The United Nations kicked off its year-long commemoration of the anti-slavery movement with a ceremony Saturday in the Ghanaian former slave port of Cape Coast. The International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition coincides with the bicentennial of Haiti, the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere. "This first ceremony is a rededication to the ongoing struggle against all forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and injustice," UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said.

A new report by Dr Charles Benbrook, director of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Centre, Idaho, shows that contrary to claims that GM crops substantially reduce pesticide use, evidence shows that in the US the 555m acres of GM corn, soybeans and cotton planted since 1996 has increased pesticide use. Many farmers have had to spray more herbicides on GM crops in order to keep up with shifts in weeds toward tougher-to-control species, coupled with the emergence of genetic resistance in certain weed populations. For years scientists have warned of the possible emergence of 'super-weeds', Benbrook's study gives hard evidence to these claims.

A legislator and top Harare businessman was hauled before the Harare Magistrate's Court to explain his role in a multi-million dollar scandal that has hit Zimbabwe's financial sector. Phillip Chiyangwa becomes the first politician suspected of involvement in the financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicking depositors.

Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) is beginning to do more harm than good, argues George Monbiot in a column for The Guardian UK, and is opening up developing country markets to the rampages of big capital. In Zambia, he writes, DfID is spending just £700,000 on improving nutrition, but £56m on privatising the copper mines. In Ghana, the department made its aid payments for upgrading the water system conditional on partial privatisation. "Foreign aid from Britain now means giving to the rich the resources that keep the poor alive," he argues.

Central to the neoliberal discourse on globalization is the conviction that free trade, more than free movements of capital or labour, is the key to global prosperity. Part of the conviction in free trade that the proponents of globalization possess comes from the belief that economic theory has irrefutably established the superiority of free trade, even though there are some formal models which show free trade may not be the best. Even more powerful for the proponents of free trade, is their belief that history is on their side. A closer look at the history of capitalism, however, reveals a very different story. When they were developing countries themselves, virtually all of today's developed countries did not practice free trade. Rather, they promoted their national industries through tariffs, subsidies, and other measures. Debunking the myth of free trade from the historical perspective demonstrates that there is an urgent need for thoroughly re-thinking some key conventional wisdom in the debate on trade policy, and more broadly on globalization.

London-based CBCAfricaRecruit (www.africarecruit.com) organised the Global Skills Seminar for Africa (GSSA 2003) in Lagos, Nigeria in December which attracted a total of 200 delegates. GSSA 2003 had the aim of looking at the challenges surrounding Africa’s so-called brain drain and developing an action plan to overcome Africa’s skills shortages and reverse the brain drain. The key outcome is agreement to establish a human resource (HR) forum across Africa to support African HR professionals in their battle to nurture, retain, and attract talent.

Beijing has fulfilled its commitment to Africa by cancelling 31 African countries' debts totalling US $1.27 billion. During the second China-Africa trade summit held this week in Ethiopia, China said it would provide enhanced support for Africa, without any political discrimination. Both African and Chinese delegates agreed that there was vast potential for growth in trade between China and Africa, and that this was vital for Africa's development.

On International Migrants' Day, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that respect for the rights of all migrants is an essential component of good migration management. With globalization, trade liberalization, economic integration and the widening gap between rich and poor nations creating ever greater migration pressures, IOM believes that successful migration management only exists when it fully respects the human rights of migrants.

Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them. Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals. The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide. But The Observer has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.

A local official in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke has expressed concern over a security threat posed by Rwandan Hutu militiamen, known as Interahamwe, who have staged raids in the province in the last month, looting property in two communes. "Interahamwe militias have been hiding in the Kibira forest neighbouring the communes of Mabayi and Bukinanyana for about a month now," Benoit Ntigurirwa, the Cibitoke governor, told IRIN on Wednesday. The Interahamwe fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cibitoke Province is on the border with the DRC and Rwanda.

