The Commonwealth Update

An Authoritative, nation-by-nation review of events across the Commonwealth, with an update now published six times a year in an issue of The Round Table.

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From 2008, the review is being written by Oren Gruenbaum, the Commonwealth Update editor, and currently Senior Sub-Editor at The Guardian in the UK

In 2007, the review was written by Judith Soal, a journalist who has worked extensively in South Africa and is currently deputy night editor at The Guardian in the UK.

Until 2007 the review was written by Derek Ingram, who was the Founding Editor of Gemini News Service until 1993, and is the author of a number of books about the Commonwealth and is active in the CJA, CPU, CHRI and the RCS, as well as a member of the Moot.

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Commonwealth Update - Issue 399

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
The International Monetary Fund warned that the world financial system was on the "brink of systemic meltdown" as leading banks collapsed and shares plunged on fears of a global recession. The cost of rescue packages and guarantees rose to $2,900bn as the effects of the credit crunch spread. Central banks made unprecedented co-ordinated cuts in interest rates and the IMF created a $100bn emergency loan fund. The plans revived world stock markets, which had fallen by greater margins than in the 1929 Wall Street crash. Thabo Mbeki was ousted as South Africa's president and the ruling African National Congress split. Asif Zardari, controversial widower of Benazir Bhutto, became Pakistan's president. The 30-year rule of Asia's longest-serving leader, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, ended in the Maldives' first democratic elections. Rupiah Banda was elected Zambia's new president.

AFRICA

Botswana
The ancient but precarious culture of the Basarwa nomads of the Kalahari desert, known as Bushmen, came under renewed threat when fires devastated 80% of the vegetation they, and the animals they hunt, depend on. The 4,000-strong Basarwa won the right to return to their ancestral lands only in 2006, after a court ruled they had been illegally evicted. The government denied clearing the land for diamond exploration by De Beers.

Cameroon
A well-known singer, Lapiro de Mbanga, was jailed for three years for allegedly taking part in February's anti-government riots, which the authorities said left 40 people dead (25 September). Mbanga is an outspoken critic of the government and member of the opposition Social Democratic Front. His song Constipated Constitution mocked changes to the law allowing President Paul Biya, 75, to seek re-election in 2011 after 26 years in power. Mbanga was also fined 280m CFA francs ($640,000).

Mauritius
Mauritius came first and Seychelles second in an index of good governance in 48 African countries compiled for a Sudanese entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim, who also sponsors a prize for the best African leaders. Two other Commonwealth countries, Botswana and South Africa, were in the top five.

Mozambique
Bush fires in central Mozambique killed at least 32 people, left thousands without shelter and destroyed 16,000 hectares of agricultural land (5 September), state media said.

Nigeria
Major budget cuts were announced after the oil price halved in three months-Nigeria relies almost exclusively on oil for revenue. Militant separatists in the Niger Delta have cut oil production by 20%. Nineteen kidnapped Nigerian oil workers were set free in October but the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), said it was still holding two British workers and a Ukrainian after rescuing the 22 men from "pirates". In September, Mend declared a ceasefire a week after it declared "war" following a military raid on one of its bases. Mend blew up Shell's oil pipeline in Asari Toru and attacked gas and oil installations in the worst violence for two years.

Iran agreed to share nuclear technology with Nigeria to increase electricity generation. President Umaru Yar'Adua has made Nigeria's poor power supply a main priority. Meanwhile, Nigeria had recovered $3.4bn of government funds over the last year, Yar'Adua said in an address to mark Nigeria's 48 years of independence.

A US-based Nigerian news blogger, Jonathan Elendu, was detained without charge or access to his lawyers by Nigeria's secret service on 23 October on a family visit to the capital, Abuja. Elendureports.com is one of several diaspora-run "citizen reporting" websites publishing controversial stories. The State Security Service said he had not been "arrested" but "invited" for talks over "acts of sedition". In September, Channels TV was shut down after it reported a hoax that the president would step down due to poor health.

