For the last nine years, Manchester Metropolitan University has hosted a series of very successful annual international conferences on 'ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST'. A Tenth conference will be held from 6th-8th April 2004. The Conference aim is to explore the dynamics of popular movements, along with the ideas which animate their leaders and supporters and which contribute to shaping their fate.

This paper produced by the United Nations (UN) Research Institute for Social Development critically examines environmental movements in Sub-Saharan Africa by drawing on two prominent cases: the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People of Nigeria's Niger Delta and the Green Belt Movement of Kenya. Its thesis is that environmental movements in Africa operate within a transformative logic in which struggles for power over environmental resources connect broader popular social struggles for popular empowerment and democracy. It concludes that a conflict between extractive forces and those of popular resistance lies at the heart of on-going struggles for the control of the African environment. Furthermore, it says that African states repress environmental movements that interrogate the exclusion of the majority from effective participation in the management and control of environmental resources.

The Nigerian Government has said it hopes that a suspended polio vaccination campaign in the north of the country will resume soon. Immunisation was halted in three states last year following fears that the vaccine was contaminated. The World Health Organisation, WHO, has warned that unless the spread of the disease is checked, it would undermine eradication efforts.

Representatives of women’s organisations from Djibouti, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, met in Djibouti from 22 to 26 January to develop plans for a “Stop Violence against Women” campaign. The workshop, funded by Novib and attended by representatives from Oxfam GB and Amnesty International, provided training to the participants on campaigning. Regional and national plans focusing on different issues related to the main campaign, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), discriminatory laws, conflict-related violence against women and abduction of women and girls, were developed during the workshop and activities will start in February. Amnesty International is launching a global campaign on the same subject on 5 March in New York. The Somali campaign, coordinated by three women networks (COGWO, NAGAD and WAWA), will focus on FGM and be launched on 8 March this year. The activities will include research, a launching event, public awareness and media activities and education, among others. This information comes from the Novib weekly situation report on the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference in Kenya.

The Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation (www.rockfound.org) is launching a competition to support research on the social equity and public policy challenges of transformative technologies faced by developing countries.

When a lorry carrying farm workers crashed this month outside the capital, Harare, killing 22 people, a number of children were among the fortunate survivors. The tragedy came at the beginning of the new school year, when a rise in school fees had forced many former farm workers - among the poorest of the rural poor - to pull their children out of school. The children on the lorry, aged between 13 and 18, were seeking piecework on neighbouring farms to earn the money to continue with their schooling.

Nigeria launched an anti-corruption drive last week when five former government officials charged with accepting bribes appeared in court for a test case of the country's desire to clean up its image. One of the judges did not turn up and the trial was postponed. But this nevertheless signalled a new determination by President Olusegun Obasanjo to tackle graft on the same day he visited London for Commonwealth talks.

There is greater acceptance that having dual citizens hasn't done much harm to nations, and that the benefits of dual citizenship extend beyond the individuals concerned. Dual citizenship makes it easier for individuals to move between countries for business, employment, social and cultural purposes. Time is ripe for Kenya to recognize the potential and importance of Kenyans abroad and join the vast majority of the rest of the world that acknowledge the importance of its citizens that may not be resident in-country, argues this campaign. Click on the web link provided to sign an online petition.

Dedicated to women's empowerment, The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) promotes positive change through partnership projects, training, and advocacy. The Senior Advisor will have primary responsibility for expanding and implementing CEDPA's HIV/AIDS program portfolio. The HIV/AIDS/Director, Advocacy/Reproductive Health will serve as a member of the management team for a USAID-funded Policy Project and as director of advocacy - one of four major Project components.

Whilst it is children working in carpet, clothing and sports equipment industries that grab the headlines, the majority of working children actually labour on farms operated by their own families. What explains the apparent paradox that children in households with land are often more likely to be in work and less likely to be in school than kids from families without land? A paper from Bristol University challenges the assumption that child labour emerges from the poorest households. The report produces evidence that children of families who own or farm land are more likely to be working and less likely to be attending school.

