PAMBAZUKA NEWS 76
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 76
Evidence indicates that a multimedia advertising campaign designed by young Zambians is helping convince young people to delay sex and reduce the number of their partners - two key factors that experts say could lead to lower HIV/AIDS infection rates.
The government said last Friday it was buying a US$250 million luxury jet for Swaziland's king, even though massive food shortages threaten an estimated 230 000 people with starvation.
Bishops from Sudan and Uganda have lashed out at Ugandan MPs for insensitivity to the plight of Sudanese refugees in Uganda.
The International Centre for Insect Physiology (ICIPE) in Kenya is to lead efforts to construct a US$1.9 million plant that will manufacture an anti-mosquito pesticide. Although the chemical has been widely available for the past 50 years, manufacturing costs have until now been prohibitive to most developing countries.
The proliferation of automatic weapons throughout the Karamoja region has led the Ugandan government to initiate a regional disarmament programme, but onging tensions between tribes-people and government forces offer little hope for longlasting peace in the region.
Colonial and post colonial external influences on Africa have reduced the capacity of many societies in Africa to adjust to ecological and economic shocks and led to the economic and political exclusion of many groups.
At least 350 people fleeing fighting between Mayi-Mayi militias and troops of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) rebel movement arrived in Kindu from the village of Kailo, some 50 km to the north, in east-central Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure said last Thursday.
The UN World Food Programme regional director for Central Africa, Holdbrook Arthur, has said that US $14,212 million is needed to help some 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This amount equals 38 percent of the annual agency's budget for the country.
Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi is being offered a lavish retirement package when he leaves office.
Malawi, battling to cope with food shortages, has been asked to return at least US $8 million in development aid because it allegedly mismanaged the money.
For years, populations in northern Cameroon have had to live with bandits and the impact of banditry on economic activities, transport and ordinary people's lives.
The current practice of redlining in housing by financial institutions in the country was discriminatory, racist and anti-developmental, the Congress of SA Trade Unions said recently in its submission to the Department of Housing's draft legislation, the Community Reinvestment Housing Bill.
A strong commitment to promote African Civil Society’s voice in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) process was made at an African Civil Society Steering Committee conference on the Summit in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, last month. Key issues discussed at the conference related to poverty alleviation, energy and technology transfer, governance, natural resources management, financing sustainable development and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
Nigeria has introduced new environmental guidelines aimed at curbing degradation and pollution in the country's oil region and bringing operations up to international standards, Rilwanu Lukman, presidential adviser on petroleum, has said.
Negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) focussing on special treatment for poor countries to allow them more flexibility within current WTO rules are faltering because of obstruction and obfuscation by rich nations, says Christian Aid.
Government leaders meeting at the World Summit on Sustainable Development will take decisions that shape how water is managed over the next ten years, but WWF has voiced concern that Summit preparations have so far only focused on water delivery and sanitation, while ignoring the crucial issue of water supply.
The Flood and Drought Network of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has warned that there is a 90 percent chance that El Nino conditions will prevail during the remainder of 2002 and into early 2003 - raising the possibility of severe droughts, flooding and hurricanes.
Fears of side effects and rumours of the long-term repercussions of vaccination have surfaced as vaccination programmes have matured and approached their goals of polio eradication and tetanus elimination. The near disappearance of some target diseases has raised the quite natural question: “Why vaccinate?”
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) will lead Africa's integration into the global economy through specialisation in the primary sector. The cyclical and downward trend of prices of commodities across time may force countries specialising in primary products to export increasing amounts of natural resources in order to maintain revenues, leading to environmental degradation, argues a report on NEPAD and the environment.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development is 'deeply and comprehensively gender blind', in both its internal and external coherence, argues a paper on NEPAD and gender.
IMF Managing Director Horst Köhler and World Bank President James Wolfensohn have expressed their "grave concern" about the famine affecting 14 African nations in a joint letter addressed to some 24 donor countries, calling on donors to provide extra food and financial aid. Yet in contradiction to this positive statement, the IMF's tough stance on economic policy has delayed the delivery of the bulk of its $55 million support package for Malawi, citing concerns over the country's overspend, the Jubilee Debt Campaign points out.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants has called for relevant information and materials from organisations globally on the issue of migrants in detention.
