A new ICG report is out titled "Nepal's Maoists: Purists or Pragmatists". The report analyses the Maoists’ internal debates and their transition to a more moderate strategy. Their entry into democratic politics – working alongside mainstream parties to force the king to relinquish power in April 2006 and joining a coalition government one year later – has brought them new influence and opportunities. However, some Maoists fear they have traded in their principles and military power for little tangible advantage. The Maoists always said their campaign would adapt classical Marxism and Maoism to suit the context of Nepal. They now argue that they can carry out a “peaceful revolution” that is true to their aims but also reflects political realities. Report in full here.

"There's a lot on the table for the U.S. and France, in terms of being able to address issues of mutual concern around the globe, whether that's Iran or the Middle East or dealing with poverty alleviation in Africa or climate change. And there's a whole host of issues around the globe that concern both our countries and, of course, there's a very strong bilateral relationship there that the Secretary looks forward to continuing with her new counterpart."

-- U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, on the appointment of Bernard Kouchner as the new foreign minister of France, and the pressing topics that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking forward to working on with him. A doctor by training, Kouchner co-founded the Nobel prize-winning Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in 1971 to put his beliefs into action, after working as a young doctor for the Red Cross in Biafra in 1968 during Nigeria's civil war. As a Socialist, his appointment by France's new Conservative President Nicholas Sarkozy, came as a surprise to many political observers. His last cabinet post was as a socialist health minister, in the government of the late President Francois Mitterrand, appointed in 1992. Before that he was Minister of State for Humanitarian Action (1988-1991) and Minister of State for Social Integration (1988). More recently, Kouchner, 67, has served as UN special representative to Kosovo from 1999-2001. In 2003, he was one of the very few French politicians to come out in favor of the US-led military intervention in Iraq.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has rolled out the online version of its Statistical Database System (SDBS), a key database of social, economic and financial indicators of its developing member countries.

The database was developed and will be maintained by the ADB's Economics and Research Department. It contains data from 1988 onwards and will be a major resource and analytical tool for policymakers, academics, researchers and journalists interested in issues and challenges facing Asia and the Pacific. The launch of the online version of SDBS underscores ADB's role as a key knowledge bank for developing member countries in the region. To help users in navigating the website, an easy access online facility has been developed.

The system was first developed to provide data support for ADB operations. Statistical tables for the ADB's Key Indicators are generated from SDBS. As part of ADB's role as a key knowledge bank for developing countries in the region and to support the development community and policymakers, part of the system is now accessible free of charge. MDG tables of ADB's developing member countries can also be generated from this database.

The SDBS is available from: www.adb.org/Statistics/sdbs.asp.

I'm no longer a student, but this competition almost makes me wish I were one:

CFJ/CNN European Award for the Best Student News Blog
Rewards students currently studying journalism at a university or school of journalism in a country within the European Union for news blogs in French or English. The winner of the top prize will receive 3 months of training at CNN International's London headquarters, and US$2,500. Deadline: May 1 2007. Details here.

while everyone is busy talking about the Wolfowitz scandal, also quietly making some headlines is the removal of the word "family planning" and "climate change" in recent WB documents, refelcting Bush policy more than WB policy. See below.
________________

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are writing to update you on new developments in the World Bank's plans
to review and approve the draft "Healthy Development: The World Bank
Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results" (HNP Strategy).
The date for the review has now been postponed to Tuesday, April 24,
providing additional time for advocacy to ensure that language on sexual
and reproductive health and rights, family planning and integrated HIV
prevention efforts are both included in the document and strengthened.

Update on commitments to reproductive health and family planning:

As we earlier reported, the original version of the HNP strategy leaked to
the press did not contain references to family planning—with the exception
of one reference to a prior Bank-funded project on family planning. Thanks
to repeated efforts by ministers who were concerned by the lack of
references to family planning, those references have been re-inserted in a
revised version, which is not currently available to the public.

Internal sources have, however, provided us with text from the draft
document referring to reproductive health and family planning. You can
review them at
http://www.pepfarwa tch.org/pubs/ Reinserted% 20ParagraphsFPan dRH.pdf

The re-inclusion of this language is only a partial victory as the
language itself is quite weak, and we are unable at this time to review
the context of the larger strategy in which this language has been
included. As a result, your efforts are still needed to ensure that the
Executive Directors of the World Bank, especially the Europeans, take
action to safeguard reproductive health and rights in World Bank-funded
programs.

