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 409

Oren Gruenbaum

ABSTRACT
An opposition party leader and a journalist were murdered in Rwanda in the latest attack on government critics. Thousands of people in Lesotho asked South Africa to annex their country. A judicial inquiry into fake degrees held by Pakistani parliamentarians threatens to trigger fresh elections. Australia and Trinidad and Tobago both elected their first female prime ministers.

AFRICA

Botswana
Kalahari Bushmen returned to court in their fight with the Botswana government over water rights, claiming they were being denied access to a borehole on their land, one of the driest regions on the planet. The Bushmen won a court case in 2006 against their eviction from a central Kalahari game park. Since then, hundreds have returned but the Bushmen claim the government capped a borehole and refuse to reopen it or allow contractors to drill for fresh water. Instead, they must truck in water from the nearest public borehole, 300 miles away. The British charity Survival International said hundreds of Bushmen were languishing in resettlement camps outside the reserve, afraid to return without water supplies. '[While] denying Bushmen water, the government has drilled new boreholes for wildlife and allowed the opening of a tourist lodge in the reserve, complete with bar and swimming pool,' it said. The UN's top official on indigenous rights, Professor James Anaya, condemned Botswana for treatment below 'relevant international human rights standards'.

Discontent with the government reached a watershed in June, when a new political party, the Botswana Movement for Democracy, was launched after some MPs broke away from President Ian Khama's ruling Botswana Democratic Party, which has been in power some 44 years. The split came after the MPs were suspended for what Khama, son of Botswana's founding father, Seretse Khama, described as indiscipline.

Botswana's former president Festus Mogae remained the most recent winner of the world's most valuable individual prize because, for a second year, no one was deemed worthy of winning it. To encourage good governance, the $5m Mo Ibrahim Prize is awarded to democratically elected African leaders who agree to leave office. Mogae won in 2008 after two terms in charge of one of Africa's richest but least corrupt nations.

Cameroon
Cameroon's government rejected the claim by a gay asylum-seeker in the UK that he faced persecution if he returned home. The supreme court in London ruled in favour of the man, who was attacked by a mob at home after being seen kissing his partner. Homosexuality in Cameroon is punishable by up to three years in jail.

Lewis Medjo, editor of La Détente Libre, who was released from prison in May after 20 months' detention, told Reporters Without Borders: 'We have a duty to pick up the struggle again for our readers.'

Nine heads of state, including Gabon's Ali Bongo, Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, plus two former French premiers, attended the Africa 21 conference to celebrate the 'Francafrique' bloc and half a century of independence for the former French colony.

Gambia, The
Prosecutors charged the former navy and army chiefs with plotting to overthrow President Yahya Jammeh. Sarjo Fofona and Gen Langtombong Tamba are accused of 'not reporting' an alleged coup attempt in 2006, for which several people are serving long sentences. Tamba is already on trial alongside other army officials for his alleged part in a failed coup last year. Another group of senior military officials and businessmen was arrested in March over another alleged plot. The arrests have been linked to the recent seizure of two tonnes of cocaine, worth $1bn.

Ghana
The Black Stars, Ghana's national football team, became their continent's heroes when they nearly became the first African team to qualify for the World Cup semi-finals. Ghana were cheated of what seemed a certain winner by a blatant handball on the goal-line by Uruguay then lost on penalties after extra-time. Five fans died while celebrating after Ghana qualified for the quarter-finals by beating the USA and a dozen were hospitalised.

Police arrested the owner of an illegal gold mine in Dunkwa-on-Offin that collapsed after heavy rains, killing an estimated 100 miners.

Kenya
Citizens of Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda no longer need visas to travel within the East African Community, which officially became a single market with unified regulations in July. Kenya has waived work permit requirements for the bloc's 125 million people.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga strongly criticised MPs for voting themselves a $3,000-a-month pay rise-the average wage is $75. MPs, who pay only 5% tax, also doubled their leaving bonus to $45,000. With an income of $126,000, they are among the world's best-paid politicians. Odinga's salary would rise to $40,000 a month-10% more than the US president. 'It is sending very wrong signals,' he said, shortly after an operation to relieve fluid on the brain. The Central Organisation of Trade Unions in Kenya (Cotu) threatened a one-week national strike if the rise went ahead.

Wilfred Machage, assistant roads minister, was suspended by President Mwai Kibaki after being charged with inciting hatred. Along with two other MPs, he was charged with hate speech during the campaign for a new constitution. They allegedly said some ethnic groups would have to leave their land if the constitution was approved. Six people died in a stampede after grenades exploded at a rally for the 'No' campaign.

