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 Updates

Commonwealth Update - Issue 400

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
The Awami League swept back to power in Bangladesh's first elections since a state of emergency was imposed in 2007. India accused Pakistan of aiding the Islamist terrorists who carried out the Mumbai attacks. South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) split and corruption charges were revived against the ANC leader and putative next president, Jacob Zuma. Sri Lanka's army seized the Tamil Tigers' capital and the country's leading journalist was assassinated. International euphoria over the election of Barack Obama as US president was tempered by the unfolding global recession; the US led the way, with 530,000 jobs lost in November.

AFRICA

Botswana
Botswana was accused of harbouring armed training camps of Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Botswana, the most vocal critic of Zimbabwe in southern Africa, dismissed the claim as "distorted or concocted evidence" (26 November).

Cameroon
A woman who sought asylum in Britain after being tortured and raped by gendarmes in Cameroon because of her involvement with the secessionist Southern Cameroon National Congress was awarded compensation after a judge ruled her subsequent detention in the UK was unlawful. The Bakassi Freedom Fighters, who want to reverse the recent transfer of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon, exchanged 10 hostages for 13 prisoners (11 November).

The Gambia
Two British missionaries, David and Fiona Fulton, were sentenced to a year in prison with hard labour after pleading guilty to sedition charges.

Ghana
The opposition candidate John Atta Mills, who had stood twice before, won the presidential run-off vote by just 40,000 votes, or 0.46%, and declared he would be "a president for all". His rival, Nana Akufo-Addo, of the New Patriotic Party, threatened to challenge the result but officials said there was no evidence of vote-rigging, as alleged by both sides. It makes Ghana one of the few African countries to have peacefully transferred power twice between elected leaders. The stakes in the election were raised by recent oil finds.

Kenya
A public holiday was declared to celebrate the election of Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, as US president (5 November). In a last-minute deal, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed to set up an election violence tribunal. The European Union had threatened to withhold aid unless the Waki report on the 2007 clashes was implemented. Kenya's electoral commission was dissolved by MPs-another key recommendation. Some 1,500 people died in the post-election clashes and 300,000 people fled their homes. Kibaki was forced to end his independence day speech after a crowd heckled him when a demonstrator was arrested. The protest was over a new media bill, which gives the state power to control broadcasts and close broadcasters or publishers.

Parliament set up a pay review amid an outcry over MPs blocking a tax on their allowances. Kenya's 222 MPs each earn 800,000 shillings ($10,000) a month-10 years of a policeman's salary-but only pay tax on $2,500. The country is struggling to finance a 42-member coalition cabinet and subsidise food prices at record highs. The anti-corruption watchdog is suing seven current and former ministers, including the information minister, Samuel Poghisio, and MPs for taking illegal allowances worth $250,000. Rival territorial claims to the small Mgingo islands in Lake Victoria led to armed Ugandan police seizing one. The two countries have clashed before over fishing on the lake. About 300 girls, some as young as nine, fled from home and sought refuge in churches to escape forced female genital mutilation.

Lesotho
British police dropped an investigation into Mott Macdonald, a construction company accused of bribing two Lesotho officials linked to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project-the world's largest dam scheme (6 November). The head of the project in Lesotho was jailed for 15 years.

Malawi
Malawi was ranked first in its budgetary commitment to children and has Africa's smallest ecological footprint but the 45th lowest gross domestic product per head in Africa, according to the African Child Policy Forum's ranking of 52 countries in a "child-friendly index".

Namibia
Nine tons of Namibian ivory were sold to Chinese and Japanese buyers in the first auction since 1999. Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa also held sales. The $1m proceeds went to conservation but environmentalists said the sale would encourage poaching.

Nigeria
An estimated 400 people were killed in Jos after three days of sectarian riots sparked by claims that an election had been rigged. Homes, mosques and churches were burned and looted, and 24,000 people displaced after the mostly Christian Berom-backed governing party, the People's Democratic Party, won elections in Plateau state. The result was contested by the Muslim Hausa opposition All Nigeria People's Party. Human Rights Watch said the police and army were implicated in more than 90 arbitrary killings, mostly of Muslims. Similar riots in 2001 and 2004 left thousands dead (28 November).

