The government of Sudan has suspended contact with an umbrella opposition group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), because it has allowed a rebel group from war-torn Darfur to join its ranks. The government spokesman, Sa'id Khatib, told IRIN on Monday that the government had suspended all contacts with the NDA "about four days ago", because the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) was now one of its members. "We have suspended all contacts until the NDA clarifies why it has brought a fighting group on board," he said. "Fighting and dialogue do not go together."

"We are the only country in the world not at war whose economy is shrinking at an alarming rate. Inflation is running at 620 percent. Eighty percent of our people live in poverty,” says Tendai Biti of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Gibson Sibanda, Deputy President of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) adds that 70 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. "The manufacturing sector has shrunk by 40 percent...The situation is very grim,” he told IPS.

Excessive force by South African security forces and deaths in police custody were serious problems in the country's human rights performance, a global rights review has found. The annual United States State Department's Human Rights Reports, a hefty country-by-country survey comprising almost two million words, found that the government in 2003 generally respected the human rights of its citizens.

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it investigates his army's alleged involvement in war crimes. "I am ready to be investigated for war crimes ... and if any of our people were involved in any crimes, we will give him up to be tried by the ICC," Museveni told journalists at Okwang, northeast of Lira, where the Government has set up a forward base to direct the war against the LRA rebels.

Fresh fighting between a rebel movement headed by Agathon Rwasa and the regular army has displaced thousands of people in Bujumbura Rural Province, a local administrator said. The administrator of Kanyosha Commune in Bujumbura Rural, Ernest Ndabakeneye, told IRIN Wednesday that the entire population of the Muyira and Ruyaga sub-counties had fled their homes following Monday's battle between the forces of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) and the army.

The Polisario movement which is fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara released a further 100 Moroccan prisoners of war this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. An ICRC spokesman told IRIN they were flown home on an ICRC plane from Tindouf in Western Algeria, where several camps housing 165,000 Western Sahara refugees are situated.

Since the unexpected arrival of the Portuguese traveler Diego Cao at the mouth of the Congo river in 1482, the peoples of the area to become the Congo had their lives more and more determined by processes started from far away and of which they had less and less control. At the time, they were hardly aware of the fact that in the world yonder, the need for peoples experienced in tropical agriculture would be forcefully satisfied by their best sisters and brothers being captured, kidnapped, shackled and shipped to America.

The resulting Atlantic slave trade, one of the cornerstones of globalisation, over determined irreversibly the lives of the peoples of the area. Even their very survival depended on the evolution of remote processes assigning changing roles to the area. Suffering and modernization would become almost two faces of the same coin marking their lives. The Atlantic slave trade was the first phase of globalisation, laying the foundations of the world market whose evolution would shape the adjustment and re-adjustment of parts of the world around an evolving center.

Three processes are involved when we are looking at globalisation: The first is the historical process of effective transition to capitalism in each country. This involves the transformation of a double articulation of relations and forces of production. This is the long process of transformation or destruction of the specific form of the African commune through the slave trade and colonialism to the present neo-liberalist structural adjustment programmes and poverty accumulation based epoch.

The second process is the historical formation and transformations of anti-colonial (in the broad sense including anti-Atlantic slavery struggles for life) 'mass' movements into more and more organized struggles for the recovering of land, bodies, psyches (selves) and cultures. This deals with the story about the changes of the agencies of struggles: their historical formation and transformations, their social character, their strategies, their programmes, their theories, prescriptions, dreams, ideologies of politico-social emancipation up to the conscious anti-globalisation civil society. In this process, we can only hail partial victories, mostly through accommodation rather than breaks from the commands from the centres.

Thirdly, the 'external domination' in Africa (or forced or willing incorporation of Africa in the outside originating processes) is what is often thought of as globalisation. It involves:
- Obstacles to national liberation/independence and local/national self-determination, self-reliance, South-South initiatives and pro-people developments;
- Imperialist domination and regional expansionism;
- Forms taken by super-power struggles for world hegemony inside and around certain countries in relation to conditions of accession into and character of their independences;
- The transnationalization process through multinational corporations and international economic organisations up to the ultra-liberalist destruction/reduction of the nation/state and the pursuit by the US of the politics of pure super-power, linking tightly politics to war and the US dream of becoming the present-epoch-Roman Empire;
- A world system of a political economy of crime (money laundering, drug and arm traffic, new forms of labour/sex enslavement, private or super-power State terrorism, etc.) develops and comes along. High and low intensity warfare, through regional relationships of forces of super-powers' proxies, continues.

