This week’s China-Africa Watch by Stephen Marks features Chinese responses to the Obama election, details of developments in Sudan and the DRC, the Chinese railway industry in Africa, and China’s trouble in the face of global economic downturn.

With the DR Congo crisis presenting a complex mosaic of conflict, war, violence, rivalries, alliances, and competing interests, Jacques Depelchin reviews the background behind the country’s ongoing troubles and explores broader areas of responsibility. As the DRC seemingly destructs and self-destructs, the author asks whether people’s willingness to continue consuming mineral resources extracted from the country should more properly be situated in a tradition of Western peoples’ enjoying comforts at the expense of African populations dating at least as far back as the triangular Atlantic trade and subsequent colonial period. A fuller, more comprehensive understanding of the DRC’s history and Western history at large would reveal, Depelchin contends, an established practice of ‘doing away’ with figures deemed threatening to those in power, a practice of marginalisation that will ultimately have to be effectively tackled if future crimes against humanity are to be averted.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/405/zim_women_tmb.jpgHighlight… the chronic lack of representation for women within each of Zimbabwe’s main political parties, Shereen Essof asks how Zimbabwean feminism should proceed in its essential challenge to the oppressive dominance of the country’s political elites. In a nation suffering the world’s highest inflation rate and among the world’s lowest life expectancy, the author asks what these statistics mean in practical day-to-day terms for Zimbabwe’s women. With Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and Mutambara continuing to fail to settle their differences and articulate a worthwhile path for their country’s immediate future, those at the apex of political power effectively hold their entire population hostage to their decisions, a state maintained in no small part by the behind-closed-doors nature of negotiations and ultimate absence of democratic accountability.

cc. August saw a fresh outbreak of conflict in the DRC. Since then, approximately 250,000 have been displaced in the eastern part of the country. Following a brief cease-fire declared by the forces under the command of General Laurent Nkunda, fighting again erupted on the 4th of November. Ever since the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, and the subsequent wars that raged between 1996 and 2002, the country has hardly seen a moment's respite. The Kivu region has been the epicentre of the latest round of fighting. In an interview with Firoze Manji, Ernest Wamba Dia Wamba outlines the conditions necessary for a lasting peace in the DRC

Pambazuka News: After many years of silence about the killings in the DRC, the world's attention has suddenly turned to the current sweeping of Laurent Nkunda's forces around Goma. What's brought about this kind of attention?

Wamba dia Wamba: I think that the change of the balance of forces on the terrain is part of the reason. The scope of the humanitarian catastrophe forces many western people connected with media, with humanitarian organisations and also the rising interest in the situation of the DRC around the US elections. One hears that the incumbent regime would like to create hot situations either to help the Republican candidate or to create faits accomplis for the new regime to deal with. Around certain universities in the US, for example, for the first time a trend has developed to take up the issue of the silence on killings in the DRC. And, we have to add also the need for Western capitalists, after the Chinese contract with the DRC government, to re-assume their control over the Congolese resources. We hear that the idea of a Kosovo is being played, but, if it materialises it will be not for Congolese peoples’ interest but to have control over very important mineral and agriculture potential resources of the area.

Pambazuka News: The mass media in the West predictably seeks to portray the conflict as tribal. But what is this conflict about? What are the political and economic factors behind the conflict?

Wamba dia Wamba: Tribal differences have never been a cause of conflict; other conditions must prevail to transform differences into discriminations and these to lead to conflicts. There are of course many unresolved issues since the Rwandese genocide took place and many, including genocidaires, moved massively to the DRC as recommended by the international community. Nkunda, for example does use the presence of the FDLR [Forces Démocratiques de Liberation du Rwanda], still committed to retake power in Rwanda and perhaps carry out genocide, as one reason for his war. The truth of the matter is that we have to distinguish between the main objective, access and control over the resources, and the conditions facilitating that objective, the existence of genocidaires creating havoc on innocent people, the sentiments of exclusion still felt by the Tutsi Congolese, the involvement of the DRC government with those genocidaires – used as the government's marines, according to some – and the possible alliances between business people aligned with government officials of states in the region. Most of our regional governments are actually led by security officers allied to businessmen. It is said that Rwandese businessmen, among others, have been financing Nkunda to keep control of the mines and continue exploit minerals – coltan, niobium, etc – very much sought by transnational enterprises producing or distributing mobile phones, satellites, etc.

