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 407

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
Several hundred villagers were massacred near Jos in the latest conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. Nicolas Sarkozy, on the first presidential visit to Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, acknowledged French 'errors' over the mass killings. The British defence contractor BAE made a plea bargain to end investigations into allegedly corrupt deals, including a $39.5m contract for Tanzania to buy a military radar system although it had no air force. Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, accused the prime minister, Najib Razak, of conspiring to end his career by bringing a second sodomy trial six years after a previous conviction was overturned. Police battled hundreds of villagers in Papua New Guinea trying to block a $16bn gas project by ExxonMobil. Sri Lanka's opposition candidate and war hero was arrested. In South Africa a newspaper revealed that the 'father of nation', President Jacob Zuma, had fathered his 20th child.

AFRICA

Botswana
The government recalled its intelligence and defence attachés from Harare in protest at the detention of three wildlife officers by its neighbour and expelled Zimbabwean diplomats. Botswana is one of the few African states to criticise Zimbabwe's human rights record.

A glut of diamonds and plunging demand for luxury goods pushed De Beers, the world's largest diamond producer, $220m into the red last year. Botswana, where the company's most important mines are located, is one of De Beers' three shareholders.

Gambia, The
Several politicians and senior military and police officers were reportedly detained, including the ex-fisheries minister Antouman Saho. Saho, who served in President Yahya Jammeh's government from 1994 until he was sacked in February, was held incommunicado with no reason given for his arrest. A month earlier, Min Whee-Kang, envoy of the UN's children charity, Unicef, was expelled from the country, reportedly because of Jammeh's increasing sensitivity to criticism of his regime. He has threatened to kill human rights activists, gay people and 'saboteurs'.

Ghana
Ghana was warned by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that its emergence as an offshore financial centre and tax haven and an oil producer-with reserves estimated at 3.2bn barrels-could fuel corruption and crime in west Africa. Jeffrey Owens, head of the OECD's Tax Centre, said: 'The last thing Africa needs is a tax haven.'

Civil servants were banned from watching TV at work-just as the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament began-because the government fears workers are becoming addicted to Nigerian soap operas and Latin American telenovelas. Civil servants in Nigeria were recently hit with a similar ban.

Days after Haiti's devastating earthquake, false rumours of one in Ghana caused panic and prompted many people to sleep outside, after text messages quoted the US space agency NASA and the BBC as saying that 'cosmic rays' would hit the Earth. Ghana's last major earthquake was 70 years ago.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, a Scottish-born Ghanian known as the Snow Leopard, achieved his ambition of not finishing last in the men's slalom in Vancouver. The first ever Ghanaian Winter Olympian beat 47 skiers who crashed-including the reigning world champion-and Albania's skier, who finished last.

Kenya
President Mwai Kibaki and the prime minister, Raila Odinga, met at the opening of parliament in February in their first encounter since corruption scandals threatened yet again to bring down the coalition government. Kibaki suspended eight officials over a $26m maize subsidy scandal; meanwhile, Odinga suspended the education minister, Samuel Ongeri, after $1.5m was stolen from a free primary school programme in one month, and the agriculture minister, William Ruto-a former ally of Odinga in his Orange Democratic Movement but now a fierce rival-over the maize scandal. However, Kibaki reversed the sackings, saying he had not been consulted, and Ruto attacked Odinga. The US froze $7m over the education fraud allegations; the UK pulled out a month before. Political wrangling in the coalition government showed that the struggle for power was more important than the fight against corruption, Transparency International said. It warned of a meltdown at the 2012 election and said Kenya risked turning into a failed state.

At least five people died after police opened fire on rioters protesting over the deportation of a notorious Jamaican-born Islamist cleric, Abdullah al-Faisal, who was jailed for four years in the UK for soliciting the murder of Jews and Hindus.

Malawi
Police announced they would hunt and arrest gays and lesbians in a witchhunt blamed on a campaign by US Christian fundamentalists. A man was arrested for putting up posters saying 'Gay rights are human rights' in Blantyre, and two gay men were prosecuted for public indecency after they got engaged in December. The couple, the first to attempt such a ceremony, said they had been tortured in prison.

