The UN Peace-building office in the Central African Republic (BONUCA) has set up a commission to investigative human rights violations perpetrated in October when former government army soldiers invaded the capital, Bangui, in an attempt to oust President Ange-Felix Patasse, a senior UN official told reporters on 8 November.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has agreed to help US oil transnational ChevronTexaco execute community development projects in Nigeria’s volatile Niger Delta region, company officials said on Tuesday. Under the terms of the agreement, signed on Monday, UNDP will place at ChevronTexaco's disposal its expertise in infrastructure development, health care, education and micro-credit schemes, details provided to IRIN showed.

There is a very important meeting coming up with the intellectual property law commission in Abuja at the Hilton, on Nov 20-22, that will decide the legality of importing generic drugs for HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. The meeting is meant to finalize Nigeria coming into compliance with the TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization in which Nigeria is required to change its intellectual property/trade policy to match new global rules. These global rules are flexible, but if not properly designed could mean that importing drugs from generic companies could become illegal in Nigeria, leaving little chance for PLWHA to ever access drugs in the future. The meeting is being organized and funded by the US Department of Commerce and the Nigerian private sector is tagging along. This will be the third time they have met, and this time, they will decide the final fate of the intellectual property law in Nigeria, before it is sent to the National Assembly. If the U.S. has its way, it will succeed in blocking the implementation of parallel importation laws (which allows for the importation of generic drugs) and make compulsory licensing (which allows for the local manufacturing of generic drugs) very stringent.

The secrecy surrounding budget allocations encourages corruption, a former Kisauni MP has said. Mr Karisa Maitha said people were unable to question ministries for failing to implement certain projects because they did not know their budgetary allocations.

A grouping consisting of members from the House of Representatives calling themselves the Democratic Vanguard Coalition (DEVACO), has leveled fresh charges against the Speaker, Umar Ghali Na'Abba, urging him to account for N2.4 billion said to be missing from the House's overhead vote.

A hard-hitting report from the World Development Movement charts recent civil unrest in 23 developing countries directed against policies championed by the IMF. Citing evidence drawn from official documents that the free market policy model is failing, it points out that protesters in countries of the South come from across the social spectrum. Peasants, the unemployed and indigenous people are joining trade unionists, public sector workers, religious leaders, doctors, teachers, small businessmen and, in some cases, even policemen in venting their anger. Of the 23 countries documented, three quarters have IMF-sponsored privatisation programmes. In 2001 seventy six people, including a fourteen-year-old boy, were killed, and thousands injured and arrested in protests.

Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila has suspended a number of top government officials accused by the United Nations of stealing billions of dollars in public funds. Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo, Minister of the Presidency Augustin Katumba Mwanke and State Security Chief Didier Kazadi, were among the group of officials suspended. All have denied the charges.

President Thabo Mbeki has urged town and city councillors to crack down on corruption at local government level. "There is a persistent perception that we are confronted by corruption at the level of local government," Mbeki told the opening of the four-day national general council meeting of the SA Local Government Association in Midrand.

Swaziland's King Mswati III will take delivery of a long-range executive jet worth $45-million before the end of November even though the parliament of the tiny southern African monarchy voted to cancel the deal, officials said on Monday.

* The Guidelines and Measures for the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Africa (The Robben Island Guidelines) were adopted at the 32nd Ordinary Session of The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in Banjul, The Gambia, held between October 17-23.