Lucky Igbinedion, former governor of Edo state, was fined $25,000 for embezzling $21m. Igbinedion played a key role in the election of President Umaru Yar'Adua in 2007. Meanwhile, the supreme court said there was no proof that irregularities had decided Yar'Adua's election last year. Election observers condemned them as flawed, citing violence, stuffed ballot boxes, exclusion of opposition candidates and declaring the result before voting had finished.

The former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission received death threats and had shots fired at his car, Human Rights Watch said. Nuhu Ribadu was removed last year and 12 investigators replaced after the EFCC arrested a wealthy former state governor, James Ibori, an ally of Yar'Adua. The ex-minister for the federal capital Abuja, Nasir el-Rufai, was linked to the embezzlement of $246m of government funds. He was quoted as saying he had no intention of returning from the US (22 December). However, Yar'Adua called for laws protecting top politicians from prosecution while in office to be scrapped, saying: "Nobody in Nigeria deserves the right to be protected by law when looting public funds."

A $340m Nigerian satellite launched in 2007 was shut down in what was described as a "debacle". The Chinese-built NigComSat-1 was disrupted by clouds, rain or dust, and interfered with other equipment and frequencies.

Sierra Leone
Four men were killed in a clash between Sierra Leone's navy and Guinean pirates, who had attacked a Chinese trawler. Piracy is increasing as west Africa becomes a staging post for South American cocaine traffickers and following recent oil discoveries.

South Africa
An appeals court reversed a decision to dismiss corruption charges against the African National Congress (ANC) leader, Jacob Zuma, months before a presidential election he was expected to win. The ANC had claimed vindication in September after the high court dismissed the case against Zuma on a technicality and criticised political interference in the case. This judgement led to the forced resignation of then president Thabo Mbeki and split the ANC. The National Prosecuting Authority welcomed the ruling and said Zuma still faced racketeering, corruption and money-laundering charges over a 4m rand ($400,000) arms deal.

The ANC was defeated in local elections by the first serious black-led opposition since the end of apartheid. Led by the former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota, the Congress of the People (Cope), which broke away from the ANC after Mbeki was forced out, won several by-elections in Western Cape. Of 27 seats, the ANC won only three, while Cope won 10. The Economist warned that the growing identification of Cope with the supposed "Xhosa nostra" and the ANC with Zuma's Zulu supporters could see a resurgence of tribalism. Cope, which claims to have recruited 430,000 members, was formally launched in December.

The Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he was "ashamed" of South Africa's role in blocking censure of Zimbabwe by the UN Security Council: "We have betrayed our legacy." He said Robert Mugabe should be removed by force. Attacks against foreigners continued, with at least 10 migrants killed in November in Cape Town and foreigners too scared to leave camps for displaced people, activists said. At least 62 people died and 100,000 fled anti-foreigner violence last May. The economy weakened considerably in the third quarter of 2008, with 71,000 jobs lost and the lowest quarterly growth rate in a decade.

Helen Suzman, a leading white campaigner against apartheid, died aged 91. She first became an MP in 1952 and for 13 years was the only opposition in Parliament. Miriam Makeba, the singer and anti-apartheid activist known as "Mama Africa", died aged 76.

Swaziland
Mario Masuko, leader of the People's United Democratic Movement, became the first person arrested under a new anti-terrorism law, accused of supporting recent bombings. Swaziland's first elections under a new constitution in September excluded political parties.

Tanzania
Police arrested a man attempting to sell his albino wife for 3.6m shillings ($2,800) and two mothers were attacked with machetes by gangs hunting their albino children. At least 27 people with albinism have been killed since March, including a baby, due to a belief that magic potions made with their body parts bring wealth. Killings have now spread to neighbouring countries.

Uganda
Hopes that Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, would finally sign a long-awaited peace agreement to end the 20-year war in Uganda faded after Kony failed to appear again. Aid agencies said 20,000 people had fled from the rebels, who were advancing through the Democratic Republic of Congo and had killed, raped and abducted hundreds (1 January).