Nigeria
Several hundred people were massacred in night-time raids by rampaging Muslim Fulani gangs near Jos. In previous clashes in Nigeria's 'Middle Belt', which lies on the faultline between Islamist pastoralists and Christian villagers, some 400 people died and 17,000 were displaced during three days of rioting in January and thousands of police and soldiers halted a confrontation in February between Christians and Muslims at a cemetery near Jos. Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said at one village: 'I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies.' Kwashi said there had been organisation behind the killings because they happened during curfew, with the army in the area. Christian youths accused the army of complicity.

President Umaru Yar'Adua, 58, who created a power vacuum when he disappeared in November for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, returned but his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, remained acting president while questions linger over his heart problem. The cabinet had insisted he was still fit to govern but owners of 17 media organisations said in a joint statement that Yar'Adua should be impeached if he did not step aside. After the National Assembly transferred power, Jonathan removed the justice minister, Michael Aondoakaa, a key figure blocking Jonathan's takeover. He also replaced another Yar'Adua ally, national security adviser Abdullahi Sarki Mukhtar. In a country known for military coups, Jonathan thanked the armed forces' 'loyalty and devotion to duty'.

The oil company Royal Dutch Shell shut three flow stations in the Niger Delta after a pipeline was sabotaged days after the militant group Mend said it was ending the truce it declared last October.

An election in Anambra state was condemned amid reports of vote-buying and ballot-box theft. Peter Obi was re-elected governor but won just 5% of the vote from an electorate of 1.8 million. The BBC witnessed three ballot boxes being stolen by youths, one in police uniform, and said one polling station had 500 registered voters but just three people found their names on the list.

Rwanda (Joined November 2009)
Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the former Rwandan president whose assassination sparked the 1994 genocide, was arrested at her home near Paris, where she had been living for several years, by French officials acting on a Rwandan arrest warrant. The arrest came days after Nicolas Sarkozy, during the first French presidential visit to Rwanda since the mass killings, promised a new era of co-operation between the two countries and acknowledged French 'errors'. Rwanda accuses France of training and arming Hutu extremists, who killed some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Meanwhile, a government inquiry ruled that Hutu extremists assassinated Habyarimana and used it as an excuse for the mass killing of Tutsi rivals. The two-year inquiry heard testimony from almost 600 witnesses but its conclusions were not unexpected as the Tutsi rebels once blamed for the assassination are now in power. According to the inquiry, Habyarimana's own inner circle plotted his death to scupper an imminent peace agreement with the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels.

Congolese rebel chief Laurent Nkunda went to court seeking to end 14 months of house arrest in Rwanda. A Tutsi, like Rwanda's leaders, Nkunda protected Rwandan interests in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by fighting Hutu militias based there before he was surprisingly arrested by Rwanda troops last year.

The government had attacked and intimidated its critics in the run-up to August's presidential election, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. HRW cited the questioning by police of the opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, who said she had been accused of spreading 'genocide ideology' by calling for Rwanda's genocide memorial to commemorate Hutus killed in 1994. Earlier, her aide Joseph Ntawangundi was beaten up at a government office and later jailed for crimes officials said he had committed during the genocide.

Two grenade attacks in the capital, Kigali, in March wounded at least 16 people. One person was killed a month earlier in similar attacks, blamed on two senior officers now in exile. Lt. Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former chief of staff and ambassador to India, denied the allegations. He was stripped of his diplomatic post after being accused of supporting the opposition.

Seychelles
The government is building special courts and a maximum-security prison to combat the growing threat of Somali pirates after almost daily sightings or attacks near the islands late last year. Last year the Seychelles had to repatriate 22 Somalis, claiming it could not bring them to trial. The expanding range of the pirates, displaced from the Gulf of Aden by patrols of warships, has hit the Seychelles' tourist industry and wiped 30% from fishing industry revenues last year.

Sierra Leone
President Ernest Bai Koroma warned the ministers of justice, internal affairs, top police officials and Freetown's mayor over corruption. Koroma, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform, accused immigration officials of selling passports to foreigners, police of fleecing passengers at checkpoints and the marine ministry of allowing energy firms not to pay fees. However, critics questioned the lack of any action beyond the dressing down.

South Africa
Another unwelcome scandal enveloped Jacob Zuma when a newspaper revealed that the president had fathered his 20th child with a woman who is not one of his three wives but the daughter of a senior official and friend. After initially dismissing the media as intrusive, he gave in to pressure from his African National Congress party and apologised. Zuma has defended his Zulu cultural traditions, such as polygamy, but one black critic declared: 'It is not defensible under the guise of culture. Polygamy is inherently undemocratic and oppressive of women.' In another controversial assertion of traditional customs, the Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini reintroduced circumcision for thousands of teenage boys 200 years after it was banned. A health official working with the Xhosa, who never gave up the practice, said: 'We have had a disastrous year, with 80 deaths, including two suicides.' Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle retraced former president Nelson Mandela's walk to freedom 20 years earlier with a symbolic march from the prison in Paarl to commemorate his release on 11 February 1990.

