Few would dispute that civil society organisations (CSOs) have grown substantially in number and influence over the past decades. But, are these groups at a point now where they play a determining role, alongside government, in public policy-making?

In recent years, nations have challenged the activities and very existence of non-governmental organizations. Russia, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea have enacted new measures requiring registration; "Open Society Institute" affiliates have been shut down in Eastern Europe; and Venezuela has charged the Súmate NGO leaders with treason. In Iraq and Afghanistan, staff of Western charitable NGOs (CARE and Doctors Without Borders) have been assassinated.

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (August 23) is an important occasion to remind the international community of the particularity of this tragedy, of its persisting consequences for modern societies, and of the role played by both enslaved Africans and abolitionists in bringing to an end this crime against humanity.

Geneva Call and the Program for the Study of International Organization(s) of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, sponsored a landmark workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November 2005, entitled “Women in Armed Opposition Groups in Africa and the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights”.

At a meeting in April 2006 in Washington, a group of about 40 global justice campaigners agreed that the time was ripe for a decisive campaign to shrink or sink the IMF.The urgency of eliminating the IMF's singularly destructive influence on the lives of peoples and countries in the Global South and former Soviet bloc has not diminished one bit over the 25 years (and counting of "structural adjustment" and the "Washington consensus."

During war time you need enemies, heroes, and justification — in that order. I was reminded of this triple imperative as I watched the film United 93, which supplies these ingredients, more or less in this same order. United 93, the first of several major media releases to deal with the events of September 11, 2001, has been the cause of much debate, most centered over whether we as a nation are ready to be re-traumatized.

Nominations are sought for the 2007 International Human Rights Lawyer Award (formerly the International Rule of Law Award).The award is presented annually by the ABA Section of International Law to recognize distinguished foreign lawyers who have suffered persecution because of their professional activities.

Applications for the next round of Trust Fund grants are open now. There will be no exceptions made for proposals submitted after the deadline. In selecting previous projects, the advisory group carefully considered projects from the UN Permanent Forum’s seven diverse socio-cultural regions, as well as whether the project could access other funding sources and whether the project was a capacity building opportunity for indigenous organisations.

This year's ranking show a slow but steady improvement in the commitment of rich countries to growth and poverty reduction in poor countries, says the Center for Global Development, but fall far short of leaders' soaring rhetoric. The UK and U.S. rank 12th and 13th.

Mama Cash Grants support women's groups that champion a woman's right to control her own body. Grants range from 500 euros to 20,000 euros. Applications for The Netherlands and Europe as well as the Global South (Asia and the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean) and the former Soviet Union, can be submitted throughout the entire year.

The 11th One World Fellowship Scheme, run in collaboration with the British Council, is currently open to applications to join the 2006 programme. Aimed at senior radio and television broadcasters from developing countries, the scheme brings a select group of broadcast professionals to the UK for a 2 week period in November. During this time a packed and varied programme is set up, tailored to meet the interests of those selected to participate.

freeFAX.com is powered by the international tpc network which is a collection of fax servers in many locations around the world. Each fax that you send from freeFAX is routed through the tpc service and directed to the closest fax server to the recipient. The fax is usually sent within a few minutes but could take longer depending on fax traffic at the local fax server. After your fax has been delivered you will receive an e-mail confirmation from the server that sent the fax.

With the addition of SMS messaging via Mobile 365's global delivery network, Skype users can keep in touch by sending SMS messages to mobile subscribers anywhere in the world. With this new service, Skype users can send an SMS to a mobile phone directly from their keyboard. The service is quick and simple to use, and features a straightforward pricing plan.

A new website for human rights professionals called Human Rights Tools has been created. It offers four main services: A library of carefully selected and commented resources; Key resources for country analysis; Daily updated human rights headlines; a Human Rights Tools newsletter.

