A generally calm campaign for local elections on 19 November continues to be marred by incidents of violence and arrests, notably in Sofala, where 21 people are detained, and Tete provinces. In some places, both main parties seem to be encouraging youngsters (below voting age) to pull down posters and disrupt marches of the other party – and in a few case even to throw stones at members of other parties.

The election of Barack Obama as US president is still one of the most discussed topics on the African blogosphere, although the giddy post-election euphoria is steadily giving way to more subdued analyses and observations.

argues that Obama’s victory is bittersweet for Nigeria and most of Africa:

“…while we rejoice that YES WE CAN, it is sad that apparently in Africa it seems that NO WE CANNOT, at least not yet. Not that we cannot, as such, but we won’t have the opportunity to, at least not likely in this generation. The seeds of today were planted years ago, probably in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Barack Obama was born in 1961… the modern period of the struggle for the political and social emancipation of the African-American, the anti-apartheid struggle and the political (not economic) independence of African nations. Clearly, Nigeria and much of Africa are NOT effectively planting seeds now for tomorrow…

As the ancient Chinese proverb says, ‘If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.’ Today, we must educate our people and leverage global tools such as Information Communication Technologies to foster the requisite education for all people at all levels regardless of background, age, sex, physical and mental characteristics, creed, tribe, religion, status, income or any other social divide. Today, our competition is no longer local but global, and our core limiting factors are ourselves, our education and the opportunities we create.”

Kamer Stories argues that the jubilation in Africa over Obama’s victory have been over the top and are out of sync with the realities on the continent:

“We have an ongoing war in Congo, I hardly see Africans saying anything about it, much less doing anything. Hunger and poverty is still a reality in many parts of our continent, and until that is greatly reduced, I do not see why we should be in such a celebratory mood. Let me come closer to home. In my country, we have a president who has been on the ‘throne’ since before I was born (and I am in my twenties) and all attempts till date to make him see the error of his ways have come to naught. How can we be celebrating in such a manner, when all this is happening in out own backyard? …

Many Cameroonians (my parents included) are over the moon even as I write; they are still in a state of limbo. I’m not sure when they’ll get out of it. When I asked them why they’ve taken this celebration to such a level (they’ve been celebrating for five days now to the exclusion of everything else, mind you), they retorted that ‘this should show Biya!’ Show Biya what? I asked. ‘He should follow America’s example and let him let a minority rule. It would show him that a minority can also rule in this country’. I don’t even know where to begin.”

Dr. Ethiopia praises the Bush Administration’s “tireless effort and initiatives in transforming Africa” and list’s President Bush’s achievements in Africa which he describes as the most impressive of any US administration:

“It is supremely hard to follow that. But most importantly you have delivered a great deal in Africa in your eight years as president of the U.S.
The challenges in Africa are clear, and president-elect Obama will have to meet this high expectation and deliver even further more. We all should be grateful for what Bush has done and accomplished in Africa, but we are also keenly aware that our better days are yet to come.
Obama’s time to walk-the-walk in, Darfur and all corners of Africa has arrived. The urgency of Africa’s pressing issues cannot wait another day, another hour or another minute.
Well done President Bush, and farewell sir. It is my hope that as a civilian you would carry on this vision of yours in Africa, and elsewhere.”

Angry African comments on the life and death of African music legend Miriam Makeba:

“Mama Africa never forgot about the fight for justice. Never. She didn’t die at home. She died in Castel Volturno in Italy, in the evening of 9 November 2008, of a heart attack, shortly after taking part in a concert organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like organisation. Camorra finances itself through drug trafficking, extortion, protection and racketeering. It is the oldest organized criminal organization in Italy. Mama Africa… Mama World… Mama Ubuntu… No matter where you were, she was with you in your fight for justice, freedom, liberty and equality for all.
She died just after singing Pata Pata. She died on stage.
In the words of Mama Africa, “I will sing until the last day of my life.”
So she is gone. But live on. Always.
Viva Mama Africa! Viva! Long Live Miriam Makeba! Long Live!”

Elie Smith, the France-based blogger, writes about his recent trip to Sudan which changed some of his long-held assumptions about that country and its people:

“I considered Sudan… as an Arab state. For, the Western media do present Sudan as an Arab state and the crises in Darfur as a racial war. They present Sudan to be at best, a sort of Saudi Arabia or at worst, a kind of Afghanistan that doesn’t want to accept its name. But the Sudan that I saw for the first time on the 1st of November 2008 is not an Arab country, but a purely and proudly black African country proud of her multiple black African heritages. It is true that, in Northern Sudan, where Khartoum is located, the lingua franca is Arabic, but that doesn’t in any way mean that the Sudanese, be they from north, east and west and south, are not proud of the black African ancestry...

