Malawi has said Africa needs to focus on regional infrastructural development, in energy and water resources management if the continent is to realise its true growth potential, PANA reported from here Wednesday.

The African Group at the UN has called for the immediate fulfilment of all Official Development Assistance(ODA) commitment to Africa. The group also urged the Group of Eight industrialised countrie (G-8) to redeem its pledge to double by 2010, official assistance to the continent.

Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, chairperson of the opposition United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) and candidate in Rwanda's August presidential election, was on Wednesday prevented from leaving the country after she was questioned for several hours at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID)for alleged comments likely to stir up hatred and genocide, police sources told PANA in Kigali.

An evening of prayers and chants held in the Togolese capital, Lome, by supporters of the umbrella opposition group, Republican Front for Revival and Change (FRAC), was violently dispersed by the security forces using tear gas.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Cote d'lvoire, Choi Young-jin, has appealed for peace this week in the run-up to the country's first presidential elections since 2005.The UN mission chief made the appeal in a statement on Thursday.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday in Nairobi met and held talks with Kofi Annan, a member of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities and Chief mediator at the 2008 peace talks which ended the post-election violence in Kenya. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general, also met Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) a network of 30 nongovernmental organizations promoting democratic elections in Zimbabwe has noted pronouncements by senior politicians on the holding of elections in 2011. These calls for elections come amid the constitutional reform process which has the potential to alter Zimbabwe’s political landscape.

In an important victory in the global struggle for food sovereignty, the United Nations recently issued a preliminary recognition of peasants' rights. The decision was welcomed by rural social movements and activists throughout the world as a powerful addendum to the Human Right to Food (Article 25 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights)-which defines access to food as a human right, but is silent on the issue of access and control over food producing resources.

Fifty years ago, 69 Africans protesting against pass laws were shot in the South African township of Sharpeville. Posts in this week’s round-up of the blogosphere remember the massacre, the life of activist Fatima Meer and bring to mind the continuing struggle for the right to decent housing by shackdwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. They also include musings on migration, Haiti and headscarves.

‘This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy, and development.’ This was the topic of a debate held in the Houses of Parliament in London on 18 March, where Henning Melber was invited to speak against the motion. The opinions in Melber's speech closely reflected those expressed in his article ‘

With Meles Zenawi comparing the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic radio service with the infamous Radio Mille Collines in operation during the Rwandan genocide, Alemayehu G. Mariam argues that the Ethiopian prime minister should apologise. Such outrageous, nonsensical accusations represent nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the recent aid-for-arms scandal, Mariam stresses.

In a tongue-in-cheek reflection, Azad Essa reviews the revelations of a secret dossier on Julius Malema apparently found in the abandoned mines of Diepklip.

The inability of the regional military command in Jos to curtail the recent killings reflects not just a professional problem, but ‘deeper systemic social failure’, writes Kola Ibrahim. Although the armed forces are ‘prepared to undertake foreign military operation in the interests of the capitalist ruling class and imperialist forces under the guise of peace-keeping’, argues Ibrahim, they ‘can hardly defend public safety’. What’s really needed, says Ibrahim, is for security forces to be democratised and made accountable to the masses, but ‘it will take a pro-poor government that emerges from a people’s movement to do this’.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/475/63298_demolition_tmb.jpgSe… people are said to have been killed and 2,000 homes destroyed in a new wave of large-scale demolitions in the Angolan city Lubanga, as part of a government clearance programme to make way for public construction or infrastructure projects, writes Sylvia Croese. Local non-governmental organisations report that almost 3,000 families have been evicted and temporarily accommodated in schools and stadiums before being forcibly transferred to Tchavola, an area 9km outside of Lubango city centre, where they are expected to rebuild their lives. So far, only 700 tents have been distributed to provide temporary shelter for the families in Tchavola, where there is no basic sanitation and little access to electricity, food or blankets. A demonstration in solidarity with the victims of the demolitions was planned for 25 March.

Freedom songs ‘speak to the pertinent issues of the time, expose the excesses and injustices of the system and the comfortable beneficiaries and supporters of the system, and point to the type of society the people envisage and the means to attain it,’ writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. That is why South Africa’s new political elite is ‘stunting’ the ‘creative imagination and revolutionary rhythm by harping on “yesterday's” songs’, says Bofelo, so that it can deflect the growing anger among the masses about the failings of their leadership back onto the ‘remnants of the old order’.

As the Senegalese president’s ‘Monument of the African Renaissance’ nears completion, the 164-foot statue in Dakar demonstrates Abdoulaye Wade’s need ‘to imprint his legacy on a continent that hasn’t fully captured the extent of his genius’, writes Amy Niang. The monument ‘sparked debate in Senegal and internationally, not least because of the colossal financial, political and aesthetic scandal it has proved to be,’ says Niang. But its construction also symbolises the failure of opposition, civil society and other social forces to champion the needs of Senegalese people who would have preferred to ‘see their health, education and basic living problems addressed’.

As important as China’s investment in African manufacturing is, writes Deborah Brautigam, I don't believe I say anywhere in my book ‘that it has been higher than China's investment in mining over the past five years.’

Why hasn’t Pambazuka News covered the violation of human rights during the recent demolitions and land evictions in Lubango municipality in Angola, Rosario Advirta asks. If there is silence even in the independent media, says Advirta, then ‘injustice and repression will probably grow'.

Ashwin Desai’s recent ‘backhanded swipe’ at South African shackdwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo in his eulogy to Fatima Meer is ‘not only uncalled for, it is also completely inaccurate’, writes Jared Sacks.

Algérie Focus

Bertrand Gueu