The new milenium started with a lot of important conferences. Beijing +5 was certainly the most spectacular oneconference. But have the results been so spectacular? Find out from the articles of Zubeda Dangor and María Toro Suarez.

At the conference the Vatican was once again playing its backward-looking role. The only thing that is new is that recently the Pope apologized to mankind for the sins of the church. Elena Fonseca gives us her views on this apology.

The world is presenting itself this Summer in Germany at 'expo 2000'. But has the entire world been presented and what role is being played there by women and NGO's? Isabel Rodde enlightens us. The ifu - the International Women's University - which is purposely taking place at the same time in Germany is exclusively for women, but for women from all over the world. International and interdisciplinary exchanges on general political issues will be taking place amongst women at ifu this Summer.

Therefore one does not need to be at the venue: the vifu - the virtual university - is to be found at the same time on the net and it is planned to continue as a project after the conference. It is ideal for the exchange of views and research, as described by Ute Scheub. Saskia Sassen is one of the lecturers at ifu. She has become well-known all over the world for her work on the "urban" issue and she was also present as an expert at Urban 21, one of the other mega conference of this Summer. The "urban" issue happens to be central for the future of the entire world - like the "woman' issue - this is why we requested her to write an article.

We are throwing light on electronic communications and Africa's role in two articles: African journalists are discussing the "Pros" and "Cons" of the internet and Kgatliso Pleasant Masethla and Stephanie Gingras are describing telecentres in South Africa. But not everything operates electronically: women of the "Frauengedächtnisprojekt" (a project of interviews on women's life stories) conducted in several East European countries, are making use of 'oral history', as explained by Alena Wagnerova. And Pat Barker, the author interviewed for us by Wera Reusch, still publishes her novels on paper. She mainly broaches the subject of "war" - a theme also dealt with by Seema Kazi in her articles about women in Kashmir.
Milaray Painemal and Sara MacFall write about the history and the current situation of the Mapuche-women in Chile.

Christiane Jungblut
Regina Michalik

Translated from German by Martina Schwikowski