Drought and recent fighting around the town of Beletweyne, in central Somalia's Hiiraan region, have aggravated the plight of at least 1,000 Ethiopian refugee families, who were already facing acute food shortages, local sources told IRIN. Most of these refugees, living in camps for the displaced in Bilis-did and Bulo-korah (on the outskirts of Beletweyne), are Somalis from Ogaden in Ethiopia's Somali region. They fled in 1977 during the war between Ethiopia and Somalia.

On 11 August 2008, Abdulhamid Adiomoh, the Nigerian publisher and editor of "Today", a privately-owned, Banjul-based newspaper, was arrested again and detained overnight at the Serious Crime Unit of the Gambian Police Force in the capital city, Banjul. Adiomoh was arrested previously in July and accused by the police of "publishing with seditious intentions".

Negotiators from Zimbabwe's rival parties are meeting to try to reach a settlement to the country's crisis before this weekend's regional summit, a spokesperson for an opposition faction said on Friday.

Botswana's president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, will not attend a regional summit if Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition fail to reach a power-sharing agreement, Botswanan officials said.

A militant group in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region has handed over two German hostages kidnapped last month. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said they rescued the two men from another militant group who had kidnapped them.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called on the Zimbabwean government to lift restrictions on aid deliveries, to stop "a catastrophic humanitarian crisis". He said curbs on aid agencies imposed in June meant that less than 20% of 1.5m people in need had received help.

The Program Officer of the Better Life Youth Organization, Jefferson J. A. Telar has called for the inclusion of sex education in the Ministry of Education curriculum. He said if sex education forms part of the curriculum, it would minimize the high level of teenage pregnancy in the country.

There are increasing numbers of single mothers in Kenya. Is it a sign of growing independence of women, or a consequence of poverty and lack of sexual education? Angelina Nandwa, the founder of the Single Mothers' Association of Kenya (Smak), says both are true. "The phenomenon is universal and pervasive in Kenya. It is not confined to one class, age-group or region. The causes as well as the consequences of being a single mother vary."

CNN's Anderson Cooper will be highlighting the plight of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, this Sunday. This is a re-airing of the piece televised in January and included a visit to Women for Women International’s offices in the DR Congo. The program will be broadcast at 7:00 pm ET on Sunday, August 17. Please check your local listings for 60 Minutes air times.

Shelters for the victims of a spate of xenophobic violence will have to stay open until the Constitutional Court hears a matter relating to their closure on Monday. Constitutional Court judges were locked in deliberations on the matter for most of Friday, before issuing a direction at 3.30pm.

In December 2008, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Internews and the Every Human Has Rights campaign, supported by The Elders, will celebrate a year of collaboration with leading human rights organisations through the Every Human Has Rights Media Awards.

After a perilous Mediterranean crossing from Libya's shores, streams of would-be immigrants await processing at Italy's southernmost island, Lampedusa. The tiny holiday jewel is in the spotlight as Italy's new right-wing government has begun mounting a crackdown on illegal immigration. The newcomers to the "first aid and emergency centre" are given new shoes, pink for women and blue-and-white striped for men, and clean clothes to wear as they shuffle through the process.

The original, highly acclaimed 'Stepping Stones' training package, published in 1995 by Strategies for Hope and ActionAid, is now used in over 100 countries worldwide. The package - a 240-page manual and a 70-minute workshop video - is designed to help women and men explore their social, sexual and psychological needs; to analyse the communication blocks they face; and to practise different ways of addressing their relationships

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the advanced research and policy dialogue which it is organising on the theme of “Political Pluralism and Electoral Democracy in Guinea-Bissau: What are the Challenges?”. The objective of the dialogue is to contribute to the debate on the challenges of building a more open and democratic society in post-conflict Guinea-Bissau.

The TAC is organising a conference at the end of 2008 to mark ten years since it’s establishment, both to celebrate its achievements and to encourage critical reflection on its past and future. Members, civil society partners and independent scholars are invited to attend and to present papers at the conference.

