Throughout history, women and girls have been routinely assaulted and raped as a weapon of war. Recently, "ethnic cleansing" and changing patterns of conflict that target civilians have made women and children even more vulnerable.

Panos Southern Africa commissioned women’s organisations largely from Southern Africa to engage in a gender analysis of the internet and identify relevant, easy-to-use internet information resources on gender and development. This publication is a result of that collaborative effort. While prepared mostly with women’s strategic needs in mind, this book should be useful to everyone who is interested in gender and development.

The Panos AIDS Programme is working in collaboration with the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA) in three countries, Kenya, Mozambique and Cameroon, on issues around men and HIV and impact on women. The project targets local organisations, policymakers and the media --by disseminating information on the issues and existing projects working with men, and catalysing the development of new projects. The reports Men and HIV in Mozambique ( in Portuguese) and Men and HIV in Kenya have been produced in collaboration with SWAA as part of this project.

The lack of role models for women in the IT industry and the perception that networking jobs are 'too technical' for women discourages them form choosing this as a career path.

This is a two year contract, renewable. This post will take lead responsibility for managing and developing a project which will address women's health issues through an interactive radio magazine programme. Operating from an office/studio in Hargeisa, Somaliland the project is funded for five years and builds on the experience of a two-year pilot project. Programmes are written and produced by Health Unlimited's national staff and
broadcast to the Somali speaking Horn of Africa.

Socialist feminism's synthesis of radical feminism with socialism seems to becoming undone. Many socialist feminists have become postmodernists or postmodern "materialists." Others, especially socialist eco-feminists, are drifting into cultural feminism. Some are calling for a move from socialist to Marxist feminism. Is socialist feminism necessarily "totalistic" and "essentialist"? Does postmodern feminism really defend "difference" and eschew grounding politics in "nature"? Is postmodern materialist feminism a coherent project? Is postmodern feminism anarchist? Is cultural feminism the "feminist" feminism? Is it "radical"? Can the domination of women and nonhuman nature be adequately addressed by Marxist feminism? How is the shift to postmodernism in theory affecting feminist practice, political engagements, and research? Please send completed conference form (below) and 100-word abstract, by January 15.

The Editorial Team of the Gender, Society & Development series is planning a book on 'gender/women and sustainable resources management' to be published in 2002. The book will be the 6th in the series produced by KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) and co-distributed by Oxfam GB. The Team is looking for authors, especially from the South, with practical experience in the field of integrating and mainstreaming gender/women' issues into the management and use of natural resources for sustainable development.

On the 26-27 November 2001, South Africa will witness a court case that can help to alter the course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our country. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) calls on your support and solidarity to save people from unnecessary death and suffering. We ask you to encourage our government to change its tragic course in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

More than 26 million refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced persons are registered worldwide and millions more are unregistered. 50% are girls and women. Gender-based violence tends to increase in refugee situations, where reproductive health services are often lacking. For example, a 1994 study of Rwandan refugees in Tanzanian camps found that 60% of the women had a reproductive tract infection and more than 20% of births at a Burundi refugee camp in Tanzania in 1998 were below average weight, and infant deaths rose sharply from prewar levels. Of Rwandan women who reported being raped, 17% were HIV-positive.

Violence against women is a universally devastating and often unpunished crime with far-reaching implications. As Dr. Heyzer says in her statement: "What happened in Afghanistan demonstrates that the way in which a country or community treats women and protects and promotes their human rights, is one of the best early warning indicators of its respect for international norms and standards ".

UNIFEM, in collaboration with the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) held a policy seminar from 15-16 October in Khartoum, Sudan to integrate a gender perspective in the resolution of armed conflicts in the East and Horn of Africa region. The two-day seminar drew participants from the IGAD Member States, which included Ministers in charge of Women/Gender Affairs, Women Parliamentarians, and representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and local women’s NGOs.

UNIFEM and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in collaboration with ABANTU for Development, an African women’s NGO, held a ‘Peace and Communications Skills Workshop for Burundi Refugee Women’ from 1-4 October. The need for the workshop resulted from a UNIFEM Training Needs Assessment Mission for Burundi Refugee Women, conducted in June-July 2001. While the target beneficiaries were Burundi refugee women and men in Kibondo, Kasulu and Ngara refugee camps in Tanzania, participants also included key implementing partners of UNHCR who have a direct bearing on the lives of refugee women in the camps.

Agenda is a feminist quarterly based in Durban, South Africa, now in its 14th year. The Editorial Advisory Group decides on themes in advance. Contributions on topical and current gender issues, gender analysis, reviews and interviews are welcomed. We seek ongoing contributions, particularly from women who have never published their research or writing.

The AGI has received funding from Rockefeller Foundation to continue its highly successful Associates Programme into 2002. The aim of the programme is for a limited number of African women, who are middle to senior level scholars, from across the continent to be offered the opportunity to be based at the University of Cape Town.

Far from being a private, family affair, suggests a Save the Children report, domestic violence has wider repercussions for the whole community.

Horn of Africa Regional Conference on Women and Information and Communication Technologies.

The 16 Days of Activism Against gender Violence starts on the 25th of November. Women'sNet has added a new page to their site for more information.

Traditional chiefs in Togo, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the government, have agreed to support efforts against violence on girls through a 'national league' -in commemoration of the International Day of the Child that was celebrated on 20 November.

More than two months after the introduction of Islamic Sharia (laws) in northern Nigeria, women, in working class neighbourhoods such as Tudun Wada in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara state, are beginning to get rid of their chador, or veil, and to wear "sexy" clothing.

Some 16 women foreign ministers appealed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to make sure women in war zones get special treatment as victims and are invited to be partners at the peace negotiating table.