MPs passed a bill allowing the finance minister to set maximum prices for basic goods such as maize and fuel following price hikes after last year's drought. Economists argue that it will force the government to control prices of farm inputs such as seed and fertiliser as well, and encourage farmers to move away from those artificially cheap commodities, creating serious shortages, while also encouraging factories to move elsewhere.

The government said it would appeal against a ruling declaring 'Kadhi' Islamic courts discriminatory. Three judges said Kadhi courts, which deal with marriage and inheritance, favoured Islam over other faiths, which was unconstitutional in a secular country.

Lesotho
Hundreds of people marched through the capital, Maseru, to deliver a petition of 30,000 signatures to parliament and the South African high commission asking for its giant neighbour, which surrounds it, to in effect annex the country, the Guardian reported. AIDS has bankrupted the country and nearly halved life expectancy, and while Lesotho produced 80% of the cereals it consumed in 1980, now it imports 70%. The textile industry, formerly the biggest employer, has collapsed but South Africa stopped recognising temporary travel documents used by Basotho to cross the border for work in June. Vuyani Tyhali, a trade unionist and initiator of the Lesotho People's Charter Movement, said: 'We were a labour reserve for apartheid South Africa. There is no reason for us to exist any longer as a nation with its own currency and army.' The African Union has noted a 'lingering threat of internal conflict' and recommended economic integration with South Africa.

Malawi
A gay couple sentenced to 14 years' hard labour after being found guilty of sodomy and indecency were pardoned by President Bingu wa Mutharika after the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, intervened. However, the minister for gender said their release did not mean they could continue their relationship.

The British government's decision to create a conservation area and ban fishing around the Chagos Islands-reputedly as ecologically important as the Galapagos islands or Great Barrier Reef-was hailed by environmentalists but condemned by exiled Chagossians and the Mauritian socialist party, Lalit de Klas. The islands were ceded to Britain in 1814 but 2,000 inhabitants were deported to Mauritius in the 1960s to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia.

Mozambique
The government plans to build a $132m bridge across the Zambezi river to allow access to huge 2.4bn-tonne coal deposits in Tete and relieve kilometre-long tailbacks across the present bridge. There are also plans to build a fourth deep-water port-bigger and deeper than Maputo, Beira and Nacala.

Namibia
Three women are suing the state for allegedly being sterilised without their informed consent after being diagnosed as HIV-positive. The Legal Assistance Centre, which is representing the women, says it has documented 15 cases of alleged HIV sterilisation in hospitals since 2008.

Nigeria
China is to build three refineries in Nigeria under a $23bn deal signed in May. Nigeria's four rundown refineries operate at only 40% of capacity, forcing the crude oil exporter to import fuel. Meanwhile, the central bank extended a 500bn naira ($3.3bn) bailout to its troubled airlines. The fund, announced in March, was to stimulate credit for the power and manufacturing sectors.

President Goodluck Jonathan had to reverse his suspension of the national football team from international competition for two years after the sport's world governing body, Fifa, threatened to expel Nigeria if the government intervened. Nigeria was knocked out of the World Cup without winning a game. One Nigerian player received more than 1,000 death threats after being sent off in a match.

Nigerian police routinely kill, rape and torture, a civil liberties group claimed. The Open Society Justice Initiative, which observed officers and suspects at 400 police stations over two years, said police paraded suspects for the media before executing them without trial. The study is only the latest report to make such allegations. Drug enforcement officials arrested a politician at Lagos airport for smuggling 2kg of cocaine to fund his election campaign. Customs officers also seized a shipment of military uniforms linked to politicians preparing for next year's elections. A court in Jersey, UK, sentenced Raj Bhojwani, a business associate of the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, to six years' jail over a $184m fraudulent deal to sell overpriced trucks to the army, involving $100m bribes to Abacha and allegedly Col. Mohammed Buba Marwa, high commissioner to South Africa.

At least 163 people, mostly children, died after villagers started digging for gold in areas with high lead concentrations in Zamfara state. The US supreme court allowed Nigerian families to sue Pfizer over the use of a new antibiotic on their children. The families say Pfizer did not have consent to test Trovan on 200 sick children during a meningitis outbreak in 1996 that killed 12,000 children. Eleven children died and others were blinded, paralysed or brain-damaged. Pfizer denies all allegations.

An MP, Solomon Ahwinahwi, broke his arm as parliamentarians scuffled in the National Assembly over efforts to force the speaker to step down.

Rwanda (Joined November 2009)
A senior member of an opposition party was murdered in the third attack on a government critic in a month. André Kagwa Rwisereka, vice-president of the Democratic Green party, which was unable to gain registration to contest August's presidential election, was found almost decapitated near Butare.