The widespread use and development of genetically modified crops could lead to "the biggest disaster environmentally of all time," Prince Charles said Wednesday in an interview with a British newspaper. New experiments with GM crops could worsen food-supply problems, the heir to the British throne told the Daily Telegraph.

The 2008 Nelson Mandela International Essay Competition on African Security and Development invites entrants to examine the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, explore why it remains such a dysfunctional, conflict-prone state, and speculate on future options for the country. Will the DRC’s future always be defined by its violent past and will its development always occur within the context of conflict management/resolution? First prize: £1500.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was prevented from travelling to South Africa on Thursday for a summit of Southern African leaders after he was detained at Harare airport and his travel documents were confiscated. Tsvangirai was released shortly after but his documents were not returned to him, said his spokesperson, George Sibotshiwe.

The new military ruler in Mauritania has had been boosted by support from many of the country's politicians. More than two-thirds of the members of parliament, and the same proportion of senators, have put their names to a statement supporting the coup.

Nigeria has handed over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon, bringing an end to a long-standing dispute over the territory. The handover ceremony was moved from the peninsula's main town to Calabar in Nigeria amid security concerns. Over the past year about 50 people have been killed in clashes. The majority of the local population considers itself Nigerian, but an international court ruled in favour of Cameroon in 2002.

Dear Reader

We are taking a break to recharge our batteries. The next issue of Pambazuka News will be on 4 September 2008. We trust you will survive without us until then.

Meanwhile, we hope you will enjoy this special issue on the implications of an Obama presidency for Africa. We welcome your responses to the perspectives offered by our contributors.

Best wishes

The Editors

The African Union (AU) has condemned the military coup in Mauritania and insisted on a return to constitutional government while sending its peace and security commissioner ‘to assess the situation and assist in promoting a peaceful solution to the crisis’. The AU went further to suspend Mauritania's membership until a democratically elected government is in place and demanded the release of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. The suspension is ‘a powerful reminder that Africa is not prepared to return to the dark days when military coups were the tradition’. Analysts have further called for the AU to urge the coup leaders to ‘immediately form a caretaker government’ to restore democracy. International condemnation of the coup has been widespread with threats by the United States and the European Union to cut non-humanitarian aid.

Still in peace and security news, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the AU has expressed concerns at the resignation of a number of cabinet ministers from the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and ‘its impact on the ongoing peace and reconciliation efforts’. The PSC also condemned the attacks against the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and humanitarian workers saying that ‘all acts of violence aimed at undermining the ongoing process in Somalia furthered instability in the region as a whole’. The PSC also called on opposing parties in Burundi to avoid ‘procrastination and delay tactics’ that affect the implementation of the peace deal despite the return to Bujumbura of the representatives of Palipehutu/FNL. Meanwhile, ‘the Kenya style power sharing’ solution, favoured by the AU and the Southern African Development Community, appeared to be close to agreement in the Zimbabwe talks.

In health related news, the former Botswana president Festus Mogae ‘launched a new initiative that will try to use the energy and experience of a group of renowned and forthright African leaders to persuade their peers on the continent to inject fresh energy into their efforts to combat Aids’. The group will include former presidents and other African prominent individuals.

African and Turkish non governmental organisations will meet in Istanbul under the theme ‘cooperation and development’ to set a joint cooperation platform and declaration tackling issues of development, gender, communication and environment, amongst others, to be submitted to the ‘Turkey-Africa cooperation summit’. The aim of the heads of states and government summit is to promote and strengthen political, economic and cultural relations between Turkey and the continent.

Finally, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, the AU Commission chairperson, Mr. Jean Ping noted with optimism the AU’s vision of an Africa free from war and dictatorships and noted the progress made in peace and security with only Somalia and Sudan remaining as protracted conflicts on the Continent. However, he noted that the AU faces considerable financial constraints and claimed that “we should build the capacity of the African Union to deal with all these issues. We should also convince the staff that they should move from reflection to action. There will be resistance everywhere—they are used to meetings and committees. I hope that before my departure we will triumph by bringing our tool, the African Union, into action’.