Zambia
Police withdrew permission for an opposition protest in Kitwe over alleged election fraud after riots in which 38 people were arrested (13 November). Opposition leader Michael Sata narrowly lost the vote to President Rupiah Banda and claimed the election was rigged. African election observers declared the poll fair.

Zimbabwe (Left Commonwealth, 2003)
Power-sharing talks were close to collapse after Robert Mugabe refused to relinquish control over the key security ministries that played a leading role in rigging the last election and suppressing political opposition (21 January). The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had returned to Zimbabwe for the first time in two months, called it "the darkest day of our lives". Disputes over control of ministries and the detention of activists from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have stalled last September's power-sharing deal. The Southern African Development Community summit in Johannesburg in November urged Tsvangirai to accept a junior role in the government, despite him winning the only contested election last year. Tomaz Salomão, head of the regional bloc, said an "above normal" situation meant the home affairs ministry, which controls the police, should be "co-managed". Zanu-PF has already claimed other key ministries.

Before the summit, the MDC said the government had "unleashed a new orgy of brutality and assaults … Zanu-PF killed the dialogue." It said 18 campaigners had gone missing since October. Jestina Mukoko, who documented human rights abuses last year for the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was charged with 15 other activists on Christmas Eve with plotting to overthrow Mugabe. The ex-journalist was abducted from her home and a judge ordered a search for Mukoko after police initially denied holding her.

South Africa and Russia blocked a UN Security Council motion to censure Mugabe (15 December). A peacemaking group known as "the Elders" was barred from the country. The former US president Jimmy Carter, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela's wife, Graça Machel, planned to evaluate the humanitarian crisis and denied any role in political talks. Jendayi Frazer, the top US envoy to Africa, said Washington had lost confidence in the power-sharing agreement and would not drop its sanctions while Mugabe remained in power. Mugabe dismissed the outgoing Bush administration's criticism as "the last kicks of a dying horse" (23 December). Days before, in response to a regional court ruling, he refused to reverse controversial land seizures and declared: "Zimbabwe is mine."

The health ministry said 26,497 cases of cholera, including 1,518 deaths, had been reported-double the figure of 13 days earlier (25 December). The UN warned that infections could treble if the outbreak was not contained. A South African official said cholera had made its border with Zimbabwe a "disaster area". The epidemic has also spread into Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. Zimbabwe's information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, accused the West of launching biological warfare to overthrow Mugabe, who claimed the outbreak had been brought under control only days after declaring it to be a national emergency.

Scores of soldiers rioted and looted shops in the capital Harare twice in December after the central bank said it could not pay the army's wages. Inflation is officially 231m% and one US dollar is worth Z$3bn. A lack of purification chemicals due to the foreign currency shortage has worsened the cholera epidemic by cutting the water supply. Acute child malnutrition was up by two-thirds and half of the country needed food aid, the charity Save the Children said. The number of children at school had slumped from 90% to 20%, the UN said.

Zimbabwe's air force chief, Perence Shiri, was wounded in what officials called an assassination attempt but the opposition said was aimed at justifying a military crackdown. Others suggested a feud within Zanu-PF. Shiri, a close ally and cousin of Mugabe, commanded the notorious Fifth Brigade, which massacred thousands of civilians in Matabeleland in 1983-84.

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ASIA

Bangladesh
The alliance led by the centre-left Awami League of Sheikh Hasina Wazed swept back to power with a landslide victory. With a high turnout, the generally peaceful and clean polls gave the former prime minister Hasina, daughter of the country's murdered independence leader, a huge majority of 261 of the 300 seats. The centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led bloc, under the former prime minister Khaleda Zia, won just 30, down from 217 in 2001. Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist party and a key ally of the BNP, saw its tally plummet from 17 in 2001 to just two; all top Jamaat leaders lost their seats. On 10 November, a court remanded three ex-ministers, including Jamaat's leader Motiur Rahman Nizami, on corruption charges.

