Some schools in Swaziland are filling "many of the gaps" left in the country by the "double whammy" of HIV/AIDS and famine by feeding AIDS orphans and teaching them how to farm. Swazi Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini in January said that the country's official HIV prevalence had reached 38.6%, up from 34.2% in January 2002.

In celebrating its 40th anniversary, the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, is organising an International Symposium to be held on 10th to 12th December 2003. The Symposium is titled "Conservation In Crisis: Experiences and Prospects for Saving Africa's Natural Resources".

Reporting to the Southern Africa Programme Manager (SAPM), the Zimbabwe Liaison Officer (ZLO) will work to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of CIIR / ICD's programme in Zimbabwe. The postholder will be supporting CIIR / ICD's skillshare and advocacy work in the country. She/he will also be expected to help the SAPM to maintain a broader perspective of the Southern Africa Region. The ZLO will provide supervision and support to CIIR / ICDs Development Workers (DWs) and maintain and build key partnerships with local partner organisations in response to CIIR / ICD's HIV & AIDS and disability strategies for Zimbabwe.

On September 21, 2003, the World Bank unveiled its annual flagship publication, the 2004 World Development Report, entitled “Making Services Work for Poor People.” The WDR’s main premise is that basic services - primary education, basic health care, water and electricity services - fail to reach the poor because too many governments lack sound and representative institutions of governance. Ironically, the report expresses strong confidence in the ability of these same unaccountable governments to regulate private service provision.

After negotiations between Dr John Garang and the First Vice President, Ali Osman Taha, in Naivasha, Kenya, the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have signed an agreement on one of the most contentious issues, security arrangements during the Interim Period. This marks an important step forward in the peace process and is an indication that a peace deal will be reached in the coming months, although probably not before the end of the year, according to the Sudan Focal Point Monthly Briefing, distributed in this briefing from the Africa Action Africa Policy E-Journal.

The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has condemned the recent expulsion of the correspondent of The Monitor newspaper from the Presidential Villa. Cyril Mbah was banished from Aso Rock over a commentary which was critical of President Olusegun Obasanjo's style of administration.

The latest edition contains the following: Missing files: fertile grounds for corruption; E-procurement: a means to fight corruption; Professional body to address corruption in supplies; E-government and access to information and Corruption news. Subscribe online at http://www.tikenya.org/newsletter.asp or by sending an email to [email protected]

The main trade union in Nigeria has suspended plans for a general strike on Thursday originally called to protest at a sharp increase in the cost of fuel. A statement by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) said they had decided to call off the stoppage after oil marketing companies agreed to revert to the previous oil prices.

A fire has devastated vast tracts of Zimbabwe's Matopos National Park and is threatening many of its wild animals. Reports say that three-quarters of the central part of the 43,000 hectare park has been engulfed by a raging fire that has forced hundreds of wild animals to flee the flames.

Norway has dropped Zimbabwe from its select list of main development aid recipients because of the deterioration in governance there.

A human rights approach to agricultural trade liberalization reminds States of their commitment to a just international and social order and encourages more concerted efforts on behalf of wealthy countries to reduce and remove distortions to trade given the inability of most other countries to offer similar protections to promote the right to food and the right to development of their populations. This is according to a report on Human Rights and Trade by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, submitted to the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico.

Consultations continue as the initiators of the proposed Women's Manifesto in Ghana seek to gather more information and to get more groups to give their support for the manifesto. The document seeks to give women a common platform for addressing crucial concerns of women in Ghana through helping more of them to take up leadership positions in politics, and especially in Parliament.

Barely two weeks after 116 children were returned to neighbouring Benin, another set of 120 children kidnapped from that country have been rescued by the Nigerian police. They are victims of child trafficking and forced child labour.

The number of displaced Liberian women who have contracted reproductive tract infections and those dying from pregnancy related complications that could be treated is alarming, the United Nations population fund (UNFPA) said.

