“Jubilee Research has long called for 100 per cent cancellation of the unsustainable debts of poor countries, and we have always considered that the criterion of an ‘unsustainable’ debt is a country’s inability to discharge that debt without infringing the human rights of its population. Since the establishment of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals nearly four years ago, it has also become clear that most of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa will be unable to reach these goals without a total cancellation of their debt and additional aid.”

Nigeria's President Oluseun Obasanjo has accused the police of hiring guns to armed robbers for economic gains, his office announced on Wednesday. Obasanjo was quoted as saying at the opening of a two-day security summit in Abuja that a situation whereby 'police hire their guns to robbers' was criminal and worrisome.'

The South African Government has announced that it will convene a second national summit against corruption towards the end of 2004. A spokesperson for the Cabinet announced that “the objectives of the Summit will include an assessment of strategies, achievements as well as challenges in dealing with this scourge”. It was confirmed that the government would consult with the private sector and civil society before convening the summit.

"During and after Cancun, the G20 was seen in some circles as representing a major power shift in the global trading order. Some even saw the G20 as the dynamo for a reinvigorated “New International Economic Order.” The reality is that the G20, and in particular Brazil and India, have been accommodated into the ranks of the key global trading powers, but it is increasingly becoming clear that the price for this has been their diluting the strength of the negotiating position of the South. More than ever, the South needs leadership. Many had expected the leaders of the G20 to fill this role. In the first decisive post-Cancun encounter, the latter have not lived up to expectations." This is according to an article by Walden Bello and Aileen Kwa, Executive Director and Research Associate, respectively, of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, about the outcome of the recent post-Cancun WTO meeting in Geneva.

President Robert Mugabe's succession, for long considered a political hot potato, will not come up for discussion at the ZANU PF congress slated for December, but drastic changes to its supreme decision-making organ, the politburo, and the presidency are in the offing as the party gears up for the 2005 parliamentary poll. Party insiders confirmed this week that President Mugabe and his "inner circle" were mulling far-reaching changes in the politburo.

South Africa's Scorpions have submitted the names of 23 parliamentarians wanted for questioning in connection with a multi-million-rand travel scam estimated at R16-million. In an interview a Scorpions spokesperson, Sipho Ngwena told the press on Wednesday night that “This is the first group of people we want to talk to. There will be more.”

President Thabo Mbeki, the leader of the ANC, this week described the New National Party's decision to join the ANC as an historical development. The NNP announced last Saturday that they would fight all future elections under the banner of the ANC. In a statement released soon afterwards the ANC said that they "view this move as a positive step in South Africa's political development and believe it will contribute to building an inclusive and non-racial society."

The IMF's Independent Evaluation Office has just released a major new report on the PRSP process. The report argues that PRSPs have the potential to encourage country-owned development, but that achievements so far fall considerably short of their potential. This echoes findings in the World Bank's recent evaluation of PRSPs. The report calls for greater country ownership of the process and a more country-specific flexible approach to policy design.

The launching of the Social Watch report 2004 in Zambia sparked a nation-wide discussion on poverty in the country. Finance Minister Ngandu Magande argued there is now plenty of food in the country and questioned the accuracy of the Social Watch indicators. In an editorial comment, the influential Zambian daily "The Post" advised the minister "to look at his own government's statistics on poverty produced by the Central Statistical Office" and argued that "the issues raised in the 2004 Social Watch report are true and deserve our government's and indeed all our politicians' most serious considerations".

A total of 1,465 out of the 2,000 registered non-government organisations (NGOs) in the country have failed to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment since 2003. Consequently, the Ministry has threatened to withdraw its recognition from the defaulting NGOs and to recommend that they be denied exemption from paying duty on goods they import for their activities.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has averted a possible boycott of 2005 elections by opposition parties by agreeing to their demand to invite international observers, his ruling party said on Tuesday. Ethiopia banned international observers from monitoring the last vote in 2000, restricting the observer status to Ethiopian civil societies, the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) and diplomats resident in its capital Addis Ababa.

An African Union Report has estimated that Africa losses approximately $148 billion annually to corrupt practices - a figure which represents 25% of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In comments made to the press last week by Mr Babatunde Olugoji, Chairman of the Nigerian Independent Advocacy Project, it was also noted that the African Development Bank estimates that lower income households spend an average of two to three percent of their income on bribes.

The president of the UN Security Council last week called upon states in the region to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and for all member states of the UN to pay their dues. The Tribunal is currently facing a US $50 million funding gap and with more than half its cases yet to go to trial, will struggle to complete all of its work by 2010, the official date set for its closure.

The IMF has announced that it will assist Nigeria in whatever way to repatriate her funds stashed in foreign countries by corrupt leaders and government officials. "We will give our support for any action, legal action, whatever that is taken to guarantee corruption-related revenue are taken into the judicial procedure and returned to the Nigerian people," said the Managing Director of the IMF, Mr Rodrigo de Rato, at a press briefing to end his visit to Nigeria. An estimated $4bn is believed to have been placed in foreign accounts by the late military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha and his associates.

Ivorian opposition ministers and rebels have attended their first cabinet meeting after a four-month boycott. The ministers, including rebel leader Guillaume Soro, left the power-sharing government after 120 people died during a banned opposition protest in March. A recent peace summit in Ghana made the resumption of the cabinet a priority for the country to return to peace.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) past Wednesday handed over security primacy for the Eastern Province to the Government of Sierra Leone at a colourful and emotional ceremony in the eastern provincial headquarters town of Kenema. It was the last of the country's three provinces to be handed back. The handover of security primacy by UNAMSIL will culminate in September when the Western Area, including the capital Freetown, is given back to the Government.

This publication is a report on the study on the harmonization of anti corruption regional legal frameworks. The publication shows the synthesis of anti corruption national reports and related legislation of specific SADC member states with a view to identifying weaknesses, needs and omissions that exist in the current legislation and how the respective national legislation can be brought into line with the provisions of the SADC Protocol Against Corruption (Protocol).

Kenya's population growth rate is likely to rise substantially because fewer Kenyans are using contraception. Unless the Government provides funds for a campaign to push for greater use of birth control methods, the population - currently growing at 2.5 per cent - would increase significantly.

The campaign trail for Ghana’s general election in December is taking a detour through South Africa this week, with the visit of opposition leader John Evans Atta Mills. Addressing journalists in the country’s commercial centre of Johannesburg Tuesday, Aug. 3, the head of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) sounded upbeat about his prospects in the poll.

Given the current media environment in Zimbabwe, free and fair elections in March 2005 are highly unlikely, a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe said in a report released by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) on Wednesday, August 4, 2004. During the week starting June 21, 2004, MISA sent a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe to look into the state of the media in the run up to the Parliamentary elections planned for March 2005. The members of this mission were Ms Pamela Dube, Editor of Mokgosi Newspaper in Botswana, Mr Fernando Gonçalves, Editor of Savana Newspaper in Mozambique and Zambian Media Law expert Patrick Matibini.