The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is "outraged" at the closure of the private station Radio Lumière, as well as attempts by Togolese authorities to intimidate private broadcasters that have protested the military's appointment of the late President Gnassingbé Eyadema's son as leader. Earlier in the week, officials cut FM transmissions of Radio France Internationale (RFI), which resumed this morning. However, a France-based RFI reporter remains in neighboring Benin after being denied a visa to enter Togo, according to local sources.

An international seminar was held in London on 31 January and 1 February 2005, bringing together African, British and Canadian policy-makers, researchers and research users to discuss how to collaborate more effectively in building science and technology capacity in Africa. News reports, transcripts and other materials are all available through the website provided.

Public-private partnerships in Africa over the past 15 years have generally failed to provide much-needed water and electricity, a new study shows. According to a study by the South African Institute of International Affairs, about 600-million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity, about 300-million have no access to safe water, and there were just eight telephones per 100 inhabitants. The report acknowledged successes achieved by public-private partnerships in sectors such as telecommunications, transport, ports and eco-tourism, but said that much still needed to be done to hone an effective partnership model in water and electricity provision.

The Fund for Global Human Rights serves as an intermediary to facilitate the support of human rights organizations in places where there is great need and access to funding is minimal. Its primary goals are to: 1. Identify, assess and provide funding to local, national, and regional human rights organizations addressing critical issues; and 2. Encourage the creation of for a and networks for exchange of ideas, strategies and mutual support among otherwise isolated human rights organizations.

"The World Social Forum (WSF) is coming to Africa in 2007. This is great news. But how exactly will the coming of the WSF to Africa in 2007 advance the struggle against neo-liberalism and capitalist domination? This is an important question for people who want to stop the centuries-long pain and suffering of the masses in Africa and other parts of the world. Having attended all the world social forums, I think that they continue to be an important rallying point for all struggles against neo-liberalism in the world. But there are certain tendencies developing in the WSF which have me very worried. My wish is that when the WSF comes to Africa we should be able to build on its strengths and eradicate its weaknesses," writes activist Trevor Ngwane.

Four countries with long records of press repression - China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma - account for more than three-quarters of the journalists imprisoned around the world, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. "These four countries operate outside the international mainstream," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "The widespread jailing of journalists is pursued only by those few nations that distrust their own citizens and care little about the opinion of the rest of the world."

UNICEF has reiterated its call on governments to move swiftly to stop the harmful practice of female genital mutilation and cutting. "Female genital mutilation and cutting is a violation of the basic rights of women and girls," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said Friday, speaking on the eve of the International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation. "More than 130 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C), a practice that occurs in countries ranging from Senegal and Mali to Yemen and Oman."

Susan Mina, a Kenyan who has never stepped foot out of Africa, speaks English like the haughtiest of Britons. She can also put on a fair imitation of an American accent by swallowing all her words. Still, every once in a while, some Swahili slips out of her, and that is not at all helpful as she tries to enhance Africa's role in the global explosion of outsourcing. South Africa is far ahead of the rest of the continent, with an estimated 500 call centers employing about 31,000 people.

Britain will warn the United States this weekend that the fight against terror will be hampered by poverty in Africa as the government launches a concerted diplomatic effort to secure George Bush's support for more generous debt relief and a doubling of aid. "If the US wants to separate the extremists from those that they are trying to influence, it makes good sense to show how industrial nations can implement a Marshall Plan for developing countries," the chancellor Gordon Brown said. "US interests point to the wisdom of the international finance facility and debt relief that will show that rich countries believe that globalisation should be about social justice on a global scale."

The World Health Organization released its "3 by 5" progress report on January 26, 2005, at the Davos World Economic Forum congratulating itself on progress made in the drive to fight the HIV pandemic. But only 700,000 or 12% of the nearly six million people in need of antiretroviral treatment in developing countries have access to it today. Looking at these figures Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who provides ARV treatment to more than 25,000 patients in 27 countries, comes to the exact opposite conclusion. Instead of celebrating, WHO, UNAIDS, the Global Fund, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other institutions should be sounding the alarm.

This year could be a turning point for Africa, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Sunday, urging continent-wide co-operation to resolve conflicts on the world's poorest continent at a summit of 53 African leaders. "Africa has an indispensable contribution to make in ensuring that 2005 becomes a turning point for the continent, the United Nations and the world," the Ghana-born secretary-general told the gathering of some 40 heads of state. "One key to success will be to forge an even closer relationship between the United Nations and the African Union."

