African in America - African in America (http://youngandreal.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-take-on-race.html) writes about being made to feel guilty by Africans and African Americans because he “does not hate white people”.

“I mean seriously! I resent being made to feel guilty for embracing those White people that are not in denial, or are trying to get out of their denial. I am tired of having to defend some of my White friends, from a blanket rejection by my family members, and black friends, because of the color of their skin. There are enough bigoted and racist White people, governments, and institutions in this World, for us to oppose, and try to bring down. There are lots of pretty ignorant White people that need educating. There are lots of White people out there that deserve our resentment. But we do not live in a vacuum. We cannot take the attitude that EVERY SINGLE WHITE PERSON is out to get us. Not only is it untrue, but it is very counter-productive. It diverts our efforts and our focus, and simply leaves us weaker in our fight, IMHO.”

I think the word “hate” is the problem. No thinking rational person engages in collective hatred. It is more a question of mistrust based on past experiences that make most Black people wary of whites, particularly white liberals that claim not to be racist.

Cry Beloved Zimbabwe - Cry Beloved Zimbabwe (http://crybelovedzimbabwe.blogspot.com/2006/07/one-in-three-zimbabweans…) comments on the “infiltration of Zimbabwean society by ZANU-PF secret police (the CIO). He claims that one in three Zimbabweans are actually spies.

“The infiltration has gone unnoticed especially for activists in the diaspora though many were aware that CIO operates here in UK. The attitude has always been that as we have sought refugee in a democratic country where the rule of law is upheld therefore we are immune from physical threat. The title of this article is not a wild guess, just after the March congress of Tsvangirai's MDC (Our MDC), Rev Pius Ncube was asked his opinion on the plans for peaceful demonstrations which the MDC had announced. He gave a chilling warning that the logistics of the demonstrations will be leaked to the CIO therefore pre-emptying the demonstrations…”

Aba Boy - Aba Boy (http://ababoy.blogspot.com/2006/07/remembering-jean-charles-de-menezes…) remembers Jean Charles de Menezes who was suspected by the British police of being a terrorist in the London bombings of 7/7 2005 and subsequently murdered at Stockwell police station. Aba Boy had met Jean Charles who had fixed an electrical problem in the loft of his house. His wrongful death had a personal meaning to Aba Boy and his wife. Here he writes about how they both felt on hearing that he had been wrongfully shot by the police.

“A day later, when the identity of the suspect became clearer, and when it appeared that the wrong guy had been shot, wifey called from work sobbing. The guy that had been shot was the one that came to have a look at our loft a few months ago. I ran straight to a TV near me to see if she was just jiving. The photo they had in the news bulletins didn’t really look like him. But there was some resemblance. I went back to my desk, not sure whether to share this news with the folks at work. I decided not to. I had stored his number on my phone, and I was tempted to call. As the day passed it was obvious that it was Charles.”

On Monday 17th July, it was decided that no police would be prosecuted over his killing, leaving his family bitter and angry about the death of their son. “Justice will not be served.”

Nigerian Music blog, Soul on Ice - Soul on Ice (http://obifromsouthlondon.blogspot.com/2006/07/nation-of-cynics.html) comments on the on going Israeli attack on Lebanon and the wanton destruction of the country and it’s people. He questions the disproportional response and collective punishment typical of Israel in Palestine but now extended to Lebanon.

“The Israeli government is being extremely cynical. So how does this go? Someone takes two of your people, note keyword ‘take’ not ‘kill’. And what do you do? You blow up their airport, destroy their roads, kill their civilians, blow up their government buildings, destabilize their whole nation and still categorically state you are targeting ‘terrorists’? Hmmm, remind me to detonate a nuclear bomb in your backyard next time we have a fight. Indiscriminate warfare. And at the same moment in time lay the same kind of siege in the Gaza strip area. This is the one reason I can understand the Palestinian suicide bombing. You can show your American-backed might all you want but they will strike back with anything they have even their very lives. There can never be peace in a stolen land.”

Egyptian Chronicles - Egyptian Chronicles (http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2006/07/lebanese-spear-head.html) also comments on the Israel invasion.

“Today it will be the sixth day in the on going open war Israel declared on the Lebanese people and land, already yesterday the death toll in Lebanon reached to over the hundred, the south is completely destroyed as well as the southern suburb in Beirut the capital, the financial loss of Lebanon in those few days reached to 4 billion dollars and the number is escalating. It is the 6th day and Israel seems to have more then teaching HazbAllah a lesson in its agenda, it seems to me that the Hebrew state wants to send Lebanon back to the stone age.”

The question on everyone’s mind is whether there is a wider agenda here and if so what is it? Egyptian Chronicle believes it to be Iran with Syria as a bridge between HazbAllah and Iran. I believe she is probably right in her assessment.

“I believe the Syrian role in this on going war is to be just a bridge between Iran and HazbAllah, already Lebanon is blockaded from the air , the sea and two land borders from the original three land borders, the only remaining way is Syria and regardless of the destruction of the high ways between Damascus and Beirut there are still for sure more hidden places.”

