KABISSA-FAHAMU-SANGONET NEWSLETTER 39 * 7861 SUBSCRIBERS
KABISSA-FAHAMU-SANGONET NEWSLETTER 39 * 7861 SUBSCRIBERS
A suspicious letter, sent to the United Nations Environment Programme Headquarters in Nairobi, has failed to test positive for anthrax, the UN agency announced today.
In a debate that may lead to confrontation between Egypt and eastern Africa nations over the River Nile, Kenya's members of parliament have voiced concern over the legality of an international treaty that bars the three countries from using water from Lake Victoria for irrigation.
The African Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of approximately US $21 million to finance a health care project (Health Project II) in Niger, a news release from the bank said on Thursday.
The BBC 'I have a right to...' campaign includes awareness-raising debates and events in participating countries, radio programmes which will be broadcast to a potential audience of 125 million people, and a website. The project is designed to assist people make informed choices about their lives and participate in discussion and debate in regional, national and international arenas.
A Collection of Essays edited by Christine Stilwell, Athol Leach and Simon Burton.
These essays cover policy issues, information re-packaging, freedom of expression, ICT's, reader studies, information delivery approaches, community profiling and evaluation studies - by academics and practioners in Southern Africa.
What do Russia, Zaire, Los Angeles, and - most likely - your community have in common? Each is woefully unprepared to deal with a major epidemic, whether it's caused by bioterrorism or by new or reemerging diseases resistant to antibiotics. Hyperion 2001; ISBN: 0786884401.
17 October is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It has been observed every year since 1992, when the UN General Assembly designated this UN Day to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries, particularly in developing countries - a need that has become a development priority.
9th Women's Global Leadership Institute, June 10 - 21, 2002. Building a vision of women's human rights is a work in progress that is critical not just for women but for the future of communities, nations, and the world. The Institute will examine these issues, building on recent discussion in connection with the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances that has underscored the role racism and other identity-based oppressions play in the perpetuation of human rights violations against women. Application Deadline: January 4, 2002.
Poverty and ill health are intimately linked, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where public health services are severely strained. A report by the UK Institute of Development Studies suggests that public healthcare services often provide limited benefits to the poor.
In areas of Ethiopia where droughts are common and rainfall irregular, the construction of small dams for irrigation can increase food production. What impact do such dams have on the health of those living nearby? Do they increase the risk of malaria by providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes?
User fees are an increasingly common component of public health financing. The intention is to provide patients with a cheaper but high quality alternative to private healthcare. But does it work? What is the impact on the poorest households? Do poor people still use public health services when they have to pay fees?
"I wasn't born to be a filmmaker. I was a student at the theatre arts dept at UCLA and one day I just stumbled into the film dept. I saw other students screen their final projects and I was thought this is interesting, I should try."
The death rate among young South African women is more than three times higher than it was 15 years ago, said the Medical Research Council(MRC) in their report on the impact of HIV/AIDS on adult deaths in the country.
A Kenyan non-governmental organisation is set to lower prices of antiretroviral drugs to help prolong the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS, the 'Nation' reported on Friday. Mission for Essential Drugs Supplies(MEDS), would supply the drugs to hospitals to enable wider access to HIV/AIDS treatment.
Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane is consulting with governments in Southern Africa, organised labour and non-governmental organisations about declaring a state of emergency over the HIV/AIDS pandemic, SAPA reported.
The tragic terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the subsequent military response, have raised thorny questions about U.S. energy policy. How does oil import dependence factor into the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia-a major grievance of radical Islamic fundamentalists? How might continued heavy reliance on imported Middle Eastern petroleum complicate American efforts to eradicate terrorism from the region? Are nuclear power plants potential targets of future terrorist attacks?
A parasitic weed is sucking the life out of East African corn. One way to deal with it would be to engineer corn for herbicide resistance, so that chemicals could be sprayed on the corn to kill the parasite--even though the corn and the herbicide would probably be too expensive for poor farmers, the herbicide would pollute, and the weed would likely become resistant. Another way would be to improve soil health. Tough call.
Zimbabwe is set to bounce back into the international limelight, albeit for the wrong reasons, when the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the internal disciplinary body of the Commonwealth, pays a visit to the country this week to assess the current political situation.
