You guys are doing exceptional work. I am a teacher, and I run a number of projects with international collaborations. Part of this is that we have contact with, and host teachers and students from around the world. Your newsletters are great at telling the real story of Africa, and helping me to clue people into the real issues of the day.

African Union ministers of trade, meeting in Mauritius, have re-affirmed the long-standing position of African countries that the forthcoming Cancun Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) should focus on addressing their developmental concerns in the existing agreements, instead of starting negotiations for new agreements, particularly on the so-called Singapore issues of investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation. African civil society organisations, who for the first time were allowed to meet under the auspices of the conference and to address the Ministers, underscored their support for the collective effort of the Ministers for international trade rules which reflected the needs and interests of the people of Africa. Civil society organisations called on the Ministers to focus on addressing the inequities of the existing agreements of the WTO.

As the international community marked World Refugee Day last week, the United Nations refugee agency reported a 14 per cent drop in global numbers of asylum seekers and announced landmarks in two major target areas - the return of well over 2 million people to Afghanistan and the launching of a large-scale repatriation project for Angola.

The second summit of the African Union is likely to be marked by political wrangling as the continent's leaders try to reach agreement on the functioning and final structures of the pan-African body. This is likely to disappoint many people who would like to see the African Union concentrating on achieving greater and faster success in ending conflicts, improving governance and kick-starting social and economic development on the continent.

Religious representatives in Tanzania have challenged African governments to ensure active participation of the citizenry in discussions on the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on African Union Heads of State to release all jailed journalists and repeal all anti freedom of expression legislation. The IFJ is supporting a petition launched on June 5th by CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights and Fahamu to be presented at the African Union meeting of Heads of State in Maputo in July and addressed to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the current Chair of the AU.

I am interested in the method Simon Hinds (Pambazuka News 114 letter) is using to prove Andrew Meldrum is a propagandist, not a journalist. If he can produce proof that some agency apart from the papers he writes for is paying him to write the stories, he would have a case, but he is only studying content. With the state media entirely in the hands of ZANU-PF propagandists (even musicians whose songs are in any way critical are banned, and this includes the two most eminent Zimbabwean musicians, Thomas Mapfumo and Oliver Mutukudzi), the independent media being constantly harassed (and this includes arrest and assault on journalists, the bombing of one newspaper's press and of the office of an independent radio station which is forced to broadcast from outside the country and party thugs destroying vendors' stocks of papers they don't like, with no independent radio or TV station permitted, someone needs to present the other side. Is Meldrum doing any more than this?

The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation's ICT Development Digital Library (ICT DevLibrary) provides a unique collection of ICT-for-development reports and documents for policy-makers and practitioners in developing countries. It uniquely provides direct, “one-click” access to these documents, and makes these often bulky documents accessible to users on low bandwidth connections.

Contemporary forms of slavery cannot be eliminated unless the international community goes beyond mere legal prohibitions to fighting its root causes such as poverty, gender discrimination and violence against women, according to the acting United Nations human rights chief Bertrand Ramcharan, who was opening the 28th session of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Geneva.

Excellent as always. I am passing this on for you.

The Nigerian government has ordered a probe into a $2.4 million bribe, allegedly paid by U.S.-based oil service company, Halliburton, to some Nigerian tax officials, news media reported Wednesday.

Although the 2003 elections have come and gone the exercise is still raising some dust. The role played by the media as the people's watch-dog came under review with the verdict that they could have done better. This was the consensus at a day-long roundtable discussion.

A German engineering company, Lahmeyer, was on Tuesday found guilty of bribing a top official of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

A leading global business group has issued a ''corruption index'' for African countries, but corporate governance watchdogs say the World Economic Forum (WEF) ignored the role that its members play in corrupting poor countries. The rankings released last Tuesday by the Geneva-based WEF, known for its high-profile annual meetings in the alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland that attract the world's corporate and political luminaries, show Botswana leading the 21 African nations ranked for the quality of their public institutions.

A Zambian court has dropped charges against six men who were accused of stealing state finances - along with former President Frederick Chiluba. But the court in Lusaka reserved the right to re-arrest the six if new evidence came to light.

Whenever the African Union meets to discuss trade issues before the 5th World Trade Organisation Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, in September this year, they should not sell away people's rights, writes Percy F. Makombe in the latest edition of the SEATINI Bulletin. "The right to food, to basic services like drinking water, healthcare, housing and education are rights that are protected by the African Charter on Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights," he argues, concluding that: " Each African state must, as provided for under the Doha mandate, exercise its sovereign right to reject or reopen any draft package purporting to reflect the outcome of negotiations."

How are we going to force Sudan and Mauritania to stop slavery? Nobody knows how many Africans lost their lives in Mauritania from 1989 onwards. What is the African Union doing about modern day slavery?

The Country Director will manage the IFES program in Nigeria. Primary responsibilities will include program management and implementation, and management of the IFES field office in Abuja. The Country Director is also responsible for identifying new opportunities for IFES within the existing program and beyond.

Food and water deprivation, inadequate health and education facilities, prison-like restrictions on freedom of movement, ethnic and gender violence, ad-hoc justice and collective punishment: this is how Cairo-based refugee scholar Barbara Harrell-Bond recently described the plight of many refugees in UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) camps in Africa. When id21 put this description to the UNHCR's Jeff Crisp, he largely agreed. Refugee camps are supposed to be safe havens for people fleeing war, persecution and natural disaster. Why then are they places where refugees are apparently deprived of their human rights and given little hope and even fewer opportunities to improve their lives?

Washington's determination to find an alternative energy source to the Middle East is leading to a new oil rush in sub-Saharan Africa which threatens to launch a fresh cycle of conflict, corruption and environmental degradation in the region, campaigners warn. This risks bringing more misery to the continent as western oil companies pour billions of dollars in secret payments into government coffers. Much of the money ends up in the hands of ruling elites.