An estimated 44,387 Eritrean internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain in eight camps in Gash-Barka and Debub provinces, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said in a press briefing on 9 November.

Insecurity, abductions, displacement and the poor level of education available to them are the key concerns of young people in northern Uganda, whose lives have been shaped by inter-related conflicts there and in neighbouring southern Sudan over the last two decades, according to a report released on Friday by the US-based Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC).

Mt Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania could lose its entire icecap by 2015, symbolising that global climate change "may be felt first and hardest by the environment and people of Africa", the environmental lobby group Greenpeace reported this week.

Lesotho's general elections are on track to be held around April 2002, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said in its latest update.

The Botswana government is going ahead with a constitutional amendment following a controversial referendum in which only five percent of registered voters bothered to cast their ballot.

The most outstanding sight in the tiny fishing village of Batan in southern Nigeria, is a 10-metre-high flame that burns continuously from a vertical pipe at the edge of one of the many facilities the Shell oil company has in the Niger Delta.

The Federal Government has set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the Benue killings and warned that it was now an offence for anybody to treat any Nigerian resident in any part of the country, other than his state of origin, as a non-indigene or a settler.

Trade ministers from around the world are gathering from 9 - 13 November in Doha for the crucially important 4th Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation. But hopes that they will adopt an agenda to meet the needs of the world's poorest countries look increasingly slim. Keep up with what's happening at the WTO meeting in Doha with daily reports from OneWorld's partner network.

A bill to ban the import of "conflict diamonds"--those mined illegally by guerrilla groups in Africa--has gained new momentum in the United States Congress since Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has been tied to the trade.

A child born today in an industrialized country will add more pollution to the world over his or her lifetime than up to 50 children born in developing countries, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says in a new report.

Ethiopia's highly controversial education policy is once again proving to be debatable, as the Ministry of Education refuses about a dozen students from the Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State entry into higher learning institutions in the country, even though they have obtained the minimum grades that grant them entry.

Racism may be described as a 'polysemous' concept: it has many meanings that serve many purposes. At one extreme, our racism as belonging to the human race unites us and sets us apart from all other animals. At the other extreme, racism arising from distorted views of ethnicity, culture and nationalism is a fundamental property that separates individual humans. In between are the many forms of racism that can cause or be associated with social inequality, hatred, polarisation and gross disparities in wealth and privilege. Racism is not any one thing. Rather it is a social invention made up of a complex mixture of ingredients.

This article addresses issues of equitable employment and skills building. The importance of mentoring and skills transfer in the ICT field is emphasised with clarity and insight.

Visit the Internet Democracy Project's web site for an update on the latest news about ICANN and other interesting newsbytes in the world of online regulation.

This month TechSoup explores how technology impacts the work of environmental organizations and their campaigns. Through a series of articles, interviews, and resources, we look at some technologies in use in the environmental movement today and ask how they have affected strategies and outcomes.
Join in the debates, use the featured resources or just browse the articles.

A major section of the draft Doha Ministerial Declaration deals with “Market Access for Non-Agricultural Products”, or in short, “industrial tariffs.” Paragraph 16 of the “Harbinson draft” (27 October) has Ministers agreeing to negotiations to reduce or eliminating tariffs in industrial products, with product coverage to be “comprehensive and without a priori exclusions.” An earlier draft (26 September) had allowed “less than full reciprocity” for developing countries, but this was dropped in the present text. Business sources in the US cheered the striking off of the phrase as they felt it would have “skewed tariff negotiations in favour of developing countries,” according to a news report from “Inside US Trade”.

Many thanks, regards. – Christina Engfeldt, Director, Information Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

KFSN has featured articles on weblogs (blogs) before. Now, take a look at this site which calls all inhabitants of the online publishing community to link to this page on World Aids Day on the 1st December. Get some African web presence linked in.

My computer is old, and has a small capacity. These emails with the KABISSA-FAHAMU SANGONET NEWSLETTERS although most interesting are too big and clog up my system. Perhaps there are others having the same problems. I would prefer if you just sent a URL when the new releases come out so I can see it at my own leisure on the Internet. Is this possible in future?
We reply: We appreciate that the size of the newsletter is a problem for many of our subscribers. It is also a problem for us, as it limits the amount of information we can cover in any one edition. We are planning to change the format of the newsletter in the near future so that we can continue to deliver comprehensive news and analysis in a more efficient way. A URL-only version of the newsletter is certainly one option we will consider offering to subscribers. We'll keep you posted on developments!

Education creates the skills through which Africa will take advantage of "getting connected". Yet many African universities lack the means or the expertise to offer their students these benefits. Even in a campus as "wired" as the University of Jos, those involved are effectively "first-time" buyers in this field. Working out of the US’s University of Iowa, WiderNet has been finding ways of overcoming these barriers for Nigeria’s University of Jos and building links between Iowan and Nigerian scholars. Bonnie Pedersen from WiderNet explains. As usual, News Update features many other interesting articles. Read more on this or other articles.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) is looking to appoint a Gender Trainer and Co-ordinator and an Intern for its International Affairs Department to be based at its Head Office in Johannesburg.

The inability of poor Sowetan residents to meet their electricity bills has resulted in many having their domestic power supply cut off by national service provider, Eskom. A coalition of unreconstructed communists, retirees and college students created the Soweto Electrical Crisis Committee (SECC) nearly a year ago. Chairman Trevor Ngwane - a former ANC municipal council member - recruited a friend, a laid-off Eskom repairman, to train volunteers how to reconnect a power supply. Since then, Operation Khanyisa - which means "to light" in the Zulu language - has unlawfully restored electricity to about 3,000 homes.

