PAMBAZUKA NEWS 84
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 84
The Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre and Network looks at the challenges women face trying to access e-mail and Internet and innovative projects that provide ways for women to engage with and help develop ICT's and how they are used for development.
The USAID HIV/AIDS E-Newsletter provides monthly updates on USAID and partner activities to prevent and mitigate HIV/AIDS worldwide.
The Strengthening Gender & Women's Studies for Africa's Transformation (GWS Africa) project web site is the first ever site, wholly dedicated to the promotion and development of Gender and Women's Studies on the African continent. The African Gender Institute has established www.gwsafrica.org in collaboration with the community of scholars currently engaged in gender studies all over the continent, and we invite ongoing dialogue and networking.
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has accused some non-governmental organisations (NGO's) of meddling in the country's internal affairs and said his government will regulate them, a newspaper said on Saturday.
While the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) could be assumed to be making some headway in Africa, a unique case of the practice in Mauritania is of great concern. A study carried out recently on this female rite in that country reveals stunning facts about the communities' interpretation of the practice. Even more alarming is that the majority population, composed of four ethnic groups, undergo this practise.
A few months after the mysterious death in June 1998 of General Sani Abacha, his finance minister, Chief Anthony Ani, then no longer a minister, called a press conference in Lagos during which he said that his boss had repeatedly ignored his advice against the withdrawal of huge sums of money in local and foreign currency from the Central Bank of Nigeria, by Abacha's National Security Adviser, Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo. All told, said Ani, Gwarzo had, among other things, withdrawn over 1.3 billion dollars over a period of nearly two years before Abacha's death.
The Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Marc Destannes de Bernis, says preservation of the environment should not be seen as contradictory to economic growth and social development.
Almost daily a steady stream of young girls queue at the check in of Addis Ababa international airport - destined for the Middle East. Smartly dressed, wearing makeup they laugh and joke with each other. All long for a new life abroad with promises of high wages and a good job. Yet for most that dream becomes a nightmare as they are forced into prostitution or a slave-like existence as housemaids working 20 hours a day without pay.
In order to transport half a million dollars in unlaundered cash safely from one country to another there are two basic requirements. First, you must possess a business class ticket, because the weight of half a million dollars exceeds the hand luggage limit on Economy. Second, you must disembark at an airport where customs officials may be relied upon not to ask questions. Harare International Airport has provided precisely such facilities in recent years; foreign associates of the Zimbabwean government have provided the business class tickets and the millions in cash.
Angolan refugees arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are staying in "very poor conditions" in the eastern town of Luau, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
Congolese tribal fighters backed by the government seized control of a strategic eastern Congolese port from rebels Sunday after two days of heavy fighting, a rebel official said.
Uhuru Kenyatta's name is on everyone's lips now that he has been nominated as the ruling party's presidential candidate to succeed Daniel arap Moi. He is, of course, known as the son of Kenya's founding president, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, but he is only just beginning to emerge from his father's shadow.
Related Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/africa/2324965.stm
The Swaziland Royal Police, acting on a court order, raided Channel S, the only privately-owned television station in the country, and confiscated a video tape containing a sermon that has been termed by the Swazi government as "threatening the foundations of the kingdom."
Zambia National Students Union (ZANASU) president Godfrey Kumwenda, who represented Zambia at a congress in Windhoek, Namibia, said students wanted governments in the SADC region to abandon policies that pleased western capitalists, especially with regards to the privatisation of the education sector.
An expanding body of evidence challenges the conventional hypothesis that sexual transmission is responsible for more than 90% of adult HIV infections in Africa. Differences in epidemic trajectories across Africa do not correspond to differences in sexual behavior. Studies among African couples find low rates of heterosexual transmission, as in developed countries.
The public media’s coverage of the fuel shortages and the just ended local government elections further illustrated the undesirability of government’s control of the media. The public media confined its coverage of the two issues to defending government’s handling the fuel crisis without explaining what was really happening, while simply ignoring the violent intimidation of the opposition in the recent polls.
The Combined Harare Residents Association has launched a petition to dispute the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing in imposing another commission in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The ruling MPLA party in Angola has slammed a report from Médecins Sans Frontières, a humanitarian non-governmental organisation. MPLA information secretary Noberto dos Santos deplored the attitude of the report and said its authors were "meddling in internal issues of the Angolan State". The report detailed how both the government and UNITA had used civilians as weapons of war.
“I don't want to be buried under the new deal government's new dirty carpet,” Heritage Party president Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda has said. In a complaint letter to Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) chairman Michael Musonda against Solicitor General Sunday Nkonde's request for the court to declare him a vexatious litigant, Brig. Gen. Miyanda stated that the country was currently being threatened by hoodlums.
Angola needs an extensive and urgent demining programme to kick-start development and reconstruction after 30 years of war, national demining coordinator Balbina Silva says.
Easing a total ban on ivory trading could lead to the devastation of elephant populations in Asia and Africa, conservationist Richard Leakey said Monday. Leakey, who is also a leading paleontologist, said moves by five African countries to reinstate a legal ivory trade at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting next month will lead to an increase in illegal trade.
Recent news reports indicate some positive signs in the fight against the AIDS pandemic - the Global Fund expects to release its first grant funds by the end of the year; the South African government has issued a Cabinet statement affirming its intention to use anti-retrovirals in the public health sector; and Coca-Cola has announcing a limited expansion of its treatment programs for workers. But the overall picture is that the funds being provided are a trickle compared to what is needed, says Africa Action, who have compiled a variety of documents and links on the latest in the fight against AIDS.
African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development are due to meet in South Africa from 19 - 21 October to discuss what it will take to effectively implement the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has donated $5 million to provide "community support for the care and development" of AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, the Harare Herald/AllAfrica.com reports.
Poor developing countries have so far contributed relatively little to the causes of global warming yet many of these countries will bear the brunt of climate change through loss of food production. The burden will undoubtedly fall disproportionately on the poorest and most vulnerable, says the International Institute for Applied Systems in a report dealing with climate change and agricultural vulnerability.
If the bribery and cronyism that have so incensed anti-corruption crusaders are to be exposed and opposed, so too must corporate profiteering and monopolistic practices which heap misery upon people and plunder natural resources the world over. Above all, stresses Aziz Choudry, a clear position must be taken to confront the corrupt worldview which underpins the neoliberal agenda of shaping the world in the interests of big business.
Prostitution in South Africa should continue to be illegal, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled. A lower court had earlier declared that the Sexual Offences Act was unconstitutional because it discriminated against women and so should be scrapped.
Agencies working to relieve famine in southern Africa have embarked on a comprehensive training scheme to educate employees to avoid child abuse. This is to prevent a repeat of the widespread sexual abuse of children by aid workers revealed during the recent west African refugee crisis.
This is a two-week training course organised by the Institute of Cultural Affairs Ghana and ICA:UK that will equip participants with the practical group facilitation methods developed and practiced globally by ICA over the past 30 years and give participants the opportunity to practice those methods in a "safe" environment.
As many as 30,000 "old caseload" Angolan refugees could opt for integration in Zambian society and stay behind when the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) begins its repatriation programme next year.
The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has expressed “deep concern” about the fact that copies of a report published by OMCT and Nigerian NGO the Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN), entitled "Hope betrayed? A Report on Impunity and State-Sponsored Violence in Nigeria," based on the input of some 60 local NGOs, have been seized by the customs office in Lagos.
Sudanese officials have been accused again of trying to intimidate Faisal el-Bagir, a journalist and member of the Sudan Organisation Against Torture (SOAT). El-Bagir was arrested at his home in Khartoum on October 7, shortly after he arrived back to Sudan from Cairo and Dakar, where he had been attending an international meeting on freedom of expression organised by the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX).
