On Thursday 26^th November, the Royal Commonwealth Society facilitated a BBC World Debate in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. On the theme, ‘The Commonwealth at 60 – Does it Have a Future?’, the World Debate focused on many of the issues highlighted by participants in the Commonwealth Conversation. Watch it by clicking on the picture or follow this link.  

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Derek Ingram, veteran Commonwealth journalist, muses on the association’s finances:

One of the best outcomes of the recent Commonwealth summit in Trinidad was that at long last the leaders agreed to rationalise the organisation’s finances. Many people are under the impression that the Commonwealth costs a lot of money. Nothing could be further from the truth…

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At the end of their meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in November 2009, Commonwealth leaders called for the establishment of an ‘Eminent Person’s Group’ to undertake an examination of options for reform. Read their full statement about this here. But who do you think should be in the Eminent Person’s Group? People who know lots about the Commonwealth, like former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser? Or people who know less about it, like businessman Richard Branson? Share your thoughts with us, and we’ll pass them on…

Recent months have seen the issue of homosexuality being widely debated in various African member states of the Commonwealth. Uganda’s proposed ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009’, calling for the execution of ‘repeat homosexual offenders’, has been internationally condemned. Late last year, Rwanda came close to criminalising homosexuality for the first time when its penal code was being revised. Meanwhile, an engaged gay couple in Malawi were recently arrested and charged with ‘unnatural offences’. Is homophobia a real problem in the African Commonwealth, thus contradicting the high human-rights standards the association is supposed to uphold?

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