PAMBAZUKA NEWS 82
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 82
The privatisation process has not improved the situation of the poor in most countries, with the process being marred by corruption, increased prices, and decreased accessibility to basic social services for the poor. A report by Bread for the World on the practical experiences of civil society organisations of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) also found that the debt relief as agreed in the Highly Indebted Poor Country initiative is insufficient in the wake of the financial requirements of the PRSPs.
Migrants’ remittances to developing countries are a larger source of income than official development assistance and offer a more stable source of income, says a paper prepared for the Danish Centre for Development Research. Any policy to make use of migrants as a development resource will have to understand the size and allocation of remittances and the roles played by migrants and their communities in the remittance processes, says the paper.
The Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation organisations have expressed urgent concern about elephant poaching and illegal ivory trade following the seizure in Shanghai, China of a 3.6 ton shipment of ivory from Kenya. ECOTERRA NEWS interviewed Dr. Paula Kahumbu, CITES co-ordinator, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The majority of adolescent girls and boys do not have access to the information and services that they need, and many lack the skills required to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Poverty, which makes young people vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection, and sexual violence are contributing to the spread of the disease. Younger girls remain particularly vulnerable to infection, says Unicef.
Those who forced children and their families from their homes, used children as child soldiers and refused humanitarian access to children enjoyed continued impunity, said United Nations Executive Director Carol Bellamy in a speech to the 53rd Session of the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “In refugee and IDP camps all over the world, girls and boys are spending their most developmentally crucial years in conditions of almost unimaginable misery and squalor,” she said.
The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) recently organized an e-forum on E-governance in Africa. The eight weeks discussion considered a number of issues, including the context of e-governance, challenges and opportunities, best practices, e-readiness and strategies. The outcomes of the forum are expected to provide valuable input to the next African Development Forum on governance. Due to the overwhelming success of the initiative, and in collaboration with the Association of Progressive Communication (APC), ECA is following up on this discussion by examining the contribution of African civil society groups to the emergence of the Information Society. If you are interested in participating, contact Aida Opoku-Mensah at [email][email protected]
Burkina Faso had made a serious commitment to improving children's rights and had enjoyed some success in doing so, but was constrained by poverty and cultural resistance among other factors, United Nations child rights experts heard this week.
Save the Children is launching an ambitious campaign to ensure that the United States government does more to protect women and children who are the victims of war worldwide. You can donate to the campaign, write to world leaders or send an e-card to a friend telling them about the campaign.
The Global Fund For Women, a United States based Grantmaking organization has announced that: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today a $1 million grant to the Global Fund for Women, a grantmaking foundation that will provide smaller, strategic grants to women's groups striving to transform their communities by improving access to quality health care, education and economic opportunity for women."
The conflict that has gripped this country for almost two weeks has its source in xenophobic policies unleashed nine years ago by the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
Related Links:
* Rebels launch 'patriotic movement'
http://allafrica.com/stories/200210020002.html
* Rebels warned to negotiate
http://allafrica.com/stories/200209300001.html
Nearly 900 Burundians have fled to neighbouring Tanzania in recent days, with more expected to follow amid reports of heightened fighting, house burning and the killing of civilians in the strife-torn country.
Rwanda has withdrawn many of its forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo under a fragile peace deal to end four years of war in central Africa. The remaining few thousand troops are due to leave this month.
A Nigerian grandmother is among the winners of the Macmillan Writers Prize for Africa.
Ms Rosina Umelo won in the first category for her book Who Are You. The winner for the second category was Sierra Leonian Osman Conteh for Unanswered Cries. Other winners were Ms Susan Kajurah from Uganda and Yvonne Vera from Zimbabwe with for Daudi's Dream and Stone Virgins, respectively.
The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has planned for a 30 per cent representation of women to be in political and decision-making structures by 2005. This was said Sunday by the co-ordinator of the regional sector on Gender, Christine Warioba.
The government of Mozambique will receive WWF's Gift to the Earth Award for its decisions to create the Quirimbas and Bazaruto National Parks.
