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.

Back to the Commonwealth Archive

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.

Related Commonwealth links

Commonwealth Updates

Commonwealth Update - Issue 403

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
A humanitarian disaster developed in Pakistan after 2.5 million people fled the army's assault on Islamist militants in the Swat valley. Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared an end to the 26-year civil war after the army overran the cornered Tamil Tigers. The ANC, under Jacob Zuma, swept South Africa's elections, while in India, the Congress party-led coalition had an unexpectedly emphatic win. In Papua New Guinea, the world's first climate change refugees moved to their new homes in Bougainville.

AFRICA

Botswana
Mining firms in the world's largest diamond producer cut 4,500 jobs and output by half as global demand for diamonds fell.

Cameroon
The country ranked among the worst for petty bribery in a survey by Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog. More than half of respondents said they had paid a bribe in the past year-five times the average.

The Gambia
Nine leading journalists were arrested by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and charged with sedition for criticising President Yahya Jammeh over comments he made about the murder of journalist Deyda Hydara in 2004. Separately, the justice minister, Marie Saine Firdaus, was questioned by the NIA over reinstating the solicitor-general soon after his demotion. Another minister, Yankuba Touray, was detained by the NIA and sacked for not addressing the president as "Sheikh Professor Dr Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh". Five US senators petitioned Jammeh over "prisoner of conscience" Ebrima Manneh, a Daily Observer journalist missing since his arrest by the NIA in 2006. Alexandre Djiba, former leader of Senegal's rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Cassamance (MFDC), died in the notorious Mile II prison after reportedly being refused medical treatment. The authorities denied detaining Djiba for three years.

Ghana
Banking laws were reformed to allow Barclays to operate as an offshore bank with low taxes and minimal disclosure, despite concerns that it will encourage tax evasion and money-laundering in oil-rich west Africa.

Kenya
Kenneth Marende, the speaker, refused to rule on which coalition partner should lead government business in parliament. The impasse between Prime Minister Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement and President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity has paralysed parliament. Odinga began boycotting cabinet meetings in April and said fresh elections may be needed.

The former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said Kenya had until September to set up a tribunal to try ringleaders of clashes after the 2007 elections or he would hand the list of suspects to the International Criminal Court. Under the power-sharing deal brokered by Annan last year, hearings were due to begin in March. Meanwhile, all ministers were limited to one small official car, with all others to be sold to help resettle the 300,000 people displaced in the violence.

A limited number of Somali pirates are to face trial in Kenya on behalf of western navies patrolling the Horn of Africa.

Veterans of the 1950s independence struggle sued the UK over alleged atrocities by the British army. Lawyers for Mau Mau veterans have documented 40 cases of torture, including castration, sexual abuse and unlawful detention.

At least 29 people died in violence in Karatina, near Nairobi, between residents and the banned Mungiki sect, which had been extorting money. In 2007, more than 100 suspected Mungiki were killed in a police crackdown after a series of beheadings blamed on the sect.

Lesotho
Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili, prime minister since 1998, survived an apparent assassination attempt when several gunmen shot at his Maseru residence, the government said.

Malawi
President Bingu wa Mutharika was sworn in for a second five-year term and said fighting corruption would be a top priority. His running mate, Joyce Banda, became Malawi's first female vice-president. The election commission said he won more than 2.7m votes, giving him a healthy parliamentary majority, with his rival John Tembo taking nearly 1.3m. However, the opposition, which contested the results, boycotted the ceremony. John Kufuor, chairman of the Commonwealth Observer Group, praised the peaceful polling and high turnout but criticised state media bias and problems with the voter register.

The singer Madonna said she was "ecstatic" after the appeal court approved her adoption of a second Malawian child. A lower court had rejected her application to adopt Chifundo Mercy James, four, over residency issues.

Mozambique
Scientists hailed Mount Mabu's rainforest as probably the biggest in southern Africa. An expedition to the 7,000-hectare area, dubbed the "Google forest" after being found by chance through the internet, has discovered many new species.

Namibia
A study of 3,000 people in 121 African population groups has suggested that modern humans originated in Namibia, near the Angolan border. The journal Science reported that the largest ever study of African genetics found the Bushmen, or San people, were the closest thing to a "first people" and the clicking Khoisan language may be a relic of original human speech.