HIV-positive couples are being paired up for marriage in Bauchi state, which follows sharia law and is against condoms, but UN Aids experts said any children would become orphans. Bauchi state has also banned co-educational schools. Last month Bauchi reportedly locked up sex workers with HIV.

The military was called in to patrol a town in Ebonyi state after violent clashes over land rights between the Ezza and Ezillo communities. A curfew was declared for three months while hundreds of families are resettled. At least 18 people have been killed in the last five months.

Sierra Leone
President Ernest Bai Koroma became the first head of state to declare his assets-of hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said, not millions-to Sierra Leone's anti-corruption commission (1 September). Officials must now declare their assets annually and when they leave office. Koroma, who won elections last year on an anti-corruption platform, called the move "unique not only within this whole region but even in Africa". Corruption is seen as a cause of the civil war in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the education minister, Minkailu Bah, said he had discovered scores of non-existent "ghost" teachers and schools invented by embezzling officials. In one district, five schools had 68 non-existent teachers.

South Africa
Thabo Mbeki was ousted as president in the country's worst political crisis since the end of apartheid (20 September). His deputy and 10 ministers also resigned. A breakaway faction of South Africa's governing African National Congress formed a new party, the South African Democratic Congress.

At a national convention on 1 November, the SADC, led by Mosiuoa Lekota, former defence minister and ANC chairman, accused the ANC of undermining democracy and said opponents of the ANC's new leader, Jacob Zuma, were being "purged". Lekota denounced recent verbal attacks on the courts by Zuma's supporters and said corruption charges against Zuma should not be dropped for political reasons. The judge who dismissed a corruption case against Zuma said prosecutors could appeal against the ruling and criticised Mbeki for seeking to influence Zuma's prosecution. The Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu described the ousting of Mbeki as retribution for "his intolerance of challenges and dissent" but warned that the power struggle risked South Africa becoming a "banana republic".

South Africa's new president, Kgalema Motlanthe, is likely to serve only until elections in April, which Zuma is expected to win. The ANC deputy leader and a Zuma ally, Motlanthe reassured the markets by reappointing Trevor Manuel as finance minister but replaced the controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who horrified doctors and Aids campaigners by promoting garlic and beetroot as a cure in the country with the world's highest HIV rate. The new minister, Barbara Hogan, promised to be "more respectful of professional opinion".

Swaziland
The authorities blamed a banned opposition party, the People's United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), for a series of attempted bombings to coincide with its first parliamentary election under a new constitution, which maintains a ban on multi-party democracy (26 September). The government said bombs had been found at railways, bridges, roads and one of King Mswati III's palaces. Two militants were killed planting a device near the capital, Mbabane. The polls were to elect a national assembly, which chooses 10 senators; however, the king nominates 20. Pudemo's leader, Mario Masuku, called the elections "window-dressing".

Tanzania
Albinos in Burundi had to be protected by police after three were killed by gangs seeking to sell their body parts in neighbouring Tanzania, where 26 albinos have been murdered this year to meet demand for body parts by witchdoctors.

Uganda
The government urged aid agencies to stop supplying food to the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and starve it out of its camps in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo to increase pressure to sign a peace deal and end the 20-year war. The LRA refused to sign an agreement in April because of international arrest warrants against its leaders. Some 75,000 Congolese have fled LRA attacks, the aid agency Caritas said.

The International Federation of Journalists condemned the attempted abduction of Geoffrey Ssebagala, a journalist and media advocate, by unidentified men in the capital, Kampala, on 27 October. The attack followed a radio interview in which he said hundreds of people were being detained without trial and tortured in army safe houses, and said there had been extra-judicial killings. Ssebagala was knocked off his motorcycle by men who tried to force him into their car but was rescued by passers-by.

A mob killed a man who refused to stop smoking in a bar in Tororo. It is the first known incident of its kind since Uganda banned smoking in public venues four years ago. Uganda's only ethnic group practising female genital mutilation, or female circumcision, has banned it. A Sabiny elder said cutting off a girl's clitoris was "outmoded" and said the council was seeking a national ban. The ethics minister called for miniskirts to be banned because they distracted drivers. Nsaba Buturo said: "You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally."