White African - White African (http://whiteafrican.com/?p=263">White African) discusses Africa’s potential “on the web and mobile space”.

“We have all seen how the phone has changed communications in Africa drastically. The Web is set to do the same, especially when married up with the mobile phone. Those who labor now to create products that start winning mindshare on the African continent will reap the rewards in the coming years.”

White African has himself acted as an innovator and catalyst of web development in Africa with the Africa Network project, the African Gadget blog and Zangu Africa’s web.

New Cameroonian blogger - Ekosso.com by Rosemary Ekosso is an excellent addition to the African Women’s blogosphere. In her most recent posts she addresses the issue of over population in Africa. She points out the reality that in fact Africa is not over populated and has an abundance in natural resources so the problem is not over population.

“I refuse to go around feeling guilty about coming from the ‘overpopulated’ developing world. I refuse to believe the guff we are fed to the effect that there are too many of us. Too many for whom? For what?”

The reality is the Western nations consume the majority of the world’s resources and it is this imbalance that needs to be addressed, not the mythical over population of Africa.

Black Looks - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/07/4_rare_slave_trade_photos_from_1868.h…) publishes some rare photographs of slaves on a ship captured by the Dutch Navy in 1868 some 100 years after the Transatlantic slave trade officially ended. The photographs are thought to be of Arab slaver traders operating in the Indian Ocean. Neither the original source of the photographs nor the background to the photographs is known.

“These photographs dated 1868 reveals a very little of the terrible suffering caused to millions of people by the slave trade. This group of severely emaciated boys and young men on the lower deck of a Royal Naval ship apparently have been taken from what was a slave vessel trading illegally off the African coast headed to the Americas. The captain of the Royal Naval ship had instructions not to return the rescued slaves to the place on the coast where they had been put on the slave ship (presumably because they were in danger of being recaptured by traders) but it is not clear from the available documentation what happened to them afterwards.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

I have great respect for Tajudeen and always admire his immense analytical capacities. I thank him for this reflection and pertinent questions on Somalia. (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/35322) I also rejoice the kicking out of harmful bandits of bad taste known as warlords.

However, I would like to caution our enthusiasm. We must wait and see the behaviour of these new dynamics in the Somalia crisis. Tajudeen manifested the same euphoria when Kagame, Museveni and Kabila came to power.

I will insist we watch these new dynamics as they are still unfolding in Somalia, before any significant support for one or the other group is formulated and joyfully advocated for.

If Africa needs a rebirth, it should be on principled foundations and not on momentous military victories.

First of all, thank you for the great information you offer in Pambazuka News. I am a faithful reader of your publication. Now I am writing because I am the webmaster of Exodus-Kutoka Network, a network of parishes working in the Nairobi slums and informal settlements. We are launching the website where you can find all kinds of information on the Nairobi slums. Not only the work done by the different parishes, but also a compilation of many studies, information and papers on the situation of the slums and the slum dwellers, as well as the campaigns done against the forced evictions, for the upgrading of slums, etc. I would be grateful if you could publish it in Pambazuka News. Thanking you for your collaboration.

Yes, history is full of the powerful change that grassroots activists can bring about. Enough people, enough ideas and anything is possible. For a full thrashing out of non-violent possibilities for change, with no particular political agenda, come to the UK Forum for Non-Violence in London 21-23rd July. Hear Kofi Klu (Chair of Pan African task force for Internationalist Dialogue) speak on the history of Non-Violence and what this means in today’s world. Details at Be part of an exciting debate!

I was in Brazil last week for the second meeting of African Intellectuals when I heard the news of Comrade Brother Chachage from one of our brothers on Tuesday morning. His passing was noted by many of the brothers and sisters at this meeting. It was in settings such as these where one could view the measure of the contribution of Chachage to the African liberation struggle, indeed the struggles against capitalism and imperialism.

I last saw the brother at the Walter Rodney commemoration event in January in Dar es Salaam. His presentation at this fora exposed his continued interest in the intersections of the struggles of the peoples of Africa at home and abroad.

I first met Chachage in 1981 when he was still a young editor at the Tanzania Publishing House in Dar es Salaam. I followed his career closely and remember working with him as a colleague on the sixth floor of the Arts and Sciences building. He was one of the pillars of UDASA (the trade union for academics) and he never compromised with the social science of imperialism. He was impatient with the chauvinism of the South African academic environment and returned to Dar after a short sojourn at the University of Cape Town.

Comrade brother Chachage has left a legacy that should be emulated by many young scholars. I am hoping that the present leadership of CODESRIA will seek to put together many of his unpublished papers so that they will be available to scholars internationally.

To his family I send our deepest condolences.

The Kenyan government's directive to have senior officials return luxury cars to cut costs may have been good news to tax payers, but lack of transparency and accountability could undermine the exercise. The government is expected to save about 17 million dollars in running costs, which will be channelled to development projects, from the exercise.

Youths loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo threw up barricades and burned tires in a crowded, poor suburb of Cote d’Ivoire’s largest city on Monday (17 July) as a crucial effort to identify some 3.5 million undocumented Ivorians failed to unfold as planned. The youths, known as Young Patriots, prevented vehicles from circulating in the Abobo neighbourhood and said no hearings to establish citizenship should take place until northern rebels disarmed.