Nigeria
As the nation marked 10 years since the end of military rule in May, thousands of refugees fled an offensive against rebels in the oil-rich Niger Delta state. The Ijaw National Congress, which represents the region's largest ethnic group, claimed helicopter gunships killed hundreds of civilians at a festival in Oporoza. The campaign freed 17 hostages, mostly foreigners, but attacks on a Chevron pipeline, further cutting oil exports, undermined security forces' claims of success. Militants rejected a new government amnesty. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the largest group, declared "all-out war" after an assault on one of its camps and what it called the execution of a militant leader in Bayelsa state, Ken Niweigha.

Royal Dutch Shell agreed to pay $15.5m to settle a lawsuit accusing the oil firm of complicity in human rights abuses in the Delta. The author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were executed in 1995 after protesting at oil pollution. The deaths of the "Ogoni Nine" sparked widespread protests and Shell pulled out of Ogoniland. The oil firm did not accept liability and said the payout was a "humanitarian gesture".

Four MPs and six officials investigating the electricity crisis were charged with siphoning off $42m of public funds. Their report into the failure of $16bn of investment in the power sector implicated former president Olusegun Obasanjo but a second panel cleared him.

Soldiers fired shots and tear gas to disperse opposition supporters in Ado Ekiti protesting over an election for governor of Ekiti state. The ruling People's Democratic Party narrowly won the re-run election. The opposition Action Congress candidate Kayode Fayemi said: "Our ballot boxes were snatched in daylight, our monitors were beaten up." In Niger state, police arrested 120 people over alleged attacks by Muslim youths on Christian processions on Easter Monday.

Seychelles
Warships from European Union states off east Africa widened patrols to the Seychelles as the clampdown on Somalia's coastal waters drove pirates further out to sea. The IMF downgraded growth projections to forecast an 11% contraction because of a possible 25% fall in tourism. Inflation dropped to 48%.

Sierra Leone
Police issued an arrest warrant in May for Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, publisher of the Awareness Times, and editor Abdul Karim Kabia over a story about the president's mistress posing as the first lady. Umaru Sita Turay, editor of the New People, was stabbed at his office.

South Africa
Jacob Zuma became president, as expected, after the ruling African National Congress won a big victory in April's elections but fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution. The ANC received 65.9% of the vote, the Democratic Alliance 16.7% and the Congress of the People-formed by ANC dissidents-7.4%. The turnout was 77.3%. At his inauguration on 9 May, Zuma dramatically knelt before his predecessor Nelson Mandela. Forming his first cabinet, Zuma shifted Trevor Manuel, the respected finance minister for 13 years, to head a new national planning commission with wide but undefined powers. The new finance minister is Pravin Gordhan, a communist-turned-social democrat who ran tax collection. Zuma sacked the health minister praised by campaigners for turning around the country's disastrous policy on AIDS. Barbara Hogan was moved from health to the public enterprises ministry after publicly criticising the ANC for barring the Dalai Lama from a peace conference, allegedly to avoid offending China.

Zuma, in his first state-of-the-nation address, promised to create 500,000 jobs and spend "wisely". But trade unions warned he faced a "labour time-bomb" as doctors demand a 70% salary increase and transport and prison staff went on strike. South Africa, the continent's largest economy, officially entered recession in May for the first time since 1992, after the economy shrank 6.4%.

Hundreds of Zuma's supporters protested in Cape Town against Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance. They claimed her criticism that Zuma put his three wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman was racist. South Africa's HIV epidemic has levelled off at an infection rate of 10.9% and new cases among teenagers could be falling as condom use increases. South Africa has the world's largest HIV-positive population, at 5.5 million.

A play for children by Cape Town's Riverside Theatre aimed at promoting inter-ethnic relations sparked a row over racism when Carolyn Forword, a white actress, refused to kiss her black co-star, Unathi Dyantyi, and quit.

Swaziland
AIDS has cut Swazi women's life expectancy to 49 on average, a fall of 14 years, while men's life expectancy had declined by 12 years to 47, the World Health Organisation said.

Tanzania
Seven people went on trial accused of murdering albino people for witchcraft. With body parts worth thousands of dollars, more than 40 albino Tanzanians have been killed in 18 months and tombs must be cemented to deter grave-robbers.

A Tanzanian man detained in Pakistan in 2004 will be the first Guantànamo Bay detainee to be tried in a US federal court. Ahmed Ghailani denies conspiring in al-Qaida's 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people.

Uganda
Amnesty International accused Uganda of allowing widespread human rights violations and the torture of civilians. It accused Uganda of not tolerating dissent, gagging independent media, discriminating against minorities and neglecting war victims. The Uganda Women's Network called for the abolition of dowries, or "bride price", to protect women from spiralling domestic violence.

Rwandan refugees are fleeing camps in northern Uganda to escape repatriation before a 31 July deadline set by the UN refugee agency and the Ugandan government. Many fear that Rwanda equates refugee status with tacit involvement in the 1994 genocide.

President Yoweri Museveni said the disputed Migingos islands in Lake Victoria belonged to Kenya but the water around them was Ugandan and no Kenyans should fish there. Kenyan MPs called Museveni "expansionist".

Zambia
Sweden and the Netherlands froze funding to the health ministry after officials allegedly stole 10m kwacha ($2m).

Zimbabwe (Left Commonwealth, 2003)
The prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, said efforts to restore democratic freedoms had failed. Tsvangirai took his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into a coalition with President Robert Mugabe in February but Mugabe retained key ministries and invasions of white-owned farms have continued. "We have not yet succeeded in restoring the rule of law," Tsvangirai admitted. Sekai Holland, an MDC minister, told the BBC that even she did not feel safe from death threats. There has been speculation that Mugabe, 85, has lost power over factions within his Zanu-PF party.

A leading human rights activist, Jestina Mukoko, and 15 other opposition supporters were sent back to prison on trumped-up terrorism charges. Tsvangirai intervened days later, freeing all but three activists.

Tendai Biti, MDC finance minister, warned that the unity government could collapse over the failure to sack Gideon Gono, who as central bank governor presided over 500bn% hyperinflation and 97% unemployment. Gono admitted in April that he illegally took hard currency from private bank accounts to keep cash-strapped ministries running.

The cholera epidemic had infected 100,000 people and killed 5,000, the World Health Organisation said. The aid agency Save the Children said Zimbabwe had 1.5 million orphans, proportionately the highest number in the world, with girls as young as 12 turning to prostitution to survive. Zimbabwe says it needs about $45bn to revive its economy over the next five years but western donors are refusing to increase aid over concerns about power-sharing and human rights.

Nearly half of all the endangered black rhinos have been killed in the last 15 months, the independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said.

arrow Back to Top

ASIA

Bangladesh
Police arrested a further 300 Bangladesh Rifles border guards over a mutiny in February in which nearly 100 people died. An inquiry attributed it to anger over pay and bad treatment from officers and said there was "no direct involvement by militants or terrorists". A separate inquiry was ordered into the deaths of 21 border guards detained after the mutiny.

Mufti Hannan, leader of the Islamist militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, and 13 others were charged over a 2001 bomb blast at new year celebrations in Dhaka, which killed 10 people and wounded scores.

At least 200 people died when cyclone Aila hit the country and West Bengal in India. Nearly half a million people are homeless following the storm in May, and there are fears for crops inundated by sea water.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has paid $1.43m in compensation to 879 former child camel jockeys. Boys as young as five were treated for camel-racing injuries in the Gulf and child riders sometimes went without food to keep their weight down before a race. The UAE banned the use of children in 2002.

Hong Kong
Tens of thousands attended a candlelight vigil in China's only commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre on 4 June. Nearly 300 guests and staff at a hotel were released after a week-long quarantine over swine flu fears. The economy shrank by 7.8% as exports slumped 22%-Hong Kong's worst performance since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

India
The ruling left-of-centre coalition, the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance, had an unexpectedly decisive election victory in May as voters rejected the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the left, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Congress, helped by a rural employment scheme and the incorruptible reformist reputation of the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had its best result for decades and is expected to push through more ambitious reforms than in 2004.