Southern African leaders should adopt the proposed Gender and Development Protocol at their upcoming summit after amending it to include crucial provisions deleted in 2007, Human Rights Watch has said. One of the most important provisions that should be put back in to the protocol would commit states to criminalize marital rape.

Intimidation of opposition parties and the media ahead of parliamentary elections in Angola, as well as interference in the electoral commission, threaten prospects for a free and fair vote in September, Human Rights Watch has said.

Land grabbing remains a challenge in our country. The Eastleigh Community are about to loose their Community Centre which serves them as provincial administration and social facility. This letter is an appeal for support to secure this land for the community.

Have donors lived up to their pledges under the Paris Declaration? Is aid becoming more effective and accountable for impoverished people? This report for the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) focuses on progress against two principles of the Paris Declaration, ownership and accountability, in Cambodia, Honduras, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, and Sierra Leone.

Students and linguists from Makerere University have translated the open source web browser, Mozilla Firefox, into Luganda at a [email protected] held on the campus in Kampala, Uganda last week. The two-day gathering brought together almost 200 students and allowed them to make a practical contribution to their language’s presence in the digital age.

Sokari Ekine reviews a selection of African blogs:

Mostly Maurice
Black Looks

The Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project of the Open Society network of foundations in Africa (AfriMAP) wishes to announce the publication of three papers considering the relevance to Africa of recent constitutional reform proposals from Britain, France and Canada. They are available at: .

It was August 7, 1998. Suicide bombers exploded 700 kilos of TNT in a truck outside of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. The bomb blast ended the lives of 257 people, injured 6,000, and destroyed a fragile peace in a bustling city. At the same time, another explosion rocked the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A little-known terrorist network named al Qaeda organized the attacks, led by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.

Ten years later, the survivors and the victims’ families continue to mourn and to seek justice. Last Thursday, Kenyans from all walks of life gathered at the site of the blast in Nairobi, to remember the dead and to call for greater vigilance. The site has been transformed into the “August 7 Memorial Park” with monuments and gardens and trees. Once called “Ground Zero,” a site of terror and pain, it is now a place of respite, a green corner in a busy city. A granite memorial wall bears the names of the 257 dead, including 12 Americans.

A comment on . Any attempt to cover a very complex subject in the space of a few pages must inevitably be somewhat superficial in its analysis. Walter Bello’s ‘The ‘destruction of African agriculture’ is a good attempt to do so but suffers from a number of analytical shortfalls. While the article starts with biofuel production it does not argue against the disastrous impact that biofuels has had on the global food crisis, and glosses over the fact that it is one of the major contributing factors at the present time. But I do not want to dwell on this and must myself be subject to the same criticism of trying to say too much in too little words.

The conflation in this article of structural adjustment, state failure and the more recent policies of global institutions in which privatisation has been mandatory for the developing world (together with the deforestation for, and use of, food crops for biofuel production) does little to clarify our current food crisis or the destruction of Africa’s agriculture. Furthermore the fact that African governments do little to promote agriculture either by investing a higher proportion of their national budget in this sector, or by enacting policies that link agricultural production to environmental and biodiversity conservation, raises some important issues of governance and accountability to their poorer citizens. But all this is old news. The point that we wish to emphasise is that the rather predictable outcome of a privatisation process should not detract from the fact that business as usual, the industrial model of agriculture, is no solution – to repeat the findings of the latest IAASTAD Report - to the current food crisis.

In this regard we want to refer to the Malawi success story promoted in the article, one that is dependent on continued donor support, affordability in the face of growing fertiliser prices, and state patronage. In attributing the success of the scheme to farming inputs, insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that rainfall in Malawi over the past two agricultural seasons has been optimal. We are delighted that Malawi farmers were able to grow more food and our wish is for this to continue. At risk of being harbingers of doom, it is clear that it cannot and will not continue – the sad fact is that Africa is susceptible to floods and droughts. The droughts will return, if not next year, then the year after, or the year after that. And at this point of time the crops will again fail. In any event donors will most probably have changed their priorities by then, but farmers’ reliance on an unsustainable model of agriculture will remain.

