletter by announcing it in CLO publications and e-mailing information about it to your colleagues.
And finally, CLO can take better advantage of its Kabissa membership - you may not know it, but CLO was one of the first members of Kabissa! It was set up as a result of the OMCT Internet project in 1999 that I was also involved in. You have a free Internet account on Kabissa, including an e-mail mailbox and web space, which you are not using. You are also eligible for automated mailing lists on Kabissa in case CLO wants to set up an automated newsletter. Let me know if you are interested in starting to use these free services.
Seventy-five women in northern Benin have vowed to give up female genital mutilation (FGM) following an awareness campaign initiated by a group of NGOs.
Clashes within the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) deepened yesterday as journalists intensified verbal assaults against each other over the issue of local media ownership.
Public protests in South Africa and throughout the world have resulted at last in the shaming, humiliation, and climb-down of the unholy alliance of the pharmaceutical giants who thought they could prevent the South African government from ensuring that cheaper alternatives to brand drugs can be made available for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Had they gone ahead with their court challenge, these multinationals would have had to reveal their pricing policies, profit levels and extent of funding of research into anti-AIDS drugs. Clearly, they were reluctant to reveal such details, and decided not to proceed with the case.
This victory is important. It is a tribute to the outstanding campaign led by the South African Treatment Action Campaign. It is an illustration of that old saying - "Don't agonise - organise". Public protest can succeed against the might of the multinationals. It also shows that the deals quietly sown up at the World Trade Organisation in the interest of the multinationals can be challenged. The refusal of the South African government to be cowed by the WTO provides an important lesson for other third world governments. And it is a tribute to people living with HIV/AIDS who have refused to sit back as passive "patients", but shown the power of organising.
It is also, in a small way, an illustration of how the internet can be used for organising around socially useful programmes rather than being merely a tool for profiteering. The Kabissa-fahamu Newsletter was one of many electronic newsletters that helped to spread the word!
Thousands of children as young as six years old are trafficked across borders into slavery in West Africa to work as domestic servants, on farms and in markets in the region's wealthier countries. Most work long hours in harsh conditions and receive little or no pay.
Let us call upon all SANCO members to join us in our celebration of conquering the powerful Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association by forcing them to withdraw the case against our government...This, the third National Conference of SANCO, is an extremely important event that will definitely find itself in the history book of our revolution when we account to the next generations.
New strategies for developing newspaper advertising revenues and market share will be featured in a major session of the World Newspaper Congress in Hong Kong (3-6 June 2001). As the growth in global advertising slows, the session will focus on how newspaper companies can exploit their unique strengths to win more advertiser budgets.
Progress on human rights issues related to HIV/AIDS has been disappointing in the 20 years since the epidemic began, the United Nations has said.
The Africa Bureau's Office of Sustainable Development and the Global Bureau's Center for Human Capacity Development are pleased to announce the publication of the DHS EdData Education Profiles for Africa, a series of country education profiles that uses cross national comparable data from USAID's Demographic and Health Surveys. This first edition contains data for Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia. The data is used to characterize children's participation in primary and secondary schooling and adults' schooling attainment and literacy.
The United Nations has produced an information booklet for UN staff on HIV/AIDS. It can be downloaded from the UNAIDS site.
Media Update # 2001/15 Monday 9 April to Sunday 15 April 2001.
A son of President Moi and two others have been allocated forest land in Nairobi, Prof Anyang Nyong'o (Nominated, SDP) claimed yesterday.
A cabinet minister in Kenya was arrested on corruption charges this week, minutes after identical charges against him were dropped because the body that preferred them had been disbanded.
The interior ministry in Mozambique has dismissed thirty-five police officers after investigations into their conduct concluded they were corrupt.
Failure by the Eastern Cape government to report widespread fraud and corruption outlined in a private investigator's report involving the Mount Ayliff municipality has angered and shocked Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi.