The subsoil of the whole of the DRC has almost been sold out with contracts to so-called partners. Quite a few family members of people in power, from the summit on, find themselves on those contracts. One suspects that in zones where there is no firm control by any state, weapons decide everything. In a sense, Kivu is now the weakest link of the globalisation’s chain. We need to identify the different contradictions converging there. The absence of a real state authority, apparently willed by some who are in the State, facilitates the agents of the world economy of crime.

Pambazuka News: What are the roles of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Angola in this conflict? What's in it for them?

Wamba dia Wamba: After having experienced the destabilisation of a Mobutist gendarme state, many neighbouring countries would rather prefer having a weak Congo around, especially if they can even benefit from that weakness by engaging also in the looting of resources of the Congo. The invisible alliances in business facilitate that kind of pursuit. Certain officials in Uganda and in Kinshasa at some point did have joint business going on. Rwanda has an interest it uses contradictorily: the presence of the genocidaires to claim that its security is threatened and to keep a situation of anarchy to have access to resources on which its businessmen have been enriching themselves. Their participation in the last two rebellions made them taste the resources available in Congo and in fact want to continue enjoying them in one way or another. The task of organised government in Kinshasa would have been to find ways of legalising participation in the common exploitation of resources. This process has been very slow and one feels that the anarchy is found more profitable in the short run.

Pambazuka News: The European Union and other countries are deeply engaged in exploitation of the DRC's resources. To what extent are they culpable in the current crisis?

Wamba dia Wamba: Certain transnational enterprises were identified by the UN panel some time back: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers, etc. The nature of the minerals being exploited in the area can only be used by advanced enterprises and Africans are just intermediaries. The campaign against the DRC-China contract by the West is an indication of their willingness to control the Congo resources. The sad part is that profitability through bloody coltan being higher, they do not really care about the life of the innocent Congolese, only to reduce the miseries through so-called humanitarian punctual aid and not to eradicate violence altogether.

Pambazuka News: Are we witnessing the 'Balkanisation' of the DRC?

Wamba dia Wamba: The rebels are occupying an area of about 3 territories. It is not clear whether in negotiations they will accept to give it up. If the DRC government does not succeed in getting that territory back and if external forces support the keeping of the territory by the rebels, a small but very rich country will be formed and the impact on the rest of the country may lead to a real balkanisation. The government is being asked not to give up to that demand if formulated. Congolese people are firm for their territorial integrity.

Pambazuka News: Does the Kinshasa government have any control of the situation?

Wamba dia Wamba: Not really, that is why it has being criticising the MONUC for its own failure to arrest the war. Because of the nature of leadership we have, mostly interested in looting resources and staying in power, condoning impunity, etc.; institutions hardly function. Most of what it promised to do is not being done, including national reconciliation and building of a real national army. Even the new government being sworn in does not seem to inspire confidence in the population. Many useless dead-woods have been but behaving as if the republic is their private propriety – the so-called the parallel government have been re-included.

Pambazuka News: What should be the response of pan-Africans to the present situation?

Wamba dia Wamba: Call for a regional African Peoples’ conference, if there is a way to make this happen. What is needed even for democracy to be built in the area is that people agitate to really build a post-neoliberalist developmentalist State. In the short run, we should agitate against any possible Balkanisation, for the application of the Nairobi agreements, for the exchange of embassies between the DRC and its neighbours, Rwanda and Uganda, and for an urgent humanitarian intervention.

* Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is honorary senator and vice-president of the Organizing Power of the Kongo University.
* Firoze Manji is editor in chief of Pambazuka News and director of Fahamu – Networks for social justice.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Focussing on the US’ new military initiative AFRICOM, Beth Tuckey sets out the central points of consideration for the new president-elect as his administration nears its first days. Emphasising that the military might of AFRICOM must not be permitted to usurp diplomacy as the feature tool of dialogue and negotiation, the author urges the new president to curb the excesses of resource-hungry US corporations and to prioritise African security and prosperity. While his presidency may yet yield some lapses of judgment, Obama’s commitment to diplomacy and greener energy represent a worthy point of departure, the direction of which will only be maintained by the continual vitality of civil society voices.

cc. With Barack Obama safely elected to his country’s highest seat of power, Bill Fletcher Jr. discusses the sense of fear and anticipation to have gripped him as the votes came in. As the wave of post-election excitement inspires the world, the author reviews the key issues revealed by the electoral process requiring attention in the immediate future, and argues that the tide of expectation around the Obama presidency will only be sustained by the regenerative role of grassroots organisational structures capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people seeking a new political direction.

I found myself facing a peculiar choice. Because I was taking election day off to do election work, I could have submitted an absentee ballot. In fact, that would probably have been the most logical thing to do. It would have saved me a lot of time. I kept procrastinating in filing for such a ballot until it was too late.

On election day I realised why I did not file the absentee ballot. Like millions of other voters, and particularly African-Americans, I had to physically touch the voting machine. In my case, it was a touch-screen computer, but it would not have mattered whether it was that or an old-style lever that I had to push. 4 November 2008 was a moment when I had to make physical contact with the voting machine and actually see my vote counted. I had to know that it was actually happening. And I needed to stand in line – in our case for two and a half hours – with hundreds of other African-Americans and wait patiently for a moment to influence history.

Irrespective of any reservations one might have regarding the proposed policies of President-Elect Obama (yeah, I get a kick out of writing and saying ‘President-Elect’) there is no question but that the election victory had a profound emotional impact on black America specifically, as well as this country generally. I can honestly say that I never expected to see a liberal black person elected president of the USA, and I was not sure that a conservative black person would be elected either. As the election returns were coming in my stomach was tied up in knots unlike anything that I have experienced since my daughter was born. I did not make predictions and I do not trust polls. More importantly, I did not trust the white electorate.

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE ELECTION?

In reviewing the stats from the election, the results are quite interesting. Obama won the popular vote by 52% compared with McCain's 46%. This is extremely significant and has not been replicated by a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson won the presidency in 1964. Nevertheless, what it also shows is that the USA is quite divided. That 46% of the vote that McCain won represented more than 55 million people. What is noteworthy is that while Obama won only 43% of the white vote, whites under the age of 30 backed him by a 66-32% margin. Latinos voted with Obama at a rate of 67% (an important increase over those who went with Kerry in 2004). Women voted with Obama at a rate of 55%, though he lost white women by 5% points (though this was better than Senator Kerry in 2004). It is also noteworthy that though Obama only received 45% of the veterans’ vote, compared with McCain's 54%, this remains significant in light of the red-baiting and terrorist-baiting that was being targeted at him. Additionally, union voters went with Obama at 60% compared with McCain’s 38%, a lower percentage than should have sided with Obama in light of the current economic crisis but which probably reflects racial divisions within the house of labour.

