A man walks on spilled crude oil on the shores of the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in Ogoniland, Nigeria. WikiLeaks cables highlight Shells involvement with the Nigerian government. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images
Dirty tricks by multinationals, political corruption and the erosion of an African success story have been among the stories that have emerged from the leaked US embassy cables over the past fortnight.
The leaked cables, published by WikiLeaks, say that drug company Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on the Nigerian attorney general to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial meningitis drug trial.
The cables also highlight rampant corruption in Kenya that threatens to push the country towards violence on a scale worse than that seen after the 2008 presidential election, and uncovers the scale of influence the oil giant Shell wields in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Ugandan president's "autocratic tendencies" come under scrutiny, which, along with corruption, a population explosion and "sharpening ethnic divisions" is ruining Uganda's image as an African success story.
Elsewhere on the site
Coinciding with the publication of his book Beyond the Crash, Madeleine Bunting examines Gordon Brown's passion for development, which seems at odds with his enthusiasm for globalisation, and asks if Britain's former prime minister is vying for a top job at the IMF.
Jonathan Glennie argues that while African leaders may prefer to deal with China, rather than the US and Europe, any money from Beijing will still come with strings attached.
And Kelly Nicholls writes about the publication of a report that reveals the hidden human tragedy of the 30,000 "disappeared" in Colombia.
Coming up on the site
Later this week, we'll launch this month's Global development Focus podcast, which will explore the involvement of celebrities in aid and development. Visit our Talk point section and tell us which celebrities you think do the most good, or the most harm, and nominate those you think we should discuss in the podcast, which will be recorded on Thursday.
To mark the Global development website's first Christmas, we'll be publishing a quiz over the festive period to test your knowledge of our coverage of the issues over the past four months.
And with 2011 just around the corner, we'll look back at what 2010 did for global development, and look ahead to what the new year could bring.
Multimedia
Gallery: South Sudan: the challenge ahead. In January, south Sudan votes on whether to split from the north. National Geographic photographer Karen Kasmasuki, who works with the humanitarian organisation Cafod, visited Sudan and examines the challenges that lie ahead, regardless of the outcome of the referendum.
Video: Mozambique: Changing weather patterns and livelihoods. Weather in the Zambezi flood plain has become so unpredictable that subsistence farmers in Mozambique are having to adapt and diversify into different livelihoods.
Video: Child labourers on Malawi's tobacco farms. Vulnerable children are being exposed to hazardous working conditions in the tobacco industry. It is estimated that more than 78,000 children work on tobacco estates across Malawi, some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1p an hour.
What you said: Some of the best comments from our readers
On the Talk point article asking for views on the involvement of celebrities in global development, a senior NGO communications manager, who wished to remain anonymous, said:
I think we're all stuck in the celeb PR cycle. Just recently a pop star offered to launch an event for us, only to do loads of PR for his new album the following week. Hasn't said a thing about our organisation. We simply seem to be part of the standard PR routine for any celeb and I rarely, if ever, sense any genuine engagement.
On a blog about tax payments in poor countries, Poverty Focus writes:
If governments made it easier for entrepreneurs to grow their business, more of them would happily join the formal sector, start contributing taxes and thus help the country at large.
On Richard Mallett's blog on why aid should not be used to meet the UK's security agenda, NickYoung writes:
It seems to me that a mix of responses is probably appropriate: helping (if aid can) middle-income countries, as their tax bases grow, to develop the kind of selective safety-nets that are becoming affordable to them.
Highlights from the blogosphere
On AidWatch, William Eastely compares the campaigning credentials of John Lennon and Bono and ponders the "death of the celebrity activist".
Owen Barder responds to the World Bank's Shanta Devarajan on whether increased social accountability is the answer to "Development 3.0".
Rachel Godfrey Wood, of the IIED, speculates on the Due South blog, on Iran "sleep-walking" towards a progressive universal income grant.
