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G8: It's the 'Blame the Victim' Summit

Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) and the World Development Movement (WDM) briefing

2002-06-27

http://www.actsa.org/News/press_releases/250602_nepad.htm

Leaders of the G8 have adopted a new approach to their annual summits. Over the past five years, they have met in tumultuous carnival of protests and empty promises. This year, they have retreated to a fireside chat in a remote mountain resort, far away from demonstrations.

But some things will stay the same. There will be more empty promises. The G8 will re-announce token amounts of aid and debt cancellation, and promise more in the future. But the real responsibility for the economic crisis in Africa will be blamed on the African countries themselves.

NEPAD and G8 Action Plan for Africa

At their meeting on 26 - 28 June in Kananaskis, Canada, the G8 leaders will unveil an 'Action Plan on Africa'. The fact that the leaders of the rich countries are committing themselves to engage with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), being hailed an 'African plan for African development', is a welcome change from the recent past, when plans were imposed from G8 capitals.

However, as pointed out in 'Africa: What the G8 must deliver', the new briefing by Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) and the World Development Movement (WDM), the crucial test for the G8 is whether they will deliver on their own responsibilities, rather than blaming Africa for its poverty.

It is undeniable that there has been poor governance, corruption and mismanagement in Africa. However, the briefing reveals the context - the legacy of colonialism, the support of the G8 for repressive regimes in the Cold War, the creation of the debt trap, the massive failure of Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the IMF and World Bank and the deeply unfair rules on international trade. The role of the G8 in creating the conditions for Africa's crisis cannot be denied. Its overriding responsibility must be to put its own house in order, and to end the unjust policies that are inhibiting Africa's development.

Yet the G8 will do little and lecture Africa extensively. Its communique will undoubtedly recycle some of the most pervasive myths:
* Africa has received increasing amounts of aid over the years - in fact, aid to Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 48% over the 1990s;
* Africa needs to integrate more into the global economy - in fact, trade accounts for a larger proportion of Africa's income than of the G8;
* Economic reform will generate new foreign investment - in fact, investment to Africa has fallen since they opened up their economies;
* Bad governance has caused Africa's poverty - in fact, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), economic conditions imposed by the IMF and the World Bank were the dominant influence on economic policy in the two decades to 2000, a period in which Africa's income per head fell by 10% and income of the poorest 20% of people fell by 2% per year .

As a result of these myths, the victims are being blamed for their poverty. Africa is already labouring under conditions imposed by the IMF and World Bank, aid donors, the US Growth and Opportunity Act, the EU Cotonou agreement, Bilateral Investment Treaties and the 28 agreements of the World Trade Organisation.

Promises, promises...

The past record of the G8 does not give confidence of real commitment. The strategy has been: Make promise. Grab headlines. Tick it off. Job done. Then when the shouting dies down... quietly break promise.

* Last year, they ticked off HIV/AIDS with a Trust Fund - only $2.1 billion, a fraction of the $10 billion called for by Kofi Annan, has been delivered.
* In 1999, they apparently ended the debt crisis with a promise of $100 billion - only $13 billion of debt stock has been cancelled to date ($7.5 billion in Net Present Value).

Year after year, they have promised to support education for all, to make trade rules fairer and to end tied aid to the poorest countries. Yet, year after year, the G8 has failed to deliver.

This year, it is likely to be even worse. The promises from previous summits will not only be recycled, they will come with a heavy price tag.

* $1 billion more for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Trust Fund will come with a continuation of the IMF and World Bank influence over economic policies of African countries.
* Improved access to rich markets will come with increased pressure on Africa through World Trade Organisation negotiations to give new rights to multinational companies producing a wide range of services, including those that are essential to the poor.
* Announcements of aid for Africa will not be "new money", but will come with new conditions on African leaders, including those related to migration.

As the G8 discusses new forms of conditionality, Africa is being divided into the deserving and undeserving poor. ACTSA and WDM are calling on the G8 to stop tinkering at the margins and actually deliver on its long-standing promises to Africa. This G8 must stop blaming the victims and commit to a real development plan that reflects Africa's urgent needs.

Links on Nepad and the G8:

* How does the G8 affect Africa?
http://g8.activist.ca/print/g8-africaflyer-sp.pdf

* Critiques of NEPAD from African NGO's
http://www.web.net/~iccaf/debtsap/nepad.htm

* NEPAD: A critical review
http://www.sask.fi/Documents/NepadLRS.doc

* Little hope for Africa from G8
http://www.debtchannel.org/

call to oppose sudanese death sentences

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/8479

Twelve prisoners were hung in Sudan in the closing days of May and a further 15 prisoners have been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution, according to the World Organisation Against Torture, whose international secretariat urgently requests those opposed to the death penalty to write to the Sudanese authorities and protest against the killings.
Case SDN 240602
Fair trial / Death Penalty

The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT
intervention in the following situation in Sudan.

Brief description of the situation

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the Sudan
Organisation Against Torture (SOAT), a member of the OMCT network,
that 12 prisoners that were charged with armed robbery were hanged on
May 22nd, 23rd and 25th, 2002, and that a further 15 prisoners have
been sentenced to death and are awaiting their execution, in Dafour,
Sudan.

According to the information received, under Articles 167 and 168 of
the Sudan Penal Code, the punishment for armed robbery, also known as
harrab, is death and death followed by crucifixion.

The names and execution dates of the men that have been publicly
executed in Alfashir Prison in Northern Dafour are as follows:

Adam Daw Albait Abou 22/05
Ahmed Idris Daifan 22/05
Mohamed Ishag Fouda 22/05
Mansour Saeed Fadim 23/05
Hamdan Rabieh Tagadiem 23/05
Ismail Adam Sabiel 23/05
Aldowma Mohamed Saeed 23/05
Nasir Aldin Shahata Tagadiem 23/05
Adam Abakar Hamdan 25/05
Alsaied Adam Alzain 25/05
Musabil Mohamed Abdalla 25/05
Issa Arga Osman 25/05

According to the information received, the High Court failed to
review Mr. Musabil Mohamed Abdalla and Mr. Issa Arga Osman's cases,
and blatantly failed to abide by the fundamental rules of court,
leading to death sentences having been handed out as the result of
unfair trials.

According to the report, a further 15 men, whose identities remain
unknown at present, are still awaiting execution in Southern Dafour.
The Special Court sentenced these detainees to death by hanging
during the months of March and May 2002.

The Special Court, established in accordance with the State of
Emergency Act 1998 by the Governors of Southern and Northern Dafour
Provinces, deals with crimes of armed robbery, crimes against the
state, as well as crimes relating to drugs and public nuisance. The
Special Court operates with two military judges and one civil judge.
Lawyers are forbidden to stand before the Special Court and
plaintiffs are given the right to appeal only when sentenced to death
or amputation. Under such circumstances, the appeal must be made
within seven days of the sentence to the District Chief of Justice,
whose decision is final. According to the information received, the
Sudanese Minister of Justice has publicly admitted that the Special
Courts are not following correct judicial procedures.

OMCT considers that these persons rights were violated due to
breaches of internationally recognised fair trial standards and
guarantees, including: the right to be tried by an impartial
tribunal, the right to appeal before an independent tribunal, the
right to legal representation, alongside the fact that these
civilians were tried by what is effectively a military tribunal.

The International Secretariat of OMCT is gravely concerned for the
physical and psychological integrity of the 15 men that have been
sentenced to death. OMCT stresses that it is strongly opposed to the
death penalty as an extreme form of cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment and a violation of the right to life, as proclaimed in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human
rights instruments. Furthermore, OMCT is concerned that the
conditions for a fair trial were not present and that the rights of
the defence were ignored.

Action requested

Please write to the authorities in Sudan urging them to:

i. immediately repeal the death sentence;
ii. prohibit the use of Special Courts in Dafour, as they fail to
comply with judicial procedures or internationally recognised fair
trial standards and guarantees;
iii. order that the afore-mentioned persons who are awaiting
execution be released immediately in the absence of valid legal
charges or, if such charges exist, bring them before an impartial and
competent tribunal and guarantee their procedural rights at all
times;
iv. order a thorough and impartial investigation into the
circumstances of these events and guarantee that those responsible
are brought to trial and that the penal, civil and/or administrative
sanctions are applied as provided by law;
v. guarantee adequate redress to the families of those persons that
have been executed as the result of unfair trials;
vi. guarantee the respect of human rights and the fundamental
freedoms throughout the country in accordance with national laws and
international human rights laws and standards.


Addresses

· His Excellency Lieutenant General Omar Hassan al-Bashir, President
of the Republic of Sudan, President' s Palace, PO Box 281, Khartoum,
Sudan, Fax: + 24911 783223/787676
· His Excellency Mr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PO Box 873, Khartoum, Sudan,
Fax: + 24911 779383
· Dr Ahmed al-Mufti, Advisory Council for Human Rights, PO Box 302,
Khartoum, Sudan, Sudan, Fax: + 24911 770883
· Mr Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin, Minister of Justice and Attorney
General, Ministry of Justice, Khartoum, Sudan, Fax: + 24911 788941
· His Excellency Ambassador Mr. Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim, Permanent
Mission of the Republic of Sudan to the United Nations in Geneva, PO
Box 335, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +4122 731 26 56, E-mail:
mission.sudan@ties.itu.int

Please also write to the diplomatic representatives of Sudan in your
country.

Geneva, June 24th, 2002

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this
appeal in your reply.

Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT)
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura (OMCT)
8 rue du Vieux-Billard
Case postale 21
CH-1211 Geneve 8
Suisse/Switzerland
Tel. : 0041 22 809 49 39
Fax : 0041 22 809 49 29
E-mail : omct@omct.org
http://www.omct.org

Brian MacGarry

Harare, Zimbabwe

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/8554

Shona Pollock

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/8523

This is an excellent resource and I will pass it on to our members.

fifty authors confirmed for africa book fair

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/8499

Preparations for the Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century celebrations and awards presentation ceremony are on course. At least 50 of the 100 authors have confirmed their participation in the event due to be held at the Civic Centre in Cape Town. Also expected to attend are the patron of the project, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the founding father of the project, Prof. Ali Mazrui. This event is also expected to be attended by former President Nelson Mandela and senior officials and dignitaries from UNESCO and the OAU. In his letter of acceptance, Mazrui said; "I am delighted that plans are going in full-stream ahead for the Literary Centennial Gala in Cape Town in the last week of July."
NEWS RELEASE - Please note the change of venue for the Gala dinner from Robben Island to the Civic Centre
Preparation for celebrations in Cape Town on course
21 June 2002

Preparations for the Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century celebrations and awards presentation ceremony are on course. At least 50 of the 100 authors have confirmed their participation in the event due to be held at the Civic Centre in Cape Town. Also expected to attend are the patron of the project, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the founding father of the project, Prof. Ali Mazrui. This event is also expected to be attended by former President Nelson Mandela and senior officials and dignitaries from UNESCO and the OAU. In his letter of acceptance, Mazrui said; "I am delighted that plans are going in full-stream ahead for the Literary Centennial Gala in Cape Town in the last week of July."

Commending the organisers of the project, the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, for organising an Indaba (conference) to complement the celebrations. He described ZIBF's Indaba as an event which has always been "a major intellectual event at the Book Fair". The Indaba is being held for the 7th consecutive year. The event is usually held to preceded the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Harare.

The Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century Project was born in Harare, launched in Abuja, London and Frankfurt announced in Accra - and will be celebrated in Cape Town. It is a truly Pan-African initiative, organised by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) in association with the African Publishers' Network (APNET), the Pan African Booksellers Association (PABA) and the Pan African Writers' Association (PAWA). Mazrui's vision when he challenged ZIBF to run the project at the Indaba in 1998 to was to find a way to direct the spotlight of the world on the achievements of African writers.

The jury, chaired by Professor Njabulo Ndebele, came from thirteen countries representing all the regions of Africa and from other continents. Each member had expertise in African writing and publishing. Books were considered in three categories: Children's' writing, non-fiction/scholarship and creative writing - and the final list comprises works in Afrikaans, Arabic, English, French, Gikuyu, Portuguese, Sesotho, Shona, Swahili, IsiXhosa, Yoruba and IsiZulu.

Titles were nominated by individuals and institutions from all over the world and were subjected by the jury to rigorous criteria which included, inter alia, assessment of quality, ability to provide new information or insight, continuing contribution to debate, and the extent to which a book breaks boundaries. The jury was particularly concerned to ensure that the final list would reflect a balance of regional representation, gender, historical spread and genres of writing.

A list such as this is bound to generate controversy but the Project organisers and the jury welcome debate and hope that it will lead to a re-evaluation of Africa's significant contribution to world literature. Among the books represented are several from South Africa including Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog, Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee, Die Swerfjare van Poppie Nongena by Elsa Joubert, Ingqumbo Yeminyanya by A C Jordan, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Native Life in South Africa by Sol Plaatje and Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

The celebrations to be held in Cape Town on 26th and 27th July will be attended by hundreds of Africa's best writers and their publishers and will go some way towards consolidating the spirit of the African Union and the African Renaissance.

"The choice of Cape Town as the venue for the Awards Presentation Gala demonstrates the Pan Africanism of the Project which is a public relations exercise for Africa's book industry. South Africa has diverse media and publishing houses" said Moses Samkange, Executive Director of ZIBF.

The theme of the Indaba will be 'The impact of African writing on world literature' and topics to be discussed will include 'African fiction in a world setting', ' Human rights and democracy - the writer's responsibility' and 'The African scholarly contribution to world knowledge'. Among the presenters will be Njabulo Ndebele, Ali Mazrui, Kole Omotoso, Mia Cuoto and Niyi Osundare and it is hoped that the distinguished South African authors, André Brink and Charles Van Onselen (who are both represented on the final list) will also participate, along with prominent scholars and publishers. The Indaba is to be held at the Baxter Theatre in Rosebank and the foyer of the Theatre will be given over to a book exhibition. Exhibition stands have already been booked by many local publishers as well publishers from other African countries, the United Kingdom and Europe. Both events will be open to the public - entrance to the Indaba will be by paid registration. On Saturday evening the Gala Awards Presentation ceremony, Africa's first books "Oscars", will be hosted by the City of Cape Town.


Moses Samkange
Executive Director


Zimbabwe International Book Fair
Harare Gardens
P.O. Box CY1179
Causeway
Zimbabwe
Tel: 263 4 702104, 702108, 707352, 705729, 704112
Fax: 263 4 702129
Email: information@zibf.org.zw
Website: http://zibf.org

Cape Town
Exhibition: 26 - 28 July 2002
Indaba Dates: 26 & 27 July 2002
Indaba Theme: The Impact of African Writing on World Literature
Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century Awards Presentation Gala : 28 July 2002

ZIBF2002 (Harare) Theme: A Celebration of Africa's Best
Indaba Dates: 29 - 30 July 2002
Theme: The Impact of African Writing on World Literature
Focus: Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century
Writers Workshop Dates: 31 July - 1 August, 2002
Book Fair Dates: 30 July - 3 August 2002
Setting up day: 29 July 2002

Qualitative Methods: A Field Guide for Applied Research

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/8486

This field guide is a practical, hands-on guide for use by social scientists, public health specialists, and research teams interested in using qualitative methods to study sexual and reproductive health.
Qualitative Methods: A Field Guide for Applied Research in Sexual and
Reproductive Health
This field guide is a practical, hands-on guide for use by social
scientists, public health specialists, and research teams interested in
using qualitative methods to study sexual and reproductive health.
Copies are available at no cost to developing country researchers and
organizations. For ordering information contact publications@fhi.org

The WTO, Agriculture and Sustainable Development

2002-06-27

http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/catalogue/wtoagri.htm

Despite the Doha declaration of November 2001, the failure to start a new round of global trade negotiations at Seattle in December 1999 and the hostility of protesters to the trade liberalisation process and growing global economic and social disparities was a wake-up call for the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The ambitious goal of this ground-breaking book is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of liberalised world trade, in particular in the agricultural sector, and to investigate to what extent the current WTO agreements provide the necessary fail-safe devices to react to trade-related negative impacts on sustainability, environmental protection and food security. The background and interrelationship between the WTO, the tenets of sustainable development and the unique features of the agriculture and forestry sectors are explored, and conclusions regarding the deficits of the world trade system and its conflicts with basic societal goals—such as sustainability—are drawn.

africa: US GROUPS in bush appeal for unfpa funds

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/8530

A group of 25 population, women's rights, medical, religious and health groups sent a letter last week to US President George Bush asking him to release life-saving funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The group says women and their children are suffering because the funds have not been released.
US GROUPS APPEAL TO PRESIDENT BUSH TO RELEASE FUNDS FOR UNFPA
The following letter was sent on Monday to President George W. Bush on behalf of a group of 25 population, women's rights, medical, religious and health groups:

Dear President Bush:

We urge you to release the full Fiscal Year 2002 appropriation of $34 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). A strong bipartisan agreement was reached in Congress - and signed into law by you - to provide these life-saving funds to UNFPA. Women and their children are suffering from your withholding of these funds.
The Fund is the lead global agency providing voluntary family planning, pregnancy and delivery care, and works to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV AIDS for some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. It is one of the global leaders in efforts to eradicate obstetric fistula, a devastating injury that is virtually non-existent in developed countries, and to eliminate the practice of female genital mutilation that threatens more than two million young girls in Africa every year.
UNFPA programs are feeling the effects of the $34 million funding freeze by the United States, causing cuts in personnel and programs. For example, an urgently needed HIV prevention program for war-effected people in Liberia and Sierra Leone is facing a cut of $400,000. If the funds are not released, the shortfall could lead to as many as two million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths.
UNFPA's program in China is one of the most monitored and reviewed projects in the world, and none have found evidence of support of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. If they had, we all could not support UNFPA.
Again, we urge you to release the agreed-to $34 million to UNFPA and let those dollars get to use protecting families and saving lives.

SOURCE: US Newswire, 25 June 2002

ETHIOPIA: Women's empowerment vital for development - government

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/8461

Women must seize the opportunity of equality and fight for their rights, the Ethiopian government urged on Monday. Without their full participation in society the country could never attain rapid and sustained development, the information ministry declared in a statement.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

ETHIOPIA: Women's empowerment vital for development - government

ADDIS ABABA, 24 June (IRIN) - Women must seize the opportunity of equality and fight for their rights, the Ethiopian government urged on Monday. Without their full participation in society the country could never attain rapid and sustained development, the information ministry declared in a statement.

It conceded, however, that major hurdles would have to be overcome before women could achieve equality. "The development and democratisation process under way in our country cannot achieve its goals without the full participation of women," it said. It noted that in this context "arduous efforts" were being made towards this objective, citing both a new legal framework and a schools policy launched with a view to helping women.

The statement went on to say that women's rights were upheld in the Ethiopian constitution. "The issue of women's equality is an issue of the whole society, and this view is becoming widespread in the country. The vital role of women for development and democratisation has no alternative at all." It said women were engaging in "ever-growing participation" in the country's economic, political and social life.

However, the government also observed that the effort to emancipate women must also be made within the family. "A concerted effort must also be applied at the family level, in order to raise and strengthen awareness of women's rights."

The enrolment rate of girls in schools is far below that of boys, despite a countrywide drive to encourage women to receive education. At present some 40 percent of girls across the country are enrolled in primary schools - compared to an average for boys of 57 percent.

The government said women had been oppressed in Ethiopia for thousands of years, but a transformation of their status was now under way. "In particular, women, cognizant that their struggle for equality has only just begun, must organise themselves and struggle. A woman must not be passive whenever her legitimate rights are violated. It must be clear to everyone that democratisation and development will never be realised without the participation of women," the statement concluded.


[ENDS]

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kenya: Twenty Pokot Girls Hospitalised After Circumcision

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206240186.html

Twenty girls have been admitted at Ortum Mission Hospital in West Pokot after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM). And among them, 10 have successfully been operated on by a team of doctors from University of Nairobi led by Dr Hillary Mabeya. The girls aged between 10 and 16 were rescued from bleeding to death by a local NGO, Setat Women Group - North Rift Chapter.

namibia: Teen Pregnancy Rate 'High' in Karibib Area

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260112.html

Last year one in five pregnant women in the Karibib district were teenagers who should have been in school, says Dr Matthew Akpo. The Usakos-based doctor told a Women's Action for Development (WAD) Field Day at Karibib last Saturday, that the teenage pregnancy rate remained high even though health workers were teaching family planning techniques.

nigeria: 1,098 Victims of Trafficking Deported in Three Years

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260484.html

Two hundred victims of human trafficking were deported to Nigeria last week, bringing to 1,098 the number sent back from Europe and North America in the past three years, figures released on Wednesday by the Nigerian immigration authorities showed. More than 98 percent or 1,081 were women who had been sold to prostitution rings in the different countries. Only 17 of the victims were male.

nigeria: Ajanaku Wants Gender Balance in Parties

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250173.html

The Special Adviser to the President on Women Affairs, Mrs. Titilayo Ajanaku, has called for the restructuring of the political parties at all levels to ensure gender balance. She said "all stakeholders hold it as a duty to see how the women can be encouraged to function and how to make the atmosphere conducive for women's participation without destroying their identities and distinctiveness."

SIERRA LEONE: Aid Group Works To Ease Return Of Sex Abuse Victims

2002-06-27

http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2002/06/21/27183

As they struggle to reintegrate back into their communities following civil conflict in Sierra Leone, women and girls who have been sexually abused by combatants are receiving much-needed assistance from Christian Children's Fund, which is promoting community dialogue and education in the country.

Swaziland: laws make women legal minors

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48638

Swaziland’s authorities have been accused of stepping up their repression of women following a decree that women may not wear trousers because it against social traditions. Reports from the capital Mbabane say soldiers will enforce the law by ripping trousers off women who dare to flout the custom.

AFRICA: Analysts warn of challenges ahead of AU launch

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8544

Analysts on Thursday issued a cautious welcome for the African Union (AU), expected to be launched on 8-10 July in Durban, South Africa. Speaking to western diplomats gathered at the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), political observers agreed that although the transformation from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU was a promising move, the new organisation faced enormous challenges.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

AFRICA: Analysts warn of challenges ahead of AU launch

JOHANNESBURG, 20 June (IRIN) - Analysts on Thursday issued a cautious welcome for the African Union (AU), expected to be launched on 8-10 July in Durban, South Africa.

Speaking to western diplomats gathered at the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), political observers agreed that although the transformation from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU was a promising move, the new organisation faced enormous challenges.

Although relatively upbeat about the launch, applied legal studies expert Prof Shadrack Gutto said: "The most important challenge for African leaders is to make the AU not only coherent but relevant to the African people."

Gutto commended the wording of the AU's mission statement, "A New African Initiative", saying that the ambitious plan outlined in the statement went far beyond anything ever envisaged by the OAU.

"The new institution is more about the present moment. Women and the youth are explicitly mentioned in the mission, which is a reflection of the change in attitudes among leaders. In 1963 these groups were not a priority for the founders of the OAU."

The formation in 1963 of the OAU was the first attempt to make real the vision of a united Africa.

However, with an out-of-date charter, which narrowly defined sovereignty, the pan-African organisation has been widely criticised for its apparent protection of dictators by its so-called principle of non-interference.

Significantly, the AU, unlike its predecessor, will have the political leverage to intervene in member states where there is evidence of serious human rights violations, such as genocide and war crimes.

Senior Africa researcher at SAIIA, Ross Herbert said: "It is one thing to have it down on paper, but the real test is the implementation in practical terms. How much power will leaders have to rope in countries such as Zimbabwe, which seems to have gone off the rails, remains to be seen."

The union will be multi-faceted, with an assembly made up of all the heads of state and an executive council composed of foreign ministers. Included in the union plan are a pan-African parliament, a court of justice and a central bank.

The new resolve to end Africa's conflicts and develop the continent's many moribund economies, was affirmed at a summit in Lusaka last July and leaders were given a year to prepare for the AU launch.

But NGOs and analysts labelled the union as a "waste of money" and "another autocratic nightmare".

"The AU will require a budget much larger than that of the OAU. Leaders will have to be more creative about how they intend to finance such an ambitious project," Gutto added.

As the OAU cedes to the AU, it is owed US $50 million in arrears as less than a third of its members have paid their membership fees.

Central to the success of the AU is the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African-designed plan to rebuild the continent. If the plan gets off the ground, the hope is to generate US $64 billion in investment yearly, boosting continent-wide annual economic growth to seven percent.