The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has released a paper outlining a set of guidelines produced by the United Nations in collaboration with several organisations for the implementation of a human rights-based approach into poverty reduction strategies, contained in international and national developmental policies and practice.
Can genetically modified (GM) crops really play a role in helping to address the needs of the developing world? SciDev.Net is pleased to announce the launch of its dossier on GM crops, which aims to provide an informed guide to the key issues pertinent to the adoption of GM crops in developing countries.
This is a regional strategic communications training course aimed at equipping NGO activists with skills in health promotion, advocacy and general publicity for development programmes and projects.
"There is little doubt that the headlong rush to private markets has failed to address some of the most critical issues and concerns about water," says Dr. Peter H. Gleick, lead author of "The New Economy of Water" and Director of the Pacific Institute. "How can we protect the world's poorest people, how can we ensure that the environment gets a fair share, how can water quality be protected for future generations? All of these questions must be answered before we move forward with more privatization."
There is little evidence to show that HIV/AIDS education in schools has achieved significant behaviour change, despite a good level of knowledge among students. A lack of time, resources and training mean that curriculum based education as well as counselling and peer education are inadequate, says a report by the African Symposium on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the education sector in Botswana, Malawi and Uganda.
Since the people who suffer more from climate change due to greenhouse gas accumulation and a high degree of pollution are the poor in the developing world, the view of who owes who in the balance of global debt should be reconsidered, concludes a paper from the New Economics Foundation.
At least 627 teachers have been fired in Zimbabwe for taking part in an illegal strike, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) TV News has reported. Hundreds of teachers across the country went on strike last week to press for higher wages.
Almost a quarter century of dominance by Kenya's President, Daniel arap Moi, ended this week as his ruling party split in two and a powerful opposition coalition to unseat him was announced at a massive rally.
The United Nations has warned that an upsurge of fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is putting the country's peace process under severe strain, heightening fears that the recent withdrawal of foreign occupying forces without sufficient international safeguards will leave the region in chaos.
An emotive regional debate on the safety of genetically modified food aid has thrown a spotlight on South Africa's stance on biotechnology, exposing a lonely but unwavering policy. Diplomatic wranglings have overshadowed a food crisis threatening much of southern Africa, with countries in need of food aid first refusing to take GM maize, and then negotiating deals to make sure their own crops do not become contaminated. But while Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and most prominently Zambia have all expressed great concern over even accepting GM crops, regional economic powerhouse South Africa is steaming ahead with an agenda of strong support for agricultural biotechnology that insiders say is here to stay.
Sudan's government signed an agreement with rebels on Tuesday to suspend fighting during talks to end their 20-year-old war, an official with the mediation team said.
Teachers have boycotted meetings called to brief invigilators, casting a cloud over national examinations scheduled to begin on Tuesday. They walked out of meetings called by education officials or tried to disrupt them during the fourth week of their strike. Others avoided the sessions altogether.
Ted Reilly, founder of Swaziland's wild animal park systems, surveys the green early spring hills of October, noting that "the Southern African region enjoyed some good rains this past week, but meteorologists tell us not to think a few showers can break this drought. We are in for more of the same next year.”
Liberia smuggled more than 200 tons of military equipment into the country in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a U.N. report that calls for an arms embargo to be expanded. The report details "a sophisticated trail of double documentation" designed to show that the weapons and ammunition were shipped to Nigeria — not to Liberia which has been under an embargo.
Partnerships between NGOs based in the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ have become a key part of international development processes. Whilst NGOs are drawn to the concept of partnership as an expression of solidarity that goes beyond financial aid, in practice the power relations of donor-recipient often skew this potential.
The European Union has suspended funding for a project geared towards building of schools and clinics for Eastern Cape poor areas. This follows the apparent misappropriation of close to R3 million by several employees.
Gately Rotary Club has donated a resource centre costing R86 000 to the community of Kwetyana in Newlands. The resource centre boasts new toilets, a fence, water, and electricity and it will also house a clinic and library.
