Africa has taken the lead position as a host for corporate fraudsters. A report released last week by accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers says the level of economic crime was highest in Africa at 51 percent followed by North America with 41 percent.

More than 1 billion children worldwide suffer from the debilitating effects of poverty, according to a landmark UNICEF study launched in London. One in three of the world's children lives in a dwelling with either a mud floor or more than five people per room, the study says, and one in five does not have access to safe water.

Like many aid workers and activists trying to improve the lives of women in developing countries, Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika has long viewed education as the key to solving many of her countrywomen's problems. But 30 years after gender equality began to be promoted in programs, those like Mbikusita-Lewanika, have learned that relieving the burdens of poor women is more complex than once thought.

Globalization, trade and investment designs and structures reinforce a model of development -centred on free trade, hyper economic growth, and export-oriented production- which is inherently unsustainable in ecological and social terms. They also destroy viable localized and regional systems that may have the greatest long-term promise for future sustainability. Consequently, there is increasing global concern about the broader issue of corporate accountability and pressures seem to be mounting from diverse political and intellectual quarters for greater corporate responsibility. The Global Compact is the United Nations' response to this demand.

Global Focus is a fortnightly briefing concentrating on global decision-making. It is produced for Parliamentarians, NGOs, journalists, policy makers and interested individuals and provides up-to-date information about what decisions are being taken, who is taking them and where.

This is an account of the challenges posed by globalisation on the management of common property resources in Zimbabwe, a developing country whose experiences are relevant to other countries in the southern African region and beyond.

The world’s largest study of the potential impact of genetically modified crops on the environment has produced an ambiguous set of results, according to a SciDev.net editorial. While both sides in the GM debate have sought to interpret the UK trials to suit their agendas - environmentalists argue that they demonstrate once again that GM crops are dangerous, industry that they are “flexible” - the real lesson for the protagonists seems to be different. For environmentalists, the lesson must be that even though such crops can be dangerous for the environment, they can also enhance it; for industry there is an equally important lesson, namely than blanket assertions that GM crops and the new farming practices they encourage will not damage natural processes - at least no more than conventional crops - are no longer credible.

A growing "workforce crisis" is a serious obstacle to achieving targets for global tuberculosis control set for 2005 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Faster and more effective recruitment and training of TB health workers is needed to ensure vacancies in developing countries are filled quickly, says a draft report written by TB experts. Of the 22 high burden countries (HBCs) which account for 80% of the world's TB cases, 17 reported that their efforts to reach the 2005 targets are being hampered by staffing problems.

International aid and HIV/AIDS advocacy groups on Monday called on the world's richest countries to contribute the funds needed to sustain the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In its first two rounds of grants, the fund has committed $1.5 billion in funding to support 154 programs in 93 countries worldwide.

In 1990 the World Bank predicted that within ten years there would be 1,2 million HIV infections in Brazil. Thirteen years later, this scenario has yet to materialise. To provide free medication, Brazil had to take a firm position against multinational drug companies in negotiating for lower prices. Their key bargaining chip is the domestic capacity to produce generic copies of the drugs in the Far-Manguinhos federal laboratory in Rio de Janeiro (and six other state-owned facilities) if prices aren’t affordable.

Forget the spin you have been reading about the "failure" of the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, says this commentary from Foreign Policy in Focus. It was one of the most successful international meetings in years because it redefined how trade can benefit the poor and how the developing world can be real players in these negotiations. In fact, if policymakers and global trade negotiators were paying attention, Cancun could lead to trade talks that actually bring about fair trade, and the benefits to both the developing and the developed world that have long been promised.

This paper by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Global Network / World Wildlife Fund begins by asking why forest conservationists should consider poverty reduction. It argues that, since poverty reduction is such a global priority, if the forestry community do not develop good proposals that contribute to that agenda, forest depletion may increase.

Advocates of liberalisation assert that states which disengage from strategic economic planning are more likely to stimulate economic growth and hasten poverty reduction. Is there evidence to back this neo-liberal claim? What is the role of national economic governance in poverty eradication? How should we monitor the relation of economic governance to poverty reduction?

"Rich countries must provide practical support to developing country governments that demonstrate the political will to curb corruption. In addition, those countries starting with a high degree of corruption should not be penalised, since they are in the most urgent need of support," said Peter Eigen, Chairman of Transparency International (TI), speaking on the launch of the TI Corruption Perceptions Index 2003 (CPI). (The web page to this story also contains the full TI Corruption Perceptions Index.)

Norway has dropped Zimbabwe from its select list of main development aid recipients because of the deterioration in governance there.

Arts Under Pressure analyses the relevant forces behind decision making in cultural matters worldwide under the influence of economic globalisation. The book deals with all the arts, in all parts of the world and focuses on the cycle of creation, production, distribution, promotion, reception and influence. It asks: who has the power to decide what reaches audiences, in what quantities, with what contents and surrounded by what kinds of ambiances?

This volume takes stock of emerging trends in Namibia's political culture since Independence and highlights the question of political liberation and tolerance - or lack thereof. The book examines in an introductory chapter the consolidation of political power and control by the former liberation movement, SWAPO. The chapters include case studies on the SWAPO ideology prior to Independence, a comparison of constitutional developments in Namibia and Zimbabwe, an overview on minority rights and policies concerning indigenous people and a case study on cultural policy with regard to music. Analyses also cover the issue of the SWAPO "ex-detainees", a critical reading of the Namibian President's biography and an exploration of the institutionalised public memory. The book ends with an essay challenging the limited tolerance currently existing in post-colonial Namibia.

In this modern slave narrative, Francis Bok shares how in May 1986 Arab raiders on horseback burst into a quiet marketplace, murdering men and gathering the women and young children into a group. Strapped to horses and donkeys, Francis and others were taken north into lives of slavery.

The case in which Mozambican journalist Cassimo Ginabay is suing three of his former colleagues for the crime of "private imprisonment" neared its end on 30th of September 2003, with aggressive questioning from the defence lawyer, Inacio Matsinhe, making it seem as though Ginabay was the one on trial. Ginabay claims that Evans Langa, Virgilio Mabota and Elias Cossa deliberately locked him in the offices of the weekly paper "Demos", which he was then editing, on the night of 4 April 2002.

Race has been exceptionally controversial in South African legislation through different dispensations. This has fuelled a great degree of sensitivity around the labelling of race groups. The result is that writers and analysts are constantly faced with questions on how to handle race in their work. Questions such as these are not limited to South Africa, however, says this study, which looks at the concept of racism and several other relevant terms.