Zambia
The acting head of state, Rupiah Banda, 71, was sworn in as president on 2 November, just hours after officials said he had narrowly won the election held three days earlier. Banda, the former vice-president, beat the main opposition candidate, Michael Sata, by 40.1% to 38.1%. The margin of victory was just 35,209 votes. Sata, who narrowly lost the election in 2006, had rejected the result, saying a "bunch of thieves" had stolen the vote. His Patriotic Front said it would go to court to demand a recount and riot police fired tear gas at Sata's supporters, who marched through a Lusaka slum, setting fire to market stalls and throwing stones. However, African regional electoral monitors said voting had been free and fair. Levy Mwanawasa, the former president, died in a French hospital in August after suffering a stroke.

Zimbabwe
Power-sharing talks were deadlocked after the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, threatened to pull out when President Robert Mugabe said he was unilaterally handing top cabinet posts, including the police, army and justice portfolios, to senior figures of his ruling Zanu-PF party.

Earlier, he swore in two Zanu-PF vice-presidents, Joyce Mujuru and Joseph Msika. Under the deal brokered by South Africa's then president, Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe was supposed to retain a ceremonial presidency and half of the ministries, while Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change took a new executive prime minister's post and most major portfolios. The MDC, which has held most seats in Parliament since an election in March, elected its nominee as speaker, despite Mugabe trying to use a breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara to split the opposition.

Aid agencies warned of a humanitarian disaster following the worst wheat harvest since independence and predictions that the staple food, maize, could run out by November. Diplomats reported rising numbers of children dying of hunger in what was southern Africa's breadbasket. Since Mugabe began land redistribution in 2000, the number of commercial farmers has fallen from 4,500 to under 800. Jabulani Gwaringa, of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union, said: "We are in serious trouble. There is no seed, fertiliser and crop chemicals." The UN World Food Programme expects 5.5 million people to need food aid. A cholera outbreak claimed its first victims in the capital, Harare, as water and sanitation services failed. Inflation is officially at 231m% and unofficially in the quadrillions. More than 80% of people have no job and a quarter of the population has fled abroad.

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ASIA

Bangladesh
One of the two main parties, the Awami League, registered for elections due in December. Some parties have opposed registration as infringing political rights. Parties must now hold internal elections for leaders, committees and representation of women. The election commission also restricted the use of religion by parties, requiring Islamist parties to drastically alter their constitutions. The European Union called on the military-backed caretaker government to lift the state of emergency or it would not send monitors.

A court rejected a plea for bail by the Awami League's leader, Sheikh Hasina, meaning that she could be arrested when she returns from medical treatment abroad. She is charged with extorting 50m taka ($729,700) from a businessman when she was prime minister. Hasina's long-time rival, Khaleda Zia, was released on bail in September. Zia faces several charges of corruption along with her son, Tarique Rahman.

Hong Kong
Pro-democracy politicians defied predictions by retaining their veto power over major laws, despite losing three seats in elections. Democrats won 23 out of 30 directly elected seats on the legislative council. Special interest groups choose 30 seats.

India
India launched its first mission to the Moon when its Chandrayaan satellite was blasted into orbit with a locally made rocket (22 October). The unmanned mission will map the distribution of elements and try to discover whether India can gather enough helium-3 to fuel nuclear fusion.

Chandrayaan-1 cost 4bn rupees ($80m), the cheapest voyage in 49 years of lunar exploration, compared with the US agency Nasa's $22bn-a-year budget. However, critics claim India is squandering money on a space race with military objectives instead of tackling poverty.

The US Congress approved a deal on civil nuclear co-operation, the last hurdle for a controversial $14bn agreement that allows India access to nuclear technology without having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India also agreed to buy French nuclear reactors. India and Japan signed a security co-operation agreement during a visit by Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, to Tokyo. Japan has such a pact with only the US and Australia.

