Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian human rights defender, was due to join hundreds of activists at the World Social Forum to demand universal ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty. Ms. Ebadi's presence on a January 20 panel organised by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) was expected to raise the profile of the pro-ICC movement: a global campaign partnering grassroots activists with governments and international organisations in promoting the strengthened rule of law.

HIV/AIDS awareness campaigners from developing nations are mobilising themselves to form a strong bloc to confront the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which they claim has made it difficult for people living with the disease to access treatment. They claim that the trade body articulates interests of western nations, which have suppressed developing states, giving way to unfair trade. This, the campaigners say, has made it impossible for poor nations to obtain cheap drugs, especially antiretrovirals (ARVs).

The path of economic globalisation must be changed in order to avoid undermining social security. Otherwise it will continue to exacerbate poverty, and therefore violence, warned a number of panellists Monday that included Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics. "The essence of economic globalisation is that it should bring job security. If there were such a commitment, developing countries could have opened markets by explicitly tying market access to job opportunities," said the U.S. expert who served as the World Bank’s chief economist from 1997 to 2000. Stiglitz was speaking at the seminar on ‘Globalisation, economic and social security’, which drew more than 1,000 of the tens of thousands of WSF participants who came to listen to him give a critique of issues that his former employer, the World Bank, has been known to push.

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, says it is "deeply concerned" over the safety of Alagi Yorro Jallow, managing editor of the private, bi-weekly Independent newspaper. According to information before IPI, Yorro Jallow received a letter, dated 13 January 2004, in which a previously unknown group called the "Green Boys" threatened to "eliminate" him if the Independent continued to publish stories about Baba Jobe, majority leader in the National Assembly.

Is the world on track to achieve the millennium target of Education for All (EFA) by 2015? Are the six EFA commitments made in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar being met? How can we plug gaps in knowledge about schooling and improve EFA reporting, monitoring and analysis?

In a communal goat stable, children sit under a mango tree, learning to read and write. In this narrow alleyway of Mogadishu, where three or four generations of Somalis share small homes behind high white walls and dark wooden doors, education is getting a second chance. After more than a decade of anarchy, only about one in six children of primary school age attends school, according to a U.N. survey released last week. Peace talks are under way, although the men with guns have failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. Meanwhile, parents, teachers and aid agencies have managed to piece together a private education system ranging from preschool to medical school.

Lawyers defending the 18 people accused of defrauding Mozambique's largest bank, the BCM, of 144 billion meticais (14 million US dollars at the exchange rates of the time) in 1996, on Monday launched a bitter, and highly personal attack against the BCM's lawyer, Albano Silva, who is handling the bank's private prosecution. Speaking on behalf of all the defence lawyers, Fernanda Lopes accused Silva of "a vile attempt to influence the judges".

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MicroSave intends to host a virtual conference on Electronic Banking for the Poor between the 16-27th of February 2004. Participants who subscribe to the virtual conference will contribute to an email based discussion of key issues in providing electronic banking services to mass markets. Key questions will be set on a daily basis that will be complemented by an overview and introduction to each day's discussion, which is based on practical experience. The conference will share knowledge and will network individuals and organisations worldwide that are working in this exciting but challenging environment. It will cover all forms of electronic banking from Palm pilots, to mag-stripe, smart card and telephone- based services.

The Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, in conjunction with the Bank of Ireland is proud to announce a one-year fellowship in Human Rights Law for a scholar of note from a developing country. Applications for this fellowship are invited from academics from any developing country whose research output and teaching focus on the area of human rights.

More than four billion dollars in state oil revenue disappeared from Angolan government coffers from 1997-2002, roughly equal to the entire sum the government spent on all social programs in the same period, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Meanwhile, although the 27-year civil war ended in 2002, an estimated 900,000 Angolans are still internally displaced. Millions more have virtually no access to hospitals or schools. According to United Nations estimates, almost half of Angola's 7.4 million children suffer from malnutrition.

The United Nations kicked off its year-long commemoration of the anti-slavery movement with a ceremony Saturday in the Ghanaian former slave port of Cape Coast. The International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition coincides with the bicentennial of Haiti, the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere. "This first ceremony is a rededication to the ongoing struggle against all forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and injustice," UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said.

A new report by Dr Charles Benbrook, director of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Centre, Idaho, shows that contrary to claims that GM crops substantially reduce pesticide use, evidence shows that in the US the 555m acres of GM corn, soybeans and cotton planted since 1996 has increased pesticide use. Many farmers have had to spray more herbicides on GM crops in order to keep up with shifts in weeds toward tougher-to-control species, coupled with the emergence of genetic resistance in certain weed populations. For years scientists have warned of the possible emergence of 'super-weeds', Benbrook's study gives hard evidence to these claims.

A legislator and top Harare businessman was hauled before the Harare Magistrate's Court to explain his role in a multi-million dollar scandal that has hit Zimbabwe's financial sector. Phillip Chiyangwa becomes the first politician suspected of involvement in the financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicking depositors.

Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) is beginning to do more harm than good, argues George Monbiot in a column for The Guardian UK, and is opening up developing country markets to the rampages of big capital. In Zambia, he writes, DfID is spending just £700,000 on improving nutrition, but £56m on privatising the copper mines. In Ghana, the department made its aid payments for upgrading the water system conditional on partial privatisation. "Foreign aid from Britain now means giving to the rich the resources that keep the poor alive," he argues.

Central to the neoliberal discourse on globalization is the conviction that free trade, more than free movements of capital or labour, is the key to global prosperity. Part of the conviction in free trade that the proponents of globalization possess comes from the belief that economic theory has irrefutably established the superiority of free trade, even though there are some formal models which show free trade may not be the best. Even more powerful for the proponents of free trade, is their belief that history is on their side. A closer look at the history of capitalism, however, reveals a very different story. When they were developing countries themselves, virtually all of today's developed countries did not practice free trade. Rather, they promoted their national industries through tariffs, subsidies, and other measures. Debunking the myth of free trade from the historical perspective demonstrates that there is an urgent need for thoroughly re-thinking some key conventional wisdom in the debate on trade policy, and more broadly on globalization.

London-based CBCAfricaRecruit (www.africarecruit.com) organised the Global Skills Seminar for Africa (GSSA 2003) in Lagos, Nigeria in December which attracted a total of 200 delegates. GSSA 2003 had the aim of looking at the challenges surrounding Africa’s so-called brain drain and developing an action plan to overcome Africa’s skills shortages and reverse the brain drain. The key outcome is agreement to establish a human resource (HR) forum across Africa to support African HR professionals in their battle to nurture, retain, and attract talent.

Beijing has fulfilled its commitment to Africa by cancelling 31 African countries' debts totalling US $1.27 billion. During the second China-Africa trade summit held this week in Ethiopia, China said it would provide enhanced support for Africa, without any political discrimination. Both African and Chinese delegates agreed that there was vast potential for growth in trade between China and Africa, and that this was vital for Africa's development.

On International Migrants' Day, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that respect for the rights of all migrants is an essential component of good migration management. With globalization, trade liberalization, economic integration and the widening gap between rich and poor nations creating ever greater migration pressures, IOM believes that successful migration management only exists when it fully respects the human rights of migrants.

Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them. Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals. The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide. But The Observer has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.