The European Union has drawn up secret plans aimed at prising open service sector markets in the world's poorest countries in return for cutting its lavish farm subsidies, it was revealed last night. The demands under the World Trade Organisation's service sector talks target 109 countries, including the 50 least developed, and would allow European firms to charge for providing water to some of the 1.2bn people living on less than a dollar a day. Details of the blueprint leaked to the Guardian showed that the EU has demanded a high price for allowing developing countries access to its highly protected farm markets.

Somalia's transitional national government (TNG) said on Tuesday it was pulling out of peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy in the Horn of Africa country. ''The main reason is that the conference was not going well,'' TNG delegate Mohamed Awale told Reuters. ''We decided that from the beginning, but we hoped that things would get better... in fact it is getting worse and worse.'' The talks began last October and have been mired in wrangling over the number of delegates attending and where they should stay. Analysts say little progress has been made.

Angola, a hoped-for oil ally of the United States and with a seat on the United Nations Security Council this year, should be doing well. Its civil war ended last April after the death of Jonas Savimbi. The price of its growing oil exports has been boosted by the Iraq crisis. Yet the nation's foreign reserves have sunk to less than US$200 million, raising again major questions about government accountability. The government is not saying where up to $900m of export earnings have been spent since last July.

I am so happy I subscribed to Pambazuka News, as it is a door to so many information rooms. I really appreciate your noble work and it has added value to my work.

Your powerful editorial (Pambazuka News 100: Public Broadcasting - Elections, Democracy and Human Rights in Africa) clearly defined what is happening in Africa where governments manipulate media to their own advantage, negating public interests. Such incisive writing should be heavily encouraged to promote democracy and uphold the professional role of the media, particularly broadcasting in Africa. It was a well thought piece of journalism.

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) presidential flag bearer and former head of state Muhammadu Buhari says allegations that the Saudi Arabian and some Islamic governments had donated $1 billion towards his election campaign were "absolute nonsense".

Has there been any progress in determining what policies are pro-poor? This article reviews the various tools presently available to evaluate the impact of economic policies in general on poverty reduction, or on the distribution of living standards. It also explores directions for improvement.

It had never happened in the 42-year history of Nigeria as a nation. But when it did, it caught Nigerians numb. The audit report of federal ministries and parastatals was made public for the first time ever by Vincent Azie, the acting auditor-general of the Federation. The audit report, which should be a plus for President Olusegun Obasanjo's commitment to transparency and accountability, revealed that more than N23 billion was lost in 10 major ministries in just one year - 2001.

President Mwai Kibaki has announced a probe into Kenya's biggest scandal, the "Goldenberg affair". The fraud, which began in 1991, is estimated to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars and implicated senior political figures.

A UN inter-agency mission has said there is an "urgent need" to extend humanitarian support to an estimated 2.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last Friday.

This is my personal eyewitness account of what happened and is correct to the best of my knowledge. It is important to remember that peaceful demonstration is enshrined in Zimbabwe's democracy and the police have confirmed that such protests will be tolerated.

Over 130 tonnes of donated maize impounded by Beitbridge customs officials last year from the Feed Zimbabwe Trust, an MDC-aligned relief organisation, has been sold by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) in controversial circumstances, it has emerged.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the 22nd Africa-France Summit in Paris announced that the United Nations will create a "high-level" commission on HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, Xinhua News Agency reports. He said that the commission will examine the connection between the disease and governance across different sectors.

A member of President Robert Mugabe's family, several high-ranking Zimbabwean officials and a senior company executive have grabbed farms and forcibly evicted peasants under a controversial land reform programme, according to a report ordered by the Zimbabwean president.

The former president of Zambia Frederick Chiluba was escorted to a police station and questioned by anti-corruption officers last week over claims that he looted millions of pounds - possibly hundreds of millions - from state coffers.

The Malawian Government has been defending its decision to sell off 20% of its grain reserves. Chief Technical Advisor at Malawi's Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Allard Malindi, said Malawi is being responsible in seeking to sell off the grain because they were expecting a good harvest in three months' time.