In return, western countries are asking Africa to make a commitment to democracy and the fight against corruption.

At a summit in Nigeria in March, 21 African states agreed on a communique which proposed eight draft codes of behaviour to be judged by an independent, credible African institute "separate from the political process and structures".

The African Peer Review Mechanism, as it has been dubbed, should make sure "that policies of African countries are based on best current knowledge and practices".

Gutto said: "By setting up the institute and the codes of practice, NEPAD's backers are hoping to head off worries among the western states whose money is needed if NEPAD is to succeed."

When NEPAD was unveiled, in July, Africa had already suffered a decline in prosperity which had seen 34 of the continent's nations ranked among the world's least developed countries, compared with 27 in 1996.

Development aid to Africa fell from US $24.2 billion to US $14.2 billion between 1989 and 1999, while the UN said that foreign investment had been set to fall by 40 percent even before the 11 September attacks on the United States.
[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
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Algeria: Time To Prove That Politics Matters

2002-06-27

http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/showreport.cfm?reportid=686

The single most notable message from the recent elections in Algeria was the high rate of voter disinterest, according to a new International Crisis Group (ICG) report. In the capital, Algiers, 70 per cent of voters stayed away. In the Kabylia region, where there have been massive anti-government protests, alarming levels of violence and a powerful movement to boycott the elections, turnout was as low as 2 per cent. ICG Middle East Program Director Robert Malley said: "Since they won their independence, the Algerian people have gone from the enthusiasm of the post-colonial days, to authoritarian single-party rule, chaotic pluralism, and then a grisly war that has been civil in name only. Today, Algeria's political class - in power and in opposition alike -- faces a straightforward task: to prove that it can be useful and that politics can work".

Benin: police halt protest march by rights activists

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48594&countryid=6

Benin police last Wednesday stopped a protest march planned in Cotonou by the country's Human Rights League (LDH), against alleged human rights violations in the country, witnesses said. The estimated 40 security men armed with tear gas canisters and truncheons, stormed the Cotonou Labour Office Square where the demonstrators had assembled for the march.

BURKINA FASO: UNDP support for human rights

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8492

An initiative aimed at financing activities that promote human rights was launched on Friday in Burkina Faso by UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Christian Lemaire. "UNDP's support for such initiatives aims at enabling local action in favour of human rights for a sustainable improvement to the daily life of Burkina Faso's populations," Lemaire said at the launch of the programme in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

BURKINA FASO: UNDP support for human rights

OUAGADOUGOU, 24 June (IRIN) - An initiative aimed at financing activities that promote human rights was launched on Friday in Burkina Faso by UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Christian Lemaire.

"UNDP's support for such initiatives aims at enabling local action in favour of human rights for a sustainable improvement to the daily life of Burkina Faso's populations," Lemaire said at the launch of the programme in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou.

Projects by 10 local associations are to receive a total of US $100,000 under the programme, called "Assisting Communities Together" (ACT). Lemaire said ACT's aims included strengthening good governance and capacity building in civil society groups.

The 10 projects were selected because of their "originality, the relevance of their topics, the methodology of their evaluation, follow up and implementation", among other criteria, he said. They stress the importance of children and women's rights, and will use the media and local languages to disseminate information about human rights.

This is the first time Burkina Faso is benefitting from ACT, set up in 1998 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ACT is linked to the UN decade for human rights education (1994-2004), whose main objective is the implementation throughout the world of efficient strategies and programmes for teaching human rights in all strata of society.
[ENDS]

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cameroon: Minister fired for election delay

2002-06-27

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_2061000/2061700.stm

Cameroon's President Paul Biya has sacked his interior minister after having to postpone parliamentary and municipal elections, which were scheduled to start on Sunday. Ferdinand Koungou Edima was accused of failing to prepare the vote properly after the state-run printing press had not finished producing the ballots.

CONGO: Calm prevails in second-round legislative elections

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8447

Calm prevailed on Sunday in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, as voters went to the polls in the second round of nationwide legislative elections. Results are expected by late Monday or early Tuesday.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

CONGO: Calm prevails in second-round legislative elections

BRAZZAVILLE, 24 June (IRIN) - Calm prevailed on Sunday in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, as voters went to the polls in the second round of nationwide legislative elections.

With only a few authorised vehicles allowed on the roads - an effort to inhibit transport of voters among various voting districts to cast multiple ballots - people walked freely in the streets. Soldiers and policemen at intersections throughout the city appeared at ease, a week after a new outbreak of fighting in the capital. By dusk, all vehicles were allowed on the roads again.

Voter turnout in several districts was low. In Ouenze and Moungali, two of the city's northern districts that were particularly affected by last week's fighting, officials did not deny that perhaps just 15 percent of those eligible had voted. But an official in Ouenze said just holding the elections at all was an achievement, giving the fighting.

"We should congratulate ourselves on having accomplished this much," he said.

Results are expected by late Monday or early Tuesday.

Early on Friday, residents were awoken by gunfire and shelling in the north of Brazzaville as government forces fought off another assault by Ninja rebels on military installations near the international airport at Maya Maya. At least 10,000 civilians fled, of whom several thousands have chosen to remain in sites for displaced people around the city until this round of elections ends.

In the first round of legislative elections held at the start of June, 51 of the available 137 national assembly seats were determined. Candidates must win 50 percent of the vote to be elected. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's Parti congolaise du travail (the Congolese Labour Party) won 29 of the 51 seats, in an election the government said was marred by foul play and violence. While most disqualifications reportedly favoured this party, affected candidates included the president's brother,
Maurice, Finance Minister Mathias Ndzon, and presidential aide Antoinette Nganongo Olou.

Since 1998, the country has had a National Transitional Council consisting of 75 non-elected members. It was created to replace the bicameral parliament existing prior to the 1997 civil war. The bicameral parliament chosen in this election, consisting of a National Assembly and a Senate, will replace the council.

Unlike the March presidential elections, the European Union did not field a monitoring team for the legislative polls, despite a request from the government to do so. But visits to polling stations in three districts revealed that candidate representatives were allowed to observe the process as voters cast their ballots in secrecy. However, ballot boxes in only one of these three sites were locked.

An untold number of otherwise eligible voters were barred from casting their ballot on Sunday because they lacked a national identification card - something which the government has not produced in the last seven years, one resident lamented.

"With the turbulence that has plagued this city in recent years, many people have lost their belongings, among them their national identification card," he said. "Plus, many people have reached the legal voting age of 18 in the years that no national identity cards have been produced."

He added that ongoing government squabbles over the production of appropriate high-tech identity cards cards also contributed to the morass.

Two more rounds of elections still remain. On Sunday 30 June, votes will be cast for municipal and local officials; while on Sunday 7 July,the Congolese will choose their senatorial representation.

Fighting erupted in late March when so-called Ninja militias attacked several government military positions in Pool region, north and west of Brazzaville, the government said. However, Ninja representatives have said that the clashes were provoked when they discovered government plans to arrest their leader, the Rev Frederic Bitsangou, alias "Pasteur Ntoumi".

All elections in the affected districts of Pool have been postponed until the return of stability and an estimated 20,000 internally displaced residents.

[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
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kenya: U.S., UK urge prompt Kenya polls

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48562

The United States and Britain have urged Kenya to go to the polls this year on schedule and ignore a ruling party proposal for a delay, a plan widely seen as a ploy to prolong President Daniel arap Moi's rule.

Madagascar: Human rights violations must be addressed

2002-06-27

http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/AFR350032002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\MADAGASCAR

Talks on the political crisis in Madagascar must address the deteriorating human rights situation, Amnesty International says. "The leaders of Madagascar and the international community must condemn the ongoing human rights abuses and take a firm stance on holding those responsible to account," the organization said.

madagascar: US Recognizes Ravalomanana, Unfreezes Assets

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206270003.html

In a surprise move, the United States became the first major world power to formally recognize the government of Marc Ravalomanana in Madagascar. A letter to that effect from President George Bush was presented by American ambassador Wanda Nesbitt in Madagascar on Wednesday.

nigeria: africa commission ruling on ogoni violations

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8442

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) has welcomed the decision of the African Human Rights Commission which found Nigeria in violation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in relation to its treatment of the people of Ogoni.
MOVEMENT FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE OGONI PEOPLE (MOSOP)27 ODU STREET, OGBUNABALI, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATETEL/FAX: (+234)84-233 907, E-mail: mosop@phca.linserve.com
International (+44) 20 7357 0304 mosop@gn.apc.org
Press Release Thursday June 20th, 2000
AFRICA COMMISSION MAKES DEVESTATING RULING ON OGONI VIOLATIONS
MOSOP has welcomed the decision of the African Human Rights Commission finding the Federal Republic of Nigeria in violation of Articles 2, 4, 14, 16, 18(1), 21 and 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in relation to its treatment of the people of Ogoni.
The findings on violations of Articles 2, 4, 14, 16, 18(1), 21 and 24 (which protect the rights to life, enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, health, development, housing, and a generally satisfactory environment) is based on a long-standing petition filed by the United States organisation CESR – Council for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESR) and the Lagos group SERAC over the actions of the Federal government in Ogoni.
"The findings from the Africa Commission, whose human rights charter has been incorporated centrally into Nigerian law, should come as a devastating blow to those who wish to bury the rights of the Ogoni people with the last military regime," said Ledum Mitee President of MOSOP in Port Harcourt today.
"The Commission has not only found a massive violation of the African Charter of Human Rights but explicitly stated Nigeria’s responsibility to prosecute those responsible for human rights violations and pay compensation to Ogoni’s many victims."
"The Commission has also recognised our call for a comprehensive clean up of oil spills in Ogoni and the need for genuine independent assessments and protection of the environment in Ogoni."
The Commission finding that" is an indictment on the activities of Shell in Ogoni and other parts of the Niger Delta that the company should not only feel ashamed of but should take immediate responsibility for its remediation.
"International observers are already calling this ruling a vital precedent for the pursuit of economic social and cultural rights and the Commission has used some of the strongest language we have seen from any equivalent institution. We must thank the organisations SERAC and CESR for their persistent efforts to bring about this ruling."
"It is vital for the pursuit of human rights in Africa that the Federal government responds constructively and with urgency to this ruling. The ruling has also made plain that establishing the NDDC and the as yet unfulfilled Oputa Panel report are not in themselves adequate responses to deal with the extent of violations in Ogoni."
The pollution and environmental degradation to a level humanly unacceptable has made it living in the Ogoni land a nightmare.
"In response to this ruling MOSOP is seeking an urgent meeting with the Attorney-General to understand whether the Federal government is finally willing to respond to its obligations Ogoni. We are also calling on President Obasanjo to show leadership in respecting and giving his full support to the ruling of the Africa Commission."

Nigeria: Cease Sponsoring Vigilante Violence

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8441

Ebonyi State in south-eastern Nigeria should not endorse the activities of vigilante groups, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN) has said. The human rights groups were responding to recent reports that the governor of Ebonyi, Sam Egwu, was planning to introduce the vigilante group, known as the Bakassi Boys, into his state and to sign a law establishing them there. The Bakassi Boys have been responsible for numerous human rights abuses in the neighboring states of southeastern Nigeria where they operate, including extrajudicial killings, public burnings, mutilations, torture, and unlawful detentions.
Nigeria: Cease Sponsoring Vigilante Violence
Joint Statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Centre for Law
Enforcement Education (CLEEN)

(Lagos, June 21, 2002) -- Ebonyi State in south-eastern Nigeria should
not endorse the activities of vigilante groups, Human Rights Watch and
the Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN) said today.

The human rights groups were responding to recent reports that the
governor of Ebonyi, Sam Egwu, was planning to introduce the vigilante
group, known as the Bakassi Boys, into his state and to sign a law
establishing them there. The Bakassi Boys have been responsible for
numerous human rights abuses in the neighboring states of southeastern
Nigeria where they operate, including extrajudicial killings, public
burnings, mutilations, torture, and unlawful detentions.

"The Bakassi Boys' violent record and their complete disregard of the
law are well-known," said Carina Tertsakian, researcher at Human Rights
Watch. "If they have killed and tortured with impunity in Anambra,
Abia, and Imo states, why would they behave any differently in Ebonyi
State- especially when they are being welcomed there by the governor
himself?"

These abuses, as well as the deployment of the Bakassi Boys to target
perceived political opponents of state governments, were documented in a
detailed report published by Human Rights Watch (headquartered in New
York) and CLEEN (headquartered in Lagos) on May 20, 2002, titled "The
Bakassi Boys: The Legitimization of Murder and Torture,"
(http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/nigeria2/).

Further killings by the Bakassi Boys have been reported in recent weeks,
particularly in Anambra State: more than twenty people, including
several women, were reportedly killed by the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha in
the last week of May, and further killings were reported in Onitsha as
recently as mid-June.

The two human rights organizations said that state governors have a
responsibility to prevent, not encourage, the spread of vigilante
violence. They appealed to Governor Sam Egwu to reconsider his decision
and to resist public pressure to introduce the Bakassi Boys into Ebonyi.

"We recognize high levels of violent crime pose a serious problem in
many parts of Nigeria," said Innocent Chukwuma, Executive Director of
CLEEN. "But the solution is not to continue resorting to extrajudicial
means or to support vigilante violence."

The two human rights groups also described as regrettable recent
statements by Orji Uzor Kalu, the governor of Abia State - the state
where the Bakassi Boys were first formed, and where they are still
active. Speaking to journalists in early June 2002, Governor Kalu
announced that he would defy any attempts to prevent the Bakassi Boys
from operating in his state. The Vanguard newspaper of June 1 quoted
him as saying: "No law can stop us from having the vigilante group in
Abia. Even if the National Assembly passes the law, it is not going to
work in Abia. I have the mandate of the people to govern this state and
anybody posted here who does not cooperate with the people will be asked
to get out." Referring to a recent incident in which the Bakassi Boys
had clashed with the police, he said: "We are not ready to tolerate any
commissioner of police arresting any member of Bakassi as a robber." On
June 11, The Daily Champion newspaper quoted him as saying: "Any plan by
the Federal Government to ban Bakassi under whatever guise would amount
to undue interference."

"Such statements amount to an explicit approval of the violent and
arbitrary methods used by the Bakassi Boys under the pretext of
'fighting crime,'" said Tertsakian. "If state governors want to show
commitment to ensuring the security of the population, they should
condemn these human rights abuses, disband the Bakassi Boys, and support
the introduction of law enforcement mechanisms, which will genuinely
protect people and bring criminals to justice, within the framework of
the law."

The two organizations also reiterated their appeal to the federal
government to produce effective and long-lasting solutions to the dual
problems of widespread crime and increasing vigilante violence. The
HRW/CLEEN report published in May included a set of recommendations for
national police reform that would ensure effective enforcement of law
and order and protection and security for the population.

NIGERIA: IRIN Focus on local government crisis

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8559

When the three-year tenure of Nigeria's 774 local government councils lapsed at the end of May, new elected officials should have taken their place. However, no new councillors have been voted into office. In fact, it seems increasingly doubtful that local government polls will be held on 10 August as had been announced, and this has raised fears of a prolonged crisis in the country's third tier of government.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

NIGERIA: IRIN Focus on local government crisis

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]


LAGOS, 26 June (IRIN) - When the three-year tenure of Nigeria's 774 local government councils lapsed at the end of May, new elected officials should have taken their place. However, no new councillors have been voted into office. In fact, it seems increasingly doubtful that local government polls will be held on 10 August as had been announced, and this has raised fears of a prolonged crisis in the country's third tier of government.

Ahead of crucial general elections in the first quarter of next year, analysts believe the way local council polls are managed will determine the success or failure of an electoral transition prone to violence.

"Key political actors aiming for higher national and state offices believe they need to take control of local governments to pave their way to victory," political analyst Remi Odubona told IRIN. "This is why the local council polls have assumed an unusual importance, which may even become inimical to the country's political stability."

Under the 1999 Constitution, which paved the way for an end to more than 15 years of brutal military misrule, local government councils were assigned three-year terms, while other elective offices received four-year mandates. An electoral bill passed by the federal legislature last year sought a harmonised four-year term for all elected officials and obtained the assent of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

However, governors of Nigeria's 36 states, alleging interference in what they considered the legislative preserve of states in a federal system, filed a suit challenging the electoral law at the Supreme Court. A unanimous ruling late in March gave victory to the states and overruled the federal legislature.

Elections could not follow immediately because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had neither revised the electoral register nor processed the applications of new political parties. A compromise decision agreed by Obasanjo and the 36 state governors was to postpone to August local elections initially scheduled for 18 May, so as to give INEC time to update the
voters' register and admit new parties into the process.

In place of the departed local governments a hotchpotch of arrangements have been put in place.

In a majority of states, governors appointed "transition committees" to oversee the affairs of the councils pending elections. In several other states, sole administrators were given control of the councils. In yet others, the most senior civil servants in each council were directed to take control. In one state, southeastern Akwa Ibom, the state legislature passed a law extending the tenure of the councils and councillors until the elections.

In the northern state of Zamfara, where sole administrators were appointed by the governor, four council chairmen refused to vacate their seats. They accused the governor, a member of the All People's Party (APP), of reappointing former chairmen from his party while leaving out those from
their own People's Democratic Party (which controls the federal government).

In the meantime, the business of local governments across the country has virtually ground to a halt. In most states employees of local councils were being owed months' wages, road building and other public works have been halted pending the resolution of the crisis.

Hopes that the council polls would be held as scheduled on 10 August have been doused by the fact that no concrete steps have been taken so far to revise the voters' register. Contracts have not been awarded by INEC for the printing of voters' cards, and while July was chosen for the
exercise, no definite date has been announced.

Obasanjo's opponents have accused him of manipulating the electoral commission to delay the local polls for his own political ends. "I do not believe that the local government elections would take place in August as planned," Asuquo Nya of the opposition APP told reporters last week. "Information at our disposal says Obasanjo will not allow it to take place."

He said since council chairmen and councillors would be among the delegates to choose presidential candidates in the various parties, Obasanjo would be disadvantaged should the polls take place now. "There is this fear that the Alliance for Democracy will sweep the polls in the southwest (Obasanjo's home region) and this would not augur well for him in his re-election bid," Nya said.

Obasanjo won the presidency in 1999, but did not do well in his home region, controlled by AD. With his former backers in other regions of the country in apparent revolt, it is believed he would need a support base in the southwest more than ever before to make a realistic bid for re-election.

For their part, three new political parties registered by INEC for the coming polls have called for the postponement of the local council election to December. They have argued that they need at least six months to grow firm roots and be able to compete with the other parties on level terms.

But the prospect of electoral chaos has increased further with a threat by the States Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECS) to conduct the local government polls on 10 August "with or without a revised voters' register". At the end of a meeting of their representatives from five southern states last week, the SIECS announced they had filed a suit to compel INEC to release the existing voters' register to them.

Their spokesman, Stevenson Emejuaiwe, declared that the states would go ahead with the polls even
if their court action failed.

Since Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960, elections conducted by elected governments have generally been dogged by disputes and political violence. This has usually provided a pretext for the military to seize power in order to restore stability.

"For the current democratic experiment to survive, Obasanjo's government needs to conduct successful elections at all levels," analyst Ike Onyekwere told IRIN. "But the signs are ominous. Because if the government does not get it right with the local elections, it will be difficult to get it right with the rest."

[ENDS]

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Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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nigeria: Outrage as Nigeria registers only 3 new parties

2002-06-27

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=37&o=5137

Nigeria's election commission last Saturday registered three new parties out of a total of 24 that applied to compete in next year's national elections. The decision immediately reignited a furious row over the commission's strict rules, which many of the would-be parties regard as a cynical and unconstitutional ploy to exclude them.

SIERRA LEONE: Parliament starts business

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8558

Sierra Leone's newly elected parliament sat for the first time on Tuesday, electing Justice Edward Cowan as speaker and Elizabeth Alpha Lavallie as deputy speaker. Both are from the ruling Sierra Leone's People's Party (SLPP). The session, held at Parliament Building, Tower Hill, in the capital, Freetown, was attended by 120 members out of 124, including opposition leaders.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SIERRA LEONE: Parliament starts business

FREETOWN, 26 June (IRIN) - Sierra Leone's newly elected parliament sat for the first time on Tuesday, electing Justice Edward Cowan as speaker and Elizabeth Alpha Lavallie as deputy speaker. Both are from the ruling Sierra Leone's People's Party (SLPP).

The session, held at Parliament Building, Tower Hill, in the capital, Freetown, was attended by 120 members out of 124, including opposition leaders.

Parliament will be formally opened by President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah on 12 July.

Sierra Leone went to the polls on 10 and 14 May 2002 to elect its president and parliament. Eleven political parties took part, including the former rebel Revolutionary United Front. Nine of the 11 presented presidential candidates.

Kabbah won the presidential poll with 70.06 percent of votes cast. His SLPP won 83 seats in parliament, while the All People's Congress of Ernest Koroma won 27. Some 12 seats were filled by paramount chiefs elected on 10 June.

Kabbah on Monday met members of parliament from his party and urged them to interact regularly with the electorate. "Let the electorate know what the government is doing and you must know what their needs are," he said. "If possible visit them at least once a month. We must work hard to deliver what we promised and not just talk and talk."

The elections, hailed by observers and the United Nations as generally free and fair, were the first since Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war ended in January 2002.
[ENDS]

IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
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TOGO: Eyadema tries to improve relations with EU

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/8501

The presidents of Togo, Gnassingbe Eyadema, and the European Commission, Romano Prodi, held talks on Monday in Brussels on Togo's political situation and bilateral relations. Eyadema told Prodi his country was suffering because the EU had cut financial aid following controversial elections in 1998. He blamed the aid cut on opposition parties which had lobbied against his government after the elections, the pro-government Republic of Togo online news service reported.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

TOGO: Eyadema tries to improve relations with EU

ABIDJAN, 25 June (IRIN) - The presidents of Togo, Gnassingbe Eyadema, and the European Commission, Romano Prodi, held talks on Monday in Brussels on Togo's political situation and bilateral relations.

Eyadema told Prodi his country was suffering because the EU had cut financial aid following controversial elections in 1998. He blamed the aid cut on opposition parties which had lobbied against his government after the elections, the pro-government Republic of Togo online news service reported.

On the other hand, Eyadema acknowledged that lack of communication between Togo and the EU also contributed to the poor relations between them, the news service reported.

Prodi responded by asking Eyadema to hold long-awaited legislative elections, which have been repeatedly postponed since 2000, news agencies reported.

Monday's meeting was the first between Eyadema and Prodi since last month's suspension of EU's funding for the facilitation of an ongoing dialogue between pro-government and opposition parties in Togo.

Togo's political climate started to deteriorate soon after the 1998 presidential elections, which the opposition accused Eyadema's government of rigging. The opposition went on to boycott legislative elections in 1999 in protest.

Following a 1999 agreement, the two sides began a dialogue with a view to organising fresh elections. For three years, the dialogue was facilitated by the EU, France, Germany and la Francophonie.

However, the EU decided to stop funding the facilitation when it expired on 31 May 2002 "because, instead of advancing, the electoral process has been marking time", an EU official in Lome told IRIN at the time.

The EU move came a few weeks after the government decided to have a college of seven judges organise legislative elections. Under the 1999 agreement, the polls were to have been organised and supervised by a National Independent Electoral Commission.



[ENDS]

IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002

Zambia: president slams predecessor Chiluba

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48548

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has slammed his predecessor Frederick Chiluba, accusing him of granting ''outrageous'' benefits to retiring military heads three days before December general elections.

zimbabwe: Impunity enables ever more human rights violations

2002-06-27

http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/AFR460352002!Open

The Zimbabwean government has systematically ensured that those responsible for torture, abductions and political killings are never brought to justice, Amnesty International says in a new report called 'The Toll of Impunity'. "Impunity has become the central problem in Zimbabwe where state and non-state actors commit widespread human rights violations without being brought to justice. Unless the cycle of impunity can be broken, human rights abuses will continue unchecked and victims and their families will not see justice," the organization said.

angola: angola expresses support for refugees

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48586

Angola took advantage of last Thursday's World Refugee Day to express its commitment to gradually solve the dramatic situation facing thousands of its citizens, particularly children and women living in refugee camps.

burundi: Joint Delegation to Seek Repatriation of Burundian Refugees

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260398.html

Burundi and Tanzania announced on Tuesday that they would send a delegation to Geneva to ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the repatriation of all Burundian refugees now in Tanzania. Close to 500,000 Burundian refugees are camped in Tanzania, thousands of who have been returning home on their own or under UNHCR-sponsored operations. However, the UNHCR position is to facilitate repatriations only to safe areas, while extending "limited assistance" to refugees insisting on going elsewhere in Burundi.