"It went better than anyone dared hope … Foreign observers were impressed," said The Economist of Bangladesh's first general election for seven years. About 80m voters were registered and 650,000 police and soldiers deployed to ensure fair elections. After initially alleging fraud, the BNP said it would give the Awami government a chance. An army-backed government had ruled for two years under a state of emergency before the 29 December elections and had imprisoned Hasina and Zia on corruption charges and then tried to force them out of politics and the country. Mahfuz Anam, editor of the Daily Star, said: "First-time voters made up nearly a third of the total, and these young voters rejected the BNP's negative campaign based on religion and fear." The pro-BNP Jaijaidin newspaper said: "People want change through democratic means, not by any other way."

Bangladeshi diplomats held talks in Burma after a naval stand-off in the Bay of Bengal. It followed Burmese attempts to explore for gas in disputed waters near St Martin's Island, which both insist is within their territory (2 November). The award-winning feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, who had to flee Bangladesh and then India after death threats and attacks from Islamic fundamentalists, is to settle in Paris after being given accommodation by the city. Meanwhile, a Bangladeshi court ordered Dr Humayra Abedin, who had been held captive by her family, to be freed and returned to Britain, where she had been studying. The woman was tricked into returning to Bangladesh by her parents, imprisoned and drugged, and forced into an arranged marriage.

India
Tensions with Pakistan rose after a terrorist attack on Mumbai, which ended after three days and 173 killings. Gunmen with grenades targeted 10 sites in Mumbai, including a railway terminus, two top hotels, a hospital and a Jewish centre. The attacks were the worst in India's commercial capital since nearly 200 people were killed in bombings in 2006. An unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility but the sole surviving terrorist reportedly pointed the finger at the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said the "sophistication and military precision of the attack … must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan" (6 January). LeT and Pakistan denied any involvement. India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said militant groups in Pakistan were "the greatest danger to peace and security in the entire world." However, AK Antony, defence minister, said India was not planning any military action.

Local issues decided elections in six key states; the opposition BJP gained little from, and was much criticised for, playing the "terror card". Omar Abdullah, 38, leader of the pro-India National Conference party, formed a coalition government with Congress and became the youngest chief minister of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir (5 January). His father and grandfather were also chief ministers. The previous government collapsed last June after ceding land in Kashmir to Hindu pilgrims and sparking mass protests in India's only Muslim-majority state.

Industrial growth shrank for the first time in a decade and stock markets fell to half of last year's level as the global credit crunch hit India. In a fourth cut since October, the reserve bank reduced interest rates to an eight-year low. The World Bank projects India's growth to fall by a third. The government allocated an extra 200bn rupees ($4bn) to boost the economy-China unveiled a $586bn stimulus package in November.

A policeman was held over bombings blamed on the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam in October, which killed more than 80 people. Also in Assam, three died in a bomb on a train blamed on the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front, which fights for a Karbi homeland, while the "Black Widow" group, which seeks a Dimasa homeland, sprung three of its militants from jail. Maoists were blamed for a bomb that killed five policemen and blew up a bridge in Chhattisgarh. A federal minister escaped a landmine explosion set off by suspected Maoists in West Bengal. Police in Maharashtra arrested an army officer linked to Hindu militants who killed eight people in September's bombings of the Muslim towns of Malegaon and Modasa.

The Democratic Republic of Congo asked the United Nations not to send any more Indian peacekeeping troops to the troubled east, where rebel forces are fighting. Indian peacekeepers have been accused of trafficking gold and sexual abuse.

India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft, Chandrayaan 1, sent a probe on to the surface of the Moon (14 November).

A West Bengal court sentenced two leaders of the ruling Communist party to life in jail for raping and burning alive a woman, Tapasi Malik, who led peasant protests against the acquisition of farmland for a Tata car factory near Calcutta. The International Federation of Journalists said India had the world's second-highest toll of killings of journalists in 2008, with 10 of the 104 killed. Seven journalists were killed in Pakistan.

Eight members of the Onge tribe on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - nearly 10% of the population - died after drinking a toxic liquid that had washed ashore, thinking it was alcohol.