A radical section of the founding members of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) hijacked the radio station and used it for a killing campaign during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, genocide suspect Ferdinand Nahimana has testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Nigerian children have launched a campaign for a better future and called on the Federal Government to improve their welfare. The children, who made a case for their future at a one-day Summit on the Nigerian Child, asked the President Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration to articulate and implement a policy on children and also table a bill on the Nigerian child before the National Assembly.
Senegal abandoned the recovery of victims from the MS Joola Tuesday, with only 80 of at least 970 identified — saying its next step might be to sink the doomed ferry together with its dead to the Atlantic Ocean floor. Senegal's government suffered its first backlash Tuesday for Africa's deadliest ferry disaster ever, with Cabinet ministers for the armed forces and transport resigning.
When Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe began his fast-track land-reform program more than two years ago, he promised that female-headed households would receive 20 percent of redistributed land. That apparently hasn't happened.
Yesterday, we sat outside Harare Central Police Station with Edwina and Newton Spicer. After searching for 40 hours since his arrest with four others, they were finally presented with their son, Tawanda Tom. All five had been tortured. Tawanda had been singled out, severely beaten, given 30-40 electric shocks, his body bruised, his tongue in tatters. And they were being kept in custody for the weekend. He was allowed a lawyer. "Sorry - no doctor, no doctor, no doctor, no doctor, no doctor." (New regulation - prisoners can only be seen by prison doctors.) And Tom is the lucky one, the others had no one there to push for them.
Two parents dealing with this horror sitting on the lawn of Harare Central. Gathering their energy trying not to be overwhelmed, connecting with a support system somewhere out there in the world. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, FOR CELL PHONES. Armed police in riot gear walk in and out, a sparrow builds a nest in the palm tree overhead. A small baby boy screams with anger at having his nappy changed and the mother jokes with me about the volume of his protest. Over the road street kids search through the rubbish looking for plastic to resell. Next door a colourful market of second hand cloths stands without customers. As I write - 5.30pm Sunday - they have lost him again, haven't seen him all day, have been told he has been moved again. I am struck again and again by this thought: If there were 20 people standing on the steps of the police station in silent protest at the torture that is happening within, if there were 40, or 100, or what if there were more? Just to let the perpetrators of such outrage know they are being seen.
It would not then, be so easy, to say to parents and a lawyer: "Good morning Mr and Mrs Spicer this is your tortured 18 year old son."
"No he may not see a doctor."
"I'm sorry he has disappeared again."
"You will have to leave."
The communities of South Durban are not convinced that a new coal fired incinerator won't affect their health and have unanimously rejected Mondi's proposed development.
Over fifty media workers have been killed so far in 2002 and the human cost of the conflict story is "too high", says the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The mergers and restructuring of tertiary institutions are geared towards the creation of a docile, unskilled slave mass and an elite of controllers of the working class [the amabhunu amnyama]. Many working class and other poverty-stricken parents are making huge sacrifices to enroll their sons and daughters to tertiary institutions to study in the hope that they will have a better life than what the parents had to endure.
Reports of increasing incidents of torture against members of Zimbabwe's political opposition are circulating after rural elections came to an end this weekend. Witnesses say that a number of those arrested - including an opposition MP - have been assaulted and are in need of medical attention. Meanwhile, the ICFTU caught up with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions Secretary General, Wellington Chibhebhe, to talk about the challenges for trade unions and for democracy in Zimbabwe.
The assassinations of journalist Carlos Cardoso on 22 November 2000, of head of banking supervision Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua on 11 August 2001, and musician Pedro Langa on 20 November 2001 are all linked, according to a report in the Sunday newspaper Domingo on 29 September.
Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, has questioned the distribution of Lotto proceeds, the Star reports. He has hinted that an amendment of the legislation in this regard might bring more transparency to the allocation of funds.
The European Commission (EC) has pledged to provide US $22 million to help fight HIV/AIDS in Zambia reports Irinnews. The funding is aimed at improving care and treatment for people living with the HI virus.
The business community has announced that it will inject R50 million into the LoveLife HIV/Aids prevention project.
Former presidents Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Bill Clinton of the United States attended a ceremony yesterday to celebrate the partnership between the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation in support of the loveLife initiative.
