The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers in what press freedom organisations consider an effort to eliminate the free flow of information.

It's been months since Noma, a cancer patient at Mpilo, the largest government hospital here, has gone for radiotherapy. The process is meant to stop the cancer in her leg from spreading. But five months ago the only machine used by patients in three provinces - Matabeleland, Masvingo and Midlands - broke down and there is no foreign currency to import spares. Mpilo Hospital has also run out chemotherapy drugs.

An international refugee rights organisation has criticised the manner in which the Ugandan government last month carried out the relocation of Sudanese refugees from a camp in western Uganda, which ended in riots and the arrest of some refugees.

After several years of waiting, the few hours more mattered little. Like others around him, Joseph Kayuka, sat patiently surrounded by a few precious belongings: a bench, a bicycle and some clothes, as well as pots and pans, crammed into a couple of old sacks. But, by mid morning of 1 October, Kayuka, his wife Imacule Mkingiya and their five children had boarded the truck and were riding along a bumpy road heading west back into Burundi.

After 40 years of political enmity, Central African Republic Prime Minister Abel Goumba and former President David Dacko made a historic reconciliation on Friday in the capital, Bangui, during the on-going national reconciliation talks.

Ethiopia said on Wednesday a ruling on its new border with Eritrea was a "recipe for disaster", upping the stakes in its dispute with the international boundary commission that defined the frontier. Ethiopia has repeatedly objected to the new frontier drawn up by the commission under a peace deal ending its 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, clouding efforts to bring a final resolution to the conflict that cost 70,000 lives.

Ruling party parliamentarians have been accused of following in the paths of Kenya and Zimbabwe, by apportioning land to Government leaders. "You're helping people who are in a better category to help themselves rather than helping the poor," parliament heard.

My colleague Lesley Abdela and I are compiling a report for the United Nations designed to increase the fairness of elections as far as women are concerned. I hope readers will send examples of good practice and also bad practice, for inclusion in the report. Please e-mail Tim Symonds on [email][email protected] We want to find material on women and elections around the world, particularly on steps taken to increase women's participation in national, local, county, or regional or municipal elections, in the following categories: 1. Actions and campaigns by women's NGOs to increase women's participation in elections; 2. Female voter education; 3. Women candidates; 4. Impact on women of election laws; 5. Quotas; 6. Raising funds for female candidates; 7. Media coverage at election time on issues of special importance to women; 8. Steps to make voter registration accessible for women; 9. Minimising intimidation of female voters/candidates; 10. matters concerning illiteracy. All contributions used in the report will be fully acknowledged.

I want to congratulate the team on Pambazuka. Keep up the good work, we as South African citizens enjoy it very much. Thanks a lot for all the effort.

A vigilante group attacked Cyril Zenda, a senior journalist with the "Financial Gazette" newspaper, on October 3, robbing him of
5000 Zimbabwe dollars (approx. US$6) and his mobile phone. Zenda told MISA-Zimbabwe that he was spotted by a vigilante group known as Chipangano when he disembarked from a bus at Harare's main bus terminus. He said the group pulled him to a secluded area and began interrogating him about the message on a MISA-Zimbabwe t-shirt he was wearing.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is deeply concerned by the recent violent attack on Araya Tesfa Mariam, a journalist working for the Amharic-language weekly Ethiop. On October 1, unidentified assailants attacked and brutally beat Mariam near his home in the capital, Addis Ababa. According to local journalists, Mariam is still receiving medical attention for severe injuries to his skull, hands, and legs sustained during the assault.

The research agenda of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food will be launched at a special scientific conference that will bring together several hundred scientists with development stakeholders to present and debate key issues around increasing water productivity in agriculture and the impacts on poverty alleviation and on food, health and environmental security in the program's benchmark basins.

Two tireless women's rights champions, Maeza Ashenafi from Ethiopia and Sara Longwe from Zambia, were awarded the 15th annual Africa Prize for Leadership, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize for Africa”, in a ceremony Saturday in New York. The Hunger Project, a global strategic organisation that is committed to ending hunger worldwide, sponsors the 50,000-dollar award. The annual prize recognises activists' bold leadership to legally guarantee women's full human rights on the African continent.

