Agencies working to relieve famine in southern Africa have embarked on a comprehensive training scheme to educate employees to avoid child abuse. This is to prevent a repeat of the widespread sexual abuse of children by aid workers revealed during the recent west African refugee crisis.

If the bribery and cronyism that have so incensed anti-corruption crusaders are to be exposed and opposed, so too must corporate profiteering and monopolistic practices which heap misery upon people and plunder natural resources the world over. Above all, stresses Aziz Choudry, a clear position must be taken to confront the corrupt worldview which underpins the neoliberal agenda of shaping the world in the interests of big business.

Zambia National Students Union (ZANASU) president Godfrey Kumwenda, who represented Zambia at a congress in Windhoek, Namibia, said students wanted governments in the SADC region to abandon policies that pleased western capitalists, especially with regards to the privatisation of the education sector.

The Swaziland Royal Police, acting on a court order, raided Channel S, the only privately-owned television station in the country, and confiscated a video tape containing a sermon that has been termed by the Swazi government as "threatening the foundations of the kingdom."

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said last week that shareholders were failing to call companies to account for poor corporate governance. Speaking at a conference on shareholder activism, Manuel said that while shareholders had a right to oversee the affairs of a company, this right was "tragically too often ignored".

In a submission to the ILO Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalisation, which holds its third meeting in Geneva on 12 - 16 October, the ICFTU has called for social governance and regulation to be put at the centre of globalisation. The ICFTU submission points to the tremendous imbalance between economic and social interests in the world economy, with financial crises hitting a succession of countries over recent years, major companies collapsing due to dishonesty, mismanagement and corruption, and increasing violations of workers' rights around the world.

Richard Feachem, director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that the fund will run out of money by the middle of next year unless it receives new donations, the Boston Globe reports. The fund has received $2.1 billion in pledges but has collected only $500 million.

In this overview of world capitalism, William K. Tabb confronts the prevailing view of globalization as the steamroller against which even the most powerful nations are helpless. Tabb describes how institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation have focused on neoliberal goals, devising regulatory frameworks to provide greater freedom and opportunity for capital at the expense of social need.

Indian group Paharpur will bid a second time for the Komatiland forests only if its concerns around good governance and fair play in the bidding process are addressed, it says.

The global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria has appointed private auditors to oversee its projects in Asia and Africa in an attempt to cut corruption and inefficiency.

A report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls for a major increase in the international response to dealing with the three major killers of HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The report argues that the tools to address the diseases are available, but are inequitably distributed and says the benefits of fighting the diseases in the long term far outweigh the costs of their control.

Harmbee Holdings and Dimension Data have pledged R28 million for a state–of–the–art school. The school’s plight caught the eye of the minister of Social Development and other MPs when they visited the area three years ago.

Development finance ministers have backtracked on support promised for the new Education for All Action Plan programme at the 2002 IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings. Since the promises were made in April donors have failed to deliver additional financing, implementation has slipped and the financing framework has still not been finalised, says a report from the Global Campaign for Education.

At a time when roughly 14,000 people become infected with HIV every day the United States is falling behind on policy and funding, while the donor community and countries most affected by the epidemic are failing to adequately support programs that promote and distribute male and female condoms, says a report from Population Action International.

A review paper on NGO Participation in the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria undertaken by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance examines and provides recommendations on issues relating to problems of access to information by participating NGOs, the need for NGO involvement to mean more than simply consultation, a need for improvements in NGO networks and accountability and the role of NGOs as recipients in fund disbursement.

The UN refugee agency has co-published a handbook on refugee resettlement, addressing issues like initial reception, education and employment while incorporating the experiences of resettled refugees.

The Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) in Ghana need your support. Intense research in areas including the operational area of Ghana Australian Goldfields, GAG, found massive human rights violations, e.g. forced evictions, contamination of water bodies for local consumption and the destruction of villages. The gold mining company GAG has recently been bought by Ashanti Goldfields Corporation, and is financially supported through credits of an international consortium which consists of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the German Development and Investment Company (DEG), the Dutch bank FMO and the Swedish bank SEB. The IFC is playing a leading role and has a 20% equity stake in GAG. Write to the IFC and tell them that you are aware of the situation and that you expect a thorough investigation and for the human rights violations to stop.

The Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation organisations have expressed urgent concern about elephant poaching and illegal ivory trade following the seizure in Shanghai, China of a 3.6 ton shipment of ivory from Kenya. ECOTERRA NEWS interviewed Dr. Paula Kahumbu, CITES co-ordinator, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

This new Global Health Council report is the first-ever global analysis of the impact of unintended pregnancies on maternal deaths in developing countries. The report details more than 300 million unintended pregnancies and the resulting deaths of nearly 700,000 women between 1995 and 2000, most of which could have been prevented had basic reproductive health services been made available to these women.

Six months after the Second World Assembly on Ageing agreed a new International Plan of Action, HelpAge International has launched a long-term programme to involve older people in citizen monitoring, to track how governments, international bodies and local authorities are acting on the commitments they made.