The western media made me think that the Sudanese were Arabs, which to me, meant White Arab from Saudi Arabia or northern Egypt. I discovered that the Sudanese were black and also discovered on Saturday November 2nd during the away finals of the 12th edition of the MTN CAF Champions League that the Sudanese were truly proud of their black African ancestry, even though a majority of them are practicing Muslims.”

Scribbles from the Den republishes an article from the Guardian newspaper which explains how the Obama campaign harnessed the power of the internet to create the powerful grassroots movement that propelled the democratic candidate into the White House:

“Obama's masterful leveraging of web 2.0 platforms marks a major e-ruption in electoral politics – in America and elsewhere - as campaigning shifts from old-style political machines, focused on charming those at the top of organisations, towards the horizontal dynamics of online social networks. The web, a perfect medium for genuine grassroots political movements, is transforming the power dynamics of politics. There are no barriers to entry on sites like Facebook and YouTube. Power is diffused towards the edges because everybody can participate. It's being used not only for vote-getting but - as the Obama campaign demonstrated - for grassroots fundraising too totalling more than $160m (£80m) from people who gave comparatively tiny amounts - $200 or less.”

* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/

Heads of State and government of the Great Lakes peace conference met in Nairobi, Kenya in a summit organised by the UN Secretary-General and the African Union (AU) to deal with the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. The region recommended a stronger mandate for the UN troops present in the country and resolved to send a team of senior diplomats. Leaders from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) also held an extraordinary summit in South Africa to discuss the crisis in the DRC as well as the stalemate in the power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai stalled over the allocation of key cabinet ministries. However, the summit failed to come up with a solution other than the creation of two home affairs ministries to break the deadlock, a proposition that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) strongly rejects. Negotiations between the two parties are also meant to resolve the issue of appointments of other key official positions and the amendment of the constitution to facilitate the agreement. In a SADC communiqué, the extraordinary summit decided that the ministry of home affairs be co-managed between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and the MDC and resolved to endorse the statement of the heads of State of the Great Lakes region summit on the situation in the DRC. Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, mentioning that his mission learnt of attempts to undermine the Somali peace agreement, urged all Somali people to support the on-going efforts to implement the Djibouti peace accord.

At the end of the first session of the conference of ministers in charge of social development, convened by the social affairs department of the AU Commission and under the theme ‘Towards a sustainable social development agenda for Africa’, ministers adopted the social policy framework, to guide member states on the development and implementation of appropriate national strategies and programs aimed at enhancing social protection and security for all. During the official closing of the tenth session of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Honourable Gertrude Mongella, the President of PAP, warned African states that the PAP would not tolerate ‘negotiated democracies’ where defeated leaders resort to negotiations to prolong their stay in power. She urged parliamentarians to adequately prepare for the eleventh session that would review the protocol establishing the PAP.

In development and finance related news, humanitarian experts and analysts are concerned over severe impact that the world financial crisis could have on humanitarian funding with official development assistance projected to be cut up to 30 per cent or more. Ethiopia will host the eleventh meeting of the Africa Partnership Forum that will bring together over 100 high-level representatives from Africa, G8 and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries to discuss key issues for Africa’s development and to highlight priorities for progress. In addition, German President Horst Kohler, speaking at the end of the fourth German-African forum that resolved to improve economic, political and social development in Africa; fight against poverty, climate change, migration, regional conflicts and terrorism, referred to cooperation as a key element in the partnership between Africa and Europe.

In other news, the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa are jointly organising the fourth meeting of the council of ministers responsible for civil aviation in Accra to discuss aviation safety and security and agree on modalities for realising the full liberalisation of air transport markets in the two regions. Finally, the AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, on behalf of the AU, has congratulated President-elect of the United States of America Barack Obama for his historic election.

Members of Parliament have done it again. For the third time last night, they arm-twisted acting Finance minister John Michuki into dropping the proposal to tax their hefty allowances. Michuki told Parliament that he would withdraw the proposal to tax members’ allowances alongside those of constitutional office holders such as judges.

As he explores the general sense of euphoria to have greeted Barack Obama’s election victory in cities around the African continent, Pius Adesanmi considers the significance of the possessive ‘we’ commonly employed in African citizens’ descriptions of the new US president-elect. Deeply constrained by the expectations of some of the less level-headed parts of the US electorate, Obama’s potential pro-Africa posturing may well be limited by the need to remain palatable to the American populace. But if effectively harnessed, the author argues, Obama’s ascendancy represents a genuine opportunity for Africa’s community of conscience to fundamentally redress the anti-humanity, pro-resources plundering of the continent to have characterised Western countries’ and African leaders’ approach over the past five hundred years.

