Nigeria's new presidential motorcade, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's birthday cake, Sarkozy's Rwanda visit and the East African Community's proposals for the creation of a regional electoral commission all feature in Gado's

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/471/israel_palestine_apartheid....'s iniquitous treatment of Palestinian people has clear parallels with the discrimination suffered by 'non-white' people under apartheid South Africa, argues the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. The Israeli state has continued to flout international law in its efforts to annex further territory and marginalise Palestinian people, the coalition argues, calling for the maintenance of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its occupation.

India has issued a moratorium on Bt Bringal, which is genetically modified to produce a toxin that protects the crop from pests including stalkborers. Trevor Wells warns that following the introduction of the similarly modified Bt maize in South Africa, pests appear to have developed resistance to the previously widely used and effective natural pesticide Bacillis thurengiensis, which could have significant ecological and economic consequences.

A former leader of liberation movement, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, Ndeh Ntumuzah was a freedom fighter who devoted his life to the struggle for African independence and emancipation. Horace Campbell pays tribute to a ‘remarkable Pan-African spirit’.

Foreign investors looking for a way into Angolan markets need to follow two fundamental rules, writes Rafael Marques de Morais – partner with powerful figures from the regime, and ignore the relevant legislation. Marques de Morais looks at the route taken by leading Portuguese beverage manufacturer, Unicer.

*The Right to Know: The Fight for Open Democracy in South Africa*

- A Short Film Showing and Discussion -

*7pm - Wednesday 3rd March*

*Room 4418 (4th Floor, SOAS Main Building)*

James Kilgore discusses the background to his new novel,'We Are All Zimbabweans Now', the story of an American graduate history student who travels to Zimbabwe in the 1980s with an 'idealised picture of Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwean notion of racial reconciliation'. The book attempts to provide a more 'nuanced' view of the country's history, says Kilgore, and invites readers, as its protagonist does, to interrogate their 'own assumptions and theories'.

'Shell was held accountable, but can this really be considered justice?' asks UCT GSB.

Khadija Sharife investigates how the tax havens that prop small island economies up do so to detrimental effect. She argues that ‘as the G20 spends its time creating a carbon trade market that does little to reduce carbon emissions, multinationals continue to expand their extractive enterprises, dictators continue to siphon off capital, financial firms continue to cash in on pollution and this illicit capital continues to be laundered through offshore locations that are themselves threatened by the rising waters associated with global warming.’

As part of a series of testimonies from the Antanosy people in Madagascar, this week Pambazuka listens to Sambo. Sambo, 46, tells a twisted story: While the mining companies have brought better dwellings and healthcare, his people struggle with everyday survival. He explains that the key reason is because access to fishing grounds has been taken away.

Ruth Mumbi – of Bunge la Mwananchi and Kiamaiko Young Women in Kenya – writes of Lillian, who died while giving birth. She was, Mumbi holds, ‘a young, promising sister who could have had a brighter future if she had an opportunity to pursue her education’. Mumbi asks why her government can find 40 million shillings of taxpayers’ money to send ‘Al Faisal, who was disowned by other countries, back to Jamaica instead of providing for citizens, especially women who badly need reproductive health services.’ She asserts that many deaths as a result of childbirth in Kenya ‘are preventable if correct measures are taken and services brought closer to the people’.

'Environmental determinism’ – the theory that Africa’s development has been hindered as a result of ‘the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit’ – does not accurately explain Africa’s poverty. Environmental determinism is both ahistorical and apolitical: "Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power." To tackle the real issues behind Africa’s slow development and poverty would mean to go against Western economic interests and to radically change the world system in which we exist.

Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors, who will bring resources and up-to-date technology. None of the blueprints has worked, and African farmers have become increasingly impoverished. It is time for Africans to turn to their own histories, knowledge and resources.

The International Monetary Fund's board will consider whether to restore Zimbabwe's IMF voting rights in a meeting on Friday, an IMF spokesman said on Thursday. By reestablishing Zimbabwe's voting rights -- which would allow the country to take part in IMF decision-making again -- the international community would be sending a strong signal of support for policies of the new unity government led by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The African Union has condemned a coup in Niger, where soldiers have detained President Mamadou Tandja. AU chief Jean Ping said he was watching developments "with concern" after a day of gun battles culminated in a takeover led by Colonel Salou Djibo.

