The few civil society representatives who made the trip to Dubai were not impressed with what they found behind the veneer of modernity. Peter Bosshard, of International Rivers Network, discovered that migrant workers from south and south-east asia employed in the international convention centre are paid less than $150 per month for a 6 day week of 12 hour days with only a half hour lunch break. There are, of course, no trade unions. Combined with its reputation as a tax haven and its lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, Ann Pettifor of Jubilee Research was left wondering "what message Mssrs. Koehler and Wolfensohn were sending to the rest of the world by holding the conference there?"

President Mwai Kibaki has became the first Kenyan leader to declare his wealth to parliament together with members of his cabinet. Local and international journalists trooped to State House to record the historic event which saw the president personally hand over a list of his properties to house Speaker Francis ole Kaparo.

Democracy Research News is the quarterly newsletter of the Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI). The Network is a membership association of institutions that conduct and publish research on democracy and democratic development. Democracy Research News is distributed exclusively by e-mail; subscriptions are available free of charge by writing to ndri@ned.org.

Arms sales, which had dropped off at the end of the Cold War, have been rising lately - despite being ineffective in fighting terrorism and having a "negative impact on overall global security," according to a new United Nations report. The Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters "noted with concern that global military expenditures had been rising since 1998, after an observable general decline immediately after the end of the Cold War," Secretary-General Kofi Annan writes.

The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions urged Deputy President Jacob Zuma on Monday to present the Hefer Commission with evidence that Bulelani Ngcuka, head of the NDPP, was abusing his power. "If Mr Zuma has any evidence of abuse and of ulterior motive, he is challenged to present such evidence to the Commission of Enquiry established by the President for this purpose," said acting NDPP spokesperson Rudolf Mastenbroek.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV-Aids has commended Namibia's efforts to fight the impact of HIV and Aids on orphans in the country.

Africa is facing up to its problems and getting on with reform - but if development targets are to be met and poverty reduced, the continent needs fair trade and more flexibility in debt relief. That was the message from Sub-Saharan governments at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Dubai this week. Finance ministers from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria and Zambia warned that failure to open up wider trade opportunities or to mobilise sufficient financial resources would jeopardise hopes of raising living standards and providing better public services.

This Issues Paper from Afrodad is an attempt to help move the debate on debt in Africa beyond the unfulfilled demands made by the severely indebted low income debtor countries and by global civil society for debt cancellation. Global civil society, African governments and the intergovernmental institutions are called upon to demand and work towards the establishment of a fair and transparent arbitration mechanism under the United Nations as part of a sustainable way of finding a solution to the debt crisis.

The lesson that the world has learnt from Robert Mugabe's rule is that when one cannot improve one's image, one gets rid of all the mirrors. The Mugabe led Zanu-PF government must be counting its gains after the closure of the only privately owned daily newspaper group, the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ). ANZ publishes the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday.

The ANZ was shut down on Friday 12th September 2003. The previous day, the country's Supreme Court ruled that the newspaper group had to register with the Media & Information Commission (MIC) for its case to be heard in the Supreme Court. ANZ is challenging the constitutionality of sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).

Meanwhile, the spectacular failure of the Zanu-PF government in solving the economic, social and political problems affecting Zimbabwe is well documented. Queues for basic commodities are a characteristic feature of every town and city and the cost of goods is sky rocketing - with the official inflation figure pegged at 446.6 percent. For example, a standard loaf of bread costs more than Z$900.00. The minimum wage is pegged at Z$48,000.00 per month. Bank notes are in short supply and the government, through the Reserve Bank, has resorted to printed money in the form of travelers cheques with bank-note security features. Banks are limiting withdrawals to Z$5000.00 per person per day. The country's external debt is estimated at well over US$1,6 billion.

The public is fed with propaganda through state controlled media that the current problems are being caused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which called for sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe. What is not said is that the sanctions are only targeted at 73 Zanu PF officials.

The Zimbabwe dollar rate to the US dollar is Z$5500. This makes a mockery of government's official rate of Z$824 to the US dollar. The food security situation is worsening. Recent estimates from the Food Security Network, a network of non- governmental organisations monitoring the agricultural situation in the country's 58 districts, show that the situation is likely to get worse unless there is intervention from the international donor community.

The health sector is tottering. Government hospitals, the only ones charging affordable fees, are now dying zones for the sick. There are no drugs or equipment. The private sector has taken advantage of this by escalating the costs of medical services to the total exclusion of the working class.

