"Don’t care where you come from, As long as you’re a black man, you’re an African. Don’t mind your nationality, you have got the identity, of an African," - Peter Tosh. According to Jarka Halkova "before 1945 most Czechoslovak citizens had never even met a black person. But ever since the first black soldier entered the country with General Patton's Third Army in April 1945, people have gradually got used to Africans and Afro-Americans."

For phone manufacturers and service providers, some of the globe's poorest people have turned out to be one of their most profitable demographic groups, while for international development agencies, the proliferation of mobile handsets is one key means to bridge the ever-increasing technological divide between rich and poor.

Millions of poor urban people in Africa face a growing crisis over their living conditions unless rich and developing nations take urgent steps to tackle the problem, the charity ActionAid has warned. Over the last 50 years the global population living in slums has risen from 35 milliion to over 900 million. Nearly two in three urban people in developing countries lack access to a sanitary latrine. And, as illegal or unrecognised residents, they have no property rights to the land where they live.

Keeping a promise made at the United Nations six years ago to dramatically improve the lives of at least 100 million poor city dwellers by the year 2020 will be a major focus of the World Urban Forum from June 19 to 23. A large number of people, particularly in Africa, still live in informal settlements and slums because municipal governments fail to provide adequate housing and basic services.

Finance ministers from the Group of Eight nations on Saturday warned fast-growing economies against tempting poor countries into new debt traps and told them to coordinate with other lenders. China and Brazil have been singled out in the past as prime examples of countries that are handing out loans to some of the world's poorest countries, even as rich countries are cancelling debt they were owed.

"There is a tendency by those who write books and essays for leading journals to downplay the seriousness of today's racial oppression in South Africa," writes Mandisa Majuva in an article posted on "This is achieved through silence around issues of race (or by portraying whites as being the new victims of racism meted out by blacks in the new South Africa) or by choosing to explain reality in terms of economics only."

Almost 30 years have passed since the Soweto uprising on 16 June 1976, that defining day in South Africa's history when thousands of black students rebelled against apartheid. To commemorate the anniversary, pupils at Phefeni Secondary School in Soweto, South Africa and Hesketh Fletcher CofE High School in Wigan, UK shared the school day via a LIVE laptop link-up.

The mission of the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization is to support foundations and other members of the funding community in their efforts to promote global relations, policies and institutions that foster environmentally sustainable, human-centered and just economic development in the US and around the world.

"For more than sixty years, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank together with their partner regional development banks and export credit agencies, have used international finance capital to exercise control and restructure the societies of the South to serve the interests of global private corporations and the economic and geo-political agenda of the few powerful nations that control these institutions."

Bilateral trade between China and Tanzania has increased by almost 70%, climaxing at US$47million last year. According to the secretary of bilateral trade at the Chinese Embassy in Dar es Salaam, imports by China from Tanzania went up by 150.1% valued at $17million while exports from China to Tanzania increased by 40.6% to $3 million. The increase is attributed to the special preferential tariff (SPT) agreement-involving 190 tariff items-to the most undeveloped countries in Africa.

The heads of 11 of the world’s leading human rights, environmental and social development international organisations have publicly endorsed the first global accountability charter for the non-profit sector. International NGOs play an increasingly influential role. Global public opinion surveys show higher trust in NGOs than in government and business.
* See for the full charter.

115 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers' rights in 2005, while 1 600 were assaulted and 9 000 were arrested, an international survey said. Rubber bullets and teargas were a feature of police responses to protests by workers in South Africa. New laws in Nigeria placed heavy restrictions on the right to strike and totally banned trade unions for certain types of worker.

Internet search engine Google has released a web-based spreadsheet application, on a limited test basis. Spreadsheets are software applications with a grid of rows and columns and calculating capabilities, which allow users to input or organise information.

The newly redesigned June issue of Alliance magazine, with a special feature on donors and learning, has just been published. Funders talk about listening to their grantees and their beneficiaries, and spend time and money on evaluating their programmes, but what lies behind the rhetoric?

Following reports of sexual exploitation of refugees in West Africa in 2001 and in Nepal in 2003, the UN Secretary-General issued a Bulletin obliging UN agencies and their partners to prevent, and when suspected, to investigate any sexual exploitation and sexual abuse (SEA) by humanitarian staff. Humanitarian organisations began adopting and revising Codes of Conduct and other related policies. This evaluation is a critical component underpinning the larger SEA prevention and response equation as the humanitarian community makes efforts to build capacity to receive and investigate allegations of sexual abuse - or exploitation-related staff misconduct.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has softened his stance on the expulsion of illegal immigrants' children from French schools. Mr Sarkozy plans to spare about 1,200 children who faced expulsion and deportation with their families.
Since April, more than 40,000 people have signed a petition pledging to protect and house the children of immigrants to save them from expulsion. An immigration bill adopted by the lower house envisaged such expulsions.

This month, WEDO launched MisFortune500, a highly-anticipated, much-needed website that challenges corporate malfeasance against women worldwide, helping them reclaim their rights to decent work, a clean and healthy environment, and access to land, water, food and quality public services. MisFortune500 - a parody of Fortune magazine's annual list of top profit-making companies -exposes corporate violations of women's rights that threaten lives and communities and destroy the environment.

The way NGOs and other global civil society organisations operate must be reformed if they are to embody the progressive claims often made on their behalf, argues Leni Wild. For too long, people on the liberal left of politics have assumed that global civil society is inherently progressive and a force for social progress. This approach is partial and ignores the darker side of the phenomenon.

A complete, interactive version of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006 – Literacy for Life – is now available on CD-ROM in English. Its convenient HTML format means it is fully searchable: users can therefore explore the report and accompanying statistical data, maps, background papers and boxes with easy navigation from one to the other, using an advanced search function. Additional features include the report’s headline messages, a summary report and a statistics tool that generates charts and tables for export to printer or PowerPoint.

The Global Education Digest 2006 presents the latest education statistics from primary to tertiary levels in more than 200 countries. “What this report shows is that the real dynamic in tertiary education is coming from African, Arab and Chinese students. They are the driving force behind the internationalization of higher education,” says Hendrik van der Pol, UIS Director.