People are suffering in Zimbabwe and it seems like nothing is being done about it. We need more than public statement condemning Mugabe's actions. We need to secure the safety of the citizens of Zimbabwe.

Click for an online petition directed towards the U.N. Security Council and the neighboring Southern African nations to put more pressure on Mugabe.

Earlier this month in Washington D.C., Thomas J. Christensen (Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs) and James Swan (Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs) briefed the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on China’s growing presence in Africa and its impact on U.S. policy.

Energy-hungry China and the United States, the world’s two greatest oil consumers, are jockeying for influence over Africa’s vast economic potential. But as the two rivals sink their business hooks into the continent, soldiers from the two nations have also rubbed elbows there.

On June 29 three police vans pulled up to Symphony Way dressed in riot gear. Without warning, they began pepper spraying people in the settlement and attempted to arrest an older resident named Auntie Tilla. When it was all over, the road's pastor had been assaulted, beaten and abducted and five residents had been pepper sprayed multiple times.

The EU has not ruled out taking action against Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe in the wake of presidential elections marred by extensive violence. In a statement issued following the elections on Friday (27 June), Slovenia, which currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency warned "The European Union does not exclude the possibility of taking appropriate measures against those responsible for the tragic events of recent months."

This study aimed to assess equity in uptake of antiretroviral therapy in Malawi in 2005, especially according to age (children vs. adults), gender (men vs. women) and income. Particular reference is made to the scaling up of ART and the removal of fees for ART in 2004. Informal interviews were conducted with health sector antiretroviral programme implementers and key policy makers in the Ministry of Health.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday approved a three-year, 79-million-U.S.-dollar plan to support Zambia's efforts to alleviate poverty and sustain economic growth. The new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) plan succeeds a previous arrangement successfully completed last year, the IMF said in a press release.

The Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA) is pleased to call for applications for the position of Regional Coordinator, based in Bamako, in the Republic of Mali. The deadline for receipt of applications is 14 August 2008.

20 June 2008 was World Refugee Day. The theme for this year was ‘Refugee Protection’. For Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), it was a little ironic. In fact, MSF marked the day by placing public messages in major national and regional newspapers, calling for the South African government and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide the necessary assistance and legal protection to Zimbabweans guaranteed under international law.

Horytna “Our Freedom” Radio, was introduced to the media world and the internet web as an independent cultural and news radio, paying more attention to the young people and open to various trends and ideas, within a rational framework, characterized by being balanced and accurate in getting the information. It relies on press and radio broadcasting methods of a high level of professionalism put in a simple style and in sound yet easy Arabic language.

The Management Board of Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, Munich, today decided to cease delivering banknote paper to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with immediate effect. The company has taken this step in response to an official request from the German government and calls for international sanctions by the European Union and United Nations.

Gina Ama Blay, publisher and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Western Publications Limited, publishers of the Daily Guide, an Accra-based pro-government daily newspaper on July 2, 2008 allegedly received threats on her life by a caller who only identified himself as “Gajekpo” and claimed to be a soldier in the Ghana Armed Forces.

On Wednesday 11 June, some participants from the Get Organised for Human Rights programme were take to Dam Village, Kangemi, Nairobi. There they met and learned from the Dam Village community about the destruction of the village. On 9 May 2008, in the middle of the night, a demolition force entered the village, and without any warning, forced people out of their homes, destroyed community buildings and homes, thus rendering 300 women, children and men homeless. “We need your solidarity” said Mr Stephen Shipanzi, Chairman of Dam Village.

Fundamentalist forces have gained ground around the world, exerting an increased control on women’s lives. The Millennium Development Goals alongside the new aid architecture have restructured development assistance with women’s rights taking a back seat. From November 14–17, 2008, up to 1,500 women’s rights activists from around the world will gather in Cape Town, South Africa to debate and strategize about how to build stronger movements to advance women’s rights and gender equality globally.

Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the presidential run-off scheduled for June 27, and his decision to seek the protection of the Dutch embassy in Pretoria, has secured for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe a Pyrrhic victory. Mugabe's triumph comes at a huge cost to democracy and stability in Zimbabwe, as well as in the region. The actions of the Mugabe regime in the run-up to Tsvangirai's decision demand a strong regional response to what is clearly a stolen victory.

People who work in the digital divide world, routinely over emphasize the value of information communication technology (ICT) for the poor, often forgetting that technology is nothing more than a means to an end and one that’s only of value if it increases conveniences and the quality of people's lives.

This paper considers the challenges that need to be addressed within the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) forest sector if innovative models for the management and financing of the country's forests are to be successfully implemented. These challenges include those related to broader forest governance, i.e. the policy, legal and institutional conditions. It also considers the conditions required to facilitate forest business and enterprises.