The African Centre for Women, Information & Communications Technology

DeV is a new free monthly newsletter that focuses on Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for development. It includes the latest information concerning ICTs in development, best practices, latest calls for funding, e-training news, and upcoming events. Please contribute information to the newsletter.

Deadline for submission of abstracts is February 01, 2002

E-mail service aimed primarily at people interested in using information and communication technologies to improve the quality of education in the developing world.

Performance improvement advisor sought to be responsible for building the capacity of primary family planning and reproductive health providers in the application of USAID’s Performance Improvement Approach to improve their performance in the delivery of services.

Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has collected millions of dollars in the past three years from the illicit sale of diamonds mined by rebels in Sierra Leone, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

AMANITARE - the African Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women and Girls - was launched in Uganda in 2000, and is coordinated by RAINBO. AMANITARE's goal is to build an influential social movement to institutionalize the recognition of African women's and girls' sexual and reproductive health rights as fundamental to their civil and human rights. AMANITARE is organized into three action groups, each coordinated by an African NGO: Advocating for Freedom from Gender-Based Violence; Integrating Sexual and Reproductive Rights into Health Services; and Reaching-Out to New Generations.

Awarded since 1995 by the Women's World Summit Foundation (WWSF) - an international NGO for the empowerment of women and children - the Prize ($500 each) annually honours women and women's groups exhibiting exceptional creativity, courage and commitment in improving the quality of life in rural communities. Deadline for nominations is March 2002.

Sierra Leone's transport and communications minister was arrested with his wife Thursday on accusations of diamond smuggling in the war-ruined West African nation, officials said.

It is with shock and disgust that we read to learn about the rape of a nine-month-old baby by six adult men ranging from 24-66 years old. This unfortunately is not an isolated case. The recent spate of incidents of violence against women and children where rape and gang rape and sexual abuse by neighbors, teachers, parents, grand-fathers, uncles, partners etc is escalating. This is despite attempts to raise awareness and legislative measures put in place to stop violence against women and children. Any form of violence is internationally recognized as a major human rights violation and results in physical, emotional and psychological harm.

This week the Media Monitoring Project focuses its attention on the media coverage of the visit by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to Zimbabwe to assess the progress being made towards the implementation of the conditions set out in the Abuja agreement signed in the Nigerian capital on September 6th between Britain and Zimbabwe. The government-controlled media launched a propaganda blitz promoting government’s insistence that it is complying with the terms of the Abuja Agreement.

Participate in the Internet Forum against corruption! The Annual Report on State of Corruption in Tanzania is in preparation. Your ideas might be useful in preparation of the Annual Report on State of corruption in Tanzania prepared by Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) and Front Against Corrupt Elements in Tanzania (FACEIT).

This report analyses each HIPC country at different stages in the HIPC process. We conclude that HIPC countries urgently need every $ of the $59million they are obliged to transfer to their creditors each day – for fighting disease, for recovery from conflict and for poverty reduction. This is not just in their interests, but in the interests of the world as a whole.

Whereas government or international public institutions once performed most agricultural research, now private firms are taking the lead in applying the tools of genetic engineering to agriculture. When corporations (and increasingly public agencies too) develop new agricultural biotechnology products or processes or new crop varieties, they often seek legal rights over the intellectual property these innovations represent. Many are concerned that corporations’ efforts to protect their profits will isolate developing countries from the benefits of important innovations by blocking access to new developments by public and nonprofit researchers.

On Wednesday 31 October 2001, Defence Minister Erkki Nghimtina reacted to concerns over the violation of freedom of speech and expression contained in the new Defence Bill, "The Namibian" reported on 2 November.

Consider one particularly vulnerable link in our food chain: the modern meat processing plant. In comparison to a bioterrorism target like a water treatment plant, meat processing plants have virtually no security, and their workforces are wide open to infiltration.

In a 2 November 2001 letter to President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, The International Press Institute condemned the recent arrest of Baboucar Gaye and the closure of his radio station, Citizen FM.

A cameraman with the Mozambican Television (TVM), Jose Arlindo, was seriously beaten up by armed security of the main opposition party in Mozambique, the Resistencia National Mocambicana (Renamo), in the northern city of Nampula on Thursday, November 1. Renamo was holding its IV Congress. One policeman and two unidentified civilians were also beaten up and three others were taken captive.

The Zambian cabinet is "split" over whether to introduce legislation that would force presidential candidates to have an HIV test before general elections this year, government sources said yesterday.

The Treatment Action Campaign's lawsuit against the South African government over access to nevirapine for pregnant women could come to court at the same time as a lawsuit filed on behalf of a six-month-old infant who contracted HIV from her mother, the Lancet reports.

J. Townsend, E. Zapata, J. Rowlands, P. Alberti, M. Mercado. Reviewed by Bipasha Baruah. The authors of this book pursue a new definition of empowerment through a re-
evaluation and deconstruction of the concept of power. They shed light upon how rural Mexican women negotiate power in their day-to-day lives. By documenting their challenges, opportunities and accomplishments, the authors demonstrate how poor women in developing countries are exploring new social, economic and political powers and transforming their lives in the process. Zed Books Limited, London (UK) and New York (USA). 1999.

Two short community based plays were designed to sensitise the Barbaig community (a nomadic ethnic group in northern Tanzania) on the negative impact of female circumcision (FGM), domestic violence and the importance of sending girls to school. A 3 week creative session was held among The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Department of Fine & Performing Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam, along with HAWOCODE (Hanang Women's Counseling & Development Association) to produce the plays. The plays were performed and then discussed with the community. Key question asked after the performance: What positive alternative can be suggested to this cultural activity (FGM) rather than simply telling them it is bad and should be stopped? Contact Dr. Augustin Hatar.