Jacob Rukweza raises an important question on the broader issue concerning democratic freedom and sexuality. In asking whether homosexuality is un-African, Rukweza asks us to consider the centrality of sexuality to our ideas of citizenship and political allegiance. He rightly points out that ignoring African homosexuals means denying our shared humanity.

At the same time, I would have liked to see his article address the ways African homosexuality might be different from western versions. Are there specific ways of living, histories, and cultural practices that make African homosexuals unique? Is it possible that a struggle for sexual rights in Africa will look quite different from similar struggles in the West? What can we learn from the West? And, what can the West learn from us?

With Rukweza, I believe sexual rights to be central to human rights and democratic practice. I applaud his article, and Pambazuka, for initiating what I hope will be an ongoing conversation.

I am touched by the pleading by the writers who rightly feel the ordinary Zimbabweans must be rescued from the jaws of the hero-turned-villain Robert Mugabe.

It is not for Mugabe to deliver us from the evil. That is obviously impossible - for since when did evil deliver its prey from its jaws? We all do give credit to Mugabe for the good that he did for Zimbabwe, similarly to the likes of other African leaders who led the liberation of their countries.The problem with many African leaders is power - they take political office as a profession yet it is only national service!

I for one also wanted land because I grew up in a baren communal area. But I do not want to be given 200 hectares on farmland, because my profession and my aspiration is not to be a farmer. I am trained as a lawyer and I am happy to have land in Harare to build my house and continue to practice my profession.

In the communal area in which I grew up in, no-one was resettled. So where is the decongestion of communal areas? Who got the farms that were confiscated from the white commercial farmers? The answer is obvious - stupid political cronies with no idea of farming. They produce nothing. We are starving and we export nothing. Cry my beloved country. All the middle class has reasonably seen it fit to leave the counrty and go and practice their professions where they are respected and valued.

I educate myself each week reading your emails. I am from a third world country, namely the republic of the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, where we are struggling for freedom and human rights as well. - Mere Tokailagi

Thank for the work you are doing. Personally I was apolitical, but ever since you started sending this good news, I have come to get more concerned with socio-political issues than ever before, especially about suffering of all kinds in Africa, women and gender and poverty. My eyes are now wide open and I am very informed of what is taking place in our continent of Africa. - Medad Rugyendo

Pambazuka is my essential link to sanity and to 'home'. Living in self-imposed exile in the UK, surrounded by the complacent consumerism and insidious continuing dominance of the west, it has been and is a weekly tonic to read excellent analysis, 'real' news on all aspects of social and political life from across Africa. I have found no other source for the understandings and insights you offer and, above all, a source with Africa at heart. Knowing there are so many wonderful people working so hard in so many areas, learning about the realities and the courage and commitment of Africans across the world, is reinvigorating and uplifting. Whenever I meet someone wanting to understand what is going on in African countries, Pambazuka is my 'gift' to them. Whatever the rest of the world thinks, Pambazuka is evidence of the strength and resources of the continent. Long may you continue. Thank you from the depths of my soul and, a luta continua! - Barbara Murray

Congratulations on making the 250th anniversary and possible more importantly for becoming an indispensable part of the fight for justice and transformation in Africa - Steve Kibble

Peace and love to you. I wish to commend you for the great work you are doing for Africa. Ever since I found your site, I have recommended it to my students and colleagues here in Toronto. I am a Nigerian Catholic priest but active in social criticism in Africa. I identify myself totally with the social activism of your online magazine. I hope to make occasional contributions purely from the perspective of a religious critique of contemporary African Christian and Islamic religions and politics as they affect women and children. My new book The Face of Africa: Looking Beyond the Shadows is being released this week simultaneously in Africa and North America. I am also the founder and director of the Canadian based Non-governmental organisation, Canadian Samaritans for Africa. Pambazuka! Ummera ummera-sha! - Stan Chu Ilo

Congratulations on the 250th issue of this wonderful on-line publication. I have been greatly informed on all issues in relation to the continent of Africa. This is about the only online news that gives one objective and authoritative news on politics, human rights, as well as other issues. Please keep it up. - Okwa Morphy

Somali Women Action (SOWA) hereby sends you a letter of appreciation regarding the issues of the e-newsletter Pambazuka News that we have received. We welcome the topics and the continent wide coverage of news of human rights, gender issues, etc. all being around the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. We firmly believe that the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) Coalition is the right apparatus in implementing the promotion of women’s rights in Africa and at the same will pave the way for further gains to all women around the world. Keep up the good work! We are proud of you! And the world is proud of you.
- Ruqiyo Ali Abdulle, The Chairlady of SOWA  

In Uganda, members of parliament have passed the non governmental organisations registration amendment bill 2001 requiring all NGOs and pentecostal churches to register with the internal affairs ministry. According to the new law, all organisations will renew their working licences after one year. The second renewal would be after two years while the third and last will take place after five years. An NGO board would have powers to revoke the licence of any NGO that fails to conform to its objectives.

