In April 2008, UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA), at The New School will jointly host an international conference to review and mobilise the international agenda on ending child poverty and reducing disparities. The conference, will create a space for consultation and exchange between academics, professionals and government officials working on different aspects of the fight against child poverty.

The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, which was founded by Robert Frost in 1925 and is the oldest and most distinguished writers’ conference in America, is offering a fellowship to either an African or Caribbean poet, fiction or nonfiction writer to attend the 2008 conference, August 13-24. Named after Michael and Marylee Fairbanks, the Fairbanks International Fellowship is in its third year of existence. The previous winners have been Glaydah Namukasa, a novelist from Uganda, and Stanley Gazemba, a writer from Kenya .

As Portugal prepares to host a bonding summit of African and European leaders, the frenetic construction in its ex-colony Angola bears testimony to China's growing influence on the resource-rich continent. In all weather and on every day of the week, an army of Chinese construction workers is rapidly transforming the skyline of the Angolan capital Luanda in an alliance which has put the squeeze on traditional European partners.

Corruption is a constant presence in the lives of people around the world. And poor families are hit hardest by demands for bribes. These are the unsettling results of the Global Corruption Barometer 2007, published by Transparency International (TI) on 6 December, ahead of International Anti-corruption Day. After five years of surveying the general public's views and experiences of corruption, the report shows that bribery is still prevalent in many countries, but that citizens are increasingly demanding accountability from their governments.

The European Union must abandon paternalism in Africa and strongly invest in the commodity-rich continent or risk being overtaken by China's "easy money", the bloc's development chief warned on Friday. "Forget it, Africa is not Europe's private hunting reserve. Europe is not alone in Africa, it will never be alone there anymore," Louis Michel said a week ahead of the Lisbon EU-Africa summit, the first in seven years, on Dec. 8-9.

A guide on what to do in the event of the death of an asylum seeker has been published by the Institute of Race Relations. This 13-page briefing paper, Asylum deaths; what to do next, by Harmit Athwal, contains information as to where in the system asylum seekers are most at risk (to self-harm), why they might be moved to take their lives and how those working with or befriending asylum seekers can help to bring the circumstances surrounding the death to light.

The Oak Institute at Colby College is pleased to issue a call for nominations for the 2008 Oak Human Rights Fellowship. The Oak Institute seeks one frontline human rights practitioner working as a journalist outside of the United States for residence at Colby in the fall of 2008. Possible areas of human rights activity may include, but are not limited to: racial or ethnic discrimination; workers rights in both formal and informal markets; land and resource struggles; environmental human rights; victims of state or organized violence; gender and social exclusion; gay, lesbian, or transgender sexual discrimination; children’s rights; rights of displaced peoples and refugees; rights to religious freedom; or freedom of information.

One of the RC32 mission objectives is "to promote the development of theory, methods, and practice concerning women in society and the gendered nature of social institutions." The chosen theme for The First ISA World Forum, "Sociological Research and Public Debate" offers us a valuable opportunity to accomplish our mission objective by engaging in the production of transformative knowledge in sociological research and theoretical inquiry and by bringing scholarship to the public arena for dialogues, exchanges, debates, and practices.

A lack of "big thinking" by politicians has stifled a scheme to distribute laptops to children in the developing world, a spokesman has said. Walter Bender of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said politicians were unwilling to commit because "change equals risk".

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007) is very impressive indeed. This is, however, not immediately evident; a sense that is confirmed by Joseph Stiglitz' review of the book. Even before I read it, I was certain that the Nobel laureate would highlight Klein's attempt to make a connection between the electric shock experiments performed by the notorious McGill University psychologist Ewen Cameron who was on contract with the CIA and the economic shock approach developed by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago.

The £100 million over five years was announced by Douglas Alexander, the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development, who called on leaders of the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa, to make women's health a priority on the opening day of Women Deliver, a three-day global conference aimed to reduce maternal deaths. Maternal deaths remain high, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. A woman in Africa faces a 1 in 26 lifetime risk of maternal death compared to 1 in 8,200 in the United Kingdom.

Zimbabwe and China have relations dating back to the southern African country’s 1970s liberation struggle when Beijing provided arms and training to the black nationalist movement fighting the white minority government of Ian Smith. The friendship was rekindled when President Robert Mugabe, shunned by former friends in the West over the political crisis in his country, adopted a "Look East" policy forging stronger ties with countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia and India.

EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) will organize a consultative conference for civil society stakeholders on the setting up of the Fundamental Rights Platform on 10 – 11 December in Brussels. This conference will end FRA’s consultations on the subject that started shortly after the launch of the Agency in April by an open website consultation. FRA will be able to cover the costs of participation of some of the participating organizations.

The European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE), the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and the Venice International University (VIU) are pleased to announce their annual European Summer School in Resource and Environmental Economics for postgraduate students. The 2008 Summer School will take place from the 6th to the 12th of July, at the VIU campus on the Island of San Servolo, in Venice, located just in front of St. Mark’s Square. The theme of this Summer School is Space in Unified Models of Economy and Ecology. Deadline for application: February 1st, 2008.

Google and the Open Handset Alliance's open platform has released its software developer kit (SDK) and issues a mobile application challenge that includes a call for applications for humanitarian benefit and economic development. The challenge will issue a total of $10 million USD, initially in a first phase that will award $25,000 each to 50 applications received by March 3rd, 2008.

France's tighter immigration policies are making it even harder for HIV-positive undocumented migrants to survive, despite laws allowing foreigners who are ill the right to stay in the country to seek treatment. In theory, France treats its HIV-positive immigrants well - they are entitled to free healthcare, and even those whose residence status is still being determined get free treatment after three months if they cannot afford to pay.

Zimbabwean Lazarus Moyo is a 'failed' asylum seeker to the UK who got lucky. Diagnosed HIV positive a few years ago, he has been receiving free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment at a London clinic thanks to his involvement in a drug study programme. But his luck could be about to turn: the two-year study has come to an end, and with it the money from the pharmaceutical firm that had been funding his treatment.

The government of Niger has launched a probe into the extent of slavery in the impoverished West African country, an official said on Friday. Unofficial estimates put the number of slaves at about 800 000. "The government wants to really know if there are people living in these conditions [of slavery] or whether these are just baseless allegations," said Garba Lompo, head of the National Commission of Basic Rights.

The Netherlands has told its ambassadors in countries receiving foreign aid they must lobby those nations to decriminalize homosexuality and provide LGBT civil rights. The announcement was made in the Netherlands' Parliament by Development Minister Bert Koenders. The Netherlands is a major donor to developing nations giving almost $6-billion annually - mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Some viruses being used in experimental AIDS vaccine may damage the immune system by exhausting key cells, researchers reported on Thursday in a finding that may further cloud the field of HIV vaccines. They said vaccines using the viruses should not be tested on people until more studies are done. But other vaccine experts said the findings, while scientifically interesting, were not a cause for immediate alarm.