A Ugandan clergyman's decision to show gay pornography to his congregation has been labelled as "twisted, homophobic propaganda" by a gay rights groups. Behind the Mask says the stunt, by anti-gay Pastor Martin Ssempa, equated homosexuality to paedophilia.

Kenyan police have released five people arrested for planning a "gay wedding" north of Mombasa, saying there was no evidence to prosecute them. But police spokesman Martha Mutegi told the BBC the men had been advised to leave the area for their own safety and to avoid angering the local community.

The US has imposed impossible conditions on aid agencies in Somalia, a UN envoy to the country says. Humanitarian co-ordinator Mark Bowden said the US was trying to ensure that aid was not diverted to Islamist insurgents fighting the government.

In 2005, the 15 governments that comprised the EU before its eastward expansion the previous year undertook to allocate at least 0.51 percent of their gross national income to development aid by 2010. But estimates published Feb. 17 project that the average aid allocation given by these countries this year will be just 0.48 percent of income. As a result, the amount being given by wealthy countries to poor ones will be 21 billion dollars less this year than the amount foreseen in 2005.

As the East Africa Community (EAC) gradually moves towards a political confederation, women’s rights groups from the five member states are pushing for an East African Protocol on Gender and Development to bridge the gender gaps within the integration process.

While the political agenda at the IMF is shifting back to mandate and governance reform, there are growing calls that the Fund needs to fundamentally rethink the monetary and fiscal policies it demands of borrowers if the institution is to retain legitimacy and renew its mandate.

The Refugee Studies Centre’s International Summer School fosters dialogue between academics, practitioners and policymakers working to improve the situation of refugees and other forced migrants. It provides the time and space for them to reflect on their experiences and to think critically about some of the aims and assumptions underlying their work.

Rwanda will play global host to celebrations for the 2010 World Environment Day, observed annually on 5 June, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced.

The top United Nations envoy in Côte d'Ivoire is holding intensive talks with all sides in the divided West African country to ensure that last week’s dissolution of the Government and the independent electoral authority does not affect repeatedly delayed elections, currently slated to be held next month.

Despite efforts to end the use of child soldiers in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), youngsters are still being recruited within the ranks of both the rebels and the national army, with girls at particular risk of becoming sex slaves and less likely to be released, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.

South Africa's largest labour federation COSATU has threatened to call a general strike in October if the government does not take steps to improve workers' rights. The union said the use of employment agencies, mostly by foreign companies to source temporary labour, denies workers the the rights they are entitled to under South Africa's labour laws.

The national health department has signed off new HIV treatment guidelines, bringing South Africa in line with international best practice and removing a drug responsible for a wide range of side effects. The new guidelines were finally signed off last week after a meeting last November with the provinces, donors, HIV clinicians and other HIV experts.

The bishops of the so-called 'Province of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa' has issued a strong statement raising concerns about the dire human rights consequences of Uganda's proposed new law, which will ban homosexuality, and even make it punishable with the death penalty. Read the full statement below.

The chance of becoming pregnant not only increased over four years of antiretroviral treatment, but was almost 80% higher for HIV-infected women who began antiretroviral therapy than for HIV-infected women not on treatment enrolled in the Mother-to-Child Transmission Plus (MTCT Plus)-Initiative in seven sub-Saharan countries, report Landon Myer and colleagues in a study published in the February online edition of PLoS Medicine.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has recommended that the Endorois tribe in Kenya be given back its land, after they were evicted from it to make way for a nature reserve in the 1970s.

Support for regional trade is one of the cornerstones of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). But the focus has been on large scale trade in goods and services, ignoring one important group trading throughout the region.

With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure. FGM – an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons – has been condemned by governments, rights groups and health organisations across the world.

Eighteen-year-old David Kimenyi* is sure he infected his girlfriend with HIV. They had unprotected sex many times, even after he discovered he was HIV-positive. "I am afraid that I would have infected my girlfriend with HIV/AIDS," he said.

The European Union formally decided on February 15 to lift restrictive measures against 6 individuals and 9 companies in Zimbabwe that were previously subject to travel bans and asset freezes, but continued the measures for another year on the majority of the 203 individuals and 40 companies on the list.