As African leaders met in Abuja, Nigeria, for the 4th African Union (AU) Assembly Ordinary Session, Amnesty International called on the AU Assembly and the AU Executive Council to reaffirm and strengthen their commitments to establish an effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Human Rights Court). During its 2nd Ordinary Session in July 2003 in Maputo, the AU Assembly decided that the African Human Rights Court "shall remain a separate and distinct institution from the Court of Justice of the African Union." However, the Assembly at its 3rd Ordinary Session in July 2004 in Addis Ababa reversed this decision, when it decided that "the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Court of Justice should be integrated into one Court". This decision has now resulted in a Draft Protocol merging the two courts.

Globalization - or the ability of many people, ideas and technology to move from country to country - is not new. In Africa, it was initiated by the slave trade and given impetus by colonialism and Christian missionaries.

The early missionaries saw African culture and religion as a deadly adversary and as an evil that had to be eliminated. In 1876, a 27-year-old missionary named Mary Slessor emigrated from Scotland to spend the rest of her life in Nigeria.

For her efforts in trying to covert the people of Nigeria, Mary Slessor’s photograph appears on Scotland’s ten pound note, and her name can be found on schools, hospitals and roads in Nigeria.

The introduction to Mary Slessor’s biography titled: “White Queen of the Cannibals” is revealing:

“On the west coast of Africa is the country of Nigeria. The chief city is Calabar,” said Mother Slessor. “It is a dark country because the light of the Gospel is not shining brightly there. Black people live there. Many of these are cannibals who eat other people.”

“They're bad people, aren't they, Mother?” asked little Susan.

“Yes, they are bad, because no one has told them about Jesus, the Saviour from sin, or showed them what is right and what is wrong.”

These opening words clearly show that Mary Slessor came to Africa on a mission to indoctrinate us with Christian theology. She told us we worshipped an inferior god and that we belonged to an inferior race. She worked to expel what she described as “savagism” from our culture and heritage and to encourage European “civilization” to take root in Africa.

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UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) plan to hold an international conference April 25 through 27, 2005 on poverty in the global context and its effects on girls and boys. The conference in April 2005 will present analytical and policy papers that explore issues and trends related to children living in poverty by examining the concepts and measurements of poverty, as well as the actions needed to secure a protective, harmonious and stimulating environment for family upbringing.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its 2005 Advanced Research Fellowship Programme and to invite interested scholars to submit applications for consideration for an award.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the 2005 edition of its prize for the best three doctoral theses produced annually in Africa. This programme has been introduced with a view to promoting the research work of African doctoral students and to celebrate the performance of those among them who produce outstanding studies that are worthy of being given greater visibility than would otherwise be possible in the absence of a special initiative designed to bring them to the attention of a critical international audience.

It is well recognized that because internally displaced persons remain within their country, they should, in accordance with established principles of international law, enjoy the protection and assistance of their own governments. Indeed, governments regularly insist that they have the primary responsibility for ensuring the security and welfare of their uprooted populations. Too often, however, they prove unable or unwilling to do so. Far greater effort therefore is needed by the international community to hold governments accountable and assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities towards IDPs.

The Transparency and Accountability Network (Tr-Ac-Net) is a not for profit tax exempt organization organized in the USA that aims to make excellence in transparency and accountability (Tr-Ac) the norm rather than the exception. The network is made up of individual professionals and organizations around the world committed to excellence in transparency and accountability and management information for relief and development. Tr-Ac-Net is a volunteer member network with country teams in South Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe. It is coordinated from New York USA and Chennai India. Tr-Ac-Net data can be accessed anywhere at any time through the use of an Internet enabled database. Tr-Ac-Net has a small budget for coordination and the maintenance of its information infrastructure.

The desperate act by Guinea Bissau students holding their country’s ambassador hostage in Moscow speaks volume about the terrible conditions of African students studying abroad. The Bissau students had become so impoverished due to allowance arrears, that some of them have resorted to eating from waste bins and stealing to survive. Worse, those of them lucky enough to finish their studies under such terrible conditions are stranded and cannot go home. In Cuba, Bissau students who finished their studies five years ago, were still waiting for their return tickets back home last November.

As globalization proceeds apace international law, and the scope and powers of international institutions - the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization - continue to grow. If democratic values are still an aspiration of the 21st century, then their deficit at international level must be addressed. Patomaki and Teiveinen survey the range of proposals now on the table. Ruling nothing out, they emphasise feasibility. While democratic advances do not come without political mobilization, there is little point mobilizing people for the utopian and unrealizable.