Between 1995 and 2015, approximately half of the gold produced worldwide has or will come from the traditional territories of indigenous peoples, whose land rights are often not clearly recognized. Even when indigenous groups hold legal title to surface lands, some governments sell off the subsurface rights to mining corporations. Where did the gold in your ring come from? This is the central question of a webpage produced by the World Watch Institute, which notes that once mine ore is extracted, the mine ore is crushed, piled into heaps, and sprayed with cyanide to separate out the gold. Years later, the abandoned waste piles can still release acid and toxic heavy metals into streams, rivers, and groundwater. The gold produced for a single .33 ounce, 18 karat gold ring leaves in its wake at least 18 tons of mine waste.

This report provides comparative data on education in developing and developed countries. It presents detailed country-level statistics on inputs such as enrolment rates, teacher to student ratios, and private and public expenditures as a percentage of GDP, as well as outputs such as literacy levels. It outlines some of the general findings and trends evidenced by the data. It discusses the concept of ‘school life expectancy’ (SLE) as a useful comparative measure of years spent in school, changes in participation in various regions over the past decades, comparisons of school year repetition and achievement levels in literacy.

Rising racist abuse among players in club cricket has forced Western Province (WP) cricket chiefs to set out an organised "conciliation" strategy - including a flying squad of mediators for match days. The WP Cricket Association (WPCA) revealed that half the incidents dealt with by its disciplinary committee related to racial or religious harassment and abuse. It blamed much of this on clubs which were still mostly racially divided because of the legacy of apartheid's Group Areas Act.

It has been over 50 years since the United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed by most governments in the world and yet the abuses continue to grow. Freedom of Speech and Human Rights are taken for granted in the west, but recent years have seen conditions deteriorate around the world. As early as 1997 for example, Human Rights conditions were reported to remain unchanged compared to previous years, or in some countries, actually worsen around the world. In 1998 for example, the UN reported that even though over a hundred governments had agreed to help outlaw some of the worse violations of rights, torture was still on the increase.

In 2003, the Brazilian government initiated a resolution on sexual orientation and human rights to be presented to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Since, organisations involved in the international lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGTB) movement have come face to face with the UN system. On March 29, 2004 Brazil was informed that it could not present its resolution on sexual orientation due to intense pressure from the Organisation of Islamic Conferences (OIC), the Vatican and the Protestant right. Despite this set-back, the LGTB movement has had a substantive opportunity to learn about and influence UN processes and strategies.

Transparency International (TI) has invited contributions for the ‘corruption research’ section of the Global Corruption Report 2005, TI’s annual survey of the state of corruption around the world. The Global Corruption Report reaches policymakers, journalists and researchers worldwide. It is a key forum for new and innovative research on corruption and governance. The Global Corruption Report 2005 will include short summaries of recent research.

In at least 25 countries of the world there is no specified age for compulsory education; at least 33 States have no minimum age of employment and in 44 girls can be married earlier than boys. In at least 125 countries children may be taken to court and risk imprisonment for criminal acts at an age between 7 and 15, often the age range for compulsory education. Moreover, in the same country, it is not rare to find that children are legally obliged to go to school until they are 14 or 15 years old but a different law allows them to work at an earlier age or to be married at the age of 12 or to be criminally responsible from the age of 7. The publication 'At what age?' brings to light problems that are not - but should be - effectively addressed: at what age do children become adults and loose their protection under the Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Unless governments in poor countries implement domestic policies that benefit the entire population and not only the rich elite, fair world trade will not be enough to help nations achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, Eveline Herfkens, executive coordinator for the MDGs campaign, told U.N. Wire in an interview at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development's 11th ministerial meeting. According to Herfkens, who has been participating in plenary discussions and briefings here since Monday, poor countries are partly to blame for economic inequalities, since rich people in poor nations are frequently the ones making decisions on trade and other policies.

A coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), farmers associations and social movements from around the world are using the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XI) as a platform for a Global Call to Action against "free trade" agreements that destroy peasant based agriculture and lead to corporate-controlled de-industrialisation in the South. This Global Call to Action will take place during the week of 19-24 July, 2004; the week immediately prior to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) General Council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

This year’s conference seeks to tackle the broad theme of North-South power relations within development. The aim of this broad approach is to maximise active participation from as diverse an array of presenters as possible. As in previous years we hope to combine postgraduate students presenting their own work in a relaxed environment of research-exchange with a number of speakers from both academic and practitioner backgrounds.