MPs elected a Congress veteran and low-caste Dalit leader, Meira Kumar, as the first woman Speaker. At least 153 newly elected MPs are charged in criminal cases, half of them very serious, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The government said it wanted to withdraw troops from the divided region of Kashmir, which has suffered two decades of insurgency, and make the police responsible for internal security. At least 18 election officials and police were killed amid India's worst electoral violence as 700 million people voted in the world's biggest democratic poll. Polling in the month-long elections was peaceful in most areas but Maoist "Naxalite" rebels claimed to have "liberated" an area in West Bengal, seizing control from the local government, and the guerrillas also attacked polling stations, seized voting machines, kidnapped officials and killed security personnel. Rebels held 250 train passengers for five hours in Jharkhand state.

India's huge domestic market helped industrial production rise 1.4% in April, raising hopes that the worst is over for the economy in the global financial crisis, although exports have fallen and millions of jobs have been lost.

The tourism minister, Kumari Selja, called off a visit to Australia and the film star Amitabh Bachchan turned down an honorary degree in Queensland following attacks on Indian students.

India successfully launched a spy satellite to track movement on its borders, especially with Pakistan. India made its first unmanned mission to the Moon in October.

Malaysia
The government, led by new prime minister Najib Razak, won just one out of three by-elections. Najib's ruling coalition, led by the United Malays National Organisation, won a seat in Sarawak but lost in Kedah, while in Perak the opposition won another seat in a landslide win. "Malaysians want change, irrespective of the new prime minister," said Anwar Ibrahim, who leads the Pakatan Rakyat opposition alliance. Najib banned the religious conversion of children without both parents' consent and outlined plans to dismantle the preferment system for ethnic Malays. The positive discrimination, launched in 1970, remains highly divisive for favouring the Malay majority over Chinese and Indian minorities with cheaper homes and privileged access to universities and certain jobs. Najib has already removed the obligation for certain firms to have 30% Malay ownership.

Two policemen have been sentenced to death for murdering a Mongolian woman linked to the prime minister and an aide. Altantuya Shaariibuu was shot dead and her body blown up with explosives in 2006. Najib's former aide, who admitted to an affair with the victim, was cleared over the murder.

Malaysia, one of four countries blacklisted as a tax haven, succumbed to international pressure and agreed to supply information, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in April.

Maldives
The first democratic multi-party elections to the Majlis, or parliament, were held. The liberal Maldivian Democratic Party of President Mohamed Nasheed won 26 seats, while the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party of Maumoon Gayoom, who was president for three decades until last year, won 27 seats. The DRP's coalition partner, the People's Alliance, led by Gayoom's brother Abdullah Yameen, won seven seats.

Pakistan
Cash shortages and delays in delivering supplies had created a humanitarian disaster, aid agencies said, after 2.5 million people fled the army's assault on Islamist militants in the Swat valley when a peace deal broke down in May. The UN appealed for $543m in the world's worst displacement crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Analysts said popular opinion had turned against the Taliban amid reports of widespread beheadings where militants had imposed sharia law. Under February's controversial peace deal, the Taliban were to lay down arms in return for imposing sharia in Malakand, which includes Swat, in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Instead, the militants attacked surrounding districts from Swat. The army claimed major progress in its campaign in Malakand, Buner-an area just 100km from the capital, Islamabad-and Dir, with key areas such as Shangla under army control and 1,300 militants killed. Some 15,000 troops are fighting about 5,000 militants around Swat. However, the BBC said the Taliban were strengthening their hold in the region, suggesting only 38% of the NWFP and surrounding areas was under full government control.

Meanwhile, 40,000 people were fleeing shelling and air raids in the mountainous tribal area of South Waziristan, rumoured to be the hideout of Osama Bin Laden, as troops massed before an offensive against the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud's group, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, was blamed for killing a leading anti-Taliban cleric, Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi, at a madrassa in Lahore. The Sunni Muslim scholar was one of the few religious leaders to openly support the military operation in Swat and had issued a fatwa against the Taliban. Elsewhere in the region, at least 40 militants and four soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base, and missiles from a US drone killed at least eight people near Wana, on the Afghan border. There have been about 35 US strikes since August, killing about 340 people, mostly in North and South Waziristan.

The army increased tenfold its reward for the capture of the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, to 50m rupees ($600,000). Two detained aides to the radical cleric Sufi Mohammad, father-in-law of Fazlullah, were killed when militants ambushed an army convoy of prisoners. A bomb exploded at a mosque in Upper Dir during Friday prayers, killing at least 38 people. In other lethal attacks claimed by or blamed on the Pakistan Taliban, 18 people died when the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, capital of NWFP, was blown up in June, and at least 11 died in two blasts in the same city in May; eight people were killed by a bomb hidden in a rickshaw in Dera Ismail Khan; a blast hit a mosque near a military depot in Nowshera; an attack on buildings of the police and ISI intelligence agency in Lahore killed at least 24 people and injured 200.

Elsewhere, the interior ministry accused India and Afghanistan of supporting rebels in Baluchistan province, where anti-government protests followed the deaths of three Baluchi leaders. The prime minister, Yusuf Gilani, called an emergency meeting in Karachi, the most populous city, after at least 30 people were killed in political violence sparked by rivalry between the city's dominant party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and a breakaway faction. A court ordered the release of Hafiz Sayid, founder of the banned militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba, because there was insufficient evidence to link him to last year's deadly Mumbai attacks.

The worsening security situation dominated the first summit between Pakistan and the European Union, which has made it a foreign policy priority but will also boost trade links as a prelude to a possible free trade agreement. A US Senate committee voted to treble non-military aid to Pakistan to $7.5bn over five years, on top of $2bn annual military aid. Responding to US concerns over its nuclear arsenal, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, said: "The nuclear capability of Pakistan is in safe hands. It's not like any little Taliban can come and press a button." However, an al-Qaida leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, told al-Jazeera TV: "The Mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans."

Singapore
Some 2,500 pink-attired supporters of gay rights gathered to protest at the city-state's colonial-era ban on homosexuality. Singapore loosened the law last year to allow demonstrations that are not about race or religion.

Mas Selamat Kastari, the suspected Singapore leader of Jemaah Islamiah and blamed for Islamist attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings, was recaptured in Malaysia and will be held for at least two years under Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without trial. Another Singaporean terrorist, Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin, was sentenced to 18 years in jail in April for killing an Indonesian teacher in front of the man's nine-year-old son and plotting an attack on a bar. Saynudin, arrested with nine other Islamist militants on Sumatra in 2008, also admitted to leading a foiled plot to crash a hijacked plane into Singapore's airport in 2001.

Singapore, the nation worst hit by the collapse in world trade, saw the world's second-biggest property crash after Dubai, with prices down 16% in the first three months of 2009.

Sri Lanka
Celebrations erupted as President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared an end to the 26-year civil war after the army overran the cornered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and killed their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran (19 May). However, his government came under intense scrutiny over reports of 20,000 civilian deaths and tens of thousands held in camps in desperate conditions. Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years, Sri Lanka was unified under its elected government. China did much to turn the tide in the war, reportedly giving Sri Lanka $1bn of largely military aid in return for access to a deepwater port.

A doctor working inside the government-designated "no-fire zone", into which thousands had fled in the last weeks of the war, said more than 1,400 people were killed in two days of air and artillery attacks, including on a hospital. A government official told the Guardian that the civilian death toll in the last stages was 3,000-5,000 and defended the use of mortars. The UN human rights council praised Sri Lanka's victory and rejected calls to investigate war crimes allegations.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) group accused the army of touching "the most depraved depths of humanity" by massacring surrendering rebels and bulldozing wounded civilians into mass graves with the dead. It also accused the LTTE of torture, murder and forced conscription of children, and blamed the rebels for most of the civilian casualties in the final days. "Claims of a massacre have been emanating from the security forces-all LTTE members who were left there were massacred, including the women and children," it said.

Human Rights Watch said: "The government told people to go to the no-fire zone. They were packed into a small area. Then they fired on them-there is very strong evidence that they did commit war crimes."

Foreign governments and aid groups expressed concerns about 280,000 Tamil refugees detained in camps by the government. Most could still be in camps in a year's time, a UN official said. The government was accused of stifling dissent and trampling on press freedoms amid numerous reports of abducted activists, aid workers and media workers. Journalists from the UK's Channel 4 television were deported in May after reporting aid workers' claims of food shortages, rape and abductions at a camp. The government turned away a ship from Tamil exiles in Britain bringing aid for Tamil civilians, and doctors who worked in a rebel-held area face trial for "collaborating".

arrow Back to Top

EUROPE

Cyprus
Turkish Cypriot nationalists won parliamentary elections in northern Cyprus in a result that could hamper peace talks with Greek Cypriots. The right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), which favours closer links with Turkey rather than EU membership, won 44% of the vote, leaving the ruling Republican Turkish Party of leader Mehmet Ali Talat with only 29%. Talat's hands will now be tied in talks with President Demetris Christofias, leader of the communist-rooted AKEL party in the Republic of Cyprus. The UBP leader, Dervis Eroglu, wants international recognition for the breakaway state.

Malta
In June the Labour Party secured a second landslide in elections for the European Parliament, winning 57% of first-count votes to the Nationalist Party's 40%. Immigration was the biggest issue as Malta is struggling to cope with boatloads of migrants from north Africa-some 3,400 in a year. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, the interior minister, threatened to veto European Union business if there was no "burden sharing" with other states.

United Kingdom
A scandal over MPs' expenses rocked the government, with 12 ministers resigning, and the prime minister, Gordon Brown, was further undermined by a plot from within the ruling Labour Party to oust him. Brown beat off the rebellion, winning over Labour MPs after admitting mistakes in the "painful defeat" and promising reform before general elections next year.

Amid humiliating revelations of payments to MPs for items both trivial and grandiose-such as a box of matches, a $2,700 hutch for ducks, clearing a moat, and dog food-public anger became focused on allegations of tax evasion. Some MPs face criminal investigations, police said. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, was forced to resign-the first time in 300 years-and several Labour and Conservative MPs were made to stand down by their own parties. The poet Carol Ann Duffy wrote about politicians' expenses in her inaugural verse since being named in May as the first female poet laureate in the job's 341-year history.

The head of an inquiry into Commons expenses said MPs lacked principles and voters agreed, delivering the worst national election results for the ruling Labour Party since 1918. The opposition Conservatives came top in the Labour stronghold of Wales for the first time since the mid-1800s. Labour came third in European parliamentary elections, with less than 16% of the vote, and lost all its English counties, some held for 28 years, in council elections. Brown promised to devolve power back to Parliament by allowing MPs to set the parliamentary agenda, force votes and better scrutinise legislation.

The far right-wing British National Party secured its first significant wins in British politics with two MEPs elected. In Northern Ireland, about 20 Romanian families were forced to flee their homes following days of racist attacks and threats at gunpoint by gangs in Belfast. A study found racist attacks in Northern Ireland were rising, with at least three sectarian incidents a day.

Unemployment soared to a 12-year high of more than 2.26 million after a record 232,000 people lost their jobs. With the oil price doubling within months, inflation remained higher than expected. The chancellor, Alistair Darling, said public debt would double to almost 80% of GDP by 2013-14. The Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, warned that recovery from the recession would be slow and uncertain.

The swine flu pandemic spread to more than 3,500 people and the first victim died. An independent inquiry into the Iraq war was announced but the government faced claims of a cover-up by saying it would take evidence in private. The last British troops were set to pull out in July.

Britain sparked a diplomatic row by arresting 11 Pakistanis on student visas for allegedly plotting bombing attacks in the UK. Despite initially describing the alleged plot as "very, very big", police failed to find enough evidence to bring charges but will deport them anyway.

arrow Back to Top

AMERICAS

Antigua and Barbuda
The financier and cricket impresario Allen Stanford was charged by US prosecutors with swindling investors out of $7bn in savings by turning the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank into a vast fraudulent pyramid scheme. Leroy King, Antigua's former financial regulator, is accused of receiving more than $100,000 in corrupt payments. The liquidators of the bank in Antigua said there was little chance of savers getting their money back. Stanford had been the largest employer on the island after the government.

Barbados
Though long known to Barbadians, the blind threadsnake - at 10cm, the world's smallest snake - was named as one of the top 10 newly identified species by the International Institute for Species Exploration.

Canada
Canada averted its fourth general election in five years when Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition Liberals, agreed to back Stephen Harper's Conservative minority government in a confidence vote.

A trade war loomed after the US stimulus package stipulated that public infrastructure projects must "buy American". The economy contracted 5.4%-the fastest rate of decline since 1991 but less than economists had feared. Canada's annual seal hunt ended with only a quarter of the quota of seals being caught. Hunters blame an impending European Union ban on seal products and prices have plummeted from $100 a pelt a few years ago to $12.

Inuit communities have become disproportionately badly hit by swine flu. In Manitoba, 16 of 24 people in intensive care are aboriginal. Four people have died from swine flu.

Dominica
Venezuela's President Hugo Chàvez unveiled a $35m oil depot in June. "All the oil Dominica will need for the next 200 years will be right there in Venezuela," he said. Dominica is part of Venezuela's PetroCaribe alliance, which supplies fuel on preferential terms. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit promised free cooking gas to poor people.

Jamaica
Dwight Nelson, the security minister, was forced to withdraw a remark that people killed by police were collateral damage in crime-fighting. The human rights group Jamaicans for Justice said: "In the past 10 years the police have killed more than 2,000 Jamaicans and only once one policeman was convicted for manslaughter."

The UK court of appeal in London was considering a last-ditch application to stop Britain imposing direct rule over the troubled Turks and Caicos Islands. The autonomous British Overseas Territory, a dependency of Jamaica until 1959, has been dogged by allegations of widespread corruption. The appeal was brought by the former prime minister, Michael Misick, who has been accused of amassing a multimillion-dollar fortune through giving property developers access to crown-owned land.

St Vincent and the Grenadines
Allegations of police misconduct gained traction in May when officers fatally shot three fugitives. The St Vincent and the Grenadines Human Rights Association said it had documented more than 30 allegations of police abuse in recent months but said officers kept silent to protect each other.

Trinidad and Tobago
The country overtook Jamaica as the "murder capital of the Caribbean" with homicides rising 38% last year to 550. The government took over the indebted Caribbean business conglomerate CL Financial, which owns some 60 companies worldwide.

arrow Back to Top

PACIFIC

Australia
Stephen Smith, foreign minister, urged China to back the return of democracy in Fiji, which he described as a "military dictatorship". China has extended its influence in the Pacific with aid-a new Chinese-built bridge was opened in Fiji in May. Meanwhile, Australia plans to spend more than $72bn on expanding its military, buying 100 fighter jets, eight frigates and doubling its submarines to 12. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd denied the spending was a response to China.

Indian students rallied in Sydney and Melbourne to protest at a series of callous attacks blamed on racists and accused the authorities of being "too slow" to respond. A coroner ruled that an Aboriginal elder was "cooked to death" and suffered third-degree burns after collapsing in the back of a security van in 47C heat as he was driven to Kalgoorlie.

The worst flooding in 30 years left at least two people dead and forced thousands from their homes on the east coast. Large areas of New South Wales and Queensland were declared disaster zones, and 20,000 people were cut off.

Fiji (Suspended, 2006)
Fiji, under army chief Frank Bainimarama, was suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum on 2 May for failing to set a date for democratic elections. The UN security council also condemned military rule. Fiji claims elections will increase ethnic divisions and has suspended the constitution. Under the suspension, Fiji will lose development funding and be barred from regional meetings.

The BBC reported that vocal trade unionists had been targets for petrol bombings. Newspapers, television and radio stations were ordered not to publish or broadcast material critical of the military and stories must be submitted to censors.

After the appeal court ruled the 2006 coup illegal, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo scrapped the constitution, sacked the judiciary and reinstalled Bainimarama and his cabinet for five years. A state of emergency was declared and government censorship stepped up. Several journalists and the president of the Law Society, who organised protests over the sacking of judges, are detained or under house arrest. Amnesty International said: "It is now a military dictatorship; they have almost absolute power."

