A new socially responsible tourism has recently emerged out of a widening and acute concern for the environment. Known variously as "ecotourism," "new tourism," "socially responsible tourism," etc., huge claims are made for this new model of tourism development. Garth Allen and Frank Brennan discuss these claims and explore the experience of three tourist areas in South Africa. Under the new political dispensation in South Africa, conservation authorities are now obliged to utilize their natural resources and expertise in local sustainable development, and socially responsible tourism has been identified as an important option by the national government. The South African experience thus provides an important and rare view of how the "new tourism" works in practice.

On paper it was a mismatch equivalent to Barcelona versus Grimsby Town. Gor-Mahia FC, who lie second in Kenya's premier league and are the only Kenyan side ever to win the African Continental Cup, took on St Johns Sports, a team of young men from Korogocho, a Nairobi slum area. "This game was about depicting the power imbalance in the world, skewed against developing countries", said Peter Aoga from ECONEWS Africa, an NGO working on trade issues. "When we are involved in trade negotiations, we are inexperienced - we don't have the expertise. As much as the developed world says the grounds for negotiations are fair, they are not."

A book on corruption in Kenya has been launched. Authored by lawyer Peter Anassi, ‘Corruption in Africa: The Kenyan Experience’ dwells on graft in the public and private sectors and details how corrupt deals are executed. It specifically devotes itself to corruption in the police force, local authorities, Judiciary, lands office, immigration, Kenya Revenue Authority and other departments.

This timely book addresses development problems and prospects in Central Africa. Drawing from individual case studies, global debates and experiences, the contributors provide a rich repertoire of reflections and insights on economic integration and activities, and on the internal and external politics of the different states in the subregion.

This timely and instructive book by Patrick Bond, a radical academic based in South Africa, shows that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair's current effort to project themselves as the saviours of the world's poor is far from unique. The South African president and fellow Third Way traveller Thabo Mbeki has also been donning the garb of global justice in order to repackage neo-liberalism as the solution to world poverty.

Four out of every five of the world’s children aged between 10 and 15 are today enrolled in lower secondary education, which is now considered as part of compulsory education in most countries, according to UNESCO’s Global Education Digest 2005. The Digest, published by UNESCO?s Institute for Statistics, presents the latest global education indicators. The figures drop for Africa, however, where although enrolments at secondary level have been increasing by five percent annually since 1998, the lower secondary ratio is still only 45 percent.

Volume 16 (2006) of Children, Youth and Environments (CYE) will be a large special international volume on child and young people's participation with collections of papers from seven regions of the world. This call is for the Africa - special issue. Child rights advocates have embraced the idea of children's participation and have called for it to be 'mainstreamed' in development and everyday life. Yet the practice of children's participation is still in early stages. This issue of CYE will explore perspectives from Africa on the gap between rhetoric and practice.

Independent publisher Flame Books has teamed up with a group of international authors to bring the conscientious reader the Book of Voices. The stories in the Book of Voices collection are all linked by the common themes underpinning the work of International PEN, and the problems faced by the Sierra Leonean office of PEN.

East Africa: In Search of National and Regional Renewal presents a stimulating mix of historical and contemporary experiences at the heart of African nationalism and pan-African aspirations. It offers rich, critical and insightful scholarly readings of East African discourses, practices and historiographies.

A factional account of the post-independence Nigerian civil war. The novel is written from the dual perspective of an adult, a Biafran, relating his experiences, as he understood them as a child. This is an important literary contribution to the collective memory of the war. It is the author's first novel.

George Ayittey's Indigenous African Institutions presents a detailed and convincing picture of pre-colonial and post-colonial Africa - its cultures, traditions, and indigenous institutions, including participatory democracy. Contrasting traditional African society colonial and post-colonial rule, Ayittey concludes that while colonialism was pernicious and brutal, it did not totally destroy native African institutions and in some ways even contributed to their survival and regeneration.

Three new volumes are available from Codesria. They are: Gender, Economies and Entitlements in Africa; Gender Activism and Studies in Africa; and African Gender Scholarship: Concepts, Methodologies and Paradigms. For more details click on the link below.

In this loosely-linked collection of short stories, published by Heinemann in 1991, Moyez Vassanji, now a resident of Toronto, gives readers of African fiction a picture of the lifestyle of the Indian community of Dar es Salaam over a period of about forty years, beginning in the 1950s. One of the sixteen tales describes a young man, an illegal temporary immigrant to Germany, masquerading as a refugee in order to make a life beyond Africa for himself and his family. But the final tale is of an Uhuru Street resident who has returned to Tanzania to stay.

At one level Okavango Gods is a fast–moving adventure ´at the mouth of rivers´, a story of a young Humbukushu man, Pula Barotse, and his beloved friend Julia, daughter of the Portuguese doctor at Shakawe clinic. Together the young couple struggle to contend with the traditional rituals of sacrifice for rain, and with the biggest flood ever to hit the Okavango delta. At another level, it is an allegory of Africa – mystical and beautiful, both wayward and ordered – evoking the ancient history of Gilgamesh and the flood.

'Long Life: Positive HIV Stories' is a book by Jonathan Morgan and the Bambanani Women's Group about hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Thirteen remarkable women from Khayelitsha, infected with HIV, tell through words, body maps, photos and artwork, how their lives have been transformed by anti-retroviral treatment. Read more about the book through the link below, where you can also find out about a range of titles offered by Spinifex Press.

UNESCO is inviting applications for the 2005 International Literacy Prizes, awarded in recognition of the services of institutions, organisations or individuals that have made outstanding contributions to the development of literacy and basic education. The theme for this year is ‘Literacy and Sustainable Development’.

One of Zimbabwe's pre-eminent writers, Yvonne Vera, has died aged 40 of meningitis, her friends said Saturday. "It is with great sorrow that Yvonne Vera's family and friends would like to inform you of her death," they said in a statement. Renowned for her poetical novels dealing with issues her fellow writers would rather skirt, Vera is considered one of the most gifted writers to emerge from Zimbabwe. She published five novels, and a collection of short stories - translated into at least seven languages. She also edited several anthologies of short stories by African woman writers.

In August 1993, Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl was killed in Cape Town by a group of black youths incited by an upsurge of ´anti–white´ sloganeering. Mother to Mother was provoked by that tragedy. The killer´s mother addresses the mother of the victim and tries, through speaking to her pain, to gain an understanding of her son by recalling both his life and hers within a world of apartheid. The graphic account of life and culture in a black township is both poignant and at the same time, in Sindiwe Magona´s vibrant style, extremely lively. Magona, who grew up in a black township of Cape Town, now lives in New York and works for the United Nations. She has published her autobiography and collections of short stories.

Political Indaba Resource is a book of views, examples, models, questions, stories, analogies and more, to provoke thought and provide material for any political indaba. It is presented as a text of political reference with particular emphasis on the continent of Africa, including the Middle East's influence on her northern states, and is based on views, observations, experiences, and research carried out throughout Africa and the Middle East over a twenty-year period from the mid-1970s.

The latest edition includes:
- South African public service workers in biggest strike ever - Briggs Bomba
- The apartheid wall and the vanquished bantustans: can liberation movements deliver freedom? - Claire Ceruti
- Joining the freedom march: from Mauritius to Palestine - Alain Ah-Vee
- Putting paid to financial aid: student struggles today - Prishani Naidoo
- Direct action: housing battles in post-apartheid South Africa - Martin Legassick