Selected headlines from Pambazuka News 173
SMS FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS
* CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Namibia has become the fourth country to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, joining the Comoros, Libya and Rwanda. Watch out for more details on Namibia’s ratification in next week’s Pambazuka News. Fifteen ratifications are needed before the protocol enters into force. You can help speed up the ratification process by signing a petition.
* Use your mobile phone to sign the petition in support of the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Send a message to: +27832933934, with the word ‘petition’ and your name in the message. You will only be charged the cost set by your network provider for sending an international SMS. More information http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/smssocial.php or sign online at http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/
* Sign up for FREE SMS ALERTS about the campaign for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Visit http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/alerts.php
HOW TO SUPPORT THE SMS PETITION
* Send text messages to your colleagues and friends alerting them to the petition and informing them how to sign by SMS. You can also use email and word of mouth to help spread the word.
* Distribute leaflets about this initiative. If you work in a human rights or social justice organisation in Africa, volunteer to distribute leaflets for us about the petition to your networks and contacts. Send your details to [email protected] and we will post you pamphlets to distribute.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS ISSUE
* Conflicts and Emergencies: Prospects for peace in Sudan
* Elections and Governance: Food – the key to ultimate power in Zimbabwe
* Development: Towards alternatives to globalisation
* Health: A decade of hard labour on reproductive health rights
* Education: Commonwealth protocol to control teacher poaching
* Environment: Poverty, climate change and the energy revolution
* Media&FXI: Lawyers to discuss journalists’ rights in West Africa
* Advocacy and Campaigns: Worldwide days of action against the World Bank and IMF
* Books and Arts: A review of Faceless by Amma Darko
>>>>> Africa, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
Global Apartheid continues to Haunt Global Democracy
This year marks what many activists have dubbed the unhappy birthday of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. It is 60 years since the creation of these institutions in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and in that time period both have come to have a profound and controversial influence on the world.
Pambazuka News is profiling a series of articles that aim to examine the role of these institutions in the context of Africa. This week in our Comment and Analysis section we carry the fourth article in this series which looks at the phenomenon that many analysts have described as global apartheid in the context of third world debt.
Debt, argues the author, is the new face of colonialism and slavery. It is an instrument used to plunder and exploit indebted countries' resources and ultimately is at the heart of the unequal power relations between the North and the South.
Pambazuka News encourages activists, academics or anyone interested in the role of these institutions in Africa to respond to the articles or to submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter. Contributions can be sent to [email protected]