AS THE United Nations (UN) Security Council was preparing to reassess today the situation in Côte d'Ivoire in relation to its resolution 1633, President Laurent Gbagbo launched a stinging attack on the UN and France for their perceived role in hampering the Ivorian peace process.

Civil Society Organisations and inter-governmental agencies met in Liberia recently to discuss, among other issues, Liberia's post-conflict debt and reconstruction. After a highly successful and well-attended dialogue, they issued a statement.

Residents of two Burundian provinces that are strongholds of the Forces nationales de libération (FNL) rebel group, which has agreed a ceasefire with the government, have expressed concern over continued ‘taxation’ by the rebels. The residents are also worried that the FNL is recruiting civilians to its ranks "as potential beneficiaries of demobilisation fees".

The Rwandan government and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have resolved their differences, which had prompted Rwanda to threaten to cut ties with the court, Rwandan Attorney-General Martin Ngoga said. He made the announcement at a news conference in the capital, Kigali, after a meeting on Tuesday between a delegation from the Tanzania-based tribunal and senior Rwandan prosecutors.

VERDICT & SENTENCE We, the Judges of this Asian Peoples Tribunal on Poverty and Debt, after a most careful consideration of the testimonies brought here by advocate witnesses find the Respondents, the IMF and the World Bank, guilty of the following charges:

Zambia's general election, set for 28 September, is expected to be a bitter and closely contested affair. Political analysts believe the country's fourth multiparty poll since it emerged from 27 years of one-party rule in 1991 will be a hard-fought contest for the incumbent, President Levy Mwanawasa of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), who is seeking a second and final term of office.

Some 350,000 people in Sudan's war-ravaged west could be displaced if African Union forces leave Darfur when their mandate expires at the end of the month, the United Nations has said. It forecast that if the 7,000-strong AU force pulled out of Darfur, humanitarian access there would deteriorate dramatically as attacks on vehicles made road travel impossible outside urban centres.

Imperial Fleet Services (IFS), a wholly owned subsidiary of South African corporate giant Imperial, is embroiled in a scandal concerning the Lesotho government fleet contract which has rocked the mountain kingdom. In terms of a deal the Lesotho government cut with IFS Lesotho, senior government officials, including ministers, judges and parliamentary officers, can buy three-year-old government vehicles at 1% of their original value.

Police in Zimbabwe on Sunday (September 17) denied reports that shots were fired at the home of Anti-Corruption Minister Paul Mangwana. "Only stones were thrown at Mangwana's Harare home late Saturday and a policeman fired warning shots at the assailants," police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told state radio. The minister claimed he was being intimidated because of his fight against corruption.

The Global Development Awards and Medals Competition is the largest international contest for research on development. Through this competition launched in 2000 with the support of the Government of Japan, we seek to unearth new talent and support innovative ideas. Over 3,000 researchers representing more than 100 countries throughout the developing world have participated to date. More than US $ 1.91 million has been distributed in prizes and travel to finalists and winners.

Prepared by Louis-Dominique Ouédraogo this publication contributes in raising awareness on the potential role of open source software (OSS) for the achievement of specific objectives set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Plan of Action adopted in 2003 by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). From the summary: There is a wide consensus that the use of ICT can foster the implementation of development goals in general and those of the Millennium Development Goals in particular.

Presidential elections in the Ivory Coast will not take place by October 2006, as mandated by the UN Security Council. The International Crisis Group blames the "deliberate strategy of politicians who want no peace they cannot dominate," and warns that a failure to set a new date for elections may reinstate the country's civil war. The report calls for a six month extension of the transition period and urges the UN Security Council to implement the targeted sanctions imposed by Resolution 1572.

This article looks at Africa's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Although Africa is considered the most egalitarian and consensual regional group in its methods for nominating states for non-permanent seats, sharp rivalries emerged in the campaign for the proposed new permanent seat(s).

Rwanda has accused a U.N. court trying masterminds of the 1994 genocide of recruiting genocide suspects and said it would stop cooperating with the Tanzanian-based tribunal if it took no action. Relations between Rwanda and the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have been strained over an incident earlier this month in which Tanzanian authorities arrested a Rwandan lawyer working for ICTR.