With voluntary repatriation being increasingly promoted by governments, NGOs, and UN agencies as the ultimate solution to refugee's displacement, this paper tries to draw attention to some of the psychological complexities returnees actually encounter. The analysis focuses on the psychological difficulties that follow voluntary repatriation.

European and US officials and industry professionals will meet to discuss ways of tackling the proliferation of racist, xenophobic and anti-semitic materials via the Internet, blamed for a rising tide of hate-crimes. Delegates at the meeting, held at the initiative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the French government, hope to find ways to trace the authors of racist propaganda, without reining in online freedoms.

On 26 May 2004, High Council for Communications (Haut conseil de la communication, HCC) President Moussa Dago threatened to order the closure of FM Liberté, a community radio station based in the capital, N'Djamena. In a letter to FM Liberté's director, the HCC president criticised the station for airing a commercial, between 19 and 25 May, in which a collective of civil society groups commented on the draft amendment to the country's Constitution. The HCC said the commercial was of a political nature, thereby violating the broadcast law governing private radio stations in the country and opening the door to penalties.

As the impacts of climate change caused by energy use becomes more evident to world leaders, more than 1000 delegates from over 100 countries met in Bonn, Germany, to discuss the role that renewable energy will play in the future of the planet. The participants include heads of state, energy ministers, regional leaders, business, public pressure groups, business and youth groups. The 2004 International Conference for Renewable Energies, Bonn was proposed by German Chancellor Gerhand Schroeder after the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg failed to deliver meaningful targets for the implementation of renewable energy.

Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Monday June 7, 2004
The Guardian

The head of the Zimbabwean central bank is due in Britain later this week to raise funds for the state's depleted coffers, despite a travel ban which prevents Robert Mugabe and other leading politicians entering the country, the Guardian has learned.
Gideon Gono, previously Robert Mugabe's personal banker, is due to address a group of Zimbabweans in Birmingham on Thursday to encourage them to send money home to their families through government channels, according to Zimbabweans invited to the meeting.

More than 100 million children around the world do not have access to primary school education. Out-of-school children in developing countries are especially vulnerable to poverty, hunger, violence, exploitation and disease, contributing to future generations of people with limited life chances and almost certain poverty. Achieving universal primary education - and its close correlation, gender equality in education - is so important that Goal 2 of the Millennium Development Goals is dedicated to it. Yet, without government and donor policies that advocate inclusive primary education, the basic human right to education may not be achieved by 2015.

This paper explores the potential of Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) as agents of social, institutional and individual change. It argues that while HLIs have a clear role in building the capacity of individuals and organisations to undertake key development initiatives and to practice participation, they are often restricted by internal and external constraints.

In 2004, World Refugee Day will focus on the search for, and implementation of, durable solutions for refugees. Based on the theme, "A place to call home: Rebuilding lives in safety and dignity", UNHCR will look at the challenges and hopes that accompany refugees in their search for a new home through voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement. On 20 June 2004, people all over the world will gather around events and activities to commemorate this day.

The Public Integrity Index is the centrepiece of the Global Integrity report, providing a quantitative scorecard of governance practices in each country. The Public Integrity Index assesses the institutions and practices that citizens can use to hold their governments accountable to the public interest. It does not measure corruption itself but rather the opposite of corruption: the extent of citizens' ability to ensure their government is open and accountable.

Ahead of next week’s "Group of Eight" Summit in Sea Island, Georgia, Africa Action co-hosted a media briefing in Washington, DC entitled "President Bush’s G-8 Summit: Priorities of a Global Minority?" Africa Action also released a statement on "The G-8 and Global Apartheid", describing the G-8 as a form of global minority rule, whose policies and actions have resulted in patterns of gross global inequality that are clearly linked to race and place. At the media briefing, a panel of leading analysts discussed the inadequacy of the G-8 leaders’ policies on key global issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty and the debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries.