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 401

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
A crisis was defused when Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari was forced to reinstate the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels defended their last stronghold after a series of defeats in the 25-year civil war. Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was finally sworn in as prime minister in an uneasy coalition government with President Robert Mugabe. Criticism of Kenyan security forces mounted after the assassination of a leading human rights activist. Former rebel leaders in Sierra Leone were convicted of crimes against humanity.

AFRICA

Botswana
Debswana, which produces two-thirds of De Beers' diamonds by weight, will close two mines this year as demand falls.

Cameroon
Paul-Eric Kingué, mayor of Njombé-Penja, was jailed for six years after discovering that foreign-owned banana companies had not paid any taxes for decades and demanding payment. The government claimed he had led protesters who attacked the plantations over low pay. Amnesty International said Cameroon's security forces routinely used force to put down anti-government protests. Political opposition was not tolerated, and dissent was suppressed by killings, torture and abuse of the legal system, the human rights group said. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) criticised a press union for distributing a report in the biweekly Aurore Plus that accused a rival union leader of homosexuality. The IFJ called it provocative and unacceptable in a country where homosexuality was illegal.

The Gambia
David Fulton, a Scottish missionary serving a one-year jail sentence for sedition, was also charged with forgery and impersonating an officer.

Ghana
The new president, John Atta Mills, promised to cut back on the presidential jet, wages and civil service training, claiming the previous administration of John Kufuor had exceeded its forecast budget deficit for 2008 by nearly seven times. The auditor-general, Edward Duah Agyemang, said celebrations to mark 50 years of independence cost nearly $80m - four times the original budget - and said $800,000 had been provided to build 25 public toilets but only one had been constructed. MPs criticised Kufuor's retirement package, which includes six chauffeur-driven cars and two houses.

A campaign by the UN and eight west African countries to vaccinate 20 million children in an effort to eradicate polio across the region began in Ghana. In 2003, 23 polio-free countries were re-infected after Muslim clerics in Nigeria spread rumours that the vaccine caused AIDS and sterilised Muslim girls. The UK's best-selling chocolate bar, Cadbury's Dairy Milk, is to become Fairtrade certified, tripling Ghana's Fairtrade cocoa to about 15,000 tonnes a year. Fairtrade guarantees commodity producers a minimum price.

Kenya
A leading human rights activist, Oscar Kamau Kingara, was assassinated with a colleague as his car was stuck in traffic near the presidential residence in Nairobi (5 March). Kingara's Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic said last year that 8,000 young Kenyans had been executed or tortured to death since 2002 in a police crackdown on a gang called the Mungiki. On the day of Kingara's assassination, the government had accused the foundation of raising money for the Mungiki. The prime minister, Raila Odinga, said: "We are flirting with lawlessness in the name of keeping law and order."

Philip Alston, an Australian law professor investigating extrajudicial killings in Kenya for the UN, called for an international inquiry. Kingara had recently given evidence to Alston on extrajudicial killings. Alston said: "Kenyan police are a law unto themselves. They kill often, with impunity." The decapitated body of Francis Kainda Nyaruri, a journalist who wrote about corruption, was found dumped in Nyanza. The unity government's first anniversary was marked by growing public frustration-a poll found 37% felt estranged from all parties and 70% believed the administration of Odinga and President Kibaki had achieved nothing. Meanwhile, the agriculture minister, William Ruto, denied claims that cartels within his ministry had created food shortages through illegal maize trading. A national emergency was declared in January, with 10 million people needing food aid.

The former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan extended a deadline to establish a special court to try those implicated in clashes after the 2007 elections, which killed 1,500 people. If it is not set up, Annan, who brokered the power-sharing deal a year ago, will hand a list of suspects to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. However, MPs rejected a bill to establish the court, saying they had no faith in Kenya's justice system and suspects should be tried by the ICC.

Amos Wako, the attorney-general, denied the government had blocked an inquiry by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the Anglo Leasing affair, which saw $100m contracts awarded to a non-existent British firm. The SFO halted the investigation after Kenya failed to produce evidence. At least 135 people were killed when an overturned oil tanker exploded as people tried to collect spilt fuel. In the same week, at least 25 people died in a fire at a Nairobi supermarket.

Malawi
Former president Bakili Muluzi appeared in court accused of stealing $11m in donor money. The leader of the opposition United Democratic Front plans to stand in May against President Bingu wa Mutharika but the government denied any political motivation to the charges. Muluzi was first arrested over the allegations in 2006.

Mozambique
The UN warned it was running out of funds to help 350,000 Mozambicans with food aid. The World Food Programme said seven of 11 provinces had suffered poor harvests, due to locusts, and drought followed by floods.

Nigeria
Kellogg, Brown & Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary, was fined $402m after admitting to US federal charges of paying bribes for $6bn contracts to build gas facilities on Nigeria's Bonny Island. Meanwhile, a former state governor in Nigeria, Olusegun Agagu, was arrested by anti-corruption investigators. Agagu, a leading member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars of public funds, according to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Agagu is the 11th former state governor to face corruption charges.

At least four people were killed and 28 injured in sectarian clashes in the northern city of Bauchi, near Jos, the Red Cross said. Religious gangs killed hundreds in Jos last November. Islamic authorities in Kano banned a protest by divorced women, calling it "unIslamic". Activists say divorced women are often made homeless, lose custody of children and end up destitute. Police in Kwara state detained a goat handed to them by vigilantes, who said it was a car thief using witchcraft to change shape.

Authorities in Equatorial Guinea said an attack by gunmen on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo, in February had involved Nigeria's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). Mend denied any role and said the fighters were from Bakassi, a disputed peninsula handed over to Cameroon last August. Equatorial Guinea also linked Mend to two bank robberies in Bata in 2007. A West Africa analyst, Anthony Goldman, called Mend a loose coalition of armed groups. "In raids on Nigerian militant training camps, security forces have found people from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea," he told the BBC. "There is concern about who was training people to do what." The 11-year-old daughter of an oil worker was shot dead as she tried to prevent militants kidnapping her younger brother in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state. The same day, a Catholic priest was released on the orders of a militant leader. The latest government deadline for oil companies to stop flaring natural gas, which campaigners say is poisoning local people, passed without any change. Nigeria is burning billions of dollars of gas from ageing wells in the Delta, despite power shortages and slumping revenues from the falling oil price.

Sierra Leone
A UN-backed tribunal of international and Sierra Leonean judges in the capital, Freetown, convicted three Sierra Leonean rebels for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Revolutionary United Front leaders Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao were found to have helped the former Liberian president Charles Taylor control Sierra Leone's diamond fields to finance their warfare through the rape, mutilation and killing of civilians. During the 10-year civil war, some 120,000 people were killed and tens of thousands mutilated (25 February). Four women reporters were abducted, stripped naked and paraded through the city of Kenema by supporters of female genital mutilation. The female kidnappers accused the journalists of insulting traditions by criticising the practice. The government said last year it would ban female circumcision but has done nothing to date. The UN, which ranks Sierra Leone bottom of its human development index, says 94% of women there have undergone circumcision.

South Africa
The new Congress of the People party (Cope) chose the Methodist bishop Mvume Dandala as its presidential candidate, rather than its leader, Mosiuoa Lekota. Cope was formed in December by a faction of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) opposed to its leader, Jacob Zuma. Zuma is the favourite to become president but is dogged by 16 charges of corruption, money-laundering and racketeering over a $5bn arms deal in 1999. Last year, Zuma won a reprieve on a technicality from a lower court but faces a further hearing after the supreme court overturned that ruling in January. Zuma's former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was freed from prison 13 years early on medical grounds in March. He was jailed in 2005 for making corrupt payments to Zuma, who was then sacked as deputy president.

Analysts say Cope could win enough votes to stop the ANC securing a two-thirds majority in parliament in the election, which was set for 22 April. However, a ruling that two million South Africans living abroad should be allowed to vote could delay polls to allow the law to be changed. The polls may be the most violent since the end of apartheid-three ANC members were shot after clashes with the opposition Inkatha Freedom Party in KwaZulu-Natal in February and a close ally of Zuma, Mbongeleni Zondi, died when his car was sprayed with bullets in the same province a month before. The ANC said Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, was on its list of parliamentary candidates, almost assuring him of a position in the Eastern Cape legislature.

Thousands of refugees from the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe were transferred from a makeshift camp in the border town of Musina to a military base.

Swaziland
Swazis, along with South African and Lesotho citizens, must now obtain a visa, provide fingerprints and pay a fee to enter Britain. Several Commonwealth countries were warned last year to improve passport security-those judged to have complied include Botswana, Malaysia, Mauritius, Namibia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Tanzania
The government is urging the public to inform on those behind a wave of murders of people with albinism. In the past 15 months, 45 albinos have been killed in Tanzania to feed a trade in body parts for their supposed magical properties that has spread to neighbouring countries.

Uganda
President Yoweri Museveni appointed his wife, Janet, to the cabinet in a February reshuffle. He denied nepotism; however, other relatives in senior posts include his brother, brother-in-law, son, daughter and two relatives of his wife. Opposition MPs condemned a bill to legalise phone-tapping by security agents but ruling party MP Winifred Masiko said it was better to regulate the practice, as phone calls were already listened to illegally. The supreme court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional in a case brought by 400 inmates backed by human rights groups. But the judges also said it was unreasonable to keep convicts on death row for more than three years, making it likely that most prisoners will have their sentences commuted. Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil said up to 400m barrels of oil had been found in the Lake Albert rift basin, calling it "one of the largest recent onshore oil discoveries in Africa."

Museveni and Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), agreed to let 3,600 Ugandan troops pursue Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the DRC. The operation against the LRA was launched by Uganda, DRC and the quasi-independent South Sudan in December after the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, refused to sign a long-awaited peace agreement because of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court. The rebels massacred nearly 1,000 people in Congo and Sudan and abducted 160 children. The UN said more than 140,000 people fled their homes.

Zambia
The wife of former president Frederick Chiluba was jailed for three-and-a-half years for receiving stolen state funds to buy three houses and a commercial property. Regina Chiluba also failed to explain nearly $100,000 in her bank account.

Zimbabwe (Left Commonwealth, 2003)
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was sworn in as prime minister in a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe, ending months of deadlocked negotiations brokered by leaders of the Southern African Development Community (11 February). Arthur Mutambara, leader of an MDC splinter group, became deputy prime minister. Just weeks later, Tsvangirai was injured in a car crash that killed his wife, Susan. Despite suspicions that it was an assassination attempt, Tsvangirai said the collision with a truck was an accident.

Even though the MDC won 100 parliamentary seats in the elections last March (one more than Mugabe's Zanu-PF), it was allocated only 13 of 31 ministries. Zanu-PF got 15, with three going to Mutambara's faction, which has just 10 MPs. The home affairs ministry, which oversees the police, will be split between Zanu-PF and the MDC but Mugabe will still control the military. Almost immediately, there were reports that Tsvangirai's orders were being countermanded and rumours of a coup, after military and police chiefs were absent from the inauguration.

In his maiden speech to parliament, Tsvangirai appealed unsuccessfully to the United States and European Union to lift sanctions. He also demanded the release of opposition supporters being held by the police. However, Roy Bennett, a white farmer and MDC nominee for deputy agriculture minister, was arrested, ostensibly on treason charges, hours after the inauguration. The magistrate who later ordered his release was himself arrested. Another leading opposition figure, the human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, was freed after three months in detention but remained in hospital.

More than 80,000 people had become infected in the cholera outbreak, with at least 3,759 people dying, the World Health Organisation said. The new finance minister, the MDC's secretary-general, Tendai Biti, said soldiers and teachers would be paid in US dollars to help revive the shattered economy at an estimated cost of $100m. The move was also seen as helping prevent a military coup. Tsvangirai put the cost of rebuilding the economy at $5bn. With inflation inestimable, foreign currency became officially accepted. A Z$1 trillion note, worth US$30 when it was introduced in January, had fallen to 25 US cents by February. The army was reported to be feeding soldiers with elephant meat. Meanwhile, Mugabe celebrated his 85th birthday with an 85kg cake at a lavish party that cost a reported $250,000, days after Zimbabwe asked African states for $2bn in aid. At the party, the president vowed to continue seizing land from white farmers. However, one victim of the confiscations was a black judge who had himself seized his 580 hectares from a white farmer six years ago, only to have it expropriated in turn by Mugabe's wife, Grace. Ben Hlatshwayo accused the Mugabes of being "intent upon imposing [their] will regardless of observing due process of the law."

Zimbabwe's vice-president, Joyce Mujuru, was alleged to have circumvented EU sanctions by trying to sell four tonnes of Congolese gold in Zurich. Mujuru, and her husband Solomon, a former army chief, are seen as favourites to succeed Mugabe.

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ASIA

Bangladesh
A manhunt was under way for some 1,000 paramilitary border guards after a two-day mutiny left 74 officers and civilians dead. Some 700 of the Bangladesh Rifles, who are led by officers from the regular army, were detained after the collapse of the uprising in the capital, Dhaka, which spread to at least 12 other towns. The mutiny was sparked by grievances over pay and conditions. The government blocked access to the video-sharing website YouTube after a recording was posted of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, meeting angry army officers following the mutiny. Although seen abroad as having handled the crisis well by negotiating a surrender and asserting her control, many in the military believe Wazed should have crushed it immediately. Nevertheless, the army pledged its support to the civilian government. Wazed's Awami League faced its own internal conflict after a gun battle broke out between two factions of its student wing, the Chhatra League. About 500 people clashed at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-the latest in a series of such incidents at universities.

Parliament reconvened for the first time since two years of rule by an army-backed interim government ended. The session was marred when the opposition walked out. However, the Awami League consolidated its grip on power by winning 306 of 463 seats in rural elections. A farmer won a TV from the government for killing 39,650 rats in a year. Increasing numbers of the rodents, which are believed to eat 10% of Bangladesh's crops, have raised fears of an outbreak of bubonic plague.

India
In what has been called India's Enron scandal, there were demands to improve corporate governance after the founder of one of the biggest software firms confessed in January to a $1bn fraud, the country's biggest ever corporate scandal. B. Ramalinga Raju, founder of Satyam and an icon of India's success in technology, admitted he had falsified accounts for years. The company employs 53,000 people.

The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, resumed duties after undergoing his third heart operation in January, but is still expected to be Congress party's candidate for prime minister at the general elections, which were set for April and May. A 60-year-old former civil servant in Tamil Nadu burned himself to death in February in protest at Sri Lanka's brutal campaign against its Tamil Tiger rebels. He was the fifth resident of the southern Indian state, home to 65 million Tamils, to burn himself to death this year. The state's invalid 84-year-old chief minister, M. Karunanidhi, threatened to go on a hunger strike over what he called "genocide".

The Assam state government is recruiting 700 rebels who surrendered as "special police officers" to fight separatists. Ten policemen were killed in an attack by Maoist rebels in Bihar state, and 15 policemen were killed by Maoist rebels in Maharashtra.

India is to spend $2.5bn to join the US, China and Russia in launching its own manned space flights within a few years. Russia agreed to supply India with uranium in a deal worth $700m-the second since a ban on civil nuclear trade with Delhi was lifted in September.

Indians outraged at an attack on women for drinking in a bar sent 40,000 items of pink underwear to Sri Ram Sena, a Hindu fundamentalist group whose leader, Pramod Mutalik, said it was "not acceptable" for women to go to bars. Meanwhile, a court dismissed obscenity charges against a married couple for kissing in public.

The film Slumdog Millionaire - initially criticised for focusing on Indian poverty - became celebrated after it made $200m worldwide and won eight Oscars. A song from the film by A.R. Rahman, which also won an Oscar, sparked a row between Congress and the opposition BJP after both parties used it at rallies.

Malaysia
Riot police arrested more than 120 protesters and fired tear gas to disperse thousands more at a demonstration in Kuala Lumpur against the use of English rather than Malay in schools. Elizabeth Wong, a human rights activist and opposition politician, offered to resign after pictures of her asleep naked were circulated. She called it an "insidious" attempt to discredit the People's Justice Party and blamed the "gutter politics" of the governing National Front coalition. The National Front took control of Perak state legislature after the defection of several opposition lawmakers, forcibly ousting Perak's chief minister, Nizar Jamaluddi.

The government said it would spend 60bn ringgit ($17bn) on infrastructure projects to help the country out of recession. It also banned the hiring of migrant workers and said foreigners should be the first to be laid off. Malaysia has more than two million foreign workers.

Maldives
Mohammed Nasheed, the former political activist who defeated Maumoon Gayoom to win the presidency last year, said he was cutting back on his predecessor's luxuries and may sell the presidential yacht on eBay. Nasheed is sharing an office with his secretary. "The presidency was costing more than $150m a year," he said. "We've brought it down to $4m." However, a Christian pressure group, Forum 18, accused Nasheed of failing to keep promises to lift censorship by increasing the powers of the Islamic Affairs Ministry to reward Islamists in his coalition.

Pakistan
A week-long crisis was defused when Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari was forced to reinstate the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been sacked with other judges by the former president Pervez Musharraf during emergency rule last November. Zardari came under intense pressure from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by his former ally, Nawaz Sharif, and campaigning lawyers who were marching on the capital, Islamabad. The army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, and the US intervened to force an end to the standoff. The crisis began in February when the supreme court disqualified Sharif and his brother Shabhaz, then chief minister of the Punjab, from elected office. Sharif then backed the lawyers and joined the "long march". Zardari had less interest in the judges' reinstatement as they had overturned a decree by Musharraf clearing him of corruption and murder charges.

Earlier, Sharif claimed he had been put under house arrest and PML-N supporters clashed with police. Activists and lawyers were arrested and political rallies were banned in Sindh and Punjab provinces. The government warned Sharif that he could face charges of sedition after the PML-N leader told supporters: "We cannot leave Pakistan at the mercy of Zardari … The emotion I am seeing here is a prelude to a revolution."

The International Federation of Journalists condemned Zardari for banning Geo TV News, accusing him of "intolerable interference" in press freedom. It also welcomed the reported resignation of the information minister, Sherry Rehman, in protest.

Twelve gunmen attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team on its way to play in Lahore in a commando-style assault similar to November's attacks in Mumbai last November. Six policemen were killed, along with a driver, while seven cricketers and a coach were injured. Grenades and rocket launchers were recovered. Meanwhile, Pakistan said it may work with India in its investigation into the Mumbai attacks, in which 164 people were killed. In February, the Pakistan government finally admitted the assaults, blamed on the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist faction, had been partly planned on its soil and sacked its national security adviser.

The American head of the UN refugee agency's Baluchistan operations was kidnapped by a previously unknown group, the Baluchistan Liberation United Front. US officials claimed al-Qaida's operations chief in Pakistan and another top aide had been killed in January. Kenyans Usama al-Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed by a missile fired from a US drone in South Waziristan. Kini was believed to be behind last year's attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, which killed 55 people.

In the first clash in the Bajaur tribal district since 23 February, when a Taliban leader announced a unilateral truce, the army said it had killed four militants who attacked an outpost. The army claimed the ceasefire was due to success in its campaign against local militants, saying 1,600 had been killed. Officials admitted that 80% of houses had been destroyed in bombardments. The Bajaur truce came a week after a deal was signed between officials and the Taliban to end an insurgency in the Swat region in return for the imposition of Sharia law. The move had been criticised by the US government but is popular with many locals. In January, the Taliban blew up another five government schools-raising the total destroyed to more than 150 in the past year; girls have also been attacked going to school. Private schools in Swat closed to comply with a Taliban edict banning girls' education.

Militants in the Mohmand region killed 14 members of a tribal police force called "khasadars", who had earlier foiled an attempt to kidnap a local pro-government elder. In South Waziristan, two missile attacks by US drones killed at least 34 people, including foreign militants.

Eight people, mostly police and soldiers, were killed by a car bomb in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Khyber also saw heavy fighting, with 52 militants killed by helicopter gunships, 14 civilians killed in a mortar attack, and several suicide bombings. Roads and bridges used by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have been targeted, cutting supply routes.

In further sectarian attacks by the Taliban on Shia Muslims, gunmen in NWFP ambushed a school bus, injuring several children and killing the driver, days after a Shia lawyer was killed. In Dera Ismail Khan, which has a history of sectarian violence, at least 25 were killed when a suicide bomber attacked the funeral of a local Shia cleric, who had been gunned down the day before. In Punjab, 30 Shia were killed in an attack on a religious procession. Ghulam Hassan Yousufi, a prominent Shia politician who led the Hazara Democratic Party, was assassinated in Quetta in January-the second sectarian attack there in two weeks. A banned Sunni extremist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, claimed responsibility. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, was released after five years of house arrest, imposed for selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Singapore
An opposition leader posted an appeal on YouTube for the US to "pay more attention to the human rights abuses of the Singapore government." Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, said Singapore was in effect "a dictatorship … How else do we describe a government that prohibits public speech and peaceful assembly, controls media, detains citizens without trial and manipulates elections?" The government unveiled a $13bn stimulus package and cut corporate tax in a budget worth 6% of GDP as Singapore fell into the worst recession in its history.

Sri Lanka
Up to 300,000 Tamil civilians were trapped by heavy fighting in the north-east as the Tamil Tigers defended the last rebel stronghold following a series of recent defeats in the 25-year civil war. The government accused the Tigers of using them as human shields. An estimated 2,000 civilians were killed in February as government forces encircled the 88 sq km Tiger enclave. The Tigers rejected calls by the US, Japan and the European Union to surrender. Defying predictions of their imminent defeat, Tigers attacked Colombo using two light aircraft, both of which were shot down.

Human Rights Watch accused the army of "slaughter" and demanded an end to "indiscriminate artillery attacks" and "detaining displaced persons in internment camps." It also condemned the Tigers for "increased brutality" towards trapped civilians. The UN said the Tigers were commandeering food aid for civilians. The Red Cross said the only hospital in Tiger-controlled territory was repeatedly shelled and bombed, though the government denied it was responsible.

The army said it killed a senior Tiger leader, Sabaratnam Selvathurai-known as Thamilenthi-near the rebel-held town of Puthukkudiyiruppu and had uncovered a large underground bunker complex. A suicide bombing targeting six ministers attending a mosque in the southern town of Akuressa killed at least 15 people and injured 35, including the telecoms minister, in March. Elsewhere, a female suicide bomber killed 28 people, mostly soldiers, as she travelled with civilians fleeing fighting.

Amid what the International Federation of Journalists called a "war on journalism", N. Vidyatharan, editor of the Tamil newspaper Sudar Oli, was abducted on 25 February by police, and Upali Tennakoon, editor of Rivira newspaper, and his wife were assaulted in Colombo with iron bars. The attack came two weeks after the Sunday Leader editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga, was shot dead. A reported 10,000 people attended his funeral. The BBC World Service will stop providing radio news to Sri Lanka's state broadcaster, SLBC, because of "deliberate interference". The SLBC chairman said he had a duty to censor BBC programming during war.

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EUROPE

Cyprus
The UN's special envoy said he was optimistic about a power-sharing deal being reached by the Greek Cypriot president, Demetris Christofias, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, who resumed talks in September after a four-year stalemate. Alexander Downer, a former Australian foreign minister, said: "There is a real possibility of reaching a settlement here." However, only one in five Greek and Turkish Cypriots is optimistic about negotiations to reunify the island, divided since 1974.

United Kingdom
Northern Ireland threatened to return to sectarian violence after republican splinter groups staged two separate gun attacks that killed two soldiers and a policeman. Thousands gathered outside Belfast's city hall to protest against the threat to the decade-old peace process. Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister in the province's power-sharing government and a leading ex-member of the IRA, denounced the dissidents as "traitors".

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, became the first European leader to meet Barack Obama in the White House; he later addressed Congress, focusing on the need for action on climate change and warning against protectionism.

The Bank of England cut interest rates to a new record low of 0.5% and unveiled plans for "quantitative easing"-injecting £75bn ($104bn) into the economy by buying government bonds. The car industry was offered subsidies of £2.3bn. Senior bank executives' pay and bonuses became the target of public anger as thousands of job losses were announced; Sir Fred Goodwin's £700,000-a-year pension from the bank he used to run, Royal Bank of Scotland (which had to be rescued by the government), became a symbol of the excesses of the boom.

Britain was hit by a series of unofficial wildcat strikes, with an estimated 6,000 workers walking out over the use of foreign workers. Brown's promise of "British jobs for British workers" returned to haunt him. Meanwhile, the information watchdog uncovered an illegal database that it said 40 construction companies had used to vet potential staff for political sympathies and trade union activity.

Allegations that the British intelligence agency MI5 colluded in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident, came to the fore after his release from US detention in Guantánamo Bay.

An Italian court sentenced a British lawyer, David Mills, the separated husband of a British minister, Tessa Jowell, to four-and-a-half years in prison for taking a $600,000 bribe as a reward for withholding court testimony to help Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Alfie Patten, 13, revived a perennial debate about "Broken Britain" when he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl. The boy, whose voice has not broken, plans to raise the child, despite not getting regular pocket money.

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AMERICAS

Antigua and Barbuda
The Bank of Antigua was seized by regulators of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank amid allegations of fraud against its American owner, Allen Stanford. There was a run on the bank after Stanford was charged in the US with carrying out an $8bn investment fraud known as a "Ponzi scheme". Up to 600 people at a time queued outside branches on the tiny island. The Stanford group is the largest private employer in Antigua and Barbuda, covering financial, media and sporting franchises, and had become a major sponsor of cricket. Baldwin Spencer, prime minister, said the charges against Stanford could have "catastrophic" consequences.

Barbados
The prime minister, David Thompson, said the 2015 deadline to implement the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Single Market and Economy may have to be reviewed, in light of the global economic crisis.

Canada
The minority Conservative government survived a vote by MPs on its budget, which includes a C$40bn ($32bn) stimulus package to boost the economy. Canada lost more than 100,000 jobs in the last two months of 2008 as the economy shrank by 3.4%, its worst performance since 1991. Opposition parties had threatened to bring down the government in a confidence vote but the main opposition Liberals eventually supported the measures to avoid forcing a third election in three years. The governor-general, Michaelle Jean, suspended parliament at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's request for six weeks until 26 January to give the government time to redefine the budget.

The indigenous Cree people are seeking an injunction to block 16,000 permits to exploit tar sands that were issued to oil companies by the Alberta government. High prices and dwindling world supplies of oil have created a "gold rush" in the state but the Cree say pollution from the energy-intensive processing is killing the animals they hunt and poisoning water.

Jamaica
The Jamaica Public Service Company said 13% of the electricity it produced was stolen by people siphoning off power from illegal lines attached to cables. Overall losses from the grid amounted to nearly a quarter of electricity produced, it said.

Trinidad and Tobago
The government was forced to bail out CL Financial, the country's largest privately held conglomerate with assets of more than $100bn in 32 countries, after a liquidity crisis threatened to bring down the group (30 January). There were implications for the Caribbean media as the bailout of Clico, the country's largest insurance company, made the Trinidad and Tobago government the largest shareholder of One Caribbean Media, owner of the Trinidad Express, CCNTV-6 and the Nation newspaper in Barbados, and 10 radio stations in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts, Antigua and Montserrat.

