Kenya's coalition government has held fresh crisis talks a day after the premier said he would boycott cabinet meetings in a letter to the president. Prime Minister Raila Odinga still feels his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is being sidelined by President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU).

Botswana has offered a US$70 million credit line to help revive struggling Zimbabwean industries, a senior Zimbabwean official said on Thursday. “Botswana is proposing to provide US$70 million in credit support for some industries, all that is left is to tie up the agreement,” the official said.

The World Bank is willing to help Zimbabwe recover from a devastating economic crisis, but it is critical for the country's institutions to restore democracy and human rights, the bank has said. World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, would attend the the Spring meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund next week.

Any initiative to resolve the crisis in Mauritan ia must ensure that the coup of 6 August 2008 fails by stopping the execution of the electoral agenda of the junta, the National Front for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) said on Thursday. Reacting to a proposal by Senegal to organise, in Dakar, a round table to find solutions to the Mauritanian political crisis, FNDD demanded an end to the electoral process that would lead to the presidential polls planned for 6 June and the r elease of former Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghef.

A referendum on the revision of Comoros' constitution will be held on 17 May, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi announced in a message broadcast on national radio and television stations, stressing that the referendum campaign would be held from 26 April to 15 May. “Those who do not want the revision of the constitution are free to campaign against it but they do not have the right to prevent the referendum from being held; a constitutional prerogative devolved on the head of state is a right of the people to exercise its sovereignty,” Sambi declared.

Thank you for . I've been following what is going on in Guinea for some time now, but as often is the case with Africa and its countries, there are so many hidden pages, and this article enlightened me a bit more on Guinea.

Yash Tandon's are well articulated and sober. However, he makes a sweeping criticism about the absence of East Africans and the EAC at the Geneva Conference. In fairness, he should ask the conference organisers why, as he aptly puts it himself, ‘were there so many people from Europe and so few from East Africa apart from Kenyans themselves’?

I stumbled into your site while searching for something else. I was interested in . Obviously your position is based on 'patriotism', i.e. we must support our people even in the face of obvious fabrications. As a Nigerian, I know that it is not possible to do the kind of thing Pfizer came to do without our government's permission. How was the equipment for the trials imported? I work for an NGO and our investigations revealed that Pfizer was permitted to carry out the trials by the federal government, NAFDAC and the Kano State government. We have been in the forefront of those clamouring for an out-of-court settlement because we have seen that the case against Pfizer is not as tight as we had thought.

You seem to be convinced that because a company is rich, it should be blackmailed to part with a large slice of its profit. I can't really confirm the total amount involved in the settlement aside from the figures carried in the newspapers. US$75 million is a lot of money. That is about 13 billion Nigerian Naira – almost three times the health budget of Kano state for the whole year. Who do we blame for the meningitis epidemic killing people in the northern parts of the country this year?

As a mother and a social activist, I have seen the misery our people are exposed to every year. Our governments should wake up. The World Health Organisation came to our rescue this year but their assistance fell short of our requirements. I don't want potential helpers to have the impression that we are just a bunch of blackmailers. If there hadn't been court cases over the Trovan trials who knows, maybe we would have called on Pfizer again this year to come to our aid. I am all for the settlement. I get your point about the litigation against Shell. But there is no parallel between that and the Pfizer case.

Dibussi Tande reviews the following blogs:

The Spear in Arabia
Marvin Tumbo
Startups Nigeria
Scribbles from the Den

cc In this special edition of Pambazuka News, Sanusha Naidu sets out the background to the upcoming South African election and introduces the wide array of perspectives informing this week's articles. While some commentators have chosen to emphasise the changing nature of the ANC's (African National Congress) political dominance and the party's current difficulties, others have focused on the ultimate absence of genuine liberation for South Africa's poor majority some 15 years after the historic 1994 election. With some calling for the 2009 election to be boycotted entirely, the contributors to this issue share a common desire to offer piercing analysis and powerful insights into South Africa's political landscape as the country approaches voting day on 22 April.