So what about sustainability? Part of the food crisis is the high costs of an agricultural model dependent on monocultures and fossil fuels at the expense of the environment. The threat of global warming tells us that we need to reduce risk and diversify agricultural production away from a reliance on single crops towards a diversified agriculture that is more in keeping with agricultural systems which have served Africa for millennia and more closely mimic the natural ecosystems. Hence the use of readily available local resources using farmers own skills and knowledge – in other words a range of technologies, practices and systems that require few external inputs. The article shows little concern for the environment, while even the Malawi Government is recognising the unsustainbility of highly subsidised input packages in the current economic crisis. It is for this reason that it has asked us, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, to launch a national composting programme, to reduce reliance on an intervention that it cannot afford and neither can the farmers which it is designed to benefit.

So the World Bank, with regard to subsidies in this case, is right, even if it is not for the correct reasons. And while we must recognise the mistakes of the rather short-sighted policies of the past – of which structural adjustment provides us with a devastating example – we should look forwards not backwards. The positive role that the state must play should be re-emphasised in a policy context which recognises farmers as custodians of the environment and plays an affirming role in setting the policies that empower them while making them responsible for conserving the agricultural and biological diversity on which posterity depends. This is real agency for farmers as citizens and one in which they will no longer be subject to the fads and fashions of donor policies or the edicts of global multilateral institutions.

The exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presumed nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, not to mention ambivalent ones. Beyond the excitement, caution and ambivalence of what a possible Obama presidency might entail for Pan-Africa and the Third World, what Obama himself has said in his writing, and has not said, might prove to be revelatory in attempting to explore the discussion that has exercised many minds around the world. We take this exploration by examining some of the issues that have been raised by editorialists and columnists, bloggers and other commentators in Africa and beyond. We also delve into what Obama himself has said in his two best-belling books, as we ponder how the significance of a possible Obama presidency may be realized more in the symbolic transformation of perceptions of race, racism and racial identity in the US and in the world, than in what the office of the US presidency itself is capable or incapable of achieving.

First, a word about my use of the terms “Pan-Africa” and “Pan-Africanism.” The Pan-Africa I am referring to here is the one that builds on the ideological consciousness of the global historical experiences and identities of people of African descent, and others who share that ideology for political and solidarity purposes. It is a Pan-Africanist consciousness that draws from DuBois’s hope, back in 1897, that if Africans were to be a factor in the history of the world, it would have to be through a Pan-African movement. Thus when Ghana became independent from Britain in 1957, Du Bois, unable to attend the epochal occasion due to his passport being impounded by the US government, handed over the mantle of the Pan-Africanist movement to Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, through a letter that he wrote and had delivered to Nkrumah.

The 1966 military coup that overthrew Nkrumah as Ghana’s president dealt a big blow to a Pan-Africanist movement that had achieved a great deal for people of African descent, especially in Africa. The shared African identity and global consciousness spawned by Pan-Africanist ideology played a key role in mobilizing support amongst African and Third World regions in overthrowing colonialism. In the United States, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King both looked up to the Pan-African world for solidarity in overcoming American racism. With Nkrumah gone, the ideals of Pan-Africanism began atrophying, to the extent that in the 21st century today there is no discernible movement that concerns itself with the problems that afflict Africa and people of African descent around the world. But there is no question that such a movement is as necessary today as it was in the 1950s and 60s.

In his autobiography Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama has demonstrated his awareness of both a Pan-Africanist and Third World consciousness, but for the nationalist demands of American politics today, he has not made that awareness a part of his campaign platform. But those who know Obama’s autobiographical instincts in guiding his best judgments know that his upbringing and struggle to identify himself are a core part of who he is. And it is his autobiographical narrative that has appealed to people around the globe. Thus while heeding the call to be cautious in speculating what a possible Obama presidency might do for the Pan-African world, it is worth discussing the extent to which Obama’s narrative in itself has the potential to influence new visions and energies in the study of the Pan-African world and its future prospects. Those energies have been on display in many places around the world, not least in Kenya, where Obama’s father came from.