Two brothers aged three and four were among eight Eritreans and one Ethiopian reunited with their families last week after being separated during the bitter war between the two countries. The boys were flown to the Eritrean capital Asmara via Nairobi in Kenya as part of an operation organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

During the 1990s more than half a million Kenyans were internally displaced because of violence along inter-ethnic lines largely instigated by the ruling KANU (Kenya African National Union) in response to the introduction of multi-party democracy. The new government, which is a coalition of former opposition parties, has embarked on an ambitious programme to eliminate corruption and enhance peace and reconciliation efforts. Despite the change in the political climate, few of the reported 350,000 internally displaced people returned to their original homes during 2003, according to the Global IDP Project.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zambia has begun voluntary repatriation of Angolan refugees from Mayukwayukwa refugee settlement in Kaoma District of Western Province. UNHCR Head of Sub-office Mongu Stanley Miseleni said in a statement that a total of 507 Angolan refugees would be repatriated to Cazombo district and its immediate vicinity.

Kenyan public sector officials are perceived to be just as corrupt under President Mwai Kibaki as they were under former president Daniel arap Moi, according to the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI). Kenya scored 1.9 out of a clean score of 10 in both this year's and last year's Corruption Perceptions Index, formulated by TI, which reflects perceived levels of corruption among politicians and public officials.

The Federal Government reacted to Tuesday’s classification of Nigeria as the second most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International (TI), saying it was nothing to worry about. Chairman of TI, Mr. Peter Eigen, also speaking on the classification, said it might take generations before corruption could be rooted out in Nigeria.

Recent political discourse in South Africa has been characterised by a preoccupation with allegations of sleaze and government corruption. Senior government bureaucrats and party officials are alleged to have received kickbacks in return for favours; there were allegations of an internal ANC plot by black businessmen to undermine the President; and Deputy President Jacob Zuma has been accused of taking bribes. Director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka has in turn been accused of being an apartheid agent by Zuma's allies, giving rise to a spate of accusations and counter-accusations which threaten to destabilise the ruling ANC.

While South Africans concentrate on their homegrown scandals, it is important to understand that an obsession with sleaze and corruption is today an international phenomenon. There is a worldwide dynamic to 'scandal politics', which runs far deeper than the latest allegations. Today scandals seem to be one of the central features of politics throughout the world. The political classes in Japan, Italy, the USA, Britain and even Germany are no less immune to the disease than our local politicians. While scandals take different forms in different countries, if we look beyond the specifics, there is a broader pattern at work.

Politicians everywhere have power but usually not wealth. They are therefore often tempted to translate the one into the other. Given the history of apartheid oppression and black exclusion in South Africa, it might be argued that the power-wealth gap - and hence the temptations - are even greater than usual in this country. This form of corruption – an abuse of political power that might be termed “the corruption of politics” is however a very different thing from something that increasingly characterises politics everywhere today: the politics of corruption.

In the Western democracies this phenomenon usually started as a public crusade by opposition politicians or the press against government. While there was often some substance to allegations against government politicians, there was also a lot of hypocrisy. Longstanding petty corruption that had always been accepted as part of the everyday business of politics was suddenly cast in a new light. What had up to then been seen as perks of the job was now presented as evidence of corruption.

The politics of corruption has since transformed public life in a number of countries. In Britain it destroyed the Conservative Party and then came back to haunt the new Labour administration which had previously gained by playing the corruption card. Throughout the 'nineties and into the new millennium, a succession of political scandals accelerated the dislocation of traditional party politics in the West:

* Italy: In 1992 corruption charges were brought against leaders Craxi, Andreotti, and Silvio Berlusconi;
* Britain: The ‘Cash for Questions’ scandal 1994 – 1997; the recent resignation of prime minister Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell in the middle of Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of David Kelly;
* Ireland: A beef scandal rocked the administration of premier Albert Reynolds;
* France: In 1998 the ministerial flats scandal damaged Jacques Chirac;
* United States: President Clinton was exposed in the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater affairs in 1998; the current Bush administration remains tainted by allegations of voting irregularities;
* Belgium: A ministerial cover-up in a child torture case shook Jean-Luc Deheane’s government in 1998;
* Switzerland: 1998-2000 saw a sustained campaign over Jewish bank deposits;
* Germany: The CDU was hit by a funding scandal in 2000.

