With the ruling OPDO/EPDRF (Oromo People's Democratic Organization/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) presiding over an extensive security and media network entirely in its own interests, Ethiopia's 2010 elections appear likely to be far from 'free and fair', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam in this week's Pambazuka News. Commenting on a recent report composed by Dr Negasso Gidada following a visit to Dembi Dollo in the Oromia region, Mariam stresses that while there is no reason why Ethiopia could not hold open elections, political realities on the ground will ensure the exact opposite is true.

Barriers to migration should be reduced to enable migrants to play a positive role in both industrialised and developing countries, says a leading DFID-funded research group. The findings, produced by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty (Migration DRC), are published in a research brief launched in advance of the Global Forum on Migration and Development 2009.

The African Union IDPs Convention would be the first international instrument of its kind and would send a signal to the rest of the world about the seriousness with which Africa, home to around half of the global total of internally displaced persons (IDPs), considers the issue.

The World Bank has announced a 10-year US$215 million fund to support the countries of the Central African region in developing their high-speed telecommunications backbone infrastructure to increase the availability of high-speed Internet and reduce end-user prices. Three countries - Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) - are participating in the initial US$26.2 million phase of the Program. A further eight countries are also eligible to participate in the Program - Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé and Principe, and Sudan.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will chair a weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday without members from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party, which boycotted the unity government last week, state media reported on Sunday. Tsvangirai announced on Friday that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party would disengage from Mugabe's "dishonest and unreliable" ZANU-PF party in the country's coalition cabinet set up in February.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said his Movement of Democratic Congress (MDC) party has "disengaged" from the unity government over the treatment of his senior aide. He said all outstanding issues of a power-sharing deal had to be dealt with before the MDC would work with Zanu-PF.

The United Nations top envoy to the Côte d’Ivoire is slated to hold a series of meetings next week in a bid to jump-start a critical step threatening to disrupt the nation’s much-delayed presidential elections, scheduled for late next month. The initiative aims to give new impetus to efforts which would lead to the posting of the final voter list for the Côte d’Ivoire’s long-awaited polls, which were to have been held as far back as 2005 and are now scheduled for 29 November.

Botswana’s ruling party claimed victory in the country’s general election on Saturday extending President Ian Khama’s rule over the world’s largest diamond producer for another five years. Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), in power since independence from Britain in 1966, said it had secured a majority of the parliamentary constituencies. “We have reached the 29 out of the 57,” Langston Motsete, a member of the BDP’s election committee, told Reuters.

African Union's top security organ, the Peace and Security Council (PSC), said targeted sanctions against Guinean junta leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, and other senior leaders of his regime would take effect on 17 October, 2009. At its 206th session at which it discussed the situation in Guinea and Niger, the PSC said targeted sanctions against the Guinean junta leader would take effect on Saturday and the list of those to be targeted would be known after a regional Summit on the same issue.

Supporters of the slain military leader of Burkina Faso, Captain Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara, have denounced international support for the regime of President Blaise Compaore saying it was doing all it can for him "to rule for ever". Commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of Captain Sankara in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou, they gathered at the Daghnoen cemetery, a district in Ouagadougou, around the tombs of their idol and his companions who were assassinated on 15 October, 1987 during a coup.

Poor South Africans could receive 70 kilowatts worth of free electricity if Eskom is granted a 45 percent "smoothed" tariff increase, says it's Chief Executive Jacob Maroga. "We recommend that it be increased to 70 kilowatts and that the cost be carried by industry," Maroga told reporters as the parastatal unveiled details of its Multi-Year Price Determination 2 (MYPD 2) for the three-year period, beginning in 2010 to 2013.

The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states. Only citizens and their elected representatives – at the national level – can hold governments to account for the promises to reduce poverty made in 2000 at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Africa in Democracy and Good Governance (ADG) gladly accepts interns interested in broadening their knowledge on a range of topics. Internship assignments vary in length according to the availability and academic requirements of the intern, as well as the needs of ADG and are available on a part-time and full-time basis throughout the year. Internship assignments also vary greatly in terms of content.

South African police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at crowds of protesters angry at a lack of services and proper housing in their townships. Thousands of residents in two communities east of Johannesburg had barricaded roads and marched on public offices, setting one building alight.

Ballot papers and other electoral material will be given to provincial elections commissions on 18 October, which leaves just 9 days to distribute to polling stations before the vote. Two Mozambican companies are involved – Sotux is supplying voting booths and lamps and Académica is supplying the clear plastic ballot boxes. The rest of the material is coming from South African companies, Lithotech and Uniprint.

As Ugandan MP David Bahati spearheads a campaign around the adoption of the homophobic 'Bahati's bill', Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Frank Mugisha call for an unwavering rejection of a piece of legislation entirely against the interests of wider Ugandan society. With strong suspicions of Bahati's financial backing by extreme-right Christian groups in the US, the bill seeks not only to establish draconian punishments for homosexual acts but also to actively encourage Ugandans to snoop on one another indefinitely for the supposed good of the nation. If homophobes like Bahati were really worried about 'protect[ing] the traditional family', Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Mugisha argue, they'd concern themselves with tackling the conditions keeping so many Ugandans in poverty, rather than making scapegoats of homosexual people. The authors conclude that with an election approaching in 2011, the momentum behind the bill smacks of a none-too-subtle attempt to divert attention away from Uganda's true issues.

This week’s Pambazuka News brings you a contribution by Stuart Wilson on the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road. Wilson has worked closely with and represented Abahlali in court. He reflects on the recent attacks on the movement in Kennedy Road and the horrific reaction these attacks have received from the authorities. It is all too clear that the attacks signify the closing of political space in South Africa and the fact that constitutionally protected citizens are by no means practically protected if their actions go against the powers that be, Wilson concludes.

The tragic events at Durban's Kennedy Road have gained much-desired media attention, with the KwaZulu-Natal government likely ushering in a ‘healing process’ as a result of this attention. However, Niren Tolsi calls this so-called healing process a 'sham'. He writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) members have refused to attend 'stakeholder' meetings out of principle and out of fear for their personal security. Indeed, Tolsi stresses that most of the participants were in fact not even from Kennedy Road, but were African National Congress (ANC) members from other areas brought in an attempt to give legitimacy to the meetings. In response, the ABM calls for a return to democracy in Kennedy Road and a guarantee of safety for them and their families.

In this week’s blog review, Dibussi Tande discusses discrimmination and injustice against the Baka of Cameroon, the ongoing service delivery portests in South Africa, and the recent decision by 14 Somali villages to renounce to practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Kambarage Nyerere,
How we wish you were here.
Thank you for your patience and for making us persevere.
But dear Mwalimu, why didn’t you tell us, expose and prepare us
For the turmoil and struggles that have now engulfed us?
Why didn’t we continue to build ourselves, our capacities and our attitudes?
And recognize the potential that is within us?
Appreciate the beauty of our land?
Protect and respect the abundance of our resources?
Why weren’t we encouraged and persuaded to think beyond our limitations?
To serve our country and be duly recognized for our efforts?
We remained suffering as we looked in awe at those outside our borders.
As though their grass was greener than those of our majestic hills.
As though their water was fresher than that of our sparkling rivers.
We invited them in.
And they saw that which we never saw in ourselves.
They’ve come to take it. And here we remain. Still…. having peace.
Kambarage Nyerere,
Thank you for the peace you promoted in this country.
A solid foundation of humanity.
We’ve loved our nation. But we’ve never embraced ourselves.
So where do we go from here? And how do we change our steps?
Dear Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.
Things may have been a little different if you were here.
How we wish you were here.