A June 5th editorial in The Daily Nation of Kenya, where Obama’s father, a Harvard Ph.D., hailed from, offered three reasons as to why Africans were celebrating Obama’s victory. The first reason had to do with Obama being “the first African American ever to win nomination to vie for the presidency of the world’s sole super-power.” Second, Obama was considered “a son of Africa” who has excelled in the world. And thirdly, Obama was “a son of Kenya,” since Obama traced “his roots” back to his fatherland, Kenya, in “the present-day Siaya District.” The three reasons culminated into one huge hope: Africans were hopeful that “with this win, ‘their son’ will implement Africa-friendly policies that could uplift the continent from poverty.”

In the June 8th edition of The Sunday Times of Rwanda, columnist Frank Kagabo also reflected Obama’s blood connection to Africa, observing that Obama had “relatives living in third world poverty,” a fact which would help African people feel “good and know that nothing is impossible no matter where you come from.” In the Malawian parliament, The Daily Times quoted opposition Malawi Congress Party member of parliament , paraphrasing the parliamentarian as saying Malawi was “likely to benefit if he wins the presidential election this August” [sic]. Hon. Kadzamira was also quoted offering a snippet of how Obama’s foreign policy might look like “He says he is likely to move away from the policies of sanctions, which has hurt countries like Zimbabwe, to negotiation. He says he will have tough aid conditions and will move away from the weapons of mass destruction to mass reconstruction”.

The Harvard University-based blog aggregating project, Global Voices Online, housed in the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has been culling blog commentary on the American elections from outside the United States, on a website called Voices Without Votes. Amongst the blogs the website is aggregating is The World Wants Obama Coalition, from where a link to the Global Mania, sported the self-description, “Because the world believes in real change, too.” A round up of Kenyan bloggers by Global Voices author Rebecca Wanjiku was titled “Kenyan bloggers on Kenya’s most famous son, Barack Obama”.

But even amidst the hopes, adulations and expectations for what a “son of Africa” in the American White House could do for the continent, there have also been voices cautioning the hyped praise, and posing some searching questions. The Daily Nation’s editorial mentioned above asked: “But what is there for Africa in the American elections?” It went further still, asking: would Obama manage to “overcome the strong lobby groups that control American foreign policy and that have very little time for Africa?” More unflattering commentary came from Rasna Warah, writing in the June 9th edition of The Daily Nation, who wielded a sharp knife over the blood ties everyone was happy to evoke. Warah’s title was upfront and blunt: “. Warah went on to state: “What everyone seems to be forgetting is that Barack Obama is an American, not a Kenyan. His roots may lie in Kenya, but he was born and raised in the United States, and his loyalty lies with that nation, not with ours.”

As evidence for her argument, Warah cited Obama’s own words spoken when he visited Kenya as a United States Senator, in August of 2006. She quoted Obama as saying: “As a US Senator, my country and other nations have an obligation and self-interest in being full partners with Kenya and Africa. And I will do my part to shape an intelligent foreign policy that promotes peace and prosperity.” As for Obama’s autobiography Dreams From my Father, which Obama wrote after returning from Kenya and going to Harvard Law School, Warah suggested that “curiosity about his roots” was the real reason Obama visited his fatherland for the first time ever, in the summer of 1988. It was “not deep love for this country,” said Warah.

By far the most authoritative statement of caution if not negation came from Dr. Makau Mutua, Dean and University Distinguished Professor of Law at State University of New York at Buffalo, and chair of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission. Writing in the the personal importance of Africa to Barack Obama is not only evident in the book, it is profound to Obama’s own identity. The way Obama treats Kenya in Dreams From My Father leaves us in no doubt about this. In the book, Obama takes 450 pages to offer an intimate look into his life, from early days in Hawaii, Indonesia, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, to an epochal homecoming in Kenya. The amount of detail Obama dedicates to his life in the United States and Indonesia, where he lived all his life hitherto, contrasts sharply with the one third of the book that he devotes to Kenya, where he only spent three months. His days at Harvard Law School are given a mere two sentences (p. 437).

