Race relations workers in London are shocked at proposals to close the library at the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to members of the public. According to current plans, management has allocated no funds to the library service in the budget and current staff members are to be redeployed.

The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has adopted 21 resolutions and decisions on the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including policies of racial discrimination and segregation in all countries; economic, social and cultural rights; and on the prevention of discrimination. Under the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all countries, the Sub-Commission recalled that all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment constituted violations of the peremptory norms of international law; and recommended that all States develop independent and effective domestic mechanisms as well as concrete measures to combat torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

This report is designed to facilitate consultation with civil society, experts and the international community on the priorities and strategies of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education for girls, in preparation of the final report to be completed in December 2004. It first discusses the MDGs on education and gender equality, and international data and trends in gender and education. The report then sets out the Task Force’s six main points, supported by evidence from a survey of selected literature.

Joel Bisina has written an informative article on the Niger Delta (Pambazuka News 167). However there are a few points I would like to add.

Apart from a very brief mention of Ken Saro-Wiwa and Odi, Bisina fails to mention the state sponsored violence that has been taking place for the past 14 years. Nor does he mention the issue of demands for autonomy and resource control made by all the ethnic nationalities (please let us throw the word tribe into the dustbin of colonialism) of the Niger Delta.

When he does mention violence it is in the context of "inter tribal and inter communal conflicts". This implies the conflicts are nothing to do with oil. On the contrary the Federal Government has used divide and rule tactics to fuel conflicts between the different ethnic minorities by favouring one community over another at different times, by redrawing boundaries between communities and by arming one community and instigating murder.

Bisina also fails to include any gender dimension to his article. He mentions the "ethnic militias" and illegal bunkering that takes place by a minority of people but fails to mention the many activist groups and organisations that are fighting to expose the crimes and human rights abuses of the multinationals and their partner, the Nigerian government.

JOEL BISINA REPLIES: Thank you Sokari Ekine, I fully and wholly agree with you that some of the issues you raised are fundamental and are worthy of mention, but I want you to appreciate the fact that the Niger Delta question is as old as the Nigeria Federation and so are the issues and the facets to the issues. Any attempt in a singular write-up in trying to address all will amount to writing an encyclopaedia. So you would excuse my brevity.

I need to state here that I am very conversant and actively involved in the entire Niger Delta struggle at various levels in my professional capacity and as someone from the Region who lives and works there. Just trying to look at state sponsored violence alone will produce volumes. From the days of King Koko of Nembe Brass to the most recent military invasion in Egbema communities of Ogbudugbudu, Idebagbene and Itsekiri communities of Orugbo etc.

>>>>> Click on the link below for the rest of Joel Bisina's response.

We live in the happiest, healthiest and most peaceful era in human history, writes columnist George Monbiot in the UK Guardian. But due to climate change it will not last long, he argues. "Like every impending disaster (think of the rise of Hitler or the fall of Rome), this one has generated a voluble industry of denial. Few people are now foolish enough to claim that man-made climate change isn't happening at all, but the few are still granted plenty of scope to make idiots of themselves in public."

Though starting from a modest base, China's trade with the African continent reached $18.5 billion in 2003, an increase of 50 percent since 2000, and it is on track for another big increase this year. China's push into Africa is all the more remarkable because it comes when that continent has become the virtual stepchild of the international trade system, a mere footnote - or worse, simply unmentioned in discussions of global commerce.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted a General Recommendation on the issue of discrimination against non-citizens as a means to raise awareness on the situation of these vulnerable groups to find solutions to the daily problems that they are faced with. General Recommendation Number 30 asks States parties, among other things, to review their national legislation to ensure that it guarantees against racial discrimination applied to non-citizens and to pay greater attention to the issue of multiple discrimination faced by non-citizens, in particular concerning the children and spouses of non-citizen workers.

In the course of the discussion, which was held over two meetings, the issues of slavery and slavery-like practices, political parties, human trafficking, refugees and displaced persons, the status of women, education and the State party's national human rights plan were raised among other subjects.