Efforts to close the “digital divide” between rich and poor societies and create “knowledge societies” will fail unless developing nations embrace freedom of expression, the Director General of the World Association of Newspapers said Wednesday. “In more and more countries, the struggle for freedom of information, freedom of expression, freedom of the media, is today being fought out on the internet rather than in print, where it has traditionally taken place,” said the WAN Director General, Timothy Balding, in a speech to the World Electronic Media Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

Globalization has been a mixed blessing for human rights around the world, undermining the economic power of national governments but strengthening a sense of world community, according to a new analysis from the United Nations University. The Globalization of Human Rights report says progress on social and economic human rights is being undermined by the growing power of the global marketplace and the erosion of the ability of national governments to protect citizens from economic fluctuations. At the same time, however, globalization is fostering a greater sense of world community and international solidarity, leading to, for example, unprecedented collective interventions in internal national conflicts on compassionate humanitarian grounds.

While the ninth Conference of the Parties (COP-9) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held between 1-12 December in Milan, Italy had a rocky start, it ended on a positive note, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Calling the Protocol "an unrealistic and ever-increasing regulatory straitjacket," US Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky had written in a major financial newspaper that the "only acceptable, cost-effective option" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was the American way. This viewpoint was argued vigorously (albeit unconvincingly, according to most observers), by the 60-strong US delegation in Milan. Days later, an advisor in the Russian presidency, "thought out loud" that Russian ratification was unlikely. Nevertheless, these statements did not detract Parties from keeping the process on track. In fact, the overwhelming message from the high-level segment was that the Protocol is the "only show in town." COP-9 not only highlighted the division between developed and developing countries, but also the leadership and initiative gaps between negotiators and constituency groups. While resolving differences on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis remains complex, the significant number of side events signals a change towards a more positive outlook for future COP sessions.

UNEP, the principal United Nations organisation in the field of environment is seeking suitably qualified candidates for the post of Senior Liaison Officer, Regional Officer for Asia and the Pacific, based in Beijing, China.

The emerging trends in Namibia’s political culture offer reason for concern. The different chapters in this stock- taking volume suggest in different ways that the long struggle for national liberation and human rights has not been followed by a process towards genuine democracy and tolerance.

"The International Criminal Court came into being on July 1, 2002. To its supporters, the new court represents nothing less than a milestone in the evolution of global justice. The court’s opponents also portray it in highly dramatic terms. The Bush administration says it is so concerned that the court may launch politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. citizens that it has started a worldwide drive to secure immunity agreements from other countries, withholding military aid from many of those who refuse. Yet in the immediate future, the court’s impact may be much less than its supporters and critics believe. The setting up of the International Criminal Court presents the odd spectacle of an event of enormous symbolic resonance, whose practical effects are likely to remain fairly modest, at least for some time to come." The Crimes of War Project December magazine features the International Criminal Court. You can read the full magazine by clicking on the URL provided.

The Damocles Network, the legal arm of Reporters Without Borders, is launching a new site in French and English entitled Toolbox. Designed for professionals but also for the use of anyone interested in freedom of expression www.damocles.org carries basic texts that guarantee press freedom along with extracts from codes of ethics. The site also offers publications that can be downloaded like the Practical Guide for Journalists and the Charter for the Safety of Journalists working in War Zones or Dangerous Areas. An International Justice section offers a Guide to the International Criminal Court for the use of victims and advises on legal procedures to put together a case for anyone who is a victim of an international crime. Freelance journalists covering foreign stories will find practical information on low cost insurance policies and the loan of flak jackets from Reporters Without Borders.

Ninety-five countries signed the U.N. Convention against Corruption over a three-day conference in Mexico, a top Mexican Foreign Ministry official said last Thursday at the close of the gathering. The convention will enter into force once 30 governments have ratified it. Kenya, with a new government, was the first to sign and ratify. When the convention was opened for signatures last Wednesday, Kenya, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Paraguay, Japan, Mauritius, Kuwait and Sierra Leone were the first signers.

Some 65 million girls worldwide are kept out of school, increasing the risks that they will suffer from extreme poverty, die in childbirth or from AIDS and pass those dangers on to future generations, the U.N. children's fund said Thursday. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said investment in education was the best way to close the gender gap. ``We believe that the failure to invest in girls' education puts in jeopardy more development goals than any other single action that could take place,'' she said.
Related Link:
* State of the World's Children Report
http://www.unicef.org/sowc04/

Following privatisation in developing countries, aid donors such as the European Union have promoted a model of regulatory 'best practice' based on the western European and north American example of regulatory agencies independent of government control. But there is a reality gap here between donors' ideas of best practice and the real legal, administrative, economic and political processes which exist in developing countries.