New Field Foundation is seeking a program manager to help develop and manage its Africa grant making program. Founded in 2003, New Field Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation located in San Francisco as a supporting organization of Tides Foundation. The program manager will work closely with the executive director and other team members to help develop strategy, assess proposals, prepare grant recommendations, and provide contextual analysis for a multi-layered program that brings resources to and benefits women and their families facing poverty, violence, and injustice in sub-Saharan Africa. Please visit our website at for a full job description.

QuickGuides are 24 page books, readable in an hour, covering the fundraising and management needs of both large and small organisations. QuickGuides are the perfect way to learn about a subject quickly and easily, and because they are written and reviewed by knowledgeable professionals from all around the world they will be useful wherever you operate as they are not country specific. And with 6 new titles to add to our current 22 and more planned for 2007 - from sources of funding to events planning, motivating staff to marketing – it’s all there. At £8 or US$14 per book, QuickGuides are accessible to all, and you can build your own library of expertise. And as a reader of Pambazuka News, you can take advantage of a special promotion of 3 books for the price of 2 until the end of October 2006. Or for £125 you can buy an entire library of all 28 titles. QuickGuides are a resource you can’t afford not to have. Quote ref: pambazuka and order online now at our online bookshop.

As we near the first democratic elections in nearly 40 years in the DRC, yet another self-serving conflict is brewing in Africa. This time it is between Somalia and Ethiopia.

Ethiopundit - Ethiopundit (http://ethiopundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/taken-for-ride.html) believes the present near conflict between the two countries serves the interests of both Meles Zenawi and the Somali religious warlords.

“Both have now acquired the 'worthy' opponents of their dreams (and everyone else's nightmares) to justify and excuse all of their myriad crimes - past, present and future - while they fortify and refortify their respective revolutions…No one else benefits except for the web of aggressive international mayhem that is attempting to hijack Islam (arms dealers and Swiss bankers too). Ethiopians and the donor patrons of Meles Inc. are, in turn, unwillingly and quite willingly being forced to go along for a ride that will end badly…”

Have US interests a part to play in this proposed conflict – Zenawi being backed by the US in yet another proxy war on their behalf against the Islamic forces they could not defeat via the old Somali warlords?

Nazret.com - Nazret.com (http://nazret.com/blog/index.php?title=20000_ethiopians_in_lebanon&more…) points to an article that reports on some 2000 Ethiopians and other stranded migrant workers in Lebanon. Many governments of these nationals are unable to evacuate their citizens and are calling on the International Organisation on Migration to assist them. For example, Ghana has said it has at least 500 citizens in Beirut and more in Tripoli. Nigerians are also amongst the dead and displaced. Many other African nationals are in Lebanon, displaced and without the means to survive.

Egyptian bloggers, Manal and Alaa’s Bucket - Manal and Alaa's Bucket (http://www.manalaa.net/me-5th-columnist) address a short message to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, criticising them for their “lack of adventure”:

“We argue that sometimes staying safe is not an option, and that you have to sacrifice and pay the price of your adventure [rather] than pay the price of sitting idly and waiting…look at the state we live in, look at how hopeless we Egyptians have become; look at how the government cracks down on citizens even if they don't get involved in politics at all; look at how optimistic and proud HizbAllah's adventure made us. Yet you Muslim Brotherhood remain conservative in your actions and [are] moving slowly. Even the younger generations of the Muslim Brothers are cautious! Isn't it part of being young to be daring and a bit reckless? Don't you all burn inside with the need to act, the need to do something? The urge to engage in an ‘adventure’?”

Passion of the Present - Passion of the Present (http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/07/jan_pronk_on_th.h…) posts a piece by Jan Pronk on the lack of progress since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement.

“Ten weeks after the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement the situation is still quite bleak… Violations of the agreement continue. Intra SLA fighting has not stopped. Two new movements have emerged. One is called the G19, a group which originally consisted of nineteen people, who were present in Abuja as members or advisors of the SLA delegation, but who increasingly disagreed with the leadership…A second new group is the New Redemption Front (NRF). They seem to have their base in the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which had participated in the Abuja talks…”

Pronk explains the actions of the two groups and other factions over the past few weeks. He believes that peace cannot take place under the present conditions as most people do not have trust in those that signed the DPA. Added to that is the failure by Khartoum to disarm the Janjaweed who continue to carry out atrocities.