For the opposition, crying “corruption” was a way of attacking governing parties while essentially leaving their politics uncriticised. There was, after all, usually little significant difference between the political programmes of any of the major parties. Making an issue out of their opponents alleged corruption or immorality was a way of criticising governments whose politics the opposition largely agreed with. The cry of “corruption” allowed politicians to reap votes where they had not sowed a political alternative. For the media, corruption exposés seemed to be a way of demolishing governments with a strong grip on power. As was the case with the exposés of SA's ANC government, digging the dirt on a scandal seemed to be a way of breaking a powerful grip on parliament, which was based on the popular vote.

In many parts of Africa so-called 'structural adjustment' also encouraged an obsession with the corruption of African elites. The structural adjustment 'package' imposed on the majority of sub-Saharan African countries since the early 'eighties consisted of privatisation and an attack on state spending. Given the high level of dependence of the African elite upon the state, this further frustrated their advancement. Western obsession with 'good governance', conducted in the name of anti-corruption, was a frontal assault upon the networks that were necessary for the ruling elite to rule.

In most Western countries the crusade against corruption has transformed the political landscape. The reputation of parliament can no longer merely be restored by a change of government. Through campaigns around issues of corruption and personal rectitude, opposition parties and the media have changed the nature of politics. In the absence of genuine political differences, personal morality becomes the only basis on which politicians can be judged. Under these circumstances the meaning of politics has become more and more narrow. Neither government nor opposition even bothers to pretend that significant principles are at stake in their little debates. Unsurprisingly, many people have become cynical. They are ready to put the knife into those who are seen to have responsibility for the mess in which ordinary people have to live. There are no strong opposition parties to provide a voice for the angry and alienated, or to suggest political, economic or social alternatives to the problems of the modern world.

In the absence of an alternative standpoint from which to criticise, it is difficult to criticise at all. In these circumstances it seems as if the only thing open to scrutiny is the individual behaviour of politicians. Personal character has become the substance of modern politics. Given the dominant discussion and debate here in recent months, it seems that South Africa will be no exception to this trend.

Even progressives have been swept along with this disastrous approach to politics. Many seem to harbour the illusion that the ruling classes can be stopped in their tracks as long as the dirty secrets they hide are exposed. This fantasy arises out of a passive relationship between the governed and the governing. And it side-steps the difficult business of building political alternatives to government policies.

Even worse, this kind of outlook encourages a growing reliance on the high and the mighty to decide on issues which should be left to democratic political contestation. In Britain an unelected official, Ulster Judge Lord Hutton, is relied on to sort out the Kelly scandal. South Africa promptly follows suit with the appointment of Judge Hefer to look into the Ngcuka spying allegations. In the process the scope of authority of judges over elected government is enlarged. This is unlikely to be in the long-term interests of the people. Thus is democracy downgraded in favour of enlightened despotism.

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Ethiopian wildlife experts have appealed for more support to help crack down on ivory smugglers after returning 37 seized elephant tusks to Kenya. Mohamed Abdi, from the Ethiopian Wildlife and Conservation Organisation, told IRIN the country needed more support to combat poachers and smugglers.

The revised draft of the Children's Bill did not adequately address the huge impact the HIV/AIDS crisis was having on the social welfare system for children, civic society organisations said this week.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has gone by many names. NEPAD is typically depicted by architects and foremost proponents as an attempt to address Africa's vast development challenges. Some have even called it Africa's 'Marshall Plan". More others see it as a development strategy and a programme of the African Union (AU). Critics on the other hand depict NEPAD as a 'neo-liberal' project, clearly contrary to the views of its supporters who see NEPAD as a revolutionary plan. Critics have even called NEPAD the 'Africanisation of GEAR'. Whatever name and epithet one chooses, NEPAD has clearly generated a great deal of debate, says this paper prepared for the labour research organisation Naledi.

Shock and outrage has erupted across South Africa in response to President Thabo Mbeki's denial that he knew anyone with Aids. "Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of Aids," Mbeki told the New York Times while at the United Nations General Assembly last week. Asked if he knew anyone who was HIV-positive, he responded, "I really, honestly, don't know."
Related Link:
* Government clarifies statement
http://allafrica.com/stories/200309300400.html

The National Union of Namibian Workers has come out against the outsourcing of water and electricity networks to a South African-owned company, the Southern Electricity Service Company.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV-Aids has commended Namibia's efforts to fight the impact of HIV and Aids on orphans in the country.