The government delegation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday walked out of talks here about the future of the war-ravaged republic, complaining that the meeting was nothing but a "masquerade".
Violence on Zimbabwe's mainly white-owned farms is dramatically worse since President Mugabe signed the Abuja Agreement, according to a survey of commercial farmers.
The main white farmers' organisation on Friday forecast a 40% drop in commercial farm production this year because of disruptions and violence on farms by ruling party militants.
The State of the World's Children 2002 presents models of leadership from individuals, agencies, organizations and alliances that have improved the lives of children and families. The report spotlights the 'Say Yes for Children' campaign and the UN Special Session on Children.
Joseph Stiglitz, whose critiques of free market fundamentalism cost him a senior job at the World Bank in 1999 but won him the Nobel Prize for economics last week, has succinct advice for the global justice movement: Keep it up.
While corruption remains endemic around the world, there are signs that efforts to combat it are starting to bear fruit, The Global Corruption Report has said.
DRC Minister of Communications and Press Kikaya bin Karubi has decided to lift the measure that placed the RTKM and Canal Kin stations under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Press.
Despite all the conversations and all the essays, it is still impossible to know the real, or the lasting, meaning of September 11. One possible positive outcome would be a puncturing of the myth of U.S. "exceptional-ism,"...but September 11 could become the start of another cold war, at least in how values and facts are distorted.
A new resource on the International Labour Organisation website, e.quality@work, is designed to provide a compilation of basic information on gender equality laws, policies and programmes. e.quality@work is easy-to-access and available without charge in a CD-ROM and on the Internet.
A recent study by the Organisation for Social Science and Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) has determined that, in comparison to social indicators of other sub-Saharan nations, Rwanda has the highest level of poverty.
As many as 27 schools in Kasese, Uganda have been closed as they lacked qualified teachers and basic facilities such as toilets, says a news report.
Children are the soft targets for advertisers who spend millions to reach them via television. How gullible is this young audience? The debate over whether TV advertising aimed at children should be banned or regulated is in full swing.
Gender training is central to gender and development (GAD) work in East Africa and Kenya. In the 1980s, gender work was strongly linked to women’s issues and male gender trainers were disparagingly received. How vital are gender trainers in transforming the attitudes of men resistant to gender quality?
This issue of brings together for the first time diverse perspectives from the world’s religious traditions regarding attitudes toward nature with reflections from the fields of science, public policy, and ethics. The scholars of religion in this volume identify symbolic, scriptural, and ethical dimensions within particular religions in their relations with the natural world. They examine these dimensions both historically and in response to contemporary environmental problems.
Human Rights Watch today issued a background paper on legal issues arising from the September 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and related anti-terrorism efforts. The paper discusses in everyday language some of the complex legal questions that states involved in the campaign against terrorism must address.
Does the UK National Asylum Support Services' (NASS)dispersal system provide a safe haven for refugees subjected to racial violence? And is racial harassment an issue that will be considered by the Home Office's review into the dispersal system?
Continuing insecurity in Somalia makes it unsafe to deploy a post-conflict
mission in the country, according to a United Nations assessment.
President Moi has formally announced his retirement at the end of his current term.
An organisation campaigning to protect the forest homeland of a Kenyan indigenous group has said their lives are in danger following their refusal to withdraw a pending court case.
When your horizon is the next harvest, and your choice of food for eating or selling is between too little and not enough, the long-term and the long words take second place. Spore magazine looks at the simmering clash between those who plea for production, and those who chant protection.
At a time when many inequalities between women and men are being removed, the profession that supplies us with much of our information — call it publishing for short — is still lagging behind.
World Trade Organisation agreements in agriculture and services are working against consumers, particularly in developing countries, a new report shows.
Embargoed diamonds worth over $1 million are smuggled out of Angola every day, according to a report on Security Council sanctions against the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.
European Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom has voiced fears that economic gloom in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks on the United States could crowd environmental issues off the global agenda.
The chief administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios, has criticised the Sudanese government for using relief aid as a tool in the country's civil war.
Italy is to cancel more than US$4 billion in debt owed to it by 23 countries in the developing world which have promised to uphold human rights, renounce war as a means to resolve conflicts, and take steps to fight poverty.