The 1994 Rwandan Genocide continues to have serious repercussions for peace and stability in the Great Lakes region of Africa. As we recently saw, the key element of the July 30, 2002 Pretoria peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was the latter’s commitment to disarm and repatriate Rwandan Hutu militants. This volume continues where most books on the region leave off. The contributors make the connection between the Rwandan Genocide and the continuation of the conflict into the territory of Zaire which finally culminated in the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocratic regime.

Northern Kenya is home to two million people, an 80 percent illiteracy rate, poor living conditions and health care, low rainfall, scarce water and diminishing grazing for the mainly pastorilist population. Present day circumstances are bad enough, but the people have also suffered from dehumanising acts inflicted on them first by British colonial rule and then the subsequent post-independent governments of Kenyatta and Moi. According to the organisation the Northern Forum for Democracy: "The situation prevailing in Northern Kenya is exceptional as communities have over the years suffered from gross injustices. It makes them feel that it's a conspiracy of all Kenyans against then and therefore a situation of hopelessness reigns."

The signing on 8 October 2003 of an agreement on implementation of the December 2002 cease-fire agreement between the Government of Burundi and rebels leaves significant challenges unresolved, says Amnesty International. "It is essential that the Government of Burundi and the rebels assisted by regional and international actors commit themselves to addressing fundamental questions such as impunity. A determination by all parties to end the human rights and humanitarian crises must underpin a political settlement," Amnesty International said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have approved debt-reduction packages for 26 countries, 22 of them in Africa, under the enhanced Initiative for the Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). These packages will provide nominal debt service relief of about $41 billion ($25 billion in net present value terms). Taken together with other traditional debt relief mechanisms and additional voluntary bilateral debt forgiveness, these countries will see their debts fall, on average in net present value terms, by about two thirds, according to the IMF.

The annual Trade and Development Report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, just before its meeting in Geneva October 6-17, calls for a "policy rethink" on the effects of market-driven free-trade policies on developing countries. The report notes particularly disadvantageous results for Africa, with further entrenchment of dependence on primary commodities with volatile prices. This posting from the Africa Action Africa Policy E-Journal contains a general press release from UNCTAD, brief excerpts from the Trade and Development Report, and the executive summary and introduction from a separate study of issues in Africa's trade performance prepared for UNCTAD.

The International Centre for Peace in Central Africa (ICPCA) is a Non Governmental Organisation created in 1999. ICPCA aims to participate in the achievement of peace in Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Great Lakes Region by providing its support and assistance to every programme focused on justice, reconciliation, and post conflict issues. The centre focuses its activities on research, publication and implementation of projects. For this purpose, the centre is releasing a monthly newsletter where analysis is made on the DRC peace process and related topics in the Great Lakes region. The newsletter is available on demand, by sending a message to [email protected].

The so-called silence of the youth is probably due to the deafness of their elders. It is therefore urgent to give the floor to African academic youths to define and discuss their future projects. Conscious of the need to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences among young Africans, CODESRIA proposes to devote to youth, a collection of CODESRIA publications dubbed "Interventions", as part of the strategic initiative destined to promote young researchers.

Organisers say the Somali peace talks underway in Kenya are on course, and contrary to reports, have not stalled. James Kiboi, a member of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) technical committee which is steering the talks, admitted that "some personalities are not at the talks", but that the proceedings were continuing.

Last week's report by the global corruption watchdog Transparency International, in which most African countries feature in the bottom half of the table, has generated widespread comment across the continent. The publication of the report coincided, poignantly, with the opening in Nigeria of an unprecedented public hearing into corruption allegations against two senators launched by Federal Capital Territory Minister Nasir el-Rufai.

This week could mark something of a turning point for Africa: in Liberia a new interim government is due to be sworn in and peace talks aimed at ending the decades old Sudanese civil war get under way in Kenya. This comes after last week's signing of a peace pact between the government and rebels in Burundi. Does this mean that Africa - wracked by years of international strife and civil war - can finally look forward to peace?

