In 2000, there were 1.2 billion people living in absolute poverty – that is, on less than $1 per day. This is a well known and oft-quoted fact – but one that should not fail to shock, nevertheless. In a world that is richer than it has ever been, at least in economic terms, the fact that almost a quarter of the population cannot even meet their basic needs should act as a wake-up call to the world's leaders.

The UN refugees agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday it was "extremely worried" that a possible battle for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congolese town of Bukavu or a counter attack to take Uvira could lead to more population displacement into Burundi and southwestern Rwanda.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, the UN-backed scheme to tackle the epidemic in the developing world, has thrown its weight behind the use of generic copies of AIDS drugs. The fund, which is also designed to address malaria and tuberculosis, said last Friday that the programmes it financed should seek to buy the lowest-priced drugs they could find, whether they were patented or generic.

The Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa is a unique collection of commentary on the current electoral process in southern Africa.  This publication draws on up-to-date analysis of each country in the region with each contribution organised according to an easy reference format. Topics include the voter registration process, electoral systems, electoral administration, civic education and election results.  The publication represents an important baseline of information on elections in southern Africa and presents the basis for the creation of future updates.  The chapters (including all the fourteen member states of SADC, as well as Zanzibar) draw on a number of sources, including a SADC Electoral Information Digest, SADC country electoral profiles, election observation mission reports and other relevant material. The authors of these various sources are also duly acknowledged.

Compared to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, this summer's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg was bound to be somewhat disappointing. The negotiations leading up to Johannesburg had not provided any reason to expect dramatic break-throughs, and there were none. After the meeting, many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) denounced the WSSD as a failure. Even seasoned U.N. officials, while relieved that the Summit had not broken down completely, were rather muted in their responses, says the World Watch Institute in its just-released assessment of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Zambia is to receive $50-million in credit from the World Bank (WB) for current drought and food shortages in the country.The funds will be released under the Emergency Drought Recovery Project (EDRP), and will go towards logistical and humanitarian support in ongoing food distribution.

Liberia smuggled more than 200 tons of military equipment into the country in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a U.N. report that calls for an arms embargo to be expanded. The report details "a sophisticated trail of double documentation" designed to show that the weapons and ammunition were shipped to Nigeria — not to Liberia which has been under an embargo.

The United Nations has warned that an upsurge of fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is putting the country's peace process under severe strain, heightening fears that the recent withdrawal of foreign occupying forces without sufficient international safeguards will leave the region in chaos.

Since the people who suffer more from climate change due to greenhouse gas accumulation and a high degree of pollution are the poor in the developing world, the view of who owes who in the balance of global debt should be reconsidered, concludes a paper from the New Economics Foundation.

The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has released a paper outlining a set of guidelines produced by the United Nations in collaboration with several organisations for the implementation of a human rights-based approach into poverty reduction strategies, contained in international and national developmental policies and practice.

African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development are due to meet in South Africa from 19 - 21 October to discuss what it will take to effectively implement the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

Angola needs an extensive and urgent demining programme to kick-start development and reconstruction after 30 years of war, national demining coordinator Balbina Silva says.

“I don't want to be buried under the new deal government's new dirty carpet,” Heritage Party president Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda has said. In a complaint letter to Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) chairman Michael Musonda against Solicitor General Sunday Nkonde's request for the court to declare him a vexatious litigant, Brig. Gen. Miyanda stated that the country was currently being threatened by hoodlums.

In order to transport half a million dollars in unlaundered cash safely from one country to another there are two basic requirements. First, you must possess a business class ticket, because the weight of half a million dollars exceeds the hand luggage limit on Economy. Second, you must disembark at an airport where customs officials may be relied upon not to ask questions. Harare International Airport has provided precisely such facilities in recent years; foreign associates of the Zimbabwean government have provided the business class tickets and the millions in cash.

A few months after the mysterious death in June 1998 of General Sani Abacha, his finance minister, Chief Anthony Ani, then no longer a minister, called a press conference in Lagos during which he said that his boss had repeatedly ignored his advice against the withdrawal of huge sums of money in local and foreign currency from the Central Bank of Nigeria, by Abacha's National Security Adviser, Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo. All told, said Ani, Gwarzo had, among other things, withdrawn over 1.3 billion dollars over a period of nearly two years before Abacha's death.

