Between six and nine million people in developing countries currently urgently need anti-retroviral treatment while in reality only between 230 000 and 300 000 have access to these drugs, according to a report by HealthGAP, a US-based human rights group.

Racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance are still extremely serious problems, said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was observed on 21 March. "Indeed, discrimination is deeply embedded in the economic, social and political structures of many societies, and has been among the root causes of a number of violent conflicts. Members of particular racial or ethnic groups continue to be more likely to be poor and to have less access to adequate health services and education than dominant groups. The persistence of old patterns of racism condemns many people to a life of marginalization and humiliation. And in the last decade, new manifestations of hatred have emerged," said Annan.

All individuals and institutions have a mutual responsibility to act as Trustees of Earth, seeking the choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, foster peaceful progress, awaken the wonder of life, and realize the best potential for the future of the human adventure.

On 14 March 2003, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), expressed concern over the recent closure of two privately-owned television stations, RTA and Canal 2, which has threatened the development of diverse and independent broadcast media in Cameroon.

The East Africa Regional Coordinator is responsible for the management and oversight of all G.E.P.’s activities in our two Africa divisions (Kenya and Tanzania). Our mission is to provide low-income youth with access to the educational resources needed to become self-sufficient. Current programs focus on entrepreneurship training and micro-finance for young people (mid teens to late 20s), many of who are dropouts or unemployed secondary school graduates. For more information, please see

Improved management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can reduce the rate of new HIV cases by up to 40 per cent. AMREF (African Medical and Research Foundation) provided training in STI treatment for the six hundred licensed private providers (doctors, nurses and clinical officers) in Nyanza province in western Kenya. But what happens when people use untrained providers or self-medicate?

The New Tactics in Human Rights Project invites you to visit its new web site, www.newtactics.org. All over the world, people are addressing human rights issues in new and innovative ways. The New Tactics project gathers these innovations and disseminates them - using the web, print publications and cross-training workshops - while building global and regional networks of human rights practitioners.

The key to restoring climate stability is shifting from a fossil fuel based energy economy to one based on renewable sources of energy and hydrogen. Advancing technologies in the design of wind turbines that have dramatically lowered the cost of wind generated electricity to the point where it can be used to produce hydrogen from water, along with the evolution of fuel cell engines, have set the stage for a dramatic restructuring of the world energy economy. The good news is that this shift is under way. The bad news is that it is not happening nearly fast enough to avoid a climate disrupting buildup in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, writes Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute.

Free the Fishing Boys - A US-funded programme, which aims to assist and return to their families more than 1,200 children trafficked for forced labour in the Central and Volta regions of Ghana is making good progress.

This report from the Panos Institute looks at the threats that face mountain environments and the people that live in them. It describes a 'vertical gradient of poverty' whereby 80 per cent of mountain inhabitants live below the poverty line. The authors describe the political, cultural and social marginalisation of many mountain communities. The report describes the environmental importance of mountain ecosystems to the rest of the world and ways in which mountain communities can become more involved in decision making, conservation of natural resources and poverty reduction.

Every day around the world over 1300 men, women and children lose their lives in conflict, adding up to an annual total of half a million deaths, the majority of these in the poorest countries. Countless more livelihoods are ruined as a result of armed conflict through disability, displacement or lack of access to markets and health and education facilities. Yet although the European Union regulates everything from beaches to bananas, it does not regulate arms brokers, says this briefing paper from Oxfam. The lack of regulation is despite the fact that Europe is home to many of the world’s arms brokers responsible for arranging deliveries of weapons into countries in conflict and or into the hands of those who commit grave human rights abuses.

Members of the Global Unions group have accused the government planners of the Second Meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) of "stifling voices of dissent" after having excluded civil society from the debate over the draft conclusions.

The German government will, through its technical and financial cooperation bodies, provide Tanzania with US $86.12 million worth of aid over the next three years. At least half the money would be spent on water and sanitation projects, but there would also be significant contributions towards health projects and budgetary support, Detles Mey, the Tanzania country director of the German government's aid agency, the Gersellschaft fuer Technische Zumsammenarbeit (GTZ), told IRIN.

"I invite you to join me in looking through the eyes of women who want a world where all life is valued - every single life - regardless of gender, race, class, caste, age, religion and all the other divides that establish patriarch’s hierarchy. A world in which the Earth’s resources - material and human - are equitably, respectfully and justly shared and appreciated. Where basic needs - of food, water, shelter, healthcare, and education - are met," writes feminist activist Pregs Govender.

Ask a fish what water is and you'll get no answer. Even if fish were capable of speech, they would likely have no explanation for the element they swim in every minute of every day of their lives. Water simply is. Fish take it for granted. So too with this thing we hear so much about, "racial preference." While many whites seem to think the notion originated with affirmative action programs, intended to expand opportunities for historically marginalized people of colour, racial preference has actually had a long and very white history.

Women's rights advocates are condemning President George W. Bush for using his promised AIDS relief package to expand the so-called global gag rule. Calling the move the latest battle in the administration's war against women, many groups are mounting a campaign to draw attention to what they say are the Bush administration's plans to further restrict abortion rights.

While societies enter into the information and knowledge society, and modern technologies develop and spread at rapid speed, 860 million adults are illiterate, over 100 million children have no access to school, and countless children, youth and adults who attend school or other education programmes fall short of the required level to be considered literate in today’s complex world. This is the reason why the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the United Nations Literacy Decade for the period 2003-2012, launched this month.

Developments over the last two months, including ceasefire agreements that have brought all but one rebel group into political negotiations and the anticipated deployment within weeks of an African Union military observer mission, have created more momentum for peace in Burundi than at any time since the civil war began ten years ago. But donor reluctance to resume major aid has become counter-productive and peace dividends are needed to give rebels an incentive to accept disarmament and reintegration into society and to provide the international community leverage with which to press the transitional government to carry out its commitments under the Arusha peace accord, says the International Crisis Group.

Race, after all, has always been a “political” issue - not only in South Africa. The political, economic and cultural effects of race as a classification, and their meaning in social practice, are bound to both history and location. In other words, the challenge might be to understand the particular ways in which race, both as a concept and as an experience, changes historically across time and space.

Even the New York Times was forced to admit it, after the mammoth Feb. 15-16 anti-war demonstrations: "There may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion." But the next round of the struggle must begin, says this www.zmag.org article. It concludes: "If movements for social change unswervingly seek diversity, solidarity, equity, and self-management – peace and justice – and if they do it in a manner and with a tone and with tactics all of which seek to empower the weak and to meet the needs of the poor, they/we can win this struggle – and the struggle I have in mind to win, the one I think we are all in, is not just over a reform here or there – and it is not just over peace now and then - it is a struggle over who will decide the future and who the future will serve. Showdown indeed." Visit www.unitedforpeace.org/ for additional news about the campaign against war on Iraq.