We also need to hold those in positions of power accountable for their
mismanagement and for undermining World Bank policy. The fact that the
references were removed in the first place is indicative of a failure by
Bank management.

We urge you to contact Executive Directors before Tuesday.
A sample letter can be found at
http://www.pepfarwa tch.org/pubs/ CivilSocietyLett er4.19.07. doc
Please feel free to use the draft letter to send to Executive Directors or
to write your own.

The names, phone numbers and email addresses of the World Bank Executive
Directors can be found at: http://www.bicusa. org/en/Article. 92.aspx

For more information about this issue, see Nicole Gaouette's piece in the
Los Angeles Times (April 19)
http://www.latimes. com/features/ health/medicine/ la-na-worldbank1 9apr19,1, 2963249.story? ctrack=3& cset=true
and Sarah Boseley's piece in The Guardian (April 16)
http://www.guardian .co.uk/imf/ story/0,, 2058078,00. html

Also, visit the Government Accountability Project's website at
http://www.whistleb lower.org/ content/press_ detail.cfm? press_id= 893

As you know, the World Bank is a key agency for development cooperation.
We need its support if we are to deliver sexual and reproductive health
and rights for all by 2015.

Serra Sippel
Deputy Director
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)

Sudan’s Children at a Crossroads, a report by Watchlist, outlines the continued and extensive aggressions committed against children in the Sudan. While children in the South are enjoying improved security and access to services, those in Darfur face appalling levels of violence and abuse. This report is released in the backdrop of a humanitarian crisis and rapidly deteriorating security situation in Darfur where thousands of children lack access to the most basic resources and face the threat of abduction, rape and other forms of sexual violence, armed attacks and forced displacement. Despite real progress achieved in southern Sudan, the region still lacks an adequate health infrastructure and qualified health personnel, with only one primary healthcare center for every 79,500 people.

Restrictive government policies and administrative procedures have hindered access to Darfur, the East and other volatile regions in Sudan, making it difficult for humanitarian agencies to deliver essential services. In addition, information about abuses against Sudanese children is
increasingly difficult to obtain as many organizations express concern that sharing information will trigger retributive attacks against their staff and operations or beneficiaries. On top of this, the deteriorating security situation in Darfur and the unstable situation in the East have prevented many humanitarian actors from accessing severely vulnerable populations,
providing services, documenting abuses and sharing this information with the international community.

I am helping to organize an art exhibition and concert event on April 20th, with 100% of the proceeds going towards trafficking intervention work.

As you know, I have been working on the issue of trafficking for many years, and it is not often that we collectively can come together in NYC to contribute towards ending this modern day form of slavery. The organization recieving the proceeds is Maiti Nepal and it's border intervention program. A few years back I was fortunate to spend a week observing Maiti Nepal's work while conducting a situational analysis of anti-trafficking efforts in Southern Nepal. There couldn't be a more worthy recipient. Please let me know if I can provide further information.

I request you to please forward this on to friends/contacts who may be interested. (click on image for larger view)

Earlier in March, IRIN launched "The Shame of War: sexual violence against women and girls in conflict" - a reference book and photo essay of portraits and testimonies of the sexual violence women suffer when men go to war. It examines the scope and nature of this violence and looks at the different ways the international community is addressing sexual violence against women and girls during and after conflict. Above all, the aim of this book is to inform, to shock and to join the voices saying 'Enough!'. Sexual violence against women and girls does not have to be an inevitable consequence of war.

For more information and to download the full text, please click here.

I just got this in my inbox from FPA:

"We have never asked for your support before, but today just 37% of America's youth can identify Iraq on a map despite the presence of U.S. troops there since 2003, and only 1 in 10 can locate Afghanistan. Your $25 donation can put the Great Decisions briefing book in the hands of a student.

"When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I'm terrified for our workforce of tomorrow," says Bill Gates. You can do something TODAY to better prepare our leaders of TOMORROW.

Support the FPA's Great Decisions in the Classroom Drive to put educational materials on global affairs where they are needed most: In the classrooms of American schools."