A number of South African Methodists are angry and upset about the ruling that a well-liked minister must be "defrocked" because of her gay marriage. Reverend Ecclesia de Lange of Cape Town married her life partner in December and was suspended by the church in January.

From The Huffington Post, this article by Internews President David Hoffman discusses the possibilities for increasing the spread of information and communication technology (ICT), "the I-Factor", in light of recent democratic movements. He criticises the effects of the "proselytizing of Western-style democracy by the former [United States (US)] president" in dealing with authoritarian regimes directly threatened by the rhetoric of democracy promotion.

Western Kenya's Lugari district has long been a maize-growing area. But worsening drought, believed linked to climate change, has made the region's once-reliable staple an increasing risk. "When I planted maize, the rains disappeared when the maize had reached knee height. The whole farm dried up and I had nothing for food. My children could not go to school because I relied on maize as a cash crop also," said Dan Asembo Shaban, a farmer and a father of five.

Experts in mobile communications have urged Uganda’s operators to reduce the cost of mobile broadband to increase the penetration of mobile phone-based services among people. Cheap mobile broadband is also a major incentive for the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms.

Malaria researchers in Benin say they may have found a replacement for DDT in areas where mosquitoes are resistant to common insecticides. Indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticides is a major part of malaria control. But worries over toxicity and environmental persistence have led to calls for DDT to be phased out, and mosquitoes are growing resistant to widely used pyrethroid insecticides. Alternatives are expensive and short-lived.

The World Bank has pledged to speed up funding for South Sudan after acknowledging that the slow delivery of aid was hindering the region's development. Government officials and development groups have criticised the organisation for distributing only 188 million US dollars out of the 524 million US dollars given by Western donors

Teachers demanding more pay to face higher food prices entered the third day of a nationwide strike. The government has called their demands "illegal" and "unjustified", because the "high cost of living is a general problem that does not concern only [the teachers' union]", said Employment Minister Fatimé Tchombi.

The European Union's decision to extend sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior members of the ruling ZANU-PF party was endorsed by a leading human rights organization.

By age 15, Annonciata Nduwimana was an accomplished fighter for Burundi's opposition Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) and knew how to kill in battle. "My father was killed, accused of sheltering rebels. We [her mother and two elder brothers] then fled to Bujumbura to seek safe haven," she said.

The Kenya Prisons Service has won praise for its HIV programmes, including education, testing and the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to prisoners, but specialists say unless the issue of unprotected sex is addressed, HIV transmission will continue unchecked.

Journalistes en Danger (JED) has praise as well as concerns for a new media law passed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 31 December 2009. The law covers the "composition, powers, organisation and functioning" of the broadcasting and communication council (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel et de la communication, CSAC).The entire text of the law was read aloud on national radio on 2 January 2010 by an advisor to the President.

In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, Tougher Chinese bank regulations weakens South african rand, Zambian miners reinstated at Chinese mine, Zain signs deal with India's Bharti, and Tanzania seeks to protect seed genetic heritage.

The inheritance of the colonial university was the postcolonial state’s most ‘prized possession’, writes John Otim. Fifty years on the colonial mission and principles have disappeared from Africa’s universities: ‘Good’, states Otim, ‘But nothing has been put in its place. In the vacuum, the regime of marks, grades and the final certificate at the end takes centre stage… The university has become big business.’ Otim ends, though, with a quiet assertion: ‘Not all is lost yet on the postcolonial campus. There are pockets of excellence, gifted professors and students of real promise dedicated to the new Africa. There is a battle raging between the good, the bad and the ugly.’

In this week's review of the African blogosphere, there's debate over the constitutionality of Goodluck Jonathan’s appointment as the interim president of Nigeria, amid fears that the country could become the next Pakistan. Meanwhile legendary Cameroonian swindler Donatien Koagne dies in a Yemeni prison, and there are calls for South Africa's ruling elite to go beyond the euphoria of the 'Mandela Moment'.

While Ghana appears to be taking steps to make its natural resources sector transparent, accountable and open to public scrutiny, Alemayehu G. Mariam sees Ethiopia slipping further the other way. Mariam understands Ghana’s background in the sector is by no means clean, but he believes the very different attitudes of its new presidency should be an example to Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. He finds Ethiopia instead shrouded in secrecy over its farmland and borderland deals with Sudan.