South Africa says it is ready to send an observer mission of about 120 personnel to the Democratic Republic of Congo's national elections scheduled for next month. "This is a massive task, considering that the DRC would be hosting this election for the first time...with bad infrastructure and many other challenges," said Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad.

The journal Communication for Development and Social Change premiers in Spring 2006, and will be published quarterly. The journal is seeking papers that present empirical research, theory, and practice-oriented approaches on subjects relevant to development communication and social change, such as globalisation and media, development policy, international and intercultural communication, identity and ethnicity, and programme design, implementation, and evaluation.

The Development Gateway Foundation is calling for nominations for its US$100,000 prize for outstanding achievement in the use of information and communication technologies to improve lives in developing countries. Sponsored in part by Intel Corporation, this year’s Development Gateway Award is focusing on initiatives that empower or improve the conditions of youth.

In a blow to the UN Security Council's hopes of deploying UN peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan's president vowed never to allow UN peacekeepers into Sudan and promised he would lead the "resistance" against any foreign force. President Omar al-Bashir characterized a potential UN mission as a "colonial force" in his strongest rejection yet of the UN intervention plan in Darfur. He called for the UN to instead bolster the African Union peacekeepers currently in Darfur.

The purpose of the consultancy is to advise and facilitate the process of water policy development in Puntland State. It is therefore a process-oriented purpose with the respective results. While the consultancy as such can surely not guarantee that a policy document is established, it is expected that it leaves the government and all stakeholders with the knowledge and documentation necessary to finish the policy making process.

Progressio seeks a Development Worker (DW), who will specialise in the development of public policies and advocacy initiatives for poverty reduction. The DW will work alongside the Centre for Social Studies Padre Juan Montalvo (Centro de Estudios Sociales Padre Juan Montalvo, s.j.) and will be responsible for developing advocacy initiatives and processes in the areas of national budgeting, social expenditure and social welfare.

Pambazuka News, the electronic weekly newsletter and website focusing on social justice issues in Africa, is seeking an ONLINE NEWS EDITOR. You will be a forward thinking and independent person with a strong background in journalism and experience and/or a strong interest in the power of the internet for information delivery and campaigning.

Responsibilities will include: Assuming responsibility for the weekly production of Pambazuka News, including the coordination of editorial support staff; Editing, proofing, researching and posting content online in line with weekly production deadlines; Maintaining a contacts list and editorial diary, including research and commissioning of articles to ensure coverage of key events and issues; Research and writing of comment and analysis items on events and issues related to Africa; Participating in strategic and development issues that relate to editorial content, future development and editorial staff and interns; Completion of necessary administrative tasks. For the full job advertisement, please click on the following: or write to info AT fahamu.org

Museveni has been a strong and dominating leader in government, the armed forces and his party for more than 20 years.

But he has never been confident enough to have his way in all matters through the formal structures and channels. So he has always used informal structures to have certain things done which he thought he could not have done formally.

He has never outgrown the methods of work of his guerilla days and even now he remains suspicious of institutional pluralism. Even in institutions where his power is total, informalism is the method of work. Thus during elections, you had a proliferation of the Kakooza Mutale, kakuyege/nyekundiire type of activities, side by side with the formal task forces. You have the Cheeyes in intelligence and journalism; the Tinyefuza role in intelligence side by side with the Security Minister Amama Mbabazi; the Media Centre side by side with the Presidential Advisor on the media and a media spokesman (Onapito) and a Minister responsible for information who is also a spokesman of government.

You have an Inspector General of Police who is also a presidential military assistant. You have a Gen. Tumwine who is a serving military officer, an MP and a Chief Judge (3 in one) of the court martial, the complete negation of the separation of powers.

All these unusual things are not accidental. They inform everyone that what Museveni wants is the law and the norm. It promotes the image of omnipotence which grants him the latitude to do so many things outside the law and to use the structures and the normal channels of government accordingly. Legal niceties or checks and balances are dismissed off hand. So if he gives Shs 20 bn to Basajja, so what? Even if he adds another Shs13.4 bn to him.

If he allocates prime land, with government buildings on, to favoured companies and individuals, so what? That it is Museveni who has done it puts a full stop to any questions. So what if he sends Black Mambas to surround the High Court or boda boda to show his displeasure at judges who passed a “wrong” judgement against government. So what if he sends his opposition opponent to jail and Court Martial on tramped up charges.

So what if creates informal armies, Arrow Boys, Amuka etc… So what if he nullifies the results of elections - Ruremera in Kibaale.

So what if he invades Congo a number of times, makes incursions int the Sudan all without parliamentary approval. So what if creates other kings in Buganda. So what if he abuses religious leaders for not supporting his life presidency project. So what if he aspires to be President of the East African Federation without thinking of the expected requirement of complying with political convergence? Stage by stage he accumulated personal power controlling all appointments and promotions that matter and deciding on the allocation of government revenue.

What all this says is that he always gets his way with anything he wants. This is what is called absolute power, when power goes to the head. He has an infallibility complex. The sovereignty of the country is now resident in the President.

There is absolute concentration of power in the President. Kamuzu Banda put it more succinctly in 1972 when he said that: "Nothing is not my business in this country: everything is my business, everything. The state of education, the state of our economy, the state of our agriculture, the state of our transport, everything is my business."

Thus the multiplicity of offices and ministers goes with their disempowerment since all significant decisions are made in State House. This personalization of power is both cause and effect of the desire for longevity in power. How can the "father" who is responsible for the people's welfare retire? How can he have intermediaries between him and the people? And so on and so forth.