Contrary to Rasna Warah’s suggestion that Obama went to Kenya more out of curiosity than love of the country, the answer to Obama’s deep search for identity is finally consummated and revealed in Kenya, right from the moment he steps foot on the soil. It is worth reproducing, again, the paragraph that puts Obama’s quest for identity to rest, when somebody recognizes his name in an instant:

“That had never happened before, I realized; not in Hawaii, not in Indonesia, not in L.A., or New York or Chicago. For the first time in my life, I felt the comfort, the firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people’s memories, so that they might nod and say knowingly, ‘Oh, you are so and so’s son.’ No one here in Kenya would ask how to spell my name, or mangle it with an unfamiliar tongue. My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships, alliances and grudges that I did not yet understand” (p. 305).

However the reasons for caution in imagining what an Obama presidency may do for Africa and the Third World are equally sobering. By the time we get to the US senate and to his next book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), Africa has pretty much disappeared from Obama’s narrative, replaced by distant references that characterize much of mainstream Western attitudes about Africa. Missing even from the Index, Africa is mentioned only perfunctorily, no longer as the place Obama spent a lifetime yearning for, but rather as the known poster child for the world’s worst maladies and disorder. “There are times when considering the plight of Africa—the millions racked by AIDS, the constant droughts and famines, the dictatorships, the pervasive corruption, the brutality of twelve-year-old guerillas who know nothing but war wielding machetes or AK-47s—I find myself plunged into cynicism and despair” (p. 319). But Obama is also aware of the progress Africa has made, citing Uganda’s success with the AIDS pandemic, and the end of civil war in countries like Mozambique. He observes that “there are positive trends in Africa often hidden in the news of despair, while at the same time clinging to an Afropessimism that warns: “We should not expect to help Africa if Africa ultimately proves unwilling to help itself” (ibid.).

Obama is also able to go beyond the average politician in his candidness about the ravages brought on Indonesia and other parts of the world by the ideological juggernaut of US foreign policy. In a chapter titled “The World Beyond Our Borders,” Obama dwells on how Indonesians find it puzzling that “most Americans can’t locate Indonesia on a map,” given the role that US foreign policy has played in the fate of Indonesia “for the past 60 years” (p. 272). Providing a brief historical account of this role, Obama describes how the CIA provided “covert support to various insurgencies inside Indonesia, and cultivated close links with Indonesia’s military officers, many of whom had been trained in the United States” (p. 273). The military then went ahead and “began a massive purge of communists and their sympathizers,” leading somewhere between 500,000 and one million deaths, “with 750,000 others imprisoned or forced into exile” (ibid.).

Obama’s candor continues throughout the chapter, noting that “our record is mixed—not just in Indonesia but across the world” (p. 280). He calls American foreign policy “a jumble of warring impulses,” at times farsighted and serving the mutual interests of both the United States and other nations, and at other times making “for a more dangerous world” (ibid.). His take on Iran ought to be enlightening in light of the current saber-rattling and familiar drum beat toward another a possible military strike: “Occasionally, U.S. covert operations would engineer the removal of democratically elected leaders in countries like—with seismic repercussions that haunt us to this day” (p. 286). Yet Obama is no dogmatic ideologue, finding himself “in the curious position of defending aspects of Reagan’s worldview” in debates with friends on the left. He charges that progressives were eager to indict US complicity in the brutalities that took place in Chile, yet were less so in criticizing oppression in the communist bloc. Nor was he persuaded that US corporations and global trade “were single-handedly responsible for poverty around the world; nobody forced corrupt leaders in Third World countries to steal from their people” (p. 289).

Needless to say, such candor is as rare amongst US politicians as is knowledge of what US foreign policy has been up to around the world, in the general populace, according to several writers and thinkers, including John Perkins, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Carl Mirra, Stephen Hiatt, amongst others. Many of these thinkers have also pointed out how while some Third World leaders are indeed corrupt, Western multinational corporations, backed by a deliberate, strategic foreign policy, create the very infrastructure that facilitates the corruption, and are actually corrupt themselves. According to Perkins, Hiatt, Patrick Bond, John Christiansen, Amit Basole, Leonce Ndikumana, James Boyce, among others, this is done through debt ensnaring, off-shore tax havens, trade mispricing, and dubious advice from the IMF and the World Bank, whose complicity with foreign policy and multinational corporate interests has led to trillions of dollars being emptied out of Third World countries and poured into Western economies. This is the corruption and the looting of the Third World that has best been captured by John Perkins’ term “corporatocracy” in his 2004 book Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Stephen Hiatt’s 2007 edited collection of essays, A Game As Old As Empire shows how pervasive the nexus of economic hitmen has become, and how closely aligned the system is between foreign policy and corporate interests.

