Should a good environment be our human right? To date, recognition has been given to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. This study examines the background to current discussions and argues that the environment should be added to the list.

Senior officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are due to hold talks with the Kenyan government on Tuesday about resuming aid to the country. A spokesman for the Kenyan ministry of finance, Mohammed Lugh, said the IMF would meet President Mwai Kibaki to discuss an anti-corruption bill. Both the IMF and the World Bank have told Kenya it must pass laws to tackle economic crimes before lending can be resumed.

Former Prime Minister Hage Geingob and Prisons Minister Andimba Toivo ya Toivo received gifts bought through the unauthorised use of a credit card issued to a manager at the Social Security Commission, it was alleged this week. The information surfaced at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Activities, Management and Operations of the SSC.

South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma urged the African Union's (AU) conflict resolution body on Tuesday to deploy the so-called African Mission to Burundi as soon as possible to enforce the cease-fire in the region. According to a statement issued by his office from the AU's headquarters in Addis Ababa, Zuma said troops from South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia had all been earmarked to take part in the mission.

When a Canadian multinational took over control of a peasant gold mine in 1996 they had one problem - it was the lifeblood of a local community of peasant miners. Since then, what happened to the local miners who were deep in the shafts of the mine when the Vancouver-based company sent in the bulldozers has been a matter of controversy. The evidence that has surfaced since 1996 - ranging from a firestorm of memos and reports to disputed photographs and videos which may show the dead bodies of exhumed peasant miners - has inspired human rights lawyer Tundu Lissu to lead a growing number who say an independent inquiry is the only way to put this matter to rest, says this investigative piece from www.zmag.org.

Swiss justice authorities will hand over to Nigeria files they built up in a money-laundering investigation of the West African nation's late dictator, General Sani Abacha, a leading official said on Tuesday.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello has appealed for the speedy implementation of the power-sharing accord signed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 17 December 2002. "My principal concern on this voyage is the putting into place of the accord," he told IRIN in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, on Tuesday.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team arrived in Malawi on Monday to assess whether to unfreeze US $47 million in vital aid to the country, news reports said. In May the IMF said it would withhold the US $47 million earmarked for Malawi under its Poverty Reduction Growth Facility due to government overspending beyond targets set by the Fund.

The first-ever survey assessing how democratic governments pursue a democratic foreign policy concludes that governments are doing a better job of promoting democracy beyond their borders, but still put other interests first when dealing with dictatorships or responding to violations of democratic rights. Defending Democracy: A Global Survey of Foreign Policy Trends 1992-2002, conducted by the Democracy Coalition Project and funded by the Open Society Institute, grades 40 countries on implementation of their pledges to protect and promote democracy. Readers can download the full report or individual country reports from the link provided below.

The US has acquired a new colonial device to get African States to submit to US imperialist rule, with the active support of African ruling classes. The US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), enacted in the year 2000, gives President Bush king-size powers to decide which African State he will open the US market to, and which African State he will close the US market to. AGOA is ridden with conditionalities that African States have to submit to in order for President Bush to favour them by opening the US market to their goods and services. AGOA, argues this essay written by Rajni Lallah of Lalit, Mauritius, in the context of the AGOA Business and Head of States Forum being held in Mauritius in January 2003, is really just a method of carving up Africa in a new kind of colonialism. Lalit states that the role of the African ruling classes in using AGOA to dispossess peoples in Africa of their collective property, economic, social, civil, political rights, and sovereignty, must be exposed. Postings from Africa Action on the AGOA meeting can also be found through clicking on the link below.

Belgian judicial authorities are investigating possible money-laundering activities linked to ore trafficking by a minister in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), state-owned Radio-Television Belge de la Communaute Francaise (RTBF) reported from Brussels last Wednesday.

Allegations of human rights abuses in the northern enclave of Cabinda and the living conditions of some 80,000 demobilised soldiers should top the agenda during UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello's visit to Angola next week, rights activists said on Friday.

UN officials have made their first visit to a troubled refugee camp in western Ethiopia where more than 40 people were killed during ethnic clashes two months ago. Increasing tensions between rival ethnic groups sparked the clashes, which broke out in late November.

A three-day consultative meeting that brought together Liberia's 18 registered political and other pro-democracy groups have recommended, among other things, that in the absence of a national census a thorough voters registration be conducted in the presence of political party representatives.

Key legislation designed to protect employees in the public and private sectors from persecution if they blow the whistle on corruption could soon be expanded to include anyone who observes corrupt practices.

An organisation called the Centre for the Defence of Peace and Democracy in Africa has drafted a peace plan for the Ivory Coast calling for a resolution from the United Nations' Security Council that would establish a United Nations Transitional Authority in Ivory Coast (UNTACI). The authority would assist in drafting a new constitution, initiate new electoral lists for presidential and legislative elections and transfer power to the newly-elected authorities.

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

The Poverty and Development (PD) Fellowship for the Master of Arts in Sustainable International Development will be awarded to an early to mid-career planner committed to poverty alleviation and community development within Southern Africa. Nationals of the following countries may apply: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Fellowship begins August 2003.

I refer to Ledum Mitee's editorial on the democratic process in Nigeria (Pambazuka News 94), and I'm sure he's right that there are flaws, but don't let any of us get too carried away with criticising the nations of Africa.

Democracy is very new in Africa and the old nations of Europe and America don't have a flawless record. In the UK we have a government with an overwhelming majority based on less than 50% of the vote, and in the USA we have a President elected with fewer votes than his opponent by virtue of a deeply flawed process in Florida, a state run by his brother.

No system is perfect. The important issue is that we continue to hold all of the systems up to the light of public scrutiny.

David Jamieson, United Kingdom

Zambia has had a new president for the past 12 months. During this time, the country has achieved nothing worth writing home about.

There is wide-spread starvation. The government in its dubious wisdom has rejected GM grain. The sad thing is that it has failed to bring non-GM grain for the masses. People are surviving on wild roots, some of which are so poisonous that they have to be boiled for hours on end. One wonders why the government prefers the people to eat these roots to GM maize.

There is loud noise about a zero tolerance approach to corruption. So far the "fight" has been ineffectual. A task force has been formed, without legal foundation, to bring the culprits to book! So far it has been a sham.

The economy is dying and there is no hope for improvement on the horizon. Truly, it has been a squandered 12 months.

Residents of the small informal settlement of Driziek, situated in the Orange Farm area southwest of Johannesburg, face eviction from the homes they have lived in for the past nine years. The community has vowed to resist the “unwarranted and unilateral” move on the part of the local authorities and sees the proposed evictions as part of an ongoing assault by the state.