The Zambian Government has announced that it is reviewing the Anti-Corruption Act to introduce stiffer penalties and catch private sector offenders. Speaking to reporters, President Mwanawasa also revealed that the Government was in the process of formulating a comprehensive corruption-prevention strategy and he urged other SADC countries to support the proposed protocol against corruption.

Kenyan’s are about to start paying more for electronic mail access following a decision by JamboNet, the sole Internet backbone provider, to raise its tariffs by up to 40 per cent. The new structure takes effect on September 1, 2004, and dictates that ISPs pay JamboNet more for speeds above 512 kilobytes (Kbps).

Biotech companies promised that GM crops were safe, that they would provide better quality and cheaper food, that they were environmentally sustainable, that they would improve agricultural production, and that they would feed the developing world. After ten years, none of these promises have materialized, says a Friends for the Earth publication.

An estimated 25 million people are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa and although there appears to be a stabilization in HIV prevalence rates this is actually due to a rise in AIDS deaths and a continued increase in new infections. This is according to a UNAIDS report that warns that the number of people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has risen in every region of the world during 2003 and last year five million people became newly infected with HIV - more people than any previous year.

This paper focuses on teacher motivation and incentives in low-income developing countries (LICs) in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the material and psychological needs of teachers are being met. This includes overall levels of occupational status, job satisfaction, pay and benefits, recruitment and deployment, attrition, and absenteeism.

On the eve of World Breastfeeding Week UNICEF said that by expanding the number of women who exclusively breastfeed during their child’s first six months, at least 1.3 million infant lives could be saved this year. UNICEF also called for greater global commitment to protect, and promote breastfeeding. Every year more than 10 million children die from mainly preventable causes, including diarrhoea, pneumonia, measles and malaria. If every baby were exclusively breastfed from birth to six months, an estimated 3,500 children’s lives could be saved each day, UNICEF said.

Pascal Lamy, the European commissioner for trade, recently wrote that "half the world's economists" were opposed to the epidemic of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). The fact of the matter is that nearly all scholars of international economics today are fiercely sceptical, even hostile to such agreements. By contrast, politicians everywhere have succumbed to a mania that originated in Europe. Unfortunately, the economists are right. The politicians' lemming-like rush into bilateral agreements poses a deadly threat to the multilateral trading system, argues this article.

Although poverty reduction is the central objective of the Millennium Development Goals, there is little agreement over the definition of poverty. Different methods of defining poverty identify different people as 'poor' and have different implications for policy. New research argues that poverty reduction strategies need to be clearer and more transparent in defining poverty, and more multidimensional in measurement and targeting.

Total aid flows to education have declined at the beginning of the present decade. The current level of US$1.5 billion of support to basic education is still far short of the roughly US$7 billion per year required to meet the universal primary education (UPE) and gender goals. How should governments and the international community translate their commitments into real resources?

Nigeria is Africa's largest and most complex country, with a population of 120 million people from over 250 tribes. The vast, swampy terrain of the Niger Delta region supports almost 20 million people, many of them in isolated communities only accessible by boat. The Niger Delta serves as the economic nerve center of the Nigeria Federation with its vast oil deposits. Presently, crude oil accounts for about 85% of the nation's revenue. Oil from the Niger Delta accounts for 20% of oil supply to the US, and has become increasingly important from a strategic perspective as conflicts continue in the Middle East.

However, this “blessing” has become a curse for the people of the Niger Delta. They have suffered environmental devastation, economic poverty, and constant conflict. To make matters even worse, political considerations and greed on the part of a corrupt government have kept many of the earnings from these vast reserves from returning to the Niger Delta to help restore the region.

Since the discovery of oil and the production in commercial quantities in 1958, the people of the Niger Delta have known no peace. Today, violent inter tribal and inter communal conflicts, arms proliferation, ethnic militias and illegal bunkering (theft of crude oil directly from pipelines) have become synonymous with the region.

Economic activities related to oil and gas has placed the government's security emphasis on the need to produce oil and gas most effectively and efficiently. This type of security consideration ignores the impact on other environmental and human resources such as waters, forests, fish and the climate of the area. The youth of the region, a vibrant and energetic generation who should be supporting the productivity and the future of this area, are instead being continuously cut down by bullets from security operatives under the guise of the war on terrorism. Communities are razed and extra-judicial killings are the order of the day.