Julius Malema, head of the powerful ANC youth wing and tipped as a future president, hit out at critics of his lavish lifestyle. Malema, a vocal left-wing ally of Zuma, has been accused of making $17m from state contracts since 2008 but claimed he resigned from his firms in 2008 and accused the media of a smear campaign.

A 507-carat diamond, one of the largest ever discovered, achieved a record auction price of $35.3m.

Tanzania
The British defence and aerospace contractor BAE Systems made a plea bargain to end investigations into several allegedly corrupt deals, including a controversial $39.5m contract for Tanzania to buy a military radar system although it had no air force. The firm admitted false accounting and making misleading statements, and will pay fines of $447m to settle US and UK investigations, the Guardian reported. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade said it was 'outraged and angry' that claims of corruption, which BAE did not admit, would not be aired in court. Part of the fine will be a charity payment to Tanzania. The UK charge relates to payments to a former marketing adviser over the 1999 contract. Clare Short, then UK secretary of state for international development, says she was convinced it was a corrupt deal. 'I was really shocked by the behaviour of British Aerospace and the collusion of all these government departments in such a gross and disgraceful project,' she said. The deal had been proposed 10 years earlier but had been blocked by the World Bank and the British government. 'It was so old that the technology was overtaken. Tanzania didn't have military aircraft. It needed civil air traffic control improvement to improve its tourist industry.' In 2001, the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation said: 'The proposed system is not adequate and too expensive.' Short had agreed a £35m education aid package for Tanzania in 2001 but saw nearly all the aid go on the radar deal. She said the then prime minister, Tony Blair, had insisted the necessary export licence be given. 'Tony [Blair] was absolutely dedicated to all arms sales proposals,' she said. 'He didn't seem to understand that there are matters of principle concerned.' In 2007, it emerged that $12m had been paid into the Swiss bank account of a middleman in the Tanzanian deal by a BAE subsidiary, Red Diamond.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, jailed Lt. Col. Eprem Setako, former defence ministry legal director, to 25 years for ordering the killing of at least 30 people at a military camp in 1994. Another Rwandan army officer, Tharcisse Muvunyi, had his sentence for genocide reduced to 15 years after a retrial.

The new term was delayed in areas because some of the 33,000 people forced from their homes by floods were living in schools.

Uganda
A petition signed by 450,000 people around the world opposing Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill, which carries the death penalty for some homosexual acts, was delivered to the speaker of parliament. It has been condemned by US President Barack Obama and the European Union. Homosexuality is illegal but the bill increases penalties from 14 years' jail to life. It also proposes the death penalty for a new offence of 'aggravated homosexuality'-when one participant is a minor, HIV-positive, disabled or a 'serial offender'.

Half a million people will be moved from their homes in mountainous areas because of the risk of mudslides, the government said after 300 people died and 20,000 were made homeless when mud enveloped villages on Mount Elgon during heavy rain.

Uganda's environment was being put at risk by a secret deal between the government and the UK oil firm Tullow, a lobby group claimed. The pressure group Platform said: 'There are no penalties or fines for environmental damage caused in any way.' But the firm said the deal was standard and that it would ensure environmental protection.

Zimbabwe (Left Commonwealth, 2003)
Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma clashed over maintaining sanctions, with Zuma saying that easing the measures could allow Zimbabwe to 'move forward' and resolve political differences. However, Brown said sanctions should not be lifted until human rights and media censorship concerns were addressed. The EU and US both recently renewed sanctions for another year. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe endorsed the British opposition leader, David Cameron. 'We have always related better with the British through the Conservatives than Labour,' he said.

A two-year land audit, intended to ensure no one owns more than one farm, was due to begin in February but an angry reaction from Mugabe's allies and at least five more attacks on white farmers put that in doubt, $30m being allocated for it. Earlier, the high court overturned a ruling by a tribunal of the regional Southern Africa Development Community against Mugabe's land reforms. The seizures, by senior Zanu (PF), army and police figures, are blamed for turning southern Africa's breadbasket into a net importer of food. The agriculture minister, Joseph Made, said imports of 500,000 tonnes of maize were needed urgently to avert food shortages.

