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).

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? Not yet, says Tiberius Baraza, a researcher in the Governance and Development Department at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research -- a non-governmental body based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

This report examines the complexities of defining inequality within and between countries. Using ethnic and gender disparities as case examples, the author argues that inequality can lead to short and medium term economic growth and development, but may come at a long run detriment to the marginalized group. The author calls on countries and development agencies to take into account the diversity of economic needs among different sectors of society and to make "growth and equity compatible."

One in 3 deaths of people with HIV/AIDS is caused by TB. There have been 21 new HIV drugs for every one new TB drug since 1986; the test for TB is 100 years old, and the vaccine being used today is the same as it was 80 years ago.

The Ministers of Education of the G8 nations met in Moscow in advance of the 2006 G-8 Summit set for July 15-18 in St. Petersburg, Russia. With 100 million primary school age children out of school, G8 members recognize that accelerated progress is required to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals set for education, reports the Development Gateway.

Good governance - the fair and transparent management of a country's resources and institutions - has become a key objective for European Union (EU) development assistance. Without practices that lead to good governance, donors are less willing to provide aid and for this reason the EU is supporting developing country programmes that focus on governance issues.

The private sector in Zimbabwe has been urged to exploit the various bilateral trade agreements that the country has signed with its trading partners. Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu said that the agreements gave business the leeway to expand markets to boost foreign currency earnings. It was critical that the government received feedback on the effectiveness of the trade agreements to allow the authorities to deal with operational problems that agreements might be presenting, he said.

The National Association of Democratic Lawyers of South Africa has condemned the "flagrant breaches of international humanitarian law and the violations of the human rights of Palestinians further exacerbated by the latest attack by Israel on the residents of Gaza in Palestine". The group has called on the South African government to immediately recall the South African ambassador from Tel Aviv and to begin the process of ending diplomatic relations with Israel.
Related Links:
- Lebanon Diary

- "Open War" in the Middle East
http://lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/
http://siegeoflebanon.blogspot.com/
http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.org/

As the Internet becomes increasingly essential to politics, commerce and daily life, the debate over Internet governance has evolved from a niche discussion among technologists into a global controversy over who should set the rules for one of the world's most vital resources. As the US Government plots its path forward and reconsiders its special role in overseeing the Internet's addressing system, it is important to determine how the shifting global environment is likely to affect the outcome of any US decision about the future of Internet governance.

Governments, research and policy centres, NGOs and the private sector are abuzz with speculation over China’s influence in Africa. The tone of much Western discourse has been to warn Africa about China, with much emphasis placed on China’s poor human rights record, its disregard for the environment and its tendency to act only in its own interests. But aren’t these the very attributes of Western engagement with Africa? Who is the West to lecture Africa on the dangers represented by China? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem addresses the challenge of how to engage the Chinese.

Who is Afraid of China? It is difficult to read western papers these days or watch their televisions and listen to their radios without some Chinese feature, news, information, disinformation and mis information. Western policy makers are training future generations to learn Mandarin. Chinese studies is booming. Intelligence services are in a frenzy recruiting anyone who can help decipher the Chinese mind. Even retired old China hands are being recalled from their retirement back into active service.

China is being discussed in the West as a threat. A threat to Western hegemony across the world mostly in economic terms. Nowhere is this threat more orchestrated than in Africa. If China is a threat to the West, should we worry when the West has always been a threat to our very existence for centuries?

I was at one of those conferences on China in the United Kingdom a few weeks ago. It was organised by the highbrow New Labour policy think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The theme of the Conference was 'China and Africa'. I went to the conference with mixed feelings. I would have had no problem if the theme had been ' Britain and China'. But why would a British institution be concerned about China in Africa?

Should we not be having such meetings in Africa under the auspices of our own governments, research centres, NGOs and even the private sector?

