A United Nations Security Council resolution has paved the way for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Sudan's western Darfur region and threatened sanctions against any parties standing in the way of peace. In a resolution adopted on Tuesday, the Council called on the African Union (AU) to agree with the UN and other regional and international bodies on a strategy to strengthen its 7000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur before a UN mission is deployed.

Nigerian blogger Chippla (http://chippla.blogspot.com/2006/05/need-to-amend-nigerian-constitution…) explains that there is more to the constitutional amendments in Nigeria than extending Obasanjo’s tenure from two to three years.

“By infusing an extension of the presidential term of office into the constitutional amendment, the administration of Mr. Obasanjo hijacked a very good exercise. Given that the so-called third term agenda (which appears to be practically dead) has come to overshadow the entire constitutional amendment debate, one is left wondering if the other amendments will go forward, should they receive the necessary backing of the national and provincial legislative assemblies.”

Chippla goes on to explain some of the main amendments such as direct allocation of funds to local governments, changes in citizenship for non-Nigerian men married to Nigerian women, recognition of other languages in government other than English and human rights although these do not include rights of homosexuals.

Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (http://ayaanhirsiali.web-log.nl/log/5841271]Ayaan hirsi ali) is apparently on her way to the US to work for a conservative think tank called the American Enterprise Institute. She will be resigning her position as MP following a disclosure that she lied when applying for asylum from Somalia.

“Ms Hirsi Ali's quitting of Dutch politics and the Netherlands follows on from a television documentary, shown last week, which reported that she lied in the early 1990s about how she fled her native country, Somalia, in order to gain asylum in the Netherlands. Since the broadcast, there have been calls from various quarters for her to lose her Dutch passport.”

According to the blog report, Ms Ali herself has been at the forefront of legislating for stricter immigration laws particularly against those that lie to enter the Netherlands, which makes the supposed revelation an embarrassing one. She claims that it is open knowledge that she came via Kenya to the Netherlands and not directly from Somalia. This is quite common as many Somalis and Sudanese refugees first left for Kenyan refugee camps before coming to Europe.

Cyblug (http://abujacity.typepad.com/abuja_and_beyond/2006/05/the_language_of.h…) takes issue with the language used by foreign media reports on the recent gas fire explosion that took place in Lagos in which 200 people were killed. For example. describing Lagos as a “dilapidated port city”.

“I would be the first to admit yes it is a ‘Dump’ but where is the need for adding this dilapidated bullshit in the mix, there are newer parts of Lagos that are not dilapidated and run down so why mention this at all? Baltimore City, (Maryland in the US) is a dilapidated port city but I never hear it being described as this in news reports.”

He also objects to people being called scavengers: “…someone drilling holes in oil pipelines to sell at a higher price by the border is not a scavenger. Call him vandal, a thief, an opportunist or as we say in Naija an oil bunkerer.”

Egyptian Chronicle (http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2006/05/image-is-powerful-than-1…) continues with reports on last Thursday’s “Bloody Thursday” when protestors were arrested in Cairo. She publishes a number of photos showing police brutality against the protestors.

“I was shocked at first because if you look carefully you will find that the officers and soldiers are spurning the young man who is wearing what can be considered the colours of the Egyptian flag…The first impression, the first thought that came to mind was ‘what those bastards were doing with our flag?’, then I noticed it was a human being , and after that I saw the pictures of the chase between the young man and the police ended in this scene, it turned out that the young man was wearing red t-shirt and black trousers, the white colour was the colour of this inside shirt.”

AfroBlog (http://afrorise.blogspot.com/2006/05/should-africa-look-to-latin-americ…) responds to a BBC World “Have Your Say” programme question on whether Africa should look to Latin America, with reference to the socialist President of Venezuela and the newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia.

“For Africa it would be ideal to learn from the experiences of Latin America but realistically newly independent nations in Africa have scarcely learned from the experiences of some of the first independent states in Africa, so how can we expect the continent as a whole to learn from the experiences of another continent and apply them? I think one of the major differences is the level of civic engagement in the political arena in Latin America and particularly when it comes to mass mobilization. These are the people who are electing presidents like Morales and Chavez.”

One Arab World (http://onearabworld.blog.com/716778/">One Arab World) comments on a new Egyptian law that gives security forces the power to arrest and detain people without charge. The government is defending the action by highlighting the need to prevent acts of terror.

“The Emergency Laws, an Egyptian version of the Patriot Act on steroids, are what some claim to be what stands between us and the terrorists and what others claim to be the main source of breading terrorists. Very little in the actual law is very shocking in this day and age of global terrorism (albeit it was implemented before it was internationally acceptable to impede basic rights in the pursuit of security). It is the implementation that is hair raising. The Emergency Laws are what everyone in the Egyptian Security Apparatus, from the Interior Minister on down, hides behind and justifies their actions with…The ‘far right’ everywhere have a strategic tendency to push draconian measures the population would normally shun during times of panic that typically ensue acts of terrorism. After Sinai this was inevitable.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Nigeria's vice-president has said that the Senate decision to throw out a bill which would have let the president seek re-election will strengthen democracy. "The decision is one of the best things to happen to Nigeria," said Atiku Abubakar, who wants to contest next year's elections himself. The question of allowing President Olusegun Obasanjo a third term has divided Nigeria and the ruling party.

Islamist Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi won Sunday's election on the Comoros Islands, provisional results show (May 14). Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was seen as the favourite and he won 58% of the vote, the electoral board said. Supporters of the cleric, known as "Ayatollah" after his studies in Iran, were celebrating in the streets as early as Monday, confident of victory.

The Fifth Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will take place from 15 to 26 May 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters, in New York. The theme of the fifth session of the Permanent Forum is The Millennium Development Goals and indigenous peoples: Re-defining the Millennium Development Goals.

