About 27 million people are shackled in conditions akin to slavery around the world today. This number is higher than during the heyday of the colonial slave trade, says Dinyar Godrej in the latest online edition of New Internationalist.

"John Gray of the London School of Economics spoke for many last week when he declared that the era of globalization was over. "The entire view of the world that supported the markets' faith in globalization has melted down ... Led by the US, the world's riches states have acted on the assumption that people everywhere want to live as they do. As a result, they failed to recognize the deadly mixture of emotions-cultural resentment, the sense of injustice and a genuine rejection of western modernity-that lies behind the attacks on New York and Washington ... The idea of a universal civilization is a recipe for unending conflict, and it is time it was given up.""

WTO Director-General Mike Moore said yesterday he was optimistic ministers would agree to a new round of global trade liberalization talks when they meet in Qatar in November, as WTO members studied draft proposals for a negotiating agenda and related decisions on implementing past agreements, reports the Financial Times.

We, the African scholars, researchers, academics, practitioners and others from Africa and the diaspora who attended the Open Forum, STRONGLY CONDEMN AND ABHOR the attack in America (on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon) causing the reckless destruction of life and property by persons yet unidentified; and as Africans, we stand for a humane, just, fair and democratic world order and community that promotes and defends the sanctity of human life and dignity everywhere.

The Federal Government has approved the establishment of anti-corruption unit in all ministries and parastatals in the federal public service. This was the outcome of the Federal Executive Council meeting held in Abuja yesterday.

Many organizations provide support services to children affected by AIDS in East and southern Africa. Yet few of these programmes have been evaluated. In Uganda, PLAN International, Makerere University, and the Horizons Program are collaborating on a study to assess the impact of an orphan support programme on the physical, educational, and emotional wellbeing of children. The researchers are also studying a different programme, called succession planning, in which children are reached before the death of the parent.

The fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation is still scheduled to be held in Doha, Qatar on November 9-13. This backgrounder helpfully summarises the positions different blocs hold on issues like trade and environment, trade ad labour standards, and indeed the need for a new round.

According to a global report released Wednesday by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), there is “a strong possibility of use of anti-personnel mines in the DRC in June 2000” by Uganda, which is a party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty that outlaws any use, production, transfer or stockpiling of anti-personnel mines.

Both government and rebel forces in Sudan are continuing to use antipersonnel mines despite claiming to adhere to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines (ICBL) said on Wednesday.

The G8's mandate has been seriously questioned in recent months, but this has not stopped G8 ministers setting new directions for the World Bank and IMF.

Globalvision News Network presents worldwide reports and commentary on the implications of the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. What can we learn from the voices of the global media?

Doctors Without Borders President Bernard Pecoul and Brazilian Health Minister Jose Serra yesterday signed a letter of intent stating that the not-for-profit group would work with Brazil to export the country's successful anti-AIDS model and its state-produced generic anti-AIDS drugs to other developing countries, Reuters/New York Times reports.

Rising death rates in South Africa due to HIV/AIDS have led to the creation of a makeshift funeral industry, Newsweek reports. Many "fly-by-night undertakers," who are unlicensed and operate out of storefronts, compete to make funeral arrangements and leave bodies to decompose while they search for the cheapest means of disposal, creating a health hazard and raising costs to the government.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI) on Thursday, 6 September, reported that one of its research teams, recently returned from the Afro-Arab borderlands of Sudan, had found systematic of human rights abuses, as a manifestation of racism, among a group of "97 female slaves above the age of 12 who were recently liberated from bondage."

This is a series of useful lesson resources on various topics related to modern-day slavery. The two-pagers on "Bonded Labour" and "Slavery from the past..." can be used by teachers as illustrative materials in civic education, history or other social science classrooms.

All states involved in the slave trade should acknowledge their role and issue a formal apology to victims and their descendants, say campaigners
marking an international day of slave trade remembrance.

Three weeks after the massive anti-globalization protests in Genoa and after two days of intense discussion on globalization and human rights, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has adopted three resolutions calling into question the impact of key aspects of the lobalization process on human rights, and has demanded that bodies like the WTO take fuller account of human rights considerations.

THE United States risked appearing indifferent about racism if it were to boycott the upcoming United Nations conference on the subject, South Africa's director general of foreign affairs said on Sunday."If they don't come, people will read into it that they don't see the issues as important. It will send a signal to their own constituencies and the rest of the world," Sipho Pityana told the SAPA news agency.

The Federal High Court has ruled to block the personal and business accounts of a number of former government officials and private businessmen accused of corruption, local press reports said Wednesday.

Kenyan Minister for Trade and Industry Nicholas Biwott, an influential figure in the government of President Daniel arap Moi, has criticised the aid conditions imposed on Kenya as impractical, and suggested that they smack of double standards.