Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said African leaders are not brave enough to force him from power, the state-run Herald newspaper reports. He told a meeting of his Zanu-PF party that the US was encouraging African countries to oust him, but said it would not be easy to send in an army.

The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has soared to 1,111, the United Nations said on Thursday, adding to pressure for a quick solution to the crisis in the southern African country. South African ruling African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma ruled out military intervention and backed a diplomatic push as the way to end political deadlock and prevent a total collapse of the once relatively prosperous nation.

A free and fair media is a necessary element in any democracy. The press is the watchdog of the government. They ensure that the truth be told. The government should have no power in a democracy to control news outlets. If the bill is signed the government is essentially stealing the voice of the people so they will be able to declare a "state of emergency" when it is convenient for them. Giving the government a gag hold on the media's ability to report the truth.

A Niger guerilla faction led by dissident Tuareg insurgent leader Rhissa Ag Boula announced Dec. 16 it had abducted Canadian UN special envoy Robert Fowler, who disappeared with an aide while driving some 30 miles northeast of the capital Niamey. The vehicle was found abandoned. In a posting on its website, Ag Boula's Front of Forces for Rectification (FFR), which split from the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) in May, said it was holding four people, including Fowler.

This issue, Pambazuka News 413, will be the last issue to appear in 2008. We will return on 8 January 2009. We are taking a break to recuperate and recharge our batteries. We are, we know, the lucky ones: there are millions who have no option to continue their fight against oppression and exploitation, for whom there will be no respite over the holiday break. As you celebrate the coming of the new year, spare your thoughts for them. And make a new year's resolution to help Pambazuka News give voice to their aspirations and their struggles by making a regular donation. You can do so easily .

Emphasising that racialisation is far from simply an event, John Powell explores the history of racial segregation in the United States and the evolution of understandings around racism’s persistence and effects on day-to-day life. Just as racialisation reinvented itself in the shape of the Jim Crow laws following the end of slavery in the 19th century, today’s race-neutral approaches to issues of social and economic inequality can in reality simply compound racial disparities, Powell contends. In an Obama age, the author argues, tackling structural racialisation can only be achieved through ‘targeted universalism’: approaches and policies true to the individual circumstances that different social groups face.

The 12th ordinary summit of the African Union (AU) will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between January 26 and February 3, 2009 under the theme of ‘Infrastructure development in Africa’. According to the Centre for Citizen’s Participation in the AU (CCP-AU), the summit will likely be dominated by issues related to: peace and security in Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Djibouti; the union government – a topic to which a one day extra-ordinary summit is devoted; the draft social policy framework of the AU; the election of a new Chairman of the Union to replace the outgoing Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete; the impact of the global financial crisis on Africa.

In other news, the Chairman of the AU Commission said he will not consider sending troops to Zimbabwe to address the humanitarian and political crisis until all diplomatic channels are exhausted. Meanwhile, the Commission of the AU, deeply concerned over the devastating cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, has donated 100,000 dollars to the country as a contribution to tackle the epidemic.

A group of 26 countries in east, central and southern Africa launched ‘The African Climate Solution’ at the UN climate change talks in Poland that aims to reduce green house gas emissions by forest resources and carbon sequestration through agriculture, forestry and land use in Africa and throughout the developing world. Participants at the talks were negotiating a new global climate change deal to be clinched in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. The AU Commission signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Food Policy Research Institute aimed at strengthening food security by providing a better framework to find solutions to food security issues, poverty alleviation, hunger and malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, at its 44th ordinary session, adopted a resolution calling on African States to observe a moratorium on the death penalty as a step towards making the AU a death penalty-free continent. In other news, the AU is planning to set up a communal fund, held by the African Development Bank and open to contributions from international donors and African governments, to pay for education, science and technology programmes on the continent.

Finally, the University of Cambridge has issued a call for papers on the theme of ‘Contemporary India-East Africa relations: shifting terrains of engagement’ as part of a collaborative project between the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the British Association of South Asian Studies.