King Mswati III, Swaziland's executive monarch, has finally signed a law empowering the government's Anti-Corruption Unit, 10 years after the body was established. "Corruption remains a challenge for this government. We will rely on the full cooperation of the public, business and the media," Prime Minister Themba Dlamini told a group of local newspaper editors as he announced royal assent to the long-deferred legislation.

The UK government wants to boost its foreign aid policy with a £100m fund to tackle developing world corruption. The plans are in a new White Paper, which comes after last year's G8 summit of industrial nations pledged help for African and other developing nations. The £100m Governance Transparency Fund will be used to boost accountability, partly through the media and unions, as well as tackling corruption.

Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf has dropped his opposition to talks in Sudan with Islamist leaders who control the capital, Mogadishu. He boycotted talks with the Union of Islamic Courts, accusing them of breaking a previously agreed ceasefire.

A Congolese rebel leader who kidnapped seven Nepalese United Nations peacekeepers in May has agreed to lay down his weapons, the UN says. Peter Karim and 60 of his fighters have agreed to end their war against the government, a UN spokesman said.

The UN world conference on small arms has collapsed without agreement, despite the majority of governments, including the European Union, and many African and Latin American governments, backing tougher controls on the international trade in small arms and light weapons. The conference, which ended on Friday 7 July, collapsed after a small number of states, most prominently the United States, blocked key issues so consistently that no agreement was possible.

Tanzania is lagging behind in preparing to sign a deal that will determine how it trades with Europe for a long time to come. Only a few months remain before the end of negotiations for a new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the European Union. As a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Tanzania’s interests are being negotiated within the South Africa-based economic grouping.

The Camp Community Development Coordinator's main responsibility will be to develop and oversee all IRC social services in Oure Cassoni refugee camp, with a heavy focus on the areas of protection, child and youth protection and development, and education. This position will be responsible for overseeing protection activities in the camp and for providing technical and capacity building assistance to IRC staff undertaking an initiative to mainstream protection throughout all sectors.

In this article, the author argues that combining proselytising with humanitarian aid has led to several negative consequences. As a result of these impacts, she believes that the public needs to consider the question "Should faith-based organizations be allowed to proselytise while providing development and humanitarian aid?" These negative impacts are felt not only in the sphere of international opinion, according to the author, but also in the local communities in which these groups work.

Going the last mile: what’s stopping a wireless revolution? For many people in the world, communication facilities are unreliable, slow and costly. The use of wireless technology is one way in which this situation could be transformed. So why are some governments restricting its wider use?

President Laurent Gbagbo has strongly criticised the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast. He says it is biased in favour of rebels who have been in control of the north since 2002. Some 10,000 French and United Nations peacekeepers monitor a buffer zone between the rebels in the north and the government-held south.

With the job of implementing promises made at the G8 summit in Gleneagles last year, Peter Eigen, a member of the Africa Progress Panel, discusses his role in ensuring aid promises are fulfilled and corruption in Africa is reduced. "I don't think it will be possible to ignore Africa or North-South relations in general at any future G8 summit," he concluded.

The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme has called upon the World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz to spearhead immediate debt cancellation for Tanzania and all African countries. The call, which also urged the World Bank president to abolish all forms of conditional ties attached to its lending to Africa in general and Tanzania in particular, was made by the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP). The appeal by TGNP comes at a time of the visit to the country by the World Bank chief.

FEATURED: If you thought that University education was brought to Africa by the Europeans, you were wrong, writes Paul Zaleza
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Censorship and suppression of freedom of expression by bloggers is becoming rife in Africa, writes Sokari Ekine
- Parties in Nigeria are 'established as coalitions of various factions of regional and economic rent-seekers' according to recent research
- There are lessons from East Timor for failing state of Cote d'Ivoire, warns Juan Federer
LETTERS: Readers pay tribute to Issa Shivji on his retirement
OBITUARY: Africa has lost one of its giants - Chachage. His contribution is celebrated in prose and poetry
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wonders what Nkrumahists are doing at the Dr Busia's memorial in Ghana
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine rounds up the African blogosphere
BOOKS AND ARTS: New publications about Looting of Congo
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: As the AU celebrates its 6th anniversary, calls are made for the continents scientific renaissance
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: No agreements on small arms conference while killings on the ground escalate
HUMAN RIGHTS: Human rights defenders in East Africa publish report
WOMEN AND GENDER: Women hail Zimbabwe's domestic violence bill
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Europe seeks African collusion in controlling migration
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: DRC Elections - calls made for delays
DEVELOPMENT: ActionAid exposes corruption of development aid
CORRUPTION: Opportunistic money in creating a new elite in Zimbabwe
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Male circumscision and HIV risk
EDUCATION: Fear of 'language genocide' in South Africa
ENVIRONMENT: Pastoralists organise in week-long meeting
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Egypt printing stoppage in protest against new laws
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Migrant songs hits the internet in Senegal
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