The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organisation founded by Mo Ibrahim to promote better government in Africa, has published a survey called ‘Ibrahim Index of African Governance’ in which nearly two-thirds of sub-Saharan African nations between 2005 and 2006 have improved their quality of governance especially in participation and human rights. However, another analyst contends that rather than seeing improved governance, the continent is facing a new scramble without resistance and revolt from the ruling African elite - the comprador class – who are active participants in the process of re-colonisation of their continent. The new colonisers are not interested in redefining national borders but the continent’s national resources such as oil, diamonds, timber, gold, uranium, ivory and natural gas, among others.

The African Union (UA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Association of Peace Support Training Centre for the training of African military personnel. The learning will focus on peacekeeping operations, given that every region of Africa is expected to establish a stand-by brigade that could be deployed to trouble zones at short notice. The AU has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the World Bank, which is aimed at deepening collaboration in the areas of regional integration, governance, post-conflict situations, relations with the Diaspora, HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. This AU-World Bank partnership is anticipated to be results-focused with the World Bank’s technical expertise complementing the African Union’s political lead. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture organised the first Pan African Banana Conference during which banana farmers, buyers, trade officials, donors and scientists gathered in Mombasa, Kenya in an effort to transform smallholder banana production in Africa by linking farmers to regional and global markets.

In peace and security news, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) asked President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa to request his predecessor Thabo Mbeki to continue as Zimbabwe’s mediator following a deadlock over the allocation of ministries between rival political parties. The move came after the Movement for Democratic Change formally wrote to SADC regarding the impasse. In his statement, South Africa’s new leader backed former president Thabo Mbeki as the mediator in Zimbabwe, saying that his ‘government has full confidence in Mr Mbeki’s ability to build on the historic successes already made in the power-sharing negotiations under his mediation’. According to the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States, the community intends to implement, by the end of this year, the legally binding convention aimed at ending the continued proliferation of small arms within the sub-region.

In other news, Uganda hosted the first Justice for Women’s forum to address issues affecting women in war in northern Uganda, Sudan and the Central African Republic. The President of the Commission of the AU, Jean Ping, took part in a joint meeting of the AU and the European Union to discuss, among other issues, the request by the French government to suspend the judicial proceedings against Sudanese President Omar El Bashir for genocide and war crimes committed in Darfur.

Finally, the Democratic presidential election candidate in the United States, Senator Barack Obama, is said to have outlined his fundamental policy objectives for Africa once he is elected to the White House. These are: ‘to accelerate Africa’s integration into the global economy’; ‘to enhance the peace and security of African states’; and ‘to strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa’.

This is the 400th issue of Pambazuka News. As if to mark this occasion, we received news today that, for the fourth year running, Pambazuka News has been voted amongst the top 10 websites “who are changing the world of Internet and Politics” by PoliticsOnline and eDemocracy Forum. But to make this really special, we learned that, thanks to you – our readers, contributors and supporters – we received the highest number of votes cast, more votes than Barack Obama’s entry in the competition! (17 October: well, that is what we were told by the organisers - but at the award ceremony held in Paris we learned that Obama won this competition. Still Pambazuka News did well to have still been in the top 10 despite the stiff competition)

Pambazuka News was established to provide a platform for nurturing the (re)emergence of a progressive pan African movement. Over a period eight years, some 1,200 citizens – academics, social activists, women's organizations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators – have contributed to Pambazuka News to produce insightful and thoughtful analyses that make it the most innovative and influential sites for social justice in Africa. It is this community that have made Pambazuka News ‘successful’.

But, as the contributors in this special celebratory issue point out, there remains much to be done. The growth of Pambazuka News has to be seen in the context of the struggles of the emerging movement in Africa. We are living in a period of an unprecedented upsurge of social movements across the continent. The last popular upsurge in the post second world war period swept the continent with cries of freedom from colonial oppression, bringing about political independence to every country on the continent. But one form of oppression has been replaced by another – the neo-colonial yoke. The leaders in whom we had such faith have sold our heritage in a manner predicted by Frantz Fanon at a time that few of us had any inkling of what the new post-colonial world would look like. In most countries, the majority of people are poorer today than they were 20 years ago. ‘Development’, that euphemism for the re(construction) of a modernised capitalist world, has brought untold impoverishment and misery to the many, and unprecedented wealth to the few, a feature exacerbated by the period of 'globalisation'. The record of the last fifty years provides ample evidence. The implosion of the financial markets today in the US and in Europe is an inevitable consequence of the free-market policies that have been touted as being the panacea for all the world’s ills by the neo-liberals and neo-cons as well as by our own governments who have so willingly colluded in the implementation of these disastrous social and economic policies. So what is to be done?

As with every major significant transformation in history, the building of an alternative, another world, is not going to be achieved by empty declarations of dogmas, however attractive they may be to us and to those who propound them. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the collapse of credibility of alternative ideologies to the mantras of capital. At the same time, the vacuum created has forced many to think more deeply about the way forward, based on concrete analyses of the conditions facing our continent, based on connecting with our own histories, and based on the need to engage in dialogues that reflect the diversity of thinking, imagination and creativity with which this continent abounds.

Pambazuka News has, we believe, made a small – and we hope important – contribution towards nurturing analysis, creativity, debate and discussion in Africa and amongst the diaspora, that will help give birth to a strong progressive movement for equality, justice and freedoms. For us, the key to that has been to facilitate solidarity and joint actions in support of the oppressed and exploited, and providing a space through which their voices can be heard above the cacophony of the market. There are many voices that remain under-represented in the pages of Pambazuka News, especially those of peasants and workers movements, refugees and displaced people, and the mass of the disenfranchised. Our efforts in the coming period will be directed towards overcoming these shortcomings. Our role will continue to be to promote emancipatory politics.