The German Agency for Technical Co-operation in Zimbabwe (GTZ) has bailed out of the country without completing major projects due to the prevailing political situation, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. It has relocated to South Africa.
President John Agyekum Kufuor has appointed 11-member committees to run the affairs of six Dagbon districts in northern Ghana, where a state of emergency has been in force since the murder of the Dagbon king, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani, in March.
A new United Nations Development Programme governance practice team is helping to lay the groundwork for new local government institutions and promoting government accountability in Sierra Leone, according to a statement from the UNDP last Friday.
After more than a year of deadlock which had put at risk national and local elections, revisions to the election laws were agreed on 20 September at a special session of parliament. The deadlock was broken after the personal intervention of Renamo head Afonso Dhlakama. This clears the way for local elections due in mid-2003.
The Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) in Ghana need your support. Intense research in areas including the operational area of Ghana Australian Goldfields, GAG, found massive human rights violations, e.g. forced evictions, contamination of water bodies for local consumption and the destruction of villages. The gold mining company GAG has recently been bought by Ashanti Goldfields Corporation, and is financially supported through credits of an international consortium which consists of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the German Development and Investment Company (DEG), the Dutch bank FMO and the Swedish bank SEB. The IFC is playing a leading role and has a 20% equity stake in GAG. Write to the IFC and tell them that you are aware of the situation and that you expect a thorough investigation and for the human rights violations to stop.
The World Bank has committed over $4 billion credit for African Development this year in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA) from the International Development Association (IDA). This is against the $3.9 billion given to Africa, last year.
Based on the document adopted in the First Preparatory Committee on Principles guiding the Preparatory work and the WSIS, as well as the proposal from the Chair of Sub-Committee 2 on themes for the WSIS, informal consultations of Sub-Committee 2 were held from 16 to 18 September 2002. The meeting agreed to submit the following as an informal input to the Regional Preparatory Meetings and to the Second Preparatory Committee of the WSIS.
The UN refugee agency has co-published a handbook on refugee resettlement, addressing issues like initial reception, education and employment while incorporating the experiences of resettled refugees.
Patson Muzuva sat by the mock ballot box on the second day of the Zimbabwe presidential election on 10 March. Dressed in mock army fatigue he looked very exhausted, and his voice was hoarse after spending two days and two nights dancing and singing protest songs as he and others guarded a huge mock ballot box just outside the Zimbabwe House in Central London. That morning he looked sad and reflective and seemed to realise that the election did not mean that political violence was over in Zimbabwe, - the threats, hiding and the fear for relatives and friends would still haunt him.
Legislation is currently being drafted by the Ministry of Justice, Legal & Parliamentary Affairs that will affect the operations of non-profit organisations in Zimbabwe. It is vital to discuss the implications of this pending legislation and to offer strategies as to how to collectively deal with potential interference in operations, say NGOs.
President Thabo Mbeki spoke out against corruption and inadequate service delivery during the closing session of the African National Congress (ANC) policy conference. Mbeki said the quality of ANC councillors had to be improved because "they are very much at the front trenches".
Officials in Ghana announced on Monday that the country will start producing three "off-patent" antiretroviral medications in March 2003. Dr. Kwaku Yeboah, manager of the National AIDS Control Program, said that no price has been set, but he expects the drugs will be "affordable."
Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos opened a two-day summit of southern African leaders with a call to bolster regional peace efforts. "We have made regional efforts to end armed conflicts, but we still have much to do to achieve stability," Dos Santos said.
Two hospital administrators at major Zululand hospitals were arrested on Tuesday in an ongoing fraud and corruption swoop. The latest arrests form part of a province-wide crackdown on about 180 corrupt Health Department officials and suppliers involved in a scam in which they benefited financially to the tune of more than R35 million.
Malawi's ruling party has fired the outspoken chairperson of a parliamentary committee which was investigating a maize scandal blamed for worsening severe food shortages here, an official said on Wednedsay.
Forty customs officers of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) are being investigated for conniving with car importers to fleece the Government of revenue by under-declaring and under-valuing motor-vehicles.
Former finance ministry permanent secretary Stella Chibanda has appeared in a Lusaka magistrates' court in connection with the unexplained acquisition of property.
