Many of Malian children are kidnapped and sold into slavery. In all, at least 15,000 children are thought to be over in the neighbouring Ivory Coast, producing cocoa which then goes towards making almost half of the world's chocolate. Campaigners report that children are forced to work 12 hours a day and are sometimes physically and sexually abused.

The four radio stations of Timbuktu, Mali, received a suitcase radio from UNESCO to encourage the production of programmes using the information resources of Internet. The suitcase radio comprises a complete broadcasting unit and can also be used as a production studio. It is to be housed in the community telecentre of Timbuktu, a UNESCO-supported project, in order to enable radio staff to produce "radio browsing" programmes.

In early 1998, the former Somaliland President's wife Edna Adan Ismail used her retirement benefits to begin constructing what would be the country’s first and only teaching Maternity Hospital. Construction of the hospital is scheduled to be completed during the spring of 2002. The currently existing maternal and gynecological facilities in Somaliland are over-crowded, ill-equipped and understaffed. The establishment of the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital will provide much needed high quality reproductive healthcare, as well as standardized, professional training for the first nurses and midwives to be trained in the country in 16 years.

While accounts of the unjust arrest and torture of political prisoners are by now common, we expect such victims to come with a just cause. Here, Oufkir tells of the 20-year imprisonment of her upper-class Moroccan family following a 1972 coup attempt against King Hassan II by her father, a close military aide. After her father's execution, Oufkir, her mother and five siblings were carted off to a series of desert barracks, along with their books, toys and French designer clothes in the family's Vuitton luggage. At their first posting, they complained that they were short on butter and sweets. Over the years, subsequent placements brought isolation cells and inadequate, vermin-infested rations. Finally, starving and suicidal, the innocents realized they had been left to die. They dug a tunnel and escaped. Recapture led to another five years of various forms of imprisonment before the family was finally granted freedom. ISBN: 0786868619, Talk Miramax Books, 2001.

To change the situation and mainstream HIV/AIDS as a cross-sectoral issue in the final PRSP, the Government of Mali, in collaboration with the HIV/AIDS Theme Group, convened a three day workshop on “Integrating HIV/AIDS into the final PRSP” in Bamako, in September 2001.The main objective of the workshop was to elaborate a multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS action plan to insert in the final PRSP.

The contemporary urban environment in Africa has nurtured ever increasing numbers of artists who are creating art that is directed at local or international markets rather than for use in ancient religious practices. These artists strive to create art forms that reflect their own cultural backgrounds but that express new ideas about the struggle to deal with a difficult and quickly changing African environment.

Greetings. I've just subscribed to your news and found it very informative. A lot of people are not aware of your editorials and I will pass it on. In saying that the people who really need to read this news and need it most are those back in the homeland Africa. Keep up with the good work. I would like to update you with our news websites:

http://www.somalilandnet.com
Please feel free to use to urls for Somaliland Forum. Surely a large number of people are now aware of the struggle of Somaliland not to mention that the hard work they have done over the number of years. There is still a large number of landmines left by the regime of Siad Barre and it is very difficult for the children and rurla people to get on with their lives as normal. In saying that life must go on and Africans must face their future with a big hope.

Two people have died and 2,350 others have been affected by floods in Mali that have destroyed 1,817 houses and washed away 870 ha of farmland, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday.

Save the Children projects in Malawi and Mali have sought to increase school enrollment through the creation of village-based schools and curricula that foster gender quality. In Malawi school enrollment among girls is increasing, as is primary school enrollment in general in Mali.

There have been a spate of damaging and ubiquitous viruses lately. This article explains the difference between a virus and a virus hoax. It also tells you how both can damage your computer. Throughout the article there are links to online resources: identify whether you are the victim of a virus or a virus hoax, visit websites offering free anti virus software, learn how to delete a virus FOREVER from your PC, and.. keep your anti-virus software up to date.

After more than a decade in Ethiopia, Somali refugees in the eastern camp of Rabasso are preparing to return to their homes in northwestern Somalia, a spokesman for UNHCR told IRIN Thursday.

Mali became the first country to sign a legally binding international pact to control the proliferation of small arms, the UN reported in New York on Wednesday.

Children displaced by years of drought are dying every day from malnutrition and disease in a situation that is likely to get worse unless urgent action is taken, a UNICEF press statement released on Tuesday in Addis Ababa said. "Mortality rates among IDP [internally displaced people] children in Ethiopia's Somali region are alarming. Several children are dying from malnutrition and related diseases every day, the statement quotes UNICEF nutritionist Yvonne Grellety as saying.

"President Muhammad Ibrahim Egal of Somaliland should immediately and unconditionally release former presidential candidate Suleiman Mohamed Adam,"Amnesty International reiterated today. Suleiman Mohamed Adam, 66, is considered by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, detained solely on account of his non-violent opinions and for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association.

In Mali yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the $200 million contribution to the global AIDS fund recently pledged by President Bush is "evidence that the Bush administration won't skimp when it comes to fighting AIDS" and reassured observers that Africa remains a "priority" for the new administration, the Wall Street Journal reports. The visit to Mali is the first stop on a tour that will take Powell, one of the administration's "most vocal supporters" of Africa, to the "AIDS hot spots" of South Africa, Kenya and Uganda.

More than 10,000 Somali refugees have arrived in the Kenyan border town of Mandera in the past two weeks, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said today.