The anti-privatisation strike planned for October 1 and 2 by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) with the backing of the South African Communist Party (SACP) threatens to plunge the tripartite alliance into its worst crisis ever and could make a split unavoidable, alliance leaders said this week.
Heavy fighting has again broken out around the villages of Qayadsame and Al-Hamdulillah, near the town of Qardho, some 260 km south of Bosaso, the commercial capital of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, local media sources said.
At least 17 people have been killed and 10,000 people have fled after rebels attacked a camp of Sudanese refugees in the north of Uganda.
Proposed legislation to fight corruption should include the regulation of political party funding, Parliament's justice committee heard last week during public hearings on the Prevention of Corruption Bill.
Sacked Electoral Commissioners Flora Nkurukenda, Teddy Wamusi and Robert Kitariko have cried foul and blasted Ethics State Minister Miria Matembe for saying they should have been sacked with disgrace.
Although it has approved $1.6 billion in grants for programs in more than 40 countries, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has not yet distributed any money, largely because of "demands led by the Bush administration" that the fund create an aid-delivery mechanism "from scratch," the Wall Street Journal reports.
Pressure is mounting on the Kenyan government to re-amend the Industrial Property Act to allow for the importation of generic anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs) into the country, as parliament prepares to go into recess until October at the end of this week.
Burundi's Group of Five pro-Tutsi parties have withdrawn their threat to suspend participation in state institutions, so that Tuesday's planned ceasefire talks between rebels and the transitional government could have a better chance of success, a Burundian news agency, Net Press, reported.
Local elections scheduled for 10 August in Nigeria have been postponed indefinitely to allow for further preparations, President Olusegun Obasanjo said last Saturday during a radio phone-in programme.
Doctors in Madagascar were on Monday still baffled by a mysterious flu-like illness that has killed more than 150 people in the past two weeks.
Only 5.3 million women in Uganda who are either married or cohabiting use family planning methods.
Sustaining a vibrant civic movement in neo-liberal post election Zimbabwe is a nightmare. What’s more the people of Zimbabwe may have to inhabit this nightmare for the few more years that the current regime may still retain power, writes Hopewell Gumbo.
HIV prevalence reached a high of 40 percent in rural women aged between 21 and 25, 12 percent higher than the overall rate of 28 percent, according to a new study.
Widespread use of antiretroviral drug combinations together with a decrease in risky sexual behaviors could eradicate an HIV epidemic, say researchers. The down side is that it would take 100 years.
Is global warming making you hot under the collar? Take Action! Let the world's leaders know you want them to establish an International Sustainable Energy Fund at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg this summer.
This book aims to reassert a radical tradition in African studies by examining the transformative impact of recent social movements on the African continent. It approaches these movements by critically engaging with the experience of Marxism in Africa and offering a contemporary Marxist analysis of the continent. The media increasingly fall back on racist notions of a 'heart of darkness' in Africa, at the same time as the academic left dismisses Marxism as Eurocentric. This book attempts to address these problems by uniting the continent under a class analysis. In so doing, it seeks to counter recent policies of austerity and globalization, and to launch a renaissance of radical thinking in Africa.
The Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CEPACS), Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, is pleased to announce its second in-take into the new Master's in Humanitarian and Refugee Studies (MHRS) Professional Degree Programme. The programme was begun in the 2001/2002 academic session, with the support of the Association of African Universities (AAU), based in Accra, Ghana.
Questions relating to the nature of the political and economic context of driving down wages within which the recent Samwu strike occurred and the public and workers perceptions of the strike and its impact will be discussed at a workshop on 10 August in Johannesburg.
The International Indigenous Peoples' Summit on Sustainable Development will take place at Hoffe Park Conference Centre, 30 Birbeck Rd., Kimberly, South Africa, between 20-23 August, a few days before the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The main objective of this conference is to bring together indigenous peoples from all parts of the world to share their perspectives on sustainable development and their contributions in achieving this.