The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions urged Deputy President Jacob Zuma on Monday to present the Hefer Commission with evidence that Bulelani Ngcuka, head of the NDPP, was abusing his power. "If Mr Zuma has any evidence of abuse and of ulterior motive, he is challenged to present such evidence to the Commission of Enquiry established by the President for this purpose," said acting NDPP spokesperson Rudolf Mastenbroek.

Amnesty International has welcomed the decision by the Sharia Court of Appeal of Katsina State, in northern Nigeria to quash Amina Lawal's sentence to death by stoning handed down by a Sharia court at Bakori, in Katsina State on 22 March 2002. But Amnesty says the federal government of Nigeria should take steps to abolish the death penalty and amend all pieces of legislation which introduce the death penalty as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments at all levels of the Nigerian legislation, including the Shari'ah penal legislation.

A 226-strong contingent of Ethiopian soldiers led by Lt-Col Meley Amare arrived in Bujumbura, capital of Burundi, on Saturday to begin peacekeeping duties. "We are awaiting for another 226, due to arrive on Monday or Tuesday," Amare told reporters at the International Airport of Bujumbura. "The force is due to be complete by Saturday or Sunday next week, when a 900-soldier contingent will be here in Burundi."

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation would like to announce that it has extended the World Assembly call for proposals deadline for workshops/presentations or training sessions proposals to 30 October, 2003. The World Assembly will take place from 21-25 March, 2004 in Gaborone, Botswana. The main theme of the global gathering will be "Acting together for a just world". There will be four main sub-themes at the World Assembly: (1) civic justice (fuelling civic energy); (2) economic justice (livelihood insecurity: innovative solutions seeking to open doors); (3) political justice (democratising power: civic engagement in decision-making); and (4) social justice (keeping the peace or fanning the flames). Cross-cutting themes include HIV/AIDS; gender equity and equality; young people; capacity-building; and socially marginalised groups. To download the call for proposals or the submissions guidelines please visit either http://www.civicus.org or http://www.civicusassembly.org or email [email protected].

Over 30 leaders from non-governmental organisations and local authorities from the Horn, East and Southern Africa convened in Kampala, Uganda in September 2003 for the first Regional Dialogue, Preventing Gender-based Violence: Sharing Experiences, Breaking New Ground, organised by Raising Voices and UN-HABITAT's Safer Cities Programme. The Kampala Declaration calls on civil society, local authorities, UN agencies, governments and funding agencies to increase attention, investment and action on preventing gender-based violence in Africa. Read the Kampala Declaration at www.raisingvoices.org/declaration.shtml and join us in preventing gender-based violence by adding your name in support.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of people in southern Africa will face massive food shortages as early as next month due to significant funding shortfalls. The shortages will be most acute in Zimbabwe and Mozambique where food needs are greatest. In July, WFP appealed for US$308 million to fund some 540,000 tonnes of food, enough to feed 6.5 million people until June of next year in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi. Despite repeated appeals, WFP has received only 24 percent of what is required, and has unmet needs amounting to US$235 million.

Arms sales, which had dropped off at the end of the Cold War, have been rising lately - despite being ineffective in fighting terrorism and having a "negative impact on overall global security," according to a new United Nations report. The Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters "noted with concern that global military expenditures had been rising since 1998, after an observable general decline immediately after the end of the Cold War," Secretary-General Kofi Annan writes.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Friday in The Hague that it would investigate the role of business operating in Europe, Asia and North America in fuelling crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

At least five people were killed when a leaking oil pipeline exploded and caught fire in southeastern Nigeria last week after it had been spilling crude oil into a river for two days, local residents reported.

Construction of what will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the Republic of Congo began on Tuesday in Imboulou, 215 km north of the capital, Brazzaville, in the central department of Plateaux. The project, expected to take six years at a cost of US $280 million, is being led by a consortium of two private Chinese companies.

The few civil society representatives who made the trip to Dubai were not impressed with what they found behind the veneer of modernity. Peter Bosshard, of International Rivers Network, discovered that migrant workers from south and south-east asia employed in the international convention centre are paid less than $150 per month for a 6 day week of 12 hour days with only a half hour lunch break. There are, of course, no trade unions. Combined with its reputation as a tax haven and its lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, Ann Pettifor of Jubilee Research was left wondering "what message Mssrs. Koehler and Wolfensohn were sending to the rest of the world by holding the conference there?"

