An international organisation that launched on Sunday (21 May) in China will create a multi-dimensional 'Digital Earth' to aid research into global issues such as climate change. The Beijing-based International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) will combine geographical, geological and other information into a single database that will encompass all of the Earth's natural systems.

In the wake of terrorism and a rise in fear of the unknown, a tide of repressive immigration policies is passing through Europe. Discrimination is common, according to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Skin colour is a reason to deny access to accommodation. Public authorities are too passive, or even complicit in the daily discrimination immigrants experience.

Today is the African Day. How many Africans are aware of the significance of the day's event? How many governments organised any public rally to mark the day? Does it really matter to our so-called political leaders and policy makers what citizens in their countries go through each day. They are all busy with how to either maintain themselves in power or install their stooges as successors to an already depressed economy, leaving a legacy of social decay and zero level infrastructures. The story is the same across Africa from Cape to Cairo. Today, the lot of mother Africa and millions of her citizens is deferred dreams and broken promises from the leaders. Last month in Abuja Nigeria, our leaders from across the continent came and made mouth watering promises on how to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. But, what happened to the promises made five years ago on the same issue? Can the leopard change the spots on its skin? It is heat-rendering that African youth are caught in this web and now run to Europe for succor, nay second slavery, willingly. Today, lets think about mother Africa and her millions of citizens.

It is indeed sad that it has come to this, and in many ways, the deplorable conditions in Africa make us slaves to the Westerners. What has touched me the most in this article, is the fact that if a ship clearly labelled "slave ship", was to appear in any port city in Africa, people would rush into it proclaiming that they were fit to be slaves! This is painful, but true. We have no pride whatsoever as Africans! I believe, not only a change in attitude is needed but good governance will go a long way in turning this situation around. For some bizzare reason, I have not lost hope (despite the fact that with every government that comes into power in my country, corruption gets worse!). I believe there's still hope for Africa.

A fantastic piece indeed. Slavery was never abolished, it was modernized, with everyone helping along the way. The piece could be the basis for anyone interested in making a film or writing a play. In this day and age, it seems, only art (theatre in this case) could render not just the actual facts as described by Tajudeen, but also the thinking, the emotions going on in the heads of those who traveled on that famous plane (it would be good to actually have the flight number, departure and destination). As scholars (historians in particular), we are trained to only look for facts in archives, or on any palpable concrete evidence, but what about the archives of our collective mind, emotions which are supposed to be off limits, and yet, have survived for generations.

The screams, the crying, the protest of the person on that plane sounded to me like echoes of those who were kidnapped centuries ago, in their fields, on their way to a funeral, to a wedding, or simply resting at home after a hard day's work. Back then, mercenaries appeared out of nowhere in search of slaves. There are no archives I know of where the screams, the pain, the suffering have been registered so that we can prove that, indeed long before the Holocaust, other genocides took place and create the conditions for the unthinkable to happen to people to whom such treatment was not supposed to happen.

Why should one not be outraged, "emotional" at such barbarity? Is it not because we have not been sufficiently outraged collectively that such acts continue? Is it not because one rationalizes one's silence that things which were supposed to have been abolished long ago continue to happen under a different name?

Taj, thank you for bringing to the surface one little illustration of what took place centuries before and continues today unabated. On the image of the slave ship mentioned toward the end of your piece, I would suggest the following: why not have our billionaires who might still have a bit of conscience, get about a dozen or so (or more) slave ships built exactly as they were when the slave trade was in full swing, and have a sample moored at all the ports (of departure and destination) so that, at least visually, all those who do want to see the instruments of killing the person and making a slave can be seen. However painful such replicas might be, at least they would have the shocking value that Maidanek, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, etc. continue to carry today.

At the close of a major United Nations meeting in New York Friday, indigenous leaders urged the world's developed countries to take into account the concerns of native communities living within their borders while implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are series of targets set by world leaders in 2000 to reduce levels of poverty, disease, illiteracy, and environmental degradation, and improve gender equality, by the year 2015.