Of course this question is very rhetorical on my part. I cannot plead naivety in these matters but still I cannot help asking the question even if I know the answers. Such is the ideological incapacitation (both structurally induced and by complacency and irresponsible leadership) of Africa these days that even the poverty that the majority of our peoples suffer from have their experts in the West and advocates in Western NGOs and other Western Do-Gooders who put our pictures in the background of their appeals. So bad is the situation that some African countries even have Western donor advisers to help them negotiate in forums like the WTO, where our countries 'negotiate' with Western governments. It is like the person whacking you also offering you a handkerchief to wipe your tears! Oh Africa! Can turkeys really vote for an early Christmas?

That puts the IPPR conference in context. The West has arrogated to itself the right to act, talk, interpret and define African realities. Slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism / cold war and the current recolonisation via globalisation provide the historical template from which these attitudes are drawn. They even define for us who are our enemies and who are our friends!

But at every stage they have had willing collaborators, apologists and active agents not only at the highest level of our political society but also civil society. Without African agency these inequities could not have lasted this long. China is an example of a country and peoples who have refused to give up shaping their own destiny. Not that various imperialist forces have not tried several times. But China has remained Chinese.

The current discourse in the West about China is very much reminiscent of the Cold war days where the West thought, acted and behaved as though Africa was its exclusive preserve for exploitation and domination. It's like a vulture scaring off other vultures from its perch.

So the West is now warning Africa to be wary of China. The alarm bells are sounded about many issues on which China is vulnerable. One, China is after Africa's energy and other resources needed for its vastly growing economy. Two, It does not respect human rights at home and therefore will not give a damn about it in Africa. Just check the list of China's new best friends in Africa! Three, it does not care about the cost to the environment of its energy and growth needs. Four, in international affairs China only seeks the protection of Chinese interests no matter whose ox is gored. For instance, China continuously either abstains from or prevents any vote of censure in the UN Security Council and General Assembly against governments it is doing business with, whether it is the killer regime in Khartoum killing its own peoples in Darfur or the illegitimate government of Idris Deby in neighbouring Chad.

There are many other reasons why the West thinks Africa should be wary of China. The interesting thing is that all of these charges and many more are true of China's foreign policy. But the bigger question is this: Are they not also true of Africa's relations with the West? Do we need Westerners to tell us about these when our physical body and body politic are still suffering from similar forced encounters with the West? How can the blackened Western pot really call the Chinese porcelain kettle black?

Does this mean that there are no legitimate issues that should concern Africans about China's deepening engagement with Africa? There are many but we do not need our former and current colonisers to give us lectures on them. They are serial re- offenders when it comes to exploiting Africa.

Africa can and should choose its own friends and enemies, though some enemies and friends may decide to choose you.

There are many concerns that we must address. The first one is China's bilateralism in relation to Africa. While this may suit the short-term needs of individual leaders, it undermines our sub regional and Pan African institutions and commitments. It replays the colonialist divide and conquer tactics. Most of our countries have no chance negotiating with China alone. They will be gobbled up one by one. Two, the influx of Chinese goods, services (including criminal gangs) and migrants, is undermining our local economies and attempts at regional integration. While the goods are much cheaper than those from the West they are also killing our nascent industries. Even areas where we have had much progress in the past like textiles are being killed off from the dumping of cheaper Chinese products. As a Funtua man I should know about this because the Chinese have taken over our biggest industry, Funtua Textiles. Three, in the cold war days China, like other Socialist states, used to have three principles governing their international relations. These were: People to People, Party-to-Party and Government-to-Government. These days China does only Business to Government and Government to Government. Where it has any links with parties they are not necessarily communist parties (since China is also any thing but communist in name only) but ruling parties that can facilitate access for their businesses.

This is where the biggest challenge is, both for African CSOs, NGOs, other pro-people forces and China itself: How do we engage with the Chinese and how can the Chinese engage with us outside of the framework of Government and Business, given the lack of institutional and historical knowledge on both sides on that type of engagement?

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org