Jubilee Debt Campaign and Jubilee Research have accused national governments and international agencies of backing out on multilateral commitments. Two years to the day after the millennium deadline set by the international Jubilee 2000 campaign, the co-founders of the campaign are accusing creditors of reneging on their commitment to cancel the debts of the world's poorest nations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has launched a program to relocate the parents and relatives of several unaccompanied children of Liberian origin.

Tundu Antiphas Lissu, a Tanzanian human rights lawyer and outspoken advocate for an independent international inquiry into the evictions at Bulyanulu in August 1996, was detained by police on December 23 in Dar Es Salaam, and held for over 24 hours in an underground jail known as "The Hole."

Understanding of budgets and government expenditure has long been the preserve of government officials and a few academics. The documents that relate to it are typically inaccessible and clouded by technical language. Yet it is here that government policy is translated into action and outcomes. It is important that NGOs engage with public expenditure issues both to strengthen their policy advocacy and to improve government transparency and accountability.

Not many people might know that the Zimbabwe Cricket Union's (ZCU) official letterhead, has 'PATRON: HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZIMBABWE, CD R.G. MUGABE' printed proudly at the bottom of it. Curious that this branding hasn't "slipped" off the bottom over the last ten years of letterhead re-prints. Also curious that the ZCU haven't been brave enough to remove Mugabe's violent fisted presidential posters (tatty as they are) that adorn the entrance to Harare Sports Club, the official Harare venue for the World Cup Cricket matches. Perhaps their reluctance to do so is on account of the machine gun, bayonet-toting presidential guards that strut menacingly up and down the road adjacent to Harare Sports Club.
Related Links:
* Ministers warn of Zim violence

* Veteran of apartheid era says do not go
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/story/0,10069,871003,00.html
* Don't play here, say Zim players

With Kenya's elections just nine days away, an anti-corruption group accuses the government of financing political campaigns. The group, Transparency International, is calling for stricter control of government resources.

UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, launched on Tuesday what it described as "a major campaign" to vaccinate 3.5 million children against measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Drawing international attention to an unprecedented hunger crisis in Africa, where 38 million people face starvation, is the aim of a campaign officially launched on Monday by the World Food Programme (WFP).

Many Zimbabweans are now aware that the Patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union is Robert Mugabe and that the ZCU is planning to host part of the World Cup in Zimbabwe. A group called 'zvakwana enough is enough' [email protected] recently put out a report on the first One Day International cricket match between Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

The Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA), a network of more than 200 U.S.-based organizations, has issued a call for the U.S. government to respond to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) agenda in a progressive manner. If, ADNA argues, the U.S. government is to take Africa's latest development initiative seriously, it must move beyond a neo-liberal agenda featured in the NEPAD document.

We are appealing to you to endorse the Declaration initiated by the Platform Against Bush policies in Mauritius. Our organisation is part of this platform jointly with 17 other union, social and political organisations in Mauritius. This Platform is organising a Peoples' Forum and a peaceful march parallel to the official African Growth and Opportunity Act Fora being held as from 13th to 17th of January, 2003. US President Bush has announced that he will be coming to Mauritius for the AGOA Forum. The US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) requires that he attend this Forum "as far as is practicable". This will be an opportunity for peoples' organisations in Africa to express our opposition to AGOA conditions imposed by the US in exchange for access to the US market, as well as US policies that threaten people's rights in our respective countries, in Africa and world.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has expressed its support for Nigerian human rights associations and its members who have been arrested and harassed in recent weeks. The organisation has condemned the climate of hostility against human rights defenders aimed at dissuading them from carrying out their human rights activities and their fight against impunity. It is urging all concerned parties and activists to write to the Nigerian authorities urging them to put an end to all forms of harassment and threats to all human rights defenders and their organisations in Nigeria.

At least 700,000 people are trafficked worldwide each year and trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are enslaved today. Young girls are trafficked to work as domestics in West Africa, boys as young as four are abducted from countries in South Asia and forced to work as camel jockeys in the Gulf, and women from eastern Europe are sold into Europe's sex industry. To mark Human Rights Day, Tuesday 10 December, Anti-Slavery International is calling on the public to sign the Stop Human Traffic petition urging governments to introduce anti-trafficking laws and to develop measures to protect the victims of human trafficking.

Following a recent oil spill in the Niger Delta, send protest letters to Shell in Nigeria demanding:
1. immediate and full clean-up of the spill;
2. relief materials to the community to cushion the economic effects of
the spill;
3. adequate compensation to the local people whose environment and means
of livelihood have been destroyed by the spill.
ADDRESS:
SPDC Nig. Ltd
Freeman House
21/22 Marina, P.M.B. 2418
Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: 23412601600-19
Fax: 23412636681
[email][email protected] and [email][email protected]

The campaign to eliminate river blindness as a public health threat in West Africa ended at a ceremony in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou last Friday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported.

The Chairperson of the International Governing Council of the Centre for Democracy & Development (CDD), Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed Airport on his way to London on December 3. The CDD is an independent research, information and training institution dedicated to policy-oriented scholarship on questions of democratic development and peace building in the West African sub-region.

Thousands of South Africans have pledged their support for the 16 days of activism against the abuse of women and children.

If the Nigerian Bar Association should have its way, elected political office holders in the country would not have the chance for a second term. In letters to both chambers of parliament last month, the umbrella body for Nigerian lawyers canvassed an urgent amendment to the constitution to provide for a single, five-year presidency that would extend President Olusegun Obasanjo’s stay in office by one year.

The World Organisation Against Torture has asked concerned parties to write to the authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo asking them to guarantee the safety of Omba Lumbu, who has been arrested in connection with information he reportedly held concerning the involvement of the Malta Forrest Company Group in the plundering of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As weapons inspections in Iraq kick into high gear, most of us are breathing a sigh of relief. But some in the Bush Administration are still dead set on war, even if the inspections are working. Please join us in asking the Bush Administration and the United Nations to: 'Let the Inspections Work'. President Bush has agreed that war should be the very last resort. Let's hold him and his administration to those words.