A project for the launch of Electronic Governance (E-Gov) in Angola is being prepared at the National Commission for Information Technologies. E-Gov will involve a generalised use of information technologies by the public administration in relations between the government and citizens as well as between government and enterprises.

Human rights activists on Monday said the government's recent attack on Angola's private Radio Ecclesia, accusing it of practising "radio terrorism", was a setback for the fostering of democracy in the country.

How is globalisation affecting the lives of the 3.4 million inhabitants of the Angolan capital, Luanda? Can the state use wealth from oil and diamonds to lift the city's poor out of poverty? Can civil society release the potential of the poor to become development actors?

Following an update from Secretary General Kofi Annan, the UN Security Council has commended steps taken by the authorities in Luanda towards full implementation of the Lusaka Protocol on peace in Angola.

Separatists in Angola's northern Cabinda province on Tuesday confirmed reports there have been "exploratory" talks with the government over the future of the oil-rich enclave.

On Monday 250,000 Angolan children will return to school in the biggest education campaign in the country's history, backed by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Angolan government. The size and scope of 'Back to School' "underlines the fact that education is being unswervingly endorsed as the engine to drive Angola's long-term recovery" after three decades of civil war, UNICEF said in a statement.

In Luanda there are two ways of getting high on Angola's wealth. You can become an oil executive and work from a penthouse office on Lenin Avenue, gazing beyond the shattered skyline out to sea. Or you can join the street children downtown who douse rags in petrol and sniff themselves into a chemical haze before competing with dogs to scavenge from mounds of rubbish. The two worlds have long co-existed in the capital but the approaching first anniversary of peace in a country that suffered three decades of war raises a crucial question: will ordinary Angolans benefit? No other country is so simultaneously rich and poor.

Angolan authorities would have to show a greater commitment to financial transparency at an upcoming international donor conference if it is to succeed in securing the external support needed to kick-start its national reconstruction programme, analysts said on Monday.

UN officials in Angola have noted that the government's programme for the resettlement of former UNITA combatants is behind schedule, and that tens of thousands of soldiers are expected to be dependent on humanitarian aid for at least another year.

The European Union (EU) will grant 50 million Euros in the forthcoming five years for Angola. In a first phase, the amount will be used in humanitarian aid, the returning and resettlement of war displaced people, reinsertion of former UNITA soldiers, health improvement, agriculture and de-mining.

For the first time since the end of the Angolan civil war, poverty is mapped in the country. New national statistics have shown that between 68 and 69 percent of Angolans live in poverty, although it is expected that real numbers could be even higher.

Save the Children has been successfully working in Angola since 1989 and our programme has brought widely recognised improvements to children's lives. Our work has included pioneering work in family tracing as well as nutrition, management of health systems and strengthening community social structures. As the Programme Director, you will be critical in leading the programme forward in a new direction in response to the changes in the context in Angola since the ceasefire in April 02 and subsequent cessation of civil war.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, has promised a continued role for the UN in the promotion of human rights in Angola. However, the Brazilian diplomat has rejected calls for the UN to play a more forceful role in the investigation of alleged human rights abuses.

With peace seemingly entrenched after nearly three decades of civil war, Angolan society now strives for normalcy. But, warn observers, the end of the war is merely the beginning of a long, hard road to development.

By dawn, the convoy is ploughing through the bush, rolling east into a rising sun with 58 tonnes of emergency food for a settlement camp cut off without aid deep in Angola's famine territory. If these vehicles cannot make it, there is little chance of feeding the tens of thousands of people stranded in the province of Cuando Cubango, a wilderness so desolate it is known as "the land at the end of the earth".

United Nations officials in Angola on Wednesday said the reintegration of former child soldiers into civil society was underway despite the scale of the problem confronting the humanitarian community.

Allegations of human rights abuses in the northern enclave of Cabinda and the living conditions of some 80,000 demobilised soldiers should top the agenda during UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello's visit to Angola next week, rights activists said on Friday.

More than 800,000 children from nine months to 15 years old will be vaccinated against measles in April this year in southern Huila province, in a joint action of the Provincial Health Management and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

The Program Coordinator (PC) for the Consortium for Development Relief in Angola, based in Luanda, will ensure day-to-day management of the Development Relief program, serving all consortium members in their planning, administrative, logistical, reporting and representational needs. The PC is accountable to the Consortium steering Committee (SC), and will inform the SC of critical program issues and assist in the implementation of SC decisions.

"Angola's history has been one of human rights abuses. Combatants on both sides used these violations to gain advantage on the battlefield," says Alex Vines of the New York-based organisation, Human Rights Watch. But many of the violations committed over the past 40 years had nothing to do with the war. There are now growing demands for the perpetrators of human rights abuses to be brought to justice.