Unprecedented infighting in Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF shows President Robert Mugabe has lost control of his party ahead of elections due in March, the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, says. "Mugabe now is a leader of a faction, not the leader of the party of the country and that undermines his legitimacy," the Movement for Democratic Change leader said. More than a dozen top party officials have been purged amid jostling to succeed Mugabe, 80, upon his retirement in 2008.
* Related Link:
- Wilf Mbanga on disappearances in Zimbabwe
http://tinyurl.com/3ke8o

There are signs that Travelgate could be turned into a "managed scandal", as marathon, closed-door meetings took place this week between prosecutors and the lawyers for 40 MPs implicated in the parliamentary travel scam. The 40 sitting and former MPs, drawn from all major political parties, were expected to be rounded up by the Scorpions this week for their involvement in the scam, which is said to have cost Parliament R17m.

Burundi's transitional President Domitien Ndayizeye has been warned against changing the draft constitution to allow himself to run in elections. The chief mediator in Burundi's peace talks, South African deputy President Jacob Zuma, said the move could damage efforts to end the 10-year war. About 5,000 United Nations peacekeepers are in the country to support the South African-brokered peace process.

The World Social Forum (WSF), sometimes described as the "carnival of the oppressed", is about to get underway in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. While WSF participants debate the problems facing the international community another issue is also likely to come up for discussion, however: Africa's prospects of hosting the forum next year. "Brazil and India are worthy hosts of the forum, with both countries being characteristic of many of the socio-economic problems that the WSF aims to address," Ayesha Kajee, a senior researcher at the Johannesburg-based South African Institute of International Affairs, told IPS. "The value of the WSF initiative is that it encourages open debate, exchange of ideas and sharing of best practice from around the world. Hosting the forum in Africa could spur innovative new ideas and re-energise initiatives to reach the Millennium Development Goals," Kajee added.
* WSF LINKS:
- African Social Forum website
http://www.forumsocialafricain.org/english/index.htm
- Activists gather for WSF
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/01/26/ap1784820.html
- Original Venue, New and Improved Methodology for Giant Meet
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27190
- Terraviva: A publication of the world social forum
http://www.ipsterraviva.net/tv/wsf2005/

Rwanda on Tuesday dismissed a United Nations report accusing it of violating an arms embargo in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which it has twice invaded in the past decade. The report by an independent panel of experts, prepared for a U.N. Security Council committee and seen by Reuters on Monday, says Uganda and Rwanda are among those violating the embargo.

Until recently, the debate surrounding human rights in international financial institutions had not begun in earnest. There was considerable skepticism and many questioned the existence at all of a link between human rights and international financial operations, particularly the IMF and the World Bank.  Now this debate has a legitimate and important place inside international forums and is taken seriously by civil society and scholars. 'The IMF, The World Bank and the Question of Human Rights' seeks to explore all of the issues facing international financial institutions and their obligations to adhere to human rights rules.

What is the real motive and agenda of the Tony Blair's Commission for Africa? In what way does the CFA differ from pervious similar initiatives? And what is the likelihood of real change resulting from the work of the CFA? These were some of the questions raised at a Southern Africa civil society consultation held in Zambia in December. Participants drawn from civil society groups from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia itself attended the event.

In early 2004, media reports emerged alleging that UN peacekeepers in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) were involved in the sexual exploitation and abuse of Congolese girls in Bunia, in the Ituri District in the north-east of the DRC. After carrying out a number of internal investigations, MONUC and the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) requested the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) to investigate the allegations. The OIOS report, which has just been released, is based on a three-month investigation from June to September 2004. One of its recommendations suggests that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations consider a wider application of prevention and detection policies to protect against sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers. This may include the designation of local officials or nongovernmental organizations to receive reports of sexual exploitation and abuse; the central reporting of all cases to mission senior management on an expedited basis; the development of mission-based rapid-response teams; the development of educational programmes for the troops on their responsibilities and on sanctions for sexual exploitation and abuse; the public naming and shaming of those found to have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse; and the permanent exclusion from peacekeeping missions of those troops who engage in sexual exploitation and abuse and of their contingents' commanders.

Corruption remains the most significant barrier to doing business in Kenya, a joint World Bank and Kippra survey says. The survey shows that graft is the number one barrier to investment. The Investment Climate Assessment Survey is entitled: Enhancing the Competitiveness of Kenya's Manufacturing sector: The Role of the Investment Climate. It says that corruption was rated as a severe hurdle by three quarters of the sampled firms, while respondents reported that 'unofficial payments' to 'get things done' are required 57 per cent of the time.

The candidates banned in December 2004 from running in upcoming presidential elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) can now all participate except one: the former president, Ange-Felix Patasse. State radio announced the news on Sunday and said that presidential, as well as legislative, elections would be postponed from 13 February to 13 March. A total of 11 candidates can now run.

Mozambique's supreme law-making body has called for the inclusion of local and international observer missions at all stages of the vote tally, ensuring greater transparency in future elections. Although the Constitutional Council (CC) last Thursday validated the results of the December 2004 general elections, which the ruling FRELIMO party won by a landslide, it reportedly said it had followed the debate on observers' access to vote tabulation "with concern".

At least 100 people have been arrested after last week's apparent attempt to assassinate President Lansana Conte, a human rights group says. They are being held in abominable conditions, Thierno Maadjou Sow, the head of the Guinean Organisation of Human Rights, told Reuters news agency. Some of those arrested have been released but others are still being questioned by the security forces.

Swaziland's main trade union has begun a two-day general strike to press for democratic reforms. Union leader Jan Sithole told the BBC that roadblocks mounted by the security forces had stopped people from joining the protests in the capital, Mbabane. The unions say a draft constitution being debated by parliament entrenches the power of the monarchy.