In spite of laws against mutilation of females, this ill-treatment continues in many parts of Africa. Different organisations working against the practice, stress the need of thorough information on the damage this tradition generates on women. The practice tends to go underground when its only limitation rests on the law.
* Related Link
http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30200
Senior leaders of the ruling African National Congress have asked President Thabo Mbeki to appeal to his Nigerian counterpart, President Olusegun Obasanjo, to grant a pardon to Amina Lawal, the woman living under threat of being stoned to death for alleged adultery.
Oxfam has warned that the food crisis in southern Africa has worsened. The first signs of a famine have started, said Oxfam America president Raymond C. Offenheiser. "Children and the elderly are dying of diseases because they are weakened by malnutrition. We have no time to waste - the world must act now to avert a catastrophic famine in southern Africa."
The "Mail & Guardian" newspaper has scored an important victory in a R3 million (approx. US$288,000) defamation suit filed by South Africa Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele against the newspaper. On 27 September 2002, the court ruled that a cabinet minister should not have the standing to sue for defamation when criticised in relation to the execution of her function as a minister.
Tawanda Majoni, a journalist with the "Daily Mirror", has been sentenced to three
months in prison for allegedly breaching the Police Act.
International polices cause a negative impact on African trade in key export crops, including cashews, cotton and coffee, says Africa Action. The group has compiled a series of documents from the Mozambique News Agency, the UN's Regional Information Network, Oxfam and Food First which expose the damage done by rich country protectionism combined with imposing free trade on the poor.
The health situation facing internally displaced Liberians has deteriorated recently and mortality rates have risen above the emergency threshold, a new assessment reported on Tuesday.
Two years ago, African leaders pledged to drop import taxes on treated mosquito nets in an attempt to reduce the continents' enormous malaria epidemic. On the second anniversary of their meeting, fewer than half have kept that promise.
No day passes without Nesta Koffi sending her children to the post-office for news from her husband, who migrated to America to work on an anonymous cruise ship; no news comes; and so Nesta awaits report of his death. Told from the perspectives of the wife and children left behind, this work of fiction reflects upon the common, but at times devastating conditions of our global but unequal world, where a husband leaves his family and home in search of wealth and opportunity. David Omowale is a budding and versatile novelist and poet of the mobile African diaspora. Born in Grenada he lives and works in Kenya.
The end of apartheid did not change the basic conditions of life for the majority of oppressed South Africans. New forms of resistance have emerged in communities that have discovered a common oppression and solidarity and forged new and dynamic political identities. Ashwin Desai's book follows the growth of the most unexpected of these community movements, describing from the inside the process through which the downtrodden regain their dignity and defend the most basic conditions of life. As the Chatsworth community begins to organize and discover leaders among its ranks, so their example spreads to other communities in Durban and the KwaZulu-Natal region, and their struggles build links with those in other parts of the new South Africa.
The UN World Food Programme has announced that the number of Angolans in urgent need of food aid has increased to 1.8 million, compared to 1.5 assisted in September. The increase is putting additional pressure on the already limited resources available to assist those in need.
This year alone, 57 people have been deliberately and arbitrarily killed and over a thousand tortured for their political beliefs in Zimbabwe. Violence has become a tool of the government of Robert Mugabe to silence its opponents and maintain its grip on power. South Africa, with its enormous economic and political importance in the region, is in a unique position to influence Robert Mugabe. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has been working behind the scenes to establish peace. Despite this, the violence continues. It's time to change tactics. A strong public signal from South Africa has the power to force change in Zimbabwe. Let President Mbeki know that the people of Zimbabwe need him.
Amnesty International has strongly condemned state-sponsored violence , torture, arrests and intimidation of opposition cadidates and supporters during country-wide local council elections held on 28 and 29 September. "Once again, government authorities have failed to ensure that elections take place in a climate free from harassment and intimidation. All allegations of human rights violations, including torture, against opposition Movement for Democratic change (MDC) officials and supporters during the local elections must be effectively investigated," Amnesty International said.