The human rights group Global Witness warned of 'continuing abuses' at diamond mines after an auction of 300,000 carats of rough diamonds was only halted after intervention by international 'blood diamond' trade monitors.

Anderson Shadreck Manyere, an award-winning Zimbabwean photojournalist, was arrested for the third time this year-this time after he filmed the arrival at a courthouse of several men imprisoned since 2007 on allegations of plotting to overthrow the government, the US Committee to Protect Journalists reported. A union leader, Gertrude Hambira, fled to South Africa as police raided her Harare office over a video showing Zanu (PF) supporters' rights abuses and crimes against farm workers.

Zimbabwe's government intends to circumcise three million young men in the next eight years to reduce HIV infections.

The rediscovery of an ancient relic, claimed to be a replica of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, has highlighted the Lemba people's claim to Jewish ancestry, the BBC reported. British scientists' DNA tests confirmed the Lemba's Semitic origin. They shun pork, circumcise boys, ritually slaughter animals, wear skull caps and put the Star of David on gravestones. Lemba oral traditions claim their ancestors were Jews who fled the Middle East about 2,500 years ago. The Lemba also have a sacred prayer language that mixes Hebrew and Arabic.

Mugabe's 86th birthday was celebrated with an 'extravagant overnight gala' starring international musicians. Simba Makoni, a former Zanu-PF leader, said: 'I suspect that state resources will be funnelled to this event improperly ... when basic services are starved of funding.' Last year, the president celebrated his 85th birthday with a week of parties including a banquet, public feast and a concert.

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ASIA

Bangladesh
Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and her Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, signed five treaties on tackling cross-border crime and terrorism, and a pledge by Delhi to provide $1bn credit for Bangladesh's infrastructure. Much of the money will go to improving Bangladesh's railways and dredging rivers shared between the two countries. The countries are in dispute over issues including water use of more than 50 shared rivers to demarcation of a maritime boundary, which have become important as vast gas and oil deposits are believed to exist under the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh's army was deployed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south-east after the worst violence in the area since a peace deal was signed in 1997. At least five people have been killed in clashes between Bengali settlers and local tribespeople.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) accused Bangladesh of a violent crackdown on unregistered Rohingya refugees from north-west Burma and warned of a humanitarian crisis in a squatter camp where a growing number have moved, fearing persecution. MSF said about 6,000 people had arrived in Kutupalong camp since October, when the crackdown started. The Arakan Project, a Bangkok-based lobby group, said: 'A major humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding for the unprotected Rohingya.' Burma denies the Bengali-speaking Muslims citizenship and refuses to let them own land, travel or even marry without permission. At least 200,000 now live in Bangladesh as illegal immigrants, without rights to employment, healthcare or education.

Bangladesh is refusing to accept a £60m donation from Britain to help it cope with global warming because the money will be channelled through the World Bank, which Dhaka has objected to because it claims unfavourable 'strings and conditions' will be attached. Campaigners say further payments are loans, which will force Bangladesh further into debt.

Hong Kong (Left Commonwealth, 1997)
Five Hong Kong MPs from the opposition League of Social Democrats and Civic Party resigned in January to press Beijing into allowing direct elections in the special administrative region, as was promised when the British colony was returned to China in 2007. A vote in the legislative council approving funds for a high-speed rail-link with China prompted raucous protests. Zhou Yongjun, a former leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and now a US resident, who was handed over to mainland China from Hong Kong, was sentenced to nine years in prison for attempted fraud. Supporters say he is being punished for human rights activism.

China's education ministry ordered colleges to cut ties with Oxfam and prevent it from recruiting on campuses, accusing its Hong Kong branch of being a 'non-governmental organisation seeking to infiltrate' the mainland and described its head as a 'stalwart of the opposition faction', according to the South China Morning Post.

India
Arundhati Roy, the Booker-prize-winning novelist and activist, was asked to 'mediate' by the leader of Maoist guerrillas who have a presence in one in three districts and face a government offensive against their rural bases in central India. Roy ruled out direct involvement in talks, as requested by Koteswar 'Kishengi' Rao, but called for a ceasefire. The guerrillas' offers of talks have been rejected by Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, who described Maoist violence as the 'biggest internal threat to India since independence'. Meanwhile, police in Kolkata said they had arrested one of the rebellion's leaders, Venkateswar Reddy, known as Telegu Deepak.