ERITREA: More than 50,000 refugees repatriated

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8524

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday that the number of Eritrean refugees repatriated from Sudan has passed the 50,000 mark. The operation, which is now a year old, reached this milestone when, on Sunday, its 91st convoy carried 960 Eritreans from the eastern Sudanese town of Kassala to Teseney in western Eritrea, according to the UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

ERITREA: More than 50,000 refugees repatriated

NAIROBI, 26 June (IRIN) - The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday that the number of Eritrean refugees repatriated from Sudan has passed the 50,000 mark.

The operation, which is now a year old, reached this milestone when, on Sunday, its 91st convoy carried 960 Eritreans from the eastern Sudanese town of Kassala to Teseney in western Eritrea, according to the UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski.

This brought to 50,479 the total number of returnees to Eritrea since the beginning of the voluntary return operation in May last year, he said.

Janowski said the agency hoped to help 3,000 more Eritreans go home before the heavy rains season begins in late July.

Meanwhile, a tripartite meeting held in Geneva late last week between the governments of Sudan and Eritrea and the UNHCR agreed to begin implementing a plan of action to repatriate hundreds of thousands of other Eritrean refugees - those who fled during the decades-long war of independence, which ended in June 1991, and those who escaped the recent border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Refugee status for both groups will formally end at the end of this year.

UNHCR is currently assisting more than 164,000 Eritrean refugees living in camps in eastern Sudan. Hundreds of thousands more are believed to be living in urban centres across Sudan, according to the agency.

[ENDS]

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GAMBIA-SENEGAL: UNHCR looks into new displacement

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8557

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees sent a mission to The Gambia on Tuesday to take stock of possible population displacement following an announcement last week by the Senegalese army that it had launched security operations in Casamance, a UNHCR source told IRIN on Wednesday. The Senegalese army announced last weekend that it had begun an operation to curb increased insecurity and banditry in Casamance, an area in southern Senegal that borders on The Gambia.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

GAMBIA-SENEGAL: UNHCR looks into new displacement

ABIDJAN, 26 June (IRIN) - The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees sent a mission to The Gambia on Tuesday to take stock of possible population displacement following an announcement last week by the Senegalese army that it had launched security operations in Casamance, a UNHCR source told IRIN on Wednesday.

The Senegalese army announced last weekend that it had begun an operation to curb increased insecurity and banditry in Casamance, an area in southern Senegal that borders on The Gambia. The Senegalese daily Sud Quotidien reported on Monday that the operation began on Friday in the department of Bignona. The French news agency, Agence France Presse, on Wednesday reported Gambian national television as saying that over 1,000 Casamance residents had crossed into The Gambia over the weekend.

The secretary-general of the Gambia Red Cross, Andrew Jarjue, told IRIN on Wednesday that about 1,709 people had sought refuge in The Gambia in the past two months, excluding this weekend's arrivals. Women and children accounted for 80 percent of the displaced, he said. Like the new arrivals, the previous caseload had been displaced by fighting between the Senegalese army and the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC).

The MFDC is an armed group fighting since 1982 for self-determination for Casamance, which is partly separated from the rest of Senegal by The Gambia.

Jarjue said the recent influx had overstretched the Gambian Red Cross, which had appealed for funds to assist them. "What they need most apart from food is shelter," Jarjue said, adding that many lived in the open "and it's a matter of luck that the past few days have seen no rain".

The Red Cross official said such population displacements were usual and short-lived. He expected the newly displaced persons to begin returning home within two weeks once calm returned to the area.

A Gambian police source said the bulk of the displaced refused to be registered and housed in refugee camps because they claimed to have relatives to live with. The source said most were living in villages along the Senegal-The Gambia border.
[ENDS]

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[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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KENYA: First convoy in Somali Bantu relocation set to leave

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8509

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is due to begin transporting some 11,000 Somali Bantu refugees living in Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya to Kakuma refugee camp in the northwest from Wednesday, 26 June, in close collaboration with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

KENYA: First convoy in Somali Bantu relocation set to leave

NAIROBI, 25 June (IRIN) - The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is due to begin transporting some 11,000 Somali Bantu refugees living in Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya to Kakuma refugee camp in the northwest from Wednesday, 26 June, in close collaboration with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This transfer is the first step towards the resettlement of the Somali Bantu refugees, who have lived in the Dadaab refugee camp for 10 years, to the US after their identification as "an at-risk persecuted minority without the possibility of return to their homeland," IOM spokesperson Niurka Pineiro said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

The 1,500 km journey - through some barren and bandit-prone countryside - es expected to take some 30 hours over two days. IOM said it has worked with UNHCR to identify overnight stops and medical facilities along the route, and taken the necessary security precautions.

Bus convoys will depart on a weekly basis for an estimated four months, it added.

The US decided last year that it would resettle over 8,000 Somali Bantus in 2002, probably because UNHCR feared tension in Dadaab if they remained there, arising from the fact that Dadaab has a predominantly non-Bantu Somali population, according to humanitarian sources.

This was the likely reason for the decision to move the Bantus to Kakuma, which has a substantial Somali population but is predominantly Sudanese, they told IRIN.

Screening of the Somali Bantus, a minority group from southern Somalia, was under way in November 2001, a UNHCR spokesman, Newton Kanhema, told IRIN at the time.

It is expected that the majority of approved refugees from within the Somali Bantu group will travel to the US between January 2003 and June 2004. Last year, IOM facilitated medical examinations and resettlement of nearly 9,000 refugees from Kenya to the US.

The nongovernmental organisation World Vision and IOM are together constructing a transit camp of 2,200 mud brick shelters in Kakuma to accommodate the Somali Bantu refugees, and those for the first 4,000 have already been constructed.

IOM has also completed the construction of a resettlement-processing centre, which includes medical facilities, cultural orientation classrooms and interview rooms for the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Pineiro stated on Tuesday.

The first Bantus arrived in Somalia during the slave trade in 1800s and settled on the southern Somali coast. Somali political sources told IRIN that most of the current Bantu population in the Juba valley were originally from Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique. Some of the Bantus in southern Somalia had kept their traditions and spoke the languages of their ancestors, the source said.

Originally accepted by the government of Mozambique - a country with which the Somali Bantus have historical links - the US stepped in after Mozambique, devastated by last year's floods, decided it could not cope with the resettlement programme.

The US resettlement programme has specifically targeted the Somali Bantus (known as Mushunguli and Gosha) resident in Dadaab and Kakuma camps, who arrived in Kenya and registered with UNHCR prior to 1 January 1998, because they were an identifiable group, particularly impoverished and a persecuted minority unlikely ever to return to Somalia, according to humanitarian sources.

Mushunguli describes a social group descended from slaves, while Gosha literally translates as "forest" and refers to this group's villages located in formerly forested regions of the Juba River valley. The term "Somali Bantu" came into use during consideration of this group for resettlement, as a general term to distinguish them from indigenous Somalis.

"Due to the Bantus' history and physical features, which are more Negroid than the indigenous Somali, they are one of the most discriminated-against groups in Somali society," according to the Washington-based Cultural Orientation Network, which provides training for refugees arriving in the US.
[http://www.culturalorientation.net/]

"Discrimination manifests itself in many ways, including extremely little intermarriage between Somali Bantus and other Somali clans; and being relegated to jobs and tasks that other Somalis will not perform," it added.

The minority Somali Bantu were "treated like second class citizens" by Somalis, according to humanitarian sources familiar with Somalia. Insecurity and the civil war in Somalia over the last decade had rendered the group even more vulnerable, they added.

[ENDS]

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kenya: Kenyan government sets indigenous group's court case for July 23

2002-06-27

http://www.dfn.org/news/kenya/ogiek0723.htm

A case in which the Ogiek community have challenged the government over their tribal Mau Forest land will now be heard on July 23. Although the community went to court over a year ago contesting a government decision to excise parts of the expansive Mau forests of Kenya to settle other communities, the case has yet to be heard because the government has yet to file its defense.

LIBERIA: Thousands more flee to Sierra Leone

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8503

An estimated 4,000 people have fled to Sierra Leone from Liberia following a rebel attack last Thursday on Sinje refugee camp, northwest of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

LIBERIA: Thousands more flee to Sierra Leone

ABIDJAN, 25 June (IRIN) - An estimated 4,000 people have fled to Sierra Leone from Liberia following a rebel attack last Thursday on Sinje refugee camp, northwest of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

On Sunday alone, almost 1,400 people - a mix of Liberians and Sierra Leoneans - crossed into Sierra Leone, the agency said in a statement on Monday. More were reported to be on their way, and large numbers had also arrived in Monrovia, it said.

So far, about 100 Sierra Leonean refugees and internally displaced Liberians had been relocated to one of UNHCR's five camps near Monrovia. Thousands more were still believed to be hiding without resources in the forest and were at risk of being stopped and harassed by armed forces, UNHCR said.

In Sierra Leone, new arrivals were being hosted in a makeshift camp in the border locality of Gendema before being transferred to the Zimmi, farther inland. On Saturday, gunfire was heard on the Liberian side of the border, causing panic among 1,200 new arrivals in Zimmi. The makeshift camp was said to hold more than 2,000 people, UNHCR reported.

UNHCR started transferring the new arrivals from Gendema to Zimmi on June 21. Sick people and other vulnerable persons were being taken by UNHCR nurses to a mobile clinic run by Medecins sans Frontieres in Gendema, the agency said.

"The situation in Liberia, already quite difficult, has now worsened dramatically, putting at risk both Sierra Leone refugees and the local population," UNHCR's Africa Director, David Lambo, was reported as saying.

The agency reported former residents of the Sinje camp who made their way to Monrovia and Sierra Leone as saying the camp had been looted and stripped of everything of value. "It was not clear who controlled the area around the camp on Monday," UNHCR said.

It reiterated its appeal for the immediate release of five nurses who were abducted by rebels of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) in a UNCHR ambulance. The nurses had been working for a local NGO providing medical care in Sinje. There had been no contact with them since Saturday UNHCR said.

LURD spokesman Charles Bennie said he could neither confirm nor deny that the nurses had been kidnapped by LURD troops. "But if they are in the hands of our troops then I can promise you they are secure," he told IRIN on Monday.

"They could only face problems in getting food and medicines. I believe our troops did not abduct them but they might have run to where our troops were in the confusion of the intense fighting," Bennie said.

Aid workers contacted by IRIN in Monrovia said on Tuesday the humanitarian situation was "grim", but NGOs and UN agencies were trying their best to deliver relief. "We are looking at the situation and doing something about it," an aid worker said.

"It has, however, become so hard to define who a displaced person is since most of the population has been displaced five to six times over the years," he added. "Their living conditions are same as those of the freshly displaced and they need help."


[ENDS]

IRIN-WA
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Fax: +225 22-41-9339
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[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR appeals for release of abducted persons

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8439

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last Friday urged the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) to release five abducted nurses and an ambulance belonging to their NGO, MERCI. LURD rebels attacked Sinje refugee camp, 80 km northwest of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, last Thursday, taking away the nurses and causing Sierra Leonean refugees and displaced Liberians to flee.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SIERRA LEONE: UNHCR appeals for release of abducted persons

ABIDJAN, 21 June (IRIN) - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday urged the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) to release immediately five abducted nurses and an ambulance belonging to their NGO, MERCI.

UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski told at a news briefing in Geneva that the rebels had said on Thursday they were holding the nurses, whose NGO works with UNHCR.

Janowski said a rebel commander who identified himself as "General Skeleton" called UNHCR from the MERCI an ambulance and said they were taking the women to the rebel stronghold of Voinjama, near Liberia's border with Guinea.

The nurses, who are Liberians, were unhurt, according to Janowski, who reported that one of them was allowed to speak on the radio and that she said they were being treated well.

LURD rebels attacked Sinje refugee camp, 80 km northwest of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, on Thursday morning, taking away the nurses and causing Sierra Leonean refugees and displaced Liberians to flee. The camp is located on the road to the Sierra Leone border.

The area surrounding Sinje had been the scene of sporadic but fierce clashes last month, UNHCR said, noting that the camp had been cut off from aid for more than a month following the fighting.

UNHCR was last in contact with Sinje at 09:15 a.m. local time on Thursday morning, when heavy gunfire could be heard in the direction of Kle Junction, midway between Sinje and Monrovia, Janowski reported. Five minutes later, the fighting reached Sinje, he said, adding that during the last radio contact, UNHCR had advised the refugees and some 60 local NGO workers to leave the area.

An aid worker in Monrovia told IRIN on Friday there were reports that the camp was deserted. There were no reports of further fighting in the area and no news on the abductees, the source said.

LURD spokesman Charles Bennie told IRIN on Friday he was unaware of the abduction of the five nurses. "I've not received news to that effect. I'm having communication problems but I'll verify this once they get through to me or I manage," he said.

Janowski said Sinje camp had hosted 11,000 Sierra Leonean refugees and about 8,000 displaced Liberians who had sought shelter there following the recent fighting. Nearby Sinje Town had between 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants.

Janowski said the UNHCR office in Zimmi, Sierra Leone, was on standby to receive a possible influx of people displaced by the fighting. "This morning [Friday], however, our office in Zimmi had not reported any important influx," he said. "It is believed that people may be hiding in the forest. Some of them may possibly be heading south towards Monrovia."

The fighting has rendered any repatriation by road impossible, "at least in the foreseeable future", Janowski said. UNHCR must again consider the sea option for Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia who may want to return home, he added.

The number of Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia is estimated at 35,000.
[ENDS]

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[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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somalia: Refugees Being Transferred From Mandera to Dadaab

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260359.html

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has transferred up to 1,043 Somali refugees, who have been stranded for weeks in the northeastern Kenyan border town of Mandera, to the Dadaab refugee camp 500 km to the south. The refugees are part of a group of 10,000 who fled inter-clan fighting in the Somali town of Bulo Hawa near the border with Kenya starting in April, and have been camped in and around Mandera under difficult conditions.

SUDAN: Church appeal for conflict IDPs in western Upper Nile

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/8510

Church World Service (CWS), an umbrella group of Christian organisations in the US, has appealed for urgent support for relief efforts to assist thousands of families displaced in Rubkona County, southern Sudan, by government military action in the oil-rich area.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SUDAN: Church appeal for conflict IDPs in western Upper Nile

NAIROBI, 25 June (IRIN) - Church World Service (CWS), an umbrella group of Christian organisations in the US, has appealed for urgent support for relief efforts to assist thousands of families displaced in Rubkona County, southern Sudan, by government military action in the oil-rich area.

CWS said in a statement on Monday that it was helping partner organisations in the area to assist some 4,000 families (comprising 3,000 internally displaced and 1,000 host families) around Chotchar and Touc.

The flat scrub of the Upper Nile region offered no protection from the government's aerial bombardments or attacks by helicopters, it said, and people had crossed many small rivers and swamps in search of whatever limited security they could find.

The government has launched "a massive dry-season offensive in the oilfields [including western Upper Nile]... aided by thousands of its forces, redeployed as a result of the Nuba Mountains ceasefire [in Southern Kordofan]," John Prendergast, co-director for Africa of the International Crisis Group, told a US Congressional hearing on 5 June.

Khartoum has consistently denied that it is targeting civilian populations in oil areas, saying that it aims to make the areas safe for oil operations, and has accused the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity State/western Upper Nile.

The internally displaced people (IDPs) who are being reached in western Upper Nile are receiving blankets, family-sized mosquito nets, cooking pots, tarpaulins for makeshift shelters, fishing equipment and hand tools, according to CWS.

Families hosting the IDPs were also receiving mosquito nets and fishing equipment, while CWS's local partners were bring trained on ways of improving their capacity to respond to this and future emergencies, it said.

"Support is urgently needed for these relief and recovery efforts," the agency added. CWS is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, and works with indigenous organisations in more than 80 countries "to support sustainable self-help development, refugee and emergency needs, and help address the root causes of poverty and powerlessness".
[http://www.churchworldservice.org/]

CWS called on the public to urge the US to stay involved in Sudan as long as human rights continued being violated, and to continue in its search for peace. It also urged people to urge the US Senate leadership to push forward with the Sudan Peace Act so that the discussion of capital market sanctions could move forward.

Humanitarian, religious and human rights groups have repeatedly spoken of a link between oil exploration and extraction in Upper Nile, and alleged a "scorched earth" policy by the government to depopulate oil areas and make them safe for oil production.

They have also claimed that oil revenues had enabled the Sudanese government to double its military expenditure in the last two years, escalating the violence in the 19-year-old civil war.

Numerous speakers suggested at the 5 June US Congressional hearing on Sudan that the US should move forward with this act (currently languishing in legislative limbo) in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, to engage meaningfully in a peace process.

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner said the White House was opposed to sections of the proposed legislation which would sanction access oil companies active in Sudan, because it would set "a precedent for political interference in US capital markets".

American companies are already barred from investing in Sudan, which remains on Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Sudanese ambassador to the US, Khidr Harun Ahmad, has said pressure groups intent on distorting Sudan's image are promoting the Sudan Peace Act.

Sanctions against international firms engaged in oil production in Sudan would "eliminate even the modest gains in the standard of living of ordinary Sudanese, both north and south", he said, in a note for the record of the US Congress hearing.

[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
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HUMAN SHIELD USED IN MADAGASCAR
Dozens of people have been used as a human shield in Madagascar by
former president Didier Ratsiraka's supporters in one of his two
remaining strongholds on the island.
http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48713

SUDAN: EU concern at humanitarian dangers, IGAD talks

2002-06-27

http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28508

The EU on Tuesday expressed grave concern about the humanitarian situation in many parts of Sudan, particularly in western Upper Nile (Unity/Wahdah State), Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal - all in the south and affected by serious fighting. Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April.

AFRICA: Blair promises £1bn aid for Africa in good governance deal

2002-06-27

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=309139

Tony Blair underlined his determination yesterday to make Africa a priority at the G8 summit when he announced British aid to the continent would rise to £1bn a year by 2006. The initiative requires African nations to institute good governance and crack down on corruption as part of a drive to make development cash more effective.

ANGOLA: FINANCE MINISTER DENIES $1BN WENT MISSING

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48787

Angola's finance minister on Wednesday denied a humanitarian group's charges that $1 billion had gone missing from the African nation's budget last year. London-based Global Witness, an international humanitarian pressure group, has estimated more than $1 billion or between a third and a half of all state income was unaccounted for in last year's budget.

KENYA: Former KNH director in court over corruption

2002-06-27

http://www.kbc.co.ke/story.asp?id=12047&categoryID=1

A former director of Kenyatta National Hospital and four other senior officials on Monday appeared in a Nairobi court facing corruption charges. The director, Dr. Hosea Waweru, was charged with abusing his office by authorising the payment of 5.3 million shillings as refund of duty and value added tax to High Voltage Communications Limited.

kenya: Fraud On the Rise, Says Report

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206200091.html

Fraud and corruption cases are on the increase in East Africa, threatening to undo economic gains made by the region, says a new report.

NIGERIA: Public spending under investigation

2002-06-27

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2056000/2056238.stm

Nigeria's government is under attack again for its lack of financial transparency. A recent report by a parliamentary committee says there has been a "virtual slide into financial anarchy".

NIGERIA: Some 243 policemen nabbed for corruption

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250554.html

Another batch of 92 policemen allegedly involved in corrupt practices were last week arrested by the Police Anti-corruption Squad. This brings to 243 the number of such arrests since the squad was initiated recently by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun.

south africa: Scorpions ordered to probe councils

2002-06-27

http://www.transparency.org/cgi-bin/dcn-read.pl?citID=40054

President Thabo Mbeki has ordered the special investigating unit the Scorpions to investigate wide ranging allegations of corruption and maladministration in five councils in the Western Cape province of the country.

tanzania: Short to visit Tanzania as fraud claims fly

2002-06-27

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,744049,00.html

Clare Short, the UK international development secretary, is to fly to Tanzania next week to discuss the row over the country's controversial £28m military air traffic control system as allegations of shady deals and fraud begin to surface.

zambia: Chiluba bribed chief justice claim

2002-06-27

http://www.transparency.org/cgi-bin/dcn-read.pl?citID=40087

After sensational claims in the press, nongovernmental organisations are calling on Zambia's chief justice, Matthew Ngulube, for his side of a story alleging he was bribed by former president Frederick Chiluba. The Post reported on Monday that Chiluba gave him $168000 from the national treasury for various things, including school fees for his children.

ZAMBIA: Zambian president vows to deal with corruption in ruling party

2002-06-27

http://www.transparency.org/cgi-bin/dcn-read.pl?citID=40075

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa vowed to root out corruption within his government Tuesday and said his administration was not beholden to the ruling party officials who put him in power.

africa: Africans call for political action to achieve Millennium Development Goals

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/8546

Governments need to go beyond reliance on their development programmes and start mobilizing popular political support to achieve progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was a key conclusion of a forum on the MDGs that brought together ministers and senior government officials from 14 eastern and central African countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week. World leaders endorsed the goals at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, setting clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015.
Africans call for political action to achieve Millennium Development Goals

Friday, 21 June 2002: Governments need to go beyond reliance on their development programmes and start mobilizing popular political support to achieve progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was a key conclusion of a forum on the MDGs that brought together ministers and senior government officials from 14 eastern and central African countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week.

World leaders endorsed the goals at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, setting clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015. In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, more than half the population lives below the poverty line and fewer than half of adults can read and write.

UNDP is using its global network to help raise awareness, track progress, and connect countries to the knowledge and resources needed to achieve the goals. Also participating in the Addis forum were representatives from civil society, the private sector, the UN system and the donor community.

"Poverty eradication is at the core of our development agenda, and as such the Millennium Development Goals form the central concern of socio-economic development," said Mekonnen Manyazewal, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Development. He called on participants to mobilize all available resources towards halving poverty and achieving the other goals. "In my view we have the power to do this and more," he said.

In his keynote address, Abdoulie Janneh, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director, underscored the need for consensus on practical steps to accelerate progress. He described the power of the MDGs as political, not programmatic. "The world has committed to the MDGs and we must now use our national processes here and in the North to agitate and lobby for the momentum to sustain them," he added.

Concerted action and partnership are needed to achieve the MDGs, said Mr. Janneh, including increased development assistance, reduced military expenditures, political will, deeper debt reduction, improved governance, and programmes targeted better at priorities. "The list is unending but the time for alibis is finished," he said.

UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, in a video-conference address, emphasized that the MDGs require mutual accountability for a new vision of development cooperation between the developed and developing countries. The goals are accessible and understandable to citizens of developed and developing countries, he said, and emphasis is on building of institutions to solve poverty.

The forum's declaration highlighted the importance of every country launching a major and broad-based MDG campaign agenda, in coordination with development partners. It noted that countries need to accelerate work on the MDGs in coordination with their national planning frameworks and poverty reduction strategies, and that the MDGs are relevant to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the initiative to bridge gaps between Africa and the developed world.

The declaration also noted that new ways to mobilize resources for the MDGs are called for, and countries need to put in place effective monitoring and reporting systems.

Countries represented at the conference were: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, and Uganda. The UNDP country offices in Ethiopia and Cameroon and the UNDP Central and Eastern Africa Sub-Regional Resource Facility (SURF) organized the event.

Link here to a new report: Development Goals in Africa: Promises and Progress (PDF format).

