This White House and the World Brief presents the key facts and recommendations drawn from chapters of The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President.

Why should the United States care about economic growth in Africa? Because it is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Helping to spur economic growth in Africa promotes our values, enhances our security, and helps create economic and political opportunities for the people of the continent. Public interest in Africa is higher than ever-witness consumer movements such as Product Red-and bipartisan political support recently renewed funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several new opportunities now exist for U.S. firms to compete and benefit from a win-win partnership with the region.

To view CDG's brief in its entirety, please visit the following link:

http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/16557/
Japan Builds 500 Classrooms for Country
Source: Allafrica.com
Lagos, Aug 25


Japanese Government over the weekend in Abuja, disclosed plans to build additional 500 classrooms in the second phase of its Grant Aid Project for the basic education level in Nigeria.
This is even as the federal government is prevailing on the Japanese government through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to increase the number of benefiting states so as to ensure that the efforts to get more children off the streets become a nationwide success.

Already, executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Muhammed, who received the Japanese team who came to ensure everything goes well in the second phase of the Grant Aid Project Japan had embarked upon in Nigeria, had proposed seven states, including Adamawa, Borno, Ebonyi, Gombe Kano, Katsina and Oyo to benefit from the project expected to be completed within three years.

Regional director of Urban and Regional Development Division One of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Mr. Maekawa Kenji, said the assistance from the JICA was to help Nigeria in the provision of infrastructure needed to accelerate the development of education at the basic level.

Kenji who disclosed their intention, while on courtesy visit to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), noted that he and his team are on a feasibility study mission to Nigeria to determine where to site the classrooms, depending on the area of need engineers would be hired to do the construction. To ensure quality output of the project, he explained the Japanese government would be directly involved in the supervision of work, while local

It could be recalled that the JICA had earlier provided a total of 498 classrooms at the cost of N1.8 billion across 70 schools in Niger , Kaduna and Plateau states. Mohammed expressed gratitude for the gesture, saying it boost the Federal Government move to tackle the numerous challenges in the education sector. He explained that he had already submitted a list of states for consideration, adding that the project should be scaled up to at least six instead of three states.

On the proposal by the Japanese government that local firms may be contracted to execute the project under the supervision of foreign experts, the UBEC boss promised that Nigerians will not disappoint. He pointed out that the only problem that can arise from such arrangement will be if there is no proper supervision, adding that apart from encouraging Nigerian firms, such gesture will help build their expertise in such area as building classrooms with brick-blocks.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a $17.6 million package of grants to help people most affected by the global food crisis and support small-scale farmers in developing countries. The largest grant-$10 million to the World Food Programme (WFP)-will continue the organization's efforts to feed young children and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in Niger, Cote D'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso, where malnutrition rates are staggering. Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam America will also receive funds from the foundation's emergency relief initiative to respond to the food crisis.

Rising food and fuel prices have put 950 million people worldwide at risk of hunger and malnutrition, according to the United Nations. Young children, whose early nutritional needs are critical to ensure long-term health, and women are at the greatest risk. Increases in farming costs, such as transportation and fertilizer, are adding to small farmers' burdens.


"The Gates donation will help us feed the hungry-especially young children, pregnant and lactating women-in this critical moment," said Thomas Yanga, WFP's regional director for West Africa.

Grants to Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam America total $7.6 million. These grants will support efforts that include providing food for those most in need; helping families earn money for food through employment opportunities or cash-for-work programs; and helping farmers continue and improve their production in times of crisis.

While these grants address some of the most urgent consequences of the global food crisis, the foundation is also deeply committed to funding nutritional programs that promote lasting health and supporting long-term, sustainable efforts to help hundreds of millions of small farmers boost their productivity so they can feed their families and overcome poverty.

"The current global food crisis requires immediate action to feed people most at risk," said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation's Global Development Program. "In the longer term, since agriculture and the needs of small-scale farmers in the developing world have been increasingly neglected in recent decades, we need a significant reinvestment in agricultural development-from donors and developing countries-that focuses on helping small farmers boost their yields and increase their incomes."

Agricultural development is the largest initiative in the foundation's Global Development Program, which was launched in 2006. To date, the foundation has made more than $800 million in commitments in the sector with a focus on helping small-scale farmers in Africa and South Asia. The grants span the agricultural value chain-from seeds and soil to farm management and market access-so that millions of small farmers have the tools and opportunities to live healthy, productive lives.