This is an immediate short-term appointment for a period of three to four months to augment the Africa Division's research on DRC while the search for the full-time DRC Researcher is underway (the Interim Researcher hired on this short-term basis may also request consideration as the DRC Researcher). The researcher will be based in one of HRW's offices (New York, Washington DC, London or Brussels) and should be prepared to travel frequently to the region to monitor violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in DRC.
IRC has operated a multi-sector program in the South Kivu region of DR Congo since early November 1996. IRC has been active in health, water and sanitation, shelter construction, structural rehabilitation and the medical care of unaccompanied minors. In response to this tremendous need, IRC Bukavu is preparing a primary health care support project for Kabare. IRC will help re-establish the health care system in this zone to reduce the excess mortality experienced there.
GOAL has been working in Angola since 1993, responding to humanitarian needs arising from one of Africa's longest running conflicts. Since that time, GOAL's programmes have had a strong emphasis on health. GOAL has worked in Saurimo since late 1993. In 1993 / 94 GOAL implemented an emergency health programme (using GOAL employed staff) which subsequently developed from 1994 to 2000 into a joint emergency programme with the local Ministry of Health (using MoH staff). Activities under this programme were handed over the MoH and a national NGO in early 2001.
CRS' offices in the South Africa region are being reorganized to effectively manage the Southern Africa food crisis in a manner that supports a significantly increased response while maintaining program and management quality standards. The Program Manager, Finance will form part of the Management team, which provides support to the emergency as well as the ongoing CRS programs within the Region.
During the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington on September 28th and 29th 2002, creditor countries committed themselves to providing the $1bn of additional debt relief that had been announced during the G8 meeting in Kananskis. As a result, World Bank President James Wolfensohn has announced that he is now 'sleeping well at night' over the HIPC initiative. However, analysis by Jubilee Research has shown that even the $1bn additional debt relief committed will not be enough to bring down countries debt levels to the 150% debt-to-export target which is considered a 'sustainable' level of debt under the HIPC initiative.
Computer laboratories are to be placed in 102 schools throughout the country and arrangements made for electronic links to schools in the United Kingdom, South Africa and South-East Asia, officials have announced.
Nigerians marked their 42nd year of independence on Tuesday in a grim and fearful mood, as Africa's most populous nation stumbles on from one political crisis to the next. For thirty of its 42 years Nigeria was ruled by a series of brutal military dictators, each one vying to see who could plunder the greatest share of the nation's growing oil wealth. Hopes that civilian rule would bring better fortunes have proved to be short-lived.
Liberia's police chief Paul Mulbah on Wednesday led riot police in whipping school pupils to break up a peaceful protest in Monrovia, journalists at the scene reported.
Western governments, analysts and pundits are currently displaying the usual pre-performance nerves we have seen so often before the onset of the ‘show’ in the ‘theatre’ of war. Advisers, analysts and markets are engaged in a daily temperature-taking of the situation: of the Bush administration’s propaganda victories and losses; of the true nature of Saddam’s arsenal; to the effects of the military build up on oil prices and equity markets – as the increasingly fragile Western capitalist system wonders whether its future is now dependent on the emergent US war economy, and the profits it may make from “regime change” in the Middle East; or conversely, whether such action would in fact precipitate widespread political and economic chaos.
With this propaganda war have come some momentous and deeply disturbing developments. In an attempt to justify the pursuit of “regime change” in Iraq, the Bush administration has unilaterally reversed decades of US foreign policy by announcing that from now on, the Americans are fully justified in pursuing pre-emptive strikes on states (or groups) they consider may pose a threat to US interests. The specific threat posed by Iraq has been touted by the publication of the UK government’s much vaunted intelligence “dossier” purporting to prove just how extensive Saddam’s military capacities really are, and intense negotiations are currently underway at the UN to get backing for Bush’s war aims in the event of Iraq failing to comply with the re-admission of weapons inspectors. UN capitulation is absolutely vital for Bush, since not only does it give any action in Iraq the veneer of legality, it could also act as a precedent in effectively legalising the policy of pre-emptive strikes itself. Yet, Iraq’s military capacity is itself the subject of debate: an alternative report circulated among UK Labour MPs for example, has stated that Saddam’s military capacity was all but annihilated by the Gulf War and subsequent inspections teams, and even the UK government dossier concedes Iraq is 5 years from producing nuclear weapons. Moreover, as many commentators have pointed out, even if Iraq does have an extensive military capability, this does not in itself prove any hostile intention – especially to the US, nor does it explain why Iraq should be attacked for having weapons of mass destruction (WMD), when countries such as Israel – or indeed the US - are not. Thus the case for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq has not been made, and if it accedes to the demands of the Bush administration, the UN will effectively concede a fundamental principle of international law. If the UN refuses to back military action as a “last resort” – which is possible, if unlikely - Bush will not have even the trappings of legitimacy to justify invasion. The threat of military action has already provoked widespread protests across the world; if undertaken unilaterally, such opposition, at home and abroad, is likely to increase massively.