After a decade of calls for environmentally sustainable agriculture, for an approach to science that acknowledges farmers' research, and for the defence of public goods from corporate reach, Susanne Gura looks at the challenges faced by the world's largest group of public agricultural research centres as it struggles to find direction.
Despite significant economic liberalization, Africa accounted for less than 1 percent of global FDI flows in 2000, according to estimates from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. A new effort, supported by MIGA, is underway to address the issue: The nascent African Trade Insurance Agency, or ATI.
WHO has produced Guidelines for the surveillance and control of anthrax in humans and animals.
While the mainstream media is busy patting itself on the back for its coverage of the events following September 11, a group of communication scholars from around the world has criticized that coverage and issued a petition calling for “more responsible journalism.”
The London-based NGO African Rights has accused the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of harbouring Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, accused of involvement in organising the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The White House is in information lockdown. In this war against individuals, where intelligence matters more than numbers of troops, tanks, and bombers, the US administration is restricting information to a much broader degree than in previous wars.
A wireless technology (co-invented by '30s vamp Hedy Lamarr) could offer Internet access for all and bust open broadcasting monopolies. But U.S. bureaucracy and bucks have stifled it for 60 years, writes Lisa Sousa.
A UN updated questionnaire for allegations of violations of migrants’ human rights is available online in English and Spanish. A French, Arabic, Chinese and Russian translation will be added soon. The December 18 team is preparing an Italian, Portugese and Polish translation. If your organisation decides to translate it in your own language, please let us know. We would be happy to add the translation to the December 18 site or to post a link to your site. Note that the forms should be returned to the Special Rapporteur in one of the six UN languages.
Soon, we will celebrate December 18’s second anniversary. Time has come to evaluate our work and what it is worth to your organization. We prepared a brief questionnaire of 9 easy to answer questions about the web site and MIGRANT.NEWS and invite you to fill it out and return it to us.
Available online free until 31/10/01 as PDF file.
UNESCO has invited Edgar Morin, Director Emeritus of research at the CNRS, President for the European Cultural Agency, to elaborate on his ideas for an education of the future, based on the 'reform of thought' that he believes to be an urgent necessity. Edgar Morin, who has devoted a large part of his extensive work to the question of pertinent knowledge, describes this text as 'a synthesis of the full range of my thought on education'.
The Co-ordinator Uganda Debt Network, Zie Gariyo has been shot. Mr. Gariyo is reported to have been shot by gunmen late last evening and it has not yet been established whether they were mere robbers or an attempt to assassinate him. He is now lying in Mulago Hospital in critical condition.
The privatisation of mines in Zambia were fraught with corruption, the Global Corruption Report 2001 has revealed.
Women’sNet, the Internet- based women’s communications and advocacy initiative of SANGONeT and the Commission of Gender Equality is recruiting an intern. Our internship programme provides an opportunity for South African women to develop their information communications and technology (ICT) skills and gain valuable work experience for a nine-month period.
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation is hosting a seminar on the impact of war: Political, social, and psychological consequences.
The Curriculum Development Project Trust (CDP), based in Gauteng, is a dynamic developmental NGO dedicated to the training of educators and learners in Arts and Culture in formal and non-formal sectors, requires a person who will ensure efficient project and office management as well as provide support to the Director and project staff.
The Coalition for Peace in Africa will be holding a 5 week training workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. This workshop will cover diverse aspects of conflict transformation and peace building, and is aimed at capacity building for people working in conflict transformation, development, human rights and related fields on the African continent.
African Medical and Research Foundation seeks a candidate with a proven record of achievement to fill the challenging position of Director General based at Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Reporting to the Board, the Director General will primarily be responsible for providing strategic direction and management to ensure delivery of AMREF's agenda by spearheading the successful implementation of the new corporate strategy.
SANGONeT, in association with LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, is offering a certificate course designed to promote computer literacy.
International NGOs working in Zimbabwe are preparing food distribution and food for work programmes despite the government's reluctance to admit to a food crisis.
A newly released study on attitudes towards foreigners, particularly refugees, shows that public awareness on the human rights of asylum-seekers has still to take root on South African soil.
