Time has come for politics of accountability and inclusion. The country’s top leaders need to move away from their ethnic enclaves and promote reconciliation and healing as Kenya heads to the next election.

The new hypermarket is one of many businesses belonging to a fast-growing empire owned by senior public officials, which over the last three years has become the biggest player in the national economy.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/568/Unknown.gifThe company contracted to market Angola overseas is owned by the president’s children. While two-thirds of the population survives on less than $2 a day, the president and his protégés plunder the country.

What should concern Kenya is not the political and personal fate of the suspects whose charges have been confirmed by the International criminal Court, but the lives of the thousands of victims who are still nursing their wounds four years later.

Which other friend of Africa would be willing to fund, design, build and maintain a new $200 million AU headquarters in the middle of a global financial crisis?

How genuine is the anger that has been expressed in some quarters about Africa accepting a gift of the new African Union headquarters from China? There are so many other issues of urgent concern around the continent that the critics should direct their wrath to as well.

‘While supporters of the protest argued that their meeting posed no threat to public safety, the city had declared the movement a threat.’

In just under two decades of liberation, South Africa is now gripped by the deadly politics of character assassination, rapacious self-enrichment and factionalism. The ideals of the anti-apartheid struggle have been lost in public life.

As in other parts of the world, there are signs of revolt of ordinary people against many decades of oppression and dispossession. The dictators leave, but the system which bore them remains.

Why is the Chinese economy thriving while that of the West is in crisis? The answer is of great relevance to Africans who have for decades embraced development models created in the boardrooms of Western capitals.

Donors and development partners have reduced their General Budget Support (GBS) to the government as they announced a commitment of 800bn/- for the 2012/2013 financial year. The support has slightly been scaled down compared to the 1.1tr/- pledged for the 2009/2010 fiscal year, 822bn/- for the 2010/2011 financial year and 840bn/- committed to budget support for the current financial year.

The African Union has extended the mandate of its top official Jean Ping after an election, in which he was challenged by South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, deadlocked. Intense campaigns had preceded the vote for commission chief which dominated the AU summit in the Ethiopia capital, where leaders gathered to discuss broadening trade within Africa and tackling conflict hot spots.

Over the past few weeks some 900 residents of the Zimbabwean capital Harare have been diagnosed with typhoid, and about 60 have been admitted to hospital, say health authorities. There have been no confirmed fatalities from the disease, although senior health officials, who declined to be identified, told IRIN they were investigating the cause of some deaths at hospitals.

Libya will do all it can to protect its 75 per cent stake in Zamtel, the fixed-line telecoms firm in Zambia, whose government announced plans last week to seize Libya's stake in the firm, Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said Monday. 'The Zambian government has taken a unilateral action by nationalizing this company,' Khayyal said, adding he had spoken to his Zambian counterpart about the issue at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital. The previous Zambian government had sold the 75 percent stake to LAP Green Networks for $257 million in 2010. Libyan Foreign Minister Ashour bin Khayyal said: 'Definitely this money is Libyan money, and owned by the Libyan people. We will exercise all our efforts to protect this money.'

Namibia is estimated to have lost US$750 million (over N$5.8 billion) between 2000 and 2009 in illicit dealings such as trade mis-pricing, tax evasions, corruption, bribery and kickbacks. The syndicate - reports research and advocacy group Global Financial Integrity (GFI) - involves foreign companies that are doing business in Namibia, most of which are headquartered in the West. GFI reports that these companies are bedfellows of corrupt local officials, with whom they struck ill-fated cordial relations meant to ease the flow of money from Namibia to foreign destinations.

Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties walked out of parliament in protest as the election commission members were sworn in earlier on Wednesday, the state news agency Angop reported.

Senegalese police have arrested close to a dozen opposition protestors including an outspoken civil society leader as they struggled to get a grip on street protests that have rocked the country following a controversial court ruling. Mr Alioune Tine, the vocal secretary-general of the African Assembly for Human Rights Defence was arrested after he turned himself in to the authorities. The other protestors arrested are being held in Dakar and in several regional headquarters including Thies, 70 kilometres and Kaolack, some 150 kilometres outside Dakar.

African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping's bid for another term hit a snag Monday after he failed to garner two-thirds majority after four rounds of elections in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Reports from the AU headquarters indicated that the former Gabonese Foreign minister failed to win absolute majority support even after South African rival Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma opted out after three rounds of voting.

Senegal's opposition has called for more resistance to the court approval of President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to seek a highly disputed third term, after a night of riots in the capital, Dakar. Opposition leaders vowed on Saturday to force the president out of office, threatening to march on the palace in a city reeling from violent riots that left at least one policeman dead, according to local media. The ruling sparked fury in the capital, where protesters clashed with police. Anti-Wade protesters threw stones at police who responded with batons and tear gas after the much-anticipated ruling.

The latest edition of TradeMark Southern Africa is dominated by news reports, speeches and commentaries from the African Union summit in Addis Ababa. It includes the full text of two speeches by Jacob Zuma (at a NEPAD meeting and at an ANC centenary function) and a Goodluck Jonathan speech to the AU plenary where he cautioned against moving too quickly on a continental free trade area. Visit to subscribe to their newsletter.