Hopes of closer relations with Pakistan suffered a further setback when 17 people, including at least nine Indians, died in a car bomb attack in Kabul apparently aimed at Indians. The attack took place on the Prophet Mohammed's birthday and the day after the first Indo-Pakistani talks since the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Both countries accuse the other of sponsoring militants in Afghanistan. The two countries also traded allegations over shootings in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Earlier in February, Hindu nationalists had called for the peace talks with Pakistan to be cancelled after a bomb in a bakery in Pune, near Mumbai, killed nine people and wounded 57. It was the first major terrorist attack in India since the Mumbai massacre. Meanwhile, some 1,600 activists of the Hindi nationalist party Shiv Sena rioted when India's biggest film star, Shahrukh Khan, criticised cricket teams for boycotting Pakistani players.

Amid riotous scenes, the upper house of parliament passed a constitutional amendment reserving a third of seats in federal and state legislatures for women. It still requires the approval of the lower house and a majority of state assemblies. Sonia Gandhi, Congress's leader, pushed the long-delayed bill through against furious dissent. Critics fear male politicians will put up their wives and daughters for election-an ex-chief minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, installed his wife to rule northern Bihar after being jailed.

Moscow and Delhi signed an agreement that will see Russia help build up to 20 atomic plants and sell $1.5bn of warplanes to India. Boa Sr, the last speaker of Bo, died in the Andaman Islands, rendering extinct a language thought to date back 65,000 years to the pre-Neolithic human settlement of south-east Asia. The number of Great Andamanese has declined in the past 150 years, when British settlers colonised the islands, from about 5,000 to 52. Jyoti Basu, leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and West Bengal's chief minister for 23 years, died aged 95. Tens of thousands of people attended his funeral procession in Kolkata.

Citing safety fears, the environment minister announced a moratorium on the commercial cultivation of what would have been India's first genetically modified crop of Bt Brinjal, or aubergine. GM cotton makes up 85% of India's crop.

Malaysia
The opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim accused the prime minister, Najib Razak, of conspiring to end his political career by bringing a second sodomy case against him, six years after a previous conviction for sodomy was overturned. His three-party opposition alliance made strong gains during the 2008 general elections and nearly broke the ruling party's stranglehold on power for the first time since independence in 1957.

The Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia criticised the authorities for not pressing charges against two Muslim journalists who took communion. The two apparently put communion wafers, which are considered holy, in their mouths and then spat them out. The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Murphy Pakiam, said the men had desecrated the church, and the lack of charges appeared to legitimise their behaviour. It is the latest in a series of incidents raising religious tensions in the Muslim-majority country, including arson attacks on churches. Meanwhile, authorities caned three Muslim women for having extramarital sex-the first Malaysian women to receive such punishment under Islamic law. A mother of two was sentenced to caning last year for drinking a beer.

Pakistan
Pakistan had arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban's leadership in February, intelligence officials told the Christian Science Monitor, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgency. In total, seven of the Taliban's 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan-including Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of military operations-had been apprehended in a week, according to Pakistan. The US newspaper suggested that the motive for the Pakistani crackdown on the Quetta Shura, long demanded by Washington, was to block direct talks between the Taliban and Nato that did not go through Islamabad. Meanwhile, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, urged a major political push towards a peace deal in Afghanistan following back-channel contacts with the Taliban through Saudi intermediaries.

The supreme court confirmed that the amnesty granted to President Asif Zardari and others by the former president, Pervez Musharraf, was unconstitutional and reopened a money-laundering case against Zardari.

Two suicide bombs killed about 50 people near a garrison in Lahore in the bloodiest terrorist strike in Pakistan this year. About 10 soldiers were killed but most victims were civilians. It was Lahore's second bombing in a week: earlier, a car bombing at a police interrogation centre killed 14 people. In other violence, a gun and grenade attack on a Christian aid group in Mansehra killed six. A blast aimed at security forces killed at least eight people in a market in Mingora, Swat Valley. A bomb at a mosque in Aka Khel, Khyber, killed 29 people. Three Americans training local paramilitaries and three schoolgirls were killed in a bomb in Lower Dir that marked the first fatal Taliban ambush on the US military in Pakistan.

