RSF protested the closure of two private newspapers, the daily "Diario de Bissau" and the weekly "Gazeta de Noticias". "The independent press has been in the authorities' sights since Mr. Yala's election to the presidency of Guinea-Bissau in January 2000," stated Robert Mard, the organisation's secretary-general.

Developing countries have won a breakthrough deal on relaxing drug patents at the World Trade Organisation's Doha meeting. Campaigners hope it will bring down the cost of remedies for treating diseases killing millions of poor people every year.

Weapons, from handguns to fighter jets, are a profitable business. Generous government contracts, huge profit margins, and inevitable cost over-runs ensure spectacular dividends for weapons producers. Conflicts burning throughout the world guarantee plenty of buyers. After a post-cold war decline, global weapons purchases rose in 2000 to $800 billion. In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies, arms production and sales worldwide will likely continue their upward trajectory--encouraged by national policies and supported by multilateral economic institutions.

The Bush administration has opportunistically draped its call for the launch of a new trade round in the rhetoric of the fight against terrorism. So far it appears that gambit has failed to work, with many developing countries opposed to the outlines of a new round as laid out in the revised October 27 Draft Ministerial Declaration. Particularly galling to Southern members was the failure to include brackets indicating disputed language around text that failed to present alternative or competing perspectives from Southern members.

A two-day hearing on racism in the media held before the Parliamentary Communications Committee has concluded with an agreement on the need for transformation. Industry insiders however warned against using legislation to resolve widespread complaints by blacks of racial stereotyping and control of advertising revenue by white owned media.

Trade ministers at the WTO summit in Doha, Qatar should abandon threats of sanctions against countries trying to obtain medicines for health emergencies such as HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch has said.

A new book from IDS, edited by Michael Edwards and John Gaventa and published by Earthscan, explores campaigns to reform the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; the Jubilee 2000 campaign to end Third World Debt; the movement against Free Trade; the Landmine campaign and several other human rights, social justice and environmental campaigns that have spanned international borders. Earthscan, 2001.

Can the flow of private capital be a substitute for aid? Is the commitment of G7 finance ministers to UN development targets at odds with the vigorous manner in which the IMF is promoting capital account liberalistaion (CAL) – the removal of restrictions on the movement of capital across national boundaries? Will CAL block governments from undertaking pro-poor initiatives?

When unsound southern banks go bust the impact can be devastating. The costs are usually borne by depositors and taxpayers - rarely by those who own and manage errant banks. How can more prudential monitoring and earlier intervention improve bank regulation? Would US-style regulatory mechanisms work in the south?

Entrepreneurship is thriving in Africa. Throughout the continent poor people start up and run tiny businesses – micro-enterprises - in the unregulated informal sector. Why are aid agencies, governments and financial institutions not improving their access to credit? Why isn’t more being done to give small and medium enterprises (SMEs) increased access to credit facilities?

Location : Berlin, Germany
Closing Date : 30 Nov 2001
Posted on : 2 Nov 2001

HomeBeats is a multimedia journey through time, from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, to the making of modern Britain. The first cd-rom on racism and the black presence in Britain, it fuses music, graphics, video, text and animation into a stunning voyage of personal and historical discovery for every user. Through a series of fully interlinked sections - Memories, Places, People, Visions, Images - HomeBeats makes the links between past and present accessible to young people in a way possible in no other medium. It covers the history of the struggle for racial justice, tracing the connections between slavery, the colonial experience and modern day racism.

The New York Times profiles how the debate over the patents on AIDS drugs will be "a major bone of contention" at the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha, Qatar, this week.

A new study for the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs by the UK-based Institute of Development Studies contains case studies on financing mechanisms for biodiversity conservation, climate change abatement, peace and security, HIV/AIDS research and financial stability.

The hope that that US President George W. Bush might announce more debt relief and aid for Africa, especially for the fight against Aids, has evaporated.

The time is ripe for the ICC. It will be formally established-with or without the US - after 60 nations have ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The number count is up to 43. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan anticipates the ICC will be established in the next year.

"The world is undergoing a global struggle between diversity and uniformity, cultural liberalism and fundamentalism, democracy and totalitarianism. A struggle about which aspects of each culture can and should be saved, and what aspects may be abandoned to make room for something new and enriching. The articles in this anthology approach these questions from different angles. This book is an edited selection of the dialogue that took place during Images of the World - a festival held in Copenhagen, Arhus, Odense, Aalborg and a number of small towns in Denmark during the months of August and September 2000.

In a 2 November 2001 letter to President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, The International Press Institute condemned the recent arrest of Baboucar Gaye and the closure of his radio station, Citizen FM.

Special Report -- Do your data measure up? - Kenya puts its immunization records under the auditors' microscope (DQA). News -- Yellow fever vaccine stocks still low as fears of new outbreaks grow. Grassroots -- Training vaccinators in a time of change: preparing to cope with new vaccines and new equipment. Briefing -- Why the fridge loses its cool: finding solutions to the problems of maintaining the cold chain.

Released on October 15, this new annual report from Transparency
International (TI, see the September 7, 2000 Scout Report for Business &
Economics) reviews the "state of corruption" worldwide, July 2000-June
2001. After the introduction and prefatory material, the report is divided into three main sections: Regional reports, Global issues (such as money laundering and an update from OECD on implementing the Anti-Bribery Convention), and Data and research, which summarizes a wide variety of research projects from governments, private organizations, scholars, international organizations, and more. The About the GCR link on the front page of the report gives a summary of authors contributing to the different report sections and an overview of the report as a whole. The report is designed for a wide audience and should appeal both to policymakers and interested members of the general public.
Source: From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/