Late last month, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally announced the dates on which next year’s scheduled general and presidential elections are to be held. According to INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, who spoke at the National Forum on 2007 Elections in Abuja, governorship and state assembly elections are to hold throughout the country on April 14, whereas presidential and National Assembly elections are to hold a week later, on April 21.

Pro democracy groups in Zimbabwe have maintained they will continue with their protests for change and that recent attempts by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to embark on mass protests was just a curtain raiser for more action in the country. In separate interviews, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), The Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU), Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) said Zimbabwe will see more spontaneous action by the individual groups working in a non violent way.

The most-wanted Rwandan genocide suspect, Felician Kabuga, is hiding in Kenya and efforts are under way to arrest him, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Jallow, said.

Next week on the 18th of September in New York, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union will have an emergency meeting on the margin of the UN General Assembly. The PSC will decide on the future of the 7000 AU troops in the face of ongoing military escalation of the crisis in Darfur, the recent UN Security Council resolution 1706 to sent 20,00 troops and the Sudanese Government’s refusal to allow the UN mission to proceed. It is critical that members of the public, non-governmental organizations and Parliamentarians raise their voices at this time. Key to African leadership on this issue are 15 Ministers from Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda who will be attending this Peace and Security Council meeting. It is imperative that they agree on a number of key demands. For more information on the Darfur crisis and the Day of Action for Darfur

This year, Singapore is the host for the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Wahu Kaara argues that the reason the IMF and the World Bank chose Singapore is because these institutions want to exclude the poor people of the world. Further, she argues that these institutions only exist to serve the wealthy countries, while, simultaneously, undermine the sovereignty of poor countries. “The International Financial Institution (IFI) provides loans to poor countries based on conditions that undermine state sovereignty. It is these conditions that precipitate the political and economic breakdown of some African countries.”

This September, the World Bank and IMF hold their annual meetings in Singapore. The intent, more manifest than subtle, is to exclude the poor people of the world from holding them to account. But there is growing recognition that a dominant voice from the commons is clearly underpinning a new counter-planning strategy from below.

Considering that the Global Justice Movement was an unknown feature some twenty years ago, a lot more of its values are gaining credence and acceptability in the mainstream. This is an admission of how far we have come, and where we are headed.

On October 17, a day after my 54th birthday, the world will awake to the International Day of Poverty. It is interesting how organizing around poverty issues has become fashionable in today’s society. It seems as if the goal is to create a multi billion-dollar industry whose legacy we cannot fathom. Or are we in the danger of losing sight of our engagement reasons to a point that now we are gravitating towards what has aptly been referred to as the age of “Billanthropy?”

What is becoming clearer by the day, however, is that the much touted globalization, laden with neo-liberal policies, is not working for the majority of the world population.

In February 2005, Nelson Mandela aptly captured that, “massive poverty and obscene inequality is the scourge of our times.” I must add that we don’t run from a scourge, but tackle it head-on and innovatively create measures and maneuvers to overwhelm it.

The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) provide loans to poor countries based on conditions that undermine state sovereignty. It is these conditions that precipitate the political and economic breakdown of some African countries.

The structural adjustment policies and their enhanced versions have debilitating effects on the ability to enhance growth and reap the benefits thereof. Further, forced and skewed macro-economic changes are supposed to lead to growth as per the neo-liberal fable, but concentrated, short term growth only serves to fuel inequality and inequitable forms of growth that in turn result in a burgeoning economic class and, more often, a political elite that is continuously insensitive to the majority. This is a recipe for insecurity and a breakdown in social solidarity.

The debt crises continue to grind us. As the basis of how the control and domination between the rich and more often powerful North affects the South, this is one issue that we must deal with very clearly and soberly.

The debt crisis is more of a political than economic issue. But the economic mantra becomes an easy sell so as to mystify it and shroud it in secrecy. Debt must be interrogated on the basis of its illegitimacy and odiousness.