Part I: Prohibition of Torture
A. Ratification of Regional and International Instruments
1. States should ensure that they are a party to relevant international and regional human rights instruments and ensure that these instruments are fully implemented in domestic legislation and accord individuals the maximum scope for accessing the human rights machinery that they establish. This would include:
a) Ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights establishing an African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights;
b) Ratification of or accession to the UN Convention against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment without reservations, to make declarations accepting the jurisdiction of the Committee against Torture under Articles 21 and 22 and recognising the competency of the Committee to conduct inquiries pursuant to Article 20;
c) Ratification of or accession to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the First Optional Protocol thereto without reservations;
d) Ratification of or accession to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court;
B. Promote and Support Co-operation with International Mechanisms
2. States should co-operate with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and promote and support the work of the Special Rapporteur on prisons and conditions of detention in Africa, the Special Rapporteur on arbitrary, summary and extra-judicial executions in Africa and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of women in Africa.
3. States should co-operate with the United Nations Human Rights Treaties Bodies, with the UN Commission on Human Rights' thematic and country specific special procedures, in particular, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, including the issuance of standing invitations for these and other relevant mechanisms.
C. Criminalisation of Torture
4. States should ensure that acts, which fall within the definition of torture, based on the UN Convention against Torture, are offences within their national legal systems.
5. States should pay particular attention to the prohibition and prevention of gender-related forms of torture and ill-treatment and the torture and ill-treatment of young persons.
6. National courts should have jurisdictional competence to hear cases of allegations of torture in accordance with Article 5 (2) of the UN Convention against Torture.
7. Torture should be made an extraditable offence.
8. The trial or extradition of those suspected of torture should take place expeditiously in conformity with relevant international standards.
9. Circumstances such as state of war, threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, shall not be invoked as a justification of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
10. Notions such as "necessity", "national emergency", "public order", and "ordre public" shall not be invoked as a justification of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
11. Superior orders shall never provide a justification or lawful excuse for acts of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
12. Those found guilty of having committed acts of torture shall be subject to appropriate sanctions that reflect the gravity of the offence, applied in accordance with relevant international standards.
13. No one shall be punished for disobeying an order that they commit acts amounting to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
14. States should prohibit and prevent the use, production and trade of equipment or substances designed to inflict torture or ill-treatment and the abuse of any other equipment or substance to these ends.
D. Non-Refoulement
15. States should ensure no one is expelled or extradited to a country where he or she is at risk of being subjected to torture.
E. Combating Impunity
16. In order to combat impunity States should:
a) Ensure that those responsible for acts of torture or ill-treatment are subject to legal process.
b) Ensure that there is no immunity from prosecution for nationals suspected of torture, and that the scope of immunities for foreign nationals who are entitled to such immunities be as restrictive as is possible under international law.
c) Ensure expeditious consideration of extradition requests to third states, in accordance with international standards.
d) Ensure that rules of evidence properly reflect the difficulties of substantiating allegations of ill-treatment in custody.
e) Ensure that where criminal charges cannot be sustained because of the high standard of proof required, other forms of civil, disciplinary or administrative action are taken if it is appropriate to do so.
F. Complaints and Investigation Procedures
17. Ensure the establishment of readily accessible and fully independent mechanisms to which all persons can bring their allegations of torture and ill-treatment.
18. Ensure that whenever persons who claimed to have been or who appear to have been tortured or ill-treated are brought before competent authorities an investigation shall be initiated.
19. Investigations into all allegations of torture or ill-treatment, shall be conducted promptly, impartially and effectively, guided by the UN Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (The Istanbul Protocol).

The polling period during the recent Insiza by-election was generally peaceful with few irregularities, according to a preliminary report by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN). However, ZESN said the atmosphere had been tense due to the presence of militia, marauding war veterans and pre-election violence. On the second day of polling the MDC candidate had been told by the police not to enter the constituency because he was told his safety could not be guaranteed. "The issue of food shortage and hunger coupled with underdevelopment in the constituency was exploited so as to gain political mileage by the ruling party," said the report.

Last week the Mail & Guardian reported that the Gauteng Department of Social Services and Welfare had shut almost all its poverty relief projects, citing corruption, fraud and mismanagement of funds. The Gauteng Department of Social Services and Welfare is blamed in the report, compiled by Mulalo Nemavhandu, manager of the provincial poverty programme, for not having monitoring and management mechanisms.

In a move to develop sport in rural areas, Transnet has announced a R150,000 development project.Transnet Foundation’s senior sport development manager Sepedi Moloto said at the launch at the University of the North (Qwaqwa Branch) that the project, which was aligned to the Government’s Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy, sought to create sporting opportunities for youths aged between 17 and 21 in the province’s rural areas.

What the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) and the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) have in common is that they both seem to hold a promise of prosperity for the world's poorest continent. At the same time, they are fundamentally different. Most significantly, Agoa has started bearing fruit while Nepad seems doomed to fail.

A panel of UN experts has accused the government of Liberian President Charles Taylor of violating an arms embargo imposed on the west African nation more than two years ago, the UN information agency IRIN said Thursday. The country received an air delivery of "six cargo aircraft in June, July and August 2002 containing weapons and ammunition supplies totalling over 200 tons", the experts said in the report, delivered to the UN Security Council on October 24.

Two main lobby groups in northern and southeastern Nigeria said on Tuesday President Olusegun Obasanjo should give up his bid for re-election in 2003 in the interest of national unity. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which represents northern interests, and Ohaneze Ndigbo, which groups the political and business elite of the southeastern Igbo, in a joint statement said Obasanjo’s ambition for re-election was unpopular and raising political tension to dangerous levels.

A tatty poster peeling off a wall at the Ministry of Trade and Industry depicts Ethiopia as enjoying 13 months of sunshine – a land of golden opportunity. With economic growth rates outstripping almost every other country in Africa, and a vast population, the potential, according to trade officials, clearly exists. However, within the country itself, massive obstacles remain. Businessmen assert that many opportunities are strangled before birth. Economists say despite growth rates in excess of 5 percent, desperately low incomes stand in the way of real long-term economic gains.

President Moi has denied charges that Kanu planned to rig the coming General Election. The President said that the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), which organises and conducts the polls, was not under the control of the governing party.

A pioneering and challenging book, which has been highly acclaimed since first publication in Africa; and an important addition to the relatively sparse serious political literature on civil society in Africa. The author formerly received an honorary mention in the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

This paper from Eurodad looks at whether the private sector development addresses the challenges faced within pro-poor development, and draws on past experience of privatisation, especially within the context of privatisation. It emphasises that the sequencing of private sector development policies is crucial and that there are variables that need to be thoroughly considered before embarking on any pro-poor development strategies adapted to the particular country context. These variables include: institutional capacity in the country; the design and efficiency of the country's regulatory framework; distributional mechanisms and safety nets in position to mitigate and minimise negative impacts of reform.