South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday criticized officials in charge of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for approving a $60 million grant to KwaZulu-Natal province that had not received clearance from the central government, as stipulated in the fund's rules.

Aid started streaming in for the snow-hit Eastern Cape areas of Elliot and Cala on Monday. Queenstown's Woolworth’s contributed R110 000 in blankets and food on Monday. Weirs Cash & Carry donated maize meal, bread flour, cooking oil, sugar, tea, coffee, samp, soup, tinned meats and fish and baby food, valued at R100 000, and blankets, valued at R10 000, were delivered free of charge to the Queenstown commando.

Norway is mobilising one of its biggest aid efforts yet to rush food to 13-million people in danger of famine in southern Africa. The Norwegian military has donated more than 200 surplus all-terrain trucks, while the government granted $2,58-million (R25 8000). The Norwegian shipping concern Leif Hoegh & Co ASA is donating space aboard its automobile transport ship Haul Europe to bring about 230 trucks to Durban.

The World Bank President has asked his staff to prepare a human rights strategy. The Bank has previously avoided talking directly about a role for itself in supporting human rights, despite pressure to do so emanating from the United Nations bodies and NGOs. But concerns have already been raised about the extent to which the Bank will be ready to be held accountable for its performance against the full set of relevant rights.

Is the world "on the right track" in terms of poverty reduction? The World Bank seems to believe so. However Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge of Columbia University, in a paper entitled "How not to count the poor" give a scathing account of the problems with the World Bank's poverty numbers.

The Human Development Report, an annual measurement of global poverty issued by the United Nations Development Programme, once again provides an indicator of Africa's economic woes. A total of 27 African countries are included on the list of the world's 173 least developed nations, and 52 of the countries at the bottom are African. Sierra Leone, which has been racked by war for the past decade, ranks as the worst place to live.

Corrupt practices in the private sector are on the increase, Institute of Southern African Development (ISAD) president Lewis Mosho has observed. Mosho said ISAD has identified that various forms of corruption exist in private sector firms and professional associations in their business dealings among themselves and between them and government institutions.

groundWork, a local environmental NGO, is joining forces with international NGOs - such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, CorpWatch, Third World Network, Corporate Europe Observatory and the Goldman Foundation - as well as local NGO’s and community based organisations to host a variety of exciting events during the week prior to the WSSD. These activities will form part of a Corporate Accountability Week, which will take place from the 19th - 23rd August in Sandton.

The Digital Freedom Network is looking for experienced writers throughout the world to write articles on a volunteer basis about local human rights issues. The articles are usually 500-1500 words in length and will be published on the organization's Web site, www.dfn.org.

From 26 August to 4 September the world's leaders will be meeting in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Develoment (WSSD), to agree a strategy for curing the world's environmental and social ills, building on the landmark successes of the Rio Earth Summit ten years ago. Or so the publicity would have us believe. In fact, fears are growing that the summit will be seized as an opportunity to further push the corporate-led globalisation agenda, with genuine environmental and social concerns being sidelined as governments push their own vested interests and those of the rash of corporations and corporate lobby groups attending the summit.

By the second day of the UN's Bali Preparatory Committee (PrepComm) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), most delegates from the Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) oscillated between disgust and depression. The "Chairman's Report"--the summary language that all the world governments were trying to agree upon--was little more than a neoliberal anti-environmental agenda. Naty Bernardino of the International South Group Network called it "Rio minus 10." As the governmental delegates were debating the language for the final declaration, an angry UN official, thinking his microphone had been turned off, was overhead lamenting, "What are we going to do about the United States?"

The United Nations and international aid agencies are sending their first humanitarian evaluation mission to the region around Uvira, South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting has displaced over 50,000 people.

Corporations (both local and international) investing in developing countries affect millions of poor and vulnerable people. How can corporations learn more about the political, historical, social and cultural environment in which they operate? Can they engage in dialogue with vulnerable people and become partners in, and not obstacles to, sustainable development?

Since independence, Zambia has received billions of dollars of development aid from Europe. Yet at least 75 percent of the population remains poor and over the last three decades, life has become increasingly difficult for the average Zambian. Has aid done anything to reduce poverty?

The correctional services department plans to strengthen its internal anti-corruption unit using forensic investigators from the elite Scorpions unit.

In the context of widespread criticism of the WTO , South Africa chose to project itself internationally as the "bridge between the developed and the developing world". But within South Africa, government spokespersons have been proudly proclaiming South Africa's "leadership role" in the WTO "in the best interests of the developing world". As the evidence in this analysis shows, it is highly debateable whether this self proclaimed "leading role" is a reality among developing countries.

Globalisation: it’s a buzzword you can’t escape. For some it’s the ticket to a democratic world of instant communications and global prosperity. For others it’s a money-mad juggernaut, spinning wildly out of control, threatening both cultural and biological diversity. Today the Western consumer model has seeped into every corner of the globe while gaps in wealth, food security and social provision continue to grow. The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalisation traces the journey towards a borderless world. And in the process it shows that the promise of globalisation is seductive, powerful, and ultimately hollow.

The United Nations warned on Wednesday that escalating fighting in Liberia threatened peace in neighboring countries, especially Sierra Leone, and hindered aid groups trying to help thousands of refugees in the region.

Since the ending of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, activists have been encouraged to divert their energies into other campaigns - around trade, aid and Aids. Western development and finance ministers and IMF staff have breathed a sigh of relief, pleased that the "crude analysis" of the debt campaigners has been replaced by debates about trade. It is of course vital to highlight the double standards of western governments; and to pressurise these governments to reverse trade injustice, increase aid and fight Aids. But it takes a tragedy like the one unfolding in Malawi to remind us that debt remains the very lynchpin of global economic injustice.

Bernard Ndorainywe, 39, is a Burundian who has lived in the Nduta refugee camp in western Tanzania since 1996, and he wants to go home. However, as with many of the 100,000 refugees in the camps in Kibondo District, his home is in southern Burundi, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is not facilitating repatriation.