Yes, we can because
It is written in blood
In history
On your hand
We will because
The time has come
and cannot be held back
by old
greedy
men
so passé
We can
because
we owe it
to us
and we are many
we are bold
and bolder still
and our time too has come
and we will
we will
god knows
we will

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Christopher Mlalazi has written plays for Zimbabwean performing arts groups that include Amakhosi Theatre; Umkhathi Theatre; Sadalala Amajekete Theatre and the Khayalethu Performing Arts Project. His poems and short stories have been published in newspapers, magazine and websites that include Crossing Borders Magazine, Poetry International Web, the Sunday News and The Zimbabwean newspaper. Others have been featured in anthologies that include Short Writings From Bulawayo: Volumes I, II and III (Ama’books Publishers, 2003, 2004 and 2005), Writing Now (Weaver Press, 2005), and The Obituary Tango: Selection of Writing from the Caine Prize for African Writing 2005 (New Internationalist Publications, 2006, Jacana Media ,2006). Mlalazi spoke with about his work.

Egyptian protestors have torched headquarters of most prominent opposition politician in clashes between rival factions, eyewitnesses and police said. Police official said seven people sustained minor injuries as rival groups threw stones and bottles at each other at downtown Cairo headquarters of al-Ghad party.

Michael Sata, leader of Zambia's opposition Patriotic Front party, said he will launch legal proceedings challenging the result of the country's presidential election held last week. Sata alleges vote-rigging and voter intimidation and on Tuesday demanded a recount after losing to centrist politician Rupiah Banda, who was sworn in as president on Sunday.

Following the disappointing results of the Good Governance agenda, this paper explores the idea of working "with the grain" of African societies. It identifies a core set of beliefs and values – concerning power, accountability and social morality – that are widely observed across sub-Saharan Africa, have proven extremely durable and remain powerful drivers of behaviour.

In Africa, as elsewhere, the path or paths to development and modernity are dependent on historical institutional context, and cannot be imposed from outside. The paper first compares Africa with five alternative models of how development occurred elsewhere.It is argued that African states are ‘outliers’ in that the legacy of recent colonialism and the dominance of external forces have created a peculiar mixture of ‘informal’ values and behaviours with formal institutions, in which the informal are dominant in power relations but not recognised or understood. Hence development policies lack any real traction.

It has become increasingly common in Namibian society for children to head their own households and take care of other relatives, due to the death or illness of their parents and guardians, or because their parents live far away. This handbook provides guidance on how to run a child headed household. It is intended for children and youth who shoulder the responsibility of managing a home and caring for others as well as community caregivers, volunteers and relatives who provide some form of support to these households.

Robert Mugabe’s government has effectively been placed on the Global Fund blacklist, after the state’s central bank failed to account for more than US$7 million worth of Global Fund grant money. Global Fund executive director Michel Kazatchkine announced on Monday that the donor group had ordered that funds under its administration in Zimbabwe be placed under the Additional Safeguards Policy (ASP), which aims to ensure that funding is used for its intended purpose and not to benefit the government.

A South African government spokesman on Thursday said the country will take a hard line stance during a SADC summit set for Sunday in Johannesburg, to ensure that agreement is reached on Zimbabwe’s cabinet deadlock. Themba Maseko told reporters the impasse ‘is becoming a matter of extreme concern to us and we will be taking quite a hard stance.’ The tough talk is in stark contrast to mediator Thabo Mbeki’s softly soft approach.

Nana Konadu Agyeman, the hawkish wife of ex-President Jerry Rawlings, has written to the diplomatic community and some international organizations that the impending December 7 general elections will descend into civil war (Daily Guide, 28 October, 2008).

The World Bank, acting as administrator for the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA), has signed a grant agreement for US$8 million with the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) to support increased access to electricity in rural towns and villages with grid access, within the context of the Universal Electricity Access Program (UEAP) in Ethiopia.

More than 80 percent of the population is still dependent on biomass for energy in the Southern African region, particularly, wood, cow dung and coal. It is mainly women and children in rural areas that bear the brunt of lack of access to modern, safe and affordable energy. They are the ones that collect wood and search for coal in and around operating and abandoned mines.

British police will not investigate a construction company accused of corruption in Lesotho, they have said. British firm Mott Macdonald were implicated in an audit of a dam project in the southern African kingdom. But the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said it will not be looking into the accusations, two years after they received them.

Renewed violence has ended hopes of negotiating an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis, the country's main opposition party has said. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) blamed President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party for an "orgy of brutality" across Zimbabwe. The statement came ahead of regional talks in South Africa this weekend on Zimbabwe's political stalemate.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has accused UN peacekeepers of failing to stop rebel troops killing civilians in the east of the country. "People are being slaughtered and [UN peacekeepers] did nothing," a spokesman for President Joseph Kabila said. The comments came as regional leaders met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in Kenya for crisis talks.