There is need for an alternative development paradigm to counter capital led globalisation, argues an article in the latest edition of the Seatini Bulletin that reflects on the recent World Social Forum. This essentially means that non-governmental organisations, civil society, individuals and governments have to evaluate their engagement with the social and economic challenges that confront the peoples of the world. Governments particularly need to link themselves more with social movements and peoples aspirations than with big businesses and profit.

It is obvious that African concepts of human rights and civil society differ from those in the Western world, concludes this paper in the Peace Studies Journal. In addition, the traditional concept of civil society has been used and exploited in the past by Western colonial authorities to achieve their interests. "The question therefore is to what extent the much-touted concept of civil society and its accompanying NGO mushrooming on the continent can offer any real hope for redeeming Africa's plight and giving us a means of hope for liberation and development."

The history of public broadcasting in Africa in relation to elections, democracy and human rights can be mostly summarised in six words, "abuse of power by incumbent governments". This may seem harsh, but this is the truth.

From Egypt to Zimbabwe, Gambia to Ethiopia and in almost every country between the four points of and centre of Africa - North, South, West, East and Central Africa - most governments have converted the power of public broadcasting to the abysmally selfish motive of sustaining themselves in power - indefinitely if possible.

Were this to be of no consequence to the social, political and economic development of African countries and the continent as a whole, this observation could be considered an exercise in intellectual ball juggling. However given the unrivalled power of the broadcast media to shape public opinion, its continued abuse by numerous African governments can be likened to the use of a dis-information nuclear option by governments against their own people.

How has the abuse of the broadcast media by these governments been used to damage the development of Africa and what can be done to end it? The first and most blatant indicator of the abuse of public broadcasting in Africa is its now infamous description as 'state broadcasting'. 'State' radio and television are often seen as one of the prizes of capturing power.

The dangerous consequence of this is that public radio and television are seen as a means to propagate the opinion and agenda of governments or the state to the exclusion of the rest of society. In the 'state' controlled media, the interests of the state are merged with that of the ruling regime, and its leadership. The interests of the leadership in turn become the 'public interest.' The 'state' media is therefore used to, and sees its role as that of promoting the interest of the state, the ruling party or regime and its leadership - all of which have become indistinguishable from each other and the 'public interest'. Going by this, any opinions or events that may be opposed to or embarrass the 'state' are often not transmitted by the state broadcaster since this is assumed not to be in the interest of the public, i.e. state, i.e. leadership of the ruling regime.

The clearest manifestation of this can be seen in the role of the 'state' media during most elections in Africa. The ruling party and its candidates are given wall-to-wall coverage, and everything good that happens is attributed to them with the possible exception of sunrise. The opposition on the other hand are excluded from or allocated the minimum coverage possible, which is almost always bad news. In the present world context of the "war against terrorism", legitimate activity of the democratic opposition could even be portrayed as "terrorist activity". Even paid or sponsored election campaign advertisements are not guaranteed airtime and have been considered subversive. We saw this happen in Zimbabwe and again to a lesser extent during the recent Kenyan elections in December 2002.

Most opposition parties complain bitterly only because they are victims of such abuse. However, their philosophical perception of public broadcasting is no different from that of incumbent governments.

The primary implication of denying the legitimate and democratic opposition appropriate visibility to the public via equitable access to the public broadcast media is the lack of a level playing field for competing political ideas. This applies not only to elections, but also to in-between elections when the 'state' media bombards the public with a constant stream of subtle and overt propaganda.

The secondary implication of this is that anything that is perceived as being of possible help to the opposition is censored by the state controlled broadcast media. Censorship as we know, leads to lack of accountability, and lack of accountability reinforces dictatorship. In countries where the private or independent print media is located mainly in the cities, or where income and illiteracy limit their scope, the broadcast media becomes the eyes and ears of most of society. Since government with the exception of FM stations with limited reach largely controls the broadcast media, state control and abuse of the public media is bound to give governments an unhealthy capacity to control the flow of news and information. Such control lends itself easily to the manipulation of public opinion and thus society.

For instance, where there is an impending famine and tens or even hundreds of thousands are facing mass starvation, as is presently the case in southern Africa and the Horn of Africa, news of this is censored. In other words, the public is denied the benefit of advance warning, knowing the causes of this, and debating potential short and long-term solutions in the public broadcast media. The lack of a collective sense of impending disaster and the opportunity of collective preparation for it means the first that the public knows of a famine is when it has actually hit them.