The Tanzanian National Assembly (Bunge) has begun exploring the potential for interactive information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance parliamentary democracy and create new channels of communication and participation between the House and citizens.

Advocacy is an essential component of rights-based programming, focusing on building constituencies around different issues, and working to change the broader context in which an agency works. As with any other development activity, good planning, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment are essential for good management of advocacy, for accountability, and to make sure lessons are learned to improve practice in the short and long term, according to an article this week in Aid Workers Exchange, a weekly knowledge-sharing bulletin for development and relief practitioners.

"The police vehicle stopped in the Nyamandlovu area and all the trade unionists were blindfolded before the vehicle turned into the bush to a spot where the trade unionists were told to disembark from the vehicle. After disembarking from the police vehicle, the trade unionists were taken to another place where they were asked to take off their shoes. They were severely assaulted all over their bodies and made to chant Zanu PF slogans."

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday returned the land and mineral rights currently owned by Alexkor, the state diamond company, to a community forcibly removed from the land in the 1920s. In a unanimous judgement, the Constitutional Court largely confirmed an order handed down earlier this year by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that the Richtersveld community had been removed from their land under racist laws and practices, and were therefore entitled to have it, and the mineral rights, returned to their exclusive use and benefit. "These practices were racially discriminatory because they were based upon the faulty, albeit unexpressed, premise that because of the Richtersveld community's race and lack of civilisation, they had lost all rights in the land upon annexation," the SCA had said.

In 1990 the World Bank predicted that within ten years there would be 1,2 million HIV infections in Brazil. Thirteen years later, this scenario has yet to materialise. To provide free medication, Brazil had to take a firm position against multinational drug companies in negotiating for lower prices. Their key bargaining chip is the domestic capacity to produce generic copies of the drugs in the Far-Manguinhos federal laboratory in Rio de Janeiro (and six other state-owned facilities) if prices aren’t affordable.

This article discusses the commonly stated belief that teachers in Africa are among the groups most affected by HIV/AIDS and that their death rate is disproportionately high compared with the populations as a whole. Reasons given for this include the relative youth of teachers and the high number of women in the profession, since young people and women show higher prevalence as groups than others.

The Zambian government, under new President Levy Mwanawasa, is taking "urgent steps" to fight the nation's HIV/AIDS epidemic, after almost 20 years of "struggling against the disease with little effect," the New York Times reports. Health experts believe that Zambia - where nearly one in five adults is HIV-positive - has the sixth-worst AIDS epidemic in the world. According to a United Nations report, fewer than 1% of the estimated 200,000 or more HIV-positive people in Zambia who need antiretroviral medications has access to them.

A recent action by the Senegalese authorities has raised fears concerning the press's future and the right to information in a country which until now has been known to respect democracy and freedom. Police officers arrested Sophie Malibeaux, Radio France Internationale's (RFI) permanent special correspondent, in Ziguinchor, southern Senegal, on 7 October 2003. Malibeaux was covering a meeting of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance, MFDC), an armed independence group, when she was arrested and forced onto a special flight to Dakar.

The Chris Hani Institute (CHI) is looking for a Project Coordinator to be based at its Head Office in Johannesburg. The CHI is an independent NGO set up through a joint initiative of COSATU and the SACP. The CHI was launched on 15 April 2003 as part of the Chris Hani 10th Anniversary Commemorations.

The main purpose of this position is to manage GOAL's programme activities in Abyei County, Bahr El Ghazal (BEG) Region. The project activities include Primary Health Care (PHC) and nutrition but the programme is entering a period of expansion where additional medical and non-medical programme activities will become part of the role.

The Communications Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) campaign, while recognising the progress made by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in ensuring the participation of all stakeholders, including Civil Society, deplores the absence, removal or dilution of positions on issues that are core to communication rights, in particular the sections on Community Media, Intellectual Property Rights, Internet governance, “Information Security” and funding.

About five million South Africans live in the 1066 informal settlements spread across the country. Answering a question in Parliament, Housing Minister Bridgitte Mabandla said 1,376,706 households reside in the settlements. The highest concentration of informal settlements was found in Gauteng which has 181 settlements containing 448,393 households.

For 17 years, the government of President Yoweri Museveni has failed to crush the rebellion in northern Uganda, which has displaced up to a million people. There are now growing signs that peace talks are being considered as an option. Addressing the nation on October 9, president Museveni said he had not given up on talking to the rebels and that he considered peace talks as a way to end the conflict, but only if the rebels would renounce violence.

Property inheritance by women is emerging as one of the greatest present-day controversies in Africa, with majority of people on the continent still not keen on passing on inheritances to women and a sharp conflict between the traditional cultural ethic and modern way of life.

The Pasteur Institute in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, has confirmed an epidemic of diarrhoea in the northwest of the country where at least 40 people died in late September, an official said on Wednesday.

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of political prisoners, including Popular National Congress leader Dr Hassan al-Turabi, by the Sudanese government. However, the organisation remains concerned at legislation in place which allows prolonged incommunicado detention without charge and has been repeatedly used in the past few months in Darfur, western Sudan.

Successive attempts over the past 27 years to end a secessionist conflict in Angola's Cabinda enclave are yet to bear fruit. However, a recent visit to the Angolan capital, Luanda, by the founder of the main rebel group has been seen as evidence that peace may finally reach the troubled province.

The Hefer Commission adjourned on Wednesday in Bloemfontein within the first 15 minutes of its first public hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal. The commission was set up to investigate their allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka may have been an apartheid spy. Its terms of reference were later broadened to investigate alleged abuse of office by Ngcuka and his political head, Justice Minister Penuell Maduna.

Millions of African children working on commercial farms are at high risk of death and injury. Regional experts say governments must act to reduce the number of child labourers. About 70 percent of the world's 250 million child labourers work on farms, and it is common to find children employed on coffee, tea, tobacco, sugar cane, cotton and other plantations in Africa, a child labour conference in Ethiopia heard.

Although cellular access to the Internet is nothing new, it has not caught on in Africa. That is largely because it has been sold as a way for users to display Internet content on a cellphone itself, with its tiny screen making very unappealing viewing. Now a trio of firms is touting a new technology as a way to connect computers to the Internet by using the cellphone as a modem.

On the eve of World Food Day, the development community is divided over the best course of action to fight malnutrition and hunger, the leading causes of death and sickness worldwide. On Tuesday, some activists celebrated a 25-million-dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to HarvestPlus, a global research project to breed and disseminate crops for better nutrition. However, many have questioned the motives of the grant.

To rekindle the confidence of the international community, particularly the sleaze watchdog, the Switzerland-based Transparency International (TI) in its anti-corruption crusade, Nigeria needs to quickly enact its Freedom to Information law, a report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) submitted to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Headquarters seems to have suggested.

Medicins Sans Frontiers has set up a project to treat the victims of rape and sexual violence near Liberia's capital, Monrovia, in the wake of the drawn-out civil war that has decimated the country over the last 14 years. The project opened in the first week of October. It is feared that a high proportion of woman and children suffered brutal sexual abuse or attacks during the course of the conflict, with women being taken from their families and used as 'sex slaves', and children as young as five being assaulted.

The World Bank has stepped in to help fund Uganda's Bujagali hydropower project after US power giant AES Corporation pulled out of the project, which is aimed at providing Uganda with a cheaper source of power. The $520m project at Bujagali on the Nile river ran into trouble after environmentalists argued that it would destroy a network of waterfalls, a major tourism attraction and water rafting site, and a site of special spiritual significance to the local population.

A recent spate of harassment at a refugee camp near the Angolan capital has prompted the UN refugee agency to appeal for the authorities to guarantee the safety of refugees and aid workers there. Congolese refugees at Sungui camp in Bengo province, 72 km north of Luanda, have allegedly been harassed over the last three months. In the latest incident this week, armed uniformed men entered the premises at night, threatened a refugee and stole some equipment from a container belonging to UNHCR’s partner INTERSOS, an Italian non-governmental organisation in charge of constructing houses and schools.

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk. The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.
Related Link:
Anti-condom message shocks
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/277092.htm