Until a couple of weeks ago the Welcome to Sierra Leone sign at the airport said: "If you cannot help us please do not corrupt us." Now it has been removed, perhaps because it was deemed inappropriate to suggest that all visitors were either useless or evil. If they were, they would find plenty of soulmates in Freetown, where corruption is rife. Visiting businessmen say they are constantly asked for "dash" - the local word for bribes - when dealing with officials. "If you complain about a junior official, his boss reprimands him then asks for twice as much for himself. The higher up the system you go, the more they ask for," said one company executive.

The conflict prevention organ of the African Union has expressed its “serious concern” about the crisis in Ivory Coast and its implications for peace, security, stability and development in the region, condemning the attempt to take power by force and stressing the need for an immediate ceasefire.

Action for Southern Africa

Twenty million South Africans still live in abject poverty, more than 4.6 million have no income at all and more than 2.7 million families have no shelter. These statistics are shocking enough alone, but become even more so when you consider that in comparison, the beneficiaries of South Africa's apartheid era still have their houses, cars, pensions and jobs and that apartheid's international profiteers continue to make ever-greater profits.

The UN declared apartheid a crime against humanity in 1973 and across the world, anti-apartheid movements began to press strongly for sanctions against apartheid. In 1987, an investigation into the responsibility of multinational corporations for the continued existence of apartheid by the UN Commission on Human Rights' concluded that "by their complicity, those transnational corporations must be considered accomplices in the crime of apartheid and must be prosecuted for their responsibility in the continuation of that crime".

Yet, there was no relent. When the apartheid state was bankrupt in 1986, the world's biggest banks from Germany, Switzerland, the United States, the UK and France rescued apartheid by favourably extending its loan terms three times. The apartheid regime used this lifeline to postpone negotiations and to intensify its repression. A criminal system which repressed the majority of the people of South Africa through imprisonment, torture, murder, an enforced migrant labour system and forced removals from land and housing, was wilfully backed up by financial and business investments that generated massive profits.

More than $3 billion in profits was transferred out of apartheid South Africa by foreign banks and businesses each year between 1985 and 1993. The 21,000 victims of apartheid violations identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), although by no means representing all those affected, could all be compensated if foreign investors returned only 1.5 percent of those profits.

The victims of apartheid should be entitled to reparations, including compensation, for the suffering they endured. But foreign banks and businesses have been remarkably hard-nosed in rejecting calls to contribute to reparations payments, which has now led to the filing of an international legal suit. A claim against Swiss and American banks was filed in New York in June. German, British, French, and South African banks and businesses that prefer to ignore apartheid victims' call for justice will be similarly challenged in the months to come. The doors are still open to discuss and resolve the matter decisively, but the foreign corporations' refusal to communicate has so far left no other option.

In terms of who should foot the bill for post-apartheid reconstruction and development, to insist that the new South African government alone should pay is to ask the victims to pay for their own suffering. Businesses and banks that propped up and profited from apartheid are liable too. Adequate reparations for apartheid must include massive social programmes for the reconstruction and development of whole communities. The new South Africa's attempts at doing this are seriously constrained by the legacy of apartheid, including the $25.6 billion inherited in illegitimate foreign debt. Apartheid debt cancellation is one form of reparation that will allow greater room for national spending on job creation, housing, health care, education, and the provision of water and electricity to the poor.

* Njongonkulu Ndungane, Jubilee South Africa patron, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town

* Send comments on this article to editor@pambazuka.org

We discovered that Tom had been in Central all day Friday and had been severely tortured for a period of about 4 hours in the afternoon. He was initially beaten with all of the other guys for about an hour with batons, boots, fists etc... The 4 were returned to the cells and Tom was taken off for special treatment. He was taken to a room in Central and subjected to a series of about 30 - 40 electric shocks while blindfolded, with his hands hand-cuffed behind his back. He was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and beaten all over the body. He has severe lacerations on his tongue and mouth where he bit himself while convulsing during the shocks. He cannot eat and has difficulty drinking. His wrists and arms are swollen from the handcuffs which restrained his arms behind his back while our state agents did their patriotic duty. The soles of his feet are so painful he has great difficulty walking. He can't use his hands. When we first saw him he was having difficulty focusing, though this improved towards the end of the day. He is sore all over his body from the kicking and beating.

* An extract from an email by Edwina Spicer, mother of MDC activist Tom Spicer

A Swazi Transport minister, Titus Mlangeni, has been ordered by a parliamentary select committee to resign following findings by the committee that he received bribes in the sale of a government-owned airline.