Singapore
Singapore and the European Union began talks on a free trade agreement. Bilateral trade exceeded $75bn in 2008. Meanwhile, the government began withdrawing a raft of economic stimulus measures imposed during the recession, such as subsidies for employers not to lay off workers. Thousands of people queued to get into Singapore's first casino on the resort island of Sentosa. The casino, built by Malaysia's Genting, cost $4.7bn.

Sri Lanka
Sarath Fonseka, the candidate defeated by the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the recent presidential election (allegedly rigged, according to the opposition) was arrested and faces a court martial accused of plotting to overthrow the government. After a high turnout, Rajapaksa won 58% of the votes, compared with 40% for Fonseka. The Economist said: 'During the election the president's team, sensing a strong challenge from Mr Fonseka, set goons on his supporters and commandeered state resources to get out the vote.' The army was purged, with officers either made to retire or arrested. Rajapaksa also dissolved parliament, paving the way for elections in April, in which his party is expected to do well, and took control himself of the information ministry. Protests by opposition supporters in several cities were quelled with tear gas or stoned by government supporters. The European Union suspended Sri Lanka's preferential trade terms over the government's human rights record.

The court of appeal granted bail to J.S. Tissainayagam, the Tamil editor whose 20-year jail term last August for supporting terrorism was widely condemned. Prageeth Eknaligoda, who wrote articles critical of the government for Lankaenews.com, was reported missing in January. Chandana Sirimalwatte, another journalist supportive of the opposition, was released without charges after 18 days' detention.

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EUROPE

Cyprus
The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, flew in to encourage the divided island's two leaders to spur on negotiations over a peace deal. Ban said more courage was needed after talks with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, and the Greek Cypriot President, Demetris Christofias, who are deadlocked over power-sharing, territory and property rights. Meanwhile, a UK court ruled that a British couple had to demolish their home in Northern Cyprus, in line with a European Court ruling upholding a Greek Cypriot claim for land they owned before Turkey's 1974 invasion of the north. The missing corpse of the former Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos was found after a tipoff, three months after it was taken from his grave. The motive was unclear but Papadopoulos, president from 2003 to 2008, led resistance to UN-backed plans to reunify the island.

Malta
Malta was reportedly the only EU member to vote against halting the international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna until stocks recover.

United Kingdom
The Northern Ireland Assembly, controlled by the Democratic Unionists (DUP) and Sinn Féin, voted for a plan to devolve policing and justice powers to Belfast. The once-dominant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) voted against the landmark measure, despite support for the move from London, Dublin and Washington. In an unexpected intervention, George Bush telephoned David Cameron, leader of Britain's opposition Conservative Party, to urge him to press his allies, the UUP, to back the plan. Weeks before, a large car bomb exploded outside a courthouse in Newry, offering a reminder of the former conflict. Ian Paisley, founder of the DUP in 1971 and a fierce anti-Catholic who came to play a large part in the peace process and ended up working closely with Catholic nationalist politicians, announced his retirement.

There were fresh allegations against the Conservative's deputy chairman and leading funder, Lord Ashcroft, this time over links with a corruption scandal in the Turks and Caicos islands. Ashcroft is suing the Independent newspaper over allegations that he lent $5m to Michael Misick, the disgraced former premier of the islands, through a local bank that Ashcroft controls. The multi-millionaire Tory's tax status became a major issue as the run-up to the UK general election began after it emerged that Ashcroft had not, despite assurances, become a permanent resident of the UK when he was made a peer in 2000 but remained 'non-domiciled' and thereby shielded his wealth from the UK tax authorities.

Tony Blair testified at the Iraq war inquiry in Britain. The former prime minister defended his decision to send British troops into Iraq, said he would do it again and asked what the situation would be like if Saddam Hussein had been left in power to develop Iraq's capability. One former minister said Blair was being 'ludicrous'.

The Financial Services Authority published new 'stress tests' about how much capital banks should hold in an extreme downturn. The new benchmarks assume even tougher economic conditions, such as an unemployment rate of 13.3%-the fall in British GDP last year was very close to the previous stress-test mark. The International Monetary Fund backed the government's plan to maintain its stimulus programmes through 2010 and into 2011. Britain and Argentina were urged to begin talks over the Falkland Islands. The imminent drilling of oil puts the dispute over sovereignty to the fore again 28 years after the war.

The UK appeal court angered Washington by ordering the release of parts of a CIA report covering the alleged torture by Pakistani interrogators of an Ethiopian-born British man.

