An independent United Nations human rights expert today voiced his deep concern over the diminishing freedom of expression and association in Burundi, warning that violations of these freedoms imperil the rule of law in the African Great Lakes country. “The Government must restore a calm political climate and take all necessary measures to end the harassment and intimidation of journalists and representatives of civil society, trade unions and political parties,” said Akich Okola, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Burundi.

Zambia has not been spared by HIV and AIDS. 17 percent of the 12 million Zambians are HIV/AIDS. The government and other stakeholders put concerted efforts to fight this deadly disease. "They were there, when I needed them."Care International is one of the NGOs that have embarked on HIV/AIDS. Care International regional office in the boarder town of Livingstone, is running a Home Based Care (HBC) programme for HIV/AIDS patients. The boarder towns are the most affected areas.

Power-sharing in Zimbabwe is dead and it is time for African governments to oust President Robert Mugabe, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said. After talks with Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Nairobi, Mr Odinga told the BBC that Mr Mugabe had no interest in sharing power.

CONCERNED about the recent challenges that we have faced as a country and the multiple threats to the well-being of our people and, therefore, determined to resolve these permanently...CONSIDERING our shared determination to uphold, defend and sustain Zimbabwe's sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity, as a respected member of the international community, a nation where all citizens respect and, therefore, enjoy equal protection of the law and have equal opportunity to compete and prosper in all spheres of life.

The Moroccan Ministry of Health called on all artists to help raise public awareness about AIDS, in an effort to curb the spread of the disease. A large number of artists signed the "Artists' AIDS Pact" on World AIDS Day (December 1st).

At least 20 people drowned off the coast of Yemen earlier this week and two were reported missing after smugglers carrying them across the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa forced them to jump overboard in deep water. The boat was reportedly carrying around 115 passengers, mostly Ethiopians.

The European Union is financing ecologically and socially destructive projects in Africa, a Brussels conference has been told. Officially, the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank (EIB) is committed to using the 53 billion euros (67 billion dollars) it releases each year, to pursue policies that protect the environment and alleviate hardship.

This framing paper for an INEE Policy Roundtable provides analysis, lessons learnt and recommendations on the financing of education in states affected by fragility. The paper focuses mainly on aid to education, but also considers it in the context of domestic financing for education. The authors discuss the current state of financing in terms of both official development assistance and humanitarian funding, focusing on the trends and recent commitments to education.

The South Africa Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (SA GLAAD) and other gay rights groups will stage a protest outside South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)’s head office on Thursday 4 December. SAHRC has come under fire recently following its alleged silence on the controversial column written by Sunday Sun’s John Qwelane, published in July this year.

Ten Sudanese newspapers have suspended publication as part of a growing protest against state censorship, Sudanese journalists said. Reporters said on Tuesday that it was the biggest voluntary shutdown of the media since the days of British rule in the 1950s.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the imprisonment of Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, the editor of the privately-owned Arabic-language weekly Al-Aqsa, in Nouakchott on a criminal libel charge. Abeidna was immediately jailed on his arrival from Dubai, from where he was extradited.

Zambians are gradually turning to greener energy technologies to save trees after suffering years of extensive flooding and droughts, which could slow the impact of climate change. Charcoal-fed braziers are being replaced by those burning briquettes made of treated coal waste, which are smokeless and emit low levels of sulphur dioxide gas.

Environmental degradation, responsible for the dangerous displacement of sand dunes in Mauritania, has wiped out homes, livestock and livelihoods throughout the desert country. An October UN study estimated that land degradation costs nearly US$200 million annually in potential revenue losses and health care expenses.

A new law that, if passed, will allow the Kenyan government to determine the content, style, manner and schedule of broadcasting, has drawn fierce resistance from the media industry. The Kenya Communications Amendment Bill 2008, which is now in its final stages of the legislative process in Kenya's Parliament, proposes to set up a communications commission appointed by the government to issue licences to broadcasters and a raft of heavy fines and prison sentences for various offences.

Exclusive literary auction to help women worldwide

On behalf of WOMANKIND, Pambazuka News would like to promote a new short story entitled Grab Pots and Pans and Spoons and Make a Noise, which you can bid for at

Written exclusively for WOMANKIND by Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, and Jeanette Winterson, signed and unsigned copies of Grab Pots and Pans and Spoons and Make a Noise which was are available now on WOMANKIND's website!

The book, which was beautifully designed by Sarah Wood, is available as part of an online silent auction which will raise funds for WOMANKIND's work. There are only 250 copies of this 36-page story which was inspired by the words of a South African woman who benefited from WOMANKIND's work.

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) became aware of the abduction of our sister Jestina Mukoko on Wednesday from her home in Norton. We are advised that 15 armed men took her away in her nightdress whilst her teenage son looked on helplessly.

We firmly believe that these were state agents and wish to say that we hold Robert Mugabe and his party that is still illegally ruling accountable for this abduction. We demand her immediate and unconditional release.

We call on all solidarity networks to please call Norton police station +263 62 2120 and demand her immediate release.

To state agents who took her our message is simple: your identity will not remain a secret and you will be held accountable – we are mobilising – the world is watching.

4th December 2008
For more information, contact Jenni Williams through [email][email protected] / [email][email protected] or www.wozazimbabwe.org

Over the last five years, the global campaign to stop the use of child soldiers has garnered an impressive series of successes, including new international legal standards, action by the UN Security Council and regional bodies, and pledges from various armed groups and governments to end the use of child soldiers. Despite gains in awareness and better understanding of practical policies that can help reduce the use of children in war, the practice persists in at least twenty countries, and globally, the number of child soldiers - about 300,000 - is believed to have remained fairly constant.

Few humanitarian crises have occasioned as much media and activist attention in the US as the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Major politicians routinely pay homage to suffering Darfurians in their speeches, well-heeled Darfur advocacy groups take out full-page ads in the New York Times, and commentators regularly fill op-ed ledgers around the country with righteous, indignant calls for the West to act to end the suffering.

We have put our popular series of QuickGuides fundraising and management guides on CD and made them available as pdf email downloads in order to slash costs and make them financially available to even the smallest organisations. At the same time we are doing our bit to reduce the use of paper and cut down on air miles from sending paper Guides around the world. Email downloads are even less expensive than the same product on CD.

As one of the lead elements proposed for recommendation to the Financing for Development Review Conference, the Civil Society Forum supports an international summit on financial and economic architecture and global economic governance structures, in 2009. The Forum position challenges the proposal of some governments that the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) organize an event, as well as moves to concentrate decision-making in the G-20 group of governments.

Freeing myself from a psychopathic lover (I call him a psychopath because of his behaviour and actions, only he wasn’t one as he was fully aware of his dehumanising actions) came at a great cost to me; having lost my house, part of my ear, my self-worth and my dignity. It is still not easy for me to cope with that situation, but I am trying very hard to face my giant. In the name of love, I again found myself trapped with a psychopath, but because of God, who is the source of my life and destiny, he gave me another chance to prove to the world that he alone “can turn my scars into stars”; “my pains into other people’s gains” and “bad into good.”

My story is about culture, belief systems, early marriage and alcohol abuse that negatively affected my life as a teenager. My children paid the price as well. My story however has a happy ending. Allow me to give voice to my story. When I was 16, young and vulnerable, had not even experienced puppy love as yet, I was chosen while at a wedding, to be married to a man 10 years older than myself. While growing up as a typical South African Indian girl, deeply held morals, values, and belief systems were passed on to me.

It was July 2006 when I met a certain guy. At first, he was everything to me but after just two months of moving in together problems began. I was only happy for a short period. He was an excessively jealousy and over protective man. He always accused me of having affairs with other man of which it was all wrong. He started beating me telling me that “I am bitch and cheap”. He beat me sometimes four times a month.

My name is Natasha Kangele and I am from Malawi. I came to South Africa when I was ten years old. As a child, I grew up with my mother’s sister due to family problems. Growing up in my aunt’s house was not a piece of cake. It was like living in hell because she did not like me that much. So one of the horrible days of my life came, the day I lost my womanhood in a way that I did not expect. I was raped when I was 12 years old.

I was born 3 of July 1955 at Katlehong and grew up with polio after being diagnosed when l was eight months old. I stayed at the Germiston Hospital, Baragwaneth, and later ended up in Natal-Spruit Hospital where they kept disabled people. In 1993, l received an RDP house. It was nice because l was working and l could do whatever l wanted. My house was very beautiful.

Amidst the spreading global financial crisis, a special debt audit commission released a report charging that much of Ecuador's foreign debt was illegitimate or illegal. The commission recommended that Ecuador default on $3.9 billion in foreign commercial debts--Global Bonds 2012, 2015 and 2030--the result of debts restructured in 2000 after the country's 1999 default.

Thousands of people with HIV and AIDS are being forced further into misery in Zimbabwe, as drastic food shortages and spiralling prices make it difficult to follow antiretroviral (ARV) treatment regimes, the potent medications essential to manage HIV infection. Five local organisations partnered by international development agency Progressio report that “scores” are having to quit or skip medication due, in part, to side effects associated with lack of nutrition and the soaring devaluation of the country’s currency, which is making poor people poorer.