The European Union (EU) has rejected a proposal by Tanzania to restart negotiations on a tuna fishing zone beyond the 12 nautical miles from the latter's coast. In contention was the fact that Tanzania has refused to allow the EU to control and do surveillance and monitoring on its fishing sites. Tanzania refused to sign the agreement because of the minimal benefits it was going to receive from the EU compared with the 8,000 tonnes of tuna fish that will be harvested.

Tanzanians are greatly satisfied with the way the country is managed politically, economically and socially, unlike other citizens in 18 countries surveyed in East, Central, and southwestern Africa. Citizens in the rest of the surveyed countries, including Kenya and Uganda, are still doubtful of their ruling governments' capabilities to solve their problems such as crime, health, infrastructure and poverty. The results of the "Afro-Barometer" survey conducted between July and August 2005 and announced early last week further show that Tanzanians were "happy" even before the current government came to power in December, 2005.

Zimbabwean women have the shortest lifespan in the world, according to a new report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday. Neither men nor women in one of the world's fastest shrinking economies are expected to reach the age of 40, according to the 'World Health Report 2006', based on the statistics for 2004.

In the most comprehensive evaluation ever conducted of the World Bank's work in trade, the Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) has found that the Bank neither fully understood the implications of its "narrow focus on trade liberalisation", nor did enough to strengthen trade capacity on the ground. While the evaluation shies away from challenging head-on the economics of the Bank's promotion of unilateral trade liberalisation, it points out a number of serious flaws in the institution's understanding of how to maximise the benefits to be had for developing countries.

A series of loan suspensions and internal investigations has everyone at the World Bank talking about corruption. However, despite high profile moves by president Paul Wolfowitz, the root causes of corruption - underpaid civil servants, an acceptance of bribery by big business, and dirty money - remain largely unaddressed. While many observers applaud these attempts to weed out corruption, Wolfowitz has so far failed to systematically address the roots of the problem.

Religious groups in Kenya want the state to disown illegally incurred external debts. They have started a campaign to ask the finance minister to open for public scrutiny the public debt register before this year's national budget. The country's debt amounts to Sh750 billion and the Government proposes to spend Sh112 billion (22 per cent of the entire budget) servicing it. Officials behind the campaign blame the debts for increasing poverty in the country. A motion in Parliament to have the public debt register made public and its content published was shot down by 80 MPs last year.

Back in the early 1980s, Leslie Jean-Robert Pean was in a heap of trouble. Flat broke, in bankruptcy court, he had $10 in a savings account and a whole lot more debts than assets. But in 1989, Pean, an economist, landed a job at the headquarters of the World Bank, in Washington, D.C. By the early 1990s, Pean and his family had bought a big house on 3 acres of manicured grounds outside Washington. "Our dream," the World Bank's mission statement says, "is a world free of poverty”. The only trouble, bank investigators say, is that he wasn't focusing so much on helping the poor as he was on helping himself

FEATURED: Kayode Fayemi on the imperatives of transition from activism to politics in Nigeria
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Women have not been adequately included in Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, writes Roselynn Musa
LETTERS: The children of Uganda; Is homosexuality “unAfrican”?; Falling down in Zimbabwe
BLOGGING AFRICA: Blog columnist Sokari Ekine wraps up the blogosphere
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: After Charles Taylor, who will be the next to face justice?
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Northern Uganda deaths worse than Iraq, says report
HUMAN RIGHTS: Export Processing Zones the worst abusers of workers' rights
WOMEN AND GENDER: An open letter to a sister in need in relation to the Jacob Zuma rape trial
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: UK authorities slammed for treatment of immigrants
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Police stop meeting of Obasanjo opponents
DEVELOPMENT: April deal on WTO talks unlikely
CORRUPTION: Britain’s involvement in African corruption criticised
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: The impact of migrating health workers
ENVIRONMENT: Terminator technology stays banned
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Niger says no to BBC famine coverage
ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS: Get on the bus to stop violence against women and children
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: What is a technology activist?
PLUS: Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, seminars and workshops; Jobs; Books and Art.

