The Institute for the Advancement of Journalism is offering a Corporate Feature Writing Course.

An international commission investigating alleged slavery practices in Sudan has said the abduction of civilians by both government and rebel forces was "commonplace", and called for President Umar Hasan al-Bashir to lead a campaign against the practice. The group found that "abductions of civilians and forcible recruitment by the armed forces of all sides in the war was commonplace," the report by the US-led eminent persons group on slavery, abduction and forced servitude in Sudan.

It took me 30 years living on and off in the 3rd world to spot what is going on. The World Bank is busy explaining to everyone that capitalism will save the 3rd world, but without explaining that the Capitalism in the 3rd world is not the same Capitalism which is bringing prosperity to the developed World. In the West, the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided approximately 80% to the workers and 20% to the owners; in the 3rd world, the proportions are reversed - the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided 20% to the workers and 80% to the owners. In fact sometimes it is 97% to the owners, but the principle is there…

We all know that increasing the income of a poor man by 10% means that the increase gets spent and goes round and round in the economy (a multiplier effect); whereas increasing the income of a rich man by 10% means that he hordes it in a bank or in a hole in the ground, and the spin-off is zero or extremely limited.

Add to this the fact that the elites (of all colours) in much of the 3rd world do not plough their money (fairly or unfairly earned) back into their own economies – they externalize it to Switzerland or some other secretive tax-haven.

And then the World Bank tells the 3rd world that they must attract foreign investment – when that same World Bank knows full well what these 3rd world elites are doing. That foreign investment which the country is trying (and probably failing) to attract is the same money which has been externalized unofficially (it sounds better than illegally) by their own elites.

Thus we have a deception on a grand scale, where the losers are the 3rd world workers who have to get by on the 20% of the value which they add, and the average citizen in the West, who has to subscribe financially and politically to the nonsense which the World Bank (and even international NGO’s and charities) peddles.

The 20/80 thing is real – I have seen it affect directly (and I have calculated the numbers for ) at least 2 members of my wife’s family here in sunny Zimbabwe Africa.

This also explains some of the scandal to do with people like Nike in the 3rd world – foreign companies are in the 3rd world because of the enormous profits to be made under the 20/80 system. They behave no worse than local companies (and often much better).

And if you really think about it also, capitalism in the West used to be of the 20/80 variety.

Western democracies are undermining freedom of expression in the mistaken belief their actions will aid the fight against terrorism, the President of the World Association of Newspapers said Monday. "The repressors of the free press have found all the inspiration and justification that they needed even in developed democracies like the US and Britain, where the governments have called on the media to refrain from broadcasting or printing the self-justifying messages of Osama bin Laden," said WAN President Roger Parkinson, at the opening of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum.

Reporters Without Borders protested today against the shutting down of the privately-owned Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) by the authorities of the Somali region of Puntland and called for the measure to be reversed at once.

One of the most eagerly awaited results of the UN Special Session on Children, held in New York, earlier this month, was the outcome document - A World Fit for Children. The United States' stand over several sections of the document has held up its final release. Here is the latest but unofficial version of the final document covering the entire gamut of issues on child rights.

Zimbabwe’s ruling elite, including the two vice presidents and relatives of President Robert Mugabe, has taken over most of the top commercial farms under the government’s fast-track land reforms, it was established this week.A list compiled from the government’s own advertisements in the state media and reports from commercial farmers shows that among those who have benefited from the model A2 scheme meant to create the new commercial farmer are Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, army commander Constantine Chiwenga, director of prisons Paradzayi Zimondi and even broadcaster Reuben Barwe.

The managing director of Zimbabwe's "private" television station, Joy TV, Tony De Villiers has quit the station allegedly because of the interference of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). Joy TV is leasing a station from ZBC and uses ZBC's signal transmitters. The Daily News reported on 14 May 2002. Tony De Villiers indicated in his resignation letter that recent events have forced him to resign. "With regard to the announcement and the events associated thereto, it is with deep regret that I hereby tender my resignation as a director of Flame Lily Broadcasting limited (Joy TV)," read De Villiers letter.

