Internet companies facing hearings before angry US legislators say they cannot on their own resist China's effort to censor the web, according to a report on Business Day's website, as posted on www.journalism.co.za But industry analysts say that even if Washington tried to enforce free-speech standards, it is likely to have little effect.

The author barely mentions corruption which is again in the news with Kenya's watchdog fleeing the country. There are 2.9 million references on Google for 'Kenya corruption' and about half that for 'Kenya transparency.'

I think wealthy countries' perceptions about corruption in Africa are big factors in aid policies. So much assistance is crisis management instead of community development. With the H5N1 virus found in Kaduna state Nigeria, let's see how Nigerian and outside experts handle this latest health crisis. Uganda did pretty well with Ebola six years ago, but that's a very different kind of disease.

Good discussion. Africans need jobs so that they can get money to buy the stuff they want and free trade but not subsidized commodity imports in the form cotton, rice, and etc (paid by US taxpayers.) I believe "private capital" is better at generating jobs. Government capital creates either low productivity and or jobs for party people, Stalin's government built an ok armaments industry. Come to think of it the American economy is good at this too. Indeed this country is departing from capitalism as it is supposed to be in favor of economic hit men economics.

On BBC I heard about about a new cement plant in Southern India where there is extremely high unemployment. Construction cost: hundreds of millions, new jobs: 400!

Everywhere people are induced to leave poor but relatively stable villages and subsistence, no money, farming to try to find work and money in cities and industrial towns. They often find more and maybe worse poverty. Here in the Americas we refer to these as Maquiladoras. A byproduct of globalisation seems to be one of spreading poverty into new areas. But this outcome need not be inevitable.

I don't believe that African governments are sufficiently attentive as to what they could be doing to stimulate an emerging African market...now less talked about than a couple of years ago. Governments could strongly urge (not compel) natural resources extractors (oil drillers gold miners etc) to reinvest some of their returns from African and South American natural resources into the economies of origin, new factories, services, shopping centers. Thus stockholders would get more bang for their bucks; returns on extracting operations and on new investments in growing economies.

Unions have a critical role to play. Worker safety and child labour are big issues. I know a young man who begs in Accra who at age 7 or 8 had his arm torn off by a corn grinding machine. After a couple of years in hospital he did complete primary school. However I am also aware of an Asian company that imports soap flakes to Ghana for repackaging and local marketing. The production target on their Ghana packaging line during an 8 hour shift is 45 crates vs 165 in Asia. As a casual visitor I did not think that this was any "sweat shop". They could have been doing better while not crossing that line. And then there was the bankruptcy of Volta Garments which hired 600 workers and could not exceed making seven shirts per day versus 20-22 in Asia. Probably a lot of blame for these shortfalls has to laid on the involvement of certain unions.

And Oh! Thank God for Pambazuka News.

The closer ties that are being forged between Brazil and the African continent is a positive development, in terms of both foreign policy and the effects on the fight against discrimination suffered by black Brazilians, Geraldo Rocha, director of the Centre for the Mobilisation of Marginalised Populations (CEAP), told IPS. The Lula administration "is on the right path," despite difficulties and shortcomings, in its attempts to overcome the discrimination that blacks have always suffered in Brazil, a country marked by extreme social and economic inequality, said Rocha.

Russia may soon write off debts owed to it by 16 of the world's poorest countries, its finance minister has been reported as saying. Moscow would be willing to cancel about $688m (£394m) in bilateral debt, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Alexei Kudrin as saying. The agreement could encompass a number of African countries including Benin, Tanzania and Zambia.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled yesterday (7 February) that the European Union and six of its member states broke trade rules by banning imports of genetically modified (GM) crops and food. The preliminary ruling, which could have significant implications for developing countries, still needs to be confirmed in a final decision next month, and can be appealed. Dulce de Oliveira, a professor of plant biotechnology and fellow of the Brazilian Research Council, says the decision could open the European market to GM products from countries such as Brazil, the world's third biggest producer of GM crops. The verdict came in response to a complaint that Argentina, Canada and the United States made in 2003 against the European Union's ban on GM imports, imposed in 1999, reports SciDev.

This Newsletter highlights recent developments in the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Children. As the Study moves into the second and final year of the process, the emphasis is on building the momentum and strengthening coalitions in the lead up to the release of the final report during the General Assembly, 2006, in New York. The Newsletter is distributed widely and also available on the Study web-site. If you would like to add an address to the distribution list send an email to: [email protected].

The current period of UN reform offers an opportune time to strengthen the international response to situations of internal displacement and develop a more reliable and predictable international system to protect people uprooted in their own countries. This article calls for reinforcement of the legal framework for the protection of IDPs; the enlargement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to encompass IDPs; robust international protection measures — including expanded international police and military capacity; and more attention to political solutions to resolve the conflicts at the heart of displacement.

The Tech Museum Awards is a unique and prestigious program that honors and awards innovators from around the world who use technology to benefit humanity. Each year, 25 Laureates are honored at a gala dinner, invited to participate in press and media coverage, and introduced to a network of influential advisors. An inspirational and unforgettable event, the black-tie celebration will be held at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, on November 15, 2006.