The questions of "human rights" has never been a priority concern for the World Bank. Among the conditionalities fixed by the Bank, one right supercedes all others: the individual right to private property, which in practice works to the advantage of big property holders, whether they be wealthy individuals or national and transnational corporations. In the conditionalities supported by the World Bank, there is no reference to the collective rights of peoples and individuals.

As Kenya hosted the 114th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) last week, the question of whether the congress would help persuade parliamentarians to focus on economic and social issues, remained debatable. To the African Members of Parliament, the hope was that the gathering of over 1,500 delegates from 143 countries would address pressing issues such as political conflicts and the proliferation of small arms, poverty and HIV/Aids with the objective of galvanising international support for various countries. But most speakers at plenary sessions concentrated on giving country profiles rather than offer mechanisms on how parliamentarians can address issues closer to the heart of the voters.

I have returned to the UK from a 3 week private visit to Cape Town. These are my observations. The patterns of social inequalities remain unchanged!

The Africans who live in the townships of Langa, Gulguletu and Khayalitsha are reminders that social justice has not been achieved.

I find it equally distasteful to see the ANC government paying land owners for land which they got for next top nothing. These landowners should be paying reparations.

Africans must demand reparations for the following reasons.

1) It would send a clear message to the colonialist/imperialist that they understand how capitalism works and, how wealth was accumlulated by the UK and others.

2) It would also show that Africans understand social-economic justice.

3) It would show that Africans take their humanity seriously.

4) It would also soothe the psychological/ emotional pain many Africans have been enduring for the last 300 years.

5) It would also make Franz Fanon and Thomas Sankara happy men. Let us make these young ancestors proud.

Thank you for reading my letter.

A meeting of parliamentarians may seem an odd place to hear the virtues of regular elections questioned. But discussion on this, and a variety of other issues, has taken place with IPS over the past few days at a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Kenya's capital, Nairobi. According to Ugandan Member of Parliament (MP) David Gumisiriza, periodic elections do not necessarily lead to sustainable development in Africa.

There was much optimism when, on 15th March 2006, the General Assembly of the Untied Nations finally adopted the draft resolution that created the new Human Rights Council to replace the old and ineffective Human Rights Commission. Of course, few believed that this new Council would be even close to perfect - but even the harshest critics realised the potential of the Council to be a marked improvement over its predecessor, which, among other serious shortcomings, had shamefully failed to act during the genocides in Rwanda, Burundi and the former Yugoslavia.

This opinion piece makes an analogy between a speech by former US president Reagan and a recent statement by an IMF staffer on the IMF's policies in Africa. In the article entitled, "Building on the foundations of growth," the Managing Director of the IMF, claimed that Africa’s economy was on the road to recovery.

The prospects for Africa's economies have improved over the past year, according to the OECD. The Paris-based think tank says that Africa as a whole is set to grow by 5.8% this year and 5.5% in 2007. But there is a big difference between countries who were oil exporters and those who have to import oil. In 2005 oil exporting African countries grew by 5.5%, compared to just 4.4% for those who were oil importers. Conflicts and natural disasters in countries like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Nigeria also continue to dampen overall economic growth.

The African Union (AU) called Monday on the United Nations to urgently dispatch a team to Darfur to work out contingency plans for transition of peacekeeping operations to a UN force. The ceasefire between government and rebels forces in Sudan's Darfur province is currently being monitored by the AU's African Mission in Sudan (AMIS).

The Global Development Awards and Medals Competition was launched in 2000 and seeks to unearth new talent and support innovative ideas. In the past we have supported research on a range of issues including pro-poor market reform, governance and development, HIV/AIDS and the delivery of health systems; reforms, interest groups and civil society; conflict, human security and migration; and the role of institutions for development in the context of globalization.

A new United Nations-backed study attempts to affix a dollar value on some nature areas, but critics view the "Eco-nomics" figures with skepticism. The study says that assigning values to nature -- such as $3,500 for a tropical forest in Cameroon and $10,000 for a Caribbean coral reef -- promotes the environment because it counteracts the thinking that ecological systems have no value.

The Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PGRF) consists of a series of targets designed to encourage transformation in the economies and policies of the participating countries, with a view of promoting macroeconomic stability, economic growth and poverty reduction with a six year framework. This research paper assess the impact of the PGRF on social services in Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has declared Kigali no longer sees the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo as supporters of the Hutu militias responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Kagame's announcement marks a positive development ahead of the first democratic elections in the DRC since independence in 1960. Tensions in the eastern provinces of the DRC threaten to destabilize the election with local leaders loyal to Rwanda unwilling to give up power should they lose the election.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation stormed to a record 1,042.9 percent in April, surging into four figures for the first time, official figures showed on Friday (12 May). The world's highest inflation rate is the product of an economic meltdown also marked by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food and rising unemployment. The data had been due for release on Wednesday, but that was abruptly cancelled and CSO officials would not say what had caused the delay. The CSO said on a monthly basis, the consumer price index leapt by 21.1 percent from 19.8 percent in March as prices increased on an almost daily basis, according to Reuters.

The Security Council on Monday (15 May) gave Ethiopia and Eritrea until the end of May to meet its demands that they accept the border drawn for them by outside experts and end all restrictions on UN peacekeepers. Should they fail to meet the UN demands, a resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council pledged to quickly scale back the UN force preserving a shaky peace between the two former foes.

United Nations sanctions on exports of timber and diamonds from Liberia should be lifted if the West African country's economy is to recover from years of war, one of the region's top diplomats said on Monday (15 May). The trade prohibitions were imposed on Liberia during the final years of its civil war, a diamond-fuelled conflict which killed a quarter of a million people, devastated its once vibrant economy and left its infrastructure in ruins.