Dropping Knowledge is a global initiative to turn apathy into activity. “By hosting an open conversation on the most pressing issues of our times, we will foster a worldwide exchange of viewpoints, ideas and people-powered solutions. However knowledge is defined, by dropping it freely to others, we all gain wisdom.”

This briefing paper argues that the quality of aid must improve if poverty reduction objectives are to be met. It identifies two main challenges: first, changing donor practices to increase aid effectiveness (e.g. aid untying, harmonisation); and second, donors recognising that aid will only be successful if it is truly 'owned' by recipient countries.

A new report by the self-auditing arm of the World Bank has painted a grim picture of the results of a decade-long plan by the Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give the world's poorest nations debt relief.

Developing nations have got far better at protecting rain forests over the past two decades but are a long way short of doing enough to save the crucial global resource, a new report said on Thursday (25 May). While the area of tropical timber under sustainable management has surged to 36 million hectares from less than one million in 1988, that represents less than 5 percent of all tropical forests, the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) said.

As this New York Times op-ed points out, private military contractors offer an "attractive" solution to numerous government and corporate security concerns. Whether contributing to the "endless campaign against global terrorism," helping to deflect public disapproval of the war in Iraq, or protecting transnational corporations in "remote and hostile" settings, private forces offer a more "efficient" and politically tractable alternative to standing government armies.

This newsletter from the International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) looks at how the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness affects NGOs as providers of international aid. The declaration urges governments to transfer aid directly into the budgets of poor countries, rather than funding their own development projects. While this could prevent rich countries from using aid as a tool to achieve their own political and economic interests, INTRAC warns that Northern NGOs could lose much of their funding and political influence.

Simavi is a relatively small Dutch funding agency that exists already for 80 years and gets it funding mainly from small private donors (families) and businesses. Simavi supports local non-governmental organisations that implement community based primary health care and water and sanitation projects in rural areas. Simavi supports local NGO's in 11 countries.

The survey focuses on the benefits that NGOs bring to inter-governmental decision-making process. The survey takes 5 - 10 minutes to complete. It also asks participants to assess proposed reforms designed to make inter-governmental institutions and processes more democratic through the increased participation of civil society. The survey is for research purposes and participants will not be cited or quoted without permission.

Martus is a software tool that allows users to document incidents of abuse by creating bulletins, uploading them at the earliest opportunity, and storing them on redundant servers located around the world. Martus Client 2.9 has just been released and includes speed enhancements, improved searching, and Thai and Persian date localization enhancements.

Child abuse, especially sexual abuse, is a universal and alarming problem and increased attention and efficient protection skills and prevention measures are necessary at family-, local-, national- and international level. After a long tradition of silence, sexual child abuse is being more and more denounced and becoming a public and political topic. WWSF invites you to participate in the 2006 global campaign and to take part in the next year Prize for prevention of child abuse (formerly Betty Makoni Prize) by organizing activities and events on 19 November or by supporting the Day in general.

With Google Trends, you can compare the world's interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched for on Google over time. Google Trends also displays how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and which geographic regions have searched for them most often.

In this article posted on the SciDev.Net website, author Nalaka Gunawardene discusses communication rights, and expresses questions and concerns about when media and communication may result in violations of privacy and other "communication wrongs." According to the article, it is not only the media that can violate others' communication rights. When development agencies and 'pro-poor' activists presume that the impoverished just need information about survival or sustenance, the latter's communication rights are not respected.

The victimisation of a black lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University over her use of pioneering teaching methods has united black academics across the country in her defence and reignited their determination to fight racism in higher education (HE). When the Black Colloquium heard that one of their fellow members was told to ‘take leave’ so that an investigation could be conducted into her teaching methods following ‘external complaints’, they were both outraged and angered.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says a booming India and China can be of benefit to economies in Africa. In a policy insight document, the Paris-based think-tank said there are a number of ways the continent can gain. The OECD says Indian and Chinese growth has dampened world inflation pressures, lowered global interest rates, and raised raw material prices. This in turn, it says, has helped to improve Africa's terms of trade.