2006

By Meindert Korevaar
When you visit South-Africa, Durban is a must see for many reasons. Durban offers great opportunities for tourism, like fishing and whale watching. The mixture of all kinds of people, black, white and the Indian community, makes Durban to a melting pot of cultures and therefor a very vibrant place. Combined with its relaxed beaches and the nice climate this city is really a good place to stay. At least, that's what I thought.

By Manyang Mayom (Sudan Tribune)
A two-day conference started Wednesday in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, to explore ways of an oil policy that can help government to use petrodollar revenue as an instrument to consolidate peace and bring prosperity.

The European Union rewarded Fatal Transactions with a new three-year grant to continue the campaign on conflict-related exploitation of natural resources in Africa. From January 1st 2007 Fatal Transactions will have a new coalition, with members from Europe and Africa.

In the documentary series "Africa, War is Business", HRH Prince Jaime de Bourbon Parme travels to several countries in Africa to explore the different aspects of "war economies".

The international Conference, organised by Medico International and the Protestant Academy Bad Boll gives the opportunity to take a step back and reflect the chances and constraints of global campaign work. It will be an occasion to discuss the strategies taken by the Fatal Transactions campaign and others.

The soil of the Wassa district in southern Ghana contains a big wealth of gold. Several foreign mining companies are situated here to extract this money making metal. As in many cases of natural resource exploitation, the mines bring both money and misery. Wassa district forms no exception.

On July 6th and 7th, 2006, over 40 participants from 20 different countries gathered in Accra, Ghana for the OECD Watch Inter-regional Training and Strategy Seminar.

Declaration of the OECD Watch International / inter-regional seminar on OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises

The Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) is seriously concerned about the safety of its Congolese partner organisations. Human rights and media organisations in Katanga have received death threats due to their criticism of the corruption in the extractive industry sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Representatives from the media and other civil society organisations in the DRC met in Lubumbashi to discuss possibilities for co-operation. This meeting was a follow-up from a conference in Brussels in November 2005, organised by Fatal Transactions on: "Natural resources in the DRC: source of conflict, or key to development?