For three years, Leylo Mohamud has been working to get her family out of Somalia, a land engulfed in civil war for much of the past two decades. Her prospects dimmed significantly last month. "It is so hard, it breaks my heart," said Mohamud, who lives in the Twin Cities. "I cannot support them and they're going to die without food. I want to bring them here, but I cannot."

In the wake of Barack Obama’s presidential election victory, Doreen Lwanga considers the state of relations between African-Americans and Africans living in America. The author explores some of the derogatory influences, driven most notably by sections of the Western media, informing negative stereotypes on the part of both black Americans and new Africans, stereotypes that perpetuate misinformed and divisive views within the wider pan-African community. In this historic period of the first election of an individual of African ancestry to the highest seat of US power, Lwanga argues that any residual suspicion and negativity between these two broad groups should give way to lasting solidarity and unity.

Though applauding the success of this year’s record-breaking Stand Up action on global poverty, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wonders whether revitalising the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will simply amount to lining the pockets of a few individual African recipients in positions of power. Taking up the example of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the author situates such latent misappropriation of resources within a broader problem of one-time liberation leaders lingering in power. Once a genuine force for changing the system, Yoweri Museveni’s NRM, Abdul-Raheem argues, have now become the system.

Thinking through about how the American left has reacted to Obama's election, Amiri Baraka argues that progressives are in danger of being left behind the masses of people who voted for Obama. Arguing that the "task of the revolutionary is to lead the people by taking what they already know and giving it back to them with the focus of the present the past and the future" Baraka calls for a people's democracy through a new democratic coalition.

In addition to writing short stories, John Eppel is also an award-winning poet and novelist. His list of achievements is impressive. His first novel, D.G.G. Berry’s The Great North Road (1992), won the M-Net Prize in South Africa. His second novel, Hatchings (1993), was short-listed for the M-Net Prize and his third novel, The Giraffe Man (1994), has been translated into French. And his first poetry collection, Spoils of War (1989), won the Ingrid Jonker Prize. Other poems have been featured in anthologies that include The Heart in Exile South African Poetry in English 1990-1995 (1996) while his short stories have appeared in anthologies that include Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (2005).

In a recent interview with , John Eppel spoke about his writing.

In this paper, Azad Essa explores the extent to which Africa’s military has been affected by HIV/AIDS. He outlines the varied responses from Africa’s armed forces, with a specific focus on recruitment, care and precarious human rights issues pertaining to HIV-positive personnel. While the scarcity of statistical data forces analysts to continue speculating the challenges, effects and extent of the crisis, it is crucial that African militaries finally assume more responsibility in addressing the pandemic, if not for their own self preservation, then at the very least, towards eliminating the spread of the disease in communities itself.

cc. In September of this year, UN member states passed a resolution to move swiftly to create a new UN agency for women, a move, packaged with a series of reforms on governance and funding, that they hope will result in renewed public faith in the UN system. Julia Greenberg, AIDS-Free World’s associate director, tells the inside story behind the sudden groundswell in support for the new women’s agency and why the global community of women living with, and affected by HIV/AIDS, should care.

Reviewing the experiences of blind people living with HIV/AIDS, Elly Macha discusses the development of the African Union of the Blind (AFUB), an umbrella organisation operating in some 50 African countries that addresses issues facing blind and partially sighted persons in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Aiming to tackle the range of problematic experiences faced by blind individuals, AFUB has undertaken peer education training workshops in ten countries with the aim of empowering visually impaired participants and exploring ways in which HIV programmes and services can be made more accessible for those with impaired vision.

“The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse”

About a year ago, CNN and Time declared the identification of male circumcision as a preventive measure against HIV infection as the biggest medical breakthrough of 2007. Having worked on one of the studies that led to this “discovery” several years before, I quickly penned something which was published on on the 20th December 2007 .

cc. The invitation to guest-edit a special issue of Pambazuka News wasn't something we pondered at AIDS-Free World; it's something we pounced on. We consider Pambazuka a precious commodity: a consistent source of timely, credible, thought-provoking, expectation-defying news and views. Our subscription has helped keep us informed and made us better at what we do, which is to push and prod for more urgent and more effective global responses to AIDS. And so we snatched at the opportunity to be involved in an issue devoted to HIV/AIDS, and our Political Advisor, Gerry Caplan, began working with the Pambazuka staff to solicit articles and essays about the most confounding of the African pandemic's unsolved problems.