With the revelations that the Director General of Kenya Anti Corruption Commission Mr. Aaron Ringera, the Governor of Central Bank Mr. Njuguna Ndungu and the Finance Minister Mr. Amos Kimunya have conspired to sell Grand Regency Hotel to the Libyan Government, all that Kenyans can do is to immediately boycott doing business with Grand Regency Hotel immediately.

Bank Information Center has recently released it's new "Handbook for Advocacy on Extractive Industry Revenues: Good Practices and the IMF’s Guide on Resource Revenue Transparency."

The IMF said on Tuesday it needed to evaluate the impact on Democratic Republic of Congo's economy of a huge recent Chinese loan and investment deal before it could conclude a formal accord with the African state. The International Monetary Fund's country representative for Congo, Xavier Maret, said the $9 billion mining and infrastructure partnership with China signed by Kinshasa this year had raised questions about Congo's level of indebtedness.

Belgian authorities have transferred Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and rape, to the Court’s detention centre in The Hague.

The United Nations refugee agency has interviewed nearly 180 Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum-seekers detained in Egypt to assess their claims for refugee status, and urged the authorities to continue to provide unhindered access to others who are being held.

The United Nations health agency has started preparations for the expected return of tens of thousands of displaced people to their homes in the disputed central Sudanese town of Abyei. The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a media statement that it is focusing on restoring basic health services for the returnees and controlling the health risks for both the returnees and the people still displaced after deadly fighting erupted in May.

While officials at the US Embassy in Harare took the day off to celebrate America’s Independence Day on Friday, almost 200 victims of political violence were still waiting outside the embassy gates seeking refuge and shelter. An estimated 260 people fled their homes to seek shelter at the diplomatic mission on Thursday, as the state sponsored violence against MDC supporters continued.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.

The UN refugee agency has recently signed an agreement with three organizations aimed at ensuring the protection needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Libya. This is in line with UNHCR's responsibility to advocate for better protection of refugees in the context of mixed asylum and migration flows.

Annette* is a small, lively woman in her early sixties. Married to an abusive husband -- who once threw boiling water on her, landing her in hospital -- she was not repeating the story with her alcoholic and drug-addicted son. Just as her husband was growing older and calmer, her son was getting increasingly violent.

While lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in countries such as Uganda continue to fight for their inclusion in the HIV and Aids programmes, Malawian LGBTI community is making noticeable strides towards recognition. This comes after the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP), a Malawian human rights organisation, presented research findings on HIV sero- prevalence study among men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Malawi.

Chad's security forces have claimed to have killed more than 60 people loyal to a Muslim spiritual leader in clashes in the town of Kouno, around 300km south east of the capital Ndjamena. Government soldiers fought with the followers of Ahmat Ismael Bichara, a "marabout" or holy man, who had allegedly threatened a "holy war" in the country.

The death toll from fighting between Somali anti-government fighters and Ethiopian and Ugandan forces, has risen to 53 people, according to a human rights organisation. The increased toll was reported on Wednesday by Ahmed Sudan, chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights organisation.

Video footage which appears to show ballot-rigging taking place in Zimbabwe's recent presidential run-off election has been posted on the website of a British newspaper. The footage had reportedly been smuggled out of the country by Shepherd Yuda, an officer at a prison in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

Moussa Toybou has been confirmed the winner of Anjouan's hotly contested presidential run-off by the Constitutional Court, beating his challenger, Mohamed Djanfari. Mr. Toybou, 46, polled 52.42% of the votes against Mr. Djanfari's 47.58%, official results showed. Unlike his challenger, who was formerly the Vice President of the Comoros federal government, Toybou had been a complete novice in politics.

Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has accepted the resignation of the country's government, calling it "one of the worst ever," national television reported Saturday.

Human security should come first in seeking conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. Favour should be shown to partners that protect their people - whether they are state or non-state actors - and not just to those who claim to protect western interests. And all states in the region should be required to conform to “the normal conventions of international conduct.”

These are the main conclusions of a new Chatham House report by Sally Healey in ‘Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel.’ The conclusions, despite their diplomatic wording, amount to a clear criticism of outside and especially Western policy in the region. But the underlying analysis provides a valuable conceptual tool-kit for challenging the concepts used more widely for understanding conflict.

The report looks at three peace processes in the Horn - the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea; The Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process of October 2004, and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005.

Each of the three processes is unique, and their most obvious common feature is that the results are mixed. The Algiers Agreement has not led to a permanent settlement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two instruments created at Algiers to help reach a permanent peace - the boundary commission and the UN force - have both run out of steam. At least the two sides have not returned to open war. But their enmity continues, and is played out by proxy elsewhere in the region, especially in Somalia.

