The One World Trust is recognised as one of the leaders of the debate about the accountability of global organisations and is developing a new programme work in the area of global peace and security. We are looking for a new director who is able to consolidate the growth and develop the current work programme to increase the impact of the Trust. The successful candidate will offer the skills to meet the challenge of a role that encompasses a wide variety of work including further development of the organisation and its projects, fundraising, staff and financial management, and external relations/networking.

"Accumulation by dispossession is about plundering, robbing other people of their rights. When we start to look at what has happened to the global economy for the past thirty years, a lot of that has been going on all over the place," says David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism, in this article. "In some instances, it is taking away peoples rights to dispose of their own resources, so you will find that there is resistance to that..." Read the full interview with David Harvey on his book The New Imperialsm by clicking on the URL provided.

The following text is the prepared speech of Winnie Madikezela Mandela for her March 4 address to V103's Expo for Today's Black Woman held in Chicago, Illinois. "I feel greatly honored to have been invited to this august gathering. In his address to the 1900 Pan African Conference a prolific African American writer, scholar, and philosopher W.E.B. Du Bois declared the problem of the twentieth century 'as the problem of the colour line'. Indeed the 20th century has sharpened and deepened distinctions between the colonizers, the powerful, the wealthy, the developed and privileged on the one hand, and the colonized, powerless, poor, diseased, and the landless and disadvantaged on the other.”

A study on the accuracy of the free online resource Wikipedia by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as "fatally flawed". The report, published in December last year, compared the accuracy of online offerings from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia. Nature found that both were about as accurate as each other on science.

A commission of inquiry has grilled Uganda's health ministers over a corruption scandal that NGOs say prevented donor money from reaching the severely sick. The commission investigating the suspension of funding worth hundreds of millions of dollars by the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis has quizzed 130 Ugandan government officials and members of civil society over allegations of financial mismanagement and nepotism.

Nigeria and Russia are now pitched in an emotive diplomatic row following a resolve by the Russian government to side track the agenda of New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) from the overall programme of G8, ahead of the next G8 meeting to be held in Moscow, Sunday Tribune can report. Russia, the current chairman of G8 has tactically been distancing itself from NEPAD and has been indicating that NEPAD will not form part of issues that the G8 would deliberate upon during its next summer meeting in Moscow, a development said to have angered President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Across Europe, African football players face weekly abuse from fans chanting racial insults. In Russia, racial attitudes have extended beyond the football pitch to include violent attacks against Africans, some of which have resulted in death. With International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/racial/) marked this week, Pambazuka News interviewed Nassor Said Ali, co founder and leader of the St. Petersburg African Union, which has been working to support the victims of race-based violence in Russia.

Pambazuka News: Who are the African people that live in Russia? What are the attitudes towards African people in Russia and why do these attitudes exist?

Nassor Said Ali: Most of the African population currently living in Russia is comprised of students. There are also a number of graduates who, for one reason or another have been unable to leave and fall into the trap of the Russian legal system where they face restrictions on their residential status and the inability to gain work permits. In addition, there is a small population of illegal immigrants, as well as legitimate residents. There are also children from mixed Afro-Russian families – in many cases, these children face discrimination and some are deserted in state orphanages.

African people in Russia are increasingly finding themselves living in fear of being the object of increasing racial attacks. Africans believe that these attacks are part and parcel of a prejudice towards them due to a lack of information about Africa and any culture alien to Russia. Aliou Tunkara, head of the St. Petersburg African Union, an organisation dedicated to helping Africans in Russia, argues that "Russian racism comes out of the social misconception that we are people from another planet abusing the generosity of the Russian people by turning into criminals and drug dealers."

Pambazuka News: What is St Petersburg African Union doing to combat racism and support those who are affected by it?