The Human Rights Institute of South Africa (Hurisa), in collaboration with the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists (APHRA), is organising the eighth African Human Rights Camp to be held this year in Egypt from Sunday 17 November - Friday 6 December 2002.
The INASP Newsletter serves as a communication tool for all those interested in the field of information, library and books development. It is published three times a year and printed copies are distributed to more than 1600 libraries, publishers, NGOs, academic institutions, donor agencies, and others worldwide. The Newsletter is also available free online.
A new round of negotiations between Burundi's government and rebel troops is scheduled to open in Dar-es-Salaam on 6 August. However the prospects are still weak that the talks will result in a sustainable and all-inclusive ceasefire, according to a new briefing from CrisisWeb News.
With millions facing starvation in southern Africa, the United Nations warned its top managers Monday against ostentatious entertaining at an environmental summit later this month in Johannesburg.
An extremely rare Longman's beaked whale, only the third complete specimen known to science, has washed up on a South African beach, a senior scientist said last Sunday.
Mining company Anglo American has announced that it will provide antiretroviral therapy to its HIV-positive employees in Southern Africa who do not already qualify for treatment under medical aid schemes.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked his Special Envoy for The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, James Victor Gbeho, to return to West Africa to promote peace between the two countries, the UN reported on Monday.
A descriptive and compelling account of the Liberian Civil War, one of Africa’s most brutal and devastating civil wars which spilled over into neighboring countries. Liberia: The Heart of Darkness explores how Liberia, founded by freed black American slaves as a land of liberty for people of the black race the world over, drifted from one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous countries to become a desolate land and a graveyard.
As evidence grows that Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe is using food aid as a political weapon, we are writing to ask what steps your organisation is taking, and about any additional measures you propose to take, to prevent this. Could you let us know who is actually distributing the food for which you seek funding? What experience has your organisation had of militants of the ruling Zanu PF party blocking distribution in areas perceived as loyal to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change? What has your organisation done, or what does it propose to do, when your food supplies are blocked or seized by Zanu PF militants?
Zimbabwe police have searched the home of Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the country's main opposition party, looking for weapons, subversive documents and illegal immigrants, the leader said. Tsvangirai is due to stand trial in November on allegations that he plotted to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.
KwaZulu-Natal has the most complaints about human rights violations on farms out of all nine provinces, according to the Human Rights Commission. The commission heard harrowing stories of regular sjambokking, threats of eviction backed up with a rifle, verbal abuse using racial terminology, the destruction of property and illegal wage deductions.
With the South African New Economics (Sane) Views Mailing List we intend to supply sharply focussed information and insights generated by ourselves or from other sources. The list is intended to act as a filter and digest of useful information relevant to New Economics, particularly as this relates to South Africa.
Marking the start of World Breastfeeding Week, UNICEF encouraged more hospitals to join the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, noting that recent studies provide yet more evidence of the many benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and mothers.
Africans Unite Against Child Abuse has raised concern over the increase in the number of African children being trafficked to the UK for domestic work.
Not less than 284,000 child labourers work in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa, findings released by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of Labour (DOL) have shown.
The possibility of community service for newly qualified teachers was "on the agenda" as a possible mechanism to slow down the poaching of local teachers by developed countries in the north, Education Minister Kader Asmal says.
A self-help group comprising low-income Kenyans last week disbursed Sh4 million to pay school fees in Central, Nairobi and Rift Valley provinces.
Provision of quality education in Africa through the Education For All (EFA) initiative is seen as a key strategy for improving the socio-economic well being of the continent, but African leaders and policy makers are not playing ball, a recent conference heard.
Further protests by Niger-Delta women against continued oil exploitation and criminal neglect of the area by the Federal Government and the oil companies may soon follow, although a final date has not yet been set.
Representatives from various women's organisations in Mpumalanga will participate in a provincial "women's parliament" on Tuesday to share ideas on matters from HIV/Aids to the world summit on sustainable development.
