International development charity, the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR), is to change its name to Progressio at the start of 2006. Progressio is a Latin word meaning development and advancement, the very factors the organisation promotes among its partners, supporters and the general public. The name Progressio comes from Populorum Progressio, one of the central documents in Catholic Social Teaching that emerged from the Second Vatican Council. Populorum Progressio speaks about the challenges of development and the importance of justice in relations between rich and poor nations.

The long-awaited international declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples may see the light of day in 2006, after more than 10 years of complex efforts by a United Nations working group, experts announced. The negotiations that took place in 2005 gave rise to a glimmer of hope that the next session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, to be held in March and April, might approve the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

International donors will freeze $375m (?316m) in aid to Ethiopia’s government following its recent crackdown on the main opposition party and the independent press, Western diplomats said today (December 29). The money, however, will be reallocated to the UN and aid agencies working to combat poverty among the bulk of Ethiopia’s estimated 77 million people who live on less than a dollar a day. Some of the money could also finance programs intended to strengthen democracy, the diplomats said.

Overwhelmed with the challenges posed by a series of natural disasters that occurred in 2005, United Nations officials responsible for delivering humanitarian aid are urging international donors to get prepared for the next year now. "None of us knows what 2006 will bring. We can hope for a calmer year, but we have to be prepared for every eventuality," James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), said in an appeal to donors Wednesday (January 28).

What does it mean to “build a civil society?” Given the frequency with which these words are thrown around these days (even appearing as a rationale for war in Iraq), one might think they signify something clear and unambiguous. Yet “civil society” has been appropriated by politicians on all sides of the spectrum to suit their own, very different agendas. It is easy to become lost in the complexities of this debate, or captured by the assumptions of one side or another. One way out of this impasse is to look beyond the clash of ideologies to the underlying capacities that are necessary to fashion a civil society worthy of the name, even if we continue to disagree on what it would look like at any level of detail.

The global union representing more than 29 million teachers and education workers has called on member countries to remove education services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). "Because there are so many unanswered questions about the impact of GATS on education, and because there is so much at stake, we believe all members must adopt a precautionary approach. They must neither make nor seek any commitments that constrain the rights of government to regulate education as they see fit, including research, audio-visual services, and libraries," stated Thulas Nxesi, president of Education International.

The Oak Fellowship provides an opportunity for prominent practitioners in international human rights to take a sabbatical leave from their work and spend a semester (September - December 2006) as a scholar-in-residence at Colby College. This provides the Fellow time for reflection, research, writing, and teaching. Following the period of the award, it is expected that the Fellow will return to his or her human rights work.

An opinion piece published by the East African argues that WTO meetings have become annual rituals in which high sounding resolutions are passed without any political will to enforce them. The latest meeting is a clear testimony of how the developed world is determined to frustrate efforts by poor countries to reform the international rules of trade.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the world’s largest trade union body, today (December 11) reiterated its support for the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), the world’s largest anti-poverty campaign. Speaking at an Executive Board meeting in Hong Kong, ICFTU’s General Secretary Guy Ryder called on world leaders to put development back into the development agenda. “In Hong Kong for this 6th WTO Ministerial, the international trade union movement stands side by side with the rest of civil society demanding that national governments gathered here use global institutions to improve the lives of billions of people,” said Ryder.

"We, Parliamentarians from Africa attending the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), being elected representatives of the people of Africa, and faithful to our oversight role, have keenly followed the process of multilateral trade negotiations since the failed fifth MC in Cancun in 2003. We have noted with concern that while the Doha Ministerial Declaration’s Paragraph 4 explicitly calls for the needs and interests of developing countries to be at the heart of the Doha Work Programme (DWP), vested interests in powerful countries of the North have hijacked the process and content of the DWP and is determined to deliver a “Round for Free” to developed Members of the WTO. We insist that the development concerns in all aspects of negotiations that have been raised by African Members and other developing countries must be addressed and explicitly agreed upon (with clear targets, indicators and timelines) as an integral part of the negotiations."