Jean-Léonard Rugambage, deputy editor of the fortnightly Umuvugizi, was gunned down outside his home in Kigali in June. Umuvugizi and another opposition newspaper, Umuseso, have been targeted with several libel and privacy cases, and prohibited from publishing until after the coming elections. The paper's exiled editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, said security forces had carried out the attack because Rugambage had been investigating the state's alleged role in the shooting of an exiled Rwandan general in South Africa, Kayumba Nyamwasa, days earlier. Rwanda wants South Africa to extradite Nyamwasa and Patrick Karegeya, a former Rwandan army colonel also living in exile in South Africa, over grenade attacks in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, earlier this year in which more than 30 people were injured and one person killed. South Africa said foreign 'security operatives' were involved in the shooting.

Lawyers defending suspects at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said they feared for their safety and refused to participate in proceedings after Peter Erlinder, a US defence lawyer for top genocide suspects, was detained on charges of denying genocide. Recent crackdowns have heightened concerns about an authoritarian approach to independent media and dissent in Rwanda as it prepares for its second presidential election since the 1994 genocide. Victoire Ingabire, a Hutu opposition candidate, said she was unable to stand in August's election because she had been charged with denying the genocide had occurred. Police also arrested another presidential contender, Bernard Ntaganda, on suspicion of attempted murder.

Reporters Without Borders said of Rugambage's murder: 'We have for months been condemning the climate of terror in Rwanda, the escalating repression of independent journalists and totalitarian tendencies ... Will this tragic development finally open the eyes of those who support this government?'

Sierra Leone
The model Naomi Campbell and actress Mia Farrow were due to be summoned by the International Criminal Court to testify at former Liberian president Charles Taylor's war crimes trial, addressing allegations that Taylor gave Campbell a large uncut diamond in 1997. The prosecution alleges that Taylor dealt in 'blood diamonds' when supporting rebels in Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war. Taylor denies 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, using child soldiers and terrorism in backing Sierra Leone's rebels.

South Africa
The World Cup's hosts were widely seen as a winner-despite the national team exiting early-after a largely peaceful and well-organised tournament. Marked by the distinctive sound of fans' vuvuzela horns, the event was lauded for uniting the country in a way nothing else has since the end of apartheid. More than 9bn rand ($1bn) was spent building new stadia, upgrading others and improving transport. There was criticism, however, that too much money was being spent on sports facilities and cosmetic improvements rather than badly needed infrastructure.

The former police chief Jackie Selebi was found guilty of corruption after a nine-month trial. In one of the defining scandals of post-apartheid South Africa, Selebi, also a former head of Interpol, was found to have accepted bribes worth R1.2m ($150,000) to turn a blind eye to an informant's drugs trafficking. The intrigue deepened amid allegations of cronyism- Selebi was a close ally of the former president, Thabo Mbeki.

Secret South African documents from 1975 revealed the military ties with Israel included an offer of nuclear warheads to the apartheid state. The papers, uncovered by academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky, show that Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now president, sent his South African counterpart, P.W. Botha, enough tritium to build several atomic bombs.

Uganda
Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia signed a new treaty creating a permanent commission to manage the Nile's waters in May, putting them on a collision course with Egypt and Sudan, which have enjoyed rights to nearly 75% of the water under colonial-era agreements. Kenya signed in July, leaving only one more Nile basin country-Democratic Republic of Congo or Burundi-needed to sign before the treaty is ratified. Upstream states are desperate for access to more water from the 6,600km-long river but Egypt and Sudan are refusing to co-operate. The commission will be based in Entebbe, Uganda. It will have the power to veto energy and irrigation projects in signatory states or recommend changes.

Co-ordinated bomb blasts ripped through two bars and killed at least 76 fans watching the World Cup final on 11 July, Reuters reported. Somali al-Shabab Islamists linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility. Uganda is the key contributor to the 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force propping up the western-backed government. Al-Shabab has threatened more attacks unless Uganda and Burundi withdraw. Uganda's opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party urged President Yoweri Museveni to pull his peacekeepers out and said it planned a withdrawal if it won elections in 2011. 'There is no peace to keep in Somalia and Uganda has no strategic interest there. We're just sacrificing our children,' the FDC said. An African Union summit in July would go ahead, the government said.

Museveni cut the retirement age for civil servants from 60 to 50, threatening tens of thousands of teachers, judges and doctors with the immediate loss of their jobs. Museveni, 66, wants to create jobs for young people but unions say it is illegal and threatened strikes.

