The Jan/Feb 2006 issue of Worlds of Education, Education International’s bi-monthly magazine, is now available. Issue 17 includes articles an on fighting HIV/AIDS and related discrimination in the classroom, a report on the pursuit of the Education For All agenda at the G8 Summit and a report from the International Convention on cultural diversity.

The world's nearly 6,000 languages will be celebrated on International Mother Language Day, an event aimed at promoting linguistic diversity and multilingual education. Ensuring that these languages can continue in use alongside the major international languages of communication is a genuine challenge to countries worldwide. Today, about half of the 6,000 or so languages spoken in the world are under threat. This year's theme will be devoted to the topic of languages and cyberspace, reports UNESCO.

Relatives of 10 alleged Somali pirates have said that the suspects were innocent fishermen. The men in question were captured by US naval soldiers who came to rescue MV Safinat Al-Basarat, an Indian boat, which together with its 16 crew members, was allegedly being highjacked by the Somalis. "Our sons and brothers were not hooded men committing sinful acts. They were on a fishing trip in Somalia's territorial waters," claimed a man interviewed by a local FM Radio station.

Kenyans in the diaspora are contributing an equivalent of 3.8 per cent of national income through remittances. In the year 2004, for instance, Kenyans living and working abroad remitted about Ksh35 billion ($464 million), which overshadows the net foreign direct investment (FDI) of Ksh3.6 billion ($50.4 million), which accounted for 0.41 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. "Migration is an important issue in Kenya, with the country both a significant destination and a source of migrants," said Francis Mwega of the Department of Economics at the University of Nairobi during the launch of the World Bank's 2006 Global Economic Prospects report in Nairobi.

This paper examines how excluded children are planned for in education. It provides guidelines and concepts for rendering National Education Plans / Education for All (EFA) more inclusive, with the objective of ensuring access and quality education for all learners. The guidelines are intended to provide information and awareness and to be a policy tool for revising and formulating EFA plans.

While the White House has long denied funding to overseas groups that help women obtain abortions, U.S. President George W. Bush's new budget proposal looks to reduce funding to international family planning groups the administration previously had lauded as effective in preventing abortions. The proposed 18% cut is drawing the ire of nonprofit groups and Democrats on Capitol Hill. "It's ironic that an administration outwardly committed to reducing the incidence of abortion would take away valuable tools for preventing unwanted pregnancies," one Democratic congresswoman said, reports the New York
Times.

A weekly newsletter which draws on more than 100 sources in 37 countries to present articles which the publishers believe have been underreported or overlooked.

The Director General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, came to Wits University at the invitation of the South African Institute for International Affairs. He was greeted by protestors inside the venue who were forcibly removed to join the picket of the event outside. The protestors continued to dog Lamy at his next engagement at the Nedlac chamber in Rosebank.

How do people turn laws into better lives? How can and how do people live their rights? Join us for a unique, one time only online Live Chat, hosted by TakingITGlobal and Chat the Planet. Experts from Rwanda and South Africa will join the Live Chat to talk about what they know from their work on bridging the gap between words on a page and a safer, healthier and more equal society.

On January 23rd the UN Committee on Non-governmental Organizations decided not to recommend consultative status with ECOSOC for International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians. The decision was criticized by the representative of Germany, who named it an act of discrimination and stressed that it was a signal sent to the world that discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation was acceptable. The Danish representative talking in support of Danish NGO emphasized that it worked in a professional manner and produced valuable work. Voices against recommending both NGOs for consultative status came from: Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, US, and Zimbabwe. Voices in favor came from: Chile, France, Germany, Peru and Romania. Colombia, India and Turkey abstained. Cote d'Ivoire was absent.

The volume of foreign aid has increased during the last four decades, albeit with interruptions in certain years. Over time, the major recipients have changed: while the share of aid to Asia has diminished since the 1980s, that destined for sub-Saharan Africa has grown. There is some evidence that, since the late 1990s, debt relief has assumed a larger share of the increased aid flows to sub-Saharan Africa. The share of technical cooperation—a component of aid that is viewed as being driven by donors—has risen.

Internet companies facing hearings before angry US legislators say they cannot on their own resist China's effort to censor the web, according to a report on Business Day's website, as posted on www.journalism.co.za But industry analysts say that even if Washington tried to enforce free-speech standards, it is likely to have little effect.

The author barely mentions corruption which is again in the news with Kenya's watchdog fleeing the country. There are 2.9 million references on Google for 'Kenya corruption' and about half that for 'Kenya transparency.'