The topics covered in this issue aren't naturally uplifting. Whether it's the world's persistent blind spot concerning TB and that disease's morbid attraction to HIV; a seemingly universal ignorance about people with disabilities that places 10 per cent of the human population at heightened risk of contracting the virus; or evidence that Zimbabwe's government orchestrated a campaign of sexual violence for political ends, and will likely do so again while the world stands by, the issues underlying HIV/AIDS are not for the faint of heart.

But in the 18 months since we started AIDS-Free World -- an advocacy organization with a mission to speak up and speak out, to challenge authority and demand responsible leadership, to subject the status quo in AIDS prevention, treatment and care to unflinching critique, to build not only awareness but impatience and outrage over unnecessary suffering -- beyond what has seemed like a mountain of inertia and indifference, we have also glimpsed countless reasons to be hopeful. You will read about some of them in this issue, too. One is the long-awaited recognition by UN member states that the world body has failed women -- not least by allowing worldwide gender inequality to give rise to an explosive AIDS pandemic -- and a current move to create a new UN agency for women. Another is the small but hopeful indication that beneath a surface of machismo, and with the right prodding, significant numbers of men are actually as anxious to be free of the cycles of violence against women as women are themselves.

We wish Pambazuka News continued success as it explores and exposes the issues that present Africa with its AIDS-related trials and triumphs. AIDS-Free World will also keep poking and prodding, unafraid to analyze, assess, critique and take principled stands. We invite you to visit our website at www.aids-freeworld.org, where starting next month, you'll find our 2-minute daily video commentaries on the AIDS-related news of the day. It was a privilege to contribute to Pambazuka's World AIDS Day issue, and it's an honor for AIDS-Free World to count ourselves among this special news service's informed, inquisitive readership.

* Stephen Lewis and Paula Donovan are Co-Directors of AIDS-Free World

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

In the last decade, barrels of ink have been spilled on the failure of the South African state to address the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic among its people, writes Rebecca Hodes. In recent months, South Africa has undergone a number of seismic political changes. The controversial, populist Jacob Zuma, was elected the head of the ruling African National Congress to the dismay of many following his acquittal for a rape charge. In September 2008, President Mbeki was deposed by the ANC’s Zuma-dominated leadership, and the subsequent reshuffle saw the appointment of Barbara Hogan. The implications of these changes on health policy, as well as those associated with the potential outcome of next year's elections, are explored.

When Mariana Uchandidhora's husband was killed in a traffic accident in South Africa a year ago, tradition required that she have sex with her deceased husband's brother in order to be purified. Uchandidhora, 36, refused, arguing that her brother-in-law was much younger than she was, but the family found an older man from outside the family to carry out the ritual, known as "khupita khufa". Two months later she discovered that she was both pregnant and HIV-positive.

Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, people living with HIV in Mozambique are still experiencing frequent human rights abuses. "There are signs that many people have been the victims of violence, or even lost their lives, for having gone public about their HIV-positive status," said Alice Mabote, president of the Mozambican League of Human Rights.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are looking at a new way of preventing HIV infections: criminal charges. But experts argue that applying criminal law to HIV transmission will achieve neither criminal justice nor curb the spread of the virus; rather, it will increase discrimination against people living with HIV, and undermine public health and human rights.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first observance of World AIDS Day, a new report by UNAIDS calls on countries to realign HIV prevention programmes through understanding how the most recent HIV infections were transmitted, and understanding the reasons why they occurred. “Not only will this approach help prevent the next 1,000 infections in each community, but it will also make money for AIDS work more effectively and help put forward a long term and sustainable AIDS response,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot.

Access to HIV testing and antiretrovirals for prevention of mother to child HIV transmission has grown substantially over the past four years in the countries most severely affected by HIV, UN agencies reported today – but around 40% of women in the high prevalence countries of southern Africa are still not being offered an HIV test during pregnancy.

Grammy Award winning singer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Angelique Kidjo on Monday called for a relentless fight against AIDS in Africa, the world's most affected continent. "HIV-AIDS has become a huge issue for my continent and the fight against it must be relentless and determined," the Benin-born Kidjo told AFP in an interview to mark the World AIDS Day.

I moved to South Africa 14 years ago from a very small country in central Africa. I always wanted to give my children a chance to grow up with a father figure since I had been a single mother for the first 15 years of their lives. I started corresponding with an old boyfriend living here in Johannesburg, and in January 1995, I visited him, rekindling the spark.

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of World AIDS Day. Looking back over the last 20 years, we see there has been progress — there is not only greater awareness of the gender dimensions of HIV and AIDS but also greater commitment to addressing these. But today, let us instead look forward, to what the world could look like 20 years from now, if we are able to deliver on these commitments. We would then have cause not just for commemoration but also for celebration.