Arcadia Foundation

Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said Thursday that new corruption charges brought against him by Honduras’ newly elected government amount to political persecution.

Zelaya said in a statement from the Dominican Republic that the charges undermine efforts to promote national reconciliation following his ouster.

He said the charges “seek personal revenge and worsen the political persecution against me, forgetting national reconciliation.”

Honduras’ anti-corruption prosecutor is seeking to charge Zelaya with allegedly diverting $1.5 million in welfare funds to his campaign for a referendum on reforming the constitution.

Zelaya was recently appointed the head of a new political council in Petrocaribe, founded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 as he prepared to begin a life of relative obscurity in exile in the Dominican Republic. Through this appointment, Chavez has ostentatiously incorporated Zelaya to his payroll. Many analysts agree that the appointment by Chavez was more than a gesture of friendship.

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The son of Togo’s late dictator has been re-elected president, election officials said, extending the family’s four-decade rule in the west African nation.

Faure Gnassingbe succeeded his father, President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who died five years ago after ruling since 1967.

President Gnassingbe had 1.2 million votes, according to preliminary results released by the country’s election commission Saturday.

His main challenger, opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre, got nearly 700,000 votes, the commission reported.

“The opposition will contest the results” in court and on the streets, Union of Forces for Change representative Kofi Yamgnane told reporters Sunday.

Indeed they did. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the opposition party headquarters in Lome, the capital.  The opposition’s insistency the election was stolen has further raised political risk amidst fears of a new wave of violence in Togo. Protesters in Lomé have already been met with tear gas.

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If you ask most Ghanaians how they would like to see their country in the next thirty years, undoubtedly, their answer would be to see less corrupt and more prosperous. Indeed, Ghanaians do deserve to have a country as such and indeed, they are starting to see such prosperity today.

It appears as though Ghana will retain 38% of its domestic oil revenue, an advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Joe Amoako-Tuffuor has stated, quoting a Daily Graphic report from March 6, 2010.

With the country’s current GDP at well over $18 billion, Dr Oteng-Adjei said the total revenue to the government and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in respect of royalties, income tax and interest payment on oil and gas exploration would be $1 billion per annum, at an average crude oil price of $60 per barrel.

With oil, telecoms and alternative investors pouring in to the country, we mustn’t take a blind eye to the gaping holes in their sustainable development plan, one of which, being ongoing corruption in governance.

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Its undebatable that Nigeria is suffering from a crisis of leadership. The real victims, however, may be the casualties of civil unrest so violent in past days, its not a question of when an unorganized government will hunker down and control the situation but if.

Amidst the controversy encircling the executive office, a recent resurgence of ethnic clashes may showcase the further dissolution of a transitional government.

During the absence of former/current President Yar ‘Adua due to serious health issues, acting President Goodluck Jonathan is set to meet with security chiefs to discuss the recent clashes involving Muslim herders and Christian villagers that killed hundreds of people near the central city of Jos.

A security meeting in Abuja is begging held as authorities in Jos bury hundreds of hacked bodies of victims, mostly women and children, in mass graves.

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Days before Sean Penn graced millions of television viewers with a brief appearance at the Academy Awards gala, he was seen putting on a performance of his own.

Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

And the award for best supporting actor of an erratic authoritative regime goes to….

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In TIME Magazine’s ‘A Postcard From Kampala‘, Glenna Gordon masterfully depicts the near-tangible sense of fear within the homosexual community in contemporary Uganda. She documents a couple’s mutual trepidation of expressing love while a controversial bill looms over them. The legislation, if passed, would just about make it illegal to be homosexual. The civil unrest that has followed has left a nation on the brink of losing their own modern culture and economy for the sake of barbarism.

Pepe Julian Onziema looks great in a suit. Tall and lanky, she doesn’t slouch to hide her height and doesn’t apologize for her boyish figure. Or for anything. She’s got at least 10 suits: pinstripes, white linen, black, gray, navy and others. She buys them from a guy who runs a shop on Entebbe Road, a major Kampala thoroughfare. He knows her build, and he knows what she likes.

These days, though, Onziema doesn’t wear suits nearly as often as she used to. As one of a dozen or so publicly out Ugandan homosexuals, Onziema knows that even a trip to a local shop is risky. Wearing a suit can be a death wish.

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It has been a difficult month for the Tories across the pond in Britain – talk of internal divisions and doubts over their economic policy make question time fun to watch again.  Now is the time for a positive PR campaign, some votes for the blue boys. The Guardian gets proper credit for reporting this one – they’re at least getting international commendations; no lesser global statesman than Robert Mugabe has offered David Cameron his endorsement.

“We have always related better with the British through the Conservatives than Labour,” Zimbabwe’s president said today. “Conservatives are bold, [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown run away when they see me, but not these fools, they know how to relate to others.”

If David Cameron relates to others like Robert Mugabe relates to others, I for one am happy I’m on this side of the pond.

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The foundations of repression established by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela are slowly deteriorating and Hillary Clinton knows it. From a geopolitical perspective, when precedents of domestic policy are formally addressed and scrutinized by foreign powers strategically, one is viewing a significant catalyst towards the implementation of tangible change.

And so, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a mission to mend relations with a new and improved Honduras, took an opportunity during a recent interview in Sao Paulo, Brazil to touch on Venezuela’s crisis of democracy.

Clearly referring to our often-referenced authoritarian, Hillary noted that “…there are leaders in countries who just want to rule the way they choose. They don’t want to make their people freer, they don’t want to take away special privileges from the elite and share it with the people, they don’t want to change.”

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Parliament Speaker Edward Sekandi has told critics of the anti-homosexuality bill that it won’t be withdrawn.

Proposed in October, 2009, the measure would broaden the criminalization of homosexuality and introduce the death penalty for those who have previous convictions, are HIV positive or engage in homosexual sex with people younger than 18. Gay sex already is illegal in Uganda.

Sekandi suggested those opposed to the bill present views to the parliamentary legal affairs committee.

“We shall consider your views, but we cannot withdraw the bill,” Ssekandi said Monday. “It has to follow proper procedures.”

Sekandi was responding to a petition presented to Parliament by a group that described itself as AIDS service providers, spiritual mentors and counselors. It is headed by the Rev. Gideon Byamugisha. More than 450,000 people have signed an online petition against the bill.

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Good help is hard to find. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom knows it – he recently fired his interior minister for alleged corruption and has now replaced him with a former journalist.

Colom says he found irregularities in a contract signed by Interior Minister Raul Velasquez to buy fuel for the country’s national police. Colom then announced he was firing Velasquez in a televised message to the nation Sunday night.

Local media say that Velasquez authorized a $6.2 million contract with a private company to buy fuel for police but that the company embezzled the money.

Colom replaced Velasquez with Carlos Menocal, a former journalist who was a presidential commissioner responsible for combatting organized crime and corruption.