The north of Sudan will reinforce its Islamic laws if the south secedes as a result of next month's referendum, President Omar al-Bashir has said. Bashir said the constitution would then be changed, making Islam the only religion, Sharia the only law and Arabic the only official language. Correspondents say his comments are likely to alarm thousands of non-Muslim southerners living in the north.

Nigeria has dropped charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a 1990s bribery scandal, anti-corruption officials say. The case focused on bribes paid by engineering firm KBR while it was a subsidiary of Halliburton, a firm headed by Mr Cheney at the time. Nigerian officials said Halliburton agreed an out-of-court deal worth $250m (£160m). The firm has not commented.

With mounting unemployment spurring discrimination and the politics of polarisation on the rise, United Nations officials have decried the human rights violations, xenophobia, and exploitation faced by many of the world's 214 million international migrants. 'It is important to recall, particularly in these turbulent times, the fundamental role that migrants play in strengthening the global economy,' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message marking International Migrants Day, calling on the very many States that have yet to do so to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor has named three Kenyan cabinet ministers and a former police chief among six suspects behind the east African country's post-election violence in 2008. The widely awaited announcement has the potential to destabilise Kenya's fragile coalition, or unity government, which was formed by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to end the bloodshed and restore stability. Prominent among the six suspects were finance minister and deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya's founding father Jomo Kenyatta, and William Ruto, the higher education minister who has been suspended to fight a corruption case.

Supporters of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo have vowed to fight to the death to keep him as president of the world's top cocoa producer as pressure grows for him to quit after a disputed election or face sanctions. His rival Alassane Ouattara has won almost unanimous international backing after his eight-point lead in a 28 November presidential vote was overturned on grounds of alleged fraud by the Constitutional Council, led by a staunch Gbagbo ally.

Thirty-four per cent of Moroccans admit to having paid a bribe in the past 12 months, according to a recent study by Transparency International. For its 2010 Global Corruption Barometer, released on 9 December, the Berlin-based organisation interviewed more than 91,500 people in 86 countries and territories. Nearly one thousand heads of household, including 483 women, participated in the survey.

Following the ANC Youth League disruption of a UPM-convened public meeting to discuss the water crisis affecting poorer areas of an Eastern Cape municipality, Pedro Alexis Tabensky observes that ‘sadly for our democracy, this sort of oppressive behaviour in the name of the ANC seems to be part of a general trend of violence exerted against social movements’ .

Pambazuka News staff are taking a break for the next couple of weeks. We'll be back bringing you the latest on the struggle for freedom and justice on 6 January 2011. Meanwhile we wish you all a restful seasonal break, a happy new year and look forward to your coming back ready to advance the cause of freedom in 2011.

Editors

The people of Somaliland have every right to statehood and membership of the AU and UN, writes Omer Hussein Dualeh.

In failing to challenge a US capitalist system geared exclusively to the economic interests of a small elite, Barack Obama is in danger of repeating the errors of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture, writes Horace Campbell.

Venance Konan

Adama Gaye

As the fallout from the release of the WikiLeaks cables continues, Cameron Duodu considers the implications for addressing corruption in Africa.

African countries should look at the post-Cold War experiences of China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore ‘to produce our own intellectual infrastructure for development and progress with freedom and dignity’, writes Okello Oculi.

Reflecting on the words of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, Isaac Newton Kinity considers a slogan – ‘Watajikaanga na mafuta yao’ (‘They will fry themselves with their own fat’) – that has puzzled Kenyans up to the present day.

The first priority for developing countries when it comes to climate change mitigation should be reducing poverty, but the market-based approach of carbon trading is doing little to alleviate imbalances in the system, writes Khadija Sharife.

Shell’s infiltration of the Nigerian government, cocaine trafficking through Ghana and Kenya’s strategy for dealing with the chaos in Somalia are among the topics this week’s selection of bloggers are talking about, following WikiLeaks’ release of US diplomatic cables on Africa.

‘African leaders must learn to accept defeat with equanimity and put national interest and continental prosperity above selfish quest for power,’ writes Uche Igwe.

As untamed fire ignites
a world separated by
pronouns,
broken world brakin'n
streets crack'd foot crak'd in
mak'n a dwellin' there…

Development in Africa could falter as climate change grips the continent, increasing the length and severity of droughts and floods by altering precipitation patterns, among other impacts. The region needs a major shift in its economic development policies and thinking towards decentralised, green economic development, experts now say. 'The world’s big economies are largely living off financial transactions which are unconnected to development,' warns Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Uche Igwe travels to Nigeria’s Bayelsa State and, despite an influx of oil dollars, finds appalling poverty, lack of infrastructure and a volatile pre-2011 election period.