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To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Norwegian PEN is focusing, together with other PEN Centres, on the case of Mexican writer and journalist Lydia Cacho, right. Cacho currently faces trial under charges of criminal defamation related to her exposure of the connection between prominent businessmen and a child pornography in her latest book. (08-MAR-06)
 

The Norwegian Oil Fund has sold almost 70% of its shares in the French oil company Total. The Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), which has been campaigning against the Fund’s investments in Total because of its contested activities in the military-ruled Asian country, is pleased. “This is very good news,” says Marte Graff Jenssen of NBC. (03-MAR-06)
 

Thursday February 23 Rafto Price laureate Lidija Yusupova visited the Human Rights House in Oslo to inform Norwegian civil society on the new NGO-law in the Russian Federation that will come into force April 10. One of the consequences of the law is that all financial transfers to Russian NGO´s in the future will have to be approved by the Russian authorities. “The new law will make it even more difficult for Russian NGO´s to do their work.” (28-FEB-06)
 

MOSTAR – The Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (NHC) and Nansen Dialogue Centre Mostar organized in February a Human Rights School for high school teachers from Mostar, Konjic and Stolac in Bosnia Hercegovina (BiH). (24-FEB-06)

For the last two weeks, the Norwegian Burma Committee and the Nobel Peace Center have held role-plays for high school students at the Human rights House in Oslo. The aim of the play was to agree upon how to end the use of child soldiers in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar). The students truly became their parts: junta generals refusing all allegations; Thailand’s ministers disagreeing among themselves – there were even spies infiltrating the other groups and taping secret negotiations. (20-FEB-06)

-There is no doubt that with sufficient political will, both nationally and internationally, the conflict in Northern Republic of Uganda could have been brought to an end and the humanitiarian crisis resolved, said OCHA- director and deputy Secretary general of the UN Jan Egeland, right, at a seminar in Norway last week. (19-FEB-06)
 

Timed to reached Deputy Minister of Development Raymond Johansen´s journey to Republic of Uganda shortly after the elections scheduled for Thursday 23 February, three major international NGOs have written a letter to him requesting that Norway now pushes for the United Nations´ role in the Republic of Uganda to be put on the political agenda. (18-FEB-06)
 

-In not too long, we will invite expertise from different environments to a big workshop on Africa, Jonas Gahr Støre, right, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in the Christian Norwegian daily Vårt Land today. In the foreign affairs debate in Parliament last week, Gahr Støre spoke in favour of a ‘renewed’ policy towards Africa. (15-FEB-06)
 

The Russian-Chechen Information Agency is awarded one of the Fritt Ord´s and ZEIT-Stiftung Press Prizes 2006. This prize is aimed at Eastern European media and journalists who are dedicated to independent reporting and who dare to withstand self-censorship. But for its chief director, Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, this comes at a price. (13-FEB-05)