In my view, the election reflected several important concerns and tendencies:

- The economy: there is no question that the economic crisis had a significant impact on the electorate. 63% of voters indicated that the economy was a priority issue. McCain was never successful in crafting a message on the economy that resonated with the public
- Concern about the perception of the USA overseas: there was a sense among Obama supporters that there needed to be a change in the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This was, however, very unfocused
- A decline in the importance that voters attached to both the Iraq war and terrorism: with regard to Iraq this probably reflects a growing sense that the war is coming to an end and that the occupation is not a critical issue
- The next Supreme Court appointments: for 47% of the electorate this was a critical issue. This was a hot-button issue with liberals and progressives who have been watching the Supreme Court make increasingly indefensible decisions that reflect its right-wing course
- Race matters…sort of: particularly among younger voters, race was a less significant factor in influencing voter behaviour than among older voters. It is also apparently the case that the economic meltdown led many white voters to put racial concerns on the back burner. That said, the ‘racial neutrality’ of the Obama campaign took matters of racist oppression largely off the table for any significant discussion, a fact that may return to haunt the incoming administration.

Without question the Obama victory needs to be understood as a tribute to exceptionally good organisation, the initial positioning of Obama as, at least in the primaries, an anti-war candidate, the onset of the economic crisis, the candidate's continuous message of optimism, and Obama's ability to remain cool under fire.

ACT II: BEGINNING RIGHT NOW

The implications of the Obama victory will need to be unpacked over the coming weeks and months. That said, there are a few points worth noting because they will have strategic implications:

Obama's mandate is vague yet identifiable: the mandate he has received is to address the economic crisis immediately in a manner that favours regular working people. This is evident from the polls and from plenty of anecdotal information. In addition, the mandate involves changing the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This particular point is very unfocused but it is evident that the US voters are increasingly concerned about the perception of the USA overseas and what that means for matters of national security.

Most people were unfamiliar with the actual programmatic steps Obama is advocating on the economy, yet they were unwilling to be swayed by the red-baiting rhetoric of McCain and Palin. This may offer an opportunity for progressives to advance one or another variant of a redistributionist approach toward the crisis.

With regard to foreign policy, this is extremely complicated and quite troubling. While Obama has emphasised the need for negotiations as a first step in international relations, when confronted by forces to his right, he has tended to back down and often suggest highly questionable military and crypto-military options in handling crises, e.g., unilateral attacks on al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan. Some people around Obama seem to be advocating a get-tough approach towards Iran which itself could lead to hostilities. While the people of the USA, by and large, are not looking for more war, the ability of the political Right to manufacture the ever-present threat from right-wing Islamists (including but not limited to targeting Iran) has successfully promoted a climate of fear. This will, more than likely, be a weak point for the president-elect and a place where pressure must be placed by anti-war forces.

The world is expecting a great deal from an Obama administration: all corners of the earth erupted in glee upon news of the Obama victory. Obama will more than likely reach out to traditional US allies in order to repair the damage done by the eight years of the Bush administration. There will more than likely be outreach to Africa, though the character of that outreach is as yet to be determined. Obama, while Senator, expressed a great deal of interest and concern with Africa, and developed legislation focussing on the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He will probably try to alter the relationship of the US to Africa, though it is not entirely clear how thorough such an alteration will be. One should expect outreach to the African Union to offer support in cases of humanitarian disasters and crises, but unless Obama is prepared to break with the whole ‘war against terrorism framework’ there may be continued militarisation of the continent (through vehicles such as AFRICOM and the Trans-Sahel Military Initiative).

Progressives will need to perfect an approach of ‘critical support’ towards the Obama administration: the corporate backers of President-Elect Obama have no interest in a transformative agenda. They are interested in stabilising capitalism generally, but especially stabilising the financial sector. They are open to selective nationalisations as long as such nationalisations do not bring with them significant popular accountability. In light of this, progressive forces will need to be organised in such a way to mount a challenge from the left side of the aisle. President Obama will need to be pushed on many areas, including foreign policy, healthcare, housing, jobs, and in general, the need for a pro-people approach to addressing the economic crisis. Taking this approach of critical support means, tactically, pointing out what has not been accomplished in the Obama agenda on the one hand, and, on the other, challenging the new administration when it advances policies that are regressive, e.g., threatening Iran or Cuba, or compromising with the insurance companies on healthcare.