Up to 18 co-ordinated bomb blasts ripped through Assam state, killing 77 people and wounding hundreds (30 October). A minister blamed the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom, which is fighting for an independent homeland, but Assam has also recently been bombed by suspected Bangladeshi Islamists. In September, 53 people died in violence between indigenous Bodo tribespeople and Muslims, 25 of them shot by the police, and 150,000 people sought shelter in camps. Anti-immigrant sentiment was blamed-there may be 2 million illegal Bangladeshis. Others put it down to efforts to expand autonomous tribal areas in Assam by driving out Indian settlers too.

A series of bombs exploded in shopping areas of Delhi, killing at least 20 people (13 September). As with recent attacks in Jaipur and Bangalore, a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility. Two weeks later a nine-year-old boy was killed and 18 injured in another explosion in Delhi after he saw the bombers drop a bag and tried to return it to them. Police said they had arrested Indian Mujahideen's leader, Mohammed Arif Sheikh, and four others with explosives as they planned attacks in Mumbai.

Bombs in Imphal killed 17 people and injured 20 near a police base (21 October). Most of the dead were civilians. It comes two days after a suspected militant grenade attack outside the chief minister's home. Manipur has about a dozen rebel groups fighting for independence or autonomous homelands. At least four people were killed by bombs in markets in Tripura, injuring 70. It was not clear whether either of Tripura's two major rebel groups, the National Liberation Front of Tripura or the All Tripura Tiger Force, was responsible.

Thousands of Christians fled into forests in Orissa after Hindu mobs killed at least 20 people and burned villages and churches. The pogroms were sparked by the murder of a leader and four activists of the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad party, which was blamed on Christians despite Maoist guerrillas admitting they had killed them for "fascist activities". Low-caste Hindus have been converting to Catholicism in Orissa in growing numbers. Three people were killed during rioting in Maharashtra following the arrest of Raj Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) party (22 October).

Thackeray is accused of inciting violence against migrant workers and has been banned from speaking in public or talking to the media. Unrest in Maharashtra has forced many migrants out of their homes. Meanwhile, students in Bihar paralysed rail services in protest at Biharis' ill treatment from the MNS. At least 147 people were killed in a stampede at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur in Rajasthan-the fourth at a religious festival in India this year. The death toll on India's roads rose to 130,000 last year, overtaking China.

Floodwater began to recede in Bihar after the river Kosi burst its banks upstream in Nepal in August and reverted to its ancient course, displacing three million Indians. Tens of thousands of people were still stranded weeks later and more than 250,000 refugees could spend up to six months in camps. Floods displaced a further 70,000 people in late October. Monsoon rains have been especially severe this year, killing nearly 2,000 people since June. People have been eating grass and television showed farmers herding starving cattle into the river to die. Twelve Indian states have "alarming" levels of hunger, while Madhya Pradesh is "extremely alarming" and comparable to Ethiopia and Chad, the International Food Policy Research Institute said. India has 200 million people suffering hunger, more than any other country.

An old trade route across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides disputed Kashmir was reopened after 60 years as part of a 2004 peace agreement between India and Pakistan, which both claim Kashmir. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, inaugurated Kashmir's first train service, despite massive protests against Indian rule. Some 30 people have been killed in clashes.

Farmers in Mizoram fear losing their crops to a plague of rats drawn to the hills by bamboo that blossoms once every 48 years. In 1959, Delhi ignored warnings of the rat plague but the ensuing famine fuelled a nationalist insurgency and 20 years of guerrilla warfare until Mizoram achieved statehood.

A court in Maharashtra sentenced six people to death for raping and beating to death a lower-caste Dalit family in 2006 in a land dispute. The supreme court upheld a ruling that two men elected to municipal office in Orissa were disqualified as they had leprosy.

Malaysia
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced he would step down as prime minister in March, in effect handing control of the ruling National Front coalition and therefore the premiership, to his deputy, Najib Razak (8 October). Abdullah had been under pressure to quit since disastrous election results in March, when the government lost its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time since independence. He faced discontent within his own party, the United Malays National Organisation, and from an increasingly strong opposition, the multi-racial People's Alliance, led by Anwar Ibrahim.

