Two Limpopo schools are still closed after mayhem broke out in Tshivhase village two weeks ago. Pupils at a primary and high school in the sprawling village's Mukula section will be urged to attend afternoon and weekend classes to catch up on their work.

The Special Session on Children, to be held 8-10 May 2002, is an unprecedented meeting of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the children and adolescents of the world. It will bring together government leaders and Heads of State, NGOs, children's advocates and young people themselves at the United Nations in New York in 2002. The gathering will present a great opportunity to change the way the world views and treats children.

Record numbers of children are ending up on the streets of Ethiopia, the ministry of labour and social affairs revealed on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of youngsters – some as young as four – are being forced to eke out a squalid and often dangerous existence on the streets. According to the ministry, numbers in Ethiopia have reached alarming proportions, with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 street children.

Young people's needs for information about sexual and reproductive health are not being met in most countries around the world, despite a rapid increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among those aged between 15 and 24, according to a new report.

The African Virtual University, a project established by the World Bank in 1997 to bridge the digital divide and knowledge gap between Africa and the rest of the world, has moved its operations from Washington DC to Kenya. AVU’s newly appointed chief executive officer, Cheick Modibo Diarra, was an adjunct professor of the school of engineering at Howard University in Washington, and the first Africa-born Unesco ‘goodwill ambassador’ for science and technology and enterprise. He says that the organisation’s goal is to provide quality and cost-effective education in sub-Saharan Africa.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a multinational programme to promote economic and social development, is setting up a Commission on Science and Technology to explore ways of stimulating activity in both fields across the African continent. In particular, the new commission will follow a two-prong strategy of identifying centres of research excellence in different African countries, and establishing an African Science Fund to fund them.

Horseshoe - "War vets" and settlers on Nyamsewe and Rungudzi, have taken possession of the owner's tractors, lorries and other equipment and are using them as they please. Matabeleland, Mashonaland East and Masvingo report numerous incidents throughout the region, indicating an escalation of activity.

Since Africans have a stake in the Information Society, it is important that they be involved in the preparations of the World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, 10-12 December 2003) right from the beginning of the process. All African stakeholders and their partners in development are therefore invited to attend the African Regional Conference in Bamako. Please note that important pre-conference events start on Saturday, May 25. The conference itself begins on Monday, May 28. Deadline for registration is May 20.

Less than 24 hours following the arrest and detention of human rights lawyer Tiawon S. Gongloe, the independent Analyst Newspaper was on 25th April closed down by the police.

The Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) is convening an international conference entitled `Peasants, Liberation and Socialism` which will be hosted by the University of Leeds. The conference will examine key issues in Africa’s contemporary development as well as reflect on the work of Professor Lionel Cliffe. Lionel Cliffe retired as Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds in September 2001. The conference will explore issues relating to his contribution to African Studies over a career of more than 40 years working in and on Africa. Key themes include taking stock of issues of agrarian reform, nation building and liberation struggles.

A closer look at the once intractable nature of slavery in Gabon in West Africa
provides a case study for the global phenomenon of human bondage.

When the Malawian government introduced a policy of free primary education in 1994, school enrolments soared from 1.9 million to about 3 million. This massive surge has placed severe constraints on the financing of the primary school system. How can Malawi deliver universal primary education? Where will it find the new teachers it needs?

A global environmental conference Friday hammered out guidelines to encourage big business to pay indigenous communities for the right to use native plants to make commercial drugs and cosmetics. Delegates from 166 countries adopted global guidelines at the end of a two-week U.N. sponsored conference designed to encourage leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to strike deals with countries where they use genetic resources.

EISA, an internationally recognised centre for policy, research, training and information dissemination on elections and democracy in SADC countries, is looking for an Executive Director.

Two challenging vacancies exist in Cape Town for Training Co-ordinators in the health sector.

The Rural Action Committee of Mpumalanga Province (TRAC-MP) is seeking to recruit a dynamic and motivated person to Co-ordinate Training, Research and Organisational Development activities within the organisation.

Telkom Foundation's "Adopt-a-Project" initiative has helped two schools in Umlazi to go on-line. Telkom has donated 20 stand alone computers worth over R50,000, which has been split in half between the schools. The donated computers will form the nucleus of a Telkom-sponsored computer centre that will harness communications technology in a learning environment for the school pupils.

The Department for International Development has provided funding to ease Zimbabwe's woeful food shortage. The funding has made it possible for the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe to start a feeding programme in rural Zimbabwe for children whose farm worker parents have lost their jobs in Zimbabwe's land acquisitions.

A former President of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), Sam Van Kesselly, is calling on Government to "reopen The Journalist Newspaper to help buttress national efforts at creating the needed enabling environment for socioeconomic, political and cultural growth."

President Robert Mugabe is facing new pressure from his militant war veterans as the former fighters, whose campaign of violence helped win Mugabe’s disputed re-election last month, demand that he appoints them as Cabinet ministers, provincial governors and as Zimbabwe’s ambassadors abroad.