A coalition of conservationists is campaigning for the UK to create 'Britain's Great Barrier Reef' by designating its Indian Ocean territory as the world's biggest protected marine area. The 55 Chagos islands include Diego Garcia, site of the controversial joint British-American military base. The archipelago boasts the world's largest coral atoll and the world's cleanest waters, home to 220 coral species and more than 1,000 species of fish.

AMERICAS

Belize
The UK Electoral Commission ruled that £5.1m donated to the opposition Conservative Party by its major funder, Lord Ashcroft, were 'legal and permissible'. However, its investigation into what the Guardian called his 'enigmatic Belizean company' said only: 'Stargate is registered in Belize and the commission was unable to obtain any meaningful information about the sources of its funding.'

The Guardian said: 'Stargate is registered at an offshore registry-controlled by Ashcroft-in Belize City, which is not obliged to make public details of any companies' business affairs, ownership or control. So who owns Stargate, what, if any, business it conducts, and how it is financed remains secret.' Ashcroft has many businesses in Belize, including the country's largest bank, and served as its ambassador to the United Nations. In his 2005 biography, he said his interests there have been 'exempt from certain taxes for 30 years'.

Canada
A new legislative session began in March, two months after the prime minister, Stephen Harper, prorogued parliament. The main opposition Liberals did not vote against the 'throne speech' outlining new bills, thus avoiding a third general election in four years. Meanwhile, MPs ate seal meat in their canteen to show solidarity with hunters angry at a European ban on seal products.

Canada's economy grew in the final three months of 2009 by 5%-the fastest pace in nine years.

The Vancouver Winter Olympics got off to a bad start when a Georgian athlete was killed while training for the luge event. Canadians were cheered by their athletes winning several medals and stung by criticism of the games' organisation, especially from Britain.

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PACIFIC

Australia
The UK apologised for a scheme that took 150,000 Britons, aged between three and 14, from their families and sent them to Australia. An aim of the child migrant programme was to maintain the 'white stock' in Commonwealth countries, especially Australia.

The economy grew strongly in the final three months of 2009 due to huge government spending and massive Chinese demand for its commodities, making Australia the only major economy to avoid recession. Interest rates have gone up four times since October to prevent the economy overheating. Also hotting up was Melbourne: the city had its hottest nights since 1902 as a heatwave hit southern Australia, raising temperatures to 34C.

The number of Indian students going to Australia has dropped almost 50%, amid a spate of attacks and negative headlines.

Almost half of Australia's foreign aid budget went back to Australian companies and Australian experts working tax-free as highly paid consultants, figures from the government aid agency, AusAID, revealed.

Five men convicted of a terrorist conspiracy were sentenced to between 23 and 28 years after Australia's longest ever trial. The men were found guilty in October of possessing stockpiles of chemicals and detailed instructions for making bombs.

Fiji (Fully Suspended)
Fiji jailed eight men for up to seven years for attempting to kill the country's military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, in 2007. Critics said the men did not have a fair trial. The longest sentences were given to tribal chief and former politician, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata, and a businessman, Sivaniolo Naulago. The former head of the Fiji Intelligence Service, Metuisela Mua, was also convicted. Bainiamarama, who seized power in Fiji in a 2006 coup, cast further doubt over a return to democratic rule after 2014 by telling the Fijivillage website that politicians would not be allowed to contest the elections because of the damage they had done to the country since 1987.

The Fiji interim regime has tightened its censorship of the media by requiring broadcasters to tell the Ministry of Information of their talkback show topics a week in advance, Radio New Zealand International reported.

Fiji's gay community applauded a decree decriminalising homosexuality-the first Pacific nation to do so.

The Fiji Mineworkers Union has taken the case of 375 mineworkers who have been striking for 19 years over poor conditions and human rights issues at the Vatukoula gold mine to the International Labour Organisation and the Human Rights Council.

Kiribati
Pacific leaders meeting in Palau agreed to create an Organisation of Tuna-Exporting Countries, modelled on the Opec oil cartel, to increase revenue from the annual $4bn tuna haul. Palau's President Johnson Toribiong is hosting eight heads of state known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement.

Nauru
A referendum on 34 constitutional reforms was defeated by a margin of two to one. Changes included direct presidential elections rather than by MPs, and introducing rights to information, education and those of children.