With this background, it becomes clear why disagreeing with him becomes treason. That is why Dr Kizza Besigye is considered to have gone too far. Not only did he disagree with him, but he dared to stand against him. Preposterous is it not?

He must be punished and severely too so that others may see what befalls those who disagree with him. That is the same with Brig Henry Tumukunde. That is why that "fellow" Ruzindana is a traitor as well. How dare he oppose the coveted life presidency and then compound it by not giving way when the President's wife expressed a desire to be an MP? What impudence, he is a traitor. Shun him.

Prof Ali Mazrui has an explanation for this traitor business. Writing on " Political Leadership in Africa: Seven Styles and Four Traditions" he had the following to say about the " monarchical tendency" (Sabagabe): "Even African societies which were not themselves monarchical were influenced by the royal paradigm. Kwame Nkrumah attempted to create a monarchical tradition in independent Ghana by declaring himself life president, by sacralising (making sacred) his authority with the title Osagyefo (Redeemer), by surrounding himself with a class of ostentatious consumers passing themselves as Ghana's new political aristocracy, and by increasingly regarding political opposition to the president as the equivalent of treason (a monarchical version of intolerance)".

In Uganda, the new political aristocracy with its ostentatious consumption is a fact of daily life. The labeling of political opponents as traitors comes from the Sabagabe himself. Intolerance is the order of the day. The "father" has graduated to king. What then is the status and fate of the Kabaka with his quest for Federo, another power centre?

Magnanimity also goes with absolute power. Thus those who have disagreed with him but later repented or recanted may be rehabilitated but at the expense of losing their standing in society. Museveni gives and Museveni takes away.

Historical precedents abound, but Mobutu's on-again, off-again relationship with Nguza Karl-I-Bond and Etienne Tshisekedi, in which the two men were brought back from disgrace and even prison, to occupy high level positions in Mobutu's Cabinet will do for now.

Meanwhile everyone fawns on him as wisdom incarnate. The diplomatic community makes faint polite protests and acquiesces and finances the goings on, on the pretext that there is no one else available.

"Who else" is the refrain. Civil society organizations busy themselves with innocuous causes; the academia gets co-opted; the urban populations grumble silently; and the peasants continue dancing at public events for visiting dignitaries. Everybody goes into hiding. Impunity prevails. National numbness and paralysis are mistaken for stability. This could be a prelude to a gathering storm.

The author is FDC Deputy Secretary General for Policy, Research and former Ruhaama MP.

Strong measures are needed to promote good governance in Africa, combat corruption and avoid the manipulations of national constitutions to extend rulers' terms in power, the chairman of the African Union (AU) commission, Alpha Konare, has said. "The problems we face are often a result of poor governance," said Konare.

Nigerian President Obasanjo welcomed the removal of Nigeria from the International Financial Task Force list of non-cooperating countries in the fight against money laundering. The international anti-corruption body announced in Paris on Friday it had removed Nigeria from the list. Obasanjo said the move would boost the country's international profile, months after Nigeria settled its debts with the Paris Club.

While the West must shoulder some responsibility for Africa’s dire plight, last year’s commitments to help the continent were based on a pledge from African leaders for good governance and transparency. Over the past year several African leaders have increased dictatorial powers while fresh allegations of huge corruption have emerged. Of the world’s top ten failed states in the world in 2006, six are African.

African Union Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare has called for a vast expansion in AU powers to achieve the long-term goal of a “United States of Africa”. Konare said the areas in which the AU might play a far larger role included peace and security, good governance practices, the development of sectors such as health and education, food security, infrastructure, etc.

With the largest and most challenging elections the United Nations has ever helped organize due to take place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in little over a month, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for full transparency of the process, voicing concern at reports of intimidation, corruption and detentions.

The G8 summit last year promised a lot to Africa. The economic headlines were debt relief, better trade opportunities and more aid. Trade, in particular, is turning out to be very difficult. The G8 leaders were hoping for decisive progress at the WTO's ministerial meeting in December in Hong Kong. In the event, Hong Kong was a wash-out.

The head of the Kenyan office of a global anti-corruption watchdog has been sacked over allegations of financial and other irregularities. Observers say the dismissal highlights the nature of problems facing Kenya. Three senior Kenyan government ministers have resigned over corruption claims in the past few months.

South Africans, it is fair to say, are frightened by China. We complain about the cheap imports that are doing South African garment workers out of their jobs, we fret about the “insatiable” demand for natural resources, and the re-ordering of influence on the rest of the continent. And when we are really nervous, we talk about drug gangs that trade smuggled abalone for mandrax in the coastal villages of the Western Cape.

Activists familiar with street protests outside the venues of annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are in for a different treat at this year's gathering. In Singapore, the host country, universally accepted democratic principles -- such as the right to freedom of association -- are banned. The World Bank, however, has stepped in to assure activists that space for civil society is being negotiated, reports the Mail and Gaurdian.

Just when it seems life could not conceivably get any tougher for Zimbabweans, it invariably does. The country has been in economic decline for the past eight years, and real crisis for at least the last four. Fuel, electricity and water are now being rationed in the capital, Harare, and most basic household items are in short supply or extortionately priced. How do people cope?

A probe into more than 30 senior former public officials accused of corruption is proof of the new Comoran government's commitment to tackling graft, Vice-President Idi Nadhoim told IRIN. Moderate Sunni Muslim religious leader Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was elected president last month in the first peaceful change of power since the country's independence from France in 1975.

Somalia's interim government and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the group that controls Mogadishu, have agreed to mutually recognise each other and engage in further dialogue in a bid to bring stability to the war-torn country. Both parties also agreed to end "all harmful propaganda" against each other, Adow said. They agreed to meet again in Khartoum on 15 July for a more substantive round of talks.