Fears are increasing over the chilling effect on freedom of speech from a draft press law. It requires newspapers to apply for annual licences from the government-appointed Media Council. A newspaper could lose its licence if it publishes material deemed harmful to security, the economy, unity or foreign relations.

Zambia
Fred M'membe, editor and owner of Zambia's leading independent newspaper, the Post, was convicted of contempt of court and sentenced to four months' hard labour for publishing a critical story about a trial involving one of his journalists. Supporters of M'membe, who won the International Press Institute's World Press Freedom Hero award in 2000, said the decision was because the Post is a staunch critic of government corruption. M'membe's case relates to the controversial trial last year of Chansa Kabwela, the Post's news editor. During a nurses' strike, Kabwela had been given photographs of a mother giving birth outside Lusaka's main hospital after she was turned away from clinics. The child died during delivery. Kabwela did not publish the pictures, but sent copies to ministers and women's groups to highlight the strike's effect. But President Rupiah Banda described the pictures, taken by the pregnant woman's husband, as pornographic, and ordering Kabwela's prosecution. She was acquitted of distributing obscene material but M'membe was charged with contempt for publishing, during the trial, an article by law professor Muna Ndulo, which criticised the case as 'a comedy of errors'.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria froze grants worth $300m to Zambia after fraud was uncovered at the health ministry last year. The organisation said it would channel the money through the UN Development Programme instead.

Zimbabwe (Left Commonwealth, 2003)
In the sixth annual Failed States Index, compiled by the US-based Fund for Peace, President Robert Mugabe was ranked the world's second-worst dictator behind Kim Jong-il of North Korea, and Zimbabwe rated fourth among the worst failed states. Fund for Peace said: 'Zanu-PF has refused to relinquish its grip on the state's security apparatus ... Zimbabwe has become more militarised, with more military figures occupying high-level positions in civilian institutions ... Abuses [by youth militias] are said to continue to take place with impunity, if less frequently,' it said. 'Poor economic conditions continue to undermine the average Zimbabwean's food security ... Unemployment is at 95%.'

The Observer reported: 'Tsvangirai has been accused of ineffectual leadership, of doing the "Mugabe shuffle"-making small changes that mean nothing for the people ... Rumours abound of MDC officials accepting farms from Mugabe just as he rewards the loyalty of his own Zanu-PF officials.'

NewsDay, Zimbabwe's first independent daily newspaper since 2003, was launched by Trevor Ncube, a former journalist and long-time opponent of Mugabe. The Zimbabwe Media Commission also granted licences to the Daily News (owner: Associated Newspapers), The Mail (Zanu-PF's youth wing), the Daily Gazette (Modus Media), and The Worker (ZCTU trade union federation).

The government dropped plans to invite the North Korean football team to train in Matabeleland before the World Cup after protests in the province, where the notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade massacred thousands of people in the 1980s Gukurahundi campaign.

Two gay rights activists were freed after six days in police custody where it is claimed they were abused and tortured. Ellen Chadehama and Ignatius Mhambi were accused of possessing pornographic material and insulting Mugabe.

A report by the human rights group Global Witness warned that profits from the Marange diamond fields could fuel further political violence in the country, describing the Zanu (PF)-controlled companies involved as ignoring legal process and lacking transparency. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch criticised as premature the recommendation by the Kimberley Process 'blood diamond' monitor, Abbey Chikane, that Zimbabwe should be able to rejoin the international gem markets while abuses continued. The minister of mines, Obert Moses Mpofu, said Zimbabwe planned to begin selling diamonds from Marange immediately, regardless of whether the Kimberley Process gave its approval.

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ASIA

Bangladesh
Prosecutors charged 824 people with killing 74 army officers and civilians during 2009's mutiny in the capital, Dhaka. All but 23 were members of the Bangladesh Rifles paramilitary border force. The two-day rebellion over pay and conditions began in barracks in the capital but spread nationwide-some 3,500 soldiers who joined the rebellion are being tried in military courts on lesser charges. Meanwhile, Bangladeshis who insult the national flag or anthem will face a two-year prison term under a new regulation.

Child labourers were among hundreds of garment industry workers beaten by police as violence again erupted in Dhaka during protests over low pay. Police used sticks, teargas and water cannon on the workers, who produce 80% of Bangladesh's exports but are paid a minimum wage unchanged since 1994. Days earlier, Dhaka saw the first general strike since 2007. There were minor clashes as police arrested about 200 people. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, said the government had failed to tackle corruption and improve services.