Key sites for keeping updated on events in Hong Kong

- Third World Network Africa
http://www.twnafrica.org/wto.asp

- Focus on the Global South
http://www.focusweb.org/

- Third World Network
http://www.twnside.org.sg/

- Hong Kong People's Alliance on the WTO
http://daga.dhs.org/hkpa/paw/pawindex.html

- WTO: Derail, Dismantle, Destroy
http://targetwto.revolt.org/

The state of California rewarded redemption with cold-blooded murder - justified with a press release and carried out in the dead of night, writes Alan Maass on the website www.zmag.org Stan Tookie Williams was put to death in the execution chamber at San Quentin Prison just past midnight on December 13. The former leader of the Crips in Los Angeles has spent the last decade of his life as one of the most powerful and articulate voices warning youth against violence, crime and prison. Gang truces negotiated along the lines of his “Protocol for Peace” have saved lives across the U.S.

In spite of recent initiatives to harmonise donor practices and align aid behind a PRSP-based partnership between developing country governments and donors, there is no systematic monitoring by developing country governments, at an individual country level, of whether donors are living up to their pledges on aid quality and support for the PRSP framework, or behaving consistently across countries. To redress this situation, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) have led the preparation of a methodology to enable them to assess the quality of aid they receive as part of the process of designing overall national debt and new financing strategies. This document sets out the HIPCs' findings and recommendations.

Today (December 13) marked the opening of the WTO, with actions inside the building and on the street. For GCAP it was an eventful day. The morning began with the publication of the Nelson Mandela adverts in the Financial Times Asia and the South China Post, with a message to the WTO delegates from Nelson Mandela, an op-ed in the South China Post by Martin Khor and commentary by Henri Valot. Later in the morning, GCAP campaigners made the formal handover of the e-action to EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson . In just three short weeks, the national coalitions of GCAP and the whiteband site managed to get an amazing total of 476,733 e-actions! In front of a huge media scrum, GCAP's trade demands were handed to Peter Mandelson by Sumie Arima, Thomas Deve and Rezual Karim Chowdury inside the WTO centre.

The International Monetary Fund has approved a $4.8bn (£2.8bn) plan to cancel the debts of 20 of the world's poorest countries. It is part of the multilateral debt relief initiative agreed by leaders of the G8 industrialised states last July. With the World Bank and IMF they set a target of writing off $55bn of debts from the world's poorest nations. Around 70% of the debt is owed to the World Bank, while the rest is owed to the IMF and African Development Bank. The World Bank is expected to announce a $38bn debt relief package later in December.

A recently published paper by the Institute of Development Studies summarises the findings of a comparative research project on the contribution of civil society organisations to democratisation in Africa. Drawing primarily on empirical case studies of civil society organisations in South Africa and Uganda, and related material from Ghana, the research examines their ability to influence government policy and legislation through tangible shifts in policy and legislative priorities and their implementation, and to widen the opportunities available to citizens to participate in public affairs, promoting a culture of accountability and challenging the power of the state to dominate decision-making.

This briefing paper from the Academy for Educational Development discusses the classification of children with disabilities in educational systems, including how such classifications vary across countries. It argues that the implications of the differing classification criteria affect the provision of educational opportunities for every child, regardless of the nature or level of his or her physical, mental, or sensory disability.

The One World Trust promotes education and research into the changes required within global organisations in order to achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice and war. It conducts research on practical ways to make global organisations more responsive to the people they affect, and on how the rule of law can be applied equally to all and educates political leaders and opinion-formers about the findings of our research. You may sign up for the newsletter by emailing [email protected].

The prosecutor of the new International Criminal Court said he was investigating killings, mass rapes and other atrocities in western Sudan but could only interview witnesses outside of lawless Darfur. Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine who was asked by the U.N. Security Council in March to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, also told the council that the Sudanese government had been cooperating with him. But Sudan's Justice Minister Mohammed al-Mardi told Reuters in an interview that Moreno Ocampo's investigators would not have any access to Darfur.
Related Link:
Dead End in Darfur?
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2005/1212deadend.htm

"We, the undersigned organizations and individuals dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights, are watching with keen interest the discussions now underway to create a new Human Rights Council at the United Nations. We are writing to you now, on the eve of International Human Rights Day and in honor of the victims of human rights violations in every corner of the globe, to urge each of your governments to adopt a General Assembly resolution by the end of this year establishing a Human Rights Council that will be stronger and more effective than the Commission on Human Rights."

The Global Organization Against Corruption (GOPAC) is an international network of parliamentarians dedicated to good governance and combating corruption throughout the world. Their website is intended to be a portal for parliamentarians and others, interested in joining forces to fight corruption and promote good governance.