The Botswana government says HIV/Aids patients occupy 60% of wards in the country's hospitals, and that the numbers are rising, despite public awareness of the disease.
The Digital Freedom Network (DFN) has produced this brief guide to using search engines in human rights research. The ability to find accurate information is essential to any form of research, and assuming that one can get Internet access, the only obstacle lies in the ability of the user to successfully navigate through the Web in order to find the desired information.
This lecture, entitled "Activists and Spooks", presents information about about covert activities against activist groups. Interesting information about the Echelon and Carnivore intelligence-gathering systems is provided. From the Introduction:
"Activists worldwide are scrutinized by government agencies and corporate intelligence activities. Numerous organizations have been the object of surveillance and infiltration. These organizations include activist groups that advocate sabotage and violence. But most are peaceful organizations that do not advocate violence."
The article provides suggestions for dealing with surveillance and is appended by an extensive webliography.
This article from News Update 83 discusses the role of corporate culture in Ghanaian software - and other - organisations. It has some interesting comments on how ICTs are used and perceived in Ghana. Perhaps many of the observations that are true for this country are also relevant for other African states.
Hundreds of Zimbabweans are seeking refuge at a police station in Johannesburg after South Africans burnt and looted their shacks in a settlement near the city.
A self-described 'core group' of African countries says it is determined to help implement pro-poor policies throughout the continent by establishing a 'peer review' system to monitor fiscal expenditures and social policy.
Human Rights Watch have cautioned against a global backlash against migrants and refugees in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
This article discusses recent strategic moves by the Regional African Satellite Communications Organisation(Rascom) to locate Internet data routing services in Africa. This would avoid payments to Europe of an annual bill of USD 400 million for intra-African traffic. This traffic has to travel via the northern continent at the moment. Implications for Africans are that service provision costs will be reduced and ISPs could open up using meter-wide, solar-powered satellite dishes.
Although Africa has readily joined the US-led anti-terror coalition, the meaning and structure of that fight has raised uncertainty in the minds of some African leaders.
African countries are mainly playing an intelligence -sharing role in the 'coalition against terrorism' announced by the United States. Also being tracked were suspect financial flows in a region where borders are porous and the banking systems are either not transparent or are corrupt and inefficient.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2001 International Press Freedom Awards to four journalists from China, Zimbabwe, Argentina, and the West Bank who have defied death threats, braved bullets, and endured jail to report the news.
Public Enterprises have in the past year cost the economy a total sum of $600 billion, being sum of $400 billion in funding to the sector and $200 billion in income withheld and un-remitted to the Federal purse.
PRESIDENT Frederick Chiluba is living on stolen public funds, opposition UPND president Anderson Mazoka has charged.
UNITA continues to fund its war in Angola through illegal diamonds sales worth an estimated $100 million last year, according to the latest report from the UN Monitoring Mechanism on Sanctions against UNITA, which was delivered to the President of the UN Security Council on 12 October.
Read more about a project that aims to develop a resource centre where educators can share the online resources that they have found valuable for their professional development activities. The detailed project informaion on the TLT Group web site links to similar initiative that predate this one, such as Massachuussetts Institute of Technology(MIT)'s Open Courseware Intiative. Read on for more information about participating in and benefitting from the project. If African universities can begin to share resources in this way, many shortages could be redressed, especially in Maths, Science and Technology education.
Thank you for the educative piece you have unveiled to the members of this community. I personally feel very touched by the seemingly persistent negative attitude of the South African government towards the HIV and AIDS related issues. I come from and live in Uganda. And as you probably know, the AIDS scourge in Uganda has been somewhat reduced because of the positive attitude and commitment on the part of
government and all other partners in the development fraternity. I am a nurse, professionally and I just can't hold back my intense negative feeling for this continued disastrous action of politicians who are otherwise meant to cater for the ordinary citizen! Here is my humble suggestion in addition to your possible queries. In my view as it happens in Uganda, the South African government ought to come out of this defiance. First and fore most the president, Mr. Thabo Mbeki must realise that HIV/AIDS is no longer an issues you can play about with. I must say they (him and colleagues) may think it is a form of apartheid! This must stop. I would like to suggest here that the people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS must come out and openly protest, demonstrate and show to the ANC government what the truth is. I will write more on this as we go along - I would like to read others' comments.
