EDITORIALS: Tristen Taylor, of Jubilee South Africa, makes the case for corporate reparations
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS: A new publication directly challenges the health impacts of globalisation
LETTERS: Round three in the poetic battles over Pan-Africanism; and memories of Walter Rodney
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem on Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s efforts to shed his image as the “419 president”
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: The US is accused of hypocrisy over its roll in Darfur
WOMEN AND GENDER: Wrangling continues over the Domestic Relations Bill in Uganda
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Ethiopian opposition unhappy at Zenawi's claims of victory in historic poll
DEVELOPMENT: “Making poverty history needs getting the history of poverty right.”
HEALTH and HIV/AIDS: WHA set to decide on public health issues
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Self-powered mobile charger to be launched
BOOKS AND ARTS: Review of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child CD-Rom Training Kit

* Would debt cancellation change your day-to-day life?

World Debt Day 2005 took place on May 16. Pambazuka News would like to know how you think debt cancellation would change your day-to-day life. Send your comments to [email protected]

In March Pambazuka News produced a special issue on debt that contained a series of articles addressing critical issues related to debt. You can catch up on the articles in the edition by visiting:
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=197

Development Assistance for Refugees (DAR) is a concept that attempts to move beyond the vital, but static, relief phase of an operation and towards improving the quality of life in asylum, building productive capacities of refugees (and preparing them for durable solutions) and contributing to poverty eradication in refugee hosting areas. DAR is solutions oriented, inclusive (it brings together the capacities of refugees, hosts, government, development and humanitarian partners, civil society and others) and is firmly in line with United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The Handbook advocates a participatory and inter-agency approach to formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating DAR programmes, including mainstreaming gender and age.

We are a Somali Local Organization which is non-political and non-profit making, known as Somali Human Rights Action. We work in the central zone and Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. We feel Pambazuka News is helping us particularly in the following areas: We receive all the news particularly about Africa nations and the latest highlights news which is common for all people who read Pambazuka all the time. We receive knowledge of writing in English in many different issues. There is also workshop information. We also use this reference in writing proposals, reports and letters .We try to follow all the news, particularly the Human Rights Information. We try to follow all details, but most of the time we are unable to because of the financial situation. The better part of it is that we have the information and we know that we have a chance to succeed. I cant even explain in this small letter how we feel Pambazuka News has been helping our growth as an organization.

But the only thing I can say is that Pambazuka News has been helping our growth in many ways. For example. I gave two organizations and  one friend in Dubai the contacts and the information of Pambazuka News. The organizations are also local organizations. They thanked me because they had no idea that there was anything like Pambazuka which really helped them. Pambazuka News helps by giving us more information particularly on the Human Rights programmes like workshops and contacts for donors. Pambazuka News is helping in the free information that we receive every time which is knowledgeable. Currently, our biggest problem is rent of our offices and communication costs in this year 2005 and also building capacity of our organizational staff. We hope that all we have told you will help you to help us to get donors who can help us. Your cooperation and help will be highly appreciated.

Ivory Coast's main opposition parties have signed an agreement to work together in October's elections. They will not field a joint candidate against President Laurent Gbagbo but they will all back whichever of them gets the most votes in the first round. The elections are part of a deal to bring peace to Ivory Coast, which has been divided by a two-and-a-half year rebellion.

Ethiopia's biggest opposition coalition accused the ruling party of using "illegal" means to cling to power on Tuesday after it claimed election victory while votes were still being counted. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said late on Monday it had won enough votes in Sunday's polls to form the next government, although results have not been officially tallied.

With locusts and drought having destroyed crops and stripped grazing land for six million people across West Africa, small farmers have started selling livestock cheaply and eating the seed corn they should plant during next month's expected rains, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. "The combined effect of drought and locust attack, particularly in the more northerly districts of the counties affected has led to significant damage," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Edouard Tapsoba said.

Grants are available to human rights organisations and activists in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, East Central Europe and the Republics of the former Soviet Union for training/exchange projects including on site training, professional attachments and study tours.