Critical support also means raising issues that the Obama administration may tend to shy away from or avoid altogether, such as race and racism. Race is fused into the US system. Racist oppression and the differential in treatment between people of colour and whites remains a major part of the US reality. For that reason, progressives must push the Obama administration to address the continuing impact of racist oppression. This may lead to clashes that at one and the same time appear to be tactical, i.e., matters of timing, but are actually quite fundamental, that is, about whether there needs to be a systemic challenge to racist oppression.

None of this happens in the absence of organisation. Those who rallied to the Obama campaign came from various political tendencies and experiences, and many of them will seek to return to their ‘everyday life.’ At the same time, there are those who mobilised that are looking to be part of implementing the ‘dream’ and they will be unable to do this as individuals operating alone. If one really wants to advance an approach of critical support for the incoming administration, it will mean creating the grassroots organisational structures around the country that are capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people who are seeking a new direction. This approach, what I have described elsewhere as a neo-rainbow approach, can be used to exert pressure to ensure that the incoming Obama administration lives up to its full potential.

So many of us cried with joy and amazement on the evening of 4 November with this historic breakthrough. Our excitement cannot rest with the electoral success but must be fused with a genuine effort to create a new politics.

* Bill Fletcher Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the immediate former president of the TransAfrica Forum and the co-author of ‘Solidarity Divided’ which analyses the crisis in organized labour in the USA.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, after failing to break the deadlock over the formation of a new Zimbabwean government at a meeting in Swaziland, referred the matter to a full emergency summit of SADC heads of state. The government of South Africa announced that it would host that 15 nation summit aimed at bringing together SADC leaders ‘to save the power-sharing deal, seen as the best hope for ending months of political turmoil and halting Zimbabwe’s stunning economic collapse’. Meanwhile, President Jakaya Kikwete and Chairperson Jean Ping, acknowledging that there was need for immediate action to prevent further escalation of the humanitarian crisis in the North Kivu Province, announced that the AU was ready to restore peace in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An AU special envoy has been sent to DRC and to its neighbouring countries to promote ‘a holistic approach to the current crisis, building on existing instruments and mechanisms whose implementation already enjoys the strong support of the international community’.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the regional integration division of the Economic Commission for Africa has launched an Observatory to assist policy makers, member States, regional economic communities and all stakeholders with timely and relevant information on current progress, challenges and issues related to regional integration in Africa. Member States of the East Africa Community have asked experts to identify possible complications to free movement of services as negotiations for the region’s common market focus on transport policy, competition and consumer welfare, approximation of laws and various commercial policies. The first session of the AU conference of ministers in charge of social development held in Namibia was intended to develop a comprehensive social policy framework that reflects countries’ commitment towards the Millennium Development Goals.

In other news, South Africa minister of trade and industry, in his acceptance speech as incoming chairperson of the conference of African Ministers of Trade (CAMI) bureau, called for the full use African intellectual, human, historical and natural resources to realise Africa’s potential. The AU Commissioner for economic affairs announced that the commission, in collaboration with the African Development Bank, was organising a conference of ministers of finance and central bank governors to discuss the impact of the global crisis on African economies, its impact on the Bank and also examine its impact on aid to Africa. The secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) said that the proposed free trade area between COMESA, the East Africa Community and Southern African Development Community would reduce the costs of doing business and give way to an Africa-wide economic community. Finally, an analyst comments on the recently concluded extraordinary session of the African Peer Review Mechanism.

I had the pleasure and honor of speaking with Kambale Musavuli on October 28, 2009, when I called Maurice Carney, Executive Director of , to tell him that the "San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper," had posted an essay and a video I'd recommended on Congo that week and planned to post Kambale's "What the World Owes Congo," plus my own piece on Congo, and the U.S. in Congo, as I perceive it from here.

"I know who you are," I said, as soon as Kambale answered Maurice's phone and told me that he was a civil engineering student at North Carolina Agriculture and Technical College. "I just read your piece in Pambazuka and asked another editor to post it to her website."

