cc Drawing upon the parallels behind Cambodia’s experience of the trial of members of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, Yash Ghai considers some of the lessons Kenya could learn in seeking justice around its post-election crisis. Following the collapse of the Khmer Rouge, the international community – primarily through the UN – played a central role in revitalising Cambodia’s economy and monitoring human rights. With corruption often entrenched and political players quick to interfere for their own benefit, Ghai discusses the inherent difficulty of ensuring the involvement of domestic legal figures without creating space for political self-interest.

cc With Madagascar still in the throes of a political crisis, Zo Randriamaro discusses the broader background to the conflict outside of the media’s focus on the contest for power between President Marc Ravalomanana and Mayor of Antananarivo Andry Rajoelina. With presidential power becoming progressively more dictatorial in recent years, Randriamaro points to the heightened discontent of both the weakened opposition party and the country’s civil society groups in the face of neoliberal policies and growing social inequality. Underlining the key historic divide between urban and rural areas, Randriamaro argues that the current crisis represents a key opportunity to re-direct Madagascar onto a path towards democracy and improved human rights.

When the incidents of cholera in Zimbabwe were first reported, the government in that country went on a denialism trip. It insisted that the disease was nowhere nearer to reaching epidemic proportions and that there was no humanitarian crisis in the country. This response was an effort to dismiss the view that the outbreak of cholera was a consequence of social policy failures and a result of the general decline of the Zimbabwean economy. Such obfuscation and obscuration of social reality by neglecting the systemic and structural factors behind problems is typical of the responses of the political establishment to crisis situations. Very often the easiest escape route is to blame it all on the ignorance and negligence of the poor or to find a scapegoat.

Sokari Ekine reviews the following blogs:

Odegle Nyang
Black Looks
Digital Immigrant

More than 80,000 people have now been infected with cholera in Zimbabwe's six-month-old outbreak which has killed 3,759, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. About half of the patients who died from the water-borne diarrhoeal disease failed to reach any of the country's 365 cholera treatment centres, the United Nations agency said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says he doesn't see why a terrorism case against a longtime rival has made news around the world. Mugabe's first public comments on the charges faced by Roy Bennett show the gulf between his Zanu PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change, two longtime opponents now trying to work together in a unity government.

São Tomé and Príncipe government has charged 38 people for allegedly trying to topple President Fradique de Menezes last Thursday, government has confirmed. Last Friday, justice ministry spokesman Justino Veiga announced the arrest of a group of men after the foiled coup and the confiscation of more than 310 assault rifles in the home of one of the opposition party leaders.

At its thirteenth general meeting on February 1st in Rabat, Transparency Maroc (TM) commended the efforts of many public institutions and civil society in fighting corruption in Morocco, but still described it as not good enough. Corruption remains deeply rooted, and the problem is only growing, according to the organisation.

Repairing Zimbabwe's battered economy could cost as much as $5 billion, said Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday, adding the country is looking to attract direct foreign investment to help its recovery. Meeting South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to discuss a recovery strategy, Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe planned to use a number of currencies but was not considering adopting the rand as legal tender.

Three days ago, Jean-Charles Marchiani, a former member of the French secret services, was released from the Paris prison of La Santé where he had been serving time since May 2008. Last year, a tribunal in Paris found Marchiani guilty of influence peddling and other corruption charges involving African countries. Marchiani, who was also a close collaborator of former French minister of the interior Charles Pasqua, was sentenced in 2008 to three years in prison. He has been freed early thanks to a special amnesty granted by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The United Nations Security Council should act with urgency to send additional peacekeepers to northern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues its brutal attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The Security Council is expected to discuss the situation in Congo on February 17, 2009.

Robert Mugabe on Thursday swore in 19 deputy ministers to a new unity government with opposition agriculture nominee Roy Bennett still held in detention on a criminal charge. The ceremony finalised the historic unity government formed last week after years of political turmoil between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The Democratic Front of the Comoros has appealed to the head of state, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, to mobilize the people against attempts by France to hold a referendum in March with a view to transforming the Island of Mayotte into its overseas territory.

I am disappointed that the Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill 2009, which would have paved the way for the establishment of a Special Tribunal in Kenya, was defeated in Parliament yesterday. This development is a major setback to the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence (CIPEV).

In mid December, 2008, Robert Fowler, a career Canadian diplomat who is currently the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Niger, and his aide Louis Guay, an official at Foreign Affairs, were abducted in Niger. They were kidnapped not long after visiting a mine operated by Montréal-based SEMAFO (Société d’exploitation minière-Afrique de l’Ouest). The president and CEO of SEMAFO, Benoit La Salle, told the National Post: “Louis [Guay] called me and said he was going down there on a UN mission and that he heard the mine was a Canadian success, and he wanted to report this back to Canada.”

On the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, BBC News asks one of Africa's pioneering scientists, Dr Ave Kludze, of the US space agency Nasa what inspired his stellar career and what he thinks of the standard of science teaching in Africa today.

The number of Canadian miners poking the arid terrain of Niger is increasing, and the relative durability of the uranium price in a down market isn't the only thing fuelling their inquisitiveness. Possessing one of the world's best uranium resources, Niger has long been all but closed off to foreign investors - unless they were French.

The swearing in of the Prime Minister and the ministers in a unity government in Zimbabwe should be hailed as a landmark in the political development of the country. We acknowledge the political leaders in Zimbabwe for forging this outcome and the role played by SADC and former President Thabo Mbeki in facilitating the process. Now, everything must be done to sustain the momentum generated and make it irreversible. In particular SADC must closely monitor the arrangement to make sure that there is full implementation and the desired outcomes are realised.

This is and dissection of the IPS' Social Action & Leadership School for Activists

, reading the resolution 1721, I saw no mention "that in the event of a collapse in the transition, the ruling cadres would be replaced by others from Ivorian civil society." The direct dialogue initiated in late 2006, shortly after the toxic waste scandal has rendered obsolete the resolution. Where the resolution strengthened the powers of Konan Banny and of the High Representative of the United Nations and it introduced Sassou Nguesso as a mediator, the direct dialogue composed the trio Gbagbo, Compaoré, Soro. One question: where can I find the full report of the Commission Internationale d'Enquete sur les Dechets Toxiques?