I think wealthy countries' perceptions about corruption in Africa are big factors in aid policies. So much assistance is crisis management instead of community development. With the H5N1 virus found in Kaduna state Nigeria, let's see how Nigerian and outside experts handle this latest health crisis. Uganda did pretty well with Ebola six years ago, but that's a very different kind of disease.

Good discussion. Africans need jobs so that they can get money to buy the stuff they want and free trade but not subsidized commodity imports in the form cotton, rice, and etc (paid by US taxpayers.) I believe "private capital" is better at generating jobs. Government capital creates either low productivity and or jobs for party people, Stalin's government built an ok armaments industry. Come to think of it the American economy is good at this too. Indeed this country is departing from capitalism as it is supposed to be in favor of economic hit men economics.

On BBC I heard about about a new cement plant in Southern India where there is extremely high unemployment. Construction cost: hundreds of millions, new jobs: 400!

Everywhere people are induced to leave poor but relatively stable villages and subsistence, no money, farming to try to find work and money in cities and industrial towns. They often find more and maybe worse poverty. Here in the Americas we refer to these as Maquiladoras. A byproduct of globalisation seems to be one of spreading poverty into new areas. But this outcome need not be inevitable.

I don't believe that African governments are sufficiently attentive as to what they could be doing to stimulate an emerging African market...now less talked about than a couple of years ago. Governments could strongly urge (not compel) natural resources extractors (oil drillers gold miners etc) to reinvest some of their returns from African and South American natural resources into the economies of origin, new factories, services, shopping centers. Thus stockholders would get more bang for their bucks; returns on extracting operations and on new investments in growing economies.

Unions have a critical role to play. Worker safety and child labour are big issues. I know a young man who begs in Accra who at age 7 or 8 had his arm torn off by a corn grinding machine. After a couple of years in hospital he did complete primary school. However I am also aware of an Asian company that imports soap flakes to Ghana for repackaging and local marketing. The production target on their Ghana packaging line during an 8 hour shift is 45 crates vs 165 in Asia. As a casual visitor I did not think that this was any "sweat shop". They could have been doing better while not crossing that line. And then there was the bankruptcy of Volta Garments which hired 600 workers and could not exceed making seven shirts per day versus 20-22 in Asia. Probably a lot of blame for these shortfalls has to laid on the involvement of certain unions.

And Oh! Thank God for Pambazuka News.

The closer ties that are being forged between Brazil and the African continent is a positive development, in terms of both foreign policy and the effects on the fight against discrimination suffered by black Brazilians, Geraldo Rocha, director of the Centre for the Mobilisation of Marginalised Populations (CEAP), told IPS. The Lula administration "is on the right path," despite difficulties and shortcomings, in its attempts to overcome the discrimination that blacks have always suffered in Brazil, a country marked by extreme social and economic inequality, said Rocha.

Russia may soon write off debts owed to it by 16 of the world's poorest countries, its finance minister has been reported as saying. Moscow would be willing to cancel about $688m (£394m) in bilateral debt, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Alexei Kudrin as saying. The agreement could encompass a number of African countries including Benin, Tanzania and Zambia.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled yesterday (7 February) that the European Union and six of its member states broke trade rules by banning imports of genetically modified (GM) crops and food. The preliminary ruling, which could have significant implications for developing countries, still needs to be confirmed in a final decision next month, and can be appealed. Dulce de Oliveira, a professor of plant biotechnology and fellow of the Brazilian Research Council, says the decision could open the European market to GM products from countries such as Brazil, the world's third biggest producer of GM crops. The verdict came in response to a complaint that Argentina, Canada and the United States made in 2003 against the European Union's ban on GM imports, imposed in 1999, reports SciDev.

This Newsletter highlights recent developments in the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Children. As the Study moves into the second and final year of the process, the emphasis is on building the momentum and strengthening coalitions in the lead up to the release of the final report during the General Assembly, 2006, in New York. The Newsletter is distributed widely and also available on the Study web-site. If you would like to add an address to the distribution list send an email to: secretariat@sgsvac.org.

The current period of UN reform offers an opportune time to strengthen the international response to situations of internal displacement and develop a more reliable and predictable international system to protect people uprooted in their own countries. This article calls for reinforcement of the legal framework for the protection of IDPs; the enlargement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to encompass IDPs; robust international protection measures — including expanded international police and military capacity; and more attention to political solutions to resolve the conflicts at the heart of displacement.

The Tech Museum Awards is a unique and prestigious program that honors and awards innovators from around the world who use technology to benefit humanity. Each year, 25 Laureates are honored at a gala dinner, invited to participate in press and media coverage, and introduced to a network of influential advisors. An inspirational and unforgettable event, the black-tie celebration will be held at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, on November 15, 2006.