Tread lightly around China: Trade treaties

On current trends China will be an economic superpower within a generation. Therefore engaging China politically and recalibrating our economic policies towards her are absolute necessities.

Interest groups give people a voice: Zambian constitution

Interest groups can act as opposition agents when influencing government. Hence, political parties practise opposition politics, but interest groups do, too. This is happening in Zambia, where interest groups are questioning the current constitutional review process the fourth since independence from the UK in October 1964.

Time to Rethink Nepad

A talk shop that fails to drive implementation won’t hold the world’s attention much longer.

Testing: A Risk Either Way

What good is getting tested for HIV/AIDS if there is no support system when the results come back? Where is the incentive in finding out your status if the penalty for testing positive is losing some of your rights as a human being? It’s almost like playing dead in a desert while a group of vultures circles above.

Zimbabwe’s NGOs fight for survival: Civil Society

Recent demonstrations by the pro-democracy interest group, the National Constitutional Assembly in Zimbabwe, highlight the plight of interest groups and NGOs should government enact the draft Non-Governmental Organisations Bill.

Parliament: Zim opposition’s last hope

‘What Mugabe can’t control he makes irrelevant,’ observed a leading Harare economist recently. Perhaps this explains the claim that its parliament is Zimbabwe’s most democratic institution.

Mbeki: ‘Mugabe using violence to cling to power’

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has no intention of holding free and fair elections, according to Moeletsi Mbeki, the deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs and brother to President Thabo Mbeki.