Nigerian blogger, Story of My Life Story of My Life (http://nijaoffspring.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-i-resent-white-people-pt-…) writes a piece on white people’s response to racism. She goes on to discuss slavery and the effect of the European invasion on Africa and the benefits to European countries of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“The first act against Africa by Whites was a unilateral act of war, announced or unannounced. There were no African Kings or Queens in any of the European countries or in the US when ships set sail for Africa to capture slaves for profit. White people had already decided to raid for slaves. They didn't need the agreement of black people on that. Hence, the concept of ‘trade’ is a fallacy. The African so-called slave ‘trade’ was a demand-driven market out of Europe and America, not a supply-driven market out of Africa. Africans did not seek to sell captives to the white people as an original act.”

“As Britain developed into the world's first post-industrial nation, financial services became an increasingly important sector of its economy. Invisible financial exports, as mentioned, kept Britain out of the red, especially capital investments outside Europe, particularly to the developing and open markets in Africa and predominantly white settler colonies. In addition, surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap labour, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible.”

The Cameroonian blogosphere is coming alive with yet another new blog – Martin Jumbam is a journalist and translator Martin Jumbam (http://www.martinjumbam.com/2006/07/interview_with_.html). He has a series of interviews with Professor Abioseh Michael Porter. In the first interview they discuss the use of pidgin or krio in literary expression. Porter says the response to writing in pidgin differs depending on who you talk to. The masses are very receptive and appreciative whilst the educated elite of Cameroon, Nigeria and Sierra Leone despise it’s use. In Cameroon there exists a hierarchy of language:

“At the top of the ladder, you have French, which by sheer number of speakers outranks the others, and then there is English, with Pidgin coming a distant third. There was the mistaken assumption that Pidgin would corrupt the speaker’s correct use of English. Linguistically that is, of course, not true because if you study Pidgin, or any other language, in and of itself and use it the way it is meant to be used, it would be difficult to confuse one with the other. Take the Romance languages of Europe, for example. They are morphologically quite similar but people don’t mix them up simply for that reason. What we have here is simply a kind of superiority complex, if you can excuse that term, European languages have in relation to Pidgin or Krio.”

A number of Nigeria writers have chosen to write in pidgin. Amos Tutola is probably the most famous and Ken Saro Wiwa’s “Sozaboy: A story in rotten English” is one of his best. However on the whole the use of pidgin has been marginalized even though it is used by all strata of society in day-to-day speech.

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Not that what I have to say matters - since when has anyone cared to read what readers have to express. Pambazuka News: show me you are different. Ok, I want to find out from him why China can produce cheaply and not the Funtua Textiles he made mention of. (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/36045). I guess this is China's time in the serial rape of an ever-willing continent. The elites speak to themselves and the rest of the people are pre-occupied with finding what to survive on. I once asked a question no one bothered to answer: Why do you have China Towns all over the world and not one Naija Town is possible? I rest my case!

Talks among six key World Trade Organization governments collapsed, imperiling efforts to reach a global market-opening agreement worth billions of dollars. Ministers from the US, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan remained deadlocked, prompting WTO Director- General Pascal Lamy to suspend the five-year-old talks to dismantle market barriers and lift millions out of poverty in the developing world, reports Bloomberg.

China has agreed to construct the Ayago-Nile hydro-power dam that will provide about 530MW to meet the 8% annual electricity demand. The river that drops about 80m over about 9.5km is at Murchison Falls in Nebbi district. Uganda's ambassador to China, Charles Wagidoso, said the estimated project cost according to the East African Master Plan study of 2006 is $900m (sh1.6 trillion).