Viswanathan Anand retained his Fidé World Chess Championship title by beating Russia's Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn.

Malaysia
Najib Tun Razak won enough nominations for the leadership of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), which heads Malaysia's ruling coalition, to ensure he will be unopposed in party elections in March. This makes Najib, whose father and uncle were prime ministers, almost certain to succeed Abdullah Badawi as premier.

Najib said he would address the grievances of minority groups, especially ethnic Indians, over "Ketuanan Melayu", the system favouring the ethnic Malay majority for state contracts, jobs and education. Amid allegations of corruption against Umno and himself, Najib also faces a challenge from the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim (a former Umno deputy leader).

A prominent critic of the government, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, was freed from jail by a judge (7 November). Raja Petra, 58, editor of the website Malaysia Today, was held under the draconian Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without charge. He had alleged that Najib was linked to the 2006 murder of a Mongolian interpreter. Altantuya Shaariibuu was shot and blown up with military explosives after having an affair with Abdul Razak Baginda, Najib's former aide, and allegedly with Najib. Shaariibuu had also reportedly been involved in an $800m deal to buy French submarines. On 31 October the judge threw out the case against Baginda. Critics noted changes of judge, prosecutors and defence lawyers, and a private detective who officially implicated Najib but retracted it the next day. Two special forces policemen still face charges.

Millions of Muslims were banned by a fatwa from practising yoga because of its Hindu origin.

Maldives
Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed was sworn in after winning the country's first democratic polls (11 November). Nasheed beat Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had ruled the Maldives uncontested since 1978 and regularly imprisoned the new president. Nasheed said tourism revenues would be used to buy land to resettle on when the 1,192 islands were inundated by rising sea levels.

Pakistan
Islamabad admitted that the only surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks in November was from Pakistan. India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, accused Pakistan of aiding terrorist groups and "whipping up war hysteria" after the attacks. Pakistan's prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, had said in a televised speech: "We don't want to have war [but the military is] fully prepared."

Security forces raided a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and detained several leaders, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. India believes he planned the attacks but Pakistan refused to hand over him, or 19 other militants demanded by Delhi. Islamabad said Indian fighter jets had violated its airspace several times.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the foreign minister, said the "political wing" of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency-widely regarded as bringing down several elected governments and fostering Islamist militants-had been disbanded. Meanwhile, two politicians accused of brutal attitudes to women were made cabinet ministers. Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani - who presided over a tribal assembly that gave away five girls, aged two to five, as compensation - became education minister. Israrullah Zehri, who defended burying women alive in "honour killings", became postal minister. Meanwhile, police in Karachi arrested two people for marrying a seven-year-old boy to a four-year-old girl to end a feud.

The Taliban banned the education of girls and blew up five more schools in Swat - 183 schools have now been destroyed. At least 33 people were killed by a car bomb near Swat. The village had turned on the local Taliban, killing six, last year. The bomber stopped his car at a polling station and asked people to push the vehicle, saying it had broken down, before detonating it (28 December). At least 27 people were killed by a car bomb outside a Shia mosque in Peshawar. It was the third local blast targeting Shia in days. Three Taliban were killed in the latest controversial US drone attack in South Waziristan. Militants in turn killed dozens in car bomb and suicide attacks, including one at a tribal gathering in Bajaur that killed 19.

Up to 150,000 mourners travelled to the family mausoleum in Sindh to mark the anniversary of Benazir Bhutto's assassination last year.

Singapore
Singapore became the first Asian country to officially enter recession after the global downturn sharply reduced exports. The island's economy shrank 6.8% in the third quarter. The government promised S$2.3bn ($1.5bn) in credit to 120,000 small businesses.

Sri Lanka
President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the army had seized control of the Tamil Tiger rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi (2 January). Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers' leader, said the army was living in "dreamland" if it expected outright military victory. The Red Cross said tens of thousands of Tamil civilians had been displaced by the intense fighting. Their misery was compounded by flooding that killed four and displaced 70,000. Hours after Rajapaksa had announced the fall of Kilinochchi, a suicide bomber killed three and wounded 37 outside the air force headquarters in Colombo.

