Save the Children UK says that UN food aid plans to ensure 13 million people in Southern Africa do not go hungry have been compromised by a seriously flawed assumption. The World Food Program (WFP) of the UN is predicting that nearly two million of the three and a quarter million tonnes of grain required in the region will be commercially imported. In reality, commercial importers have the capacity to import only a fraction of this amount - leaving a massive food shortfall if the UN is not prepared to step up its own aid programme.

Economic growth in least developed countries has increased from levels seen 10 years ago, but 13 countries led by Guinea-Bissau and the Solomon Islands had "regressing economies".

The incoming leader of the world's most powerful trade body wants to introduce tough rules to clamp down on any lobbying by multinationals aimed at influencing the world trading system. The proposal from the World Trade Organisation's director-general designate, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, has shocked international governments and multinational firms, which have mounted a campaign against the plans.

"What are we going to do about the United States?" It's a blunt question for a UN diplomat, but it was on the minds, the lips, and in some cases the T-shirts, of many of the thousands of delegates who recently gathered in Bali for last preparatory meeting before the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg in late August. Kenny Bruno was at the Bali "Prepcom" and says despite the many roadblocks erected by Washington, many delegates are still optimistic that "another UN is possible."

A Durban scriptwriter has won an interim interdict against the distribution or sale of Mbongeni Ngema's controversial song Amandiya. The interdict application said the song, which appears on a CD entitled Jive MaDlokovu, was "rabidly racist and anti- Indian" and that it breached the South African constitution by promoting hate speech.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has slammed the response of international aid agencies to the crisis in Angola, where the organisation says thousands of people are dying of hunger.

Globalisation has failed to create jobs, effectively fuelling mass economic migration worldwide, the director-general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Juan Somavia, said on Monday. Speaking to the ILO's annual assembly, Somavia said more than one billion people were unemployed, prompting 120 million migrant workers to leave their families and home countries in the hope of finding a job elsewhere.

The ink was hardly dry on the furious newspaper editorials inspired by the Bush administration's decision to protect the steel industry when along comes the Farm Bill to further stoke the fire. The world is supposed to be moving toward more open markets, embracing liberalization as the route to globalization--and then the self-appointed leader of free trade abandons the script.

The Canadian opinion in the article on demining in Mozambique(MOZAMBIQUE LEADS THE WORLD - IN CLEARING LAND MINES: Pambazuka News Issue 66)can only be believed by average people, lacking the basic knowledge of what demining is all about. The amount of mines is irrelevant, the area covered in m2 and the area freed from these objects, that is what is relevant!
Maria Pons
[email protected]

The authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have banned the establishment of private radio stations, the official Radio Hargeysa reported on Tuesday. A circular issued by the Somaliland information ministry said that until broadcasting regulations were laid down, there would be no private radio stations because of the "potential dangers" of such operations. "No other voice can be heard on the air waves except Radio Hargeysa, which is the national voice," the statement said.

On the day of the G7 finance ministers meeting in preparation for the G8 Summit, George Soros and human rights and environmental watchdog Global Witness will launch 'Publish what you pay', an international campaign calling for mandatory disclosure by natural resource companies of payments to national governments to facilitate transparency and combat corruption.

The World Trade Organisation has emerged as an important agency, whose rules and operations have major effects on the development policies of its developing-country Members. This paper reviews some of the recent developments and issues arising from the WTO’s work and activities. The paper takes what the author considers is a “development perspective” of the trading system.

A former senior official in Lesotho found guilty of taking bribes from an international consortium of construction firms has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Angolan aid groups say a French-Swiss investigation into alleged illegal arms dealing, corruption and money laundering by top French and Angolan figures has hurt famine relief efforts. "Many international organizations have refused to send aid because they think Angola's rulers are too rich," Tunga Alberto, head of the Angolan Federation of Non-governmental Organizations, told The Associated Press.

The Institute for the Advancement of Journalism is offering a Corporate Feature Writing Course.

An international commission investigating alleged slavery practices in Sudan has said the abduction of civilians by both government and rebel forces was "commonplace", and called for President Umar Hasan al-Bashir to lead a campaign against the practice. The group found that "abductions of civilians and forcible recruitment by the armed forces of all sides in the war was commonplace," the report by the US-led eminent persons group on slavery, abduction and forced servitude in Sudan.

It took me 30 years living on and off in the 3rd world to spot what is going on. The World Bank is busy explaining to everyone that capitalism will save the 3rd world, but without explaining that the Capitalism in the 3rd world is not the same Capitalism which is bringing prosperity to the developed World. In the West, the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided approximately 80% to the workers and 20% to the owners; in the 3rd world, the proportions are reversed - the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided 20% to the workers and 80% to the owners. In fact sometimes it is 97% to the owners, but the principle is there…

We all know that increasing the income of a poor man by 10% means that the increase gets spent and goes round and round in the economy (a multiplier effect); whereas increasing the income of a rich man by 10% means that he hordes it in a bank or in a hole in the ground, and the spin-off is zero or extremely limited.

Add to this the fact that the elites (of all colours) in much of the 3rd world do not plough their money (fairly or unfairly earned) back into their own economies – they externalize it to Switzerland or some other secretive tax-haven.

And then the World Bank tells the 3rd world that they must attract foreign investment – when that same World Bank knows full well what these 3rd world elites are doing. That foreign investment which the country is trying (and probably failing) to attract is the same money which has been externalized unofficially (it sounds better than illegally) by their own elites.

Thus we have a deception on a grand scale, where the losers are the 3rd world workers who have to get by on the 20% of the value which they add, and the average citizen in the West, who has to subscribe financially and politically to the nonsense which the World Bank (and even international NGO’s and charities) peddles.

The 20/80 thing is real – I have seen it affect directly (and I have calculated the numbers for ) at least 2 members of my wife’s family here in sunny Zimbabwe Africa.

This also explains some of the scandal to do with people like Nike in the 3rd world – foreign companies are in the 3rd world because of the enormous profits to be made under the 20/80 system. They behave no worse than local companies (and often much better).

And if you really think about it also, capitalism in the West used to be of the 20/80 variety.

Western democracies are undermining freedom of expression in the mistaken belief their actions will aid the fight against terrorism, the President of the World Association of Newspapers said Monday. "The repressors of the free press have found all the inspiration and justification that they needed even in developed democracies like the US and Britain, where the governments have called on the media to refrain from broadcasting or printing the self-justifying messages of Osama bin Laden," said WAN President Roger Parkinson, at the opening of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum.

Reporters Without Borders protested today against the shutting down of the privately-owned Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) by the authorities of the Somali region of Puntland and called for the measure to be reversed at once.

One of the most eagerly awaited results of the UN Special Session on Children, held in New York, earlier this month, was the outcome document - A World Fit for Children. The United States' stand over several sections of the document has held up its final release. Here is the latest but unofficial version of the final document covering the entire gamut of issues on child rights.