Nassor Said Ali: The African Union has embarked on an awareness raising campaign. After a round table session on interethnic and interracial relations, attended by St. Petersburg's city administration, migration and political authorities, as well as a number of local NGO's, specific mutual terms were reached with local law enforcement authorities. The outcome included the decision to conduct lectures and discussions concerning Africa as a continent with cultural, geographical, economic and historical diversity to be held with police academies and schools. This was done with the hope of fighting racism and xenophobia. The African Union has also been active in raising awareness of these issues in more public ways – street demonstrations and numerous media interventions.

Pambazuka News: Are local authorities active in supporting anti-racist views, or do they in fact actually contribute to the views that many people hold?

Nassor Said Ali: While the African Union has been able to collaborate with government and police departments, they have also encountered problems at this level. A sociological survey among Africans in the city found that authorities have been indifferent to racist attitudes, or are even permissive in some cases.

Indeed, some police officials have been dismissive of the cases in which African people have been attacked or killed, arguing that the victims have been connected to the "lowest of the locals," or blaming the attacks not on racism, but simply on the public drunkenness of hooligans out looking for a good time or someone to rob. There have also been allegations that the attacked Africans have been misrepresenting Russian society, and that ethnic minorities have exaggerated "the scale of race-related crimes to divert attention away from their own wrong doings," according to the head of the St. Petersburg police press office.

Pambazuka News: Are these isolated incidents, or are nationalist and racist sentiments on the rise?

Nassor Said Ali: While some officials would like to blame these incidents on drunkenness or low-level crime, it appears that racist and xenophobic crimes are in fact increasing. Extremist organisations, such as the Freedom Party, have claimed responsibility for some of these murders, asserting that their "byely patruli" (white patrol) operates in the city centre to "cleanse the city of unwanted elements where the police had failed." It is not only Africans that are targeted – a Vietnamese student was killed recently, and the local Jewish community has reported a rise in acts of vandalism. Further, human rights organisations are worried about a recent tendency among nationalist movements in assuming a major role in the opposition forces of the country, in an environment where the ruling democratic forces are losing ground.

Pambazuka News: Does the media report accurately on these incidents (ie. are the African students blamed for instigating the violence)?

Nassor Said Ali: A recent front page story from the local weekly, Novy Petersburg, branded the anti-racist campaign undertaken by the African Union as a "promotion of African culture of cannibalism, drugs and the dissemination of infectious diseases among the children." The implications of this are obviously widespread, and when the African Union entered into classes as a part of their awareness campaign they were met with both students and teachers echoing these sentiments. Further, the head of the St. Petersburg police press department admitted to lying about the extent and causes of attacks on Africans, claiming that he didn't want the media to pick up on the issue. That the media is therefore unable to report accurately is alarming. News outlets have also been accused of reporting on the incidents, but not addressing the responses of authorities, law enforcement agencies and public.

* Interview conducted by email and compiled from previous articles. Please send comments to

StreetNet International alliance of street vendors was launched in Durban, South Africa, in November 2002. Membership-based organizations (unions, co-operatives or associations) directly organizing street vendors, market vendors and/or hawkers among their members, are entitled to affiliate to StreetNet International. The aim of StreetNet is to promote the exchange of information and ideas on critical issues facing street vendors, market vendors and hawkers (i.e. mobile vendors) and on practical organizing and advocacy strategies.

The Program awards approximately fifteen fellowships each year to exceptional social entrepreneurs and technology professionals from around the world. Successful candidates have innovative ideas and are passionate about implementing a project to empower individuals and communities in the developing world.

Sometimes, racist people commit acts which are as stupid as they are outrageous. However, violent forms of racism and discrimination is only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface of apparent equality, people belonging to ethnic, religious, sexual or any other minorities, continue to be confronted with various forms of intolerance and discrimination. The vicious circle of popular bigotry and populist politicians finds easy victims in any group of people who fall outside the prejudiced perception of “normality”.