In other advances in the 25-year war, the army said it had seized Pooneryn for the first time in 15 years and was close to taking the strategic Elephant Pass to the Jaffna peninsula. It gives the army control of the west coast and opens a land route to Jaffna.

Lasantha Wickramatunga, the country's leading independent journalist and outspoken critic of the war, was assassinated (8 January). Lasantha, editor of the Sunday Leader and campaigner for press freedom, was ambushed and shot by two motorcyclists on a busy street in Colombo. He had regularly received death threats, allegedly including from President Rajapaksa, and had recently written his own obituary, in which he said: "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me." Days before, his brother Lal said: "He felt this was the time they would go for him, during the euphoria about the military progress." Mangala Samaraweera, an opposition politician who was foreign minister until 2006, said: "It's an open secret that there's been a killer squad in the defence ministry for the last two years."

Gunmen with grenades ransacked offices of the largest private TV station, near Colombo, and shot up equipment. It followed criticism in state media of MBC's coverage of recent army gains against the Tamil Tigers (6 January). Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for J.S. Tissainayagam, a leading Tamil journalist and government critic, to be freed. Tissainayagam and two others were arrested in March and charged with inciting terrorism with his magazine, the North-Eastern Monthly, which has been shut down. Another HRW report accused the Tigers of increasing forced recruitment and using forced labour to punish people fleeing the warzone. An Amnesty International report urged the government to stop blocking aid for 300,000 people in the Tiger-held region. It also accused the Tigers of abuses against people who refused to fight for them and said they were using the displaced as a "deliberate buffer".

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EUROPE

Cyprus
The European Union's advocate-general, Juliane Kokott, backed a ruling won by the original Greek Cypriot residents against the British owners of a holiday home in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus. Property disputes are a major obstacle to the reunification of Cyprus (18 December).

United Kingdom
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced a £21bn ($32bn) fiscal stimulus package that will see Britain's net debt surge from 36% to 57% of GDP by 2014, the highest in four decades (24 November). Measures to jump-start the economy include tax cuts, and capital spending on infrastructure, transport and schools. Taxes will be raised for the rich. The government hopes to create 100,000 jobs - unemployment is predicted to rise to 3 million, or 10% of the workforce. The Bank of England cut interest rates twice to the lowest since 1694, as output, orders and employment fell to all-time lows and the pound dropped sharply. Among famous companies to go bust was Woolworths, an 800-strong chain founded 100 years ago. Bankers and property developers became the butt of jokes in the traditional Christmas pantomime.

There was an outcry from civil liberties campaigners over government plans to use a private company to run a huge telecoms database that would log details of all telephone calls and texts, emails and internet use in the UK. Harold Pinter, one of the leading British playwrights of his generation and a Nobel prize-winner, died aged 78. The author of The Caretaker was also an actor, screenwriter and political activist.

Sark, in the Channel Islands, elected its first democratic government after nearly 450 years of feudal rule (9 December). The election divided the 600 islanders and was seen as a referendum on the billionaire owners of a neighbouring island, David and Frederick Barclay, whose candidates lost.

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, said all but 400 of Britain's 4,100 troops in Iraq would be home by July. In his first speech since retiring as Britain's most senior judge, Lord Bingham called the invasion of Iraq a serious violation of international law and accused the UK and US of acting like a "world vigilante". The Guardian reported research suggesting public buildings in England and Wales emit more greenhouse gases than all of Kenya.

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AMERICAS

Antigua and Barbuda
Baldwin Spencer, Antigua's prime minister and current chairman of Caricom, urged the US president-elect, Barack Obama, to lift the 46-year trade embargo against Cuba (8 December). Speaking at the summit in Cuba of the trade bloc, Spencer said: "The Caribbean community hopes the transformational change which is underway in the United States will finally relegate that measure to history."