According to the World Bank, three-quarters of the 1.1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for a living, yet the percentage of development assistance that went to agriculture fell from more than 16 percent in 1980, to less than 4 percent in 2004. In addition, agriculture accounts for only 4 percent of public spending in agriculture-based developing countries. The foundation believes with strong partnerships and a renewed commitment to agricultural development from all sectors, hundreds of millions of small farmers will be able to increase their productivity and incomes and lead healthy, productive lives.

Today's announcement includes the following grants:

Catholic Relief Services: $2.9 million

- In Afghanistan, provide employment opportunities on community infrastructure and other projects; provide direct emergency assistance to households unable to participate in cash-for-work programs; and help small-scale farmers buy seeds, tools, and other farm necessities.

- In Burkina Faso, provide food vouchers for urban families and help poor farm families increase production and sale of rice.

- In Haiti, help small-scale farmers buy seeds, tools, and other farm necessities.

Mercy Corps: $2.7 million

- In the Central African Republic, provide employment opportunities on community infrastructure and other projects; help small-scale farmers buy seeds, tools, and other farm necessities; train farmers to improve their production techniques and marketing of agricultural products; and provide access to microfinance loans to fund food-production related enterprises.

- In Nepal, provide employment opportunities on community infrastructure and other projects; provide access to microfinance loans to fund food-production related enterprises; and strengthen agriculture market chains for food and non-food crops.

- In Niger, provide vouchers and training for farmers to improve production techniques and marketing of agricultural products; and support the health and supply of small livestock and poultry.

- In Somalia, distribute seeds and farm tools; provide employment opportunities on community infrastructure and other projects; provide access to microfinance loans to fund food-production related enterprises; and support the health and supply of small livestock and poultry.

- In Sri Lanka, help small-scale farmers buy seeds, tools, and other farm necessities; train farmers to improve their production techniques and marketing of agricultural products; and facilitate access to microfinance loans to fund food-production related enterprises.

Oxfam America: $2 million

- In Ethiopia, provide local jobs on community infrastructure projects including building irrigation systems; support programs that provide food to schoolchildren; take steps to improve agricultural production, including distributing seeds and supporting irrigation projects; develop a grain bank system; implement a drought early warning system that helps prepare farmers for potential drought or other disaster; and provide livestock to women and help all farmers care for their livestock.

World Food Programme: $10 million

- Help continue the maternal-child health program in Niger, Cote D'Ivoire and Burkina Faso.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. For more information, visit www.gatesfoundation.org.

Govt Must Lift Aid Agency Restrictions to Avoid Humanitarian Crisis - Ban
Source: UN News Service
New York, Aug 14


Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Zimbabwe to immediately lift the restrictions it has imposed on aid agencies since June, warning that not doing so could worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the southern African nation.
"I call on the Government of Zimbabwe to fully respect humanitarian principles and the impartiality and neutrality of voluntary and non-governmental organizations, allowing them to operate freely and with unrestricted access to those in need," Mr. Ban said in a statement issued today.

The Secretary-General said he remains deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe where, despite requests made by the UN Country Team and other humanitarian partners, operations of voluntary and non-governmental organizations remain restricted.

He stressed that these groups have a vital role in the delivery of humanitarian aid, including much needed food assistance.
Due to the inability of these agencies to operate, only 280,000 people of the 1.5 million in need of food assistance are being reached with distributions.

"This ban must be lifted immediately so that aid organizations can carry out their relief work and avert a catastrophic humanitarian crisis," Mr. Ban stated.

Prior to the imposition of the ban, many Zimbabweans were already suffering from food shortages and rampant inflation, a situation made worse by the violence that plagued the country ahead of the June presidential run-off election.
UN Announces Program To Help Hunger Hot Spots
Source: World Bank Press Reviews
Washington, D.C., Aug 14



"A UN agency rolled out a $214 million program Tuesday to help 16 needy places hit hard by high prices for food and oil, amid a crisis already making it hard for aid groups to provide enough food for the world's hungry.