In the final analysis, the significance of an Obama presidency for Pan-Africa and the Third World will lie less in what Barack Obama may or may not be able to do for people of African descent than in the symbolic message that his ascendancy to the most powerful office in the world will do in changing black people’s perceptions of who they are in the world, and how others view them. That has been the underlying, implicit cause of the renewed hope in what has been said by the Kenyans, the Malawians, the South Africans, the Nigerians, Caribbean commentators, and in fact every one else around the world who has joined in the celebration. While the office of the US presidency may limit Obama’s actual impact on Pan-Africa and the Third World, as Dr. Mutua warns, the symbolic importance of the achievement is what has the potential to go much further in offering a paradigm shift in the self-perception of a people whose destiny, according to Frantz Fanon, represents the possibility to refashion a new vision for the world, one beyond the limits set by European rationality and the consequences, both good and bad, that the Third World has reaped there from.

For that to happen, Obama’s own notion of what race and racism still mean in today’s America and how some minorities are overcoming it could shine some light on the path this transformation might take. Obama devotes a chapter in The Audacity of Hope to the topic of race, in which he offers both a stinging and sensitive portrayal of the bane of America’s ethnic identity, as well as the prospects of what can be achieved in breaking down racial barriers. Obama’s philosophy of race indict residual and institutional racism, but also celebrate white people and black people alike who are able to overcome the vice and chart a new path for society. Those lessons ought to apply not only to America, but to the rest of the world as well, in the apt description of the global face of Obama’s extended family as a miniature portrait of the world:

“As the child of a black man and a white woman, someone who was born in the racial melting pot of Hawaii, with a sister who’s half Indonesian but who’s usually mistaken for Mexican or Puerto Rican, and a brother-in-law and a niece of Chinese descent, with some blood relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernie Mac, so that family get-togethers over Christmas take on the appearance of a UN General Assembly meeting, I’ve never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe” (p. 231).

*Steve Sharra is a visiting assistant professor, Peace and Justice Studies, Dept. of Philosophy, Michigan State University. This essay was first prepared for the "The Meaning and Implications of the Obama Phenomenon symposium" held by the Zeleza Post (www.zeleza.com).

*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

We, Palestinians, are aspiring to any glimpse of hope to establishing our promising country of Palestine. Originally, that glimpse of hope grew when Israelis realized in the nineties that a real peace will not be achieved apart from an Independent Palestinian state. That time, the world agreed on that concept and peace deal (Oslo) was held in Washington D.C, after the first Bush had left office.

Regardless of Oslo and its disadvantages we started the self governing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip awaiting the transitional period in the next stages. But as many expected things went deep down after Israel approved that, it was unconcerned in any peace agreement that relied on giving us land in exchange for peace.

With the second Bush administration and his first speech at the White House, our aspirations smashed into a barrier of Zioamerican arrogance! The hope raised back momentously and excessively when the caucuses of American elections started in 2007. Followed by the appearance of Barack Husain Obama, our hope reached a peak once more. We reckoned that by this heroic Black-American we would be able to get our Independent State of Palestine.

I am finding it very difficult to join in the jubilation about Senator Barack Obama. Not that I want to deny the man his victory, but my impulse to celebrate keeps deflating on the idea that the best thing that happened to little Barack was not growing up in Kenya.

I have been imagining alternative trajectories for him if he had come to know the world through the eyes of a Kenyan citizen, if his mother and grandparents had not rescued him from our chaos and contradictions and brought him up somewhere his intellect and talent could grow.