Fine but please don't forget the US government and Big Pharma... and now Anglo American Corp has joined the killers based on its cost-benefit analysis...
It is arguable that an African state that deliberately ignores or suppresses a compelling report on a health crisis of this magnitude, and that fails or refuses to take the action evidently needed to protect the health of its population from such an imminent and evident threat will be in breach of Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981). Given that the African Human Rights Commission is regarded by authoritative commentators to be under-utilised, this may be an apt and important moment to consider using its petition procedures to confront it with the AIDS problem in South Africa. Although Rhoda Kadalie's use of the word ‘genocide’ may not be strictly legally accurate within present definitions, it is not beyond the bounds of imagination to conceive of circumstances where a state could be held legally liable for something amounting to, or at least analogous to, a genocide - the death of millions - if that state shows a wilful omission to act in full knowledge of the consequences of that omission. Given the strength of evidence contained in the report, any plea of ignorance by a state in such circumstances would be utterly unconvincing.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has completed in most of Burundi's seven provinces the distribution of 4,000 mt of food to some 375,000 people.
Renewed fighting in eastern Angola has sent thousands of refugees fleeing across the border into neighbouring Zambia, the UN's refugee agency has announced.
Addressing the UN Security Council on 19 October, the prime minister of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), warned that unless his fledgling administration received more international support Somalia could disintegrate further and become a haven for international terrorism.
International oil companies in Sudan are "knowingly or unknowingly" involved in a government counterinsurgency strategy in the country, according to the report of an independent fact-finding mission released this week.
A group of five pro-Tutsi political parties said on Monday they would boycott the transitional government due to be inaugurated on 1 November unless President Pierre Buyoya alters the allocation of ministerial posts he agreed with the opposition umbrella of pro-Hutu parties known as the G-7.
Levels of human suffering continue to rise in the Great Lakes region - mainly in Burundi - where the numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees has risen slightly to three million and one million respectively, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
An Italian priest has been arrested in Bangui in connection with a story he allegedly wrote regarding mass executions of Yakomas, who are members of the ethnic group of the 28 May failed coup mastermind and former Central African Republic (CAR) president Andre Kolingba, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on Saturday.
The former governor of Rwanda's Kigali-Rural prefecture, François Karera, was arrested on Saturday in Nairobi, Kenya, and immediately transferred to the detention facility of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, the Tanzania-based court reported.
The voluntary repatriation of more than 160,000 Eritrean refugees, many of whom have been in exile since the 1960s, from Sudan was to resume toward the end of the week, a UNHCR spokesman said on 19 October.
The aide-de-camp of Côte d’Ivoire’s former de facto ruler, General Robert Guei, and six other soldiers are being detained at the military prison in Abidjan after being charged on Thursday with threatening state security, local media reported.
Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has protested to the authorities in Niger against the sentencing of the publishing director of 'Le Canard Enchaine' to six months imprisonment for slander.
Nigeria is to conduct an immunisation campaign between 20 and 26 October in order to contain the incidence of wild polio virus in the country, officials said on Thursday.
Chad's minister of communication, Moktar Wawa Dahab, denied a recent report by Amnesty International in which the human rights organisation accused the government of perpetuating human rights violations begun under the regime of ex-president Hissene Habre.
Lesotho is facing a "silent emergency" as drought-induced food shortages hit poor households in the tiny mountain kingdom, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday.
The United Nations Security Council has asked Angola's warring parties to grant humanitarian workers access to at-risk communities, saying it is deeply concerned about humanitarian conditions in the country. UN statistics indicate at least 500,000 Angolans are in desperate need of food and medicine cannot be reached.
President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet has legislated minimum wages for Zimbabwean industry without reaching agreement with labour and business, the 'Financial Gazette' reported on Thursday.
Nearly one person in six taking strong antiretroviral drugs, suffers serious toxic side effects, a study published in the latest issue of 'The Lancet', reported.
More and more NGOs are realising that they have valuable information that can be shared by implementing an online database. This list of open-source scripts and resources for web-developers may prove useful.