The World Food Program said almost 1 billion poor people around the world are struggling to survive amid the higher prices. The agency is trying to reach those in critical need of assistance in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. ... The plan will provide assistance to groups such as pregnant women, undernourished children and people living in urban areas affected most by the food crisis. The Rome-based agency also hopes to cut transportation costs and help support farmers in countries where emergency food can be bought locally. ..." [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

AP adds however that "... 'the agency already faces 'obstacles' in procuring food, particularly when trying to buy supplies locally, spokeswoman Brenda Barton said. 'At the markets where we have been buying food, it has become just too expensive,' Barton told The Associated Press by telephone. And, she added, 'a lot of markets just don't have any food to buy.'

The price crisis is affecting many humanitarian groups. 'At a local level, food prices are increasing, and that, of course, impacts on our programs, making them more expensive,' said Chris Leather of the relief group Oxfam."

Many of the world's leading figures in international trade have gathered in New Delhi, India, for a conference which the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) quipped is perfect timing and a "pre-engineered plot" on the part of the organisers.

Referring to the failed Doha talks in Geneva last month, in which member countries of the WTO failed to reach an agreement on future trade negotiations, Pascal Lamy acknowledged that during these "turbulent times", at a moment when multilateralism and international co-operation are being challenged, more partnerships are needed as global problems, such as the current food crisis, require global responses.


It is this theme - Global Partnership for Development - which is the central focus of the conference being held on 12 and 13 August 2008 and organised by CUTS, a leading civil society organisation, in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the India Office of the World Bank, and the Department of Commerce, Government of India.

At a "difficult juncture in international trade talks", Pradeep Mehta, who heads CUTS, described the meeting as a "historic opportunity" for those present to engage in whole-hearted and frank debate.

"We owe it to the poor around the world," he said at the inaugural session, which included trade and finance ministers, trade negotiators, academics and representatives from businesses and civil society organisations. "The question is, can we do it?"

The eighth Millennium Development Goal - Developing a Global Partnership for Development - the theme for the conference was described by Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith, as "the forgotten MDG" during his opening address.

He emphasised its importance in seeking to hold both rich and poor countries accountable for advancing the MDGs.

The two important targets under this MDG are to 'develop further an open, rule based predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system' and to 'address the special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island states'.

"In terms of these two targets it seems that very little progress has been made during the last seven years or so. The promise that the Doha Round held out in these two areas has not been realised," Mr Smith said.

The global partnership indicated in this MDG, he added, is intended to promote poverty reduction and social and economic development.

"This cannot be achieved if trade shocks or other adjustment measures affect vulnerable groups disproportionately and exacerbate poverty."

Another Millennium Development Goal target noted by Mr Smith is that of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

"It is imperative that the global development community responds effectively to the current food and fuel crises. A large number of other poor and small countries are seriously affected," said Mr Smith, adding that "it is clear that the architecture currently does not exist to provide effective support to these countries at the time when they need it most."

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

-Jean Cocturan

Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.

Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets.

At the time of decolonization in the 1960s, Africa was not just self-sufficient in food but was actually a net food exporter, its exports averaging 1.3 million tons a year between 1966-70. Today, the continent imports 25% of its food, with almost every country being a net food importer. Hunger and famine have become recurrent phenomena, with the last three years alone seeing food emergencies break out in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Southern Africa, and Central Africa.

Agriculture is in deep crisis, and the causes are many, including civil wars and the spread of HIV-AIDS. However, a very important part of the explanation was the phasing out of government controls and support mechanisms under the structural adjustment programs to which most African countries were subjected as the price for getting IMF and World Bank assistance to service their external debt.

My life has taken so many turns in recent years but I have always been able to pull through what ever hard times I faced. I just want ot thank Jesus for that. Without him I don't know what I would have done. In four years I have lost 2 grand parents and my dad. My brother has been diagnosed with cancer and I have lost a close friend. If it had not been for the grace of God I don't know how I would make it through. So Thank you Lord for all you've done.

OK, I was going to close this blog for good - partly because MC suggested I should and partly because I felt that I couldn't really talk about anything that was on my mind on here anymore. But then I figured, hey - I've thought these things through, so I might as well stick it up here for future reference or, maybe hey, someone else might actually find it useful, whether for its strings or gaps.

Lately, I've feeling really bad about myself and confused over balancing the Fid and experiencing life, with

• severe doubts over my aptitude as a scientist/intelligent person
• some anxiety over my close-to-absent social life and loneliness

Not that I'm just sitting here, worrying and doing nothing. I'm trying to do things for both the PhD and my social life, but whether or not these efforts will bear fruit remains to be seen.