For further information please contact Asrat Tilahun, UNDP Ethiopia; Geoff Prewitt , Central and Eastern Africa SURF; and Cassandra Waldon, UNDP Communications Office.

africa: G8 debt relief 'not good enough'

2002-06-27

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?o=5292

The announcement by G8 summit leaders in Kananaskis in Canada on Wednesday to grant up to one billion dollars in additional debt relief to some of the world's poorest countries represented neither progress nor a breakthrough on debt relief, according to Jubilee South Africa. "The announcement is proof that the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) debt relief initiative has failed," Jubilee South Africa representative Neville Gabriel said on Thursday. Gabriel said in a statement that the G8 were only trying to catch up on empty promises made three years ago at the Cologne summit for $100-billion in debt relief in terms of the HIPC debt relief initiative.

africa: g8 unlikely to advance concrete africa plan

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260388.html

A year ago in Genoa, Italy, the leaders of eight nations known as the G-8 set up a task force to develop a concrete plan of action to support "Nepad" - the Africa-generated new partnership for African development. But hopes for much specificity have been ratcheted down as the Summit gets underway. In New York Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned against "unrealistic expectations" and "magic success" at the summit. Still, Annan said he hopes "that this partnership would lead to a changed economic environment on the continent."

africa: putting people before environment

2002-06-27

http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/june/nepad.htm

The objective of Agenda 21, the strategy document adopted at the 1992 Rio Summit, was to maximise economic and social welfare without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. But Will Alexander of the University of Pretoria, South Africa argues that this is a utopian view, and that there should be no environmental impediments to the maximisation of economic and social welfare. He calls for multidisciplinary approaches to problems, and warns against the imposition of northern hemisphere solutions to Africa problems. This is critical, he says, in the light of the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Africa: success and failures in progress towards development goals

2002-06-27

http://www.undp.org/mdg/mdgreportinafrica.pdf

There have been success stories in Africa: an increasing number of countries are recording high growth rates, while successful elections have swept the continent. But for every success story there have been setbacks. Child mortality rates are up in several countries, as is HIV/AIDS, while reliable data in many countries is hard to come by. This is according to a new 26-page report on progress towards the Millenium Development Goals, compiled by the UNDP and Unicef for G8 Africa representatives.

G8: FAILING MODEL OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

2002-06-27

http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n09g8.html

Since the mid-1990s, the G8 annual summits have incorporated more social issues and developing country concerns into their agendas, but they have failed to demonstrate much progress on these issues. Similarly, the G8 has failed to produce the kind of global leadership necessary to jettison the failed neoliberal model for managing the global economy. For many NGOs and developing countries, the G8 summit remains a symbol of elite global governance, but concerns about the legitimacy of this self-constituted forum are increasingly overshadowed by criticisms of the forum's ineffectiveness.

MALAWI-MOZAMBIQUE: Poverty reduction needs more than just political will

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/8549

A lot more than political will is needed to eradicate poverty in Africa, according to a recent report by an international development think-tank. The British-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) asked some tough questions of how public money is managed and spent in trying to alleviate poverty in five African countries - Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. The aim of the research titled, 'How, When and Why does Poverty get Budget Priority' was to identify the factors influencing the importance attached to poverty reduction within the budget process, and the effectiveness with which policies are translated into funding and, ultimately, into results.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

MALAWI-MOZAMBIQUE: Poverty reduction needs more than just political will

JOHANNESBURG, 25 June (IRIN) - A lot more than political will is needed to eradicate poverty in Africa, according to a recent report by an international development think-tank.

The British-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) asked some tough questions of how public money is managed and spent in trying to alleviate poverty in five African countries - Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

The aim of the research titled, 'How, When and Why does Poverty get Budget Priority' was to identify the factors influencing the importance attached to poverty reduction within the budget process, and the effectiveness with which policies are translated into funding and, ultimately, into results.

Both Malawi and Mozambique have over recent years placed poverty reduction strategies at the top of the development agenda. But not before a few hard lessons in realistic goal setting and the need for forward planning, the report said.

The Malawian government in 1995 introduced the Policy Framework for Poverty Reduction which aimed to raise the productivity of the poor.

The government also introduced expanded safety nets for the poor and reallocated spending toward health care, primary education and rural infrastructure.

Although a step in the right direction, the programme failed to identify the neediest among the poor, and overstretched its public resources by trying to provide for too many people, the study noted

Experience, in this case, proved to be a good teacher as the government moved to adopt a more participatory approach.

"Broader participation in Malawi has resulted in a more wide-ranging poverty strategy, adding good governance, improved income distribution and food security," the study said.

Mozambique's attempt at implementing a poverty reduction strategy remained little more than a policy framework until after its 13-year civil war. After the 1999 elections, a new "broader" strategy was approved in the Government Programme 2000-04, which placed poverty reduction at the heart of the policy agenda.

It included a more detailed list of policy goals with institutional responsibilities, activities and targets. Particular to the country, the programme included a stronger focus on a coherent emergency response network, in response to its vulnerability to natural disasters.

The report noted: "Education and health networks have been improved, and emerging civil society organisations have increased their voice and sometimes influence (as on land law), though the culture of popular consultation has some way to go."

But while the study applauded the increased institutional support for anti-poverty programmes through increased public spending, it pointed to the uphill battle to maintain strict fiscal discipline and a stable budget, without which "all the good intentions could result in benefiting the non-poor [those not in need of government assistance]".

Additionally, and fundamental to its findings, the study reiterated the need for increased participation of civil society and a commitment to identifying who the poor really are.

"Government must understand who the poor really are and how they move them into or out of poverty, and how the nature of poverty is changing," the study noted.

The report also called for the strengthening of "information sharing networks" saying that transparency in the information flow between government and the poor had "shallow roots, and access could easily be removed (or likely) declined if government leadership gives it less emphasis".

On a practical level, the report suggested that governments must make hard choices, if the battle against poverty was to be
won. One of the ways to assure that the poor were benefiting from the disbursement of public money directed at them was to reduce the cost of free or subsidised services currently enjoyed by the mainly non-poor minority.

Part of the problem was the lack of qualitative research. Thorough analysis, it was recommended, would reduce the temptation to solve the problem by assuming it away through ambitious growth targets.

The common weakness, however, in the five countries under study was that each country lacked sufficient capacity to plan changes in strategic priorities.

"It is fundamental that the plans are based on realistic resources and respected in budget release decisions.
Domestic revenue forecast need to take a cautious view of growth prospects and in particular should not assume administrative improvements in revenue collection until there is some evidence that revenue targets have been reached," the report said.

The study noted that improving the delivery of public expenditure required attention to major problems of low pay, weak incentives, and weak or non-existent performance management.

The pay problem, it added, was especially acute in rural areas.

However, various incentives are being tried to overcome the problem, including faster promotion, and in Mozambique, making rural service a condition for being accredited as a teacher or a doctor.

But higher salaries would not improve services unless better performance was required in return, the report noted.

The study pointed out that the problems of building capacity and managing performance are central, just as they are in developed countries where governments have also struggled to improve delivery.

For the full report:
www.odi.org.uk/publications/wp164.pdf




[ENDS]

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AFRICA: 28 million Africans now living with HIV/AIDS - UNAIDS

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/8504

More than 28 million Africans are now living with HIV/AIDS and in some countries over 30 percent of the adult population is infected, a UNAIDS statement warned on Tuesday. "The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS is rolling back decades of development progress in Africa," said Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

AFRICA: 28 million Africans now living with HIV/AIDS - UNAIDS

JOHANNESBURG, 25 June (IRIN) - More than 28 million Africans are now living with HIV/AIDS and in some countries over 30 percent of the adult population is infected, a UNAIDS statement warned on Tuesday.

"The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS is rolling back decades of development progress in Africa," said Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director.

"Every element of African society - from teachers to soldiers to farmers - is under attack by AIDS," he added.

In data released on the eve of the Group of Eight (G-8) summit on Wednesday, which is due to consider the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), UNAIDS estimated that the rate of economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa had fallen by up to four percent because of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, according to a new UN study, prevention campaigns have successfully raised awareness of HIV/AIDS in developing countries, but have not had a major impact on behaviour. People still refuse to accept that they are at risk of catching the HI virus.

A United Nations Population Division study of 24 countries in Africa, seven in Asia and eight in Latin America and the Caribbean, found that even in places where there was a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, most people felt the risk of contracting AIDS was low.

In some countries - Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe - virtually the entire adult population was aware of HIV/AIDS, the study noted.

In most countries, awareness of AIDS was higher among men than women.

"Radio is by far the most often cited source of knowledge about AIDS. About half of the female respondents and more than 7 in 10 male respondents have heard about AIDS on the radio," the report said.

Schools and teachers appear to play little a limited role in AIDS awareness. According to the study, schools and teachers were mentioned by fewer than 10 percent of the respondents.

The report said that among respondents who were aware of HIV/AIDS, a "large majority" knew of at least one way to protect themselves from contracting the disease.

Yet in half the countries surveyed, one-quarter to one-third of female respondents knew of no way to avoid getting HIV/AIDS. In Mozambique, two-thirds of female respondents knew of no way to avoid getting HIV/AIDS.

Using a condom and having one sex partner were the two most popular answers. Many respondents said they were limiting sexual partners to avoid infection.

But fewer than eight percent of women and between 15 percent and 25 percent of men said they had begun using condoms in their sexual relationships, the report noted. The percentage of couples who used condoms was very low in all countries surveyed.

"The results from this study highlight the enormous challenge lying ahead in the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS. Clearly, dramatic changes in sexual and reproductive awareness and behaviour in many less developed countries are needed in order to defeat the HIV/AIDS epidemic," the report said.

Released to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the first UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, the report is the largest international study on HIV/AIDS ever completed by the United Nations. The study was based on surveys of about 5,000 households in each country, and was conducted mainly during the mid-to-late 1990s.

For more information:
http://www.unaids
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/AIDS_awareness/index.html


[ENDS]

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africa: Africans still ignorant about Aids

2002-06-27

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_2062000/2062156.stm

High numbers of people in Africa and other developing countries do not realise that HIV/Aids can kill. Even in countries with high infection rates a large majority of men and women believe they are not at risk of contracting Aids, the UN Population Division says in a new report.

africa: Ageing and AIDS in Africa

2002-06-27

http://www.who.int/hpr/ageing/Research%20Update%20Fin.pdf

Of the total number of children under the age of 15 who had lost their mothers or both parents to AIDS by 2000, 90% were in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of those infected with HIV are people in their economically active stages of life (15-49). It is grandparents who have to care for their sick or HIV-infected children and raise and support their orphaned grandchildren. In most cases, they provide this care with little or no state or other support.

africa: Bush Plays Shell Game with African Lives

2002-06-27

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0206aids.html

On the eve of a meeting of rich country leaders in Canada, President Bush has brought out a "new initiative" promising $500 million to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to children. Intended to stave off the embarrassment of coming empty-handed to a summit trumpeted as focusing on Africa, the White House initiative is in fact a cynical move to derail more effective action against AIDS.

BURUNDI: Vaccination campaign progresses, despite fighting

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/8453

Despite continuing fighting in parts of Burundi, the vaccination campaign launched last week was "moving forward as planned", Susanna Campbell, the communications officer for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), says.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

BURUNDI: Vaccination campaign progresses, despite fighting

NAIROBI , 21 June (IRIN) - Despite continuing fighting in parts of Burundi, the vaccination campaign launched earlier this week is "moving forward as planned", Susanna Campbell, the communications officer for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN on Friday.

"People seem to be able to get to vaccination centres," she said from the capital, Bujumbura.

UNICEF had appealed to Hutu rebels and the government forces to observe "days of tranquillity" to allow for the vaccination of millions of Burundians. This call was being supported by a widely disseminated radio message from the children, who were appealing for the observation of "a temporary truce" so they could live, UNICEF reported on Wednesday.

Immunisation coverage rates had been falling in Burundi, it added, since the conflict began in 1993, with measles coverage reaching only 54 percent in 2001. In 2000, over 20,000 children had suffered in a serious measles epidemic, it said, adding that a poor health system and the difficulty in accessing much of the population were the reasons for these low vaccination rates. This had made it necessary, UNICEF said, to vaccinate such a large percentage of the population during the current campaign.

The campaign, which began on Monday, is in two phases, with the first ending on 28 June. The second will run from 23 to 26 July, and altogether the campaign seek to vaccinate 3.3 million children between the ages of nine months and 14 years against measles, and 627,720 children between 0-59 months against polio. UNICEF said the campaign also aimed to provide 1.2 million children between six and 59 months with Vitamin A supplements to help boost their immune systems.

Measles attacks the system and skin surfaces (gut, cornea and lungs) and, UNICEF said, could lead to respiratory infections, diarrhoea and blindness. It added that measles could cause children with weak immune systems to die, "and thus poses a great threat to the 50 percent of Burundian children who suffer from chronic malnutrition".

UNICEF said that because of the recent presence of the wild poliovirus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the disease "could still be transmitted" to Burundian children across the shared border. At least 600,000 children in eight provinces that either border the DRC or had registered low coverage rates were expected to receive the oral polio vaccine, UNICEF said.

ECHO, the Humanitarian Aid Office of the EC, is covering most of the cost of this operation, with a contribution of at least 1.7 million euros (US $ 1.6 million).

[ENDS]

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ghana: tb becomes major killer disease

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48672

Tuberculosis is claiming more lives in Ghana than any other diseases including AIDS and kills about 20,000 people each year, Ghana News Agency reported Monday. Dr Mohammed Bin Ibrahim, director of Western Region of Health Services, made the remarks when launching the regional TB campaign on Monday. About 40,000 cases were reported in the year 2000 in the west African country, Ibrahim added.

malawi: Quest for HIV/Aids Treatment Fuels Bogus Drug Boom

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206210451.html

Many Malawians living with HIV/AIDS are forced to rely on illegal drugs in a bid to treat opportunistic illnesses, ease suffering and prolong their lives.

south africa: Antiretroviral Therapy Reduces Tuberculosis Incidence in Areas Where AIDS, TB Endemic

2002-06-27

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11720

Highly active antiretroviral therapy can reduce the incidence of tuberculosis in HIV-positive people by 80% or more in areas where the two diseases are endemic, with the most protection being afforded to those with advanced immune suppression, according to a study published in the June 15 issue of the Lancet.

south africa: SA researchers make malaria breakthrough

2002-06-27

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=11&o=5145

South African researchers have made a breakthrough in malaria research that will enable more effective drugs to be developed to treat the parasite-based infection, a medical researcher said on Sunday. The breakthrough was based on identifying how the malaria parasite handles iron in red blood cells, said Giovanni Hearne, a doctor at the Wits University's Medical School in Johannesburg. Malaria is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito and is a huge problem worldwide, particularly in Africa.

south africa: Treating Aids saves money, says Aids group

2002-06-27

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=11&o=5191

Not treating HIV-positive people was more expensive than buying them medicine, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said in Johannesburg on Monday. "That's the thesis that our experts are testing and they are looking at hard figures to support it," TAC secretary Mark Heywood told reporters in Johannesburg. Heywood was speaking ahead of a HIV/Aids congress due to take place in Durban.

SUDAN: New hope for treatment of killer disease kala-azar

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/8451

The recent development of a treatment for leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, a disease that each year afflicts some 500,000 people globally and kills at least 60,000, offers a ray of hope for thousands of Sudanese who die each year from the disease for lack of treatment.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SUDAN: New hope for treatment of killer disease kala-azar

NAIROBI, 21 June (IRIN) - The recent development of a treatment for leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, a disease that each year afflicts some 500,000 people globally and kills at least 60,000, offers a ray of hope for thousands of Sudanese who die each year from the disease for lack of treatment.

The United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement this week that scientists had developed a new treatment found to be at least 95 percent effective in patients who developed the more lethal "visceral" form of leishmaniasis.

The disease is found in parts of 88 countries, but about 90 percent of all black fever cases occur in five countries - India, Brazil, Sudan, Nepal and Bangladesh. In the 1990s, Sudan suffered a crisis with 100,000 deaths among people at risk, according to the WHO.

The symptoms of visceral leishmaniasis include bouts of fever, substantial weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver, and anaemia (occasionally serious). If left untreated, the fatality rate can be as high as 100 percent.

Visceral leishmaniasis can cause large-scale epidemics with high case fatality. For example, western Upper Nile (also known as Unity, or Wahdah, State) in southern Sudan experienced a major outbreak between 1984 and 1994. This was the first epidemic in this area, and people were therefore very susceptible to the disease.

Because of an accumulation of risk factors such as civil unrest, disruption of health systems, malnutrition, underlying diseases and due to absence of diagnostic facilities and first-line drugs at local level, the mortality rate was very high and 40,000 people were reported to have died of the disease.

WHO cited studies indicating that in some villages up to half the population succumbed to the disease, and said one report suggested that during this decade, visceral leishmaniasis claimed 100,000 lives in a population of around 300,000 in western Upper Nile.
[See: ]http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/index.html]

In Sudan, where the visceral form is known as kala-azar, leishmaniasis is most common in the conflict-affected Blue Nile, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Kassala regions, as well as in the area north of the capital, Khartoum. There are also indications that the disease is present in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan State, south-central Sudan, according to humanitarian sources.

Increasing disease activity has also been noted in the eastern state of Al-Qadarif, notably along the Rahad and Dinder Rivers, while activity - formerly prevalent - has been decreasing in Sinnar and Sinjah, according to US-based Programme for Monitoring Emergency Diseases (ProMed).

The international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres complained in February that systematic looting of the village of Nimne in oil-rich western Upper Nile had disrupted a kala-azar project with 107 patients under treatment and a basic health care unit with 1,700 to 2,000 consultations per month.

Over 40,000 fatal cases were reported from the western Upper Nile between 1984 and 1991, and the death toll among the Nuer and Dinka peoples in southern Sudan was estimated at 200,000 between 1988 and 1995, it added.
[http://www.fas.org/promed/]

The new drug, Miltefosine, the first oral drug developed against leishmaniasis has already been approved for use in India, which has half the global burden of the disease, according to WHO, which was involved in the development of the treatment with the Indian government, the German biopharmaceutical company Zentaris, the Tropical Diseases Research, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.

"This is fantastic progress," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland noted in the statement. "We now have a powerful new tool to fight this terrible disease. The combined efforts of these partners have opened a new era in the fight against visceral leishmaniasis. In doing so, we can free the poor from one of their many burdens."

Considered one of the world's most neglected diseases, leishmaniasis - a parasitic "wasting" disease, transmitted through the bite of a sand fly - afflicts some of the world's poorest people, with 80 percent of its victims earning less than US $2 a day.

Until now, all treatments for leishmaniasis had had substantial drawbacks, ranging from high cost to high toxicity, and even causing irreversible damage such as diabetes, the WHO stated this week.

The current treatment for one patient can cost as much as 250,000 Sudanese pounds (about $97), about eight times the average monthly wages of a Sudanese government employee, according to ProMed.

The cost of current treatments (Pentostam, antimony, amphotericin B or pentamidine) is prohibitive for most Sudanese sufferers from leishmaniasis, and neither do the health authorities in Sudan have the capacity at present to launch a concerted campaign against the disease - which is not the highest priority given the depth and breadth of other humanitarian problems in the country, according to aid workers.

Leishmaniasis disease is often related to environmental changes such as deforestation, building of dams, new irrigation schemes, urbanisation and migration of non-immune people to endemic areas, according to the WHO.
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/leisdis1.html

The disease seriously hampers productivity and vitally needed socioeconomic progress, and the public health impact has been grossly underestimated for many years, mainly due to lack of awareness of its serious impact on health. The incidence of the disease is also severely underestimated, so that the actual health loss associated with it is greater than official figures suggest.

[ENDS]

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uganda: 'Female Condom Not Yet Popular'

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206200143.html

The female condom has not been well received because it interferes with certain cultural sexual practices, a monitoring and evaluation specialist has said.

zambia: Contraceptive and Sexually Transmitted Infection Protection in Lusaka

2002-06-27

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2809602.html

Although efforts are being made to integrate STI services into family planning clinics in Zambia, these efforts need reinforcement. The educational levels of both providers and their clients may be barriers to a successful transfer of STI prevention information during client-provider interactions.

ZIMBABWE: Update on state of emergency over HIV/AIDS

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/8454

A month after Zimbabwe's government declared a state of emergency over HIV/AIDS to allow the importation and manufacture of generic drugs, not much action has been taken and there are still a lot of unanswered questions, Zimbabwe's National Network for People living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP+), told PlusNews.
ZIMBABWE: Update on state of emergency over HIV/AIDS

JOHANNESBURG, 21 June (PLUSNEWS) - A month after Zimbabwe's government declared a state of emergency over HIV/AIDS to allow the importation and manufacture of generic drugs, not much action has been taken and there are still a lot of unanswered questions, Zimbabwe's National Network for People living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP+), told PlusNews.

"A lot has been said but we still don't know anything about it and how it will affect us," Jefta Mxotshwa, acting director of ZNNP+ told PlusNews on Friday.

The government should have made wider consultations with various stakeholders before announcing the state of emergency, as there seemed to be no clarity over details of what the declaration meant, he said.

This week, the main state-controlled daily, The Herald, reported that government plans to acquire antiretroviral drugs from Asia, were at an advanced stage.

"We have declared the AIDS pandemic an emergency and we are taking a systematic approach to acquire affordable antiretroviral drugs from Thailand, India and Europe. Our primary objective is to have the anti-retroviral drugs available in public hospitals and to ascertain their genuineness through the Medical Control Authority before they are eventually privatised," the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, was quoted as saying.

Mxotshwa said: "It is cheaper to import the drugs from Asia because of the foreign currency shortages facing Zimbabwe, as the currencies of Asian countries are weaker than those of most European countries. The drugs, however, need to go through an effective screening process before they are released to the public. There is also a need for all stakeholders to complement the efforts of the government in its procurement efforts."

Declaring a state of emergency was an expensive programme as the health care system would have to treat the epidemic as such and health workers had to learn how to administer the drugs, he said.

"We will see how this will benefit people living with HIV/AIDS, as the majority of them are poor and nothing has been said about subsidising these drugs when they arrive."

"At face value, it all sounds good and we appreciate it but when you look deeper, there's not a lot they are doing," he added.




[ENDS]

IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 880-4633
Fax: +27 11 447-5472
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

[This Item is Delivered to the "PlusNews" HIV/AIDS Service of the UN's IRIN
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002

africa: a crisis of ageing

2002-06-27

http://www.id21.org/insights/insights42/insights-iss42-art03.html

There has been much talk of an ageing crisis in Europe, but the real crisis is in Africa. A combination of high fertility, rising longevity, civil war and HIV/AIDS lies behind a unique transformation of the demographic structure in which, unlike any other regions in the world, falling life expectancy at birth is associated with rising life expectancy at later ages.