Following the events in Benin, where a ship allegedly carrying 250 child slaves docked safely in Cotonou, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has urged its affiliates in West Africa to step up the pressure on their governments to end child slavery. The call comes just as the ICFTU has launched a new global campaign to end child labour.
The aim of this list is to announce updates to our website and forthcoming events hosted by the Science, Technology and Innovation Program, a joint activity of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
The decision by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
Association (PMA) to withdraw their court case against the South African government is an historic victory of good over evil. Every South African can be proud that we have won this battle against such powerful and wealthy opponents. All of us together made this possible.
The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the African Association for the defense of Human Rights (ASADHO), a member of the OMCT network, about the arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and the subsequent placement under house arrest of Brazilian Pastor Carlos Rodrigues and an aide, Mrs. Christine.
News, reports, resources and opinion. Featuring content from over 650 media-issues groups worldwide.
After years of fighting Africa’s most complex contemporary war, the armies of six nations disengaged March 29 and allowed U.N. observers to deploy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Contingent upon the complete disengagement of the estimated 60,000 foreign troops, the deployment marks the first substantive step toward ending the country’s nearly three-year-old war.
Welcoming the withdrawal of a case by pharmaceutical companies against the Government of South Africa, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today expressed hope that this development would help increase access to AIDS medicines for those in need.
Welcoming the end to yesterday's aborted coup attempt in Burundi, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said the incident served to highlight the need for efforts to bring calm to the country.
More than 10,000 Somali refugees have arrived in the Kenyan border town of Mandera in the past two weeks, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said today.
About one third of the more than 26,000 cases of abduction recorded to date in Uganda involved children under the age of 18, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said today in Geneva. Mary Robinson said that if there was no change in the situation, hundreds of children, both boys and girls, would be abducted by a rebel movement in the country known as the "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA). "Many of them," she said, "will ultimately perish in the bush, either as a result of the harsh living conditions or at the hands of other captives."
The top United Nations peacekeeping official today confirmed the establishment of a Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) in Ethiopia and Eritrea along the countries' common border. Briefing the UN Security Council on developments in the region, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno called the TSZ's establishment, which was announced yesterday, an "important milestone in the peace process."
A continent-wide plan for fighting AIDS in Africa will be endorsed by next week's Summit meeting on infectious diseases in Abuja, Nigeria, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) announced today.
Over the years, a lot of commitments have been made by Member States in attempts to control these diseases. However, most of the commitments have not been translated into concrete actions and the diseases continue to constitute a big challenge for the continent. Stakeholders have also realized that leadership, commitment, resources and poverty alleviation are the key to control of infectious diseases in Africa. In this light, OAU Heads of State and Government at their annual ordinary assembly at Lome, Togo in July 2000; took a decision to hold an African Summit on HIV/AIDS, TB and related infectious diseases and accepted Nigeria’s offer to host it.
Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria, in cooperation with the Summit Secretariat, has begun a build-up to the African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other Infectious Diseases organised by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and hosted by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Estimant avoir réuni les éléments d'une infraction à la législation en vigueur, les juges Courroye et Prévost-Desprez, chargés de l'affaire des ventes d'armes à l'Angola, ont demandé, jeudi 12 avril, d'enquêter sur le parti de Charles Pasqua.
I am writing to express my great concern that public comments and policy statements in recent years by your new appointee for Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter H. Kansteiner III, could be a harbinger of a nightmarish U.S. foreign policy for the resolution of the tragic war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I hope that this is not the case and I respectfully request your immediate and most forceful assurances that these statements do not reflect your view on the resolution of the current crises in Congo.
The Resolution on "Securing observance of the Principles of International Law in the interest of world peace and security" adopted by the 105th Inter-Parliamentary Conference on April 6th in Havana, Cuba welcomes the "progress toward the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
New website under development to promote open source software for use in developing country situations. We are launching at the end of May and are looking for software and other material like articles, links and case studies. If you are an open source developer, do you have any software you would like to post on the site, or links to software, pages and articles of relevance?
