Chapel & York's email-Information Service helps you find the resources you need from amongst the vast amounts of information available for charities, non-profits, & NGOs on-line. The focus is on new funding information, and international and cross-boarder funding.

This distance learning course, taking place between 23 September and 15 December, provides participants practical guidance on how to monitor human rights and is specifically a generic pre-deployment course for human rights monitors.

Leaders of the G8 have adopted a new approach to their annual summits. Over the past five years, they have met in tumultuous carnival of protests and empty promises. This year, they have retreated to a fireside chat in a remote mountain resort, far away from demonstrations.

But some things will stay the same. There will be more empty promises. The G8 will re-announce token amounts of aid and debt cancellation, and promise more in the future. But the real responsibility for the economic crisis in Africa will be blamed on the African countries themselves.

NEPAD and G8 Action Plan for Africa

At their meeting on 26 - 28 June in Kananaskis, Canada, the G8 leaders will unveil an 'Action Plan on Africa'. The fact that the leaders of the rich countries are committing themselves to engage with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), being hailed an 'African plan for African development', is a welcome change from the recent past, when plans were imposed from G8 capitals.

However, as pointed out in 'Africa: What the G8 must deliver', the new briefing by Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) and the World Development Movement (WDM), the crucial test for the G8 is whether they will deliver on their own responsibilities, rather than blaming Africa for its poverty.

It is undeniable that there has been poor governance, corruption and mismanagement in Africa. However, the briefing reveals the context - the legacy of colonialism, the support of the G8 for repressive regimes in the Cold War, the creation of the debt trap, the massive failure of Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the IMF and World Bank and the deeply unfair rules on international trade. The role of the G8 in creating the conditions for Africa's crisis cannot be denied. Its overriding responsibility must be to put its own house in order, and to end the unjust policies that are inhibiting Africa's development.

Yet the G8 will do little and lecture Africa extensively. Its communique will undoubtedly recycle some of the most pervasive myths:
* Africa has received increasing amounts of aid over the years - in fact, aid to Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 48% over the 1990s;
* Africa needs to integrate more into the global economy - in fact, trade accounts for a larger proportion of Africa's income than of the G8;
* Economic reform will generate new foreign investment - in fact, investment to Africa has fallen since they opened up their economies;
* Bad governance has caused Africa's poverty - in fact, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), economic conditions imposed by the IMF and the World Bank were the dominant influence on economic policy in the two decades to 2000, a period in which Africa's income per head fell by 10% and income of the poorest 20% of people fell by 2% per year .

As a result of these myths, the victims are being blamed for their poverty. Africa is already labouring under conditions imposed by the IMF and World Bank, aid donors, the US Growth and Opportunity Act, the EU Cotonou agreement, Bilateral Investment Treaties and the 28 agreements of the World Trade Organisation.

Promises, promises...

The past record of the G8 does not give confidence of real commitment. The strategy has been: Make promise. Grab headlines. Tick it off. Job done. Then when the shouting dies down... quietly break promise.

* Last year, they ticked off HIV/AIDS with a Trust Fund - only $2.1 billion, a fraction of the $10 billion called for by Kofi Annan, has been delivered.
* In 1999, they apparently ended the debt crisis with a promise of $100 billion - only $13 billion of debt stock has been cancelled to date ($7.5 billion in Net Present Value).

Year after year, they have promised to support education for all, to make trade rules fairer and to end tied aid to the poorest countries. Yet, year after year, the G8 has failed to deliver.

This year, it is likely to be even worse. The promises from previous summits will not only be recycled, they will come with a heavy price tag.

* $1 billion more for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Trust Fund will come with a continuation of the IMF and World Bank influence over economic policies of African countries.
* Improved access to rich markets will come with increased pressure on Africa through World Trade Organisation negotiations to give new rights to multinational companies producing a wide range of services, including those that are essential to the poor.
* Announcements of aid for Africa will not be "new money", but will come with new conditions on African leaders, including those related to migration.

As the G8 discusses new forms of conditionality, Africa is being divided into the deserving and undeserving poor. ACTSA and WDM are calling on the G8 to stop tinkering at the margins and actually deliver on its long-standing promises to Africa. This G8 must stop blaming the victims and commit to a real development plan that reflects Africa's urgent needs.

Links on Nepad and the G8:

* How does the G8 affect Africa?
http://g8.activist.ca/print/g8-africaflyer-sp.pdf

* Critiques of NEPAD from African NGO's
http://www.web.net/~iccaf/debtsap/nepad.htm

* NEPAD: A critical review
http://www.sask.fi/Documents/NepadLRS.doc

* Little hope for Africa from G8
http://www.debtchannel.org/

The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has warned the Malawi Institute of Journalism radio station (MIJ FM) that it risks losing its broadcasting license because of what MACRA describes as anomalies and bias in its reporting. MIJ FM is a community radio station run by the MIJ to train students. However, it has been established that the license principles issued to MIJ state that the radio station should protect the best interests of the community, encourage new and innovative programmes and promote community access to information. MACRA Director of Telecommunications Mike Kuntiya refused to clarify what the authority meant by "anomalies" in MIJ FM programmes. MACRA, hitherto dormant, is yet to prove to be a neutral referee. The Authority has failed to take action against the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), despite the public outcry over MBC's apparent partisan reporting in favour of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF).