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has listed its efforts to reach women in poor, hard-to-reach communities with vaccine against maternal and neo-natal tetanus, saying such steps would save the lives of thousands of women and their new-born babies.
The Africa Forum and Network on Debt and Development(Afrodad)has published a paper that looks at how the debt burden of most African countries has contributed to engendering gender disparities and ultimately led to stunted economic development.
The leaders of Liberia and Burkina Faso have been named at the UN as the main players in the Sierra Leonean war. Leaders of the two countries were allegedly serving as conduits for the export of diamonds and supply of weapons and arms to Sierra Leone's rebels.
The World Food Programme (WFP) will on 16 August conclude a three-month emergency food distribution programme to an estimated 6,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) at two sites in northern Central African Republic (CAR), some 400 km north of the capital, Bangui.
Mozambique should step up the reform of the public sector, and improve the management of foreign aid, in order gradually to reduce the level of corruption, advised Juan Marcelino, assistant director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in Maputo on Tuesday.
The government of coup-prone Niger said its troops had foiled an attempted mutiny in Niamey early on Monday after heavy overnight gunfire in the capital of the West African country.
NGOs can be sustained by mobilising funds from their communities, thereby reducing dependence on donor and foundation grants -- if the Ashoka Citizen Base Initiative (CBI) is anything to go by. This strategic shift for organisational sustainability was displayed earlier this week when Ashoka presented five South African organisations with R250 000 in prize money for
demonstrating their ability in tapping resources from the communities they serve.
The German government has injected about R8-million into the coffers of the Johannesburg World Summit Company (Jowsco) to boost preparations for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
The Eskom Development Foundation on Tuesday presented People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa) with a R100 000 cheque. The grant was to support the objectives of the organisation in the context of celebrating Women's Day and would also go towards the development of its Soweto branch.
Rwanda is among eight countries worldwide to benefit from a US $2-million grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Of this amount, Rwanda would get $397,846 through the international NGO CARE. The project is called REACH, or Rapid and Effective Action Combating HIV/AIDS.
About 1 000 HIV-positive, abused or neglected children left stranded by a banking mess-up have been given a R1-million-plus lifeline - after Metro revealed their plight. The project, which was started in late 2000, donated small sums to struggling families to start backyard businesses. It also ran a feeding scheme. It received R100 000 from the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund shortly after it started - but became embroiled in a battle with the bank last August after a series of large deposits were made into its account.
A website using the slogan "Welcome to SA's National Robbery" to call for a boycott of the National Lottery because of concerns over donations from its proceeds, has been threatened with legal action by Uthingo. On his website Dewberry wrote that Uthingo owed about R2-billion to the National Lottery Distribution Fund (NLDF) for good causes. The total was calculated from the government requirement for 30 percent of the lottery earnings to be distributed.
The Japanese government has given 3.2 billion cedis to the Electoral Commission (EC) for the District Level Elections.
The national health department says South Africans must be proud and celebrate that the country will be getting money from the Global Fund to fight AIDS. Health department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said out of more than 100 countries that had applied for grants, South Africa was among the 31 countries that were in discussion with the Fund to work out details of allocation, disbursement and accountability.
Local pop Idols finalist Cindy Bester will sing at a concert tonight to raise funds for the East London Children's Home while the Mercedes-Benz Border Cricket Academy players will run a 200km relay for the same cause.
An unexpected convergence has emerged suddenly in the often stormy courtship between SA's nonprofit and business sectors. The findings of a recent research report suggest that it is time the two sectors seek co-operation in the interests of sustainable development and business growth.
The South African network for trauma service providers, Themba Lesizwe, on Monday announced a disbursement of R2.6 million to 14 organisations working with victims of violence and crime in six provinces.
Efforts to beef up South Africa's justice system received a R160 million boost from the United States on Monday. The money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will be used in a six-year strategy to streamline court activities and train justice officials. Business Against Crime (BAC) will manage the Criminal Justice Strengthening Programme, formally adopted by USAID and the Department of Justice about two years ago.
Pygmies were among 682,640 children under the age of five years vaccinated against polio during the first round of the first cross-border, synchronised polio vaccination campaign for 2002 to be held in the Republic of the Congo between 25 and 29 July.
