Etyopian Simbiro discusses Ethiopia's political situation and argues that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's resignation is long overdue. Although Zenawi seems to be holding onto power endlessly, Simbiro perceives certain cracks in the framework of power. Firstly, Simbiro argues that Obama’s Africa policy has changed significantly from that of the previous administration, meaning that the governments of Africa are going to have to be more democratic before receiving aid and entering into an open alliance with the US. Secondly, the author argues that the Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD) is a promising opposition coalition that stands a chance against Zenawi in the 2010 elections. Finally, Simbiro argues that the Ethiopian people have had enough of Zenawi’s rule and the way he treats the population.

In this week's Pambazuka News, Isaac Newton Kinity urges the International Criminal Court (ICC), the African Union and the United Nations to move the tribunal for Kenya’s post-election violence out of the country due to security concerns.

With the in Geneva due to consider calls for re-eliminating laws discriminating against women next week, Faiza Mohamed urges Pambazuka News readers to petition their governments to support the mandate. Please read the full letter for details of how to contact your representatives.

Mamadou Goita—Executive Director of the Institute for Research and the Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD) in Mali—was interviewed at the Salzburg Global Seminar by Susanna Thorpe, of WREN Media. This interview was during a high-level conference entitled “Toward a ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa?” The Salzburg Global Seminar partnered with the Institute of Development Studies and the Future Agricultures Consortium, bringing together stake holders from around the globe, to work on the challenges facing Africa regarding agriculture and farming.

President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia on September 21, 2009 issued a stern warning to Gambians in a television broadcast not to have anything to do with international human rights advocates, who he described as “saboteurs” bent on “destabilizing” the country.

The International Journal for Transitional Justice invites submissions for its 2010 special issue titled “Transitional Justice on Trial: Evaluating its Impact” to be guest edited by Colleen Duggan, Senior Program Specialist with the Evaluation Unit of the International Development Research Centre, Canada.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food has presented his second report entitled “Crisis into opportunity: reinforcing multilateralism”, on the global food crisis to the UN Human Rights Council.

My name is Mubayandi Kwiima.* I am 39-years-old and a mother of five. I’m the second wife in the polygamous marriage of three wives. I work as a clerk at one of the government ministries in Zambia. My story started in 1989 when I got married to a man who presented himself to me as a single man. My parents accepted his gesture and allowed him to marry me after he had paid dowry as per our Tonga tradition.

Sudanese army and government militias attacked this week twice rebel positions in Korma near Jebel Marra, said a commander from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Abdel Wahid Al Nur. Fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) sit on top of a truck outside the north Darfur town of Kutum, December 15, 2007. The SLM/A rebel commander Ibrahim Al-Hillu said the air and ground attack began on Thursday and continued on Friday adding that the thousands of civilians fled their villages to take shelter from the assailant troops near Jebel Marra.

The climate crisis and the financial crisis highlight the need to organise for social change -- and also open unprecedented opportunities for doing so. But to prevent a destructive return to business as usual, the roots of both crises need to be understood, together with the nature and limitations of elite responses to them. As a contribution to this discussion, 10 new documents have recently been added to The Corner House's extensive collection of free books and articles on climate change and finance.

In many African communities, women struggle to feed their households. The situation is worse when husbands migrate seeking better opportunities, or are absent completely, for one reason or another. Across Southern Africa, groups of mostly women farmers are turning back to traditional food crops in hopes of better food security for their families, and finding economic independence at the same time.

The Tanzanian government has refuted media reports indicating that it has leased out 1000 square kilometres of farmland to South Koreans. It was reported that South Korea had agreed to develop farmland in Tanzania, the latest in series of such deals between rich and poor nations.

Officials of the Ivorian Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) have held a meeting with religious leaders to enable them to better understand the current electoral process in the country.