Malaysia's leading blogger went on trial for sedition (6 October). Raja Petra Kamaruddin was charged for alleging in Malaysia Today that the murder of a female translator, Altantuya Shaariibuu, involved the deputy premier, Najib Razak, and his advisers. Najib denies any involvement. Raja Petra was detained under the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA) on different charges in September with Teresa Kok, an opposition MP. Kok was accused of campaigning for a mosque to quieten its call to prayer. A cabinet minister, Zaid Ibrahim, resigned in September over the government's use of the ISA to detain opponents indefinitely without trial.

Maldives
After 30 years as president, Asia's longest-serving ruler was ousted by a former political prisoner in the Maldives' first democratic elections (29 October). Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed, a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, won 54% of votes to 46% for President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in a run-off ballot. Nasheed, 41, said in a joint press conference with Gayoom, whom he has accused of having him tortured repeatedly during his six years in jail: "A witch hunt … will not happen because it will not help democracy." Gayoom, 71, won six uncontested polls since 1978 before protests forced him to allow political parties in 2006, when Nasheed returned to the country to found the Maldivian Democratic Party. Gayoom conceded defeat: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose... I accept this verdict of the people."

Nasheed promised democratic reforms, including greater media freedom, before holding parliamentary elections by February. He also promised to tackle problems from rising sea levels, a heroin epidemic of 30,000 users, and the impact of the global financial crisis. Gayoom's Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party still commands a majority in parliament.

Pakistan
Asif Zardari was sworn in as president after winning indirect elections in the provincial and federal parliaments on 6 September. Once known as Mr 10% for his alleged corruption, one newspaper dubbed him Mr 100% after he won unanimous backing in his home province of Sindh. However, he only won 22 of 65 seats in Punjab, heartland of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party. The PML-N withdrew support for the governing coalition in August, reducing Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) allies to two small regional parties and a smaller Islamist one, with a slender parliamentary majority.

The PML-N's withdrawal from government was in protest at the PPP's failure to reinstate all the judges sacked last year by Pervez Musharraf, the former military leader who resigned as president in August, and because Zardari had reneged on pledges to divest the presidency of the extraordinary powers accrued by Musharraf. Zardari can appoint and sack military chiefs, provincial governors, prime minister and parliament. He is also immune from criminal charges. Nisar Memon, a senator from Musharraf's party, said: "We are moving from military rule to a civilian dictatorship."

The IMF began negotiations with Islamabad over emergency financial aid (22 October). The economy is close to meltdown: inflation is about 30%, the rupee has devalued by 25% and the deficit is 10% of GDP. Pakistan has had no permanent finance minister since May. The country has foreign exchange for six weeks of imports and needs about $13bn to avoid a balance-of-payments crisis. The US, China and Saudi Arabia refused to give loans. IMF conditions for aid are likely to cut into defence and development budgets.

Islamist militants in the Bajaur tribal district promised to lay down their arms and renounce violence (30 October). The vow was taken before a jirga, or tribal meeting, in the Mamund area. Two weeks earlier, Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the militants, told the BBC: "We are willing to negotiate with the government without any conditions." The army had previously claimed it was regaining control of Bajaur after troops killed 1,500 militants in a huge offensive in September. The United Nations said 20,000 people had fled the area for Afghanistan. The army said it killed 35 Taliban militants days after an open-air meeting of the embryonic anti-Taliban tribal movement was bombed in Orakzai, killing 27 and injuring 81. The suicide car bomber struck as some 600 people met to raise a militia to evict Taliban from the area.

A suspected US missile fired by a pilotless drone killed 20 people, including a Taliban commander, Mohammad Omar, in South Waziristan. Pakistan warned US forces not to intrude on its territory after troops exchanged fire along the Afghan border. Soldiers shot at US helicopters they believed had infringed Pakistan's air space. Islamabad later played down the incident and the US insisted it had been on the Afghan side. In September Pakistani troops fired shots into the air to stop US troops crossing after nine US helicopters landed on the Afghan side of the border. Zardari told the UN General Assembly in New York: "We cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends." However, Zardari appeared to acknowledge that his government had given consent to US air strikes when he told the Wall Street Journal: "We have an understanding, in the sense that we're going after an enemy together." It also quoted him as saying that India had never been a threat to Pakistan, and that militants in Indian-administered Kashmir were terrorists. The report outraged many Kashmiri Muslims, who regard militants fighting India as freedom fighters. Zardari and India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, agreed to resume peace talks following months of strained relations when they met at the UN.