Groundbreaking South African Democratic Teachers' Union web-site (www.sadtu.org.za) has been nominated as a finalist for Labour Start's Site of the Year 2003. It is the third time that it has been nominated as one of the few entrants from democratic trades unions from the SOUTH. It is the official web portal of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, an affiliate of COSATU. Its president Willy Madisha, is also the president of COSATU...

International law prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18, yet some countries continue to execute child offenders or sentence them to death. As a step towards the total abolition of the death penalty around the world, Amnesty International has launched an international STOP CHILD EXECUTIONS! campaign, calling for an end to one of the most heinous manifestations of the death penalty - its use against child offenders. Although executions of child offenders are few compared to the total number of executions in the world, they represent a disregard by the executing states of their commitments under international law, and an affront to all notions of morality and decency when it comes to the protection of children - one of the most vulnerable groups in society.

Existing tools to control cholera may soon be supplemented with something new - mass vaccination with an oral cholera vaccine. The idea is being put to the test in a demonstration project in Mozambique by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Epicentre and the International Vaccine Institute. The vaccine itself has been available for ten years, but this is the first time it has been used so broadly to minimize the devastation of a cholera outbreak.

Human rights movements the world over have a major role to play to guarantee peace and the survival of the world. But, argues Dr. Willy Mutunga, Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission the dangers that the human rights movements face have to be confronted head on. "This confrontation is only possible if the national, regional and continental human rights movements become powerful, vibrant and acquire a mass following. Such movements will strengthen the international human rights movements that are important pillars in facing the challenges posed by the enemies of human rights. The human rights movements the world over are the only engines for social justice. And it is for these reasons that the movements face mortal danger in the context of the war on terrorism."

South Africa's Zulu-led opposition party has begun its election campaign amidst fears of street violence. About 20,000 supporters joined a rally in Durban to hear the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, speak on Sunday. Inkatha is trying to prevent the ANC - which controls the national government - from taking power in the province of KwaZulu Natal. Thousands died in fighting between the Inkatha and the ANC in the early 1990s.

Afriche e Orienti", the leading Italian journal in African studies, is looking for contributions for a special issue on "social movements Africa" to be published in the second half of 2004. Articles are invited on topics that cover dynamics of mobilization and struggle for social rights, access to resources and social justice in the African continent under neoliberalism. The deadline for the submission of articles (not more than 6,000 words long) is 31 MARCH 2004. Submissions and abstracts should be sent to Franco Barchiesi ([email protected]).

The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign, which has been nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, on Wednesday announced plans for a new campaign in its battle for universal AIDS treatment that would target inequities between the country's public and private health care systems, Reuters reports. South Africa's health care system has retained its apartheid-era structure of "elite" private hospitals, which primarily care for wealthy whites, and public hospitals, which are overburdened in their attempts to care for the majority of blacks, Mark Heywood of TAC said. In its campaign, TAC plans to target private hospitals, which it says are "too expensive," and push for a "people's health service for a people's antiretroviral program," Heywood said.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has reiterated its decision to embark on strike action on January 21, and asked the Federal Government to account for the income it generated from the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, even as it declared “illegal and unconstitutional” the fuel tax. The national executive of the NLC which endorsed the strike stated that “the duration and the character” of the strike shall be decided by the national administrative council of the NLC before the commencement of the strike.

The government of Burkina Faso has launched a nationwide survey to find out just how successful its 12-year campaign against female circumcision has been and the first results are encouraging. In 1992, when the campaign against female genital mutilation (FMG) was launched, two thirds of all women in this poor landlocked country suffered the ritual cutting out of their clitoris around the age of puberty. First results from the latest national survey show that in some areas of Burkina Faso the proportion of girls subjected to FMG has fallen to just one or two percent.

Whilst it is children working in carpet, clothing and sports equipment industries that grab the headlines, the majority of working children actually labour on farms operated by their own families. What explains the apparent paradox that children in households with land are often more likely to be in work and less likely to be in school than kids from families without land?