The leaders of the world’s most industrialised nations declared their intention to impose sanctions on "individuals responsible for violence" in Zimbabwe, adding that they did not recognise the legitimacy of President Mugabe’s government and calling on the appointment of a United Nations (UN) special envoy to complement an expanded mediation team. However, China, Russia and three other countries opposed the resolution in the UN Security Council proposed by the United States saying that ‘the situation in Zimbabwe did not meet the standards for sanctions’ and that the move would be ‘counter-productive’ to African-led talks to resolve the crisis. In the meantime, the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, is scheduled to meet the Chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, to brief him on the developments of the mediation process in Zimbabwe. While Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade has criticised the AU decision on Zimbabwe describing it as ‘irresponsible’ and criticising the lack of protective measure to avoid a deterioration of the situation. Indeed, the ‘inability for the SADC [Southern African Development Community] or the AU to censure Zimbabwe has dealt a heavy blow to the AU’s stated objective of fostering and supporting democracy in Africa’, according to some commentators, yet, the AU has at its disposal its own mechanisms that can help bolster a negotiated settlement and restore democracy to Zimbabwe. Others, however, note the ‘hypocrisy and double standards’ of Western governments ‘reneging as always on solemn pledges to Africa, now demanding that African governments get serious about Robert Mugabe, blithely ignoring the West’s complicity in Africa’s woes and confident no one will reveal the real story’.

“The ONE Africa Award has opened its CALL FOR NOMINATIONS to individuals, organizations based in Africa. The award is a one time grant of US$100,000.The deadline for receipt of nominations is August 15th, 2008.

The current food crisis is yet another reminder of the feminisation of poverty. Women produce most of the food in poor countries, yet they have less access to seed, fertilisers and extension services. They are also the most hungry -- about seventy per cent of the people who do not have access to enough food are women and girls. Women form the bulk of the working poor -- they toil long hours without reaping enough to enable them to climb out of the dollar-a-day absolute poverty bracket. In some countries women widowed by HIV and AIDS are routinely disinherited, and in these and many other countries women's lower cultural or legal status means that they do not own the land they till. The food crisis has inevitably taken a greater toll on women, and consequently the well-being of whole communities is affected.

Some of the grim statistics are as follows [1]:

- Food prices have risen 55 percent from June 2007 to February 2008, including an 87 percent increase in the cost of rice in March.

- Households in developing countries spend an average of 70 percent of their incomes on food, compared to the 15 to 18 percent that households spend in industrialized countries.

- Even before the food crisis hit, an estimated 7 out of 10 of the world's hungry were women and girls.

- Rural women alone produce half of the world's food and 60% to 80% of the food in most developing countries, but receive less than 10% of credit provided to farmers.

Malawi’s media diversity continues to grow and vary especially in radio broadcast, a sharp contrast to the previous trend in the first ten years of multiparty politics where newspaper business mushroomed with down-market tabloid papers like the Democrat, the Chronicle, the Dispatch, the Generation and others making in roads and establishing themselves for critical reading.

And as the Daily Times, Malawi News, and the Nation took a traditional and sober stand, other papers in the likes of the National Agenda, the People’s Eye, the Malawian, the Times, the Sun established themselves as either anti government or anti opposition spewing venom at opponents without regard to fairness, truth and balance – the basic tenets of professional journalism practice.

On the broadcast spectrum, the country has witnessed a boom in radio broadcast and prides itself with three broadcast stations (Malawi Broadcasting Corporation Radio one and two and Television Malawi). There are three private radio stations (Zodiak Broadcasting Station, Capital FM Radio, and Radio 101 FM) and 13 community radio broadcasters.

Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits: An anthology
by Rasna Warah
Author House, 2008

There is a new, East African book, edited by the excellent Kenyan columnist Rasna Warah, that for us here in the region articulates postdevelopmentalist concerns from a more relevant, specific and local perspective – indeed, in exemplary fashion employing the sort of local and grassroots perspective that such thinkers and activists claim that classical developmentalism too frequently ignores.

Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits is an anthology that brings together some of the region’s best and best-loved writers, whose individual essays enable a kaleidoscopic view of developmentalism in East Africa, its discontents, its hubris, its smugness, its ability to kill through often genuine and well-meant kindness.

In it, as the editor states in her very accessible introduction, we find young and established writers who are, if you like, reformed developmentalists and former NGOers themselves, who are diasporans who can see the industry from the ‘external’ perspective of the donors, leftists who can penetrate the sinister economic motives behind certain forms of development, fiction writers who bring a knowing wit to the debate, investigative journalists who know how to hunt down and express the real suffering of individuals and communities. And the names of the writers are those we know, as East Africans, we can respect. Among others, we have Rasna Warah, Binyavanga Wainaina, Parselelo Kantai, Sunny Bindra, Onyango Oloo, Kalundi Serumaga, Issa Shivji and Firoze Manji.

*Stephen Derwent Partington, is the Kwani? poetry editor and a member of the Concerned Kenyan Writers Initiative.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org