Suicide bombers detonated a huge bomb outside the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, killing 53 and wounding hundreds. There were contradictory reports that the government had been due to dine there. A previously unknown group, Fedayeen Islam, claimed responsibility. In other violence, three Shia were killed in a drive-by sectarian attack near Dera Ismail Khan. A bomb killed more than 30 people in Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province; four girls, policemen and prisoners were among at least 10 people killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a prison vehicle and school bus in Upper Dir; shots were fired in Islamabad at the empty motorcade of the prime minister, and a blast at an Islamic school near Quetta, killing five people, was blamed on explosives being prepared in the madrassa.

An inquiry was opened into the killing of five women in Baluchistan because they tried to choose their own husbands. The women were buried alive in what a local MP defended as "centuries-old tradition". Hundreds were feared dead after an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude hit Baluchistan, north of Quetta (29 October).

Singapore
The "Grand Old Man of opposition politics", JB Jeyaretnam, died, aged 82. He was the first person to break the government monopoly on power in Singapore when he became an MP for the Workers' Party in 1981.

Sri Lanka
The International Press Freedom Mission said press freedom had deteriorated, with anti-terror legislation used against broadcasters and reporters (31 October). It said journalists had been murdered, attacked and intimidated, especially in war areas. Sri Lanka was recently given the lowest press freedom rating of any democratic country by the pressure group Reporters Without Borders.

The defence ministry said it would no longer release casualty figures from a major assault on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's HQ in Kilinochchi. It had previously admitted that 33 troops were killed in fierce fighting in October, an unusually high figure. The ministry also claimed the Tigers had used poisonous gas in battles.

The UN said the fighting had displaced 230,000 people. It pulled staff out of northern Sri Lanka in September after the government said it could not guarantee their safety. A suicide bomber killed at least one person in an attack on the convoy of agriculture minister Maithripala Sirisena near Colombo. Three days earlier a suicide bomber killed 29 people in the Anuradhapura, including Maj Gen Janaka Perera, a controversial commander in the 1990s. More than 80 people were injured when the bomber blew himself up inside the United National Party office.

A minister accused the police of arresting "five to 10 Tamil people" a day in Colombo. P Radhakrishnan, an education minister from a party representing Indian Tamils, said more than 1,000 Tamils were already in detention.

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EUROPE

Cyprus
The president of Cyprus, Demetris Christofias, called for the abolition of annual military exercises on both sides of the divided island and proposed the full demilitarisation of the capital, Nicosia. Christofias launched fresh peace talks with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, on 3 September. Both leaders agree on a federal structure for Cyprus but need to work out details of power-sharing, security, property disputes and Turkey's military presence in the north. Cyprus has been split since Turkey invaded in 1974, following a brief Greek-inspired coup in Nicosia.

Malta
As many as 71 African migrants drowned after their dinghy sank in the Mediterranean Sea. More than 1,000 migrants have reached Malta this year, mainly from north Africa.

UK
The government led a bailout of European financial institutions by pumping up to £50bn into UK banks in return for equity stakes after they faced collapse due to the credit crunch. "The global financial market has ceased to function," declared Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister. The government waived competition laws to push through the takeover of weaker retail banks by healthier peers, such as the merger of HBOS, formerly the UK's biggest mortgage lender, and Lloyds TSB, in a deal that would have been unthinkable a year ago. The UK used anti-terrorist laws to freeze £4bn of Icelandic assets after the country's three largest banks collapsed and were taken over by the island's government.