Ghanaians voted in local government elections on Tuesday, but the polls were postponed in some areas, including six districts in the Northern Region where a state of emergency was imposed following the murder of a traditional ruler on 27 March.
For the first time since elections two years ago ended a military-led regime, Côte d’Ivoire’s main political parties are all represented in government as a result of a cabinet reshuffle announced on Monday.
The race to replace President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya has taken a new twist with the announcement of a new alliance within his ruling party to push for a democratic vote to choose the party's next presidential candidate.
Fifteen thousand refugees who have settled at Rackoko in Pader, will be relocated to Kiryandongo in Masindi district within a week. The group is part of about 25,000 refugees who had been living in Achol-pii refugee camp until Monday when Kony rebels burnt down the camp, killing at least 50.
The Nigerian deputy senate president, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, has decried corruption amongst government officials in Africa.
Journalist Tokunbo Ojo, once a resident of Nigeria, writes about his disgust at the treatment he experienced at the hands of US immigration officials at a Canadian border crossing.
By Athiaan Majak Malou
Our Masters in the West, Hallowed be your race, Your civilization come, Your policies be done, On African soil as it is in the West. Give us this decade our development aid, Forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven you, For slavery and colonialism, And lead us not into uneven globalization, but deliver us from poverty. In good governance's name we pray. Amen
Although the cabinet has not yet given a final yea or nay to the proposed Basic Income Grant, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has repudiated the grant as unaffordable economic "populism", while government communication CEO Joel Netshitenzhe says the cabinet's "philosophical approach is different".
This conference – taking place between 5 and 8 September in Nairobi, Kenya – will examine special problems related to mountainous regions which are important sources of freshwater. Discussion will focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of scientific and applied water resource management.
A Resource Centre Manager is needed to set-up and run the LSO Malawi Resource Centre for six months from September.
A safe, clean, reliable water supply is the mantra of development agencies. But how reliable are water supply services for poor people in the developing world today? How has domestic water supply changed since the 1960s? This study looks at the long-term trends in access to and use of water.
NGOs in Ethiopia are increasingly being perceived as important actors in the urban arena. Can they reach the urban poor effectively and efficiently? Research by INTRAC - the International NGO Training and Research Centre - suggests that the majority of NGOs in Addis Ababa do not reach the most marginalised and impoverished social groups.
In many developing countries governments, donors, NGOs and academics have promoted the use of fuel-efficient stoves in order to reduce health effects, environmental degradation and household expenditure on traditional fuels. In Kenya and Ethiopia such programmes have been very successful. Why have programmes elsewhere had only limited success? What are the potential poverty alleviation impacts of household biomass stove programmes? How can production and uptake be boosted?
A UK government commitee has found that meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will require an additional US$50 billion in aid per year, a doubling of current aid levels. The United Nations Conference on Financing for Development (the Monterrey Summit) offered less than a quarter of the funds needed to meet the MDG targets.
At first sight, the initial decision by the leaders of Zimbabwe and Zambia to reject US offers of maize to feed their growing ranks of starving people appears to invite ridicule. On closer inspection, however, the decision by Zimbabwe and Zambia begins to lose some of its apparent naivety.
Duties include the planning and development of projects, coordinating activities of the various organs of the Network and acting as a focal point between member organizations of the Network and various partners and donors.
Anti-Slavery International has launched an on-line campaign: Stop Human Traffic. By visiting the web site site, you can access information about human trafficking and take action to help us bring an end to this modern day slave trade.
At least 20 people have died from cholera in Kebbi State, northern Nigeria, state radio said on Tuesday.
The International Human Rights Law Group is a non-profit organization of human rights and legal professionals and activists engaged in advocacy, training and litigation around the world. The Law Group's mission is to empower human rights advocates and defenders at the national level to expand the scope of human rights protection for men and women, and to promote broad participation in building human rights standards at the national, regional and international levels.
President Mwanawasa's fight against corruption is for cheap publicity, UPND first vice-president Sakwiba Sikota has charged.