The success of global trade liberalisation talks is at "serious" risk unless rich countries dismantle trade barriers and grant market access to developing nations, a World Bank official warned. "The leadership now has to be with the rich countries," said Nicholas Stern, chief economist of the World Bank, adding that rich nations had barriers in agriculture, textiles and manufacturing.

Preferential trade access the European Union (EU) has accorded dozens of African countries may have done more harm than good. This is the theme of an essay by the head of the SA Institute of International Affairs Greg Mills and by De Beers director Jonathan Oppenheimer, published this week in a collection of pieces on Africa by a UK-based think tank, the Foreign Policy Centre. Mills and Oppenheimer say that if there is to be real progress in Africa, selective preferential trade access needs to be replaced by broader access to developed markets.

All the signs are that next week's summit of G8 leaders in France's Evian will be - from Africa's perspective - another waste of space. US assistance to Africa is dependent on the degree Africa builds itself around the American business model and accepts American law and cheap farm exports. Britain is an American satrapy and it will mimic the American position. As a result, we can expect stalemate and warm words, says this commentary.

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Judges and magistrates are barred from active participation in fund-raising meetings, a new code of ethics says. The code requires them to maintain strict discipline and decorum in public life. The Judicial Service Code of Conduct and Ethics published in the Kenya Gazette also compels members of the judiciary to police one another in the fight against corruption.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa's former special assistant for press and public relations, Arthur Yoyo, and a former managing editor of the Times of Zambia, Emmanuel Nyirenda, were on Wednesday arrested for corruption.

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In Africa there are profound concerns that the war in Iraq will strain relations between countries that have joined the ‘coalition of the willing’ and those that have not. In particular there are concerns that this, along with the costs of war and reconstruction, may reduce aid and investment commitments from the G8 countries, hindering the implementation of Nepad and development generally on the continent. The Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) and the Open Society Foundation (South Africa) recently hosted a discussion forum in Pretoria where Baroness Valerie Amos, the United Kingdom Minister for Africa, responded to some of these concerns. The meeting was attended by representatives of a number of G8 countries, of the SADC and of government, civil society and academia in South Africa and other SADC countries.

The recent 2002 report of Transparency International, which gave Namibia reasonably good ratings on the corruption index has probably led to a false sense of complacency and may inadvertently serve to indicate to government and the public at large that Namibia is not a worst-case scenario and that therefore there is little reason to worry.

"Freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation," President Bush said recently, explaining what he claimed to be the ultimate goal of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The president will have to excuse history professor Didier Gondola for not buying it. "Double talk," he calls Bush's pronouncement. "It is so hypocritical, because it is not in American interests to have democracy everywhere. In Iraq, there was a government holding valuable resources the U.S. could not control. So the U.S. took action. In Congo, the U.S. controls the government and the resources, so it doesn't really matter that millions of Congolese are dying."

In the 1950s, an African farmer produced ten quintals of grain, says Marcel Mazoyer, professor at the national agronomical institute in Paris. He kept eight to feed his family, and had two left over to sell on the market at $29 per quintal (at current rates). He thus had $57 of income to cover basic expenses. Today, with a quintal fetching less than $14, he must sell four to obtain the same amount and purchase vital necessities. He can no longer feed his family, much less make a profit that would enable him to invest in ways to increase production.

In 1998 seventy thousand people formed a human chain around the G8 Summit in Birmingham, UK, demanding an end to Third World debt and rocketing the issue to the top of the G8’s agenda. As the leaders of the G8 group of rich countries prepares to meet in Evian, France at the beginning of June, this report from Jubilee Research, Cafod and the Jubilee Debt Campaign examines in detail the progress that has occurred to date – to the benefit of millions of impoverished people – but also delineates the immense progress that remains to be achieved. The report notes that only eight countries have so far received substantial debt write-off under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. HIPC was failing to restore countries to debt ‘sustainability’ even according to its own, narrow criteria – 19 of the 26 countries currently in receipt of assistance will not have ‘sustainable’ debts even after completing their passage through HIPC, says the report.

Cabinet ministers, MPs, judges and other top public servants have until the end of June to declare their wealth or face prosecution. Anti-corruption declaration forms were being processed and should be available to all government departments and organisations mid-next month, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi said.

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has sent a letter to each of the G8 heads of state, prior to their Summit at Evian, France from June 1 to 3, 2003, raising concerns about the implementation of the G8's Africa Action Plan in light of the ongoing human rights violations being committed in Zimbabwe. In the letter, the Lawyers Committee urges the G8 members to ensure that the current crisis in Zimbabwe receives sufficient attention at the Summit in Evian. The letter points out that resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe is not only a legal and moral imperative, but fundamental to the successful implementation of the G8's Africa Action Plan and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

The Media Monitoring Group, a coalition of members of the Nigerian Union of Journalist and the Nigerian Guild of Editors, has commended the Federal Government, INEC and the people of Nigeria on the conduct and outcome of recent elections. The group noted a great improvement in terms of preparations by INEC as materials arrived on time at polling centres - a clear departure from the previous elections when there were reports of late arrivals at some polling units.

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Voters on Pemba, the semi autonomous island off Tanzania, overwhelmingly demonstrated their support for Tanzania's main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF) in Sunday's by-election, which, despite speculation to the contrary, was held in an atmosphere of calm and order.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that Liberia's civil war could engulf the capital Monrovia, where half a million people are already in a desperate situation, unless President Charles Taylor and rebel forces can be persuaded to negotiate an early ceasefire.

Donors and civil society organisations have joined together to deplore corruption in Uganda's government, which they say is endemic from the top right down to local administrative levels.