Canada
Weeks after winning October's elections, Stephen Harper's Conservative minority government was fighting for its life against a centre-left alliance of the Liberal Party, New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Québécois. A fourth election in five years loomed and Harper escaped defeat in a vote of no confidence in December only by having Parliament suspended by the governor-general, Michaëlle Jean. Ned Franks, a constitutional expert, said: "There is no precedent whatsoever in Canada and probably in the Commonwealth." The government was expected to unveil a C$30bn ($25bn) stimulus plan in January; Harper claimed in October that Canada would avoid the global economic crisis and his failure to draw up a stimulus package led to the vote of no confidence. The Liberals chose a new leader, the former writer and academic Michael Ignatieff. His predecessor, Stéphane Dion, quit in December after the Liberals' poor election result.

Three soldiers were killed by a bomb in Afghanistan, bringing to 100 the number of Canadian troops to die in the conflict. Police charged two leaders of rival fundamentalist Mormon sects in the Rocky Mountains with polygamy (8 January). One is alleged to have 20 wives. The case is the first test of Canada's polygamy laws. Momin Khawaja, a Canadian software developer, was convicted of involvement in a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaida. The Quebec parole board released a prisoner who was too fat to fit in his cell; Michel Lapointe, a convicted drugs gang member, weighs 205kg. A human foot in a shoe was found along British Columbia's Fraser river in November-the seventh found. Only one foot has been identified. A woman lost in a blizzard was found alive, buried in snow, after three days.

Jamaica
After weeks of debate, MPs voted to retain the death penalty despite opposition from human rights groups (21 December). Jamaica had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1988 but the Jamaica Labour Party was elected last year on a policy of resuming hanging. The island has one of the world's highest murder rates-about 1,200 last year-and nine men on death row.

St Kitts and Nevis
Charles Elroy Laplace, convicted in 2006 of murdering his wife, was hanged in the first execution since 1998 (19 December). Denzil Douglas, prime minister, told the National Assembly: "We have to be certain that there is a deterrent among our people in taking another man's life."

St Vincent and the Grenadines
A man who beheaded a 21-year-old woman two years ago was sentenced to death. Shorn Samuel, 35, hacked Stacy Wilson to death and cut off her head at a busy St Vincent bus terminal. The judge ruled that the attack could not be justified by mental illness.

Trinidad and Tobago
Prime Minister Patrick Manning admitted at the opening of Parliament that he aimed to become the country's first executive president, the T&T Guardian said. Manning, who underwent surgery for cancer in Cuba in December, wants to establish a Caribbean single market by 2011 and political integration by 2013.

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PACIFIC

Australia
The government opened a controversial new detention centre for asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, reversing previous policy (19 December). When Kevin Rudd took power in 2007 he ended his predecessor John Howard's "Pacific Solution" of detaining all asylum-seekers on Pacific islands and refused to use the 800-bed, A$400m (£182m) centre. Rudd also announced new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a 5% cut by 2020 and implementing carbon-trading by 2010. But the Green Party called the measures a "global embarrassment". Coal-reliant Australia has the highest emissions per capita in the developed world. Rudd's first act as prime minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol but environmentalists believe he is backtracking for fear of hitting the coal and energy industries.

Protests in Australia, France and Egypt demanded protection for some 300,000 Aboriginal etchings on Western Australia's Burrup peninsula. The engravings, thought to be 10,000 years old, are threatened by several industrial schemes. Aborigines won a court fight against Xstrata over the mining giant's plan to divert the McArthur river to expand a zinc mine in the Northern Territory. Brisbane was hit by the worst cyclone in decades, with strong winds snapping tall trees. One man was killed and 200,000 homes lost power.

Fiji (Suspended, 2006)
The UN said it would work with the Commonwealth to seek an agreement on parliamentary elections in Fiji. Commodore Voreqe "Frank" Bainarama ousted Fiji's elected government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase in a 2006 coup. Relations with New Zealand and Australia have deteriorated amid mutual diplomatic expulsions. Polls set for March were delayed indefinitely after Bainarama said he wanted to replace "racist" election laws biased towards the ethnic Fijian majority with proportional representation. Severe flooding killed at least six people and led to 6,000 people being evacuated.