But state censorship is only fully effective when backed with the full force of the levers of power. This means the subversion of democracy and in particular freedom of expression and opinion by means of manipulating public broadcasting is necessarily followed by the suppression of human rights in general, and media freedom in particular. This highlights the fact that media freedom cannot be secured in isolation from other pillars of democracy such as the right to freedoms of association, assembly, political participation and rights to be free from discrimination and persecution.

It is therefore not out of place to posit that an open and accountable public media, which is guaranteed its editorial independence and facilitates equitable access to all shades of opinion in society is vital alongside other factors, to the sustenance of democracy.

In order to achieve this several specific steps must be taken.

Firstly, civil society must campaign unrelentlessly for the appointment process of boards and senior editorial and management staff of the public broadcast media to be removed from the control of executive arms of government. This campaign must involve all sectors of society, the professional associations, trade unions, NGO's and so forth. The body overseeing these appointments together with parliament must also reflect this diversity.

Secondly, principles of editorial independence and the protection of journalists from political persecution for refusing overtures from political interests must guide parliamentary oversight. This editorial independence must go along with the media's obligation to promote accountability in both the public and other sectors of society.

Thirdly, media freedom must be guaranteed for both the print and electronic, private or independent media.

Fourthly, freedom of expression must be a constitutionally protected right that cannot be curtailed arbitrarily. Civil society must also make it clear, that for the political opposition to be accepted as legitimate, it should also sign up to these principles and not just oppose the government opportunistically.

With specific regard to elections, certain principles are essential and must be institutionalised in respect of the public broadcast media:

- Guaranteed equitable access to publicly owned broadcast media for all political parties.

- A commitment to voter education with respect to the voting process, venues, times, political parties and candidates.

- A limited number of brief and free slots for electoral campaign broadcasts be given to all political parties to outline their programme and candidates at relevant levels of government. This will ensure that at least all parties and candidates are given the equitable visibility necessary for genuine democracy.

- A ceiling on the fees to be charged by all broadcast media for any additional election campaign broadcasts.

- A ceiling on the total number of election campaign broadcasts that any one political party and its candidates can run over the period of the campaigns. This will prevent the outright buying of the elections by parties backed by richer members of society.

- No discounts to any one political party for paid election campaign broadcasts.

- A code of conduct and ethics regarding what is appropriate to run in an election advert or campaign. This will also cover incitement, hate speech, defamation and other standards agreed in advance by all parties.

- No turning away of campaign adverts of any party to the advantage of other parties.

- The rights of reply and correction for candidates that may have been defamed.

- That the publicly owned media must not to be used by incumbent political parties to attack other political parties, and that ruling parties in particular not undermine the editorial independence of the broadcast media.

- Guarantee of the safety and security of journalists, editorial and management staff, and media houses that exercise the right to editorial independence.

- Fair, balanced and equitable news coverage of political party campaign activities especially during news broadcasts. This should include distinguishing between government activities and campaigning.

- An agreement on fair, balanced and equitable coverage of election debates.

- No broadcasting of speculative results that may truncate the will of the electorate and lead to conflict or violence based on electoral disputes. Any results broadcast should be based on results obtained from polling stations and agreed by agents of all parties present. Also, that coverage of disputed results not be broadcast in such a manner that is inflammatory and could lead to violent conflict.

Significantly, these requirements for the public broadcast media to be able to play its role in facilitating democracy are not unique to Africa. Some of these and more are currently applicable in many countries around the world including in Africa. However, many countries around the world including the majority of African ones are yet to institutionalise these and other principles not outlined here. The institutionalisation of these principles is one of the urgent tasks facing African civil society and there must be no delay.

But this is not a task for African civil society alone. The African Union must prove its relevance by not only adopting these principles, but also ensuring that its member states implement them.

* Sankore is Coordinator of CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights an international organisation focussing on rights issues in Africa.
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Although the National Assembly has attempted to water down some democratic precepts by the numerous amendments that they have allowed, the fact remains that the spirit and purpose of democracy still exists in our supreme law. The many attempts, including the removal of the recall provision, the abolishing of the second chamber, and the senate so far have not fully eroded the basic spirit of democracy and the accountability of the Executive through the people’s representatives.