Donate online by clicking here:
https://www.fpa.org/contribute

Thoughts?

"There's a little more resistance to it than I would have expected, and it doesn't come from the poor countries, it comes from the rich ones, which is kind of odd."

-- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, defending his anti-corruption drive, which prompted him to suspend aid to countries such as Chad. Critics have said the push threatens to reduce aid to the needy. Wolfowitz's comments came at the end of a weeklong trip through Africa, during which he urged developed nations to increase aid or risk the continent turning into a 'breeding ground for terrorists." Wolfowitz's third trip to Sub-Saharan Africa since he took over as president of the lender in June 2005 was also a prelude to a yearlong campaign to raise at least USD 18 billion from rich countries that the World Bank will then use to build schools, roads and clinics in poor nations.

Indentured servitude. Illegal and still existing.

Today is International Women's Day.

On a day when we celebrate as global sisters, HRW points out how girls the world over are victimized on the basis of their gender, and confront an alarming array of threats to their safety, including physical and sexual violence in their schools, places of work, and in detention facilities. Governments have largely failed to implement key measures preventing and responding to these abuses. HRW recently released three background papers summarizing research on violence against girls: "Violence against Schoolgirls;" "Violence against Child Domestic Workers;" and "Violence against Girls in Conflict with the Law." These reports are based on HRW investigations in 15 countries, including: Afghanistan, Brazil, the Congo (DRC), Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Morocco, Papua New Guinea; South Africa,; Togo; the US; and Zambia. For the reports, click here.

North Korean's today celebrated, albeit forcedly, the birthday of "the great leader" Kim Jong Il. The country is garnering alot of coverage here in the media in Asia, given recent developments around nuclear dismantlement. I was reading an old issue of Time Asia, and happened upon this fascinating article on the Underground Railroad - the arduous journey of North Korean defectors. The plight of North Korean refugees is not something I've come across much coverage on.

here's a film that sounds really interesting: Bamako

$5 million: amount to be awarded to the winner of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, created by the Sudanese born business tycoon to honor corruption free African leaders. This prize is now the world's highest, eclipsing the Nobel's $1.4 million award.

$148 billion: estimated annual cost of corruption in the African continent, which is 25% of the continent's GDP.

The latest issue of Forced Migration Review is on a topic of great interest to me: "Sexual violence: weapon of war, impediment to peace". The issue explores the challenges and opportunities for combating sexual violence in conflict, post-conflict and development recovery contexts. Practice-oriented submissions from 40 specialists from a wide range of humanitarian agencies highlight key issues and challenges, best practices, innovative programmes and recommendations. In addition, there are 13 non-theme articles, including on Iraq, Somalia, Kosovo, Colombia, Uganda and Western Sahara. This issue of FMR is complemented by a June 2006 International Symposiumon Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond.

Just as the 10 year civil war drew to a close in Nepal, and stability seemed to be on the horizon, another conflict is yet again proving problematic. Madhesis, a ethnic minority, have been rioting in parts of Southern Nepal. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala promised Jan. 31 to turn Nepal into a federal state after this year's constituent assembly elections, a move to stem protests by ethnic Madhesi people in which 11 people have died. He also vowed to redraw constituencies for the planned vote, the first in eight years, on the basis of population and geography to raise the representation of different groups, including the Madhesi people, in the assembly.

"It's either some colossal cluelessness or remarkable indifference to that reality that would somehow try to equate raising one's hand with a diamond on it as a promotional counter-measure to the effect of the film." -- Edward Zwick, director of Hollywood film Blood Diamond, attacking a campaign to get film stars to display gems at awards events. The US diamond industry is donating USD 10,000 to African charities for each star raising a hand with a ring at events including the Oscars. Zwick, whose Africa-set film highlights the issue of illegal diamond profits funding wars, called the move a "charitable bribe" and "distasteful." The World Diamond Council (WDC) said so-called "blood diamonds" made up less than 1 percent of new diamonds, compared with 4 percent in the late 1990s. Conflict diamonds have been linked to armed struggles in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the DRC (Congo) and the Central African Republic.

I'm off to Asia for the next few weeks, and will be posting intermittently, but with more direct news from the region. Stay tuned!