Civil society groups and anti-debt campaigners in Africa have cautiously welcomed a British proposal for the debt of Africa’s poorest states to be cancelled. "It’s a good start for a G8 member like Britain," said Charles Mutasa, a research and policy analysis programme officer at the Harare-based African Forum and Network on Debt and Development. (The G8, or Group of Eight, comprises the world’s eight leading industrialized nations: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.) But, notes Sanusha Naidu, a researcher at the Pretoria-based Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, "We need specifics."

Southern African journalists reporting socio-economic development issues are invited to submit entries for the 2005 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Media Awards. The annual contest is administered by government communication agencies in each of SADC's 14 member nations. The award aims to promote regional cooperation and integration by encouraging journalists to improve their reporting and analysis of regional development issues. For more information please email Charlotte Mampane [email protected]

Another year has dawned on us and I realise that my attitude will greatly determine how it deals with me. While I may not be able to change the many sordid realities that my beloved continent Africa faces, while my efforts for a new Zimbabwe may at times seem like mere drops of water questing to water a desert and while my work for dignity, freedom and equality for the black African woman at times makes me an object of ridicule to many, I chose to continue fighting, to continue challenging and I continue to hope. Yes, I chose to hope rather than despair. I hope because hope gives me the energy and the inspiration to fight on and go on. I suppose I also chose not to be depressed by the dilapidated socio economic conditions my country has been dragged to by an illegitimate, corrupt and cowardly government. Instead, I rather focus on just how many Zimbabweans over the past 5-7 years have given themselves to the fight for a better and freer Zimbabwe.

I have watched courageous women and men putting their lives on the line to speak the truth and to live according to their conscious. I have held the hands of ordinary women who were raped, beat up, persecuted and infected with HIV for choosing to participate in the political life of their country. Countless courageous men and women who have been incarcerated and tortured whilst in the hands of those who swore to protect and serve them. A growing list of champions who have died because they were murdered by agents of their government and ruling party, several hundreds died because they could not get adequate health services due to improperly equipped or resourced health facilities, several hundreds died a harrowing slow death from starvation and not because there was no food in the country but because they were being punished for their political persuasions. All these efforts, these lives surely have not been meaningless but rather been part of a build up which will ultimately amass to a force than can not be defeated. It has been done elsewhere both in and out of Africa and it is shaping up in Zimbabwe. People are not fools even if they seem simple and ordinary my Pastor Dr Shana taught me, the people of Zimbabwe will victor in the end.

I hope because I persuaded in the depths of my soul that Zimbabwe deserves better and more than it has been subjected to. I hope because I know that Zimbabwe has the most important resource any country really needs, its people. Zimbabwe’s daughters and sons are intelligent, articulate, capable, are hardworking and more importantly are courageous. It takes courage to survive under a regime that once was your defender but has turned on you and become your accuser. It takes tenacity to survive in an economy that does not even have enough of its own currency, that has to fix its exchange rates through manipulation so as to keep its debt figure down, it takes courage to work up and try to provide for one’s family without a secure means of income, without a pantry stocked with food, without fields full of harvest.

The solidarity we have received and continue to receive from our African sisters and brothers, from our friends everywhere else in the world truly spurs us on. Sometimes it is hard to face some of them because they do not understand why we fight someone they see as a hero, someone who seemingly stands up to the hegemony of Western powers, as Mugabe seems to do. I know Africa needs heroes. I submit that the kind of hero we need is the kind that first looks into his/her eyes to check if there is a log before pointing the log in the other person’s eye.

I think we now know this is not a sprint race but a marathon because most of our fatigue, frustrations and disappointments have emanated from the fact that the desired change was not as sudden, dramatic or as instantaneous as we needed it to be. These are lessons that the women’s movement has learnt, you fight, you continue to fight and do not stop. Sometimes it may seem like you are not gaining any ground but you continue and eventually you get yours. So, welcome to 2005 and comrades, Aluta Continua!

This five-day course offered by the Community Development Resource Association is aimed at providing development practitioners with a foundation of the core understandings, concepts, principles, leading ideas at the heart of a developmental practice as well as an introduction to many of the key competencies required for further development.  Though some skills will be learned in the process, this is primarily a foundation and an orientation to a developmental practice.

Over the past week, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has visited Africato launch a campaign to persuade rich western countries to ease the burden of debt on some of the continent's poorest developing countries. His tour has included South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya. During his visit, the Chancellor has signed deals with Mozambique and Tanzania to take on 10% of their debt service between 2005 and 2015 to the World Bank and African Development Bank. He has promised to do the same with some 20 further countries but has said that this list is potentially extendible to 70 nations. This comes in a week which also saw Canada cancel all debt owed by Madagascar. The African nation has been forgiven $21-million in debt by Canada. A new Eurodad briefing analyses these new developments on debt relief.

In face of the imminent threat of new laws and re-zoning plans supported by the World Bank that could result in up to 60 million hectares of rainforest (an area the size of France) being opened up to logging companies, a group of international NGOs made a joint declaration addressed to the Congolese government and the international financial agencies. They demanded that a moratorium on the issuing of any new logging concessions should be maintained until the Congolese authorities comply with strict conditions.

Deadline: 01 February 2005 @ 16h00

Mveledzandivho is a School Development Project that is being implemented in six provinces and is funded by BHP Billiton through its Development Trust. The aim of the Project is to improve management practices and teaching and learning in 29 schools spread across six provinces.

The project calls for proposals from interested service providers in Inclusive Education at one project school in Mpumalanga.