Kambale said thanks and then riveted my attention with everything else he had to say about Congo, especially when he told me that he belonged to a tribe whose name is transliterated as Nandé, but that tribal membership is insignificant in Congo, and that the Congolese identify nationally, as Congolese. He thus quickly dismissed the usual propaganda about ethnic conflict, rather than Congo's vast mineral wealth, as cause of the horrific violence reported there.

However, even as Kambale and I spoke, renegade General Laurent Nkunda's was leading his highly disciplined, well-armed, and ruthless militia towards Goma, the capitol city of Congo's mineral rich North Kivu Province, causing the catastrophic displacement now growing worse hourly.

I had been writing a piece on what Barack Obama might mean to Africa and the Congo, from an American perspective, what former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the U.S. Green Party's dissident African-American presidential candidate, has meant, and about the terms in which both have addressed the Congo crisis.

However, by the 29th, all observers declared Laurent Nkunda and his militia firmly in control of North Kivu, with the help of the Rwandan Army bombing, shelling, and firing across the Rwandan border, very near Goma. Nkunda then agreed to a cease fire and demanded talks with President Joseph Kabila.

Not only Eastern Congolese, but also the Congolese Army, and UN Peacekeepers had been fleeing Nkunda's militia in every direction for several days.

So, I felt compelled to put the piece I was working on aside and write an account of the worsening catastrophe, as well as I could understand it, highlighting the U.S. role as provider of weapons and military training to Rwandan President, Paul Kagama, and thus to his ally, Laurent Nkunda, in Eastern Congo.

This evening I told Maurice Carney that I'd called the Rwandan Embassy, also in Washington D.C., and quoted fleeing Congolese refugees saying, "The Rwandans are hitting us so hard that we have to run." I also told the diplomat who answered how appalled I was, but he wanted to argue about how misinformed I was, and kept insisting that Rwanda had not invaded Congo.

I told him that very mainstream press like AP, the BBC, and Reuters had quoted fleeing Congolese, including children, saying exactly these words, but Rwanda's diplomat wanted to argue indefinitely, and accused me of spreading misinformation, (passed to me, of course by the insidious AP, the BBC, and Reuters), so I signed off.

I asked Maurice Carney to send me a photograph of a vigil he and allies had organized outside the Rwandan Embassy in Washington D.C., to go with my essay for the "San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper." Maurice thanked me, enthusiastically, for calling the Rwandan Embassy, and urged me to share the number and the story with as many people as possible, so here it is: Rwandan Embassy, Washington D.C., (202) 232-2882.

There's one more thing I can do right now, which is to look up the telephone numbers for the Rwandan Embassy in London, 020 722 49 832, and Toronto, 613) 569-5420/22/24.

And, if we're going to call Rwandan Embassies, I we might as welll try calling President-Elect Barack Obama's office after November 4th, (202) 224-2854.

It is so ironic that being given such a context of human rights abuse in Angola, this year's global World Habitat Day under the theme'Harmonious Cities' was commemorated in Angola -

What kind of a society are we creating if we continue to condone demolitions of people's markets? Surely, this year's World Urban Forum should address human rights violations where people's livelihoods and homes continue to be affected by demolitions , which affect negatively on women and children.

In response to by Joseph Yav Katshung: I have been reading with great alarm for years about the massacres and genocide going on in the Congo (Zaire). Around 2003 I was outraged by the massacres of the Hema and Lendu tribes in Ituri province that killed 50,000 people and wrote poetry to protest it. The occasional articles about Congo in the New York Sun indicated that the information was heavily censored by the regime and the full extent of the atrocities wasn't known.