Mozambique has failed to meet almost any of its targets for governance, justice or corruption control, but its performance over the past year was still "satisfactory", according to a joint donor-government statement issued Thursday 12 May. But speaking for donors, Swiss ambassador Adrian Hadorn said that the government would have to act on rights and on corruption if it expected to continue to maintain donor confidence. An accompanying independent report was highly critical of donor performance. It also criticised the government for being "passive", for failing to provide leadership, and for being subservient to donors. Read more details in the Mozambique Bulletin, available by clicking on the link below.

The latest edition of ePoliticsSA from IDASA evaluates draft legislation currently in process which aims to address the issue of transformation in the judiciary. An introduction to the issue notes that the transformation of South Africa’s judiciary is constitutionally prescribed, necessary and inevitable – what is important about transformation, however, is the form it takes. Since the structure of the courts and composition of the judiciary in South Africa are firmly rooted in apartheid, the question is not whether transformation should occur, but what steps should be taken to ensure that transformation processes are effective, transparent and respect the independence of the judiciary.

A World Bank-commissioned study has recommended aid cuts to Uganda over the next three years, warning that recent political developments have jeopardised the country’s development agenda. The study found that, “Museveni’s bid for a third term has split the Movement…raised the prospect for political violence…and significantly increased the impetus for corruption as the campaigns to change the constitution and reelect the President will require large sums of money.”

South African officials are due to provide technical and financial aid to public service institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over a three-year period, a government minister said on Tuesday. The South African experts would also help with anti-corruption measures, and the setting up of a national public administration training institute.

Uganda's external debt increased over the last ten years from $3 billion in 1994 to $4.5 billion in 2004. According to a document from Uganda Debt Network (UDN) released on Monday, the indebtedness affects Uganda's development and expenditure for essential services. "The odious debt is hampering our rate of development and expenditure on essential services for poverty-reducing sectors such as primary education, primary health care, water and sanitation, agricultural extension and rural roads," the document says.

The potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to train and educate communities that have limited or no access to formal education channels was the focus of an international conference at UNESCO Headquarters, and broadcast live on the internet, from 11 to 13 May. The conference, "ICT for Capacity-Building: Critical Success Factors" involved local leaders, community educators and experts in learning from all continents, from as far afield as Brazil, Afghanistan, Senegal and Jordan.

International efforts to promote development, security and human rights will not succeed if environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources are not addressed, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned. The speech was delivered by UNEP head Klaus Töpfer at the International Conference on Environment, Peace and the Dialogue among Civilizations and Cultures held in Tehran, Iran, from 9-10 May.

With the outflow of Togolese fleeing disputes over presidential elections slowing significantly, the United Nations refugee and food distribution agencies are making sure that host families in neighbouring Benin and Ghana can bear the burden of the nearly 31,000 refugees they have taken in.

Hundreds of Rwandan asylum seekers, who had fled to Burundi in fear of tribunals at home, may have been intimidated to return to Rwanda, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported. "UNHCR is not organising these departures and is often not present when the asylum seekers are leaving the sites," Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesman, was quoted as saying on Friday in Geneva.

The United Nations (UN) has taken a swipe at Nigeria over its poor human rights records, warning that outlawing the labour union was an indication of "lack of commitment" on the part of the Federal Government to human rights issues. Special Representative of UN Secretary General on human rights defenders, Mrs. Hina Jilani, kicked against the Public Order Act which she said was an impediment to the realisation of the right to freedom of assembly as well as the right of trade unions to embark on strike actions.

The Togolese League of Human Rights said on Friday that 790 people had been killed and 4,345 hurt in political violence triggered by the recent election of Faure Gnassingbe to succeed his father as president of the West African nation. “The international community must hold an inquiry given the scale of the human rights violations,” Ayayi Apedo-Amah, the secretary-general of the organisation, told IRIN.

The main opposition parties in Togo have agreed to meet President Faure Gnassingbe at a reconciliation summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday to discuss their possible participation in a government of national unity. Yaovi Agboyibo, the coordinator of the six-party alliance, which opposed Gnassingbe in last month's presidential elections, confirmed in a statement on Saturday that opposition leaders would attend the Abuja meeting, convened by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairman of the African Union.

Participatory development has been taken up enthusiastically by donors and governments alike. But their interpretation of participation as applied to development projects is some way from its origins in radical politics. Is it possible to achieve genuine participation through an emphasis on consensus and technical targets while ignoring patterns of local power and domination?