* French speaking? French friends?

Read the Pambazuka News French edition by visiting Subscribe online at http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/subscribe.php or send an email to [email][email protected] with 'subscribe French edition' in the subject line. Please forward widely!

* Can trade in the era of globalisation be 'just'? Read our issue on the subject (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/240) and send your feedback to [email protected]

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WE'RE 250 ISSUES OLD NEXT WEEK!

Next week, Pambazuka News publishes its 250th issue edition. Since we started in December 2000, we have published an about 48 issues a year, once a week every week (save those precious holiday breaks!) for more than five years. We want to thank you, our readers, contributors, supporters, subscribers alike, for making this possible and helping us to provide an effective pan-African forum for the struggle for justice.

If you would like to send a message of support to help celebrate the 250th edition, send your comments to [email protected]

WRITE AND TELL US HOW PAMBAZUKA HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE TO YOU
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Senegal’s popular former prime minister Idrissa Seck snatched the limelight from Independence Day celebrations and a state visit by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday by announcing his plan to run for the presidency in 2007, setting the scene for a potentially fraught election battle. The 47-year-old Seck, who was recently freed after spending several months behind bars, is likely to be running against his former mentor and current head of state President Abdoulaye Wade, who despite being 82 intends to run for a second term.

There is a need to lighten the burden of keeping children in school in Africa's southern and eastern region, where an estimated 20 million children are currently deprived of education, a United Nations official said on Wednesday. The regional director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Per Engeback, said 30 percent of education spending in sub-Saharan Africa was being spent on fees. He was speaking in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, during a conference on the abolition of school fees in southern and eastern African countries.

The president of Guinea, Lansana Conte, has reportedly sacked Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo in an apparent power struggle between the two men. The dismissal comes a day after a state radio broadcast announcing greater powers for Mr Diallo was interrupted by soldiers who burst into the studio. A statement from President Conte, broadcast on Wednesday, said Mr Diallo had been sacked for "grave wrongdoing".

Nigerian police on Wednesday blocked a meeting of politicians who oppose a campaign to extend President Olusegun Obasanjo's time in power, opposition officials said. Police surrounded the conference centre at the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja, where the politicians were scheduled to meet to discuss strategies to prevent Obasanjo from obtaining a third term in office, and stopped anyone from going in. Authorities have in recent weeks stepped up their actions against opposition groups, who accuse the government of becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent, particularly on the controversial question of a third presidential term.

United Nations relief officials are calling for stepped-up humanitarian and peacekeeping measures to confront hunger and "horrific atrocities" in Katanga in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting between the army and Mai Mai rebels has driven over 150,000 people from their homes in the last six months. Apart from the people who have fled, many others remain trapped or hidden in remote and inaccessible locations, making it likely that the actual figure is much higher than 150,000, OCHA added of the situation around three Katanga sites – Mitwaba, Malemba Nkulu and Dubie. Many of these people are living in appalling conditions with alarmingly high malnutrition and mortality rates.

Kenyan blogger and Africa’s resident environmental guru, AfroMusing (http://www.afromusing.com/blog/?p=211) points to a post on using African deserts as hubs for solar energy. The idea is that the Sahara, which is some 9 million sq km and the Kalahari which is 900,000 sq km, could be used as solar energy farms to supply cheap electricity for the continent. AfroMusing quotes Anatole France, who wrote:

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

This is definitely one technology we should all dream of - dream hard and believe so that it may come to pass.

Nigerian blogger, Oro (http://www.gbengasesan.com/blog/?p=78) introduces yet another web technology innovation - Talkr. Talkr allows bloggers to convert their written posts to podcasts using computer-generated voice.

“I think its a really cool tool for bloggers (and media houses that have compatible websites) to use because we can now conveniently rest, assured that those who may be visually impaired can still have access to news and informative/educative/entertainment (someone tongue-twisted this to read “edu-info-tainment”) resources.”

Ugandan blogger, Undo (http://undo.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/03/30/caliber-swimming.html) takes us on a boat trip to the Kalangala District of Uganda. Kalangala is made up of some 84 islands in Lake Victoria.