Thus we differentiate three phases of globalisation: the first phase is based on the Atlantic slave trade (sometimes viewed as a pre-globalisation phase), the second phase was the integration of Africa through colonization and the third phase began in the late 1980's and continues up to now. The peoples who became known as the Congolese from the second phase, miraculously survived the first two phases. While the population was being drastically reduced by the slave trade, people took sometimes self-defeating forms of resistance. Some preferred to commit suicide rather than be enslaved and for a long time women were refusing to bear children for the slave trade. Communal forms of resistance and more advanced forms of capitalist opposition to the slave trade helped people survive, but only to be militarily conquered for domestic colonization. The forgotten holocaust (Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 1998), during the so-called King Leopold's Congo Free State, the most brutal integration of the area into the world economy, reduced the population estimated at 20 million to a mere 8 million in less than 30 years. It has not been possible to completely heal the effects of the accumulated traumas strongly influencing the forms, styles and sometimes content of the diverse cultures of our country. The continuing replay of those effects not only organize the submissive and docile character of public consciousness, but the regular violent outbursts that mark the bloody history of the Congo. Is the prevalence of the song a form of healing?

The international civilizing agents of globalisation initially behaved in a way that made the country become what one of the most honest of them described as Heart of Darkness. The colonialist attitude was more concerned about How much did the Congo cost Belgium (Jean Stengers, 1957) rather than how much did Belgian colonialism cost the Congo. Each attempt at trying to recast the relationship between the Congolese and globalisation psychologically (radical prophetism as healing - Simon Kimbangu and others), politically (P.E. Lumumba and others), militarily (P. Mulele and others), etc., unleashed the most barbaric forms of violence to infinitely discourage the possible resumption of similar attempts. Kimbangu was condemned to death and then to a life sentence (he died in jail, 1921-1951), Lumumba and his companions' remains were dissolved in acid. Mulele's body, cut into pieces, was put in a bag and thrown into the Congo river joining in the Ocean the bones of the rebelling slaves on the way to America. That was only the tip of the iceberg; how the less known ones were treated is not known.

Throughout its various phases since European contact, Africans have been forced into relationships imposed from outside, with catastrophic consequences for the majority. The transitions which took place - whether from slavery to abolition, from "discovery" to occupation, from negation to acceptance of Civil Rights (1866-1966), (W.E.B. DuBois, Reconstruction), from colonial status to Independence, from the Cold War to re-Globalisation – have generally had a negative impact on the relations between people in the Congo and between the Congolese people and others (J. Depelchin, 2003). Globalisation involves relationships to diseases, to means of death (traffic of arms), to the ecology, to the economy of crime (money laundering, drugs, sexual slavery), to the economy dominated by the dynamic of extraction of natural resources whose market is outside the country and thus also of looting, to world hegemony, to sexuality, to God, to peoples' psychology and cultures generally.

Pan-Africanism, independence or freedom and (racial) equality have characterized the consciousness of the Black man facing the various phases of globalisation. From the anti-slave revolts up to the independence of Haiti in 1804. From the first Negritude calls (Brazil) to the US-initiated Pan-Africanist Congresses. From anti-colonial struggles to national liberationist movements and independences in crisis. The anti-slave question, the anti-racialist question, the Pan-Africanist or African Unity question, the national question, the democracy question, the social question, the question of the protracted demand for compensation for slavery and for the equality of humanity, etc: all are so many calls from the struggles against globalisation.

Pro-globalisation consciousness often opposes those calls and celebrates calls for submission to and docility vis-à-vis the grossest forms of denial of the right to reclaim history and above all, as Cabral said, to assert the right of African people to make history: "The foundation of national liberation lies in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history." (A.Cabral, Unity and Struggles: Speeches and Writings, 980). To deny that right absolutely, the very existence of History is now being denied: History is globalisation made by everybody! Victims and victimizers are made equally responsible for the havoc that befalls on humanity. The world is said to have become a village, never mind the fact that movement of people from some parts of that village to other parts is extremely selectively restricted. When history of our people is allowed to be told, it is mostly done by historians acting as organic intellectuals of globalisation.

The Congo, without the willingness or consent of the Congolese, has been drawn into processes of mass destruction. In the 1940's the uranium which the USA used to execute its nuclear genocide of millions of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, came from the Belgian Congo. The USA responsible for 60% of world pollution, is refusing to endorse the Convention on the conservation of Nature, it sustains that irresponsible posture thanks to the deep and wild Congolese forest that minimizes pollution's impact on the whole world. But does the West responsible for most of world pollution, care about helping the Congolese protect and reproduce the forest? Each time a major virus threatening humanity's health appears, the Congo is pointed out as a possible origin of the virus. What is done to equip the Congo to avoid those possibilities? Nothing of some importance has taken place in the Congo since its creation by Berliner powers (1884-1885), without the involvement of external, generally Western, forces.