A fire in Dhaka flats ignited chemicals, killing 117 people and injured 200. Up to 77 million Bangladeshis had been exposed to arsenic, which occurs naturally in groundwater, in recent decades, according to a study in The Lancet. The World Health Organisation has called it: 'The largest mass poisoning of a population in history.'

The government closed the third-largest national daily newspaper Amar Desh, which supports the BNP, Index on Censorship reported. Police raided the paper's Dhaka headquarters and arrested the acting editor, Mahmudur Rahman, who has written articles critical of the government and documenting human rights abuses and corruption.

Hong Kong (Left Commonwealth, 1997)
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated on the 13th anniversary of the territory's handover from Britain to China but the march was smaller than in former years after the pro-democracy movement split. The Democratic Party of Hong Kong reached a compromise with the authorities on electoral reforms, allowing a few more legislators to be directly elected. But more radical activists want a wholly elected legislative council and chief executive. 'You sold us out to Beijing,' was one slogan on the march.

A Hong Kong publisher, Bao Pu, dropped plans to publish an inside account of the decision-making behind the suppression of student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989 by the former premier Li Peng, claiming copyright problems. The Hong Kong Journalists Association demanded better protection for local reporters and cameramen, who it said had faced rough treatment, bogus drug accusations and denial of press credentials on the mainland.

India
Seven former senior staff of Union Carbide, the US chemicals multinational responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas leak that killed at least 15,000 people and injured some 500,000, were convicted by an Indian court. The former employees, many of them in their 70s, face up to two years' jail but victims complained of leniency and said the government had failed to clean up toxic residues.

There are more poor people in eight Indian states than in all sub-Saharan Africa, according to a study based on an innovatory 'multi-dimensional poverty index' that uses measures such as access to fuel, schooling, electricity, nutrition and sanitation. More than 410 million people live in poverty in the Indian states, researchers at Oxford University found. Meanwhile, India has returned to the rapid economic growth rates it enjoyed before the global crisis struck, according to official data in May. A rebound in manufacturing drove India's quarterly growth to 8.6%, the fastest rate in two years. However, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said an annual growth rate of 10% was needed to redress poverty and malnutrition. Inflation has risen to 11% with food prices surging by up to 20%.

India deployed its army in Kashmir's summer capital of Srinagar for the first time in nearly 20 years in an attempt to end weeks of street protests in the disputed region. The violence has killed 15 people and wounded hundreds. An overnight exchange of fire on the border killed two Indian soldiers and wounded a Pakistani soldier and several villagers.

The Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) regional elections marked a devastating loss for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) as it lost nearly half of the 60 wards it held in its only former stronghold to the centre-right All-India Trinamool Congress Party. The CPIM has controlled West Bengal since the 1970s but had suffered from the party's corruption, incompetence and obsolete ideological language, West Bengal's economic decline and the radical threat of the Maoist Naxalite insurgency, the Guardian said. In May, the Maoists killed about 35 people when a bomb exploded under a bus in Chhattisgarh state. A train crash was blamed on Maoist sabotage, though the group denied it. At least 148 people died, taking the toll from Maoist attacks over the past two months to more than 300. Four soldiers were killed in a bombing in West Bengal. The Maoists also called a two-day general strike in five states. The government laid out what it called 'a detailed road map' for peace talks with the rebels.

After billionaire brothers Anil and Mukesh Ambani, owners of various Reliance industries, ended their eight-year feud, Reliance Communications sold its mobile-mast business to GTL for $11bn in one of India's biggest-ever mergers.

A report by the Habitat International Coalition said that by the time the Commonwealth Games opened in Delhi in October, about 140,000 families would have been evicted to make way for new sports infrastructure. The report also found that tens of millions of dollars intended to fight poverty had been diverted to fund the games, which is now 20 times over-budget. The $3bn terminal at Delhi airport, the country's biggest public building, opened in July after a week-long ceremony involving 300 priests.

A heatwave in northern states killed hundreds as temperatures reached 50C-the hottest since records began in the late 1800s-and 158 died in India's worst air disaster for a decade when an airliner crashed in Mangalore.

Malaysia
Malaysia was urged to repeal security laws allowing detention without trial by UN officials investigating abuse of detainees. It reported that between 2003 and 2007, over 1,500 people died while being held by authorities. Almost all those interviewed said they were tortured or mistreated in detention centres, said the UN. The Internal Security Act allows detention without trial for up to 60 days with extensions for years.

The ruling coalition was badly defeated in a Sarawak state by-election, when ethnic Chinese voters swung behind the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim. Meanwhile, the government banned three works of cartoons that criticise the government, claiming they were a security threat. In May the authorities seized copies of a pro-opposition newspaper, saying it did not have a printing permit.