“At this point, it became evident that I stop looking back to the reference point of my emergence, to explore something other in these waters, having lost it all…to some aspect of nature…the horizon I had religiously referred to determine my fate...being a collection of wild wave after another offering no comfort when…looking, trying to perceive the existence of a lost piece of existence, I ended up looking at a green embrace like canvas wafting in an endless gesture, fluttering in a slow afternoon wind…ending as a straight lining at the edge of where the water and cloud discreetly met. Marking the beginning of my imagination, replicated on the faces of all that were pondering the distance being lost, making the flat earth theory more pronounced.”

Sotho guest writing on Mzansi Afrika (http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/2006/04/did_we_steal_yo.h…) takes up a comment by another blogger, Juan, responding to Sotho’s previous post entitled “Affirmative action”.

Juan obviously fails to grasp racism or possibly he is just a refusnik and writes:

“How did whites deny them (Black South Africans) education? By tying them up and not allowing them to learn? Since when did it become our responsibility to educate other cultures? Since you advocate so strongly that your culture is equal to mine, give me proof of where you invented something or built something that we can’t or couldn’t?”

Sotho’s response is:

“Black people have undergone quite a lot at the hands of white people. White people have undergone very little at the hands of black people, all over the world, but especially in America and in South Africa. I've always been amazed at how the transition from minority government to majority government did not turn uglier. There's of course the question of farmers getting killed. While that tragedy cannot be overlooked, I'm happy that there has been no all out bloodbath. From 1652 when Jan Anthoniszoon Van Riebeeck arrived till 1994 when Mr de Klerk stepped down, nastier things than you can imagine were meted out to the black population. That's 342 years, Juan, or three centuries and 42 years. And you can't take 12 years (1994 to 2006) of practically no ill-treatment!”

Freedom for Egyptians (http://freedomforegyptians.blogspot.com/2006/04/for-democracy-and-freed…) reports on a clash between members of the liberal party Al Wafd, whose headquarters was stormed by “thugs and gang members” - followers of Nomaan Gomaa. Gomaa is the deposed leader of the Al Wafd party and after a 10-hour battle that included gunfire was arrested by police.

“The acting party leader Mahmoud Abaza and prominent member of the party Munir Fahkry Abdel Nur complained that the police looked idly on as Gomaa and his supporters stormed the compound. Nur said: ‘There were 50 policemen this morning and all they did was phone for ambulances as they looked idly on and Gomaa fired his gun.’ Abaza said: ‘It's an act of madness. Someone who is mentally sane does not open fire on journalists simply trying to do their work.’ Gunshots were fired as Gomaa and his gang removed employees of the party and of its official newspaper. Witnesses said Gomaa himself fired shots at Wafd journalists.”

Black Star Journal (http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2006/04/unlike-his-victims-taylor-…) reports on Charles Taylor’s first day in court in Sierra Leone and lists the 11 charges against him including: use of child soldiers, abduction and forced labour, physical violence, sexual slavery, rape and murder. On suggestions that the trial may be moved to the Hague, he writes:

“Some people would've preferred Taylor be allowed to remain in exile and impunity in Nigeria so as to 'ensure the peace' of Liberia. This was a false choice. Pres. Sirleaf said that the decision to extradite Taylor was a 'hard decision which ensures the long-term safety of the Liberian people and the security of the state.”

Music blog, Sound Roots (http://soundroots.org/2006/04/mondays-mp3-hugh-masekela.html) posts on celebrating the birthday of South African musician Hugh Masekela who was 67 on the 4th April.

“He has worked with many of the greats (Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Abdullah Ibrahim, Bob Marley, Herb Alpert) and for a time was married to South African icon Miriam Makeba…When you think of Masekela, you have to think not only of his music, but his role as something of an ambassador-at-large for South Africa (and specifically, black South Africa). The stories he tells in his songs capture snapshots of life, past and present, for ordinary South Africans.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The second annual Certificate in Youth Participation for Africa's Development Processes will take place in Lusaka, Zambia from the 29th of May - the 9th of June 2006. This leadership training is being offered jointly by the African Youth Parliament (AYP), Young Women in Action (YWA) and the Coady International Institute.

The large number of presidential candidates, the withdrawal of the main opposition party and the continuing violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have given rise to fears among international observers of a fraught run-up to the elections. By the time the registration of candidates in the 2006 election closed Sunday, 72 candidates had put themselves forward for the presidency and more than 4 000 for the 500 posts up for grabs in the legislative elections, the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) said.