National governments, in cooperation with international agencies and donors, should reconsider their decision to deport people living with HIV/AIDS, human rights groups said. A report, released by four HIV/AIDS and human rights groups, describes cases in South Korea, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and the US, in which HIV-positive migrants were deported, saying that there was the need to develop policies guaranteeing uninterrupted treatment for this class of people.

Zimbabwe’s troubled constitution making process is facing new challenges after the coalition principals in the unity government packed the executive of a committee managing the reforms with trusted loyalists. The process to craft a new supreme law for the country that must be completed within two years is a key area for the unity government formed by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The United States has sent warning letters to 15 prominent Kenyans it says are blocking reform in east Africa's biggest economy following last year's post-election violence, the U.S. ambassador has said. Michael Ranneberger, the U.S. envoy to Kenya, declined to name the individuals. But he said they included sitting government ministers, members of parliament and other senior officials on both sides of the country's coalition government.

Political instability in Madagascar is having a serious effect on the already fragile and highly endangered ecology of this island nation. This is of profound concern as Madagascar contains many unique species that are already severely threatened.

The UK government should not rely on unreliable "diplomatic assurances" against torture to deport national security suspects to Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to the UK government. In December 2008, the United Kingdom and Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), similar to those the UK has signed with Jordan, Lebanon and Libya. Under these MoUs, the receiving governments provide "diplomatic assurances" that they will not mistreat persons whom the other country transfers to their territory.

On September 16, 2009, Mr. Wale Oluokun, the Radio Nigeria Correspondent for Government House in Owerri, the Imo State capital in South-east Nigeria was beaten and injured by four armed government security agents in the presence of the Imo State Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Henry Ekpe and a couple of other journalists.

African leaders are at the forefront of a landmark initiative to protect all those at risk from malaria with life-saving interventions by the end of 2010, the United Nations Envoy for efforts to defeat the deadly disease says. The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) is tasked with ensuring that more than 240 million insecticide-treated bed nets are distributed throughout malaria-endemic countries on the continent by the end of 2010, with the aim of ending unnecessary deaths from the disease by 2015.

Senegal has called for United Nations support for the “Great Green Wall” project in which African countries have agreed to plant trees in a band across the breadth of the continent to try to lessen the effects of desertification. President Abdoulaye Wade told the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate that he wishes the UN will endorse the project, “which contributes to the protection of the environment,” help in the battle against climate change and would mobilize thousands of people.

The drought crisis in war-torn Somalia is turning increasingly acute and spreading to regions previously spared, with half the country’s 7 million people in need of aid, an increasing risk of deaths, and insufficient international donor response, a senior United Nations official has said.“Somalia needs to be seen as a priority case,” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden told a news briefing in New York.

The United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF) on Monday availed US$70 million to Zimbabwe&s under-funded education sector that is currently reeling under a two-week-old strike by teachers across the country. "The government of Zimbabwe, the United Nations Children's Education Fund and the international donor community unveiled a US$70 million partnership through the Educational Transition Fund," UNICEF said in a statement.

Several health-related budget decisions taken in the past financial year violated the Constitution, the National Health Act, the Public Finance Management Act and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. This is according to a group of activists, researchers, unionists, health workers and academics who have written letters to the ministers of health and finance, expressing grave concern over budgeting practices within the public health system and the dire effect it is shaving on HIV/AIDS, including the antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes.

A growing epidemic among child and adolescent survivors of mother-to-child HIV transmission in southern Africa is emerging, highlighting the failure to recognise its development and address the clinical needs of this population, research published in the September 24th issue of AIDS shows. Although there is a high risk of death in the first year of life for infants infected perinatally, children may live with asymptomatic HIV infection for long periods, undiagnosed.

The second half of 2008 saw unfold one of the most significant financial crises in history that started in the United States and then spread to Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. The response was just as historic. To stave off regional and global recessions and restore stability and confidence in the market, northern governments are pursuing a massive and unprecedented program of government intervention, nationalizing banks, injecting massive subsidies into ailing institutions and re-regulating their financial sectors.