Malacca's chief minister, Mohamad Ali Rustam, defended plans by the Indian firm Vivo BioTech to develop a 450m ringgit ($150m) animal testing medicine lab in his state, saying God created monkeys and rats for experiments to benefit humans. Animal rights activists say companies are increasingly outsourcing animal testing to Asia, where regulations are lax and costs are lower.

Maldives
A man hanged himself over what he said was persecution for being an atheist. Maldivians must be Sunni Muslims by law. Ismail Mohamed Didi admitted being an atheist and had sought political asylum abroad. His employer had investigated his beliefs and referred him to the Islamic Affairs Ministry. In May, the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives threatened another professed atheist with a death sentence until he recanted.

The cabinet resigned en masse after parliament repeatedly blocked legislation and to pre-empt a no-confidence motion. President Mohamed Nasheed then reappointed his cabinet. Two opposition MPs have been arrested for allegedly buying votes.

Pakistan
A judicial inquiry into fake university degrees held by parliamentarians threatens to trigger fresh elections. A court has ordered an examination of the degrees of nearly all 1,100 federal and provincial politicians after at least a dozen were found to have cheated. Scores could lose their seats. A 2002 ruling required politicians to have a degree, ostensibly to raise standards. Some claimed to have studied at non-existent universities; others forged certificates, and others passed off their children's degrees as their own. The scrutiny has spread: Pakistan International Airlines fired 200 employees hired on the basis of fake degrees.

A report by the London School of Economics claimed Pakistan's notorious spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is so deeply involved in the arming and funding of the Afghan Taliban that it holds a seat on the militants' leadership council, the Quetta Shura, and had sent the Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari, to make prison visits to captured leaders. Researcher Matt Waldman said Pakistani support for the insurgency was 'official' policy. 'Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude,' said the report, which was dismissed by the government.

The former president Pervez Musharraf said on CNN that he intended to return from exile and stand for election at the head of a new party, the All Pakistan Muslim League.

A proposed media law could see TV journalists jailed for three years for broadcasting anything 'defamatory against the state', such as footage of bombings or militants' statements. Critics said it would shield the army and ministers from scrutiny. A reporter, Faiz Muhammad Sasoli, was shot dead by suspected Balochi nationalists. Sasoli, who worked for Aaj Kal, was the sixth media worker killed in Pakistan this year. The government censored access to several popular internet sites after a Facebook competition attracted hundreds of images depicting the prophet Muhammad.

A double suicide bombing outside government offices in the Mohmand tribal region in July killed more than 100 in the country's deadliest attack this year. Tribal elders setting up militias to fight the Taliban were in the building. Suicide bombers killed at least 42 at a famous Sufi shrine in Lahore in July; two months earlier, 94 members of the minority Ahmadi sect were killed in a gun attack by the Punjabi Taliban on a mosque in the same city. Days later gunmen disguised in police uniforms attacked a Lahore hospital, killing six people in a failed attempt to free a captured militant being treated there. Five Americans were jailed for 10 years for plotting terrorist attacks with Pakistani militants in Punjab. Seven people were killed when 10 Taliban gunmen destroyed 50 trucks near Islamabad delivering supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan. A suicide blast outside a bus terminal in the Swat valley killed five people. Meanwhile, a leaked tape emerged allegedly linking Pakistan's most popular TV presenter with the execution of Khalid Khawaja, a Taliban hostage. The journalist Hamid Mir was apparently heard describing Khawaja as a CIA agent and bad Muslim-Khawaja was found shot dead with a warning to 'American spies' in April.

Sri Lanka
The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, closed the main UN office in the capital, Colombo, and recalled a top official in a deepening row over the UN's refusal to stop investigating alleged abuses in Sri Lanka's civil war, including the 7,000 Tamil civilians killed in the final stages. Earlier, protesters led by Sri Lanka's housing minister, Wimal Weerawansa, besieged the UN's headquarters, trapping staff inside for hours, in an attempt to force the UN to drop its investigation. Weerawansa, leader of the ultra-nationalist National Freedom Front, began a hunger strike at the UN mission. Meanwhile, the European Union suspended a preferential trade agreement over Sri Lanka's failure to implement human rights conventions.

The defence minister, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, threatened in a BBC interview to execute Sarath Fonseka, the general who ended the 25-year civil war, for treason. The former army commander, who stood against Rajapaksa's brother, Mahinda, in January's presidential elections, had said he would testify to an independent inquiry to back his claim that the government ordered war crimes against surrendering Tamil Tiger leaders in the war's final stages. Fonseka now faces charges of corruption and taking part in politics while an officer.