Teachers and lecturers are on strike most of the time. The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) released July examination results in September because of the strike by lecturers. University graduates have to contend with the fact that the unemployment rate is over 70 percent. Youths have been turned into militia - thanks to the National Youth Service programme run by the Ministry of Gender and Employment Creation. The programme is being extended to civil servants, especially teachers.

The Human Rights NGO Forum notes that high levels of human rights violations continue to prevail, some of them consequent on laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). This has been accompanied by the establishment of a culture of impunity presided over by a seemingly partisan police force. State agents have been frequently reported as being perpetrators of human rights violations themselves. There has been continued inter-party violence as a result of political intolerance. Victimization on the basis of political affiliation remains a common phenomenon.

Elections have, since the Parliamentary Elections in June 2000, been accompanied by organized violence and intimidation. The electorate's freedom of choice in electing representatives in all these elections has been heavily constrained by victimisation of potential voters on the basis of their political affiliation. There have been reports of supplying food in exchange for votes and the use of retributive force where voters are deemed not to have voted in the expected manner.

The story of the crisis is told differently in the government controlled media and the privately owned press. The public media prefers to be optimistic. It prefers to sideline the suffering of the majority and trivializes it where it cannot avoid the story. For example, the country's only broadcaster, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), prefers to lead with a story about marketing of the Victoria Falls to the regional and international community as if the recently announced hike in long distance fares (and other basic commodities) is not newsworthy.

The private press would usually give prominence to stories of economic malaise. In the Daily News, Zanu PF propaganda would be given daily rebuttal. In addition, the continuing abuse of human rights in the political and other arena would find its full expression in the paper. That the daily private paper was a thorn in the flesh of politicians has always been evident. Prior to the bombing of the Daily News printing press in 2000, leading government spokesperson and Minister of State for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet Jonathan Moyo described the paper as “a threat to national security”. The newspaper has been the target of three bombings and has endured the frequent arrest of its editors, journalists and other staff.

AIPPA purports to promote access to information held by public bodies and regulates the media industry in Zimbabwe. Because of AIPPA, ANZ has lost its equipment including all computers and the printing press. Its owners risk being jailed for a period of two years and its closure may simply be a replica of what happened to Joy TV, which ceased operations in June 2002 on legal grounds.

The MIC has 60 days to consider the ANZ application - by which time it may not be commercially viable after losing advertising and sales revenue. The Government blames the Daily News for failing to register with the MIC instead of revisiting the policies it implemented. Such is the repression the Zanu PF Government has so craftily forced through the legislative assembly. In fact, the government's forced closure of the offices and printing press of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) represents the climax of the Zanu-PF led Government campaign to muzzle alternative opinion using all legal instruments at its disposal. This is the first time that a newspaper has been legally banned in Zimbabwe since the mid-1960s, when the former white-minority Rhodesian government outlawed a pro-black nationalist newspaper called The African Daily News.

The Daily News is the latest casualty of AIPPA and government's undemocratic and unjust media policy. Several community newspapers have stopped publishing because of the punitive registration requirements in Statutory Instrument 169C/2002 (Chapter 10:27) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (Registration, Accreditation and Levy) Regulations of June 2002. In Midlands alone, five community newspapers, including the Gokwe Times - the only localized news source for the people of Gokwe, stopped publishing after Government announced its intentions to enforce the provisions of AIPPA. In addition, several foreign correspondents have been denied the right to practice in the country using the same regulations. The broadcasting sector is no different. Joy TV ceased operations on legal grounds. No alternative broadcasters have been licensed. Aspiring community broadcasters have been openly told they will not get broadcasting licenses.

The latest event involving the closure of the Daily News has robbed civic society of a platform to communicate their views. It serves as a clear indication to the people of Zimbabwe and the international community that the laws that were hastily crafted under the guise of promoting freedom of expression rights were actually meant to muzzle rather than promote these rights.

* Sizani Weza is Advocacy Officer with the Media Monitoring Project (MMPZ), an independent organisation that monitors media output and information rights developments in Zimbabwe. (sizaweza@yahoo.com)

* Please send comments on this editorial to

Recently Halliburton Co. was forced to admit it paid a $2.4 million bribe to a Nigerian government official in exchange for tax breaks. Shell has a sordid history in the Niger Delta. Earlier this year, the company was ordered by the Nigerian Court of Appeals to pay the Ogoni people approximately $2 million for environmental damage. The story is an old one. The people are poor while corporations and government officials grow rich on the natural resources that should bring benefits to the poor.