Although the number of people internally displaced within their own countries by conflict decreased slightly during 2005, the global internal displacement crisis remained at an alarming level, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. “The report clearly shows that most governments in countries affected by conflict fail to live up to their responsibility to prevent arbitrary displacement and ensure the safety and well-being of their displaced citizens,” said Elisabeth Rasmusson, head of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The threat of HIV/Aids on the global economy in the next five years is likely to cause severe losses, according to the World Economic Forum Report 2006. Business losses are predicted at 46 percent from 2005 compared to 37 percent as at 2004. "Future concern is rising about the expected impact of HIV/Aids on firms' operations over the next five years," reads in part the World Economic Forum (WEF) Report 2006 titled: Business & HIV/AIDS: A healthier partnership?

Uganda, like other sub-saharan African countries, still faces the challenge of keeping the inflation rate below 10% and holding the shilling at bay against the dollar at the expense of poor medical care, substandard education, poor road network, rampant unemployment and having millions of the population still living on one dollar a day. Participants at the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) roundtable meeting on debt relief and the challenges of increased aid in Lusaka, Zambia over the weekend agreed that there was need for increased debt relief instead of increased aid inflows.

"A heap of garbage," was Justice James Ogoola's description of the accountability rendered for the millions spent by the three ministers of health in purported supervision of Global Fund activities in Uganda. "Utter rubbish," Bank of Uganda Governor Tumusiime Mutebile summed up state minister for general duties Mike Mukula's attempts to exonerate himself from responsibility of accounting for the money. This was a session of Justice Ogoola's commission of inquiry into the alleged mismanagement of the Global Fund against Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, which was thrown into shock by Mukula when he said the money was never misused.

Nearly one-fifth of the world’s adult population – 771 million adults – lack the basic literacy skills vital to improve their livelihoods, according to the EFA Global Monitoring Report released in November 2005. But where does this number come from? Does it include migrant workers, nomads or refugees? And how accurate is it? The Report makes cross-national comparison of literacy using data compiled by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). About two-thirds of the country statistics come from nationally-reported figures based on national censuses or surveys.

Less than a decade remains for countries to reach the ambitious targets laid out in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- agreed on by global leaders at a summit in 2000. The eight MDGs focus on halving the number of people living in extreme hunger and poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and reducing child mortality, all by 2015. They also aim to improve maternal health, combat disease, ensure environmental sustainability and develop partnerships that can tackle issues such as unfair global trade rules, and debt in developing countries. To get a sense of what progress is being made towards achieving the MDGs, Walter Kudzodzi spoke to Tetteh Homeku, director of programmes at the Accra-based Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa).

The United Nations' new Human Rights Council - created Wednesday (March 15) with a 170-4 vote in the General Assembly - will launch in June, with advocates saying they hope it will be effective at confronting countries that abuse their own people. The US, which voted against the new entity citing concerns it will not be strong enough, nevertheless agreed Wednesday to help fund the council and work toward making it "as strong and effective as it can be."

Indigenous and tribal peoples represent about 5 per cent of the world's population, but over 15 per cent of the world's poor. The incidence of extreme poverty is higher among them than among other social groups and they generally benefit much less than others from overall declines in poverty. This paper reports on an ethnic "audit" of 14 PRSPs (poverty reduction strategy papers) in 14 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Its goal is to ascertain whether and how the rights, needs and aspirations of indigenous and tribal peoples have been taken into account and whether they have been involved in the consultations leading to the formation of the PRSPs.

In the last five years, the number of asylum-seekers arriving in all industrialized countries has fallen by half, according to preliminary annual figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who said this trend should spark reflection in the industrialized world about the fate of those in need of protection. Asylum applications in 50 industrialized countries fell sharply for the fourth year in a row in 2005, reaching their lowest level in almost two decades, the agency said, attributing this to more stable situations in many areas of the world but also to increasingly restrictive asylum policies.

A controversial South African multimillionaire and convicted fraudster has been ordered to answer questions about his involvement in the shadowy DRC mining industry. And the Pretoria High Court order, which will force Niko Shefer to take the stand, also promises to uncover how figures within the local mining company became embroiled with the Democratic Republic of Congo's state mining company, Gecamines.