Human rights workers, journalists, farmers and ordinary people arbitrarily arrested in an increasingly repressive Zimbabwe can now rely on a simple network of support due to the Internet tactics of an innovative civic and human rights web site. Being arrested can be a frightening and disruptive experience for anyone, but in developing what they call The Friendship Tree, an organisation called Kubatana.net, in collaboration with civic activists, hopes to make sure that nobody is left alone. Using email and the telephone, Kubatana - with Kubatana being a Shona word meaning “working together” - have developed a web of at least 100 Zimbabweans who have agreed to be a part of The Friendship Tree. Once news is received of an arrest, The Friendship Tree is activated through email or the telephone to ensure that the court appearances of those detained are witnessed. “One of the most powerful things we can do in situations of chaos is to become a witness,” says Bev Clark, who along with Brenda Burrell, began Kubatana.
The Friendship Tree is one example of how Kubatana has developed a brand of e-activism that is attempting to keep information flowing in Zimbabwe. The Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe emerged in 2002 out of the NGO Network Alliance Project, which was formed in March 2001. “The most noticeable difference,” says Clark about the use of e-activism, “isn't so much in influencing policy but rather giving Zimbabweans an opportunity to protest or speak out and to feel like they're actually doing something. This in itself, in a country where many people feel powerless, is a necessary initiative.”
And with more Zimbabweans going online, an increase in the opening of Internet cafes and a competitive Internet Service Provider environment, the potential for e-activism exists. One of Kubatana’s initiatives has been the facilitation of electronic activism training workshops. Kubatana hires internet cafes and discusses with participants the different ways in which email can be used to lobby, activate and mobilise, followed by some practical experience spent online going through the basics of email and the internet. Kubatana see themselves training a “diverse group of information activists” consisting mainly of young Zimbabweans who want to communicate messages of peace and non-violence. In 2003, the organisation intends to take their electronic activism workshops national and target tertiary education institutions. “In our current crisis in Zimbabwe we believe that it is important to train members of the general public to become information activists to counter the media blackout that we're experiencing. If we can instil a culture of information sharing through the use of email and the internet we believe that vital civic and human rights information will continue to flow despite deepening government restrictions,” says Clark.
Kubatana is encouraging the public to use the Kubatana web site to share their civic and human rights experiences. An example of this is the Prison Diary series published on the Kubatana site and made available by email following the increase in the number of illegal arrests and detentions in Zimbabwe. The series has made Zimbabweans aware of the prison conditions in their country, motivated people to become involved in prison reform or protest prison conditions and reminded authorities that their actions will be exposed.
When it began, Kubatana aimed to provide an online directory listing all NGOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Zimbabwe. The online directory now electronically networks over 200 NGOs, CSOs and social justice organisations. “We also believed that by creating a central information hub for the non-profit sector, NGOs would receive more interest and attention from regional and international development organisations,” Clark says.
Many Zimbabwean NGOs are either not in a financial position to develop a web site or lack the capacity for regular updates and maintenance. Recognising this, the Kubatana directory is based on "fact sheets" for each participant. These fact sheets list important information on the NGO concerned, including their contact details. NGOs that have a fact sheet in the Kubatana directory have a first level entry into the world wide web and can cite their fact sheet “web address” in their correspondence.