SVTG has received confirmed information that 54 people were arrested on 10 April 3, 2001 in Green Square, Khartoum following the cancellation of an Easter ceremony on April 10. More than 50 Christian protesters - almost all from the predominantly Christian south - convicted of taking part in the demonstration against the government order were beaten.
Background papers for the World Food Summit Goals
Committee on World Food Security (27th Session)
Rome, Italy, 28 May - 1 June 2001 are now available online: Fostering the Political Will to Fight Hunger, Mobilising Resources to Fight Hunger and New Challenges to the Achievements of the World Food Summit Goals.
Sub-Saharan Africa's massive external debt is the single biggest obstacle to the continent's development. The $300 billion which African countries owe to foreign creditors represents a crippling burden which fundamentally hampers progress in every sector. The All-African Conference of Churches has called this debt "a new form of slavery, as vicious as the slave trade". As such, it is both a cause and a symptom of the structural inequality in the international economic system.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act was perhaps the most widely-discussed initiative in U.S. policy toward Africa in many years. The Africa-America Institute undertook a project entitled "African Perspectives." The objective was to elicit the opinions, insights, and recommendations of a broad cross-section of Africans on the bill and its underlying principles.
The Civic Alliance for Social and Economic Progress (CASEP), a network of civic organisations working in a wide range of social sectors and representing hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, condemns in the strongest terms the Broadcasting Services Act rushed through Parliament by Government on April 4th.
The Chairperson of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) was assaulted and two lawyers working for the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum narrowly escaped in ZANU (PF) instigated violence in the Chikomba constituency on April 7.
The United Nations has warned that nearly thirty million people face food shortages in sub-Saharan Africa this year. In a report on Monday the FAO said it needed US $140 million to help revive agriculture in the region hit by adverse weather and armed conflicts. It said all countries of eastern Africa and the Great Lakes region as well as Angola, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone need continued food aid.
Asylum seekers not in possession of permits issued under a new refugee act will be treated as illegal immigrants from next month, the South African government has announced. In a joint communiqué with UNHCR, South Africa's department of home affairs said decisions would be made by the end of April on the thousands of asylum seekers in the country. Those successful would receive a new refugee identity card, unsuccessful applicants would be treated as illegal aliens, the communiqué added.
The malnutrition figures just in from Kasika, near Bukavu, had Claude Jibidar and his World Food Programme (WFP) team in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) more than a little confused. Like many parts of the DRC they had had little or no access to Kasika since war began in the DRC 32 months ago. "We didn’t know quite what to expect not having had access to the area for so long," said Jibidar, "but we certainly didn’t expect what we found."
Jonathan Moyo, Zimbabwe's Minister of State in the President's Office responsible for Information and Publicity, has lost a court bid to prevent the 'Zimbabwe Independent' from publishing details of allegations of fraud at the Ford Foundation in Kenya, the 'Daily News' reported on Wednesday. Moyo was seeking a court order to prevent the weekly newspaper from reporting details of the proceedings against him in the Kenyan High Court.
The coup attempt in Burundi by a group of junior army officers is over and the perpetrators have surrendered, Defence Minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye announced on Thursday. A group of about 30 soldiers, led by Lieutenant Gaston Ntakarutimana, briefly took over the state radio and television station on Wednesday and announced that the hitherto unknown Front de la Jeunesse Patriotique (FJP) had taken control of the country. President Pierre Buyoya was away in Gabon at the time, but has since returned to to Burundi.
Rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) have reversed a decision to block UN peacekeepers from deploying in the city of Kisangani. The UN announced that the deployment of 120 Moroccan peacekeepers - due to have taken place last Sunday - would now go ahead on Friday.