It is on this basis that the current situation of the Congo in the context of globalisation should be examined if we are going to be able to throw some light on this crucial and vital issue for the next generation of combatants for real freedom.

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South Africa has emerged as the second country with which the Home Office has started talks to take failed asylum seekers from Britain as part of a concerted drive to step up immigration removals and deportations. Negotiations with Tanzania are already underway though Tanzania, which already houses more refugees than any other sub-Saharan country, said it had rejected the idea.

The Ivorian crisis and the threat posed to peace and security by the numerous conflicts in the sub-region with their adverse effects on socio-economic development make it imperative for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to seriously consider the formation of a permanent ECOWAS rapid reaction capability to enable it to respond quickly and effectively to crisis situations. Similarly, ECOWAS member states should take steps to strengthen their political and security structures to enable them to prevent and resolve violent conflicts to ensure peace and stability in the sub-region. Otherwise, the objective of ECOWAS to raise the living standards of its people will ring increasingly hollow, according to an article on the web site of the African Security Dialogue.

Congolese military officials confirm that about 100 civilians and seven military officers in the south-eastern province of Katanga have been brutally slaughtered by rampant peasant Mai Mai warriors since January. The killings near the town of Kitenge, some 700 km north of the provincial capital Lubumbashi, highlight the challenges for nearly 11 000 UN peacekeeping troops deployed largely in the country's lawless east.

Burundi’s ethnic civil war is nearing a conclusion, according to the country’s president, Domitien Ndayizeye. Now entering its 11th year, the conflict has killed at least 300,000 people and forced more than 1 million to flee their homes. Speaking to journalists in Paris on Jan. 16, Ndayizeye said his country has reached “the point of no return on the road to peace and security.” Although hopes for an end to the fighting are high, the humanitarian situation is no less alarming than before and the transitional government and international community are still not doing nearly enough to “defuse” the “land time bomb,” according to a report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank.

In the most devastating attack on civilians in northern Uganda for nearly 10 years, rebels who have waged war in northern Uganda for 18 years, massacred at least 200 people in an internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp on Saturday, eyewitnesses said. Three bodies of those who died later at Lira referral hospital were being loaded by relatives on to a small truck on Monday morning to be taken for burial, while other injured IDPs were being treated by medical staff. Sam Ekomu, a survivor of the massacre, told IRIN his three cousins were among the dead.

Some Somali factions participating in the Somali peace talks in Kenya have accused the conference organisers of mismanaging the proceedings and disregarding the conference rules during the latest plenary session, said a press statement issued on Tuesday. On Monday night, the plenary endorsed "by a large majority" an agreement concluded in January, according to a source at the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), under whose auspices the talks are being held. The leaders of the Somali groups meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 29 January signed what has been described as "a landmark breakthrough" agreement on a number of contentious issues that had earlier been plaguing the peace talks.

Five people were killed in the northern town of Lira on Wednesday morning as thousands protested against the government’s "failure to protect its people from insurgency" and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army's (LRA) massacre of more than 200 internally displaced persons (IDPs) on Saturday.

Although war officially ended in the West African country in July, rebels still control the northern half while the government holds the south. After more than a year without any formal administration, a parallel system has started to emerge in the north - a sort of abnormal normality. This facade of normality marks a situation frustrated Ivorians - particularly those in the north of this former French colony - have come to know as "ni paix, ni guerre" (neither peace nor war).

Top Zimbabwe government and ruling party officials who have acquired multiple farms must surrender the extra farms for peasant resettlement or risk imprisonment for "theft" of state property, John Nkomo, special affairs minister in President Robert Mugabe's office, has warned. Nkomo, who was tasked with overseeing land reform and resettlement after the recent cabinet reshuffle, said influential people who were refusing to give up extra farms as ordered by Mugabe last year were violating the country's laws.

The problem of recurrent conflicts in West Africa has had very adverse effect on the sub region. The ethnic dimension of the conflicts is usually manifested in the hate speech, genocide and crimes against humanity that characterise it. This in turn has a devastating effect on the economic, political and social development of the region. It is in the light of these that a group of concerned students, with the support of the British Council and in conjunction with the Human Right Centre of University of Essex and The Nigeria Coalition on International Criminal Court is organising a seminar on conflicts in West Africa.

Free Software and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (Fossfa) co-ordinator Bildad Kagai has issued a strongly-worded warning to African governments that are - or are planning to - enter into "deals" with the Microsoft Corporation saying they were jeopordising their local software industry as well as limiting the potential of ICT development in their countries.

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Drawing on extensive research among Rwandese in Rwanda and Europe, and on his work with a conflict resolution NGO in post genocide Rwanda, the author argues that single, absolutist narratives and representations of genocide actually reinforce the modes of thinking that fuelled the genocide in the first place.