The Kubatana home page publishes press statements, articles, reports, appeals, surveys and other information from Zimbabwean NGOs, giving them an internet publishing outlet for their news. “In Zimbabwe we have an extremely polarised press and NGOs find it extremely difficult to integrate development news into the mainstream print media and often their message is manipulated and distorted. On Kubatana information from NGOs is not altered in any way,” says Clark. Identifying a need to encourage the sharing of information within the NGO sector and to bridge the divide between NGOs and the public, Kubatana used an advertising campaign to encourage members of the public to subscribe to their email address to receive civic and human rights information.
Zimbabwean NGOs function in an environment where inflation stands at 125 percent, where unemployment is at 60 percent and where 20 percent of the population are HIV positive. One of the “biggest challenges”, says Clark, is dealing with the fear and despondency that Zimbabweans are experiencing, with the March Presidential Elections leaving people feeling defeated, and a large number displaced, injured or financially ruined.
“We believe that it’s important to remind Zimbabweans that the individual matters. That even the smallest step is vital and that we cannot sink into apathy and inaction. This is what the government is relying on. Kubatana and the rest of civil society in Zimbabwe will do all we can to keep information channels open and hope alive,” says Clark.
* Visit - Zimbabwe's civic and human rights web site
incorporating an online directory for the non-profit sector and
The southwestern Somali town of Baidoa on Thursday fell to the rivals of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) chairman, Col Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, who has been in control of the town since July, a local business source told IRIN.
Fierce clashes between rival ethnic groups in western Ethiopia have left more than 60 people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, an Ethiopian human rights organisation said.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has taken the olive branch to the National Assembly in his determination to end a stand-off between the executive and legislature. But beyond the impeachment threat of the National Assembly are other roadblocks in his 2003 race, if the president plans to achieve his stated goal of winning another term.
Government must brace itself for more strikes if privatisation is not scrapped, Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha said on Wednesday. "If the government does not listen to us as workers and does not address our plight, we will go to the streets until it listens. We don't care how long it takes," he told protesters in Pretoria.
Alladji Billaj thought he was safe when he fled his native country of Liberia for Côte d'Ivoire a few years ago. But his sense of security was shattered when he was recently forced out of his home in the Ivorian city of Abidjan.
Delegates at an international conference against racism cheered and whistled on Wednesday as they voted to expel non-blacks from the meeting, saying it was too traumatic to discuss slavery in front of them.
Striking teachers in the Central African Republic said on Wednesday they were ready to negotiate with government over salary arrears and end their protest.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 81
Resentment about South Africa's leading role in the New Partnership for Africa's Development spilt into the open last week when African foreign ministers launched a bitter attack on SA Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
The Angolan army has launched an offensive against separatist rebels who operate in the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda, according to reports from the area.
The World Bank and IMF's Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative has a stated aim of providing a 'lasting exit' to the debt problems of the poorest countries - but a new report suggests it is doing anything but. The latest draft 'Status of Implementation Report' for the HIPC initiative, due to be released in time for the 2002 Annual Meetings of the Bank and Fund, shows that of the 19 countries originally expected to reach completion point by the end of this year, at least 11, or 60 percent, will fail to do so and that even according to the narrow definitions of the World Bank and IMF, HIPC only appears to be working for between seven and 10 countries out of the 42 included within the initiative.
Some 30,000 Guinean women are set to benefit from a three-year literacy campaign launched during celebrations to mark Guinean Women's Day on 27 August.
The Togolese government has fixed 27 October as the date for parliamentary elections, following a recommendation by the country's electoral college of seven judges.
Large numbers of children are at risk of malnutrition and disease due to lack of access to food, water, sanitation and health services in Liberia, according to a September emergency update by Save the Children Fund (SCF-UK).
The president of Niger's human rights league, Bagnou Bonkoukou, was last Thursday sentenced to a one-year jail term and a 20,000 CFA francs fine (US $30), in a case revolving around last month's mutiny in the country.
An opposition leader has been arrested in Malawi, accused of inciting people to demonstrate against President Bakili Muluzi's alleged bid for a third term.
On 17 September 2002, RSF called on the international community, especially the United Nations and the European Union, to take sanctions against the rulers of Eritrea to force them to lift their one year-old ban on all privately-owned newspapers and free 18 jailed journalists.