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EUROPE

Cyprus
A hotel in northern Cyprus threatened to sue the US singer Jennifer Lopez, who pulled out of a planned concert in the Turkish-occupied territory after a furious campaign by tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots, who accused her of according legitimacy to the breakaway state.

Malta
Maltese MPs are to get another chance to introduce divorce to the country 14 years after the topic last came up for a vote. One MP said he was standing down in opposition. Malta is one of only three states-with the Philippines and the Vatican-banning divorce.

United Kingdom
As rating agencies warned of Britain's credit worthiness being downgraded, ministers were ordered to prepare for cuts of 40% in departmental spending after the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government stepped up its austerity drive. June's emergency budget promised £40bn ($60bn) of tax increases-including a rise in value-added tax to 20%-and spending cuts, especially in welfare benefits. Only spending on health and aid will be untouched. At least 600,000 public-service jobs are expected to be lost and cuts to housing benefits may see 200,000 lose their homes. Unemployment rose to a 15-year high of 2.5 million, but bonuses paid to bankers had returned to pre-crash levels of £8.5bn, the Office for National Statistics reported.

A date in May was set for a referendum on a new voting system-one of the Lib Dems' main conditions for entering the coalition. A senior Lib Dem minister, David Laws, was forced to resign over an expenses scandal. In the long-running and bitter labour dispute within British Airways, a trade union official described a judge's ruling blocking 20 days of walkouts at the national airline as a 'landmark attack' on the right to strike.

The report of the 12-year Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland in 1972 declared that the 14 victims, all unarmed civilians on a march, had been unlawfully shot and that the soldiers responsible could face murder charges. The killings fuelled a generation of sectarian fighting and attacks by security forces and paramilitaries that left 3,500 people dead. Meanwhile, a human rights organisation, the Pat Finucane Centre, said more than 150 killings by the British Army between 1970 and 1973 had been covered up under an agreement with the local police.

The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, was criticised for abusing his constitutional position after details emerged of his secret lobbying against a modern architectural development in London that he disliked. He was found to have put intense pressure on the Qatari royal family, which owned the site, to change the design to one by his favourite architects. Meanwhile, his former sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, was exposed by a newspaper after promising access to her former husband, Prince Andrew, for £500,000.

BP said it was spending $100m a day cleaning up oil from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill has strained relations between the US and Britain, with Washington forcing the oil company to set up a $20bn fund for cleaning and compensation. Environmentalists noted that more crude oil was spilled in the Niger delta each year.

AMERICAS

Canada
Prime Minister Stephen Harper hailed an agreement among G20 leaders at the close of their Toronto financial summit in June on a Canadian-led plan for industrialised nations to halve their deficits within three years. However, a proposed bank tax-a measure strongly opposed by Ottawa as no Canadian banks were bailed out-was not included in the final communiqué. There was also criticism of the C$1bn ($960m) security costs of the G-20 and G-8 summits. One MP called it 'the most expensive 72 hours in Canadian history.' Police arrested 560 after masked anarchists broke away from peaceful protests and smashed property-journalists reported excessive force was used to maintain the security cordon.

The Bank of Canada raised its main interest rate for the first time since July 2007-the first central bank among G7 countries to push up rates since the start of the global recession. Nine environmental groups and 21 logging companies reached agreement on protecting 72m hectares of boreal forest, which stores up to 20bn tonnes of carbon and is home to an endangered caribou.

Jamaica
Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the alleged crime lord of the Shower Posse whose attempted arrest sparked a state of emergency and 74 deaths in May, was extradited to the US to face charges of drug and arms trafficking. Police arrested Coke as he was on his way to the US embassy, apparently to hand himself over to the Americans out of concern for his safety-his father died in a fire in his prison cell in 1992, in what many Jamaicans believe was a murder to stop him talking about ties between criminal gangs and politicians. The government said the operation marked the start of a campaign to end the criminal organisations' 'state within a state'. However, the gangs' history has been closely intertwined with political parties-Coke's stronghold of Tivoli Gardens was the constituency of the prime minister, Bruce Golding, who was allegedly trying to prevent Coke's extradition to prevent exposure of such links.

Trinidad and Tobago
Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elected the twin-island state's first female prime minister in May, ousting Patrick Manning, who had been in power for 13 of the last 17 years. Her five-party People's Partnership-a multi-ethnic coalition of trade unionists, human rights and social activists-won 29 of 41 seats after his People's National Movement, which had called elections 30 months ahead of schedule, was hurt by soaring crime and allegations of corruption. Persad-Bissessar's United National Congress had campaigned for more community-based policing, higher pensions and a children's medical fund.

