The International Fellowships Program (IFP) is a program supported by the Ford Foundation, and administered in West Africa by the Association of Africa Universities. IFP provides fellowships for advanced study to exceptional individuals who will use their education to further development in their own countries and greater social and economic justice worldwide. IFP fellowships will be awarded to applicants from diverse backgrounds, including social groups and communities that lack systematic access to higher education. It is expected that (40) fellowships will be awarded for the 2005/6 academic year to residents of Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. Deadline: 23 January 2004.

On November 24 2003, the Zanzibar government suspended the publication of the weekly “Dira” newspaper, which is published by the International Media Company. The Minister of State in the Chief Minister’s Office, who is responsible for information, Mr. Salum Juma Othman, said the tabloid was being suspended for violating professional ethics.

A non-governmental organisation that lobbies for debt relief, Chambers of Justice, has renewed its appeal for cancellation of Kenya's massive external debt. The debt burden currently stands at about nine billion dollars, three times more than the annual national revenue of approximately 2.7 billion dollars.

Kenyan primary schools are starting to equip themselves to promote gender equality, poverty alleviation and local economic growth. How can headteachers gain the necessary managerial and community liaison skills? Is a cascade system the best way to help them develop new expertise? What scope is there for learning from the bottom up to improve community-school partnerships?

What are the links between HIV, poverty, education and gender inequality? How have structural adjustment and cost-sharing affected vulnerable children in Tanzania? Are policy-makers able to address the serious inequalities and vulnerabilities faced by the growing number of children working the country's streets?

Mama Cash, the first independent funding organisation for women, strives for a peaceful and just world, a world where women are free to make their own choices and to develop their myriad talents and skills. The average grant ranges from $2,000 to $10,000.

Over the last five days, 210 people have been killed in fighting between militias and a rebel group on the outskirts of Junaynah, western Darfur, according to a local rebel group. Armed Arab militias had burned down three villages in the area, killing 24 people, injuring 18, and looting everything in sight, Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur, spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) told IRIN. The rebel group and local civilians retaliated by killing 186 members of the militias, he said.

The new anti-corruption law due to be passed by parliament this week is wide-ranging in its ambit and attempts to tackle corruption which was previously difficult to prosecute. A long 18 months in the making, the complex bill, now called the Prevention of Corrupt Activities Bill, extends the current legal definition of what constitutes a corrupt practice in a bid to widen the net on corruption.

The Union of Kenya Civil Servants is up in arms against a call by the donor community for further retrenchment. The union is calling on President Kibaki not to give in to "retrogressive conditionalities" for resumption of donor funding being prescribed by the World Bank and other donors.

The Africa grants programme aims to tackle poverty and promote social justice across Africa. All the work Comic Relief funds is about supporting people to make lasting, positive changes in their lives and their communities. The programme will consider applications that target one of the following groups of people: people affected by conflict; women and girls; people living in towns and cities; disabled people; pastoralists and hunter-gatherers; people affected by HIV and AIDS. Applicants from UK based registered charities only.

The Parliamentary Millennium Project is designed as a nation-building intervention that will assist South Africans in recognizing how their diverse past experiences and the perspective resulting from those experiences have shaped their views of the present. The project is currently compiling a database of potential service providers for their media campaign and seeks expressions of interest from service providers who have commendable expertise in the following key areas: design and implementation of a comprehensive and integrated communication strategy; development and management of a comprehensive media liaison programme.

This is a full-time appointment for an initial period of one year as of January 2004, with the possibility of extension. The researcher will be based in a field office in Kigali, Rwanda.

We are looking for an outstanding individual to lead our programme in Liberia and to strengthen its impact and quality with a view to growing the scope of Oxfam's response even further.

The applicant must have a BA in Community Development or equivalent as the main requirement, and have a driving license. He/She must also have experience of working in a humanitarian programme for not less than 3 years.

It is the first day of catch-up classes for vulnerable children in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. This is a big day. For the 300 children who succeeded in getting a space in the classroom, the suspense and excitement are overwhelming. Most of these children, aged nine to 14, have never been to school. Others dropped out years ago. A national study supported by UNICEF found that around 400,000 primary school-aged and 600,000 secondary school-aged children across Rwanda are not in school. In response to this educational crisis, UNICEF and the Rwandan Ministry for Education set up these classes to give the children another chance.

Education Minister Kadar Asmal's valiant plan to extend free basic education to all our children up to matric illustrates an international conundrum of the first order. If education and other services like health and water are to be seen as human rights, how are they to be funded? Can we envisage a situation in which these services are free to everyone, while those who can afford them are taxed appropriately? Is it possible to come up with a new taxation system that gives governments the revenues they need, engaging the commitment of electorates to the health of societies as a whole? These are the two central questions this editorial seeks to answer.

Fear of abduction is leading anywhere from 12-15,000 children in Northern Uganda to migrate to locked shelters every night. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is the reason these children walk up to two hours every night in order to sleep. The LRA has a long history of abducting children and looting personal property. Parents send their children into town for their own security while they stay at home to protect their property.

The fourth annual International Training of Facilitators will be held over ten days in June 2004. Designed and delivered by the Institute of Cultural Affairs Ghana in conjunction with ICA:UK, the course is open to both beginners and experienced facilitators, and concentrates on introducing the principles and methods of the ICA's Technology of Participation, which has been used and developed worldwide over the past 35 years.

A daily lunch of boiled maize and beans, is not much of a meal to some, but across sub-Saharan Africa, it has become a lifeline for millions of vulnerable children. At a cost of just about nine US cents per child, such meals have proved nutritious to about 1.1 million children in Kenyan schools, improving their health and concentration.

Rwandan police are holding the editor of a privately owned newspaper arrested on Wednesday near the Ugandan border, according to Reporters sans frontiers (RSF), a media watchdog in Paris. On Thursday, RSF reported that Robert Sebufilira, editor of Umuseso, was arrested as he went to collect 4,000 copies of the weekly printed in Uganda, where it is cheaper.