Regardless of religious orientation, an average of more than seven out of ten people in four African countries say they support democracy. Some 71 percent of Muslims and 76 percent of non-Muslims agree that, "democracy is preferable to any other form of government." This is according to a survey completed in four African countries.
African Union (AU) ministers meeting in Addis Ababa have backed tough new laws aimed at wiping out corruption that has cost the continent an estimated US $148 billion.
The Burundian army is reportedly preventing civilians who are fleeing fighting between rebels and government forces from crossing the border into Tanzania, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, told IRIN last Friday.
Mozambique's maternal mortality rate stands at an estimated 1,500 out of 100,000 live births, one of the highest rates in the world. Myths, lack of education and trained medical staff, poorly equipped health facilities with no maternity wards, unreliable or no communication and transport, make giving birth a high-risk event.
AIDS activist group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), is squaring up for another challenge to drug companies, this time around high prices being charged for life prolonging anti-retroviral medication. Activists will be joined by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Chemical and Energy Paper, Print, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPAWU), People living with HIV/AIDS and a group of doctors and nurses who work at the coal face of the epidemic.
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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has targeted vulnerable youths and their parents through the media, as part of an information campaign against human trafficking.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that thousands may die of wilful neglect unless a vaccine is made available at an affordable price to the African countries most affected by meningitis. As international experts on meningitis prepare to meet in Burkina Faso next week to discuss strategies to combat the disease, MSF is calling for immediate action by WHO, governments and pharmaceutical companies to avert a potential disaster.
At least 200 women representatives of Malian non-governmental associations have met to discuss democracy and sustainable development in their country, at a conference that started last Wednesday.
As parties prepare for Kenya's crucial presidential, parliamentary and civil elections, due later this year, where do women - one of Kenya's largest constituencies - feature in the political landscape? This time around, unlike previous elections, the stakes are much higher, and the political game is different.
The first anthology to provide critical perspectives on media structures, ownership, new regulatory regimes, and the way both nations and local communities within them have engaged with globalisation via localised responses in Southern Africa. Studies discuss privatisation, black empowerment, liberalisation, traditional communication, democracy and media freedom, the Kalahari San, identity and new media.
The town treasurer of Maquassi Hills has been fired for referring to the local mayor as a "kaffir burgemeester", municipality manager Ross Motsemme said last Friday.
The Burundi army has denied responsibility for the massacre of over 170 people in central Gitega province, saying it had been "deliberately misquoted". Army spokesman Colonel Augustin Nzabampema told IRIN last Friday rebel fighters were "fully responsible" for the massacre which occurred on 9 September.
A UN journalist arrested a week ago in the northwestern DRC city of Gbadolite by the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) was released without condition on Saturday, the UN's Radio Okapi announced. Franklin Moliba-Sese, who works for the radio, said he had not been physically harmed, but he was tired from his ordeal.
The 1990s was a disastrous decade for women, marked by vicious civil wars in which 90 percent of the casualties were civilians. Women were killed, forced to flee their homes, starved, brutalized, enslaved and raped, often in the refugee camps that were expected to shelter them. The women who headed United Nations agencies pushed ameliorating measures that were often unpopular with governments, such as making the "morning after" pill available to refugee women. The 1990s saw a record number of U.N. agencies led by women. But when Mary Robinson stepped down as high commissioner for human rights, the decade of women leaders came to a close.
The World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) has expressed its "grave concern" at the widespread violence against girls in Sudan in the private and community spheres as well as at the hands of state officials.
Technikon Southern Africa (TSA) is a higher education institution that focuses on learning programmes within the Mode 2 knowledge production paradigm. TSA offers its learning through a distance delivery mode, supported by a tutor system in the nine provinces and beyond. We have established a regional Curriculum Project with the aim of developing an online course in outcomes-based/Mode 2 curricula in Higher Education. We would welcome participation from educationists/experts from AU, EU and other countries who have the knowledge and skills in course design and especially, but not exclusively, those with knowledge of online learning and teaching. If you are interested and have the time, please contact Doreen at the email provided below. The deadline for declaration of interest is 31 October 2002.