From 29 September-5 November 2005 an On-line Global Forum on the relation between human rights education and other "educations" is taking place on the Global Human Rights Listserv. The Global Human Rights Education listserv is an on-line community on which over 3500 human rights defenders and educators from 160 countries share new resources, methodologies, strategies and lessons learned.

The first Human Security Report documents a dramatic, but largely unknown, decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuse over the past decade. Published by Oxford University Press, the Report argues that the single most compelling explanation for these changes is found in the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of the Cold War.

Imagine tens of thousands of people around the world just like you connecting in real time over the internet to discuss and debate some of the most urgent and controversial issues that face a rapidly urbanizing planet. Imagine world-class thinkers leading the discussions. Imagine the results that could be achieved by this unprecedented global conversation and collaboration. This is Habitat JAM.

October 2005 marks the fifth anniversary of landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. The resolution (commonly referred to often as "1325") addressed, for the first time ever, the impact of conflict on women, recognizing women's role in preventing and resolving conflict, and calling for the equal participation and full involvement of women in all efforts to maintain and promote peace and security. The watershed political framework that resolution 1325 provides recognizes the relevance of women, and a gender perspective, to negotiating peace agreements, planning refugee camps and peacekeeping operations and reconstructing war-torn societies.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement paved the way for the return of those uprooted from the south; but as of October 2005, only around 250,000 of the 4 million IDPs had returned spontaneously along with insignificant numbers of refugees. The challenges in the return areas are daunting; the civil war devastated the southern countryside, leaving practically nothing of the little infrastructure which was there before the conflict started. The peace agreement did not include other rebel groups and left many local grievances unresolved which have already led to renewed conflict in the south as well as in other parts of the country.

Aspiration is conducting the first-ever Nonprofit Software Survey of those making decisions about software solutions in and for nonprofits and NGOs around the world. We want to learn how organizations and their technology supports look for appropriate software for nonprofit work, evaluate software options, and decide which tools to use.

This paper produced by South African Mike Jensen covers increasing North-South inequities (“paying both ways”) and proposed strategies for minimising the disparities in interconnection rates, accelerating the restructuring of the communications sector, supporting the establishment of national and international internet exchange points, and building local demand for national and international backbones.

The Stockholm Challenge, with the support of the WSIS Executive Secretariat, has initiated the WSIS Challenge Award, to be announced at the WSIS Tunis Summit on November 17th 2005. The WSIS Challenge Award is open to initiatives in Africa that use ICT to enhance livelihood opportunities, improve living conditions and support economic development. Projects that are eligible to compete should show that they empower people and communities by using ICT in areas such as health, education, government, business, culture and environment.

Michael C. Gilbert writes in the August 2005 edition of the Nonprofit Online News Journal: "I get the impression nonprofits are getting interested in weblogs. But since I started blogging before the term was invented, it's been a little hard to tell when this idea started catching on." Read the full article by visiting the website link provided.

The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of countries in the WTO on Friday 21 October submitted a proposal on market access in agriculture, with its own set of thresholds in the tariff reduction formula for developed and developing countries, and with suggested tariff reduction rates for developing countries. The ACP paper was presented by the Group coordinator, Mauritius, at an informal agriculture meeting on market access held at the WTO Friday morning. The proposal was supported by many members of the Group, while several other developing countries welcomed the fact that the ACP Group was engaging in the process with its own proposal.

Human Rights Watch's highest honor in 2005, the Human Rights Defender Award, will go to three courageous human rights activists from around the globe whose efforts illustrate major human rights challenges in the world today. The three honorees for this year illustrate the limits of freedom of expression in the Middle East, the massive "ethnic cleansing" and injustice in Darfur, Sudan, and the plight of HIV/AIDS affected women in Africa. Human Rights Watch's global rights defender awardees for 2005 are: Omid Memarian, a journalist and web-blogger from Iran, Salih Mahmoud Osman, a lawyer and human rights activist from Darfur, and Beatrice Were, an advocate for the rights of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

This essay on the website of Sur - International Journal on Human Rights deals with the intrinsic relationship between the Millennium Goals and Human Rights. It analyzes how countries – specifically those where hunger and poverty are rapidly increasing – should adopt the human rights discourse in order to demand the monitoring and the implementation of the Millennium Goals by 2015. It shows that, despite its alleged flaws, the Millennium Goals can greatly contribute to the advancement of the Human Rights agenda.

The ACQUIRE Project is pleased to announce its revamped and upgraded Web site at http://www.acquireproject.org. This Web site will serve as an important resource for anyone interested in the efforts of this partnership to improve and increase access to reproductive health and family planning services in the developing world.

Today, a week after the OpenOffice.org project turned five years old, the team has released the long-awaited open source OpenOffice.org 2.0 suite. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is available in 36 languages and runs on Windows, GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris, Mac OS X (X11) and several other platforms and can be downloaded from the OpenOffice.org website.

The range of available resources on the CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI) section of the CIVICUS website has been expanded. Using an action-research methodology, the CIVICUS Civil Society Index programme assesses the state of civil society in countries around the world, creating a knowledge base and impetus for initiatives to strengthen civil society. As country reports from the more than 50 countries implementing the project are being completed over the coming months, they will become available for free download on the website.

The Tanzanian government has fired Prof. Abdul Sherriff, who is probably the world's living authority on Zanzibar, and is certainly one of the most accomplished intellectuals East Africa has ever produced. Please follow the link to read a report on the situation and take action to protest.

Tony Blair is running out of time on achieving the third and most controversial part of the 'Marshall Plan for Africa' he promised earlier this year: trade justice. With just weeks to go before critical World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong, Europe and the US are in deadlock over how far they should open up their markets to farmers from poor countries - and what they will demand from the rest of the world in return.

On 24 October 2005, Nigeria's broadcasting regulatory agency, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), authorized Daar Communications Limited, operators of Africa Independent Television (AIT) and RayPower FM, to reopen the stations, which were shut down the previous day over alleged unprofessional coverage of an airliner crash in which all 117 passengers and crew members died. The NBC announced at about 9:00 p.m. (local time) on 23 October that it was shutting down the operations of Nigeria's leading privately-owned radio and television stations because after the stations located the site of the crash of Bellview Airlines earlier that day, AIT broadcast close-up shots of decapitated body parts and announced on location that "there could be no survivors," when the competent authorities had not fully assessed the situation and when the families of the victims had not been informed.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that the deadly bird flu virus, H5N1, could arrive in Africa and the Middle East in weeks, carried by birds migrating from Asia. Following October 19th’s statement from the organization’s chief veterinary officer, Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania have all imposed restrictions on poultry imports.

RightsWire is Human Rights First's free electronic newsletter, published bi-weekly. RightsWire provides analysis of timely human rights issues and opportunities to take action on them.