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PACIFIC

Australia
Devastating bush fires killed at least 210 people in the state of Victoria in February and continued into March, helped by a record heatwave, prolonged drought and strong winds. The fires razed 450,000 hectares of land and left nearly 5,000 people homeless. Police now believe that arsonists were responsible for at least two fires, in which 36 people died. Kevin Rudd, Australia's prime minister, said those responsible were guilty of "mass murder".

A Muslim cleric was imprisoned for 15 years for plotting to attack the Australian rules football grand final and Melbourne's formula one grand prix. Abdul Nacer Benbrika and six others were found guilty of planning "violent jihad" to force Australian troops to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australia's human rights watchdog condemned the country's treatment of refugees. Asylum-seekers, including children, were being held in "utterly miserable conditions" for up to six years, the Human Rights Commission said in its annual report.

Australia's second-largest investment bank, Babcock & Brown, fell into administration after struggling for more than a year with huge debts built up during a buying spree of infrastructure assets (13 March). The company's shares fell from A$37 ($24) to 32.5 cents when they were suspended last November. The government announced a A$42bn stimulus plan to help the country out of the global downturn. It said A$28.8bn would be invested in schools, housing and roads, and A$12.7bn will provide cash for lower-income families. The central bank also cut interest rates to a 45-year-low of 3.25%.

Fiji (Suspended, 2006)
Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the military ruler of Fiji since his 2006 coup, rejected a threat of expulsion from the Commonwealth if he did not hold elections by December. "If they want to suspend Fiji they can go ahead and do it now," he said, adding that no vote would be held until he reformed its racially based electoral system, which he claimed could take 10 years. The Pacific Islands Forum backed the December deadline and warned that Fiji would be excluded from regional meetings and lose development funding. The forum said the situation was "not acceptable by international standards." There was also an unprecedented attack by Samoa's prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who accused his Fijian counterpart of stealing public money.

The International Bar Association warned about political interference in the judiciary in a report called Dire Straits: A Report on the Rule of Law in Fiji. Rex Gardner, publisher of the Fiji Times, became the latest Australian publisher to be deported, after publishing a letter criticising judges who supported the coup. Floods killed at least 10 people in the worst flooding in recent history. Thousands of people were displaced and a state of emergency was declared.

Kiribati
The 100,000 residents may relocate as the 33-island archipelago faces being submerged from climate change, President Anote Tong said. "We would consider buying land," Tong said in New Delhi in February. "The alternative is that we die." People had been moving their homes back from the shoreline as the sea level rises, said Tong. "The high tide with moderately strong winds has resulted in sea water coming into the soft water. It has affected food crops." The government is now training islanders in skills such as plumbing that would allow them to work abroad.

New Zealand
Two protesters attacked the prime minister, John Key, as he attended a Maori commemoration at Waitangi on National Day. Many Maori activists argue that the government failed to honour the Waitangi treaty founding the former British colony in 1840.

Solomon Islands
A national disaster was declared in February after heavy rain and flooding killed 13 people and displaced thousands, especially on Guadalcanal and Savo.

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GENERAL

Commonwealth News
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) had its 31st meeting in London in March. The meeting was chaired by Sam Kutesa, Ugandan foreign minister, and attended by representatives of Ghana, Namibia, New Zealand, PNG, Malaysia, the UK, St Lucia and Sri Lanka. It noted the deadlines for the restoration of democracy had passed and declared that if sufficient progress-as set out by the Pacific Islands Forum-did not take place, Fiji would be fully suspended from the Commonwealth at CMAG's next meeting in September. Fiji is already suspended from decision-making in the Commonwealth.

In comments to mark Commonwealth Day on 9 March, the secretary-general, Kamalesh Sharma, said: "The Commonwealth has always had an eye on the people and the tasks of tomorrow. Now, it must be prescient again in safeguarding and promoting the guarantors of the best hopes for its future: its young people."

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

  • David Peretz, Learning from Experience: Perspectives on Poverty Reduction Strategies from Four Developing Countries, 134 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-886-0
  • Innocent Bystanders: Implications of an EU-India Free Trade Agreement for Excluded Countries, 122 pages, ISBN 978-0-85092-895-2

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