What an excellent editorial (Pambazuka News 137: 2003: The way it could have been) - it deserves wide readership though I suspect it will sadly only really strike a cord with those already sympathetic to the vision you give.

Two questions (Pambazuka News 137: 2003: The way it could have been). Why is the "leftist" press in the U.S. ignoring this change of heart? And why is Lockheed-Martin the only U.S. company still hiring people like me who'd rather be building infrastructure than tearing it down? Seriously, I hope you wouldn't mind if I reposted the entire editorial on Alternet. I'd also like to act as if it's serious reportage and quote bits in my next email to the White House. I intend to say that, given his change of heart, I rather fancy voting for him. (snerk) Thank you for keeping us so well informed about the things that matter.

South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have signed two key political and business agreements. In one of the deals, President Mbeki and his DRC counterpart Joseph Kabila signed a wide-ranging co-operation pact. It calls for the two countries to work together in many fields - including security, politics, economics, human rights education, and tourism. South Africa also agreed to inject S10bn into the DRC.

The United Nations has launched a new socio-economic survey for Somalia, the first since the civil war broke out in 1991. Launched on Wednesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, it is the product of a joint initiative between the World Bank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and several other UN agencies. Somalia is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, a situation aggravated by the civil war and the absence of a functioning national government for over a decade. According to the survey - also referred to as the "Somalia Watching Brief 2003" - 43 percent of Somalis live in extreme poverty with an income of $1 a day or less.

With an estimated 30 percent of Angolan children aged between five and 14 forced to work, officials and aid groups gathered on Wednesday to discuss ways of tackling child exploitation. The meeting in the southern Cunene province was expected to highlight children's rights, an issue that has largely been ignored in Angola.

Corrupt 'fat cats' continue to walk around with their heads held high even though they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The consequences of their acts are set to remain a burden on this poor southern African country of more than 11 million people as it prepares to go to the polls in May. The problem began three years ago when Malawi's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested a number of suspects, after the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament audit report revealed K187 million (about 1.8 million dollars), meant for building schools and support infrastructure, went missing.

Kenya, seeking to end an unhappy era of tribal "Big Man" rule, resumed faltering efforts to write a new constitution on Monday, dogged by feuding inside the government over how to dilute the powers of the president. A constitutional conference reconvened on the outskirts of Nairobi to map out long-awaited reforms aimed at trimming the powers of the office accumulated by former president Daniel arap Moi and independence leader Jomo Kenyatta.

Malawi's chief election commissioner told reporters on Wednesday that voter registration for the country's May 18 general elections will be extended by another week due to low turnout and other glitches. "Almost half of the five million people on the voters roll have lost their certificates and need to have them replaced," George Chimwaza said, referring to papers given out before the last elections in 1999.

Following the controversial 31 December 2003 elections in Guinea, several independent journalists in the country have been harassed and intimidated for stories and comments referring to the elections. According to Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources in Guinea, Sanou Kerfalla Cissé and Talibé Diallo, managing editor and deputy editor-in-chief, respectively, of "Le diplomate" weekly newspaper, as well as Jean Marie Morgan, a freelance journalist, were summoned by the police special branch (DST), and interrogated for several hours.

Despite government efforts at improving the country's food security arrangement, a United Nation's (UN) report on agriculture has given a low rating to Nigeria. The report pointed out that in spite of the improved agricultural technology and increased hybrid varieties plants, Nigeria is still in the lowest ebb of poor food security arrangement. The report said that in Nigeria, dietary and protein supplies are in doubt as many Nigerians are still inadequately fed.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has promised the government will deal firmly with corrupt financial institutions involved in an upsurge of fraud, the official Herald newspaper says. "We will not allow lawbreakers and corrupt characters to get away with their illegal activities. We will deal with them," the paper quoted Mugabe as saying after donating computers to a school in the central town of Kadoma.

U.S. Africa policy in 2004 will continue to be characterized by a duplicity that has emerged as the principal hallmark of the Bush Administration approach to the continent, says Africa Action's 'Africa Policy Outlook 2004'. "On the one hand, Africa's priorities are being marginalized and undermined by a U.S. foreign policy preoccupied with other parts of the world. On the other hand, the Bush White House is callously manipulating Africa, claiming to champion the continent's needs with its compassionate conservative agenda." The outlook examines HIV/AIDS, human development, economic relations, war, peace and human rights, oil and strategic military relations.

An eight-member interministerial committee has been set up in the Central African Republic (CAR) to usher in democracy to the country before January 2005. The minister in charge of the government's secretariat, Zarambeaud Assingambi, announced on Monday on state-owned Radio Centrafrique that Prime Minister Celestin Gaombalet head the committee named by CAR leader Francois Bozize.

The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) said on Tuesday it was concerned over the government's apparent "lack of regard" for the "rule of law." LAZ's comments came in the wake of President Levy Mwanawasa's move to dismiss the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mukelabai Mukelabai, allegedly unconstitutionally.

President Laurent Gbagbo met rebel leader Guillaume Soro at the presidential palace on Monday night to discuss the way forward in Cote d'Ivoire's fragile peace process following the rebels' return to a broad-based government of national reconciliation. It was the first meeting between the two men since the rebels, who occupy the northern half of Cote d'Ivoire, withdrew from the cabinet on 23 September in protest at Gbagbo's delays in implementing a French-brokered peace agreement in full.

Lobby group the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) has vowed to frustrate any talks on constitutional reform between the ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition. It argues that only Zimbabweans - not political parties – have the right to decide on the matter. NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku told IRIN he would consider negotiations on constitutional reforms between the two parties an "illegitimate process", even though the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had its roots in the NCA and the labour movement.

The IMF and World Bank require that each low-income country government prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - a three-year “national development strategy” - in order to qualify for external financing and debt relief. Governments often solicit input to the PRSP from a broad range of groups. The IMF and the World Bank as well as donor governments have a significant role in PRSP preparation. Many citizens’ groups want to influence the content of their country’s PRSP in order to empower poor and marginalized groups to meet their needs and attain their rights in the development process. After all, the PRSP was unveiled as a pioneering approach to empowering the poor, reducing poverty, and achieving country-wide ownership over the development process. Unfortunately, there is significant evidence that the PRSP process is primarily driven by the requirements of donors and creditors. This briefing paper from the Citizens' Network On Essential Services (CNES) contrasts the hope and vision for the PRSP process with the reality.

Organisations dealing with child abuse in Zimbabwe say most of the victims suffer in silence as they are intimidated by the perpetrators, who are usually close relatives. Mr Lovemore Nechibvute, director of Child Line Zimbabwe, an institution that offers psychological support to orphans and vulnerable children said their organisation had received 1400 cases of minors, who have been sexually abused in 2003 alone.

The East African Standard has investigated trafficking in children and babies in Kenya. The Standard investigation team infiltrated the Nairobi operations of a syndicate operating in cahoots with a few unscrupulous staff of the largest maternity hospital in the country - Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi's Eastlands. The baby thieves steal new-borns then present the new mothers with a body and inform them that their baby died shortly after birth. Clients for new-born babies, the investigations established, include well to do women unable to conceive, street women posing as poverty-stricken new mothers, jealous relatives and Satanists.

The African National Congress launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign this week by promising to tackle the poverty and unemployment that plague South Africa 10 years after apartheid. Unveiling a sweeping election manifesto, the president, Thabo Mbeki, declared his party's intention to loosen its conservative economic policies by ramping up public spending. Poverty and joblessness would be halved by 2014 with the help of £8.7bn spent on roads, rail and air transport and telecommunications, he told 30,000 supporters in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province.