So, even this morning, I was thinking,

• am I able to do this? why am I doing this? maybe I should settle for something "less" and stop trying to be something (i.e. smart and creative) that I am not
• my sups think I'm stupid
• I am stupid
  
• maybe being labelled as smart was causing me to put extra pressure on myself?
• maybe all the signs up until now have been wrong - I've just 'hacked' my way through the system, appearing 'smart'
• I feel left out of the lab circle because my intellectual-potential is no longer seen as on par
• why don't I share my ideas as much anymore? what use are they in my book?
• do I feel left out because I am female?
• why do I feel bad about being female?
• why do I worry so much? is this good or just a waste of time?
• is this my weakness, my Achille's heel? will my self-doubt limit my progress?
  
• personally - ugly, ignorant, inexperienced, intimidating/aloof, eccentric
• why does my timidness result in others thinking I'm aloof?
• why do I have no close relationships?
• why do I not trust people and how is it that I am gullible at the same time?
  

But it's sort of like, well, if I'm really that useless, then I might as well be dead.
And I'm not dead.
And I don't want to be dead.

So, today my mind rearranged itself (without much conscious effort from me, thank goodness):

• given that I am the way that I am, it's basically a miracle that the lab hasn't kicked me out yet (thank god, I probably wouldn't do a PhD anywhere else)
  
• also, it has sort of been me kicking myself out
• I need to stop being scared
• despite my deficiencies, everyone is so willing to help and I am grateful for that
  
• at least there is a hope that I will be smart one day (better than no hope)
• at least my friends are still with me, even though I don't have much time for them
  
• and sometimes I'm friendly, because I forget to be self-conscious
  
• and sometimes I'm cold because I suddenly feel extreme fear of the outside world
• at least there is a hope that one day I won't feel like such an alien here
• at least I can still laugh at myself

Well, I'm glad I've sort of figured this out (again). I was feeling like there was no-one to talk to and I didn't want to blog about either because it was just so full of self-pity, confused thoughts/feelings and none of that is useful. I guess for some reason I thought I'd be resistant to this sort of self-doubt and self-denial of faith in oneself. I thought that because I'd been there before (long-term feelings of being unwanted and undeserving, as well as rapid drops in self-confidence/rises in self-doubt/paranoia), I'd be able to handle it easily. I guess I didn't really think that through - how was I going to handle it? I am not resistant, I still have to deal with it. So, I guess last time(s) I dealt with it by changing my perspective.

Sometimes I wonder whether that's just fooling myself. Maybe AB was right afterall with her horrified reaction to my choosing Science. But then people only judge by comparing with their understanding of their experiences and themselves. Some people tell me I am meticulous, prompt, logical/analytical, cold or calm under stressful situations, while some people tell me I have my head in the clouds, a free spirit, am creative, warm or a drama queen. Sometimes I think, 'what does it matter why non-parametric is different to parametric? what does it matter that different people prefer different programming languages?' but then sometimes I get that buzz from asking, 'which is more efficient/precise/accurate? why is it like that? yes or no or maybe? by how much? how about this? how about that?'

So, in summary:

• stop being nervous
• keep trying
• remember to be grateful
• stop drinking coffee
• get some freaking sleep

True what AC said, "Cherrie, just relax and you will fly through" and BC with Queen Kong conquering 'WGC', 'varsity', 'the world' and 'happiness'. How sweet and teaching me with words written... 5 years ago. Shit, I've been away from home for 5 years. I guess the biggest thing I miss about that is constantly chasing my Mum for hugs, after learning (at16, 17?) that I could actually hug my parents.

Well, on my way to buy apples (because you know I love apples), I looked up at the starless (city) sky and saw the crescent moon smiling. How appropriate!

I guess one day I'll feel like all of this, this experience, is mine. But my intrinsic liberal nature has never really owned anything, has it?

Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hands were made strong
By the hand of The Almighty
We forward in this generation, Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing,
These songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs,

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say its just a part of it
We've got to fulfil the book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs..........

Robert Nester Marley
Jamaica

I COULD NOT HAVE SAID IT BETTER

Well, this week I purchased an LG Dare. It is not the Iphone, but it works well and now I can check email and web from my cell phone. It actually has saved me time at home as I am using the computer less.