African countries have expressed their disappointment at the lack of progress in democratising the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In a statement to the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) of the IMF Board of Governors, Angolan finance minister Jose Pedro de Morais said it was Africa's strong view that a serious process to reform the governance structures in both institutions needed to be developed to better reflect the global reality of the 21st century rather than the middle of the 20th century.

It's the poor that suffer when donors withhold funds, an economics professor has said. The flow of donor funds that were inevitable in the initial stages in most African countries until sustained growth generated larger domestic revenues, should not be dictated by conditionalities, he said.

The first Arab-hosted annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in the Gulf state Dubai, which ended on Wednesday, exposed the widening gap between rich and developing nations. Despite Dubai's label as the city of gold - with the highest concentration of jewellery shops in the world - little glittered for poor countries during arguments over aid and the power to shape their own future. The annual meetings offered cold comfort for those fighting to prevent the 30,000 deaths a day from hunger, to help the billion people denied basic education, and to support the 42 million living with HIV/Aids.

The World Bank's Extractive Industries Review (EIR) is almost done. By mid-October, the EIR will produce a final version of its report on the poverty, and other social and environmental impacts associated with oil, gas, and mining projects. Industry is flooding the EIR Secretariat with fake "community" requests for more World Bank support for coal and oil. Please write Emil Salim, head of the EIR, at esalim@rad.net.id or esalim@eireview.org and tell him you demand that the EIR resist industry pressure.

Politically motivated violence in August 2003 largely took the form of inter-party violence surrounding the Urban Council Elections held on 30/31 August 2003. Pre – election reports of political violence were received from Bulawayo, Chegutu, Norton and Gwanda among others, according the latest political violence report from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

Send appeals to (Thanks to MISA-Zimbabwe for the contact details):
President Robert Mugabe
Office of the President
Munhumutapa Building
Samora Machel Avenue/ 3rd Street
Harare, Zimbabwe
facsimile: 263-4-708-820

Minister of Information and Publicity
Professor Jonathan Moyo
Office of The President
Munhumutapa Building
Box 777
Causeway
Harare
Phone 00 263 4 706 894, 707 091 –7, 707098

The Chairman
Dr Tafataona Mahoso
Media and Information Commission
P O Box CY 7700
Causeway
Harare
Tel 703 416

The Attorney General
Mr Andrew Chigovera
2ND Floor Corner House
Samora Machel Ave
Box CY 880
Causeway
Harare
Zimbabwe
Phone 00 263 4 77 32 47

Please copy all correspondence to editor@pambazuka.org
The link below is for a statement from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition on the banning of the Daily News.

Assistant minister Robinson Githae has accused the Judiciary of being a stumbling block in the war against corruption. The assistant minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs said a report of the committee on corruption in the Judiciary, chaired by Justice Aaron Ringera, was ready and would be made public next month.

The World Bank has released its annual World Development Report, which addresses why government services fail poor people and how they can be improved. Drawing on successful examples from around the globe, the report recommends putting poor people at the centre of the provision of basic services such as health, education, water and electricity.

Nine months after sweeping to power on a wave of public euphoria, Kenya's new government has become ensnared in a web of corruption allegations, bitter infighting and, as of last week, a murky murder mystery. Last Sunday gunmen burst into the living room of Dr Odhiambo Mbai, a respected university don. They shot him four times and, as he bled to death, stole away on a public bus. The killing rocked Kenya and deepened tensions within President Mwai Kibaki's government. The politics professor was a key figure in efforts to re-write the constitution and dilute the presidency's wide powers. Angry colleagues claim he was the victim of a political assassination.

Johannesburg Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends has sent the following letter (available by clicking on the link below), with the necessary adjustments of address, to President Mugabe, Professor J Moyo, Minister of Information and Publicity, Dr T Mahoso, Chairman of the Media and Information Commission and Mr A Chigovera, The Attorney General. In addition, copies were sent to: The Office of the President, South Africa; The Department of Foreign Affairs, South Africa; The Zimbabwe High Commission, South Africa; The Friend, Quaker newsletter; Quaker Prevention Network; and distributed in Johannesburg Monthly Meeting minutes to the Central and Southern Africa Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. We would like to thank you for your ongoing coverage of events in Africa - we frequently find the Pambazuka editorials helpful and have taken the liberty of circulating these to friends concerned with social witness. We were also particularly appreciative of the trouble someone took to provide contact details for those to whom the letters are addressed.