Recently I have read more in detail about the genocide in the Congo. The more I learn, the more alarmed I become. It seems that the primary driver of the genocide has been the fight over coltan and casserite mines which are used to produce cell phones and gold mines. In addition the other problem has been Congo's refusal to disarm the Hutu genocidal killers from Rwanda. Perhaps the most alarming thing I learned is that the leaders of the Hutu killers are being politically sheltered with asylum protection in Belgium, the U.S., France, and Germany. I sent letters to my friends asking them to support legislation in the U.S. Congress which would try to certify that coltan and casserite from the Congo is not being mined by any of the combatant parties.

I have been reading your articles and have been deeply moved by them. I read your article marking the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide that touched and saddened me. I admire your efforts to support legal mechanisms both international as well as congo national to prosecute the killers and ensure justice for the victims. It seems obvious that the West is as indifferent to the genocide in Congo and Darfur as it was to the genocide in Rwanda. Tragically there is no political will at all for genuine action to stop genocide anywhere in Africa on the part of either Western or African leaders.

I am looking for the following information to continue my research and action on behalf of the Congo:

1. ethnic composition of North and South Kivu provinces before 1998 and after the recent war / genocide

2. books explaining the pre-colonial history of the Kongo Kingdom and other tribal groups that previously ruled in Congo such as Luba

3. ethnic composition of the victims of ongoing genocide in North and South Kivu provinces of Congo - including whether particular groups have suffered proportionately more deaths due to massacres as opposed to starvation and disease

4. your opinion on the efficacy of the U.S. trying to ensure that coltan and casserite in the Congo isn't produced by warlords

Sokari Erkine reviews the following from the African blogoshphere:

Dulce Camer
Koluki
African Loft
Jonathan Elendu
Nigerian Curiosity
Gorilla CD
Black Looks

It is the UN's biggest and most expensive peacekeeping operation ever. But when things got serious in the Democratic Republic of Congo the blue helmets failed to defend the population from rebel troops and instead concentrated on protecting themselves.

Mozambique's government will drive the development of four 'science parks' across the country to encourage scientists to find solutions for its social, health and infrastructural problems. António Leão, national director of Mozambique's Ministry of Science and Technology, says the initiative is aimed at taking science and technology to the people.

Cast aside your fears
For once,
Nervously
As on the day you wed,
Have faith in the universe
that beauty can be borne
of hope,
your hope
and positive energy
which we must radiate
not on the hurts of the past
or fear of ourselves
but because
history breathes
this whispered hope
because if we cannot hope now
then when?

We note the rare unity of the political class in dismissing the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence as inadequate and flawed. We also note the dismissive attitude of the police force towards the findings of the investigation, as well as the faultfinding by the Attorney General.

The United Nations General Assembly's Fourth Committee approved Tuesday (October 21st) a draft resolution that would have parties to the Western Sahara dispute "continue to show political will and work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to enter into a more intensive phase of negotiations". The Assembly would also support the process of negotiations "with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution that would provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara".

Morocco's proposed 2009 budget, currently awaiting parliamentary approval, was released on October 20th amid speculation about the impact the global financial crisis may have on the Moroccan economy. Talking about the bill, Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar told the press last week that "the unfavourable international economic situation, marked in particular by dizzying price rises in raw materials and the financial crisis, will have negative repercussions on growth worldwide".

Last weekend, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was in the spotlight in Benin. From 25-26 October 2008, participating African Heads of State and Government gathered in Cotonou for the first Extraordinary African Peer Review Forum. Most Forum meetings are traditionally held on the margins of busy African Union Summits, where other business frequently intervenes. In Egypt in June-July, Zimbabwe dominated.

A new political party comprising of youths has been formed in Lilongwe, Malawi, as the country gears for its elections next year. Interim president of the yet to be registered Peoples Democratic Party Hebrews Misomali said the formation of the new party is the beginning of a new era in the country's politics.

African leaders are planning to establish a continental hydro power station to harness its huge energy potential. Country representatives attending the 20th Session of the African Hydro Symposium in Zambia said hydro energy is the cheapest and cleanest for the continent.