Former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has asked the African Union to intervene to halt criminal charges filed by Zambia in the United Kingdom. Chiluba contends that as a member of the AU, Zambia is bound by an agreement that all former African heads of state facing charges stemming from their time in office will be tried in their home countries. Arrested in 2002, Chiluba is currently on trial in Zambia on charges of corruption and theft of public funds, but frustrated with the lack of progress in the trial, the government sanctioned legal proceedings against Chiluba in 2004 on charges that he defrauded the government by funneling nearly $35 million in funds acquired through an arms deal to private bank accounts in London, reports The Jurist.

Chad's parliamentarians have voted to extend their own terms in office by over a year, saying the cash-strapped country cannot hold legislative elections along with the presidential poll later this year as scheduled. But opposition politicians say the law – introduced by President Idriss Deby’s cabinet – is a deliberate move by Deby to keep close allies in the government in troubled times.

In a strongly worded statement, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has expressed concern over a decree issued by Cote d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo allowing parliament to remain in office beyond its official mandate. “The Secretary-General expresses his concern about the unexpected issuance of a presidential decree concerning the National Assembly,” said a statement issued on Sunday (January 30).

In February 2005, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUC, created an office to address allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by some of MONUC's civilian and military personnel. It was the first such UN office to have been set-up as part of a peacekeeping mission. The office undertook scores of investigations but closed in November 2005 when investigations were taken over by the UN's Office for Internal Oversight in New York. The person who created and ran the office was Nicole Dahrendorf, a specialist in law and human rights. Dahrendorf is still with MONUC as an advisor. IRIN recently interviewed her.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the anti corruption watchdog Transparency International- Kenya, have released a research report on wasteful government expenditure. It points out that between January 2003 and September 2004, the new NARC government in Kenya spent at least Kshs 878million in the purchase of luxury cars that were largely for the personal use of senior government officials such as ministers, assistant ministers and permanent secretaries. The report argues that "until all necessities are accessible to all members of our community, no one should live in luxury using public resources”.

Without government support, a proposal to provide electricity to the informal settlements that ring the Namibian capital, Windhoek, is likely to be shelved because residents cannot afford the connection costs. A feasibility study commissioned by the Windhoek municipality found that income levels among the 14,000 people living in the townships were barely sustaining their most basic needs, leaving no surplus to pay for municipal services. The communities have complained about the lack of electricity, and street lighting in particular, because "dark neighbourhoods promote crime such as rape, murder and theft", a statement by the Windhoek Municipality noted.

Members of Liberia's outgoing transitional government have vacated offices to make way for elected successors, taking their computers, desks, chairs and even carpets with them, civil servants told IRIN on Monday. Ministers, their staff, and parliamentarians as well have made off with a whole gamut of government property, leaving offices bare. Some former parliamentarians meanwhile have changed the official plates on their government-assigned 4x4 Cherokee jeeps to private ones, and are cruising around the capital Monrovia to the disgust of angry residents.

Malawi's recently introduced Central Payment System which some civil servants blame for delaying some important government operations has been hailed by the Government as the final solution to stem corruption and fraud in the government financial system. Controls, from the initiation of expenditures up to the point of payment have been instituted.

Preparations for a meeting of Somalia's interim parliament in Baidoa have begun, following a decision by the president and the speaker to convene the house inside Somalia for the first time since it was created in neighbouring Kenya in 2004. Francois Lonseny Fall, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Somalia, welcomed the decision to convene parliament, describing it as "a very positive development".

Kenya is unlikely get to debt relief, a confidential report by the World Bank says. This follows the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) rejection of the Government's appeal, last month, to benefit from multi-lateral debt relief even if Kenya does not qualify for the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC).The report says while anti-debt activists continue to press Kenya's case, the failure to secure debt relief is politically damaging for the Government.

The General Court Martial (GCM) does not have powers to try civilians, the Constitutional Court in Uganda has ruled. This renders presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye's case before it null and void. Dr. Besigye with 22 co-accused was facing the GCM on charges of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms. The hearing of the case was halted however after the High Court stayed proceedings of the case.