Kiribati
Taiwan donated 200 tonnes of rice to help a food crisis - Kiribati is one of six Pacific nations giving diplomatic recognition to Taiwan. Three I-Kiribati men drifting at sea without food and water for 24 days were rescued by a trawler, RNZI reported.

Nauru
Nauru hopes a mostly privately owned bank can be operating by 2010, RNZI reported. Kieren Keke, finance minister, said the lack of banking was stifling commercial activity (27 November).

New Zealand
John Key became prime minister after his centre-right National Party defeated Labour in a general election on 8 November, despite Helen Clark, prime minister since 1999 and seeking a fourth term, enjoying high personal ratings. Clark later stepped down after 16 years as Labour leader. Labour's ally since the 2005 election, the populist New Zealand First party, became implicated in a party-finance scandal. The centre-right NP won 45% of the vote, against 34% for Labour, leaving it just short of an overall majority. National has formed a government with the free-market Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, centrist United Future and indigenous Maori parties. Key, 47, a millionaire former banker, was sworn in alongside the country's first Asian minister, Pansy Wong.

Papua New Guinea
A "king tide", an unusually high spring tide, hit 800km of the north coast, making 75,000 people homeless. UN officials feared water-borne diseases would spread and said salt deposits would prevent land being cultivated for a year. Authorities said they would toughen laws against murders blamed on sorcery, after more than 50 people were killed last year, in some cases tied up and burnt alive.

Samoa
An inquiry found that the police commissioner, Papalii Lorenese Neru, and a police patrol boat captain had smuggled arms from American Samoa last April (31 December).

Solomon Islands
The parliamentary speaker, Sir Peter Kenilorea, said the former prime minister Sir Allan Kemakeza had ceased to be an MP following his six-month jail sentence for demanding money with menaces, intimidation and larceny, and ordering ex-militants to attack a law firm in 2002 when he was premier.

Tonga
The government extended, for the 39th month, emergency powers in Nuku'alofa. Much of the capital was destroyed during anti-government protests in 2006. The independent television station OBN, which has been off air since the riot, is to sue the army for compensation after soldiers damaged their studios when it was accused of helping orchestrate the violence. Tonga's last 55 soldiers to be deployed in Iraq, who were based at the Multinational Force's headquarters in Baghdad, returned home in December.

Vanuatu
Joshua Kalsakau, an MP and former justice minister, was charged with attempted rape and unlawful sex with a minor in January. The previous month, two opposition MPs were charged with aiding a jail breakout of about 30 prisoners.

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GENERAL

Commonwealth News
The secretary-general, Kamalesh Sharma, commended Ghana and Bangladesh for their successful elections and praised both countries' electoral commissions for ensuring a credible outcome (5 January). Commonwealth Observer Groups were present in both countries for the elections.

Announcing the theme of "thecommonwealth@60-serving a new generation", the secretary-general said: "The 60-year-old Commonwealth will have to invest the bulk of its time and energy on the half of its citizens-nearly a billion people-who are under 25, and the quarter who are under five" (31 December).

Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, made his first visit to Marlborough House in London in January for discussions with the secretary-general on African development and strengthening regional institutions.

Commonwealth Day will be marked on 9 March by a specially composed song, which has its première at the secretary-general's Commonwealth Day reception. Harmonic Spaces, composed by the British classical musician Paul Carroll, will be sung by a choir from Cambridge University accompanied by a string quartet.

Commonwealth Publications - http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/
Access to online case law in the Commonwealth received a boost in December when the Australian Legal Information Institute, which manages the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute (CommonLII), announced the launch of free access to the English Reports 1220-1873 and LawCite, a free-access international citatory.

  • Reform of International Institutions: Towards a Commonwealth Agenda, 86 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-897-6
  • Purna Sen, Human Rights in the Commonwealth: A Status Report, 84 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-894-5
  • Low-Cost Private Education: Impacts on Achieving Universal Primary Education, 185 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-880-8
  • Small Change or Real Change?: Commonwealth Perspectives on Financing Gender Equality, 196 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-866-2

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