ANGOLA: Polio-free campaign launched

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/8505

ETHIOPIA: Focus on education in Borena

2002-06-27

http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28537

Like most children in her village, Gechawa Gandesha laughs when she is asked why she will not go on to senior school. "It would take me almost a week to walk there," said the 14-year-old, who already walks more than four kilometres to her current school. Gechawa is at the top of her primary class, and longs to become a doctor. Her headmaster says she is more than capable of achieving that. But she lives in one of the remotest corners of Ethiopia, and schools are few and far between.

kenya: Underweight Babies in 'Grave Danger' in Nairobi Hospitals

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250034.html

A new study on child mortality in Kenya says that newly-born underweight babies admitted to the country's leading public hospital are at a higher risk of dying within the first month than Nigerian children were more than 25 years ago. According to the study, which is another damning indictment of the poor standards of healthcare at Kenyan public hospitals, low birthweight babies admitted to the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) - the country's biggest and most advanced hospital - are also more likely to die than those admitted to the institution more than a quarter of a century ago.

nigeria: Gabon repatriates 242 Nigerian trafficked children

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48541

A Nigerian NGO leading the fight against women trafficking and child labour, said 242 Nigerian children were repatriated from Gabon between January 2000 and June 2001, the local press reported last Thursday.

southern africa: Future uncertain: Social pensions in Southern Africa

2002-06-27

http://www.id21.org/insights/insights42/insights-iss42-art07.html

Only three countries in sub Saharan Africa - South Africa, Namibia and Botswana - provide non contributory social pensions for their elderly citizens. In all three countries, the social pension injects substantial volumes of cash into poor households and communities. It has stimulated trade and marketing infrastructure, helped stabilise rural food supplies, and reduced vulnerability by providing a 'safety net' against livelihood shocks such as drought.

uganda: AIDS ORPHANS INCREASE TO 2 MILLION IN UGANDA

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48655&countryid=52

The number of children orphaned byAIDS has increased from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2 million this year despite a decline in the rate of infection, the English daily Monitor reported on Monday.

south africa: Let's Talk About Race

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206200499.html

Why are we so afraid of admitting our racism/s? Media coverage of racism often extends only to sensational killings or attacks, or the media defending itself against being racist. There is little space for open, honest debate on race, and when there is, where are the voices of ordinary people? And why are the voices so often male? Do women experience racism?

south africa: Warder denies racism claim

2002-06-27

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/FreeState/0,1113,2-7-832_1203803,00.html

A Grootvlei Prison warder on Monday denied claims by inmates that he had made racist and sexist remarks about members of the Jali Commission into prison corruption.

africa: Human TB infects African meerkats and mongooses

2002-06-27

http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/06/06272002/s_47551.asp

A major killer in human populations, tuberculosis has now jumped into populations of Africa's meerkats and mongooses. The culprit is ecotourism, a phenomenon once thought to be agreeably benign. Apparently, the hotel system now operating in the continent's once-isolated bush country has exposed the fauna to more human diseases.

africa: WARMING CLIMATE SPAWNS DISEASE EPIDEMICS

2002-06-27

http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-25-06.asp

Dozens of lions died in Tanzania in 2001 after flies carrying distemper spread to eastern Africa. This is an example of how the changing, warming climate around the globe is triggering unprecedented numbers of disease outbreaks in both land and ocean based wildlife populations in habitats ranging from coral reefs to rainforests. Ecologists and epidemiologists have expressed concern over this rising trend in a new report in the June 21 issue of the journal "Science."

kenya: KWS Rues Human, Wildlife Conflict

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260260.html

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has acknowledged an upsurge in human-wildlife conflict in the country. A communications officer, Mr Daniel Njaga, said the service is concerned by the sharp increase in the human-wildlife conflict that has seen several people lose their lives.

liberia: Criminal Activities Engulf African Forest - NGOs Observe

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206240246.html

The plundering of forests is pervasive in Africa and is causing enormous damage to the environment and the economy, as well as hurting the poor the most, say NGOs from five African countries.

namibia: Ivory Plan Gets Support

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48585&countryid=36

Two wildlife organisations have come out in support of a government bid to be allowed to sell ivory stocks on an annual basis. The Namibia Nature Foundation's Project Co-ordinator, Nils Odendaal, told The Namibian that they backed the request 100 per cent. Namibia is home to approximately 10 000 elephants and has about 40 tonnes of ivory stockpiled. Namibia's elephant population is on Cites' Appendix II, which allows one-off sales of ivory but not annual quotas.

tanzania: Illegal logging threatens rare tree species

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48786&countryid=49

Tanzania's rare hardwood trees, including the Fagaropsis angolensis species found around Mount Kilimanjaro and the Brychylaena holschensii in the north-eastern Usambara mountain region are currently under threat from illegal logging, forest officials concede.

uganda: President Suspends Animal Exports

2002-06-27

http://www.newafrica.com/news/articlepg1.asp?ID=48646&countryid=52

President Museveni has called for an end to wild animal exports, saying it would be more profitable to use Uganda’s wildlife to promote tourism.

zimbabwe: wildlife in crisis

2002-06-27

http://www.kubatana.net/html/archive/wild/020613wpa.asp?sector=WILD

It is estimated that Zimbabwe has lost about 50 percent of its wildlife, 65 percent of its tourism and up to 90 percent of safari hunting on commercial farms due to resettlement, according to Wally Herbst, Chairman of the Wildlife Producers Association.

Canadian Media is Taking Aim At Africa

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206270053.html

The Group of Eight (G-8) summit being held in Kananaskis, a ski hamlet about 100km west of Calgary, has stirred a wave of interest about Africa in the Canadian media.

DRC: JED accused of tarnishing country's image

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8497

Minister of Communications and Press Kikaya Bin Karubi has responded to the recent protest letter from Journaliste en danger (JED) which denounced threats and harassment aimed at the private broadcaster RAGA and journalist Jean-René Mputu Biduaya. In an 18 June 2002 letter to JED, Kikaya denied any involvement in the blackmail efforts and intimidation campaign designed to force RAGA to stop criticising the government. The minister described the remarks reported by JED as "gratuitous" and "fabrications aimed at having our foreign partners believe that the private press in the Congo is bullied by the authorities."
_______________________________________________________________
> IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ALERT AND UPDATE - DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
>
> 21 June 2002
>
> Minister accuses JED of seeking to tarnish the country's image
>
> SOURCE: Journaliste en danger (JED), Kinshasa
>
> **New cases and update to IFEX alert of 14 June 2002**
>
> (JED/IFEX) - Minister of Communications and Press Kikaya Bin Karubi has
> responded to JED's recent protest letter denouncing the threats and
> harassment aimed at the private broadcaster RAGA and journalist Jean-René
> Mputu Biduaya. In an 18 June 2002 letter to JED, Kikaya denied any
> involvement in the blackmail efforts and intimidation campaign designed to
> force RAGA to stop criticising the government.
>
> The minister described the remarks reported by JED as "gratuitous" and
> "fabrications aimed at having our foreign partners believe that the
private
> press in the Congo is bullied by the authorities."
>
> With regards to the arrests of journalists, the minister accused JED of
> constantly evoking old statistics in order to tarnish the Democratic
> Republic of Congo's image.
>
> In a 20 June letter of response to Kikaya, JED confirmed that all the
> information cited by the organisation was obtained from official sources
and
> credible eyewitness accounts. JED deplored the fact that the minister
> responsible for communications and the press would describe such serious
> attacks on press freedom as "imaginary incidents."
>
> In the same letter, JED listed several recent cases of journalists who
were
> either arrested or detained. They clearly disprove the minister's
> allegations that journalists are not under threat in the part of the
country
> under government control.
>
> JED cited the case of Félix Kabuizi, publication director of the daily "La
> Référence Plus", who was questioned at length at the National Intelligence
> Agency (Agence nationale des renseignements, ANR) offices on 19 June. The
> journalist was questioned about an article that reported the recent
> disappearance of seven leaders of the rebel movement Rassemblement
congolais
> pour la démocratie - Mouvement de libération (RCD-ML). The seven leaders
> were reportedly taken by soldiers to an undisclosed location. Kabuizi was
> threatened and warned not to write about such incidents, which, according
to
> his interrogators, "may discourage other candidates from returning to the
> country."
>
> One week earlier, Nyemabo Kalenga, publisher of the newspaper "La
Tribune",
> was detained illegally for over 10 hours at the ANR offices. In an earlier
> article, the journalist had denounced a fraud case implicating a Lebanese
> citizen.
>
> For further information, contact D. M'Baya Tshimanga, president,
Journaliste
> en danger (JED), B.P. 633 Kinshasa 1, Democratic Republic of Congo, tel.
> +243 99 29 323, +243 99 29 345, fax: +243 12 21974, e-mail:
> direction@jed-congo.org, alertes@jed-congo.org, Internet:
> http://www.jed-congo.org
>
> The information contained in this alert and update is the sole
> responsibility of JED. In citing this material for broadcast or
publication,
> please credit JED.
> _________________________________________________________________
> DISTRIBUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
> EXCHANGE (IFEX) CLEARING HOUSE
> 489 College Street, Toronto (ON) M6G 1A5 CANADA
> tel: +1 416 515 9622 fax: +1 416 515 7879
> alerts email: alerts@ifex.org general e-mail: ifex@ifex.org
> Internet site: http://www.ifex.org/
> _________________________________________________________________
>

Kenya: Media call for protection

2002-06-27

http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/28062002/News/News9.html

The government has been told to provide security for journalists covering the coming General Election. Journalists from both public and private media organisations complained that they were being harassed and intimidated by State officials and political party operatives even before the elections are called.

Kenya: News firm challenges new law on the media

2002-06-27

http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/28062002/News/News67.html

A news agency in Kenya has moved to court to challenge the law requiring publishers to execute bonds of Sh1 million to run newspapers and magazines. Kenya Eyes News Services wants a Constitutional Court to declare the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act 2002 illegal.

MALAWI: Community radio station censored

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8516

The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has warned the Malawi Institute of Journalism radio station (MIJ FM) that it risks losing its broadcasting license because of what MACRA describes as anomalies and bias in its reporting. MIJ FM is a community radio station run by the MIJ to train students. However, it has been established that the license principles issued to MIJ state that the radio station should protect the best interests of the community, encourage new and innovative programmes and promote community access to information. MACRA Director of Telecommunications Mike Kuntiya refused to clarify what the authority meant by "anomalies" in MIJ FM programmes. MACRA, hitherto dormant, is yet to prove to be a neutral referee. The Authority has failed to take action against the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), despite the public outcry over MBC's apparent partisan reporting in favour of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF).
IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ALERT - MALAWI
>
> 25 June 2002
>
> Community radio station censored
>
> SOURCE: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Windhoek
>
> (MISA/IFEX) - The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has
> warned the Malawi Institute of Journalism radio station (MIJ FM) that it
> risks losing its broadcasting license because of what MACRA describes as
> anomalies and bias in its reporting. MIJ FM is a community radio station
run
> by the MIJ to train students.
>
> In a 13 June 2002 letter signed by MACRA Director General Evance Namanja,
> MACRA accused MIJ FM of running editorial comments, newscasts, licensed
> programme formats and general coverage inconsistent with the provisions of
> the Communications Act and MIJ's broadcasting license.
>
> However, the MISA's Malawi chapter (Namisa) has established that the
license
> principles issued to MIJ state that the radio station should protect the
> best interest of the community, encourage new and innovative programmes
and
> promote community access to information.
>
> MIJ Executive Director James Ng'ombe told Namisa in a 20 June interview
that
> he was surprised by MACRA's move. Ng'ombe said his station would not
betray
> professional standards because of the threats. "I hope everyone gets the
> same type of refereeing. I hope they (MACRA) have a way of proving
> neutrality and balance," said Ng'ombe.
>
> MACRA Director of Telecommunications Mike Kuntiya refused to clarify what
> the authority meant by "anomalies" in MIJ FM programmes. MACRA, hitherto
> dormant, is yet to prove to be a neutral referee. The Authority has failed
> to take action against the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), despite
> the public outcry over MBC's apparent partisan reporting in favour of the
> ruling United Democratic Front (UDF).
>
> Political analysts suspect that MACRA's move is aimed at turning the
station
> into another front to advance the idea of an unlimited term in the
> presidential office. The Malawi Constitution, which the UDF is trying to
> amend, gives the president a maximum of two five-year terms in office.
>
> MIJ FM took to the airwaves a year ago and is fully dependent on donor
> funding, especially from Denmark, a country that controversially cut its
> diplomatic ties with Malawi a few months ago.
>
> For further information, contact Zoe Titus or Kaitira Kandjii, Regional
> Information Coordinator, MISA, Street Address: 21 Johann Albrecht Street,
> Mailing Address; Private Bag 13386 Windhoek, Namibia, tel: +264 61 232975,
> fax: +264 61 248016, e-mail: research@misa.org.na or kkandjii@misa.org.na,
> Internet: http://www.misa.org/
>
> The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of
MISA.
> In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit MISA.

Malawi: Police disband press club meeting

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8515

On 20 June 2002, police in Malawi's largest city Blantyre stopped a series of public debates organised by the Lilongwe Press Club to discuss the proposed amendment to the Malawi Constitution regarding the limits on the president's term in office.
IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ALERT - MALAWI
>
> 25 June 2002
>
> Police disband press club meeting
>
> SOURCE: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Windhoek
>
> (MISA/IFEX) - On 20 June 2002, police in Malawi's largest city Blantyre
> stopped a series of public debates organised by the Lilongwe Press Club to
> discuss the proposed amendment to the Malawi Constitution regarding the
> limits on the president's term in office.
>
> The debates were supposed to be held in the three regional centres of
> Blantyre (South - 20 June), Lilongwe (Central - 21 June) and Mzuzu
(North -
> 23 June) under the theme: "The merits and demerits of changing Section
83(3)
> of the Malawi Constitution".
>
> Lilongwe Press Club publicist Don Kulapani said in an interview with
MISA's
> Malawi chapter (Namisa) that 30 heavily armed paramilitary police
> accompanied by armoured vehicles sealed the Blantyre venue, barely an hour
> before the debate, and turned away anyone who went to the venue.
>
> Kulapani stated that Club Secretary General Peter Kumwenda was called to
the
> Lilongwe Hotel Manager's office, where he encountered two policewomen.
> Kulapani said the policewomen told Kumwenda that the Lilongwe debate had
> been cancelled because it was a "threat to security" and that the issue
> would be discussed in Parliament and not at public debates.
>
> Kulapani said that when the two sides failed to agree, the policewomen
took
> Kumwenda to their regional office where he met police commissioner Lot
> Dzonzi and a Central Region commissioner. According to Kulapani, the two
> police officers recited the reasons given earlier by the policewomen.
>
> On 21 June, a contingent of ten heavily armed paramilitary police, stood
> sentry at the gates of the hotel to enforce the ban. Just one day before
the
> Mzuzu debate, Northern Region Police Commissioner Milward Chikwamba called
> Kulapani to tell him about a ban on the debate. Kulapani said Chikwamba
> accused the club of being used by donors to destabilise Malawi. The
debates
> were funded by the United States Agency for International Development
> (USAID).
>
> BACKGROUND:
> On 28 May, Malawi President Bakili Muluzi ordered the army and the police
to
> deal with anyone involved in organising or participating in any
> demonstrations for or against the constitutional amendment.
>
> A week later, the High Court in Blantyre granted an injunction to
religious
> groups, civil society and concerned citizens against the presidential ban.
> However, at a press conference, President Muluzi dismissed the injunction
as
> "irresponsible and highly insensitive."
>
> The court has since reversed its decision, following an application by the
> attorney general and minister of justice. The ban still stands.
>
> For further information, contact Zoe Titus or Kaitira Kandjii, Regional
> Information Coordinator, MISA, Street Address: 21 Johann Albrecht Street,
> Mailing Address; Private Bag 13386 Windhoek, Namibia, tel: +264 61 232975,
> fax: +264 61 248016, e-mail: research@misa.org.na or kkandjii@misa.org.na,
> Internet: http://www.misa.org/
>
> The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of
MISA.
> In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit MISA.

NIGER: Publication director of "Le Canard déchaîné" jailed again

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8495

Abdoulaye Tiémogo, publication director of the satirical weekly "Le Canard déchaîné", was arrested on 18 June 2002 further to Prime Minister Hama Amadou's filing of a complaint for "defamation". RSF has urged the prime minister to withdraw his complaint and see to it that the journalist is released immediately.
IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ALERT - NIGER
>
> 20 June 2002
>
> Publication director of "Le Canard déchaîné" jailed again
>
> SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris
>
> (RSF/IFEX) - Abdoulaye Tiémogo, publication director of the satirical
weekly
> "Le Canard déchaîné", was arrested on 18 June 2002 further to Prime
Minister
> Hama Amadou's filing of a complaint for "defamation". RSF has urged the
> prime minister to withdraw his complaint and see to it that the journalist
> is released immediately.
>
> "Abdoulaye Tiémogo has been arrested three times since October 2001 and
has
> spent almost two months behind bars. A member of the government has been
> behind the legal action each time," deplored RSF Secretary-General Robert
> Ménard. The organisation asked the prime minister to demonstrate his
> commitment to press freedom by reigning in his ministers, who
"unrelentingly
> try to silence an investigative journalist who is especially critical of
> them." Ménard also recalled that, "as a sentence for the crime of
> defamation, imprisonment constitutes a serious human rights violation."
>
> According to information collected by RSF, Criminal Investigation
Department
> officers in Niamey placed Tiémogo in police custody on 18 June, in the
late
> afternoon. The prime minister filed a complaint against Tiémogo because he
> felt "defamed and insulted" by three highly critical articles that were
> published in the latest issue of "Le Canard déchaîné". The journalist
> notably accused Amadou of seeking to bribe the speaker of the National
> Assembly in order to retain his post as prime minister.
>
> Just over one month ago, Tiémogo was jailed for two weeks after Amadou
filed
> a complaint. He was placed in police custody on 17 May, one week after
> hosting a debate on the private radio station Tambara FM. During the
debate,
> Sanoussi Jackou, president of the Parti Nigérien pour l'autogestion (PNA),
a
> small opposition party, accused the prime minister of ethnic and regional
> discrimination in the appointment of high state officials. Jackou was also
> arrested, as was Abarad Mouddour Zakara, publication director of his
> newspaper "La Roue de l'histoire", following the commerce minister's
filing
> of a complaint for "defamation". They were released on 29 May after being
> sentenced to a four-month suspended jail sentence and a fine of 100,000
CFA
> francs (approx. US$147;153 euros) (see IFEX alerts of 30 and 23 May 2002).
>
> On 19 October 2001, the Niamey First Instance Tribunal sentenced Tiémogo
to
> six months' imprisonment for "defamation". Agriculture Minister Wassalké
> Boukari had filed a complaint against "Le Canard Déchaîné" following its
> publication of an article alleging that he had embezzled 200 million CFA
> francs (approx. US$294,000; 305,000 euros) from a gold-mining area in the
> west of the country. The minister withdrew his complaint on 7 December, at
> the start of the appeals trial, and the journalist was subsequently
released
> (see IFEX alerts of 12 December and 19 October 2001).
>
> For further information, contact Jean-François Julliard at RSF, rue
Geoffroy
> Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11
51,
> e-mail: afrique@rsf.fr, Internet: http://www.rsf.fr
>
> The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of RSF.
> In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit RSF.
> _________________________________________________________________
> DISTRIBUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
> EXCHANGE (IFEX) CLEARING HOUSE
> 489 College Street, Toronto (ON) M6G 1A5 CANADA
> tel: +1 416 515 9622 fax: +1 416 515 7879
> alerts email: alerts@ifex.org general e-mail: ifex@ifex.org
> Internet site: http://www.ifex.org/
> ________________________________________________________________

