The United States is helping some developing countries rework their drug patent laws in ways that "go beyond global standards" in protecting pharmaceutical companies and that could "undercut" President Bush's five-year, $15 billion AIDS initiative by making antiretroviral drugs more expensive and more difficult to obtain, the Wall Street Journal reports. "There are many ways that the Bush administration has contravened the letter and spirit of international efforts to improve access to drugs in developing countries,” Asia Russell, international policy coordinator at the Health GAP, said.

The European Union (EU) has allowed the Government to divert US$8m (sh16b) from the European Development Fund (EDF) to finance humanitarian activities in the war-ravaged northern Uganda.

The widening gulf between the global haves and have-nots was starkly revealed last night when the United Nations announced that while the United States was booming in the 1990s more than 50 countries suffered falling living standards. The UN's annual human development report charted increasing poverty for more than a quarter of the world's countries, where a lethal combination of famine, HIV/Aids, conflict and failed economic policies have turned the clock back.
Related Link:
* Human Development Report urges global compact to achieve MDG's
http://www.undp.org/dpa/frontpagearchive/2003/july/8july03/index.html
* Full Report
http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/

African trade ministers have warned UK trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt that the price of a successful conclusion to the new round of global trade talks will be further cuts to Europe's farm subsidies. Agriculture ministers agreed last month in Luxembourg to break the link between subsidies and farm output to trim the surplus produce Europe dumps in poor countries, bankrupting local farmers. But trade ministers from Africa and the developing world meeting in London dismissed the deal as a fudge which leaves the worst excesses untouched.

The economic boom of the 1990s created huge wealth for the bosses, but benefited workers hardly at all. At the same time, the bosses were able to take the political initiative and even the moral high ground, while workers were often divided against each other. This new book by leading labour analyst Michael D. Yates seeks to explain how this happened, and what can be done about it.

Just a few days before his visit to Africa, President Bush announced that Randall Tobias, the former chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly Co., will take the new position of "Czar" in charge of U.S. global HIV/AIDS funding. The move to position a drug company executive centrally in global health policymaking is nothing new for this administration, but the openness of this gesture to the industry suggests that there is little shame in reversing the progress of the last several years, particularly in the realm of medicine treatment access, says this commentary on the web site www.zmag.org
Related Link:
* AIDS Appointee Shows That Business Still Rules the Roost
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0307tobias.html

African countries are expected to call on developed countries to reduce export subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial summit in September. This proposal is unlikely to gain support from developed countries that offer billion dollar subsidies to their farmers to enable them to export competitively. "All forms of trade-distorting domestic support measures by developed countries should be substantially reduced, to enable the development of a vibrant and competitive African agricultural sector," said an African declaration that is expected to form the basis for a joint African position as countries head for the WTO ministerial summit in Cancun, Mexico.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) celebrated on July 1 the one year anniversary of its jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since the July 1, 2002 entry into force of the court's treaty, the Rome Statute, the ICC has seen the adoption of its primary governing instruments and the election of all of its senior officials.

The current U.S. administration has a near-religious aversion to the new, permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). The court, now with 90 member countries, was established to ensure that the rule of law prevails in places where the only alternative is impunity for the most gut-wrenchingly vicious crimes against humanity. Its opponents in the administration, however, claim that the court will become a forum for politicized prosecutions. In fact, they are so sure that the court is out to persecute U.S. citizens that they are willing to undermine some of the most basic foundations of international security to protect against this perceived, but nonexistent, threat, says this commentary from Foreign Policy in Focus.

A Bank has donated Shs5 million to Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (Uweso). The bank's head of marketing, Mr Charles Nsubuga, handed over the cheque to Ms Camille Aliker, the chairwoman of the fundraising committee.

"We, citizens from around the world, drawn from the four corners of the earth and from countries rich and poor, come together united in our determination to denounce in the strongest terms the devastating impact of high level corruption and the levels of impunity that facilitate it, and to demand concerted national and international measures to combat it. We unequivocally condemn all those whose actions and whose inactions have contributed to the crisis of corruption now sweeping the globe, deepening poverty; undermining emerging, and even developed, democracies; and eroding fundamental human rights in many societies."

The United States announced on Tuesday that it has suspended military aid to South Africa because the country will not give Americans immunity from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court in The Hague. South Africa was one of 35 countries blacklisted by the US on Tuesday. It is the only one of the five countries on the itinerary for Bush's African tour to be blacklisted.

The DRC has timber, diamonds, gold, copper, and other esoteric minerals such as coltan, used in mobile phones and video games and has therefore attracted transnational mining concerns. An expert UN panel investigating the illegal exploitation of DRC’s resources found that a "predatory network of elites" had been established to fight an "economy of war." As a result of the investigation the panel called upon the UN to impose financial penalties on various companies. Eight of these 29 companies were Canadian, showing that when it comes to exploiting the profit potential of Africa, Canadian firms, among others, are quick off the mark.

The Kenyan authorities have been accused of approving a controversial titanium mining venture along the country's Indian Ocean coast without addressing the economic and environmental concerns raised by the local population.

Aid workers struggled on Tuesday to help thousands of people left stranded, wounded or sick by fighting in Liberia's capital as the United States resisted any firm commitment to lead a peacekeeping force. Pressure has been mounting on the United States, already stretched by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take a lead role in ending nearly 14 years of conflict in a West African nation founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago.

1 July 2003 marked the entry into force of the International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (the Migrants Rights Convention). This is the first international human rights treaty to come into force since 1990 when the Convention on the Rights of the Child came into force. Amnesty International has welcomed the coming into force of this Convention since it is an important human rights tool for the protection of the human rights of the around 175 million migrants in the world. The organisation has urged all states to accede to the instrument.

Globalisation is one of the most controversial development issues of the day. ‘Globaphobes’ attribute most of the ills of the world to globalisation. The anti-globalisation movement has focused attention on the extent to which decisions affecting the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people are made in international fora – at which the poor have no voice. Globalisation is seen as marginalising a large part of the world’s population and contributing to increased international inequality. On the other hand, ‘globaphiles’ see extending globalisation as the key to eliminating world poverty. But despite the heated debate on globalisation, there is still a lack of empirical research examining the links between globalisation and poverty in detail.

Nigeria is set to benefit from a recently signed Global AIDS Fund grant agreement, local newspaper This Day reported last Thursday. The Fund has made US $28 million of the $150 million grant immediately available for the expansion of existing programmes for antiretroviral drugs and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the government of Cote d'Ivoire on Monday failed to sign a $91 million dollar grant agreement because of a dispute about how the money would be disbursed and monitored.

Ten million children under the age of five die every year around the globe and six-million of those deaths are easily preventable, a leading medical journal reveals. Five articles in the Lancet indict the poor leadership that has let good initiatives to improve children's health go by the wayside as other priorities have come along.