Weekly Roundup

The AU Monitor has developed an African Union and Civil Society Calendar for your reference and input. The calendar will be regularly updated each month with relevant pan-African events, meetings and other important dates. Please refer to the calendar regularly and write directly to aumonitor.editor at gmail.com should you wish to add items to the calendar.

This week’s AU Monitor brings you peace and security news from the Comoros, where after a series of failed negotiations, the African Union has imposed sanctions against Anjouan authorities. While a civil society report shows that the cost of conflict on African development was approximately $300bn between 1990 and 2005.

In trade news, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) argues that the Economic Partnership Agreements, due to be signed by the end of this year between Africa and Europe, violate international law and impede development by depriving countries of sorely needed revenue from trade taxes. While church groups are organising the Trade Week of Action from October 14-21 to call for alternatives to enforced free trade. The planned events range from hunger strikes and pickets to worship and high-profile seminars.

In health news, the AU will hold a meeting to discuss the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa, which concludes that “local production can be successfully done in the continent. However there is need for the African countries to reassess the realities, possibilities and the feasibility of the programme so that it moves from being a political slogan to a reality after good ground work.” Further, African-American US Congressional Representative Barbara Lee has introduced the African Health Capacity Investment Act of 2007 in the US House of Representatives. The bill would authorize $600 million to train healthcare workers in Africa and provide incentives for them to stay in their home countries to reduce the brain drain, which is crippling African health care. Also in the U.S, a Court of Appeals ruled in favour of going ahead with the Khulumani v. Barclays et. al case which charges twenty three multinational corporations with aiding and abetting Apartheid. The case was initiated by eighty seven South Africans, all of whom were victims of gross human rights abuses during Apartheid. By allowing the lawsuit to go to trial, the Court is setting precedent for the possibility of corporations to be held account for human rights abuses outside of their home countries.

At the United Nations, Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari argues that Security Council reform is critical as the United Nations “has not itself transformed and designed the necessary institutions of governance consistent with the noble ideals that drive modern democratic societies” as stated by President Thabo Mbeki at the General Assembly in New York.