But if Pambazuka News has ‘done well’, it is because of you, dear reader, and all you who have contributed. So join us in celebrating your 400th issue and for voting Pambazuka News as the top website that is changing the world of politics and the internet - the only African website to have been nominated in the competition.

* Firoze Manji is founding editor of Pambazuka News and executive director of Fahamu - Networks for social justice.

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

... Pambazuka has over the past few years established an unrivaled and authoritative voice on contemporary African issues. The pace and quality of its production, and its ability to keep abreast of events is remarkable and deserves abundant congratulations. It is our firm hope that it continues to march forward and produce these vital insights on African affairs ...

In a comprehensive review of the latest global capitalist crisis and its consequences for African populations, Patricia Daley explores how greed has continued to hinder African educational opportunities and the realisation of a Walter Rodney-esque development rooted in personal freedom, well-being and security. With the hegemonic narratives of the West failing to improve the lot of the majority, Africans must return to creating their own narratives of development, central to which will prove the more effective use of technological change and the access to information offered by media outlets such as Pambazuka News.

As he salutes the ground covered in Pambazuka’s first 400 issues, Jacques Depelchin argues the publication should continue its work as a tool for emancipatory politics in the next 400 and beyond. Drawing in particular on the example of Haiti, Depelchin stresses that new emancipatory politics are being generated all the time, but their potential must be actively harnessed if governmental indifference and hostility is not to overcome the promise of healing histories.

Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos unveiled his cabinet following last month's landmark legislative poll on Wednesday, state media reported. Angola's ruling MPLA party secured a landslide election victory last month, setting stage for changes that critics fear could make presidency even more powerful and weaken other institutions.

The military coup leader who seized power in Mauritania last month has rejected an African Union (AU) ultimatum to reinstate Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi as the country's president, saying it is not in the country's best interests. "The position of the African Union is neither constructive, nor positive," General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz told reporters in the capital, Nouakchott.

As Africa grapples with the question of food insecurity, biotechnology buffs seem to have an answer: genetically modified crops that could feed a continent vulnerable to famine and food deficits. But environmentalists warn of new dangers. An appeal board recently overturned opposition from the South African GMO Executive Council to allow testing of a nutritionally enhanced, genetically modified sorghum, known as 'Super Sorghum' in greenhouses in Pretoria.

The UN refugee agency and the United Nations Foundation's "Nothing But Nets" campaign have started a partnership to help eliminate malaria deaths in refugee camps. The partnership – which aims to provide long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets to more than 630,000 refugees living in 27 temporary camps in Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – was announced by former United States President Bill Clinton at the closing plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York last Friday.

Zambia has struck a trade deal with the European Commission (EC) that wall give the southern African nation full access to markets in the European Union (EU). The announcement was made by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in a statement on Wednesday. The 27 member EU has deals with poor countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) to replace the former Cotonou trade arrangements deemed illegal by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) has given Zimbabwe a second chance to hold the regional bloc’s 13th summit, in what would appear to be a hasty show of confidence in the country as a result of the power sharing deal. The summit had been initially set to take place in May but was called off after state-sponsored violence swept through the country, following Robert Mugabe’s election loss to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of voting in March.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the volatile security and political atmosphere in Guinea-Bissau, where crucial elections are slated to take place next month, in his latest report to the Security Council on the West African country. Mr. Ban said that the period covered by the new report, from mid-July to September, was characterized by “deepening political malaise and the spectres of military tension and pressure.”

United Nations attack helicopters firing rockets went into action in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after rebels attempting to advance against the Government opened fire on UN reconnaissance planes. The UN action was the latest in a series of strikes against the rebel Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front (FRPI) in Ituri province, and comes less than two weeks after peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) sent in combat helicopters against another rebel group in North Kivu province, to the south.

Religious leaders from Africa, Asia and North America pledged today to help end one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world by signing on to the “Say NO to Violence against Women Campaign,” organized by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

As Guineans mark their 50th year of independence from France, a popular cry to be heard in the capital, Conakry, is: "Fifty years of poverty!" "We would rather have poverty in freedom than riches in slavery," the country's independence leader, Sekou Toure, told the then French President General Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Kenya has sent protest notes to the United States and European Union following pressure for Kenya's electoral commissioner to resign. The foreign minister said Samuel Kivuitu had been threatened with a travel ban, which was "shameless blackmail" and an insult to the public. However, diplomatic sources say no such travel threat was made.

President Robert Mugabe and opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai met Tuesday but failed to agree on a share-out of ministries in a power-sharing government, the opposition said. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told AFP that the deadlock had been referred back to former South African president Thabo Mbeki who mediated the agreement signed earlier this month.

Zimbabwe's ruling party Wednesday denied a deadlock in power-sharing talks, saying that no outside mediation was needed in negotiations with the opposition on dividing key cabinet posts. "Anyone who says there is a deadlock is being mischievous. There is commitment on all of us to make things work," said Patrick Chinamasa, chief negotiator for the ruling ZANU-PF.

The Council for Zimbabwean Christian Leaders in the UK (CZCLUK) has welcomed the signing of the power sharing agreement as an act that brings hope to the suffering people in Zimbabwe and the millions now scattered around the world. We urge both Zanu Pf and MDC in its two factions to put the interest of the Zimbabwean first and ensure that this agreement brings a period of justice,peace and reconstruction.

With the US-backed AFRICOM programme launched this week, Beth Tuckey exposes the limitations of plan conceived more for the protection of American military interests than African social development. With both Barack Obama and John McCain content to fully endorse President Bush’s existing plan, the author demonstrates how both the Democrat and Republican campaigns are sacrificing important dialogue on AFRICOM for the sake of remaining neutral, bipartisan, and uncontroversial.