A critical awareness is emerging that with the Gleneagles debt deal of 2005, perhaps the creditors have reached the full extent of the concessions that they are prepared to make. The emergent post-Gleneagles thinking that the debtors too must make a clear position on where they stand, becomes acute. Nigeria has blazed the repudiation trail in Africa. This must be embraced and thoroughly interrogated. Both the mid-term and long-term ramifications must be isolated to arrive at a coherent position on the way forward.

We must all embrace the paradigm shift that we are no longer talking about charity but justice, that Africa is alive and the African peoples have refused to die but, in the converse, live for Africa. Tony Blair says that we are a “scar on the conscience of the world.” But that needs to be qualified. Their world. That of excesses, exploitation, control and domination.

Our political leadership may jump into bed with those who perpetuate our misery and penury, but for how long? Even at that level it is all crumbling like the walls of Jericho. The African Union has unequivocally stated that debt cancellation is a must, that investment in public services is critical and that there is a need to develop a social policy on Africa based on rights and entitlements. These are surely groundbreaking dialogues.

The World Social Forum comes to Africa for the first time in January 2007. In Nairobi from January 20-25th, we must showcase to the world the African reality. We must be able to have new dreams. To develop new cosmologies, new metaphors devoid of violence and exploitation.

We must rehabilitate and reconstruct politics. In addition, we must ensure universal and sustainable access to the common goods of humanity and nature. We have to ensure dignity, defend diversity and guarantee expression, eliminating all forms of discrimination. By guaranteeing the rights to food, healthcare, education, housing and work, we will be building a world order based on sovereignty, self-determination and rights of peoples.

In all our different actions and engagements all across the world, this is what we should be working towards and articulating. That “Another World is Possible” but that this world is already in the making. That is the only way to reinforce the paradigm shift from charity to justice. Anything short of that and I concur with the Croatian development critic Ivan Illich: “To hell with good intentions.”

In the meantime, let’s all keep at our concerted efforts to build the collage of our different actions and challenges countering the dominant themes of run-away corporate capital fuelled globalization. While at it, see you all at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, January 20-25th 2007, as we give home to celebrate our diversity and recognition of our dignified commonwealth.

* Wahu Kaara is a Kenyan Social Campaigner, Educationist and Global Social Justice Activist. She has written and spoken extensively on justice, debt and economic matters as they affect Africa and especially Women. She is the Executive Chair of the Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN) and Founder Chair of the Africa Women Economic Justice Network. She is currently immersed in the Mobilization and Planning for the World Social Forum slated for Nairobi, January 20-25th 2007.

*Kiama Kaara, is the Deputy Coordinator and Researcher at the Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN). He is also the Convener of the World Social Forum Organizing Committee Youth Commission.

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

COMMENT AND ANALYSIS: Yveline Deverin argues that almost all the mediators who have attempted to intervene in Ivory Coast have done so simply because they had a personal interest in intervening
- Rotimi Sankore explores the factors that contribute to the poor health of Africans
- Sokari Ekine argues that as long as Spain continues to reap benefits from cheap labour, the Spanish government’s rhetoric that it will not tolerate the continued arrival of migrants cannot be taken very seriously
- Maggie Makanza explains why the opposition in Zimbabwe has not been able to get rid of Mugabe
- Wahu Kaara argues that the reason the IMF and the World Bank chose Singapore for their meetings this year is because these institutions want to exclude poor people of the world
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine explores what the codifying of the African blogosphere means for people of colour
BOOKS AND ARTS: Hamidou Soumah argues that African films are marginalised in the US
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Ivory Coast
HUMAN RIGHTS: Ugandan press decides to publish the names of alleged homosexuals
WOMEN AND GENDER: Maternal mortality rate still high
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Newly displaced yearn for peace
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Who benefits from inter-govt clashes?
DEVELOPMENT: Annan hails Civil Society Organisations
CORRUPTION: Lesotho tackles corruption
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Who wants an HIV vaccine?
EDUCATION: Crisis in the teaching profession threatens education for all
RACISM & XENOPHOBIA: Why xenophobia persists in South Africa
ENVIRONMENT: Africa environment outlook
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: Land invasion a wake up to tackle poverty
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Attacks on journalists alarming
DIASPORA: The traditional predators
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: South African NGOs petition government to adopt foss
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