Fiji sacked and detained the Reserve Bank governor, Savenaca Narube, and devalued its currency by 20%. It also introduced exchange controls to prevent capital flight and boost tourism and exports.

Nauru
Pacific islands, such as Nauru, vulnerable to rising sea levels won a symbolic victory at the UN general assembly in June, when a non-binding resolution recognising climate change as a threat to security was passed.

New Zealand
Civil society organisations urged New Zealand and Australia not to force Pacific islands into a free trade bloc they say could be disastrous for them. The trade minister, Tim Groser, wants formal negotiations to begin within months, well ahead of the 2011 deadline, but called for limits on a trade adviser's office to avoid creating a regional bureaucracy. He regards the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations as less about trade than development. However, the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said: "The Pacific doesn't actually have the capacity at the moment to enter meaningfully into any of these negotiations."

The government was criticised for ending the autonomy of the foreign aid agency, NZAid, to concentrate on economic development rather than alleviating poverty. Vijay Naidu, of the University of the South Pacific, called it a cynical use of aid as a foreign policy tool.

A 200-year ban on the sale of alcohol on the Pitcairn Islands-the world's smallest democracy-was lifted by the Wellington-based governor.

Papua New Guinea
The world's first climate change refugees moved from Carteret Island to Tinputz, Bougainville, on 29 April to prepare for the eventual evacuation of all 2,600 people. Rising sea levels at high tide had left residents hanging their possessions in fishing nets between palm trees. With one island already bisected by the sea, the small chain of atolls could be uninhabitable by 2015, say locals.

Chinese-owned shops and offices were looted in the capital, Port Moresby, and the coastal city of Lae amid simmering anti-Chinese sentiment and unemployment reaching 80%. Also in May, the building of a nickel mine was stopped after a fight over an industrial accident between local and foreign workers. Many Chinese arrived in PNG during World War II, while many also fled the Solomon Islands after race riots in 2006.

Universal education up to grade eight is to be implemented at a cost of K10bn ($3.7bn) in 2012, helped by a 50% school fee subsidy.

Samoa
Gross domestic product fell by 7.6%-the first drop in a decade-and the finance minister, Niko Lee Hang, warned in his budget that tourism revenues and remittances from Samoans abroad would drop. The Samoa government complained to the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority following a controversial story on TVNZ One News in April about gangs, drugs and gun smuggling.

Solomon Islands
Thousands attended the launch of the Solomons' Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in April. Tutu said that if peace could come to South Africa, it could come to them. The commission is expected to hear testimony from thousands of people caught up in ethnic violence that left 100 people dead and displaced 20,000 from 1998 to 2003.

Tonga
A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake about 200km off Tonga triggered a tsunami but no damage was reported. Several earthquakes have been felt recently and an undersea volcano has erupted off Tongatapu.

Tuvalu
The families of 11 seamen held by Somali pirates demanding a $15m ransom appealed to Australia and New Zealand to help secure their release. The men, who were working on a German cargo ship, were taken hostage off the Horn of Africa in April. The population of 12,000 relies on remittances from the 40% of Tuvaluan men who work on freighters.

Vanuatu
Vanuatu's first coroner since independence in 1980 was appointed. Supreme court judge Nevin Dawson will investigate the recent death of Port Vila prison inmate John Bule.

A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Tangoa in June, injuring four people and damaging buildings and wells.

arrow Back to Top

GENERAL

Commonwealth News
Kamalesh Sharma, secretary-general, expressed his deep concern at Sri Lanka's humanitarian crisis. "The extreme civilian suffering cannot be justified," he said.

Commonwealth Observer Groups monitored the elections in the Maldives and Malawi in May. The World Bank's top policymaker on debt, Carlos Braga, met Secretariat officials to discuss the financial crisis, including creating a $20m fund to help countries manage debt.

The ceremonial head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II, moved into the digital age by sending emails to 23 young people who wrote internet blogs about the Commonwealth, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Sharma said the Commonwealth's Anniversary Endowment Fund had received initial pledges of £2.6m.

arrow Back to Top