It seems that just yesterday I was a young boy marveling at my brother's fancy slide rule. ;-)

Scandal in Africa
By Joshua Hammer


With his ruthless seizure of power in the June 27 runoff election in Zimbabwe, following a well-organized campaign to intimidate and murder members of the opposition, Robert Mugabe joined Myanmar's military junta at the top of the list of the world's most despised dictators. Both the Burmese generals and Mugabe's inner circle have enriched themselves while reducing their people to near starvation. They have jailed, tortured, and killed supporters of democracy, and shrugged off years of international condemnation. Moreover, unlike Myanmar's secretive regime, Mugabe and the cabal that supports him have seemed to enjoy flaunting their contempt for democracy and their easy embrace of violence.

That cabal is led by hard-line members of the Zimbabwean military and a handful of cabinet officials who served alongside Mugabe in the independence war of the 1970s. They include the commander in chief of Zimbabwe's armed forces, General Constantine Chiwenga, and Emerson Mnangagwa, an heir apparent to Mugabe who, as minister of national security in 1983, allegedly oversaw the massacre of thousands of political opponents in Matabeleland. "He is a man with the capacity to be more vicious than Mugabe," I was told by University of Zimbabwe political analyst John Makumbe.

Mnangagwa was one of the principal orchestrators of the campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition launched in April—known as CIBD, or Coercion, Intimidation, Beating, and Displacement. (According to recent reports, over a hundred opposition supporters have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced.) And Mugabe, after initially conceding defeat in private and considering resignation or negotiation, quickly embraced the hard-liners' position. "We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X," Mugabe declared in the midst of his bloody campaign last month, rejecting any pretense of a legitimate election. "How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?"


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The dictator's spokesman, George Charamba, told the press that Western governments who criticized Zimbabwe's election could "go hang a thousand times. They have no basis, they have no claim on Zimbabwe politics at all." That kind of thumb-in-the-eye defiance has intensified the world's sense of impotence and prompted a hard look at the question: Is there anything that can be done now to get rid of Robert Mugabe?

The days following Mugabe's ghastly recoronation ceremony saw the first test of international resolve. Leaders from Gordon Brown of Great Britain to Kenya's new prime minister Raila Odinga assailed the state-sponsored violence that forced Morgan Tsvangirai to take refuge in the Dutch embassy and withdraw from the race, leaving Mugabe the sole candidate. "What is happening in Zimbabwe is a shame and an embarrassment to Africa in the eyes of the international community and should be denounced," Odinga said, in perhaps the strongest words of condemnation ever uttered against Mugabe by a fellow African leader.[*]

Former South African president Nelson Mandela broke with Thabo Mbeki's long and shameful silence on the issue to condemn, during a major public appearance in London, Zimbabwe's "failure of leadership." George W. Bush tightened a travel ban that already targets 250 people and companies associated with Mugabe's illegitimate regime, and forbids Americans to do business with them. Canada ordered new travel restrictions on senior Zimbabwean officials and their families and barred Zimbabwean-registered aircraft from Canadian air space. In addition, the US and Great Britain pressed the UN Security Council to freeze Mugabe's assets along with those of eleven senior Mugabe officials, ban them from traveling outside the country, and impose an international arms embargo. But the US resolution calling for sanctions was vetoed by Russia and China on July 12.

It's hard to imagine, however, that any of these initiatives would make much difference. Targeted sanctions have been in effect against the Mugabe gang for nearly a decade—when the dictator launched his violent land grab against white-owned farms and sent the economy into free fall—and, at best, they've proven a minor inconvenience. (Most existing travel bans don't include the families of Mugabe's inner circle; as a result, some of the most ruthless suppressors of democracy send their sons and daughters to elite schools in the United States and Europe.) While it's true that a Security Council–ordered asset freeze and travel ban would have hurt them more, the recent dual veto showed that getting the UN to speak in one voice against dictatorships, no matter how heinous, has almost always been nearly impossible.

As in the case of Myanmar, China had a key part as Zimbabwe's protector against the US effort to pass a Security Council resolution punishing the dictatorship. Russia led the veto of sanctions, claiming that Mugabe's election thuggery was an internal matter beyond the scope of the United Nations. But China, the biggest investor in Zimbabwe, with huge stakes in its mines and lucrative deals to provide weapons and ammunition to its military, happily followed Russia's lead. Meanwhile, South Africa under President Mbeki has provided Mugabe's regime with diplomatic cover, as well as fuel, power, and international bank accounts for his inner circle—and that shows no signs of changing now.