The government said it would accelerate spending plans on large infrastructure projects to counteract the recession, which Britain officially entered in October, ending 16 years of economic growth. In a return to long-unfashionable Keynesian policy, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, said jobs would be created by construction for the 2012 Olympic games, the £16bn ($26bn) Crossrail link, housing and energy projects, plus aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The announcement followed a surge of 170,000 in UK unemployment levels. The number of people losing their homes after failing to meet mortgage payments rose 71% in a year.

The crisis boosted Brown's popularity-he had faced being deposed by some of his own party just weeks before-with his Labour Party closing the gap on the Conservative Party from previous historic lows. Brown's cabinet reshuffle included the surprise return of Peter Mandelson, who quit as European Union commissioner for trade to take up a new post of business secretary. Mandelson, who resigned twice previously over alleged scandals, immediately became mired in a new controversy of alleged favours and donations involving a Conservative leader, George Osborne, and a Russian metals tycoon, Oleg Deripaska.

The government abandoned its controversial effort to extend the period police are allowed to detain terror suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 after the House of Lords rejected the bill. Three British Muslims were convicted of conspiracy to murder in a terrorist plot using bombs disguised as soft drinks. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said the police and security agencies would be given sweeping powers to access personal data on the internet. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, commander of British troops in Afghanistan, warned that there would be no decisive military victory over the Taliban.

Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, forecast that by 2060 Britain would have the biggest population in the EU, increasing by a quarter to 77 million and overtaking Germany. The government agreed to include aviation and shipping in an ambitious push to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

A bill to legalise assisted suicides in Scotland will be introduced by an MP, Margo MacDonald, who herself has Parkinson's disease, after a woman with multiple sclerosis failed to get a court ruling to allow her husband to help her die.

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AMERICAS

Barbados
Thirteen Caribbean countries approved a new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union in Barbados on 15 October after four years of negotiations. Two more may soon join in. The EPA replaces the Lomé Convention, and its successor, the Cotonou agreement. It grants almost all Caribbean exports duty-free and quota-free access to Europe. In return, the Caribbean states will phase out duties on 87% of European imports by 2033. Both sides will ease restrictions on labour.

Canada
The ruling Conservative Party formed another minority government after failing to win an outright majority in fragmented federal elections, the country's third in four years. In a low turnout, the party, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, won 16 more seats but was still 12 short of the 155 needed to rule alone. Stéphane Dion said he would step down as leader of the opposition Liberal Party next year after winning 26% of the vote, its lowest share since the party was formed in 1867. The Greens, the newest party in the first-past-the-post system, won 7% of the vote but no seats. During the campaign, Harper was accused of plagiarism, and a speechwriter resigned, after a speech he made as opposition leader in 2003 supporting the invasion of Iraq was found to be almost identical to a speech given by John Howard, Australia's then prime minister.

Jamaica
Police are investigating the theft of a beach. Some 500 lorry-loads of sand were removed from a planned resort at Coral Spring. A lottery scam targeting elderly Americans was contributing to gang violence, police said, as criminals bought guns with money sent by retirees persuaded that they had won a sweepstake. Last year, 1,574 people were murdered.

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PACIFIC

Australia
An investigation began into claims that up to 20 Afghan asylum-seekers were killed by the Taliban after being returned home under the Howard government's "Pacific Solution" policy. A television documentary said those who died were among 400 Afghan asylum-seekers denied entry. Under the policy, asylum-seekers were detained on Pacific islands and barred from Australian soil. Kevin Rudd ended it on becoming prime minister last December.

Australia's biggest terrorism trial ended with the convictions of seven Muslim men for plotting a religious war in 2005, targeting former prime minister John Howard and sporting events (16 September). A jury found that Abdul Nacer Benbrika, an Algerian cleric, masterminded a plan to force Australia to pull troops out of Iraq by inflicting a Madrid-style bombing campaign on Melbourne. Four men were acquitted.

In a speech to retired soldiers, Rudd said Australia had to build up its military in an emerging Asia-Pacific arms race (10 September). "Militarily... as it has already become economically and politically, the Asia-Pacific will become a much more contested region … where population, food, water and energy resource pressures will be great," Rudd said. "A major priority is to ensure we have enough naval capabilities."