Last week, the growing turbulence in the Middle East came to a head as protests erupted over the publication of some cartoons picturing a caricature of the prophet Mohammed. The protests soon spread around the world. "It would be tempting to look for an explanation to these events in a single issue, in this case the publication of a drawing showing Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb or portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. We should note, however, that the riots erupted five months after the actual publication in a Danish right wing newspaper which printed twelve caricatures of Mohammed back in September last year," notes this commentary posted on the website of the Centre for Civil Society at the university of KwaZulu-Natal.
Related Links
* Niger: Thousands protest caricature of Prophet Muhammad
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51616
* Somalia: Violent protests against Prophet Muhammad cartoons
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51603

In 2002 the International Council on Human Rights Policy published a short report, 'Local Rule: Decentralisation and Human Rights', which mapped some of the potential human rights implications of decentralisation reforms. On one hand, reforms can enhance political participation, increase local autonomy, empower disadvantaged groups and lead to more accountable government. On the other, it can entrench the powers of local elites; weaken national institutions; exacerbate social division and provoke violence; deepen inequality; and cause regression of social and economic rights because of corruption, shortfalls in resources or discrimination and loss of economies of scale.

Multinational companies have an undue influence over the making of global trade rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Big business lobbyists have privileged access to government policymakers and use it to push trade agreements that undermine the fight against poverty. This Action Aid report highlights many examples of privileged corporate access to, and excessive influence over, the WTO policy-making process. It argues that governments must take urgent action to curb corporate influence in the WTO and put the rights of poor people before the profits of multinationals in the current round of global trade talks.

A man from Mali was stabbed to death early Sunday (February 5), the head of an organization for Africans in the city said. Aliu Tunkara, president of African Unity in St. Petersburg, said the victim had graduated from a medical school in St. Petersburg nine years ago but was jobless and had been living on the street. Tunkara said police told him the man was found dead, but the RIA-Novosti news agency, also citing police, said he died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital. St. Petersburg has seen numerous racially motivated attacks in recent months. A student from Cameroon was stabbed to death in St. Petersburg in December, and a Congolese student was killed in the city in September.

Does foreign aid help develop public institutions and state capacity in developing countries? In this Working Paper, the authors suggest that despite recent calls for increased aid to poor countries by the international community, there may be an aid-institutions paradox. While donor intentions may be sincere, the authors conclude that it is possible that aid could undermine long-term institutional development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. By reviewing the evidence of the potentially negative effects of aid dependence on state institutions, the authors provide a thorough analysis of the institutional effects of aid.

This paper illustrates the challenges involved in providing good-quality gender-equitable education for children of nomadic and pastoralist households who are beyond the reach of mainstream, formal education. Some of the key issues highlighted in the paper include the limited, and failed, provision of static schooling, or projects which have focused on getting nomadic boys and girls to adapt to the formal system.

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. FNTG is for grantmakers who care about human rights, democracy, peace, social justice, and environmental sustainability.

Here in the US white people can talk about all the atrocities that happened in the past and atrocities that happen in the present, but you cannot get them to admit to slavery in the US as an inhuman act against African slaves.

When you bring up the effects of slavery on African descendants and how it robs the US of the total participation of all its' people, sometimes things are said like "when are you people going to forget slavery".

Whites are unable to understand that the wealth of the US was built on the genocide of its native people for free land and the enslavement of African people.

The other great damage of slavery is to internalize the self hatred of many African descendant people against themselves and other African descendant people.

Please can you publish some exposure and analysis of the current lethal exploitation of African countries' resources by China. Statistics, if any? If accessible?

The articles in the first of the special issues on trade justice are excellent, but as we necessarily focus on Europe, USA and multi national corporations, China is undercutting, with alarming speed, what were advances in African manufacturing.

Talking to friends from many African countries, it seems that each country on the continent is undergoing massive invasion by China, but we all tend to think it is only in our own country and therefore miss the larger, frightening picture.

It is very important to stop this takeover by China, particularly as their trade system at home (and international advantage) is based on such exploitative labour conditions and they, no doubt, care far less about labour conditions in Africa.

Thank you for all your work!

EDITORS reply: We have schedule to publish material on China and Africa shortly. Watch this space!

I read with keen interest Charles Aburge's article on debt, aid and trade which appeared in Pambazuka News 240.

I enjoyed his strategic counselling and "scolding" of civil society in Africa for mindful engagement with African regional bodies in areas of debt and trade with Africa. I especially enjoyed reading his recognition that sometimes we in civil society unconsciously contribute to the erosion of sovereignty and the loss of self-worth in Africa. We are sometimes quick to demand or endorse "governance conditionality" where aid and debt relief is made conditional to progress in these areas.

This reminded me of the on-going row between the Government of Chad and The World Bank regarding the "Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline", where Chadian civil society activists are encouraging The World Bank to withold financial support from Chad.

Surely, who suffers? Should the role of civil society be to support global institutions at the expense of national programs? I am mindful of the governing record of the government of President Derby. However, to seemingly support a project which from its inception was de-cried for its erosion of the supremacy of Chadian Constitution in the interests of corporate law is worrisome.

The key element of contestation by the Chadian government is the off-shore account where oil revenues are kept for future generations. Wouldn't it be in the interests of Chadian civil society that in fact these funds are made available to the current generations from whom oil is extracted? Wouldn't a better role of Chadian civil society then be to monitor proper government use of these funds for education, health, environmental management and security of the nation? Surely, sometimes civil society in Africa must work for national and/or even regional prosperity, not against it.

International Aid Report will become your first port of call when you need a comprehensive analysis of trends and key developments in this sector. Articles on a wide range of themes will give you an informal, critical and challenging perspective on the key issues affecting donors, implementers and recipients of aid. Bilateral / Multilateral donors and private foundations will use it to help set priorities and guidelines for their funding decisions. NGO's will stay aware of where donors are spending their money and any shifts in spending patterns. This will help to not only secure funding but also to understand the changing priorities of donor funding.