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PACIFIC

Australia
Julia Gillard became Australia's first female prime minister after Kevin Rudd stepped down as leader of the ruling Labor party. The Welsh-born Gillard's family were among thousands of 'Ten-pound Poms' who emigrated to Australia in the 1960s. Rudd's popularity plummeted following U-turns on key policies, such as shelving an emissions trading scheme, from an approval rating of 71% to 33%. He became the first prime minister Labor has ditched during a first-term government. In one of his last acts in office, Rudd said Australia would take Japan to the International Court of Justice in The Hague over its so-called scientific whale hunting in the Southern Ocean. Japan kills about 1,000 whales a year.

Gillard reached an agreement with mining companies over a controversial 'super-profits tax' on minerals. The revised proposal now applies only to iron ore and coal, and only when profits exceed 12% rather than the original 5%. The tax was highly unpopular with mining companies such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Indigenous tribes on the Torres Strait Islands won native title rights to 40,000 sq km of ocean after their spiritual ties to the sea around the territory, which is administered by Australia, were recognised in a landmark ruling.

The government delayed for further consideration plans to introduce a wide-ranging internet filtering system, which would force service providers to ban access to any 'inappropriate' websites-a policy that would make Australia one of the world's strictest regulators. Meanwhile, Australia's biggest telecoms firm agreed to convert the old copper-wire network to superfast optic fibre and lease it to the state's broadband company.

Fiji (Fully Suspended, 2009)
Australia's acting high commissioner to Fiji, Sarah Roberts, was ordered to leave in July by the military government of Frank Bainimarama. Roberts had been standing in since her predecessor was expelled in November over Australia's opposition to the normalisation of Pacific countries' relations with Fiji while it refused to hold elections. Meanwhile, Bainimarama also gave Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd division three months to sell Fiji Times, the country's leading title, or close. A new media decree stipulates that all media outlets must be 90% Fijian owned. It also includes jail terms for journalists whose work is deemed against 'public interest', tightens controls on media outlets, and follows mounting pressure on reporters, deportation of foreign newspaper executives and the imposition of censors into newsrooms.

Kiribati
A geological study in New Scientist said many low-lying Pacific islands were growing, not sinking, as has been feared. Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia were among those to have grown because of the build-up of coral debris and sediment, it said. 'The physical foundation of these countries will still be there in 100 years, so they perhaps do not need to flee their country,' said one geologist.

New Zealand
New Zealand, which the Guardian called 'a country that sells itself round the world as "clean and green"', increased its greenhouse gases emissions by 22% since it signed up to the Kyoto treaty (or 39% in emissions from fuel alone), according to the UN. Its per-capita emissions are 60% higher than Britain's and among industrialised nations, only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg. It also has the world's third highest rate of car ownership.

Funeral homes in Wellington had to stop a fake mourner who became known as the 'grim eater' from attending up to four funerals of strangers a week, filling containers with food and taking them home, the Dominion Post reported.

A public health emergency was declared after cholera spread to the capital, Port Moresby, killing five people.

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GENERAL

Commonwealth News
Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth secretary-general, announced the members of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG). They are: Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Malaysia, chairperson); Patricia Francis (Jamaica); Asma Jahangir (Pakistan); Samuel Kavuma (Uganda, Commonwealth Youth Caucus); Michael Kirby (Australia); Graça Machel (Mozambique); Malcolm Rifkind (UK); Ronald Sanders (Guyana); Hugh Segal (Canada); Ieremia Tabai (Kiribati). The EPG was due to have its first meeting in London in July to 'set out decisive recommendations on how to strengthen the Commonwealth and fulfil its potential,' Sharma said.

Regional courts must help countries struggling to cope with overwhelming numbers of legal cases, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Justice Hassan Jallow, told a meeting at the Secretariat. Regional courts, such as the East African Court of Justice, should shoulder more responsibility for prosecuting crimes, which would allow the ICC to concentrate on war crimes and genocide, he said.

Trinidad and Tobago's new prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, took over from Patrick Manning as the new Commonwealth chairperson-in-office following her victory in the May elections. She is the first female holder of the office.

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

  • The Commonwealth Yearbook 2010, ISBN 978-0-9563060-1-2
  • Commonwealth Health Ministers' Update 2010, ISBN 978-1-84929-030-2
  • Jane Kennan and Massimiliano Calì, The Global Financial Crisis and Trade Prospects in Small States, ISBN 978-1-84929-026-5
  • Devi Sookun, Stop Vulture Fund Lawsuits: A Handbook, ISBN 978-1-84929-008-1

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