Nigeria: BABANGIDA, GOVT BATTLE IN COURT

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8513

The attempt by former military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida to stop the implementation of the report of the Human Rights Violation Investigations Commission (HRVIC) got underway in Abuja last week with the federal government declaring before the Federal High court that General Babangida had no legal right to dictate when or how the reports of the HRVIC should be implemented.
> MEDIA IN NIGERIA #01-16 (24 JUNE 2002)
>
> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
=
> = = = = =
> MEDIA IN NIGERIA is a weekly publication on developments within and
> affecting the media/communication/freedom of expression sector in Nigeria.
>
> It is an initiative of the Institute for Media and Society (IMS), a
> non-profit,
> non-governmental organization based in Lagos, Nigeria.
> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
=
> = = = = =
>
> NEWS
> MEDIA-GENERAL
> -DELE GIWA: BABANGIDA, GOVT BATTLE IN COURT
> -NUJ BOSS RESIGNS, ALLEGES REPRESSION
>
> PRINT MEDIA
> -BUSINESSDAY MERGES WITH BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL
>
> BROADCAST MEDIA
> -2003: NBC WARNS AGAINST UNBALANCED REPORTING
> -FG's 32 FM STATIONS, MISPLACED PRIORITY - GOV
>
> INFOTECH
> -MTN MAKES $132M IN TEN MONTHS
> -IILL: FIRST BANK SACKS FORMER MD, OTHERS
> -BANKS LEND $700M TO GSM OPERATORS
> -GOVT ADVISED TO SUBSIDIZE RURAL TELEPHONY
>
> ADVERTISING
> -APCON, NBC FIGHT UNWHOLESOME ADS
>
>
>
> MEDIA-GENERAL
>
> DELE GIWA: BABANGIDA, GOVT BATTLE IN COURT
>
> The attempt by former military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi
Babangida
> to stop the implementation of the report of the Human Rights Violation
> Investigations Commission (HRVIC) got underway in Abuja last week with the
> federal government declaring before the Federal High court, Abuja that
> General Babangida had no legal right to dictate when or how the reports of
> the HRVIC should be implemented.
>
> Mrs. Titilayo Oshinuga, the Solicitor General of the federation who stood
in
> for the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Godwin Kanu Agabi,
> argued that there was no justiceable nor reasonable reliefs being sought
by
> the former military president, adding that he (Babangida) was incompetent
to
> proceed in his action since the commission had submitted its report.
>
> She prayed the court to strike out the case in order not to waste its
> precious time on an action, which had no merit.
>
> Reacting to the preliminary objection raised by the government, counsel to
> General Babangida, Mr. Yahaya Mahmood prayed the court to grant an
> adjournment with a view to having enough time to address the issues in the
> objections.
>
> Consequently, the presiding judge, Justice Binta Murtala Nyarko, adjourned
> proceedings till July 8, 2002
>
> Babangida had instituted a suit at a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking,
> among other reliefs, an order to stop the government from implementing the
> final report of the HRVIC, also known as Oputa Panel, recently submitted
to
> the federal government.
>
> Following the action, the Federal Government had named Lagos radical
lawyer,
> Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who has waged a 16-year personal battle to nail the
> killers of Dele Giwa as its lead counsel. But Gani had given three
> conditions for his appearance. Among the conditions was his insistence on
> having a copy of the commission's recommendations. Gani's absence at the
> commencement of hearing last week is taken as evidence that the government
> rejected his conditions.
>
> But the Lagos lawyer is seeking to be joined in the matter.
>
> During the sitting of the Oputa Panel, several summons were issued on IBB
to
> appear before it, but he ignored all.
>
> He was summoned in respect of petitions from Chief Gani Fawehinmi and
> directors of Newswatch magazine who wanted the Oputa Panel to get to the
> root of Giwa's assassination. Rather than appear, General Babangida had
gone
> to court to challenge the powers of the commission to summon him.
>
> Again, soon after the panel submitted its report, recommending that the
case
> file of the unresolved murder be re-opened, Babangida went to court to
stop
> the implementation of the report.
>
> Dele Giwa, former Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch, was killed via a parcel
bomb
> on October 19, 1986.
>
>
> NUJ BOSS RESIGNS, ALLEGES REPRESSION
>
> Chukwudi Achife, the chairman of the Enugu State chapter of the Nigeria
> Union of Journalists (NUJ) has resigned his position.
>
> In his resignation letter addressed to the National President of the
union,
> Achife said he was forced by extreme circumstances to quit, to guarantee
his
> safety.
>
> The unionist alleged repression by the Enugu State government. He claimed
he
> has been targeted for persecution by agents of the state government since
> May 2, 2002when he issued a statement warning officials of the state
> government to desist from harassing and intimidating journalists in the
> state.
>
> He said he further incensed the government when he failed to accept that
the
> mysterious midnight fire which gutted a portion of the Press Centre,
> including the office of the chairman, as an act of God.
>
> "I have been under fear and pressure as I continued to receive mysterious
> phone calls warning me of danger to my life and exhorting me to leave the
> state", he claimed.
>
> In another development, former President of the NUJ, Alhaji Sani Zorro has
> blamed the Jigawa State governor, Saminu Turaki for last week's riots in
> Dutse, the capital.
>
> Speaking on the Hausa service of German Radio, Zorro said the violence
> clearly showed that the state governor had completely lost grip.
>
> An irate mob last week set ablaze government offices in Gumel local
> government area of the state following the reported plan by the state
> governor to dethrone their Emir, Alhaji Ahmed Muhammed Sanni.
>
>
>
> PRINT MEDIA
>
> BUSINESSDAY MERGES WITH BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL
>
> Nigeria is on the threshood of recording its first corporate merger in the
> media industry as two rival business publications, Business Confidential
> owned by Capital Alliance Nigeria and BusinessDay owned by BusinessDay
Media
> Limited prepare to come under the stable of a new media company, Nigerian
> Media Holdings Limited.
>
> The ground work for the merger is said to have been done by directors of
the
> two companies. The Nigerian Media Holdings Limited has already been
> registered as an offshore company, a clear indication of a desire by the
> promoters of the merger to attract offshore funding for the deal.
>
> The merger allows Capital Alliance, established five years ago with a
> portfolio of leading investors, to acquire substantial equity stake in
NMHL,
> and in return facilitate the injection of fresh funds into the business.
>
> The ratio of equity stakes of Capital Alliance and BusinessDay in NMHL was
> still not clear by last week, but a formal statement to this effect is
being
> expected.
>
> However, there were speculations last week that the major impetus for the
> merger was to facilitate investment by a leading international media
group,
> which has expressed a strong desire to enter Nigeria.
>
> Both Business Confidential and BusinessDay are fairly young business
> publications in the Nigerian market. Business Confidential was launched
more
> than two years ago while BusinessDay will be a year old on the newsstands
on
> July 2, 2002.
>
>
>
> BROADCAST MEDIA
>
> 2003: NBC WARNS AGAINST UNBALANCED REPORTING
>
> Nigerian radio and television stations have been warned against showing
> preference or bias in reporting the activities of politicians and their
> political parties. The official broadcast regulatory authority, the
National
> Broadcasting Commission (NBC), which issued the warning, has threatened to
> invoke the law against any broadcasting station that shows bias in
reporting
> political events or activities.
>
> NBC's Director-General Mallam Danladi Bako said the warning has become
> imperative to forestall a repeat of 1983 events, when the media was caught
> in the web of the political turmoil because of the political learning of
> some media organizations, eventually leading to the fall of the second
> republic.
>
> Unbalanced reporting of political events and activities especially by
> state-owned broadcast organisations has become a major source of concern
for
> watchers of political events in Nigeria ahead of the 2003 general
elections.
>
> Mallam Bako said the era of using the power of incumbency to influence
> political events or the outcome of election results, using the mass media,
> has become unfashionable.
>
> Said he, "No amount of propaganda can save a drowning man. You can use the
> media but when the time for the people comes, they will vote for their
> preferred candidates".
>
> In a related development, the NBC has threatened to shut down any
> broadcasting station in the country that is owing its staff more than one
> month salary.
>
> Mallam Bako said the measure is aimed at "restoring sanity in the
> broadcasting industry".
>
>
>
> FG's 32 FM STATIONS, MISPLACED PRIORITY - GOV
>
> The Nigerian Government's decision to establish 32 FM radio stations
across
> the country, has been described as a misplaced priority.
>
> Governor Abdulkadir Kure of Niger State, North- Central Nigeria, who made
> this observation in Minna while receiving the Director-General of the
> National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Danladi Bako, said the
> project "has no direct bearing on the people."
>
> Kure who was elected on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic
Party
> (PDP), identified politics as the motive behind the proposed stations. "We
> are mindful of next year as election year. The stations are to promote
> politics at the expense of agriculture", the Governor said.
>
> He observed that even though the people needed to be informed, agriculture
> and food production was their priority concern.
>
> He said the money earmarked for one of the stations to be located in Minna
> would have been more meaningful to the people if diverted in purchase of
> fertilizers and other agricultural inputs.
>
> In a similar development, Governor Adamu Aliero of Kebbi State, North-West
> Nigeria, has said he would not provide land for the federal government for
> the establishment of its proposed Frequency Modulation (FM) radio station
in
> the state.
>
> Aliero, however, suggested to the Executive Director of Radio Nigeria,
> Alhaji Yusuf Nuhu, who presented the request to him in Birnin Kebbi, the
> state capital, that the equipment for the proposed station should be
> installed at the Kebbi State-owned station to boost its services to the
> people.
>
> Meanwhile, the Osun State government, South-West Nigeria, has pledged to
> revive the state's television station. The state governor, Chief Bisi
> Akande, made the pledge in Iwo, when he paid an official visit to the
> refurbished state AM radio station.
>
> Akande, who expressed displeasure over the neglect of the station, said
his
> administration would do everything possible to reactivate the station.
>
>
>
> INFOTECH
>
> MTN MAKES $132M IN TEN MONTHS
>
> Despite claims of harsh operating environment, operators of the Global
> System of Mobile Telecommunications (GSM) services in Nigeria have
recorded
> impressive results.
>
> MTN Nigeria, one of the three GSM networks in Nigeria which launched its
> operations in August 2001, has for far earned US$132 million (about N16.9
> billion) in revenue.
>
> According to M-cell, the parent company, the figure represented more than
> half of the US$230 million made by the cellphone operator outside South
> Africa in the past year.
>
> M-cell said turnover surged by 49 percent to US$1.24 billion compared with
> US$830 million in the corresponding period last year.
>
> MTN Africa operations outside South Africa includes Uganda, Cameroun,
Rwanda
> and Swaziland. They contributed 19 percent of M-cell overall revenue. MTN
> Nigeria contributed 10 percent of the total revenue figure in less than a
> year of operation.
>
> The average revenue per cellphone user in Nigeria is said to be about $60,
> excluding connection fees as against $56 on MTN network in South Africa.
>
> Rob Nisbet, M-cell Financial Director, said MTN Nigeria had more than
> doubled original subscriber projections of 174,000 to 425,000 in 10
months.
>
>
> IILL: FIRST BANK SACKS FORMER MD, OTHERS
>
> Mr. Bernard Longe, the former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of
> First Bank Nigeria plc who was suspended last March for his role in the
> bank's $100 million exposure to Investors International (London) Limited
in
> the botched privatization of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL),
> has been sacked from the bank.
>
> Longe's sack was announced last week at the end of an extra-ordinary
meeting
> of the company's Board of Directors in Abuja, Nigeria.
>
> The convertion of the suspension to a sack is said to have been the
outcome
> of the board's investigations into the IILL deal, which went awry.
>
> Also sacked for their roles in the transaction was the former Executive
> Director, Risk Assets Control, Mr. Uzoma Nwankwo and the Head of Treasury
> and Funds Management, Mrs. Funmi Oyetunji.
>
> First Bank under the management of Longe had contravened the Bank and
other
> Financial Instructions Act (BOFIA) of 1991 when it advanced a loan
facility
> of $96.2 million to the IILL consortium.
>
> The Act states that no bank can give loan to a single client in excess of
35
> percent of the value of shareholder's funds.
>
> The bank's fund as at March 31, 2001 was N17.093 billion. The loan to IILL
> amounted to 63.856 percent of its shareholder's funds, thus exceeding the
> limit by over 28 percent.
>
> This contravention and the fact that First Bank Management failed to
> disclose the transaction to the Central Bank of Nigeria (against BOFIA
> provisions) were the basis of the apex bank's attempt to punish the bank.
>
> The bid was blown on the questionable loan when IILL on March 27, lost its
> bid to acquire 51 percent equity stake in NITEL following its inability to
> pay $1.185 billion outstanding balance for the acquisition.
>
> Consequently, the consortium was made to forfeit the $131.7 million (out
of
> which about $100 million was provided by First Bank) which it paid shortly
> after its selection as preferred core investors to NITEL.
>
> Following Longe's sack, Mr. Moyo Ajekigbe, former Executive Director,
Retail
> and Consumer Banking who had earlier been appointed acting Managing
> Director/Chief Executive has been confirmed as the substantive Chief
> Executive of the bank.
>
>
>
> BANKS LEND $700M TO GSM OPERATORS
>
> The success of Global System of Mobile Telecommunications (GSM) operation
in
> Nigeria may have been assisted by the support of Nigerian banks. Nigerian
> banks exposure to the two premier GSM networks in the country, Econet
> Wireless and MTN Nigeria, is said to be over US$700 million.
>
> Bolaji Balogun, Econet's Chief Marketing Officer disclosed that Econet
> received about $150 million support from the banks in terms of loan, from
> the $400 million it raised from the local market.
>
> In the same vein, he said the MTN may also have mobilized $350 million
from
> the local market.
>
> The two networks have in between them 20 banks they do business with.
>
> Mr. Balogun said the high exposure of Nigerian banks to the GSM operators
> was an index of the level of confidence they have in the operators.
>
> Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on GSM operations
> in Nigeria has blamed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the
> inefficiency in the sector. The committee's chairman, Tony Anyanwu said
the
> commission has exhibited laxity in the basic function of regulating the
> telecom sector, and blamed it for NITEL's inability to fully commence GSM
> operations.
>
> Anyanwu said the situation where NCC has since 1992 failed to design
> regulatory instruments would create imbalances and inefficiencies recorded
> in the sector.
>
> He said laying claims to a successful licensing auction was not part of
the
> mandate of a regulator.
>
>
>
> GOVT ADVISED TO SUBSIDIZE RURAL TELEPHONY
>
> In order to make telephone services available to the rural areas of the
> country, the Nigerian Government has been asked to subsidize rural
telephone
> operations.
>
> Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, a telecom operator who gave the advice, said the
> government could utilize proceeds from various telecommunications auctions
> in the country to subsidise the provision of telephone services in the
rural
> areas.
>
> Omo-Ettu also advocated for a bill by the National Assembly, specifying
that
> any money generated from the telecommunications sector should go into
> building infrastructure.
>
> "We have been building value-added services and these cannot run without
> infrastructure", he said.
>
>
>
> ADVERTISING
>
> APCON, NBC FIGHT UNWHOLESOME ADS
>
> The official Advertising and Broadcasting regulatory agencies in Nigeria,
> the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and the National
> Broadcasting Commission (NBC) have agreed to join forces toward fighting
the
> issue of unwholesome commercial broadcasts now prevalent in the industry.
>
> The agencies, at a recent public service symposium held in Abuja, the
> Nigerian capital, resolved to ensure proper vetting and approval process
of
> all advertisements using Advertising Standards Panel (ASP) machinery.
>
> The agencies said they had observed with concern the existence of large
> number of commercial broadcasts, which did not meet globally accepted
ethics
> of commercial broadcasting. Specifically, trado-medical, home video and
> religious broadcast are listed among the genre of advertisement, which
> breached the broadcast and advertising codes.
>
> APCON registrar, Dr. Josef Bel-Molokwu, lamented the council's inability
to
> punish unregistered advertising practitioners who violate code of
practice,
> blaming the situation on the lacuna in the council's enabling laws.
>
> Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and governments worldwide
> have been called upon to complement the ban on tobacco products
advertising.
> Mr. M.O. Babatunde of the Consumer Protection Council, who made the appeal
> at the same symposium, revealed that tobacco smoking had been identified
as
> the leading cause of preventable deaths. He said about 4 million people
were
> said to be dying yearly from tobacco-related diseases, majority of them in
> the developing countries.
>
> -----ENDS----
>
>
> TO CONTRIBUTE:
>
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Nigeria: NUJ UNDER PRESSURE TO SCRAP NAWOJ

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8500

The National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Mr. Smart Adeyemi, has said that he is under "severe pressure" to scrap the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ). According to him, this should be done before the association's elections billed to be held next month. Adeyemi, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja, said that the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) "are pressing continuously" on the issue.

> NIGERIA
> MEDIA MONITOR
>
> JUNE 17, 2002.
>
> I'M UNDER PRESSURE TO SCRAP NAWOJ - NUJ PRESIDENT
> ENUGU NUJ PRESS CENTRE INFERNO: WHO-DUN-IT?
> JOURNALISTS MOVE AGAINST OBNOXIOUS LAWS
> PRESS AND A HITCH-FREE ELECTION
> IN ABUJA, STAKEHOLDERS UNITE ON KEY PRESS ISSUES
> ON REPORTING AND INTERPRETING (2)
>
> I'M UNDER PRESSURE TO SCRAP NAWOJ - NUJ PRESIDENT
> Nigerian Tribune, June 11, 2002
>
> The National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Mr. Smart
> Adeyemi, has said that he is under "severe pressure" to scrap the Nigeria
> Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ).
>
> According to him, this should be done before the association's elections
> billed to be held next month.
>
> Adeyemi, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in
Abuja,
> said that the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspapers
Proprietors
> Association of Nigeria (NPAN) "are pressing continuously" on the issue.
>
> According to him, the issue would be tabled before the National Executive
> Council (NEC) meeting of the NUJ scheduled for June 20 and 27.
>
> He said the NUJ would also feel the pulse of the general public, including
> veteran journalists, on the issue.
>
> JOURNALISTS MOVE AGAINST OBNOXIOUS LAWS
> The Comet, June 10, 2002
>
> Participants in a workshop on the media have resolved to work with the
> National Assembly for the repeal or amendment of all obnoxious, irrelevant
> and repressive laws that impede their practice.
>
> Rising from the two-day workshop organised by the Senate Committee on
> Information and the Nigerian Press Council, the more than 80 participants
> called on the National Assembly to pass promptly the freedom of
information
> bill pending before it.
>
> Following the amendments, they said all media laws should be codified for
> easier reference by students, practitioners and other stakeholders. They
> also said there should be a clear constitutional guarantee of press
freedom
> to enable journalists to fully discharge the responsibilities bestowed on
> them in section 22 of the 1999 Constitution.
>
> The participants also called on the Minister of Information and National
> Orientation to inaugurate and ensure proper functioning of the Nigerian
> Press Council as a watchdog of the profession.
>
> While observing the problem of poor welfare and working conditions of
> journalists, they urged employers to ensure the maintenance of the human
> capital of their organisations through constant training and retraining.
The
> participants further called for the amendment of the VAT decree to
reinstate
> newspapers and magazines in the list of items excluded from paying VAT.
>
> ENUGU NUJ PRESS CENTRE INFERNO: WHO-DUN-IT?
> Thisday, June 10, 2002.
>
> Since the mid May mysterious fire disaster which gutted the Nigerian Union
> of Journalists (NUJ) Enugu Press Centre and which left in its wake damaged
> property worth over N4 million, tongues have continued to wag as to the
> probable cause of the incident.
>
> Speculations are rife among Enugu based journalists that the state
> governments arsonists may be behind the incident going by Governor
Chimaroke
> Nnamani's earlier threats to revoke the ownership of the building which
was
> donated to the NUJ by the then East Central State Administrator, Mr.
Ukpabi
> Asika in 1972.
>
> Following constant threats to journalists lives by alleged government
agents
> over some unsavoury stories, the state council chairman, Mr. Chukwudi
Achife
> in a statement condemned the harassment of Messers Emeka Mamah of the
> Vanguard. Abuchi Anueyiagu of National Interest, Ahamefule Ogbu of
Thisday
> and Emmanuel Obe of the Punch newspapers.
>
> The state NUJ leader had reminded the government that the press was
"neither
> an appendage nor an agency of government and as such journalists should be
> allowed the freedom and opportunity to practice their profession according
> to their professional training."
>
> But the governor's Special Assistant on Media Matters, Mr. Igbonekwu
> Oganizomah promptly reacted to Achife's letter dismissing the claims,
> pointing out that it was not "an act of proper unionism to accuse the
state
> government without getting his side".
>
> A few day later, the NUJ Secretariat was in flames, a "mysterious" fire
> which started from the chairman's office and blazed through adjoining
> National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) Enugu Branch leaving
> behind the charred remains of computers, books and other valuable office
> gadgets.
>
> Interestingly, last Friday 23 journalists representing both independent
and
> government media in two full page paid announcements tacitly threw in with
> the government accusing certain politicians in the state of using
> journalists against the government.
>
> However in defending the government, the journalists appeared to have
raised
> more questions than they set out to answer.
>
> Some of the journalists are asking how their colleagues raised nearly
> N200,000 to place the adverts. Again when has it become the practice of
> journalists to refute allegations through public statements when they
could
> have used their various media to state the true position of affairs.
>
> PRESS AND A HITCH-FREE ELECTION
> Daily Times, June 11, 2002
>
> The mass media play a noble role in electioneering and elections
throughout
> any democratic society all over the world.
>
> The recent role played by the media in ensuring the enthronement of
> democratic values in the country is a good example of the role of the
media
> in the political process.
>
> The media really has a great role to play but not many politicians and
> political parties are aware of the tremendous role of the mass media in
> bringing about peaceful electioneering through the adoption and
> implementation of the relevant processes required to ensure that what
comes
> out of the media are palatable and relevant to the yearning of the public.
>
> For example, there has been the need for balancing of political news and
> other events in all the three political parties so that no section of the
> stakeholders is left out of the process. The argument is that from
> observation, incumbency has played a domineering role in the way the media
> are operated most especially state-owned media.
>
> Since the media shape elections what ought to be done in the future
> elections are as follows:
>
> Strict adherence to all code of practices by the various regulatory bodies
> in the media. Balancing of electioneering by both private and public media
> outfits.
>
> Prompt release of results and quick dispensation of complaints as
stipulated
> by the law. Television and radio political debates to be moderated by a
> neutral personality and to ensure the effective involvement of all the
> registered political parties.
>
> But since government communicate to the people, opposition parties and
> others through the media, then the media tend to assume a very powerful
role
> thereby sinking into area of controversy. Government anxiety typically
> leads to accusations either of bias or lack of neutrality.
>
> The repositioning of the media to meet the challenges of the time is
> appropriate and should be encouraged so that at the end of the day the
media
> would have played the appropriate role in ensuring that elections are
> conducted in a free and fair atmosphere in the Nigerian society.
>
> Ahmed Ibrahim wrote in from Lagos State.
>
> IN ABUJA, STAKEHOLDERS UNITE ON KEY PRESS ISSUES
> The Guardian, June 10, 2002
>
> The fate of the proposed repeal of anti-media laws by the Senate may not
> differ from that of the Freedom of Information Act still awaiting adoption
> by the Federal House of Representatives.
>
> Participants at last week's national workshop on media laws expressed fear
> over the fate of the repeal of anti-media laws as expressed by the
> leadership of the Senate. They anchored their fear on the fact that the
> Freedom of Information Bill (FOIB) presented three years ago has not made
> any headway at the lower chambers of the National Assembly.
>
> But Senate Committee on Information, the organisers of the four-day
workshop
> in collaboration with the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) was pragmatic in
its
> response.
>
> ON REPORTING AND INTERPRETING (2)
> The Punch, June 14, 2002
>
> The conceptual framework underlying news analysis plays a major role here.
> Often-repeated public rhetoric on the contrast between "Western cultures",
> as well as crude civilizational classifications have tended to put science
> and mathematics well inside the basket of "Western civilization", leaving
> other civilisations to mine their pride only in religious depths. This
> makes it very easy for the anti-Western activists, including religious
> fundamentalists and cultural militants, to secure leadership roles through
> focusing on those issues that separate the non-western world from the
West,
> rather than on those things that reflect positive global interactions
> running through history (including science, mathematics, literature, and
so
> on).
>
> The categorisation of cultures and civilisations is just example of the
way
> news reporting and analysis can add to confusion rather than helping to
cure
> crude beliefs and presuppositions. There are many other examples that can
> be readily given. Discussion of global inequality has increasingly tended
> to shift, in recent years, from the very serious and rather clear-cut
> diagnosis of massive economic and political inequality in the world to the
> less central and far more ambiguous question as to whether the level of
> inequality is increasing or going down.
>
> Careful news analysis and a more critical assessment of the conceptual
> framework and underlying beliefs in terms of which contemporary events are
> interpreted can do a lot to enhance understanding in the troubled world in
> which we live. The world depends greatly on the quality of news coverage
as
> well as the reach and significance of news analysis and evaluation, which
> very often come in a mixed form with apparently straight-forward news
> reporting. It is precisely because the newspapers are so central to good
> functioning of the world that we have to demand more from this wonderful
> profession.
>
> TO OUR DEAR READERS:
>
> 1. Media Monitor is designed as a dialogical project.
>
> We expect its contents to elicit reactions from its readers. And we
> encourage you to share your feelings with others on its pages. Letters not
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Tunisia: CPJ protests prosecution of online editor

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/8506

In a 19 June 2002 letter to Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, CPJ protested the arrest and prosecution of Zouhair Yahyaoui, an Internet café employee and editor of the online publication "Tunezine". On the evening of 4 June, plainclothes state agents detained Yahyaoui at an Internet café in the capital, Tunis. Authorities then searched Yahyaoui's home and confiscated disks and other computer materials. After spending several days in detention, Yahyaoui was charged in court on 13 June with intentionally publishing false information.

> IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ACTION ALERT UPDATE - TUNISIA
>
> 20 June 2002
>
> CPJ protests arrest and prosecution of online editor Zouhair Yahyaoui
>
> SOURCE: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York
>
> **Updates IFEX alert of 6 June 2002**
>
> (CPJ/IFEX) - In a 19 June 2002 letter to Tunisian President Zine
al-Abidine Ben
> Ali, CPJ protested
> the arrest and prosecution of Zouhair Yahyaoui, an Internet café employee
and
> editor of the online publication "Tunezine".
>
> On the evening of 4 June, plainclothes state agents detained Yahyaoui at
an
> Internet café in the capital, Tunis. Authorities then searched Yahyaoui's
home
> and confiscated disks and other computer materials.
>
> After spending several days in detention, Yahyaoui was charged in court on
13
> June with intentionally publishing false information-a violation of
Article 306
> of the Penal Code.
>
> The charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison,
comes in
> response to a number of articles posted on "Tunezine", including a recent
piece
> that criticized the 26 May constitutional referendum in which 99.52
percent of
> voters approved constitutional changes to allow the president to run for a
> fourth term.
>
> Yahyaoui was also charged with using stolen communication lines to post
his Web
> site, a violation of section 84 of the Telecommunications Code. This crime
> carries a maximum sentence of five years.
>
> Yahyaoui's lawyer believes that this additional charge is a direct attempt
to
> add to his client's potential prison sentence and to silence the Web site.
>
> Since Yahyaoui established "Tunezine" in July 2001 using a pseudonym, the
Web
> site has frequently run articles and commentary-including the views of
leading
> Tunisian dissidents-that are highly critical of the Tunisian government.
>
> Tunisian authorities have blocked the Web site to users inside Tunisia,
but
> "Tunezine" has often circumvented these barriers by establishing alternate
> addresses.
>
> Yahyaoui's case is adjourned until 20 June.
>
> CPJ believes that the arrest and criminal prosecution of journalists for
> publishing unflattering news about the government is a clear violation of
the
> internationally recognized right to free expression.
>
> RECOMMENDED ACTION:
>
> Send appeals to the president:
> - urging him to do everything within his power to ensure that Yahyaoui is
freed
> immediately and that the charges against him are dropped
> - asking that he use his position as president of Tunisia to provide
guarantees
> that enable Yahyaoui and other Tunisian journalists to practice their
> professional work freely, without official
> interference
>
> APPEALS TO:
>
> His Excellency Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali
> President of the Republic of Tunisia
> Presidential Palace
> Carthage, Tunisia
> Fax: +216 71 744 721
>
> Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
>
> For further information, contact Joel Campagna (x 103) or Hani Sabra (x
104) at
> CPJ, 330 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10001, U.S.A., tel: +1 212 465 1004,
fax: +1
> 212 465 9568, e-mail: mideast@cpj.org, jcampagna@cpj.org, hsabra@cpj.org;
> Internet: http://www.cpj.org/
>
> The information contained in this action alert update is the sole
responsibility
> of CPJ. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please
credit CPJ.
> _________________________________________________________________
> DISTRIBUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
> EXCHANGE (IFEX) CLEARING HOUSE
> 489 College Street, Suite 403, Toronto (ON) M6G 1A5 CANADA
> tel: +1 416 515 9622 fax: +1 416 515 7879
> alerts e-mail: alerts@ifex.org general e-mail: ifex@ifex.org
> Internet site: http://www.ifex.org/
> _________________________________________________________________

africa: the g8, africa and arms supply

2002-06-27

http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/pages/ttt3_africa

One of the ways in which the G8's actions impact on the lives of ordinary Africans threatens to remain in the shadows - the way in which the transfer of military, security and police equipment and expertise contributes to human rights violations and exacerbates ongoing conflicts in the region.

Angola: A Grim Situation

2002-06-27

http://www.rnw.nl/humanrights/html/angola020624.html

"The situation remains grim, dramatic. It's sad to say, but people are dying, and over the coming months, I'm certain that quite a number of people will perish," says United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Angola, Erick de Mul.

DRC: RCD rebel forces facing mutiny again

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8508

Heavy fighting has broken out again in South Kivu Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), between the leader of a mutiny among troops of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) and loyal forces of the Rwandan-backed rebel movement, news agencies reported.

U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

DRC: RCD rebel forces facing mutiny again

NAIROBI, 25 June (IRIN) - Heavy fighting has broken out again in South Kivu Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), between the leader of a mutiny among troops of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) and loyal forces of the Rwandan-backed rebel movement, news agencies reported.

The Rwandan News Agency reported an outbreak of fighting in the Hauts Plateaux region of South Kivu on 23 June, while RCD Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa Manywa was touring the region to urge people to dissociate themselves from the leader of the mutineers, Capt Patrick Masunzu. AFP reported "violent clashes" around the Ngoma hills near Baraka, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, since 10 June, and RTNC radio reported heavy fighting around Minembwe on Thursday.

Someone close to Masunzu told AFP that during a lull in the fighting, which had occurred prior to this latest outbreak, Rwandan forces and the RCD rebels in the region had taken control of much of the Hauts Plateaux areas, while Masunzu, who is allied to some local pro-Kinshasa militias, had boosted his numbers with new recruits from local Banyamulenge (Congolese citizens of Tutsi origin). Another deserting RCD member, Aaron Nyamushebwa, had also joined Masunzu and hundreds of the latter's men, AFP reported.