Tanzanian opposition political parties are crying foul over a decision by the Civic United Front (CUF) to shut them out from the official opposition in the Union Parliament. CUF is one of the strong parties that posed a serious challenge to the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi in the 2005 general elections, winning all 19 in parliamentary seats in Zanzibar but losing all the seats on the Mainland.

The Cameroon government has launched a nationwide campaign to wipe out corruption, but citizens and diplomats are watching with a dubious eye this latest of several endeavours. President Paul Biya's government launched the anti-corruption drive on 18 January, two weeks after sacking two magistrates accused of graft – the first such move in Biya's 23 years in power. The wave of anti-corruption fervour began as the Cameroon leader rang in the New Year denouncing the scourge and vowing to do away with it.

From the 6th World Social Forum in Bamako, Susan George reports on the
hospitality of the people, as well as of the misery that the World Bank
policies have created in Africa by promoting privatisation. She stresses
the importance of the role played by African activists in fighting
neo-liberal policies – especially EU–promoted Economic Partnership
Agreements. These are free trade agreements that go even further than
the WTO in liberalising markets, and threaten the very survival of
African economies.

In a strongly worded statement, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has expressed concern over a decree issued by Cote d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo allowing parliament to remain in office beyond its official mandate. Annan stated that he was in disagreement with Gbagbo’s conclusions. "This announcement does not appear to be in conformity with the information he received from President Obasanjo and from the UN Operation in Cote d’Ivoire on the outcome of the visit of the President of Nigeria to Abidjan," his statement said.

More than a decade after the advent of democracy, South Africa has still one of the most unequal societies in the world, but a recent study reveals that public support for pro-poor policies is highly conditional. However, "South Africans, like most people in many other parts of the world, see some people as more deserving than others, with perceived desert reflecting recognised needs (e.g. the elderly), responsibilities (e.g. breadwinners) and behaviour (with respondents being hostile to support for chronic drinkers, for example)," the report commented.

At a meeting on 5 January in Aden, Yemen, Somalia's parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden and interim president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed agreed to set aside their differences that had divided the country's fledgling administration. Their agreement has paved way for Somalia’s first parliamentary session in 15 years, scheduled for 26 February in Baidoa. During the interview the Parliamentary speaker said "I would like for parliament to meet and do its work and start dealing with the issues that affect the people. I want us to discuss the issue of security, particularly that of Mogadishu. I would like to see security established and Mogadishu stabilised, the government and parliament operating from there in three months."

Zimbabwe might be at risk of being thrown out of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose officials are in the country assessing its economic policies, a state-run weekly newspaper warned yesterday. Harare won itself a six-month reprieve in September 2005 by making an unexpected payment of US$120 million (R730 million) to the IMF to relieve some of its outstanding debt. But the Sunday Mail quoted "impeccable sources" as saying the IMF had now shifted its focus away from Zimbabwe's debt arrears of $136.7 million and on to its domestic financial policies.

Louis Michel will today launch the programming cycle for Aid to Development under the 10th EDF (European Development Fund). It will take place during the first Regional Seminar, to be held in Brazzaville and in which countries from Central Africa will participate. Based on Commission proposals, the programming exercise will constitute the first concrete step towards the implementation of the EU commitments taken in 2005, in particular the improvement of co-ordination and aid effectiveness, increase in aid allocations and a focus on Africa.

The final preparatory meeting for an international conference on Africa's Great Lakes region began on Monday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with delegates from 11 countries in attendance. This preparatory meeting comes days after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the Great Lakes states organising the Nairobi summit to finalise its preparations. The Council resolution, adopted on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York, condemned activities of militias and armed groups in the region, such as the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), Burundi's Forces nationales de libération (FNL) and Uganda's Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), "which continue to attack civilians and UN and humanitarian personnel and commit human rights abuses against local populations and threaten the stability of individual states and the region as a whole."