From the days of the hanging of playwright and prominent environmental rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa and nine other Ogoni individuals by the then military regime of General Sani Abacha, to the Odi holocaust and the burning and destruction of Awor and Fenegbene by the present Obasanjo administration, the story has been the same.

When oil production activities are intensified or activated in a very dedicated manner, riverbank erosion results, gas flares occur frequently, forests are cut down, rivers and streams are dredged, turned into canals or blocked and then polluted. Farms and sacred lands are not spared either; they may be acquired for oil and gas development or polluted, as production gets under way. Anything that is seen to obstruct or have the semblance of serving as obstruction to the free flow of oil is uprooted and destroyed, whether it is a human being, a community or a stream.

Compounding the plight of the people of the Niger Delta is the issue of environmental pollution. Oil production and dredging have caused acid rain, fouled the air and the water, and caused widespread and dramatic erosion. Whole communities have watched their lands erode away. Fishing and farming, the traditional occupations of these people, is no longer viable. This situation has caused poverty, hunger and desperation among these peoples, who are struggling to eke out a living.

The issue of ownership rights is key. Federal laws automatically transfer title to any land where oil is found to the federal government without adequate compensation to the landowners. This gives the federal government the right to enter into an unholy alliance with multi national oil companies in the name of joint venture operations at the exclusion of the people. The result is that the federal government and the multinational oil corporations share the resulting revenue on a ratio of 60:40 percent with nothing left for the landowners. In addition, oil spills and other ongoing problems caused by the oil production are not attended to, so the area is left in much worse shape than before the oil reserves were found.

Underlying this complex and fraudulent economic arrangement is the issue of ethnicity and tribalism. There are 250 ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, with the Yorubas, Igbos and the Hausa/Fulani of the west, southeast and the north comprising the majority tribes. The minorities of the Ijaws, Itsekiris and other nationalities inhabit the oil rich Niger Delta region, which is swampy deltaic terrain, and is completely cut off from development, modern industries and social infrastructure. Educational opportunities are limited, and the closest health care facility is about three hours by speedboat.

Because the government tends to be populated by people who originated from the majority tribes which do not happen to be located in the delta, they have created a formula for sharing the revenues from oil production that favors other regions, further increasing the poverty in the delta and creating anger and conflict between the delta tribes themselves. Trust amongst the tribes has been eroded, while hatred and suspicion have grown, as they are made to believe that they are enemies to one and another by the divide and rule and divide and exploit attitude of an insincere national government and its dubious multi national collaborators.

The combination of these factors creates a potential powder keg. Because Nigeria is the largest nation in Africa and considered the leader in political and economic issues, any eruption could have a deeply destabilizing effect on both the continent and the global community. By providing the world a more complete understanding of the real story behind the impact of the oil discovery and production during the last 45 years in Nigeria, perhaps we can find the resources to address these issues before a major eruption occurs.

* Joel Bisina is a peace activist and founder/Regional Director of the Niger Delta Professionals for Development (NIDPRODEV) a non-profit organization working on the communal and inter tribal conflicts in the oil rich Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.

* Please send comments to

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in its fourth round of grants has rejected Zimbabwe's application for $218 million in funding for its HIV/AIDS program, Zimbabwe's Standard reports. The denial of funding puts plans to scale up the country's antiretroviral drug program in "disarray," according to the Standard.

The scale of HIV infection is such that all actors - government, business, civil society, the medical community - need to be drawn into one massive coordinated effort of life-preserving. In this context, are the big pharmaceutical companies part of the solution or part of the problem, asks Walden Bello from Focus on the Global South in a speech delivered at the debate on patents, drug development, and HIV/AIDS at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. Big Pharma are less concerned about saving lives and much more concerned about protecting its patents, he says and suggests a new research and development framework, based on a people-oriented approach to patents, maybe coordinated by the UN, in which there is room for participation by many other actors, including governments, government institutes, and civil society organisations.