New Zealand
A tour operator admitted hiring Europeans and Israelis to dress in traditional Maori costumes, sticking out tongues and simulating a haka, to lure tourists from cruise ships. Discovery Heritage's director, Terina Puriri, who has Maori ancestry, defended the move as a positive contribution to Maori heritage, saying: 'Some of our Maori are too lazy to get out of bed to do that.'

Papua New Guinea
Heavily armed police fought a gun battle with hundreds of villagers in the Southern Highlands who are trying to block a $16bn liquid natural gas development by ExxonMobil. Dozens of deaths have been blamed on land disputes linked to the project. Meanwhile, PNG's power company said the massive scheme would not help the country meet its own escalating energy needs-demand is expected to triple in 10 years-as all the gas would be exported. Landowners are launching a legal battle against the controversial Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau, which landowners claim is illegally cutting trees and using force and bribery to stifle their concerns. Amnesty International said police acted outside their power when they evicted people near the Porgera gold mine last year by burning down their homes.

PNG was struggling to contain its first cholera outbreak in 50 years, which has affected 2,400 people since it began and killed more than 40 in three provinces, Radio New Zealand International (RNZI) reported.

An environmentalist campaigner, George Laume, said stronger laws were needed as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which was set up to clean up the palm oil industry, had become ineffective and the certification scheme existed only on paper. He said cited reports of birth defects from polluted water, RNZI reported.

Samoa
Sightings of a mongoose have raised fears that the stowaway invaders could establish themselves on pristine uninhabited islands with vulnerable ground-dwelling species.

Solomon Islands
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began public hearings, hearing from victims and witnesses of crimes between 1998 and 2003 when nationalist/ethnic tensions claimed 100 lives and displaced about 20,000 islanders.

A UN study released to mark International Women's Day said the Solomons was one of only three Pacific Island countries to have no female MPs. Meanwhile, the home affairs ministry urged people to register only once for this year's general election to reduce corruption, ghost voting and voting twice.

Tonga
The main island was left without power and water after Cyclone Rene, the strongest to hit the country in 50 years, passed through the archipelago. It also devastated the Cook Islands.

There was an outcry over plans to revive the use of whipping as two teenage petty thieves were sentenced to six lashes with a cat o' nine tails and 13 years in jail.

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GENERAL

Commonwealth News
After an eight-month consultation on the future of the Commonwealth, involving polls of 6,200 people in seven countries, the report of the Commonwealth Conversation, 'An Uncommon Association: A Wealth of Potential', called for bold reform, greater investment and better use of its unique strengths to avoid being marginalised.

As preparations for October's Commonwealth Games in Delhi intensify in a race to finish work on venues, concerns mounted over the welfare of the migrant workers drawn from all over India to the huge construction projects. One person has been killed and 12 hurt in a fire at the site of the athletes' village, two weeks after a rugby stadium being built also caught fire. Meanwhile, the Delhi high court demanded the government ensure labour laws were being followed on the construction sites. Labourers are allegedly paid below the minimum wage, while working and living in sub-standard conditions. Concerns over security at the games have also been aired, especially in Australia and the UK. Another controversy erupted over plans to serve beef at the games, with authorities in Delhi demanding the menu be rewritten.

The Commonwealth Expert Team that observed the 26 January presidential election in Sri Lanka said they 'did not fully meet key benchmarks for democratic elections'. Commenting on the arrest of the opposition candidate, it said the rule of law and due process had to be applied.

A team also observed January's election in St Kitts and Nevis. It reported that it was well conducted well but noted: 'There were issues in the overall electoral environment which could be improved. These included the need for equal access to state-owned media and measures to strengthen the capacity and ensure confidence in the independence of electoral officials.'

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

  • Chris Milner, Evious Zgovu and Oliver Morrissey, Policy Responses to Trade Preference Erosion: Options for Developing Countries, ISBN 978-1-84929-009-8
  • Mariama Williams and Marilyn Carr (Eds), Trading Stories: Experiences with Gender and Trade, ISBN 978-0-85092-873-0
  • James Keevy and Jonathan Jansen, Fair Trade for Teachers: Transferability of Teacher Qualifications in the Commonwealth, ISBN 978-1-84929-014-2
  • Carolyn Deere-Birkbeck, Emily Jones and Ngaire Woods, Manoeuvring at the Margins: Constraints Faced by Small States in International Trade Negotiations, ISBN 978-1-84929-006-7

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