Provide technical assistance, managing/administering contractors and grantees, monitoring and evaluation, program communication, and donor coordination. Advanced degree with a specialization in public health, expertise in RH/FP, and child survival required.
American actress Miss Angelina Jolie over the weekend made a personal donation of Sh15.6 million (US$200,000) to refugees in Kenya.Of this sum, Sh3.9 million is to go to training for refugee girls. The Hollywood star could not hold back her tears when she described her encounter with refugee girls and women at Kakuma refugee camp where she spent her Sunday.
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN (WiPC) is launching a campaign on Zimbabwe at the end of October aimed at focusing pressure on the government of Robert Mugabe to free imprisoned journalists and repeal recently enacted laws curbing free expression. Set to run from 28 October to 10 November, the campaign invites IFEX members and other participants to send letters of appeal to Zimbabwean authorities over a two-week period calling for an end to criminal proceedings against journalists and the restoration of free expression.
Lead IMC's activities in Angola, while assuring positive implementation, effective coordination, and appropriate support for IMC programs. Oversee project logistics, finance and administrative support and actively prioritize standards for monitoring and evaluation. Graduate degree in Public Health, Public Policy, or related field preferred.
Must have expert skills in managing reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programs to work with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) Call to Action Project (CTA). The project allows international health care facilities, non-governmental organizations, and community-based organizations to apply for funds that will help implement programs to prevent MTCT of HIV.
The Information Systems Electronics and Telecommunications Technologies' (ISETT) Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) has made a grant worth R11.7 million available to the Siemens Information and Communications Training Institute in Pretoria.The institute, launched in April, aims to develop highly skilled manpower for the telecoms industry.
Assist in the establishment of partnership agreements based on the recommendations from the studies. Strengthen the management capacity of the Youth Programme (PNI) at central level. Knowledge and experience with poverty eradication strategies and macroeconomics policies preferably in Africa required.
South Africa's financial contributions to international relief programmes in Africa had halved during the past three years from R12,1-million to R6-million, according to the foreign affairs department's annual report for the year ending March 2002.
Actions that empower the poor, broaden their social and economic opportunities and reduce their vulnerability to disease, hunger, and disasters are the three key factors to eradicate poverty. This is also the primary focus of the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the international and national development communities.
Zambia is to receive $50-million in credit from the World Bank (WB) for current drought and food shortages in the country.The funds will be released under the Emergency Drought Recovery Project (EDRP), and will go towards logistical and humanitarian support in ongoing food distribution.
Compared to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, this summer's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg was bound to be somewhat disappointing. The negotiations leading up to Johannesburg had not provided any reason to expect dramatic break-throughs, and there were none. After the meeting, many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) denounced the WSSD as a failure. Even seasoned U.N. officials, while relieved that the Summit had not broken down completely, were rather muted in their responses, says the World Watch Institute in its just-released assessment of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The silence around HIV/AIDS has been surprising for the few HIV/AIDS activists present at the AWID (Association for Women's Rights in Development) 9th Conference in Mexico. Mainly voices of African women, and of those working in Africa, raised the issue of HIV/AIDS.
Zimbabwe has launched a second electronic learning company (E-Learning), Learning Resources, set to equip both the corporate world and the public with the necessary skills to tackle new challenges within the science and technlogy arena.
In June the South African government passed a set of acts to allow local and municipal government councillors, as well as provincial and national members of parliament to change political parties without losing their seats. The acts have important short-term implications for coalition politics and the control of local and provincial governments in South Africa, and they address issues at the heart of the country's debate over electoral system reform, according to a report from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa.
The Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa is a unique collection of commentary on the current electoral process in southern Africa. This publication draws on up-to-date analysis of each country in the region with each contribution organised according to an easy reference format. Topics include the voter registration process, electoral systems, electoral administration, civic education and election results. The publication represents an important baseline of information on elections in southern Africa and presents the basis for the creation of future updates. The chapters (including all the fourteen member states of SADC, as well as Zanzibar) draw on a number of sources, including a SADC Electoral Information Digest, SADC country electoral profiles, election observation mission reports and other relevant material. The authors of these various sources are also duly acknowledged.