The trial of a former Rwandan minister began at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, on Tuesday. According to a press release from the Tribunal, the former higher education minister under the interim government of April-July 1994, Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, appeared before judges Laity Kama, Mehmet Guney and William Sekule. His charges include genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) have finalised a programme under which thousands of soldiers, including senior officers, will be demobilised as a way of modernising the institution, the 'Sunday Monitor' reported.
In objection to what it said was the pursuance of wrong economic policies, Britain announced it was cancelling a US $5 million package that would have financed operations at Zimbabwe's privatisation agency.
It sure was great while it lasted, the free Internet. Consumers could spend hours online, chatting, gathering information, all for next to nothing. Investors who bought Net stocks early even profited from the Internet–way back when tech stocks soared. Now the free ride is over. The Nasdaq crash has wrecked more than financial portfolios; it's also changed the Internet forever.
Technology-driven innovation has for decades forced legislators to revisit intellectual property law. But in the past 12 months, Napster and its peer-to-peer brethren have made the distribution and protection of intellectual property in a digital world the most contentious legal debate in recent memory. As co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, professor Pamela Samuelson sits at the academic center of that discussion.
Call for the establishment of the Global Dot Org Alliance. Current working title: Health Internet Society (HISOC).
Beninese police yesterday questioned the children found on the MV Etireno, a vessel originally believed to be carrying 250 enslaved children, the police agency said. While it is now believed that the Etireno did not transport slaves, the incident has drawn attention to the problem of child slavery in other African nations.
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press for IFPRI. 275 pages,paperback $21.95 ISBN 1-8018-6604-9,hardcover $51.95 ISBN 1-8018-6603-0 Agricultural research and development will be key to increasing the quantity and quality of the world's food in the 21st century. This book examines the changes affecting agricultural science policy, including issues such as the environment, genetic diversity, food safety, poverty,human health, public versus private responsibilities, and intellectual property rights.
Read about IFPRI's recent work on: Thinking through Globalization; Mapping the World's Agricultural Land;Climbing out of Poverty in South Africa; and Agricultural Market Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The US Internet Council State of the Internet Report 2000 finds that high connection costs, low incomes, poor infrastructure, illiteracy, lack of trained personnel, disinterest and a failure to understand the benefits of Internet access continue to slow the expansion of computer penetration and Internet use in Africa.
The latest collection of snippets from the world of Telematics and Development.
Still pictures of African wildlife appear everywhere. There is a voracious interest in wildlife in the developed world and animals are used in adverts to exemplify product characteristics. This trade in images is now conducted largely digitally over the internet. The "new economy" was supposed to enable businesses to cut out "the middle man". For African wildlife photographers things turned out to be a little more complex. Russell Southwood uncovers a tale that has all the best ingredients of an internet content story: financial pressures in a falling market, monopoly providers and an oversupply of the key commodity.
South Africa's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang "dropped a bombshell" yesterday when she announced that the government had "no immediate plans to use the landmark legal victory" to obtain antiretroviral drugs.
The restoration of relative calm in southwestern Guinea has enabled the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide emergency food rations to 25,000 refugees in Kolomba camp, located in the Parrot's Beak, WFP said in a communique on Thursday.
Global: Dotcoms start charging for services; North Africa: Local language domain names selling rapidly; Global: Worldwide competition forum to be created.
Women journalists in Eastern and Central Africa have launched their own news Web site to counter what they see as bias in Western and male-dominated news.
Women produce 60 to 80% of the food in most developing countries and this percentage is growing. In 1950 women performed almost 40% of agricultural work, today the figure is close to 50%. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, women provide 80% of staple foods, in Asia they perform 90% of the work in rice fields.
Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations Security Council today to take action against the looting of resources by foreign troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo and address the devastating human rights abuses being committed by the same troops.
Global opinion won in South Africa, but will it triumph when the US fights Brazil's cheap Aids medicine? The drugs industry's court case against the South African government will go down in history alongside Shell's embarrassment by Brent Spar as one of the great corporate PR disasters of all time.
The IT News Service For Southern Africa.