The Banyamulenge constitute the oldest Tutsi community in the DRC. Although they are prominent in the RCD, and have provided many troops for the movement, there have been a number of clashes between the Banyamulenge and the RCD-Goma.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has vowed to crush Masunzu's forces, most of which are members of the Banyamulenge of South Kivu - a group whose protection is one of the principal reasons for Rwanda's military presence in the DRC. The RCD has also accused Masunzu of allying himself with members of Rwanda's Interahamwe militia - held responsible for the 1994 genocide.

The security chief of RCD-Goma, Bizima Karaha, has described Masunzu's followers as "criminals and thugs", but Enoch Sebeniza Ruberangabo, a spokesman for the Congolese Tutsis in South Kivu, told IRIN in April that Masunzu had been the best protector of the Tutsis in South Kivu over the past three years. He added that Masunzu had become the victim of a defamation campaign after writing to RCD-Goma appealing for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and warning that it could add to the risk of extermination of the Tutsi community in the DRC.

Masunzu reportedly deserted RCD-Goma in January.

[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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ETHIOPIA: Uneasy calm restored in Awasa

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8507

Bekele Sakuma is now hoping for calm and peace. Just four weeks ago he identified the body of his 17-year-old son, shot dead during clashes with security forces in the southern Ethiopian town of Awasa. "The hardest thing a father can do is pick his son out of a line of bodies," said Bekele, a 55-year-old security guard who lives in the nearby village of Loke. The village was where some 7,000 protesters gathered on 24 May before marching towards Awasa to demonstrate against a change in the town's status. Like many Sidamas - the ethnic group whose heartland surrounds Awasa - he believed that he might lose his land with impending political changes.

U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

ETHIOPIA: Uneasy calm restored in Awasa

AWASA, 25 June (IRIN) - Bekele Sakuma is now hoping for calm and peace. Just four weeks ago he identified the body of his 17-year-old son, shot dead during clashes with security forces in the southern Ethiopian town of Awasa. "The hardest thing a father can do is pick his son out of a line of bodies," said Bekele, a 55-year-old security guard who lives in the nearby village of Loke.

The village was where some 7,000 protesters gathered on 24 May before marching towards Awasa to demonstrate against a change in the town's status. Like many Sidamas - the ethnic group whose heartland surrounds Awasa - he believed that he might lose his land with impending political changes.

Awasa is the regional capital of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Regional State (SNNPRS), one of the country's nine federal regions. The town, at present, also acts as the zonal capital for the Sidama. But fears have circulated among the rural community that their zonal capital was to be transferred to Aleta Wondo - some 80 km away.

"We are worried that we are going to lose our land," said Bekele. "We heard from some of the elders and community groups that we would lose our land, and that we need to take action. I knew my son was going on the march, but I thought it would be safe."

The fear of losing land rights, according to the government, is unfounded. It also said the change in status was still at a draft stage, and that discussions were still taking place. It added that Awasa would remain in the Sidama Zone - one of Ethiopia's most densely populated - with about 2.5 million people living on 721,000 ha of land.

But despite attempts to allay fears, an uneasy calm now hangs over the town, some 250 km from the country's capital, Addis Ababa. Although a curfew has been lifted, there is still a military presence in surrounding villages, where many Sidamas live. The area is also out-of-bounds to United Nations staff after dark - classified as a "Red-No-Go Area".

The clash on the afternoon of 24 May left at least 17 people dead, according to the federal authorities. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council, which has investigated the shootings, says the figure is 25. Opposition groups, meanwhile, estimate at least 39 died.

Two policemen were also among the dead. What is clear is that the shootings in Awasa represent one of the worst clashes in the country since rioters fought pitched battles with police in Addis Ababa in April last year. At that time, some 40 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

Solomon Tesfaye, the Awasa regional government's deputy head of information, told IRIN that a formal investigation into the shootings was under way. But he dismissed claims that the security forces - which were blamed for the shootings - had been heavy handed.

"If a group of people that was five kilometres away from Awasa got to Awasa, there could have been more bloodshed," he said. He added that the government had evidence that some people had come to loot the town. "There is calm now," he told IRIN from Awasa. "It is totally calm."

Solomon said elders were now been holding talks in a bid to avert further bloodshed, and that no more "illegal" demonstrations had taken place. He noted that the proposed change in Awasa's status was part of a government plan to boost economic development, pointing out that under the current local administration, officials were using locally raised taxes for their own purposes. "There was corruption," he said. "We need a professional administration. People were profiting from the taxes."

He went on to stress that the people "are not going to lose their land. Why should they lose their land?" Solomon also said that in a proposed new assembly in Awasa the Sidamas would hold 25 out of 100 seats, so would still be able to wield power.

Some 45 different ethnic groups make up the total 10 million population of the SNNPRS - Sidamas being one of the largest ethnic groups. The farmers in the area mainly live off coffee, maize, wheat, teff, barley, haricot beans and khat (Catha edulis - a mildly narcotic shrub). The area was particularly hard hit during a 1999 drought, and the situation has been made much worse by massive soil erosion and failure to tackle the drought problem.

Federal government sources say the peasants have clearly been manipulated and told Awasa was going to be sold. They say the change in status will not affect the Sidamas and they will not lose any lands.

But opposition groups argue that this change in status will affect the economic and political rights of the Sidamas. Beyene Petros, who heads the Council of Alternative Forces For Peace and Democracy in Ethiopia and the Southern Ethiopia People's Democratic Coalition, is an MP in the region. "Awasa is the economic centre of the south and the kind of tax money raised and rents is much better than it would be in Aleta Wondo. So it is really economic for the Sidama people," he said.

"The proposal is to put that city under the federal jurisdiction so the federal government will collect taxes. The government is now telling them, in economic terms, move out." He went on to say that if the federal government believed there were illegal activities taking place, it should pursue the matter through the courts rather than by changing the status of the town.

Beyene added that the policy of the government was to place "economically viable" towns and cities under federal control. He said the Sidamas also felt aggrieved on a cultural level. "This is their cultural centre. They effectively built this town. Internally it is very tense, and there is a bitterness among the Sidamas and there is a temptation for retaliation on the side of the Sidamas," he said.

Philipos Yosef, 28, who took part in the 24 May demonstration, said it was planned because the Sidamas believed they should have their own regional state given the size of their population. Many of them had been waving placards calling for the right of Sidamas to be protected and asking why Awasa could not remain their zonal capital.

"Before the march, the demonstrators asked permission. But the day before there was an announcement on television and radio that we could not march. They said certain political groups were involved and the march would be illegal," he said. Philipos, an agricultural specialist, said after the march some people believed to have been behind the demonstration were rounded up and imprisoned. He said police had also raided villages where they believed weapons had been hidden.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Council supports his claims of a peaceful march. In a detailed report after the shootings, it laid the blame firmly at the door of the security forces and government. It called for those responsible to be brought to justice. The council also demanded that anyone unlawfully held in jails after being rounded up should be released.

But for Bekele, who is mourning his lost son, the protests have resolved nothing. "We want to live in peace now. The protest had no value, because the situation is still the same. At the moment there is peace, but if the land issue is true, then there will still be problems. But we have to accept what the government says even if some people do not agree with it," he said.


[ENDS]

IRIN-CEA
Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
Email: IRIN@ocha.unon.org

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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GUINEA-BISSAU: Calm but tense, UN Secretary-General says

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8440

The overall situation in Guinea-Bissau has remained calm over the past three months, but political tensions still run high, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his latest report on the West African nation to the UN Security Council.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

GUINEA-BISSAU: Calm but tense, UN Secretary-General says

ABIDJAN, 21 June (IRIN) - The overall situation in Guinea-Bissau has remained calm over the past three months, but political tensions still run high, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his latest report on the West African nation to the UN Security Council.

Pressing social and economic problems remain a major challenge for the government, Annan added in the report, dated 13 June. One such issue is the government's inability to pay civil servants their wages on time, which "has continued to generate social tension".

Amended constitution awaits promulgation

The fact that the constitution, revised some time ago, is yet to be promulgated, continues to fuel political tensions, Annan said. President Kumba Yala, who sent his comments on the constitution to the president of the National Assembly on 23 May, "appears to want the right to appoint the chiefs of staff of the armed forces and the Inspector General of the Army on the advice, instead of on the recommendation, of the Government", he added.

Yala also seems to want "the right to chair, at his discretion, the Council of Ministers; and the power to appoint ambassadors on the advice, not the recommendation, of the Government", the report said, adding that a parliamentary commission was considering the president's proposals.

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, became independent in 1974. A civil war from June 1998 to May 1999 resulted in the overthrow of President Joao Bernardo Vieira, caused thousands of deaths and displaced about 300,000 of the country's roughly 1.2 million people.

A military junta ruled the West African state, together with handpicked civilians, until presidential and parliamentary elections in late 1999 and early 2000. Yala won the presidential polls but his party failed to obtain a majority in parliament. Since then, the country has been wracked by crises, including a rebellion by members of the former military junta on 22 and 23 November 2000 - described by the government as a coup attempt - and another alleged attempt to overthrow Yala on 3 December 2001. There were also accussations of another attempt in May.

Complaints about detention conditions

Annan said the UN Peace-Building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau, UNOGBIS, had received a number of complaints from relatives of 38 persons held in connection with the December 2001 coup attempt. The complaints, he said, related mainly to the conditions under which they are being detained.

The trials of members of the former military junta who had been detained in connection with the November 2000 upheavals but were provisionally released began on 23 May, according to the report, which stated that UNOGBIS would observe the trials.

Encouraging dialogue among key actors

The UN Secretary-General also reported that, in order to promote peaceful debate among various institutions and key actors, UNOGBIS organized a national dialogue on human rights and democracy from 15 to 17 April in Bissau. More than 80 representatives of national institutions, including the armed forces, political parties and civil society attended.

The meeting resulted in the adoption of a declaration containing recommendations on political, human rights and democracy issues, including the need to ensure the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.

Another UNOGBIS initiative aimed at promoting peace and democratization was a seminar on mechanisms of conflict prevention and resolution, held in Bissau on 21 and 22 May and attended by 68 participants, including parliamentarians.

Discussions focussed on national reconciliation and dialogue as the main means to manage differences. Recommendations included the creation by the National Assembly of a truth and reconciliation commission. The meeting also recommended the creation of conditions for institutions to function in accordance with democratic principles and values.

[The full report can be viewed at ]http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/reports/2002/662e.p]

[ENDS]

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[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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KENYA: Drought problems remain even as floods recede

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8438

Parts of southeastern Kenya, which received exceptionally poor rainfall during May, are experiencing the stress of drought - even as flooding subsides in western and eastern parts of the country, according to a new vulnerability update for the country.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

KENYA: Drought problems remain even as floods recede

NAIROBI, 21 June (IRIN) - Parts of southeastern Kenya, which received exceptionally poor rainfall during May, are experiencing the stress of drought - even as flooding subsides in western and eastern parts of the country, according to a new vulnerability update for the country.

Southeastern agro-pastoral areas and marginal agricultural areas received poor rains throughout the 2002 long-rains season (roughly from March to May), but particular in May, and this was "especially detrimental", because the long rains seasons in these districts are generally brief in any case.

The areas most affected are Kajiado, Taita Taveta, Kwale, Kilifi and parts of Tana River, Kitui and Makueni districts, according to the Famine Early Warning System Network. [http://www.fews.net/]

Parts of southeastern Kenya - in common with southeastern Ethiopia and northern Tanzania - have experienced almost total rain failure, according to FEWS Net.

As a consequence of a northward shift in rains associated with the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, the equatorial area of the Greater Horn of Africa is experiencing declining rainfall, it says. This early stoppage of rains, preceded by the poor distribution of rain in April, may affect production in agricultural areas of Kenya, Uganda and northern Tanzania.

More generally, the heavy rains that had caused heavy flooding around Lake Victoria in western Kenya, and in some eastern districts (especially Tana River, Ijara and Garissa), eased considerably towards the end of May and substantially reduced the areas in flood, particularly in the west.

That flooding has caused the loss of a significant part of the Kenyan bean crop, and the total loss of riverside crops in the pastoral districts of Mandera and Tana River.

"Although initially welcome, the break in rainfall may become detrimental to maize, particularly in Central, Eastern and Rift Valley provinces, where the crop was planted late due to a late onset of rains," according to FEWS Net. In order to avoid moisture stress, a resumption of rainfall in June would therefore be critical, it added.

While there were signs of recovery and improved food security in pastoral areas, which were hard hit by five successive poor rainy seasons, the situation of pastoralists remained precarious, especially for those who lost most, if not all, their livestock, the vulnerability update stated.

More favourable conditions (including increased availability of pasture, browse and water for livestock) and food security improvements were "likely to bypass these pastoralists until they can rebuild their herds, a process that takes several years," it said.

Many pastoralists in Kenya still rely on food aid as a result of successive rainy season failures, and FEWS Net expressed concern over the "critical" situation of the maize pipeline in Kenya, which did not allow for any maize food aid distribution in May.

There was a shortfall in donor pledges equivalent to some 50,000 mt of maize (until the end of the emergency programme in October) and, though maize was available for sale locally, "cash contributions are urgently needed" to cover transport and distribution costs, it stated.

Beyond food aid, pastoralist areas of Kenya needed quick investment in income- and asset-generating activities "if the end of the drought emergency operation is to avert increasing levels of hunger and malnutrition," FEWS Net added.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) also warned on Thursday - World Refugee Day - that hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps in northern Kenya face a severe food shortage crisis, and appealed to the international community to "come forward" with contributions in order to avert a further deterioration of the situation.

The UN agency said it lacked the funds to supply food aid to 205,000 refugees currently living in the two main refugee camps of Dadaab and Kakuma, both in northern Kenya. It said it had, in effect, reduced the food ration in Kakuma and Dadaab camps since February to the current figures of 1,600 and 1,900 kcal per person per day, respectively, and that further reductions in rations were anticipated unless new donor contributions "came forward urgently".

[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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SIERRA LEONE: Conflict in Liberia poses threat to stability - Annan

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8560

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that escalating conflict in Liberia and increasing incursions by armed elements into Sierra Leone portend a "worrying trend".
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SIERRA LEONE: Conflict in Liberia poses threat to stability - Annan

ABIDJAN, 26 June (IRIN) - The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that escalating conflict in Liberia and increasing incursions by armed elements into Sierra Leone portend a "worrying trend".

In his interim report to the UN Security Council on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Annan said there was a real risk that Liberia and Sierra Leone could be trapped in a vicious cycle, with civil war continuously swinging back and forth between the two countries.

"It is therefore important for the international community to act quickly to address the conflict in Liberia," Annan said.

The conflict in Liberia threatens to undermine the progress achieved in Sierra Leone, he said.

"UNAMSIL is therefore closely monitoring developments in the border areas and initiating contacts with Liberian security officials, as well as leaders of the subregion, aimed at averting a spillover of the conflict into Sierra Leone," Annan added.

He said developments in Liberia constituted one of the key factors being taken into account in the ongoing planning for the downsizing of UNAMSIL.

He said the general security of Sierra Leone had, however, remained generally stable in the wake of the 14 May elections, which marked the end of the second phase of UNAMSIL's military concept of operations for 2002.

UNAMSIL troops, he noted, had provided support to the Sierra Leone police in containing disturbances such as protests by ex-combatants and friction between returnees and ex-combatants over illegally occupied houses. The mission's military observers and civil affairs officers had mediated in disputes over illegally occupied houses.

He pointed out that security would remain a paramount concern until the capacity and reliability of Sierra Leone's security institutions were sufficiently developed to enable them to sustain, on their own, the security environment created by the presence of UNAMSIL. He added that the Sierra Leonean army and police faced the challenge of developing their capabilities to effectively assume responsibility for the country's security after the eventual departure of UNAMSIL.

Annan said the restoration of effective local government structures remained vital to the stabilisation of the many areas that were not controlled by the government during the conflict.

Despite the magnitude of the challenges ahead, there was no doubt that there existed a potential for success in Sierra Leone, he added.

He said in order to realise this potential, the international community must stay the course and protect the major investments that have been made possible the progress achieved so far.

The Secretary-General's interim report is available at: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/reports/2002/sgrep02.htm
[ENDS]

IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
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south africa: Cops open fire on protesters in Lenasia

2002-06-27

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13

Men, women and children ran for cover as violence erupted in Lenasia on Tuesday morning after police opened fire with rubber bullets. The R554 highway to Lenasia, which had been closed off in protest by about 4 000 residents over the removal of Tembelihle informal settlement residents to Vlakfontein, was strewn with odd shoes, clothes and knobkerries after police started firing rubber bullets.

SUDAN: Khartoum reacts to Bush call for it to end war

2002-06-27

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28476

The Sudanese government has said it will send a letter to US President George W. Bush to clarify its position after his call last Thursday, 20 June, on Khartoum to demonstrate more serious commitment to ending the Sudanese civil war. Minister for External Relations Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said the government welcomed without reservations Bush's call for an end to the war, but was displeased that he had not touched on the need for the other warring party - the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - to do the same.

Sudan: Organising for Peace as the War escalates

2002-06-27

http://www.crisisweb.org/

The renewed Sudan peace effort that began in Nairobi on 17 June may be the last chance for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) process to set meaningful negotiations in train, says a new International Crisis Group (ICG) report. The decisive issue in negotiations will be self-determination for the South, combined with reform of the central government. ICG urges diplomatic support for self-determination as the only way to get an agreement that has a chance to maintain Sudanese unity.

tanzania: 30 feared dead in mining tragedy

2002-06-27

http://www.africantimes.com/articlepg1.asp?ID=48551

More than 30 people may have suffocated deep inside a tanzanite mine in northern Tanzania last Thursday after an oxygen pump failed, mining officials said. Alex Magayane, Arusha regional mines officer, said rescue workers had pulled one body from the gemstone mine in Mererani, 24 miles southeast of Arusha, and believed 31 others were still trapped inside.

tanzania: Train Victims' Ride to Death

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206260629.html

Passengers aboard the doomed train that crashed in Tanzania had to endure a 20 minute roller coaster ride to death. Early estimates of a death toll of more than 200 proved modest. Tanzania's worst rail disaster has claimed more than 300 lives, it was feared last night.

ZAMBIA: Food situation remains critical for rural poor

2002-06-27

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28500

The Zambian government's Disaster Management Unit is "doing its best" to cope with the country's food crisis, but the situation remains dire for Zambian villagers in affected rural areas.

ZIMBABWE: FARMERS VOW NOT TO ABANDON FARMS

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/8564

The tension was ratcheted up a notch in Zimbabwe this week as farmers vowed to ignore a government order banning them from farming as millions of people struggle with the daily grind of food shortages. Under the country’s Land Acquisition Act, nearly 3000 farmers roughly half of the farming population will be breaking the law from June 25 if they continue to farm their land.
ZIMBABWE: FARMERS VOW NOT TO ABANDON FARMS
Pambazuka News
The tension was ratcheted up a notch in Zimbabwe this week as farmers vowed to ignore a government order banning them from farming as millions of people struggle with the daily grind of food shortages.
Under the country’s Land Acquisition Act, nearly 3000 farmers – roughly half of the farming population – will be breaking the law from June 25 if they continue to farm their land.
It is estimated that about 300,000 farm workers would have to stop work and this would have a knock-on effect on about 1.5 million family members and dependents.
Farmers who have received a "Section 8", a final notice to cease farming, will have to prepare to leave their land, their crops and their cattle.
Their farms will become government property and they will have 45 days to wind up their affairs and leave. The orders come at a time when millions of Zimbabweans are facing food shortages.
Since the beginning of June almost all domestic grain stocks have been exhausted, and nearly two-thirds of the country's needs are not being supplied – a situation which aid agencies blame on a chaotic land redistribution programme that began with land seizures two years ago.
Last month the government passed the legislation, giving farmers 45 days to stop working land which has been listed for acquisition and redistribution. Any farmer who carries on working their land 45 days after receiving an acquisition notice could face two years in prison.
However, the government faces opposition to the law as two farmers filed suit on Tuesday to stop the order that would force them to abandon their farms in a test case closely watched by 3,000 others also facing eviction.
And the country’s Commercial Farmers Union told BBC news that most of its members appear to be ignoring the legislation.
Jenni Williams, spokeswoman for the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) told Irin news that many farmers had applied to their district administrators for an extension to the deadline. Few had succeeded, and it appeared that some planned to defy orders and continue farming.
"They have cattle to look after and 22,000 hectares of wheat in the ground. They have a duty as Zimbabweans to feed their fellow Zimbabweans and they contribute to 15 percent of the GDP," she said. - ENDS

Egyptians Flock to New Net Plan

free internet model working in Egypt

2002-06-27

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52993,00.html

Egypt has scrapped its old Internet subscription plan in favor of per-hour dial-up charges, resulting in an immediate and welcome spike in usage.

Facts on wireless/cell/mobile telephones

2002-06-27

http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/

The Food and Drug Administration in the US has published a web site with consumer information about cell phones. Everything from health hazards to how they work and the effect they have on medical equipment is covered.

ISOC vs ICANN - a democratic internet?

2002-06-27

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/25/0259203

"ISOC claims around 8,600 individual members. That's not a lot, considering that the worldwide number of Internet users is in the hundreds of millions...The free and open Internet, as opposed to the glorified shopping network so many corporate types apparently want the 'Net to become, needs a strong and organized voice to speak up on its behalf." ISOC and ICANN both claim to be this voice: ICANN is wrapped in scandal and ISOC needs members. Perhaps the much-touted 'anarchy' of the internet is prevailing - or is it the apathy of its users? Read the article.

Preparing For The Digital Dark Age

2002-06-27

http://www.infowarrior.org/articles/2002-08.html

This scathing article from computer security expert, Richard Forno, analyses the new Palladium computer design announced by Microsoft. MS intend Palladium to answer security worries with a hardware/software bundled solution. Viability is in doubt.

Spam vs spam

2002-06-27

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/leon/2002/06/24/spam_assassin/index.html

Salon.com has an article on using open-source software to stop spam: "The only way to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail may be to harness a million eyeballs and an army of open-source hackers".

XML for human rights: call for expression of interest

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/8474

Following discussions at the 25th meeting of ECCHRD, participants representing European based human rights NGOs and IGOs discussed the possibilities of embracing XML as a standard for the exchange of data on human rights, in particular of data with regard to violations of human rights, within the human rights community.
Concluding these discussions the meeting requested HURIDOCS to explore the ways XML and associated standards could be leveraged in conjunction with existing standards and tools, in particular, but not restricted to, the HURIDOCS Events Standard Formats, the Micro-thesauri and WINEVSYS developed and distributed by HURIDOCS in the NGO community worldwide, to improve the flow of human rights information between members of the human rights community notably with a view to submitting quality data in a useable format to control bodies. In this context special reference was made to the contribution NGOS could make to the future workings of the International Criminal Court.

Call for Expression of Interest
HURIDOCS therefore invites actors (individuals or organisations) in the human rights community worldwide to express their interest in this topic. This can be done by self-nomination or by delegation.

This expression of interest should include details of the responder:
1. name, address (including e-mail), affiliation and motivation,
2. mandate or field of activity,
3. expertise that could be made available to the initiative (not restricted to technical expertise)

It may also be supported by a paper providing information on activities already carried out or envisaged within this area as well as views on topics, methods and policies for future activities in this field.

Desired results of this Call for Expression of Interest

HURIDOCS hopes to evaluate the receptiveness of the human rights community to work in this area with a view to establishing XML based or related standards (DTDs, Schemas, Namespaces etc ) and facilitating their adoption by human rights organisations worldwide.

This would lead to more effective transmission of data between NGOs and regional or international monitoring or control bodies.

Transmission of Expression of Interest

Expressions of interest are to be transmitted by e-mail to info@huridocs.org Document attachments should be in Ms Office compatible formats.

Deadline for Expression of Interest

The deadline for receipt of Expressions of Interest by the HURIDOCS secretariat is set at 1 September 2002.

About XML

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a standard, which facilitates the electronic exchange of meaningful data among communities in a format that is independent of hardware or software choices of individual members of any given community. XML is being used or currently being implemented in many sectors; business, science, law, finance, etc.

About the HURIDOCS Events Standard Formats

The HURIDOCS Events Standard Formats form a tool to assist NGOs to develop an information system for recording information about human rights violations. The data model proposed structures information by events composed of one or more, acts of human rights violation, victims, sources of information, alleged perpetrators and interventions. Additional details on legal matters, deaths and killings, displacements and destruction of property as well as torture may also be used to further refine the system.