If he had grown up here, and had he somehow managed to retain most elements of his current self, he would have been another outstanding, intelligent and competent Luo man in our midst: and he would have been killed.

Yes, we would have assassinated a Barack Obama if he had remained ours, with us, one of us here in this schizophrenic cauldron we call home. This is not going to stretch the imagination of any Kenyan - after all, when we had that incredibly good-looking and charismatic home-grown hero, Tom Mboya, we shot him to death.

After hundreds of books, documentaries, sermons, and even university courses on modern slavery and human trafficking, people have begun asking, "What can I do to help?" In his latest book, Kevin Bales responds to that demanding question. Ending Slavery surveys the history of various anti-slavery movements, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of their strategies, as well as their failures and successes.

The crisis of social exclusion in South Africa's cities is a key factor in the ferment in grassroots political society, argues Richard Pithouse. It has been central to much popular protest in recent years, to the emergence of well organised grassroots movements to the left of the ANC and, also, the catastrophic pogroms in May.

Sudan’s Anti-Terrorism Special Courts in late July sentenced 30 alleged rebels to death in trials that fell far short of international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch urged the government to abolish the hastily created special courts and instead prosecute all cases in the regular courts according to the 2005 National Interim Constitution.

The Senegalese parliament has passed a law extending the presidential term to seven years from five, but the ruling will not apply to sitting President Abdoulaye Wade, a Justice Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The recent statement by the Minister for Lands, Hon. James Orengo that the National Land Policy is ready for cabinet deliberation and final approval is something that is overdue. But for the majority of Kenyan women who wallow in poverty and are destitute, the announcement has generated a lot of excitement as they have for a long time been culturally prohibited from inheriting this critical factor of production and source of wealth.

On October 4, 2007, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, became the new President of the Foundation supporting the World Organization against Torture (OMCT). Kofi Annan has always demonstrated a strong commitment to human rights and has stated his total opposition to torture. In accepting to become the new President of the Foundation supporting OMCT, he expressed his wish to be actively involved in initiatives defending human rights.

The top United Nations envoy to Sudan has called for a review of the death sentences passed by the country’s counter-terrorism courts against 30 members of a Darfur rebel group found guilty of participating in an attack near the capital in May, amid concerns that they did not receive a fair trial.

A United Nations human rights expert has held talks in Côte d’Ivoire with senior officials from the UN peacekeeping mission in the West African country at the start of a week-long visit to investigate the illegal movement and dumping of toxic wastes.

Sierra Leone's Transport and Aviation Minister Mr. Kemoh Sesay has been sacked yesterday following the landing of an unauthorized antonov plane which forcefully landed at the Lungi international airport with 700kg cocaine, arms and ammunitions on July 12th this year.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will hold a make-or-break meeting in Harare on Sunday aimed at finalising a power-sharing deal, a South African newspaper reported on Friday.

Egyptian police have arrested 587 mostly African migrants caught trying to slip over the border into Israel since January, and shot and wounded a Sudanese man at the frontier on Friday, security sources said. The sources said Eritreans made up the largest group of those detained trying to sneak into the Jewish state, at 249 since the start of the year. Significant numbers also came from Sudan, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

Mauritania's coup leaders have announced they will appoint a government to run the country until new elections, defying a chorus of international demands to restore the first democratically elected president. Soldiers in the northwest African country toppled Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior officers.

There has been heated debate at the International AIDS Conference about how male circumcision should be promoted, following research that shows circumcised men have far less chance of getting HIV. The main fear is that, if promoted as a means of prevention HIV infection, men will believe that they are immune to HIV after circumcision.

To the poor of the world, to all people of good will who work for progressive change... We, the landless and homeless people and associated activists of South Africa, decry the secret campaign by the so-called Workers' Party (PT) government of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul to criminalise, outlaw and otherwise illegitimately harass our landless comrades of the MST.

Recently, the digging started on Rwanda's new fibre optic network. Local telecom companies want their piece of the ICT pie. Rwanda is getting wired. By the end of next year, the government's new 2,000 kilometer fibre optic network should increase broadband access to the country, linking all districts to high quality voice, data, and video services, according to officials.