The Namibian government has apologised for delays in distributing drought aid but says the task is time-consuming and cannot easily be fast-tracked. The distribution of food aid to an estimated 345 000 people in need has been delayed by official bureaucracy and the allocation of tenders to firms that do not have the capacity to deliver.

The year 2002 is the year of the mountains. However, a new report from Panos argues that mountain people must have a stronger voice and role in the development of their regions. Experts in their own environments have a large part to play in tackling poverty and conserving resources – investing in people is the most effective way to protect the mountains for future generations, says the report.

US President George Bush plans to make his first visit to Africa at the end of January. He will not go empty handed, but a fear is that Bush will propose only a modest new Aids initiative without new funding.

Walden Bello believes the world requires a radical shift towards a decentralised, pluralistic system of economic governance allowing countries to follow development strategies appropriate to their needs and circumstances. This 'deglobalization' means radically reducing the powers and roles of the existing TNC-driven WTO and Bretton Woods institutions. And requires the formation of new institutions helping to devolve the greater part of production, trade and economic decisionmaking to national and local level.

Between 21-23 October, over 90 trade unionists took part in consultative meetings with the IMF/World Bank to discuss issues including privatisation, poverty reduction and reforms of the international financial architecture. The scale and scope of the meetings was unprecedented, and the unionists confronted these institutions with evidence of the continuing damage wrought by their policies throughout the developing world.

Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade announced the dismissal of Latif Gueye, a Senegalese citizen and head of the humanitarian organisation Africa Helps Africa, on national television, accusing him of committing "extremely serious errors" for his alleged role in trafficking AIDS drugs that were meant for Africa but were sold in Europe.

The external debt of developing countries should not just be cancelled but the debtors compensated, civil society activists told a meeting of international officials, business leaders, scientists and NGO members in Prague Saturday.

This is a unique opportunity to work alongside the South African National Parks Board (SANP) to help in the conservation and management of their 18 National Parks, which encompasses much of the country's unique fauna, flora and cultural sites.

The Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University has released a report on an expert workshop it held in December 2001 to discuss human rights NGO capacity building. The report includes principles and assumptions guiding human rights capacity building work, critical issues in program design and implementation, and examines questions related to hierarchy and power dynamics the emerge in the context of capacity building.

This is a wonderful and very informative magazine - thank you!

The Emergency Management Unit has to deliver food assistance to over 345 000 drought-affected Namibians despite pledging to start the humanitarian exercise early this week.

The private sector, largely perceived as ethical in its business dealings, is as corrupt as the public sector, a new report says. The report by the Centre for Law and Research, accuses the sector of devising cunning strategies to evade the payment of tax.

A report was sent to President Thabo Mbeki and members of his cabinet on Tuesday calling on government to hold corporates accountable for damage done to the environment. The report, released by groundWork, a non-governmental organisation, stated that government had consistently failed to use the law, licences or sanctions to hold accountable corporate companies implicated in damaging the environment.

South Africa's financial contributions to international relief programmes in Africa had halved during the past three years from R12,1-million to R6-million, according to the foreign affairs department's annual report for the year ending March 2002.

Agencies working to relieve famine in southern Africa have embarked on a comprehensive training scheme to educate employees to avoid child abuse. This is to prevent a repeat of the widespread sexual abuse of children by aid workers revealed during the recent west African refugee crisis.

If the bribery and cronyism that have so incensed anti-corruption crusaders are to be exposed and opposed, so too must corporate profiteering and monopolistic practices which heap misery upon people and plunder natural resources the world over. Above all, stresses Aziz Choudry, a clear position must be taken to confront the corrupt worldview which underpins the neoliberal agenda of shaping the world in the interests of big business.

Zambia National Students Union (ZANASU) president Godfrey Kumwenda, who represented Zambia at a congress in Windhoek, Namibia, said students wanted governments in the SADC region to abandon policies that pleased western capitalists, especially with regards to the privatisation of the education sector.

The Swaziland Royal Police, acting on a court order, raided Channel S, the only privately-owned television station in the country, and confiscated a video tape containing a sermon that has been termed by the Swazi government as "threatening the foundations of the kingdom."

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said last week that shareholders were failing to call companies to account for poor corporate governance. Speaking at a conference on shareholder activism, Manuel said that while shareholders had a right to oversee the affairs of a company, this right was "tragically too often ignored".

In a submission to the ILO Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalisation, which holds its third meeting in Geneva on 12 - 16 October, the ICFTU has called for social governance and regulation to be put at the centre of globalisation. The ICFTU submission points to the tremendous imbalance between economic and social interests in the world economy, with financial crises hitting a succession of countries over recent years, major companies collapsing due to dishonesty, mismanagement and corruption, and increasing violations of workers' rights around the world.