About the Micro-thesauri

The Micro-thesauri are a collection of 48 documents developed by HURIDOCS or adapted from various sources. They provide controlled vocabularies for the Events Standard Formats and WinEvsys as well as for other manual or computerised systems of documenting human rights violations.

About WINEVSYS

The WinEVSYS software has been developed by a HURIDOCS Design Team to provide a software for the revised Standard Formats - A Tool for Documenting Human Rights Violations. WinEVSYS is programmed in the widely used Microsoft Access software.

About HURIDOCS

HURIDOCS, established in 1982, is a global network of organisations concerned with human rights which aims to facilitate human rights documentation work by: developing tools and techniques for human rights monitoring and information handling (such as formats for the recording and exchange of information on documents, organisations, and human rights violations); organising training courses and workshops on human rights information handling in co-operation with organisations involved in the network, and by providing advice and support on the establishment and maintenance of documentation centres and information systems.

About the ECCHRD

The European Coordination Committee on Human Rights Documentation (ECCHRD) is a long existing regional network for human rights information and documentation workers. It has held 25 meetings since it was established in the early 1980's. The meetings were first bi-annual, and over the last ten years annual.
The participants at the ECCHRD meetings see them as a possibility to exchange information and experiences. The ECCHRD as such does not envisage organising additional activities besides the annual meeting, but is certainly helpful in building up and maintaining contacts between the participating organisations.

For further information about HURIDOCS see <http://www.huridocs.org>. The HURIDOCS site contains a brief article which introduces the basics of XML: <http://www.huridocs.org/nl25exml.htm>.

For further Information about XML see inter alia :
http://www.xmlephant.com/
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/
http://www.devx.com/projectcool/developer/xmlz/xmlzquick/index.html

Your PC's enemy within

speaking out against spyware

2002-06-27

http://news.com.com/2009-1023-937457.html?tag=fd_lede

The Wild West days of cyberspace are over--and, like it or not, it's time for government to change its laissez-faire attitude toward the Internet and create laws that clearly prevent unscrupulous businesses from preying on unsuspecting consumers and seizing control of computers.

email service with a focus on funding

2002-06-27

http://www.chapel-york.com

Chapel & York's email-Information Service helps you find the resources you need from amongst the vast amounts of information available for charities, non-profits, & NGOs on-line. The focus is on new funding information, and international and cross-boarder funding.

Population and Reproductive Health Portal

2002-06-27

http://www.developmentgateway.org/pop

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Development Gateway Foundation have launched the Population and Reproductive Health Internet Portal, a community-built database of shared population information, including data, research, projects, ideas and dialogue. Visitors to the website are able to sign up for free membership, which entitles them to receive regular updates on new resources that are added.

africa: Aid Agencies' Response to UK Aid Increase

2002-06-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250740.html

Aid agencies have welcomed an announcement that the United Kingdom will increase aid to Africa, but said it is likely that there will be little progress on debt relief, trade and funding for education at the G8 summit.

BURKINA FASO: Project aims to improve conditions in poverty belt

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/8573

A US $30-million poverty alleviation project aimed at improving agricultural output in areas near Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, was launched at the weekend by the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Burkinabe government.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

BURKINA FASO: Project aims to improve conditions in poverty belt

OUAGADOUGOU, 24 June (IRIN) - A US $30-million poverty alleviation project aimed at improving agricultural output in areas near Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, was launched at the weekend by the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Burkinabe government.

Some 323 villages in the provinces of Kadiogo - which includes Ouagadougou - and neighbouring Bazega are covered by the project. Its aim is to increase the area cultivated by farmers in the two provinces by 32,500 ha and sink 33 wells. A 500,000-cubic metre dam currently under construction would also enable villagers to produce some 220 mt of cereals.

The ADB is to contribute 74 percent of the funds, while Burkina Faso's government will provide 16.5 percent. The project's beneficiaries are to contribute the remaining 9.5 percent.

Some 45 percent of Burkina Faso's 11 million people are poor, but the poverty rate is much higher among rural populations around Ouagadougou, 55 percent of whom live on less than one US dollar a day.

"It is a paradox that populations living on the outskirts of urban centres like Ouagadougou are the most destitute and the worst hit by poverty," the minister of state for agriculture, hydraulics and water resources, Salif Diallo, said.

These vulnerable populations, who are among the main beneficiaries targeted by the project, include residents of areas such as the Mossi Plateau near the capital, who have been hit by severe droughts, a source in Ouagadougou told IRIN on Monday.

In addition to the lack of water, such areas also suffer from a high rate of land degradation. As a result, the source said, many desperate, unemployed youths migrate to the capital, where they add an already high number of poor urban dwellers.
[ENDS]

IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Canada gives funds for Southern Africa crisis

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/8574

Canada will contribute CAD $34.2 million (US $22 million) in humanitarian aid to Southern Africa, a statement said last Friday.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Canada gives funds for Southern Africa crisis

JOHANNESBURG, 21 June (IRIN) - Canada will contribute CAD $34.2 million (US $22 million) in humanitarian aid to Southern Africa, a statement said on Friday.

"Canada is deeply concerned about the deteriorating conditions in Southern Africa and is ready to provide immediate support to those suffering from the growing food crisis," Susan Whelan, Minister for International Cooperation, said in a statement.

The assistance, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) would support emergency programmes carried out by experienced humanitarian organisations working in the region. It would provide food aid, support activities to improve the health and nutrition of affected populations, as well as contribute to other humanitarian interventions such as peace building initiatives.

Many countries in the Southern African region - Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland - are facing their worst crisis since the 1992 drought, with diseases like HIV/AIDS and the after effects of war worsening the situation.

Angola will receive a CAD $8.25 million (US $5.4 million) chunk of the disbursement with CAD $5.5 million (US $3.6 million) going to UNICEF to help reduce the measles and malaria mortality rate there.

As regions in the country open up after the 4 April ceasefire agreement, aid organisations have launched urgent appeals to help thousands of people who are struggling to recover from the war. This includes at least 70,000 children who are severely malnourished.

UNICEF will carry out a widespread measles vaccination campaign of 6.8 million children, provide Vitamin A supplements to 2.8 million children, and distribute 80,000 insecticide-treated nets to combat malaria.

An amount of CAD $1 million (US $650,000) will be given to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to provide nutrition and basic health-care support for 45,000 inhabitants and 113,000 internally displaced persons, in Malanje town and the Cangandala district in Angola.

MSF will carry out therapeutic and supplemental feeding programmes, establish a clinic and a health post for new internally displaced persons, as well as a tuberculosis ward, and conduct a malaria study and epidemiological surveillance.

CIDA will give CAD $1 million (US $650,000) to Acción contra el Hambre (ACF) to carry out an emergency nutritional programme in the Caconda District, in Huila province. ACF will provide nutritional rehabilitation feeding for an estimated 3,600 beneficiaries and supplemental feeding for another 12,000.

The World Food Programme (WFP) will receive CAD $750,000 (US $491,000) to help prevent pellagra, a deadly disease resulting from vitamin deficiency that disproportionately affects women, in Bié province.

Canada's contribution to the WFP initiative will provide mixing devices, technical support and bagging equipment for the fortified maize meal.

The latest announcement brings Canada's total contribution in Southern Africa to CAD $45 million (US $29.4 million), the statement said.

[ENDS]

IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 880-4633
Fax: +27 11 447-5472
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002

CALL FOR APPLICANTS

Adilisha Distance Learning Courses For Human Rights And Advocacy

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/8538

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 12 months.
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
Adilisha Distance Learning Courses For Human Rights And Advocacy
Issue date: 2002-06-20

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 12 months.

CALL FOR APPLICANTS
Adilisha Distance Learning Courses For Human Rights And Advocacy
Issue date: 2002-06-13

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 12 months.

CALL FOR APPLICANTS
Adilisha Distance Learning Courses For Human Rights And Advocacy
Issue date: 2002-06-06

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 12 months.

CALL FOR APPLICANTS

Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy
organisations

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning
courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern
Africa.

Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at
the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically
designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations
in southern Africa. Developed together with international and
regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next
12 months:

· Fact-finding and investigation of human rights violations
(applications now open)
· Human rights monitoring and reporting
· Campaigning, advocacy and lobbying
· Leadership and management for change
· Fundraising and resource mobilisation
· Financial management for non-financial managers (applications
now open)
· Using the internet for advocacy and research

Each course will comprise three phases:

Phase One: You will be supplied with interactive learning materials
on CDROM to use at home or workplace. You will be supported via email
by a course tutor. You will be required to complete a series of
assignments over a period of approximately eight weeks.

Phase Two: This will involve an intensive workshop in southern Africa
lasting for about 5 days.

Phase Three: This phase will last about eight weeks and will involve
you carrying out an assignment within your organisation. You will be
supported via email by a course tutor and submit your work for
assessment.

Those successfully completing this exercise will be awarded with a
Certificate of Completion from the University of Oxford.

This project is supported by the European Union, the British
Department for International Development, and the Canadian
International Development Research Centre. Funding is available to
cover fees, travel and accommodation for up to 10 persons per course
from within the SADC region.

Applications for the Financial management and the Fact-finding and
investigation courses are now open. Applications close on 15 July
2002 and applications received after this date will not be considered.
Incomplete applications will also not be considered.

Dates for the other Adilisha courses will be published through a
further call for applications in due course.

For further details and application forms, please refer to our website
(http://www.fahamu.org) or contact anil@fahamu.org.za

Human rights distance learning course

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/8536

This distance learning course, taking place between 23 September and 15 December, provides participants practical guidance on how to monitor human rights and is specifically a generic pre-deployment course for human rights monitors.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

HREA Distance Learning Course 4E:
HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING
23 September - 15 December 2002

Facilitators: Ben Majekodunmi and David Weissbrodt

This distance learning course provides participants practical guidance on
how to monitor human rights and is specifically a generic pre-deployment
course for human rights monitors. Participants will be introduced to the
doctrine and
methodology of human rights monitoring, primarily as developed through the
work of, and to be applied by United Nations (UN) human rights field
operations. The course addresses applicable international human rights and
humanitarian law; approaches to identifying human rights violations,
information-gathering, interviewing, visits to persons in detention,
visits to displaced persons in camps, monitoring the return of refugees
and internally displaced persons, trial observation, monitoring children's
rights, monitoring economic, social and cultural rights, preparation of
reports, interventions with local authorities and other follow-up.

The course involves 60 hours of reading, on-line working groups,
interaction with students and instructors/facilitators and assignments,
and is offered over a three-month period, beginning on 23 September 2002.
E-mail will be the main medium for the course, although participants will
need to have periodic access to the Web. The course is based on a
participatory, active learning approach, with an emphasis on peer-to-peer
learning. Participants will do the required reading, prepare interim and
final assignments and participate in group discussions. The main course
text will be the Training Manual on Human Rights Monitoring (United
Nations, 2001) authored by the facilitators of the course. The maximum
number of participants is 25. Students who successfully complete the
course will receive a Certificate of Attendance.


COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Introduction and Context
Week 2: Applicable International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Week 3: The Monitoring Function: Basic Principles of Monitoring
Week 4: Identification and Prioritization of Efforts Regarding Human Rights
Violations
Week 5: Information-Gathering
Week 6: Interviewing
Week 7: Visits to Persons in Detention
Week 8: Visits to Internally Displaced Persons and/or Refugees in Camps
Week 9: Trial Observation and Monitoring the Administration of Justice
Week 10: Monitoring Children's Rights
Week 11: Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Week 12: Following-Up and Reporting: Following-Up and Seeking Corrective
Action
Week 13-15: Final assignments


ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS/FACILITATORS

Ben Majekodunmi grew up in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Nigeria,
completing his university education in law and politics in the UK,
Portugal and France. He joined the United Nations in 1994 with the High
Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva; worked with the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights' (OHCHR) field operation to Rwanda (1994 to
1996); with UNICEF's Country Office in Burundi (1997) and the UNICEF
International Child Development Center in Florence (1998). He re-joined
OHCHR in 1999 and is currently based in Geneva.

Professor David Weissbrodt has taught at the University of Minnesota Law
School since 1975 and is now the Fredrikson & Byron Professor of Law. He
regularly teaches International Human Rights Law and other subjects.
Weissbrodt has authored a dozen books and monographs as well as more than
120 articles principally about international human rights. He has also
written articles on fact-finding, trial observation, investigating torture,
etc.

Professor Weissbrodt has engaged in human rights monitoring/fact-finding
in Canada, Congo, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Hong Kong, Kenya, Malaysia,
Qatar, the Philippines, Rwanda, and the United States. He has helped to
train UN human rights monitors in Croatia and Haiti. He has also helped
to establish and continues to work with several international human rights
organizations in Minnesota, including the Center for Victims of Torture,
the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and the University of Minnesota
Human Rights Center. As a member of the UN Sub-Commission and its
Working Group on the Working Methods and Activities of Transnational
Corporations, Professor Weissbrodt was asked to prepare draft UN human
rights principles for companies. In August 2000 Professor Weissbrodt was
also named the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens. In
2001 Weissbrodt was elected Chairperson of the UN Sub-Commission.


ABOUT HREA

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international
non-governmental organisation that supports human rights learning; the
training of activists and professionals; the development of educational
materials and programming; and community-building through on-line
technologies. HREA works in partnership with education agencies, NGOs,
governments and inter-governmental organisations to implement training
programmes for teachers, NGO staff, jurists and other professionals
involved in human rights work. Current and past partners include, inter
alia, Amnesty International, the Constitutional Legal Policy Institute
(COLPI), Council of Europe, Croatian Ministry of Education, HURIDOCS, the
Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, University of Minnesota Human Rights Center
and UNESCO. HREA is registered as a non-profit organisation in the
Netherlands and the USA. More information on HREA can be found at:
http://www.hrea.org


WHO SHOULD APPLY

The course is particularly intended for those presently responsible for
human rights monitoring in UN field operations or who want to work in UN
human rights monitoring but may also be useful to other human rights
monitors. Candidates should have a good written command of English and have
high competence and comfort with computer and Internet use.


COSTS

The course tuition fee is US$ 485. Scholarships are available for
applicants from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin
America/Carribean.


APPLICATIONS

Application forms (in Word) can be downloaded at:
http://www.hrea.org/courses/application4E.doc

Applications need to be submitted by 23 August 2002. Successful applicants
will be notified by 30 August 2002. Full tuition payment is due on 12
September 2002.

Inquiries about the course can be sent to <applications@hrea.org>.

Workshop on Science Communication for Sustainable Development

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/8537

SciDev.Net is holding a four-day workshop in Entebbe, Uganda between 29 September and 3 October on Science Communication for Sustainable Development. It will bring together a group of scientists, public relations officers, print and radio/TV journalists along with professionals from academies of science, government departments, science and technology policy institutions and non-governmental organisations.
Workshop on Science Communication for Sustainable Development
29 September to 3 October, 2002
Entebbe, Uganda
SciDev.Net is holding a four-day workshop in Entebbe, Uganda between 29 September and 3 October on Science
Communication for Sustainable Development. It will bring together a group of
scientists, public relations officers, print and radio/TV journalists along
with professionals from academies of science, government departments,
science and technology policy institutions and non-governmental
organisations. Participants will be mostly from the eastern African region
and will explore how capacity for science communication can be enhanced in
the region.
The workshop will combine presentations from invited speakers (from Africa,
Europe and North America) with a series of practical learning exercises and
structured discussion groups aimed at sharing and strengthening science
communication practices and helping to identify key resource and training
needs.
SciDev.Net is organising and running the workshop with the support of the
African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the Ugandan National Academy of Sciences
(UNAS), the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST), and
the InterAcademy Panel (IAP).

If you would like to attend the workshop, further details and an application
form can be obtained from www.scidev.net/entebbe/invite.html

Participation in the meeting is free, although participants will be expected
to cover their travel and accommodation costs where possible. A limited
amount of funding is available to cover the costs of African participants.

Young Women’s Symposium in Kenya

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/8534

The Eastern and Southern African Symposium on Young Women and HIV/AIDS, will take place in Nairobi, Kenya between 27-29 November. The theme is HIV/AIDS, Education and Youth.
Announcement: Young Women&#8217;s Symposium in Kenya
Janet Feldman
*************

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS:
The Eastern and Southern African Symposium on Young Women and HIV/AIDS,
will take place in Nairobi, Kenya between 27-29 November. The theme is HIV/AIDS, Education and Youth.
Survival: Perspectives and Priorities

Introduction
************
The Kenya Oral Literature Association (KOLA) and Strategic Initiatives for
Development (ST.R.I.DE) are glad to announce the holding of the Eastern
and Southern African Symposium on Young Women and HIV/AIDS. The event is
organized as part of the preparations for the Second International Youth
and Students Conference on HIV/AIDS (IYSCA). It seeks to promote the
active participation of young women, young women's organizations,
universities, NGOs, and government institutions.

The symposium will bring together young women from academic institutions
in the region, gender-based organizations, NGOs, Donors and governments to
reflect on the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on young women and to
design strategies for greater practical action to combat the spread of
HIV/AIDS among young women. Young women in academic institutions are
arguably Africa's hope in terms of enhancing gender-responsive
development, thus justifying the need for such an event.

Participants will be drawn from Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Sudan, Rwanda,
Burundi, Lesotho, Namibia and Ethiopia. Others include Zambia, South
Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Seychelles,
Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Mozambique.

Objectives
**********
The objectives of the 3-day Symposium include the following:
* To provide a forum for networking, sharing of knowledge, experiences and
ideas on initiatives to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on young women.
* To promote cross-country exchange of best practices for implementing
women-friendly health services in academic institutions in Africa.
* To identify and develop specific actions that can be implemented to
support young women affected by HIVAIDS.
* To prepare young women to participate in the 2nd International Youth
Conference on HIV/AIDS scheduled for June 2003.

Dates and Venue
***************

The Workshop will be held in Nairobi, Kenya between 27th and 29th November
2002, to coincide with the World AIDS Day Celebrations.

Symposium Theme and Sub-Theme
*****************************
The symposium theme is: "HIV/AIDS, Education Youth Survival: Perspectives
and Priorities". The Symposium will focus on the following sub-themes:

Subtheme1: Young Women and AIDS
* The emerging picture
* Implications on development
* Comparative country analyses
* The situation in Academic Institutions
* The situation in countries

Subtheme2: rethinking solutions to problems of young women in reducing
HIV/AIDS
* HIV/AIDS and young girls out of school
* Integrating HIV/AIDS awareness in vocational training for girls and
women
* The problems of the girl-child
* HIV/AIDS orphans
* Problems of High School girls
* Problems of girls in college

Sub-theme 3: Impact of HIV/AIDS on Girl Education
* Responses by NGOs
* Responses by Academic Institutions
* Responses by Research Institutions
* Responses by Donors

Sub- theme 4: Gender-based Violence against Young Women and HIV/AIDS
upsurge
* Causes of gender violence on Campus
* Combating gender-based violence against young women in Institutions of
learning
* The security system in universities
* Re-defining Freedom in Universities
* Role of Universities

Sub-theme 5: Mentoring for a Brighter Future
* The place of young professionals in HIV/AIDS challenge
* Developing support mechanisms for infected and affected young women
* Career advisory services
* Tackling un-employment

Sub-theme 6: Young Women's Priorities and HIV/AIDS Scourge
* Human rights and reproductive health
* Women-friendly services
* Lobbying and advocacy mechanisms
* Developing supportive framework in universities
* Student organizations
* Policy Issues
* Issues of Donor support

Abstracts
*********
Abstracts of not more than 300 words should be sent to the address below
before 15 September 2002. The Abstract should include the following
information:

* Issues: a short statement summarizing the issue(s) addressed by the
Abstract
* Description: A brief description of the project, experience, service,
research and/or advocacy
* Conclusions and Lessons Learned: A brief description of the results of
the project or the major conclusions of the project
* Recommendations: A brief statement of the next steps

Complete papers should be sent to the undersigned by 15th October 2002.

Registration
************
Participants will be expected to seek funding for their own travel and
accommodation costs. A registration fee of US$ 50 will be levied on
participants to meet some of the administrative costs. A limited number of
participants will be supported to attend the event. Accommodation costs
are estimated at US$ 40 per day.

For more Information and Registration Forms, please contact:
W. Kaikai,
The Symposium Secretariat,
P.O. BOX 13542-00100, NAIROBI.
Tel: 254-02-245311
E-mail: kola@todays.co.ke or strideve@hotmail.com

africa PROGRAMME OFFICER

Pacific Institute for Women's Health

2002-06-27

http://www.comminit.com/vacancy862.html

Collaborates with local organisations in Africa, the US, and elsewhere, as well as with consultants, advisors, and interns. Commitment to women's health and rights, including access to safe abortion information and services. Ability to travel to and work effectively in Africa (25-35% time).

East Africa Area Representative

World Neighbors

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/8551

World Neighbors seeks an East Africa Area Representative. Responsibilities include program development, strategic planning, budgeting, evaluation, reporting, administration and fund-raising. Travel 30-40% of the time. Position supports WN activities in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.
East Africa Area Representative / World Neighbors / East Africa.

DESCRIPTION:

World Neighbors seeks an East Africa Area Representative.
Responsibilities include program development, strategic planning,
budgeting, evaluation, reporting, administration and fund-raising.
Travel 30-40% of the time. Position supports WN activities in Uganda,
Tanzania and Kenya.

REQUIREMENTS:

- 5-10 years experience in direct field level program development
within East Africa and;
- at least a Master's degree or equivalent level of education;
- solid analytical, documentation, and communication skills needed;
- experience with integrated programs in 2 or more of the following
areas essential: Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resource
Management, Reproductive and Community-based health, or Capacity
building/organizational development.
- fluency in Swahili and English required.

TO APPLY:

Interested candidates please send cover letter, CV including salary
history, and references in English to: World Neighbors, Elizabeth
Sharon, 4127 NW 122nd St., Oklahoma City, OK 73120, USA.
Fax: 405-752-9393, E-mail: <www.personnel@wn.org>.

For full job description see web site: <www.wn.org> or request by
mail/fax/e-mail.

Uk deputy director: operations

Mango

2002-06-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/8555

Mango has grown rapidly over the last two and a half years. Maintaining a tight focus on strengthening the financial management of NGOs, we deliver a range of complementary services, including: training, placing financial staff, publishing capacity building materials and consultancy. Through our practical approach and high professional standards we are recognised as having made financial management accessible to NGOs around the world. We are recruiting a Deputy Director: Operations to play a major role in the development of the organisation. We are looking for someone with considerable energy, initiative and ability to join our small and enthusiastic team. The successful candidate will have practical field experience of working with NGOs and a heart-felt commitment to improving standards of financial management in the sector.
Deputy Director: Operations

Salary: £28,500 pa
Based: Oxford, UK, some overseas travel possible
This role is open for jobshare applications.

The Organisation
Mango has grown rapidly over the last two and a half years. Maintaining a
tight focus on strengthening the financial management of NGOs, we deliver a
range of complementary services, including: training, placing financial
staff, publishing capacity building materials and consultancy. Through our
practical approach and high professional standards we are recognised as
having made financial management accessible to NGOs around the world

Who we are looking for
We are recruiting a Deputy Director: Operations to play a major role in the
development of the organisation. We are looking for someone with
considerable energy, initiative and ability to join our small and
enthusiastic team. The successful candidate will have practical field
experience of working with NGOs and a heart-felt commitment to improving
standards of financial management in the sector.

The Opportunity
Initially, you will spend 50% of your time managing and developing Mango's
register of finance professionals. You will also invest a significant amount
of time in developing relationships with partner NGOs. Beyond this, there is
scope for flexibility in developing other activities according to your
interests and experience. Activities that we are currently considering
include: establishing an overseas presence, publishing capacity building
materials, delivering training courses, providing consultancy services and
developing standards in the sector. You will demonstrate proven success in
any field that you wish to pursue.

Closing date: 9am, 17th July 2002
Interviews: 23rd July 2002, in Oxford, UK

Further details: www.mango.org.uk

Or contact: Barbara Johnstone, bjohnstone@mango.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 1865 423818
Mango, 97a St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BT.

zimbabwe COUNTRY COORDINATOR

Academy for Educational Development

2002-06-27

http://www.comminit.com/vacancy794.html

Support management of the in-country HIV/AIDS workplace prevention and education programme, under an umbrella initiative called SMARTWork [Strategically Managing AIDS Responses Together]. Experience in programme design, and needs assessment research, for technical assistance and training.

Fahamu