The glaring information vacuum caused by the closure of The Daily News was greatly felt during the first week of its closure, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. A large section of the public has been left at the mercy of simplistic and partisanship reporting of the government-controlled media.

In a major operation on September 26, Congolese National Police officers seized most newspapers and magazines on sale in Kinshasa streets. According to eyewitnesses, at least a dozen newspaper vendors were arrested and taken to various police stations and detention centres in the city, including the Lufungula military base in Kinshasa/Lingwala. No official reason has been given to explain the police operation.

Zimbabwean police on September 26 charged Francis Mdlongwa, former group Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), with practising as a journalist without official accreditation. He becomes the 10th journalist who worked for The Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday, the ANZ's two news titles shut down by the government on September 12, to be charged under Zimbabwe's tough media law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), in the past week.

The launch of a nationwide, wireless network to improve Uganda’s ability to treat patients and combat the spread of disease has been announced. The network is built around the country’s well-established cell phone network, inexpensive handheld computers, and innovative wireless servers called "Jacks." The technology allows health care workers to access and share critical information in remote facilities without fixed telephone lines or regular access to electricity.

The current government in Zimbabwe continues to thumb its nose at the rest of the world and act in increasingly more repressive ways every week. A recent example is the closing of the country's leading and most popular newspaper, the independent Daily News, on 12 September 2003. The ban follows a Supreme Court ruling on 11 September that the paper was operating illegally. Plainclothes security police, accompanied by about 20 paramilitary police armed with automatic rifles, burst into the newspaper's offices in central Harare at about 5pm, ordered staff to leave and arrested Nqobile Nyathi, the Editor, and Simon Ngena, the production manager. While I will not deny that the actions of the Mugabe government have a basis in intrinsic problems of modern Zimbabwe, the handling of these issues has often been brutal and repressive and goes beyond what any democratic society should endure. CIDA maintains some presence in Zimbabwe and I urge its decision makers to add their voices to others and persuade the Canadian Government to continue to put pressure on the government in Harare to allow basic democratic institutions such as a free press and a right to public assembly for all people.

On the basis of participatory field research conducted in different rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper demonstrates that agrobiodiversity and the associated indigenous knowledge are relevant forces to combat food insecurity and the HIV/Aids crisis.

The U.S. led war on Iraq has strengthened opposition to U.S. policies in Egypt; emboldened challenges to the regime; led to a growing consensus in favour of political reform and realignment of the opposition, according to a new report from the International Crisis Group. The ICG says the U.S. administration should take seriously the evidence of political damage that American-Egyptian relations have sustained as a consequence of its regional policies, notably its perceived bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its decision to topple the regime in Iraq, and its heavy-handed admonitions to Egypt and other Arab countries to reform. Washington's policies, and the manner of their implementation, have embarrassed a friendly government, aggravated its domestic difficulties and undermined the U.S.'s self-proclaimed reform agenda.

Souleymane Guengueng, a torture victim and award-winning human rights activist from Chad, has been fired from his position with the World Bank-backed Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), Human Rights Watch says. The Commission apparently took the measure in reprisal for his campaign to bring to justice the former dictator of Chad, Hissene Habre.

As the 13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) concluded in Nairobi, Kenya last week, observers were unanimous in noting the stress on the urgent need for leaders - national and international - to deliver on promises. Despite overwhelming consensus on the need for treatment, UNAIDS reported that at the end of 2002 only an estimated 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral treatment, about one percent of 4.1 million in immediate need of such treatment. This posting from Africa Policy E-Journal contains two reports from Nairobi, including the closing speech by Nomfundo Dubula on behalf of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement.

In Tanzania, IRC has been serving refugees in Kigoma Region and host communities in Kigoma and Kagera Regions since December 1993. Currently, IRC Tanzania provides health, educational, social, and economic assistance to over 130,000 refugees, mostly Burundian, and approximately 300,000 nationals.

The Mano River Union Peace Forum is a joint initiative between International Alert, Conciliation Resources, and local partner organisations in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The position of Director is available.