Quentin Bryce, a former sex discrimination commissioner and governor of Queensland, was sworn in as Australia's first female governor-general (5 September). The constitutional representative of the British monarch is believed to be a republican.

As well as suffering the "Big Dry"-Australia's worst drought in 100 years-the country is also gripped by a "man drought", according to a demographic survey, with females outnumbering males by almost 100,000. The "Love Map" shows many men have emigrated from coastal cities, to which many women have moved seeking better jobs and lifestyles. However, this has left rural areas overloaded with younger males. In Glenden, Queensland, there is one single woman for every 23 men.

Fiji
For the first time since leading Fiji's 2006 coup, the interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, met political leaders (27 October). "Fiji must return to parliamentary governance," Bainimarama said, but added: "Fiji's current electoral system is undemocratic … the case for a reform of the electoral system is compelling." He said elections would not happen until the parties accepted his proposed People's Charter, to change the electoral and political system. Earlier, Fiji's highest court gave legal backing to the 2006 coup, ruling that the president acted lawfully in supporting the overthrow of the elected government.

Four Hindu temples were destroyed in arson attacks. The Indian Fijian community, brought to work as indentured labour for Fiji's sugar-cane plantations, is seen as controlling much of the economy.

New Zealand
Helen Clark called a general election for 8 November, aiming for a fourth term as prime minister. However, her Labour Party has trailed the opposition National Party under John Key in polls for the past year. Clark's minority government has relied on New Zealand First for support but the party's leader, Winston Peters, who was foreign minister until August, is under investigation over party donations.

Papua New Guinea
PNG was added to a US blacklist of countries trafficking in people, which claims women and children from Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and China are brought for sexual exploitation in towns and logging and mining camps. Meanwhile, the United Nations called on the government to do more to reduce child mortality; PNG accounts for more than 90% of children who die before their fifth birthday in the Pacific.

Samoa
The Samoan government accused the state airline Air New Zealand of holding it to ransom for demanding millions of dollars in subsidies to maintain services through the island to the US. It said the weekly Los Angeles flight was crucial for Samoa's trade and tourism.

Vanuatu
The coalition government of Prime Minister Edward Natapei survived its second no-confidence vote in Parliament just 11 days after it took office (3 October). Maxime Carlot Korman, leader of the Vanuatu Republic Party, said his opposition bloc was highlighting "dishonest behaviour" by Natapei's government. Korman claimed Natapei "had kidnapped" some politicians who had promised to back the opposition when MPs voted for a government.

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GENERAL

Commonwealth
Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth secretary-general, commended Bangladesh's caretaker government for following its roadmap for restoring democracy but criticised the state of emergency. "This is about more than getting elections right," he said. "It is equally about developing the culture of democracy." However, he praised the registration of some 80 million voters in the last 18 months (27 October).

Rwanda dropped French in favour of English as the official medium of communication. The country joined the East African Community last year and is seeking to join the Commonwealth in 2009. It is also part of a realignment away from France, which it blames for aiding the Hutu genocide of Tutsis in 1994.

As part of plans to reform the UK constitution, the UK government is proposing to end the 300-year-old exclusion of Roman Catholics (and followers of other religions) from the British monarchy and the rule that the succession passes automatically to a male. Any change in legislation would require the consent of member nations of the Commonwealth.

Commonwealth Publications - http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/

  • Cheryl Thompson-Barrow, Bringing Justice Home: The Road to Final Appellate and Regional Court Establishment, 72 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-882-2
  • Dirk Willem te Velde, Mahvash Saeed Qureshi, Working Smart and Small: The Role of Knowledge-based and Service Industries in Growth Strategies for Small States, 150 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-877-8
  • Commonwealth Finance Ministers Reference Report 2008, 224 pages, ISBN 978-0-9554408-7-8
  • Andrew S Downes, (Ed.) Labour Markets in Small Developing States, 136 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-871-6
  • Richard Rieser, Implementing Inclusive Education: A Commonwealth Guide to Implementing Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, 200 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-885-3

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