In his first major policy address on expectations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held this August, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity as five key areas where concrete results can and must be obtained. By concentrating on these five areas, the Secretary-General said, in a speech delivered by his wife Nane Annan at the American Museum of Natural History, the Summit could produce an ambitious but achievable programme of practical steps to improve the lives of all human beings while protecting the global environment.

A Survey of Civil Society Organisations Worldwide by Civicus.

Libya and Sudan, two of the seven countries on a US list of designated "state sponsors of terrorism," came closest to meeting Washington’s demands for co-operation after the 11 September attacks on the United States, the State Department said in a report released this week. The annual report "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001" - bigger than ever at 179 pages - says 2001 was the deadliest year for terrorist attacks because of the 3,000 people killed by suicide hijackers in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Pleas by the Eastern Cape Hark project for donations did not fall on deaf ears and it received a boost of R15 000 for its community outreach programmes. The project has been funded by Standard Bank and offers hearing screening, diagnostic testing, hearing aid fitting, evaluations, counselling, school placement and parent training for care givers of hearing impaired children.

Pleas by the Eastern Cape Hark project for donations did not fall on deaf ears and it received a boost of R15 000 for its community outreach programmes. The project has been funded by Standard Bank and offers hearing screening, diagnostic testing, hearing aid fitting, evaluations, counselling, school placement and parent training for care givers of hearing impaired children.

The world's richest countries failed last year to meet their commitments to reducing poverty, a new report says. The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that represents the 29 most industrialised countries reveals a 2.3 billion dollar drop in aid from member countries last year from the year 2000.

Several developing nations on Wednesday said that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria should be altered to give African nations and other countries with high HIV infection rates "more of a say" in the fund's operations, Reuters reports. Speaking to the World Health Assembly -- the governing body of the World Health Organization -- a representative from Botswana said, "We recommend that Africa's representation on the board ... be reviewed to make sure that it is in proportion to the burden of the disease."

The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $50 million over five years to a $70 million United Nations initiative to improve the lives of poor children worldwide by fortifying basic foods with vitamin supplements.

International conventions have not stopped multi-national corporations from trying to secure valuable contracts by bribing government officials in the world's emerging economies - especially in the arms and defence, and public works and construction industries. ''Fine words are not enough. Until people are brought before the courts, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Convention (OECD) convention on bribery will not make a difference to the developing world, where money is siphoned off from schools and hospitals and essential public works projects,'' said Transparency International Kenya Director, John Githongo.

Last week, by an odd twist of my schedule, I found myself visiting two sites in two hemispheres that each focus on apartheid. One is well known: Robben Island, the prison off Cape Town, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 18 years. The other is hardly visible: Maticni Street in Usti nad Labem, a gritty industrial town in the Czech Republic, where locals built a block-long wall in 1999 to separate an enclave of the Roma (gypsies) from the Czechs across the street. Robben Island, a seminal training ground for anti-apartheid forces, was a maximum-security facility from which no political prisoner ever escaped. The wall at Usti, a seven-foot-high noise barrier with several open gates through it, prevented nobody from moving anywhere. Robben Island endured for decades. The so-called "wall of shame" lasted about a month. Some say the story out of Usti -- near the border with the former East Germany, and only a decade distant from the Berlin Wall -- loomed larger in the press than it deserved to. But did it? Apartheid comes in many forms. But it always starts from a premise that "they're different from us," and that they need to be separated from us, often forcibly.

The UN Special Session for Children has evoked high hopes from organisations working for the benefit of children. Many organisations, advocacy groups and NGOs list out their expectations from the session.

Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said yesterday that when the International Criminal Court was established he would work to ensure that people responsible for recruiting child soldiers were among the first to be indicted.