cc With South Africa's election fast approaching, Roger Southall predicts a triumphant yet problematic victory for Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC). Southall examines the shifting electoral terrain within South Africa, indicating that younger voters are changing the political demographic. Despite the ANC’s respected economic record, increasing concern surrounds government policy, with injustice and inequality still prevalent across the country some 15 years after 1994's 'liberation' election. The author argues that regardless of the ANC’s predictable success in the April 2009 election, the party’s sanctity has been shattered as a result of its corruption and role in worsening the livelihoods of ordinary South Africans. The ANC’s dominance in the electoral arena is subsiding, Southall contends, a reality which will prove key in shaping the future development of South Africa's democracy.

cc As South Africa nears its fourth election since 1994, Andile Mngxitama laments the country's overall lack of progress toward genuine black liberation in the post-1994 era. Highlighting Steve Biko's emphasis on 'conscientisation' to counter the normalisation of black people's material and mental subjugation to the entrenched white power structure, Mngxitama decries the continued suffering of the poor black majority in post-1994 South Africa, arguing that the race-based understanding of impoverishment once used to describe marginalisation has now been effectively eradicated under the anti-racialist hegemony dominant in national discourse. With the state still essentially rooted in its apartheid-era model of white capitalist accumulation and exploitation – albeit with a new black leadership at the helm – Mngxitama contends that the country has simply moved into a neo-apartheid phase of little discernible distinction from its past, stating that to vote within such a system would merely be to grant it legitimacy.

cc Amid fears that Polokwane and the split in the ANC, and the uncertainty that these have generated, will unravel South Africa’s national potential for a rosier future, Adam Habib writes that ‘Economic development, service delivery, and poverty alleviation are dependent on a legitimated and capacitated state’. As the country’s national elections approach, Habib cautions that behaviour that ‘undermines the legitimacy and capacity of state institutions will compromise the new political elite’s own long-term goals’. Exploring the reasons behind former ANC leader Thabo Mbeki’s loss of support and what a Zuma presidency might mean for South Africa, Habib argues that the ‘substantive uncertainty’ introduced into South African politics by COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the SACP’s (South African Communist Party) mobilisation against Mbeki has opened up political space and created debate on a range of policy issues, that would otherwise not have taken place. But for this ‘substantive uncertainty’ to be sustainable, it must be institutionalised within the political system as a whole.

Ivor Hartman speaks to about StoryTime, his online ezine to showcase new African writing, and his desire to tell the world about the Zimbabwean situation through writing.

cc Despite a sense of euphoria among significant sections of South Africa’s poor and working class that a Jacob Zuma presidency will usher in the long awaited better life for all, write John Appolis and Dale McKinley, socialists know that Zuma will not dismantle the alignment of class forces consolidated by the ANC since the early 1990s, but rather further entrench them. Since social movements are not in a position to present an alternative parliamentary option to the masses, the

cc With African and European ministers set to meet in Brussels on 28 April to assess the progress of the Joint Africa EU Strategy (JAES) adopted in Lisbon in December 2007, Carmen Silvestre emphasises the importance of the meeting for both African and European civil society. Setting out the background to the JAES and Human Rights Dialogue and civil society's participation, Silvestre argues that the meeting represents a key opportunity for groups from both continents to discover areas of common ground and find ways of influencing official strategies and policy.

Sokari Ekine reviews the following blogs:

Sociolingo’s Africa

Commentary SA
African Loft

The privatisation of land – a public resource for all that has now become a false commodity – was the original sin, the original cause of this financial crisis. With the privatisation of land comes the dispossession of people from their land, which was held in common by communities. With the privatisation of land comes the privatisation of everything else, because once land can be bought and sold, almost anything else can eventually be bought and sold.

My had been shortlisted for the SA Blog awards 2009 in the 'politics' category and it recently featured on the Pambazuka newsletter. I am pleased to tell you that my blog has since won the category and I am especially grateful to Pambazuka for bringing the blog to the attention of your vast readership, and for encouraging them to take part in the voting process. This is much appreciated!

We understand that the Kenya government has applied for an emergency credit for US$100 million to cushion its currency from the International Monetary Fund. We also understand that this application is due for consideration at your next board meeting. The Partnership for Change is concerned that while Kenyans continue to demand accountability from the Government of Kenya on our public debt, the government continues to ignore the public and continues to borrow and indebt the poor people of Kenya.