Aid agencies have welcomed an announcement that the United Kingdom will increase aid to Africa, but said it is likely that there will be little progress on debt relief, trade and funding for education at the G8 summit.

Tony Blair underlined his determination yesterday to make Africa a priority at the G8 summit when he announced British aid to the continent would rise to £1bn a year by 2006. The initiative requires African nations to institute good governance and crack down on corruption as part of a drive to make development cash more effective.

Since the mid-1990s, the G8 annual summits have incorporated more social issues and developing country concerns into their agendas, but they have failed to demonstrate much progress on these issues. Similarly, the G8 has failed to produce the kind of global leadership necessary to jettison the failed neoliberal model for managing the global economy. For many NGOs and developing countries, the G8 summit remains a symbol of elite global governance, but concerns about the legitimacy of this self-constituted forum are increasingly overshadowed by criticisms of the forum's ineffectiveness.

More than 30 people may have suffocated deep inside a tanzanite mine in northern Tanzania last Thursday after an oxygen pump failed, mining officials said. Alex Magayane, Arusha regional mines officer, said rescue workers had pulled one body from the gemstone mine in Mererani, 24 miles southeast of Arusha, and believed 31 others were still trapped inside.

The US government announced that it will make a $14 million aid donation to enable hunger-stricken Malawi to import the staple food, maize. The Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID) said the funds would be used to buy 40 000 metric tones of maize.

On 14 June 2002, RSF called on the government of Somaliland, an autonomous region of Somalia, to reverse its 5 June ban on all privately-owned radio stations. The Information Ministry announced that "no other voice" could be heard on the air except that of government-run Radio Hargeysa, and that privately-owned stations would not be permitted, because of "potential dangers." It warned anyone with transmitting equipment to hand it over to the authorities and warned those who did not do so would be "prosecuted in court." "This move is a serious obstacle to press freedom and the growth of independent and diverse expression in the region," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin. "The government has taken this step because it knows most of the region's inhabitants get their news from the radio," Ménard added.

Save the Children UK says that UN food aid plans to ensure 13 million people in Southern Africa do not go hungry have been compromised by a seriously flawed assumption. The World Food Program (WFP) of the UN is predicting that nearly two million of the three and a quarter million tonnes of grain required in the region will be commercially imported. In reality, commercial importers have the capacity to import only a fraction of this amount - leaving a massive food shortfall if the UN is not prepared to step up its own aid programme.

Economic growth in least developed countries has increased from levels seen 10 years ago, but 13 countries led by Guinea-Bissau and the Solomon Islands had "regressing economies".

The incoming leader of the world's most powerful trade body wants to introduce tough rules to clamp down on any lobbying by multinationals aimed at influencing the world trading system. The proposal from the World Trade Organisation's director-general designate, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, has shocked international governments and multinational firms, which have mounted a campaign against the plans.

"What are we going to do about the United States?" It's a blunt question for a UN diplomat, but it was on the minds, the lips, and in some cases the T-shirts, of many of the thousands of delegates who recently gathered in Bali for last preparatory meeting before the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg in late August. Kenny Bruno was at the Bali "Prepcom" and says despite the many roadblocks erected by Washington, many delegates are still optimistic that "another UN is possible."

A Durban scriptwriter has won an interim interdict against the distribution or sale of Mbongeni Ngema's controversial song Amandiya. The interdict application said the song, which appears on a CD entitled Jive MaDlokovu, was "rabidly racist and anti- Indian" and that it breached the South African constitution by promoting hate speech.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has slammed the response of international aid agencies to the crisis in Angola, where the organisation says thousands of people are dying of hunger.

Globalisation has failed to create jobs, effectively fuelling mass economic migration worldwide, the director-general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Juan Somavia, said on Monday. Speaking to the ILO's annual assembly, Somavia said more than one billion people were unemployed, prompting 120 million migrant workers to leave their families and home countries in the hope of finding a job elsewhere.

The ink was hardly dry on the furious newspaper editorials inspired by the Bush administration's decision to protect the steel industry when along comes the Farm Bill to further stoke the fire. The world is supposed to be moving toward more open markets, embracing liberalization as the route to globalization--and then the self-appointed leader of free trade abandons the script.

The Canadian opinion in the article on demining in Mozambique(MOZAMBIQUE LEADS THE WORLD - IN CLEARING LAND MINES: Pambazuka News Issue 66)can only be believed by average people, lacking the basic knowledge of what demining is all about. The amount of mines is irrelevant, the area covered in m2 and the area freed from these objects, that is what is relevant!
Maria Pons
mcmp@iafrica.com

The authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have banned the establishment of private radio stations, the official Radio Hargeysa reported on Tuesday. A circular issued by the Somaliland information ministry said that until broadcasting regulations were laid down, there would be no private radio stations because of the "potential dangers" of such operations. "No other voice can be heard on the air waves except Radio Hargeysa, which is the national voice," the statement said.

On the day of the G7 finance ministers meeting in preparation for the G8 Summit, George Soros and human rights and environmental watchdog Global Witness will launch 'Publish what you pay', an international campaign calling for mandatory disclosure by natural resource companies of payments to national governments to facilitate transparency and combat corruption.

The World Trade Organisation has emerged as an important agency, whose rules and operations have major effects on the development policies of its developing-country Members. This paper reviews some of the recent developments and issues arising from the WTO’s work and activities. The paper takes what the author considers is a “development perspective” of the trading system.

A former senior official in Lesotho found guilty of taking bribes from an international consortium of construction firms has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Angolan aid groups say a French-Swiss investigation into alleged illegal arms dealing, corruption and money laundering by top French and Angolan figures has hurt famine relief efforts. "Many international organizations have refused to send aid because they think Angola's rulers are too rich," Tunga Alberto, head of the Angolan Federation of Non-governmental Organizations, told The Associated Press.