The gap between child mortality rates in rich and poor countries is growing increasingly wide, the medical journal The Lancet reports in the latest of a series of articles on child health. "Gaps in child mortality between rich and poor countries are unacceptably wide and in some areas are becoming wider, as are the gaps between wealthy and poor children within most countries," the authors of the article wrote.

This case study surveys the response of the South African labour movement to globalisation. It attempts to indicate how far unions in South Africa have maintained their position with respect to traditional constituent demands, whether they are adapting to a changing environment by organising new constituents, whether they are addressing new concerns by developing new perspectives on civil society, and whether they are enhancing their image as a major social actor.

A recent review of marine fisheries concluded that a startling 90 percent of the world's large predatory fish, including tuna, swordfish, cod, halibut, and flounder, have disappeared in the past 50 years. This 10-year study by Ransom Myers and Boris Worm at Canada's Dalhousie University attributes the decline to a growing demand for seafood, coupled with an expanding global fleet of technologically efficient boats.

The cash-strapped Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria fell under the spotlight on Wednesday, when ministers from 14 countries met in Paris, France, to address the fund's financial woes. The fund, which has committed US $1.5 billion to programmes in 92 countries in the last 18 months, faces a lack of money for proposals waiting to be funded in October.

Many of the circumstances that lead to internal displacement are similar or identical to those that cause individuals to develop a “well-founded fear of persecution” and seek international protection as refugees. Moreover, the potential consequences of withdrawing protection prematurely or erroneously from IDPs and refugees can be equally harmful. An article in the May edition of Forced Migration Review examines this issue.

As negotiations leading up to the fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation from September 9-14 in Cancun Mexico grind to a halt, civil society organisations are stepping up their efforts to mount massive mobilisations and civil disobedience in Cancun and elsewhere in the world during the week of the ministerial meeting. Many of the issues under discussion relating to agriculture and drug access are crucial to the welfare of the developing world. Cancun is shaping up not to be another Doha but a second Seattle, writes Walden Bello, executive director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South.

The United States is helping some developing countries rework their drug patent laws in ways that "go beyond global standards" in protecting pharmaceutical companies and that could "undercut" President Bush's five-year, $15 billion AIDS initiative by making antiretroviral drugs more expensive and more difficult to obtain, the Wall Street Journal reports. "There are many ways that the Bush administration has contravened the letter and spirit of international efforts to improve access to drugs in developing countries,” Asia Russell, international policy coordinator at the Health GAP, said.

The European Union (EU) has allowed the Government to divert US$8m (sh16b) from the European Development Fund (EDF) to finance humanitarian activities in the war-ravaged northern Uganda.

The widening gulf between the global haves and have-nots was starkly revealed last night when the United Nations announced that while the United States was booming in the 1990s more than 50 countries suffered falling living standards. The UN's annual human development report charted increasing poverty for more than a quarter of the world's countries, where a lethal combination of famine, HIV/Aids, conflict and failed economic policies have turned the clock back.
Related Link:
* Human Development Report urges global compact to achieve MDG's
http://www.undp.org/dpa/frontpagearchive/2003/july/8july03/index.html
* Full Report
http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/

African trade ministers have warned UK trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt that the price of a successful conclusion to the new round of global trade talks will be further cuts to Europe's farm subsidies. Agriculture ministers agreed last month in Luxembourg to break the link between subsidies and farm output to trim the surplus produce Europe dumps in poor countries, bankrupting local farmers. But trade ministers from Africa and the developing world meeting in London dismissed the deal as a fudge which leaves the worst excesses untouched.

The economic boom of the 1990s created huge wealth for the bosses, but benefited workers hardly at all. At the same time, the bosses were able to take the political initiative and even the moral high ground, while workers were often divided against each other. This new book by leading labour analyst Michael D. Yates seeks to explain how this happened, and what can be done about it.

Just a few days before his visit to Africa, President Bush announced that Randall Tobias, the former chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly Co., will take the new position of "Czar" in charge of U.S. global HIV/AIDS funding. The move to position a drug company executive centrally in global health policymaking is nothing new for this administration, but the openness of this gesture to the industry suggests that there is little shame in reversing the progress of the last several years, particularly in the realm of medicine treatment access, says this commentary on the web site www.zmag.org
Related Link:
* AIDS Appointee Shows That Business Still Rules the Roost
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0307tobias.html

African countries are expected to call on developed countries to reduce export subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial summit in September. This proposal is unlikely to gain support from developed countries that offer billion dollar subsidies to their farmers to enable them to export competitively. "All forms of trade-distorting domestic support measures by developed countries should be substantially reduced, to enable the development of a vibrant and competitive African agricultural sector," said an African declaration that is expected to form the basis for a joint African position as countries head for the WTO ministerial summit in Cancun, Mexico.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) celebrated on July 1 the one year anniversary of its jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since the July 1, 2002 entry into force of the court's treaty, the Rome Statute, the ICC has seen the adoption of its primary governing instruments and the election of all of its senior officials.

The current U.S. administration has a near-religious aversion to the new, permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). The court, now with 90 member countries, was established to ensure that the rule of law prevails in places where the only alternative is impunity for the most gut-wrenchingly vicious crimes against humanity. Its opponents in the administration, however, claim that the court will become a forum for politicized prosecutions. In fact, they are so sure that the court is out to persecute U.S. citizens that they are willing to undermine some of the most basic foundations of international security to protect against this perceived, but nonexistent, threat, says this commentary from Foreign Policy in Focus.

A Bank has donated Shs5 million to Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (Uweso). The bank's head of marketing, Mr Charles Nsubuga, handed over the cheque to Ms Camille Aliker, the chairwoman of the fundraising committee.

"We, citizens from around the world, drawn from the four corners of the earth and from countries rich and poor, come together united in our determination to denounce in the strongest terms the devastating impact of high level corruption and the levels of impunity that facilitate it, and to demand concerted national and international measures to combat it. We unequivocally condemn all those whose actions and whose inactions have contributed to the crisis of corruption now sweeping the globe, deepening poverty; undermining emerging, and even developed, democracies; and eroding fundamental human rights in many societies."

The United States announced on Tuesday that it has suspended military aid to South Africa because the country will not give Americans immunity from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court in The Hague. South Africa was one of 35 countries blacklisted by the US on Tuesday. It is the only one of the five countries on the itinerary for Bush's African tour to be blacklisted.

The DRC has timber, diamonds, gold, copper, and other esoteric minerals such as coltan, used in mobile phones and video games and has therefore attracted transnational mining concerns. An expert UN panel investigating the illegal exploitation of DRC’s resources found that a "predatory network of elites" had been established to fight an "economy of war." As a result of the investigation the panel called upon the UN to impose financial penalties on various companies. Eight of these 29 companies were Canadian, showing that when it comes to exploiting the profit potential of Africa, Canadian firms, among others, are quick off the mark.

The Kenyan authorities have been accused of approving a controversial titanium mining venture along the country's Indian Ocean coast without addressing the economic and environmental concerns raised by the local population.