On 20 June 2002, police in Malawi's largest city Blantyre stopped a series of public debates organised by the Lilongwe Press Club to discuss the proposed amendment to the Malawi Constitution regarding the limits on the president's term in office.

Salon.com has an article on using open-source software to stop spam: "The only way to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail may be to harness a million eyeballs and an army of open-source hackers".

The attempt by former military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida to stop the implementation of the report of the Human Rights Violation Investigations Commission (HRVIC) got underway in Abuja last week with the federal government declaring before the Federal High court that General Babangida had no legal right to dictate when or how the reports of the HRVIC should be implemented.

This scathing article from computer security expert, Richard Forno, analyses the new Palladium computer design announced by Microsoft. MS intend Palladium to answer security worries with a hardware/software bundled solution. Viability is in doubt.

In a 19 June 2002 letter to Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, CPJ protested the arrest and prosecution of Zouhair Yahyaoui, an Internet café employee and editor of the online publication "Tunezine". On the evening of 4 June, plainclothes state agents detained Yahyaoui at an Internet café in the capital, Tunis. Authorities then searched Yahyaoui's home and confiscated disks and other computer materials. After spending several days in detention, Yahyaoui was charged in court on 13 June with intentionally publishing false information.

Egypt has scrapped its old Internet subscription plan in favor of per-hour dial-up charges, resulting in an immediate and welcome spike in usage.

The National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Mr. Smart Adeyemi, has said that he is under "severe pressure" to scrap the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ). According to him, this should be done before the association's elections billed to be held next month. Adeyemi, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja, said that the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) "are pressing continuously" on the issue.

The Wild West days of cyberspace are over--and, like it or not, it's time for government to change its laissez-faire attitude toward the Internet and create laws that clearly prevent unscrupulous businesses from preying on unsuspecting consumers and seizing control of computers.

Minister of Communications and Press Kikaya Bin Karubi has responded to the recent protest letter from Journaliste en danger (JED) which denounced threats and harassment aimed at the private broadcaster RAGA and journalist Jean-René Mputu Biduaya. In an 18 June 2002 letter to JED, Kikaya denied any involvement in the blackmail efforts and intimidation campaign designed to force RAGA to stop criticising the government. The minister described the remarks reported by JED as "gratuitous" and "fabrications aimed at having our foreign partners believe that the private press in the Congo is bullied by the authorities."

"ISOC claims around 8,600 individual members. That's not a lot, considering that the worldwide number of Internet users is in the hundreds of millions...The free and open Internet, as opposed to the glorified shopping network so many corporate types apparently want the 'Net to become, needs a strong and organized voice to speak up on its behalf." ISOC and ICANN both claim to be this voice: ICANN is wrapped in scandal and ISOC needs members. Perhaps the much-touted 'anarchy' of the internet is prevailing - or is it the apathy of its users? Read the article.

Abdoulaye Tiémogo, publication director of the satirical weekly "Le Canard déchaîné", was arrested on 18 June 2002 further to Prime Minister Hama Amadou's filing of a complaint for "defamation". RSF has urged the prime minister to withdraw his complaint and see to it that the journalist is released immediately.

As they struggle to reintegrate back into their communities following civil conflict in Sierra Leone, women and girls who have been sexually abused by combatants are receiving much-needed assistance from Christian Children's Fund, which is promoting community dialogue and education in the country.

The Food and Drug Administration in the US has published a web site with consumer information about cell phones. Everything from health hazards to how they work and the effect they have on medical equipment is covered.

A legal battle began on Tuesday between former Nigerian military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida, and the government over a probe into an unsolved 16 year-old murder of prominent journalist Dele Giwa, which occurred during Babangida's reign. Nigeria's Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC) in its report to President Olusegun Obasanjo last month recommended the prosecution of Babangida and two former intelligence chiefs for the murder of Giwa by parcel bomb in his Lagos home on 19 October 1986.

Your Excellency, I write on behalf of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organization advocating for a free press and freedom of expression in Canada and around the world. CJFE wishes to protest the arrest of Emmanuel Chilekwa, managing editor of the privately-owned newspaper, The People, his assistants Shadreck Banda and Kings Lweendo, and student journalist Jane Chirwa on June 5, 2002. They were all charged with "defamation of the president."

The International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest journalist's group, and the Eastern Africa Journalist Association (EAJA), have expressed their strong concern regarding the adoption of a repressive media law in Kenya. "This unequivocal attempt by the government to control the media is appalling", said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.