Criticised as system of dividing and ruling people according to their ethnic groups, Ethiopia’s federalism has just become a bone of contention. A recent international report warns if this system, and the resultant lack of governance, continues the entire Horn of Africa could be destabilised.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT), expresses its deepest concerns following the accusations against human rights organisations voiced by Dr. Abdel Aziz Hegazi, Chairperson of the General Federation of Civil Associations, an institution likely to become the prime means for the Executive to regulate NGOs in Egypt.

Uganda like many other developing countries, suffers from inequitable distribution of health workers between rural and urban areas and between public and private sectors. To strengthen the referral systems, people living with HIV have been trained as Network Support Agents (NSA) to work alongside health care workers in health facilities. This handbook has been designed to help NSAs and other community-based volumteers/providers to be more effective in disseminating standardised HIV and AIDs information at grassroorts levels.

A film, set to be released on the 7 April 2010, has brought the topic of homosexuality back in the agenda in Tunisia. The first feature film by Tunisia’s Mehdi ben Attia titled “Le Fil”, tackles the issue of homosexuality between men within a male chauvinistic society where men are supposed to be men and ancient traditions still rule. Entirely shot in Tunisia, “Le Fil” was presented under the Tunisian National Selection, during the Festival du Film Francophone d’Angouleme (South West of France), on 26 to the 30 August 2009.

Persistent drought compounded by higher than average food prices have created East Africa's worst food crisis in decades. Millions of children face the greatest risks, including severe malnutrition, disease, and death. But official food aid is falling well short of increased needs, particularly in Ethiopia. Across the Horn of Africa, an estimated 20 million people will need emergency humanitarian assistance through the end of this year. In comparison, last year – when drought, high food prices, and conflict were also at issue – only 14 million needed such assistance in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda.

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for the release of Rodrigo Angue Nguema, the Malabo correspondent of Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, who has been held in the capital’s Black Beach prison for the past 100 days. He was tried on a defamation charge on 1 September but the court has yet to issue a verdict.

In Africa, the argument goes, the information and communications technology (ICT) market has not grown as fast as it could have because of the lack of a conducive policy and regulatory environment. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), by 2007 only 34 African countries had ICT policies, 12 were in the process of drafting one, while seven had not even launched the policy development process.

A six-year clinical trial in Thailand has yielded the first ever evidence that an AIDS vaccine can provide some protection against HIV infection. The trial team in Bangkok, Thailand's capital announced on 24 September that rates of HIV infection were 31 percent lower in trial participants who got the vaccine than in those who received a placebo.

Multiple partnerships may not be as common in South Africa as previously thought, according to a study presented at the recent AIDS Research Symposium at the University the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. Saul Johnson, managing director of Health & Development Africa (HDA), a health consultancy which conducted the research, said findings from four sites across the country showed about 26 percent of men and 5 percent of women reported having had more than one partner in the past year.

Eritrea ranks last place on the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) index measuring the level of press freedom in 173 countries. Privately owned press have been banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki since 2001, and the few journalists who dare to criticise the regime are thrown in prison, says RSF. Four journalists have died in detention and, currently, at least 30 journalists and two media workers are believed to be in prison without trial.

V. R. Raghavan highlights that the growing output of studies and books on the implications of the power-shift to Asia has generally been based on the need to protect the interests of developed countries, but the latest edited volume by N.S. Sisodia, V. Krishnappa provides a refreshing contribution to the discourse by examining an Asian perspective on the global power shifts.

Sixty years ago, as Mao Zedong declared the founding of a new communist nation, considered a pariah state. Today t is a world power with sweeping influence -- it is financing America's debt, snapping up access to natural resources in Africa and Latin America, and making its voice heard on major diplomatic issues.

Among the stories covered in this week’s Emerging powers news roundup, Russia’s influence as an investment partner grows, China signs deals in Ethiopia, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and African nations lure Indian businessmen.