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, argues that the inter-party negotiations to implement a power-sharing government under the Global Political Agreement are hopelessly deadlocked. The ZANU-PF regime has repeatedly violated the agreement’s premises by resuming a campaign of violence against Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and making pre-emptive appointments.

Sokari Ekine reviews the following blogs:

Rombo
AfroMusing
Blacklooks
Glory O Nigeria

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation in association with SOAS and the Centre of African Studies-University of London is organising a Summer School in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2009 on the topic of ‘Governance and Development in Africa’. The residential school is for 25 participants who are policy makers, academics, or civil society representatives from any African country who will gain, through this training, new ideas and experience on the wide issue of good governance and development. We welcome applications from a wide range of backgrounds. Deadline for applications: 20th January 2009.

In the midst of the current credit crunch and global economic downturn, John Samuel revisits the context behind the infamous 1930s great depression. The author contends that while the context behind the current financial crisis and that of the early 1930s are not identical, the high concentration of wealth within a few hands remains essentially the same.

cc. With its power-sharing agreement manifestly failing, Zimbabwe is on the brink of collapse, writes Mary Ndlovu. The author argues that in the face of an entrenched kleptocratic elite, life grows ever more difficult for the country’s population, a situation markedly exacerbated by a broader political culture of selfishness undermining the development of any form of effective collective action. Without an internationally sponsored, technocratically based transitional authority to replace ZANU-PF as soon as possible, Zimbabwe may yet be spoken of in the same breath as Somalia and the eastern DR Congo, she concludes.

Analysing the background to Angola’s legislative elections at the beginning of September, Rafael Marques de Morais considers the wide voting irregularities and social inequalities that allowed José Eduardo dos Santos’s MPLA to tighten its grip on political power. Reviewing the final results of the elections, the author argues that the central challenge for the Angolan electorate is to carve out a path of genuine representation and a new vision of genuine democratic power, all the while maintaining a commitment to non-violent action.

Cash transfers have become an increasingly popular way of providing social protection in low-income African countries. This study aims to find out more about the impact of social pensions for older people and the combination with child benefits in older people headed households, and what can be learnt from the experiences with this approach in the Kwa Wazee project in Tanzania.

African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe, claimed on Thursday that Robert Mugabe had ‘real fears’ of being hauled before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, if he were to relinquish power. Mantashe made the claim in the coastal city of Durban during a breakfast meeting with journalists and editors. He revealed that the higher structures of the ANC had discussed Mugabe’s reasons for wanting to stay in power and that he was afraid of being arrested and charged with war crimes like former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

The 22 abducted political and civic activists, including Zimbabwe Peace Project director Jestina Mukoko, are still missing. We were not able to contact Alec Muchadehama, the lawyer representing the missing MDC activists, but lawyers representing Mukoko say the police are completely ignoring a court order. The courts had ordered the police to thoroughly investigate Mukoko’s abduction, report at 10am at the High Court every day with an update on their investigations, and put advertisements in both the electronic and print media. But none of this has happened.

Nigeria's president Yar'Adua has appealed for the repealing of laws that protect politicians from prosecution whiles in office. His appeal came while marking this year's international anti-corruption day. He also launched a new campaign to encourage Nigerians to report corrupt practices.

Zimbabwe's President Mugabe has called MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai a political prostitute and said that British premier Gordon Brown must undergo mental examination. He was addressing mourners gathered at the national burial shrine, for the burial of ZANU PF political commissar Eliot Manyika.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has bestowed this year's Ceres Medal to Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson for her work in promoting food security and agricultural development. At the 6 December ceremony in the northern Liberian town of Voinjama, Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General, the West African nation has prioritized bolstering agriculture as part of its development efforts, despite the degradation of the farming sector following two wars.

The top United Nations envoy to Somalia has welcomed the return of an opposition leader, who took part in reconciliation talks with the strife-torn Horn of Africa nation’s Government, to the capital Mogadishu. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, characterized the return after a nearly two-year absence of Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, who heads the Alliance of the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), as “a most welcome development.”