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The difficulty of getting the world to act together became particularly clear at the African Union Summit in Sharm el-Sheik on June 30, the day after Mugabe's swearing-in ceremony. South Africa's Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other world figures had called on African leaders to refuse to recognize Mugabe when he showed up at the meeting. But there was no such repudiation, only a tepid collective call for "dialogue" between Tsvangirai and Mugabe and for the formation of a national unity government—as if both men had a legitimate claim to victory. Ignoring the systematic murders, beatings, and displacements of thousands of supporters of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, an AU observer statement said only that "the vote fell short of the African Union's standards of democratic elections."

Again, Mugabe's chief protector, South African President Mbeki, hid his support for the dictator behind another call for African solutions, rejecting a European Union position that it would accept only a Zimbabwean government led by Tsvangirai. "The result that comes out of that process of dialogue must be a result that is agreed by the Zimbabweans," Mbeki said on the radio, ignoring the fact that a majority of Zimbabweans had already voted to remove Mugabe—only to be brutalized by a regime that had no intention of giving up power.

Not everybody views the AU conference as a bleak development. The willingness of several African leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh and elsewhere on the continent to condemn Mugabe marked a sharp break from the past, insists David Coltart, a Zimbabwean opposition leader and one of two white members of Parliament. "Even ten years ago what Mugabe has done would be a non-event," Coltart said. "Now a significant and increasing number of African leaders are embarrassed, even angry, about his behavior." Such waning in his support is unlikely to affect Mugabe or his inner circle immediately (even Mandela's criticism was brushed off last week as having been manipulated by the West). But it could, Coltart argued, eventually have a significant effect. "Mugabe has been able to keep his supporters going because of their belief that Africa is on their side and they will ultimately prevail," he told me. "The moment they realize that that is no longer the case Mugabe [or his cabal] will weaken dramatically."

But what hope is there for serious change in the short term? The chances of a Kenya-style sharing of power by Mugabe's ruling clique and the Movement for Democratic Change seem slim. Mugabe and the Joint Operations Command—the military hard-liners that surround him—see little reason to negotiate, believing, probably correctly, that there is little the world can do to stop him. There are some dissenters within the upper echelons of the ruling party: Vice President Joyce Mujuru, for example, a former independence fighter known by the nom de guerre Comrade Spillblood, reportedly expressed misgivings in cabinet meetings about the campaign of violence, as did some lower-ranking generals and colonels. Predictably, the hard-liners won out.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu last week raised the possibility of military intervention to unseat Mugabe, calling for a deployment of UN peacekeepers or AU forces. But barring a Rwanda- or Darfur-style catastrophe on the ground, that clearly won't happen. With inflation running at one thousand percent per day, and mass starvation and state-sponsored violence occurring across the country, Zimbabwe could at some point implode, and the world's powerful nations will have to reconsider what can be done. But Zimbabwe will probably fade from the headlines as world attention shifts to the next crisis. The atrocities of the last two months will be transformed into the quiet terror that Mugabe's citizens have come to expect from their government.

—July 17, 2008

Tuesday 29 July will see two acclaimed Latin funk collectives take to the Jazz Café stage in a special gig to showcase new albums on Aire Sol Records.

Hailed as one of the hardest-working and most exciting bands to emerge from the States in the last decade, Grupo Fantasma draws on a wide variety of influences from the 1960s’ Fania All-Stars through to folk-fusion wonderkid Manu Chao. Sonidos Gold, released in June this year, is described by bandleader Adrian Quesada as “the one we’ve wanted to make from the beginning,” and features guest appearances from, among others, legendary saxist Maceo Parker. Prince is also a designated star fan, having given the 10-piece group a two-month residency at his Las Vegas nightclub.

Homenaje, the debut album from label-mates Brownout, was two-and-a-half years in the making. It was worth waiting for. Simmering, acerbic grooves, catchy guitar riffs and richly funky solos come as standard. It’s impossible not to feel the energetic party vibes - the CD is one to turn up and play loud, which almost always translates into a highly enjoyable live experience. In fact, you probably won’t be surprised to find out that the eight members of Brownout all play in Grupo Fantasma.

There is clearly a deep pool of talent in Austin, Texas — the home city of both groups. More importantly, they have evidently worked incredibly hard to bring their music to a global audience: the label was formed in 1999. Now they are reaping the rewards, with distribution deals and festival appearances to take things to a new level. Watch out.