A study report on Land, Gender and Poverty Eradication commissioned by the Ministry of Lands, Water and Environment revealed that unequal domestic land tenure relations contributed significantly to instability in families, thus customary protection for women has weakened contributing to large numbers of intra-familial disputes related to land.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Cape Verdean government organised the 5th Conference of African female Ministers and Parliamentarians from October 15-18 2002 whose motto "Gender and HIV/AIDS: Reinforcement of National Response" aims to discuss the fight against HIV/AIDS, poverty and gender promotion.
Tanzania parliamentarian Ambassador Getrude Mongella has urged Kenyan women to fight it out with men in the political arena. The country still lacks a woman Cabinet Minister after 40 years of independence.
James Mlambo,19, is studying telecommunications and electronics engineering in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. His father is a counsellor working for a local organisation, called Mashambanzou, which assists AIDS orphans in Harare. Last year, his father told him that more and more orphans wanted to have access to email. But that was beyond Mashambanzou's scope of activities. So, James decided to help.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), ARTICLE
19 and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) will be holding a five-day information and communications technologies (ICT) policy and civil society workshop from November 6th to 10th, 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
GlaxoSmithKline officials said Thursday that police in Europe are broadening their investigation into how discounted AIDS drugs earmarked for African nations were diverted back to Europe to be sold at higher prices.
Kara Counselling and Training Trust is a leading NGO in the fight against the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Its services include free counselling and testing services to the general public, training in psychosocial counselling skills and Home Based Care. The Agency is requesting materials related to it’s services to enhance and improve its resource centre.
This outstanding reference resource with 100 chapters brings together the latest information on theory, research, and social policy concerning the psychology of women and gender from leading experts in the social and behavioral sciences, and explore in-depth the cultural and political constructions of gender that influence the development and life experiences of women and men from diverse social, cultural, economic, and ethnic/racial groups.
The Global Fund to fight AIDS, the UN-backed scheme to tackle the epidemic in the developing world, has thrown its weight behind the use of generic copies of AIDS drugs. The fund, which is also designed to address malaria and tuberculosis, said last Friday that the programmes it financed should seek to buy the lowest-priced drugs they could find, whether they were patented or generic.
Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano has called on health workers to fight against corruption in the country's hospitals, reports Wednesday's issue of the Beira paper "Diario de Mocambique".
Half a million children under the age of five die each year in Ethiopia because of illnesses such as malaria and measles, as well as pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malnutrition.
The Ministry of Health has officially confirmed 15 cases and 2 deaths of yellow fever in Mbacké and Bambey départements, Diourbel region. Laboratory confirmation was made by the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Institut Pasteur in Dakar. All cases except one have been reported in the city of Touba. The other case was reported in Bambey, 70 km west of Touba.
Reforms and squeeze on education funds has hit education in developing countries as teachers' morale dips to an all time low. Research in Papua New Guinea, Zambia and Malawi highlights a crisis in education because of poor motivation amongst teachers.
The situation of displaced people in northern Uganda has worsened considerably in recent months despite the launch of a Government military operation against rebels whose repeated attacks on civilians is the main cause of displacement. In northern Uganda alone, new attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have displaced tens of thousands and created a humanitarian crisis with risk of starvation for over half-a-million people, many of them displaced since the mid-1990s.
Almost 500 Namibian refugees, who fled to Botswana during unrest four years ago, are to be repatriated early next week, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last Friday.
After 30 years of exile in neighbouring Sudan, Eritrean refugees are finally returning back home, but the shock of being uprooted from the relative comfort of the well supplied refugee camps is often very evident. In Gash Barka, a harsh desert region in Western Eritrea, water is worth its weight in gold. The local residents have already raised concerns that the influx of returnees risked overextending the existing water supply.