PAMBAZUKA NEWS 65
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 65
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Scratch the surface of post-apartheid South Africa, and deep-rooted racism lurks underneath. Almost every week, newspapers carry reports of another racist attack, or a racially motivated murder. "People's attitudes haven't changed," says Dr Zonke Majodina, a commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). Apartheid bred racial hatred, but what does it take for a person to act on these deep-seated hostile impulses?
When he strolls the boulevards of his adoptive French city with his 9-year-old daughter, Bel-kacem Djedid senses in her a kind of loss, or maybe just a notion that she is different from the people around her. "I see it in her eyes, in the sadness there," said Djedid, an Algerian. Maybe, he said, speaking by telephone from Lyon, it is the fact that her clothes are Red Cross hand-me-downs or that he cannot afford the fancy toys that betoken Europe's prosperity or the vacations that her classmates enjoy. "Sometimes she says, 'Why am I not like them?'" Djedid said, speaking of her classmates. "And I say that, one day, the time will come and you will be like them." What basically makes the Djedid family different is that they are asylum seekers, hoping to qualify as refugees. That status means that they and hundreds of thousands of others like them across Europe are denied normal lives because of a web of bureaucratic constraints and ambiguities sometimes worthy of Kafka. Now more than ever, as it seeks to expand its membership, the 15-nation European Union confronts a crucial decision on whether to embrace outsiders, as the United States does, or to reject them as intruders. But with rightist forces gaining ground, people like Djedid and his daughter are also the subject of a rising resentment, like that preached by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who shocked France this month by earning a place in the second round of national elections for president.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 64
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 64
By tradition, Swazis of all generations and genders show their devotion to their monarchs and fealty to their chiefs by providing labour for chores both practical and symbolic. Recently, the custom has drawn fire from pro-democracy groups, who claim the practice of tribute labour violates human rights.
When Nigeria's Supreme Court ruled last month that all of the country's offshore oil and gas resources belonged to the federal government, it was an apparent triumph for President Olusegun Obasanjo. Not quite, analysts warn. "While Obasanjo has won a significant legal battle at the Supreme Court, an enormous political battle lies ahead of him," Ike Onyekwere, a political analyst, told IRIN. "And how he goes about it bodes a lot for Nigeria's political stability."
President Bakili Muluzi has maintained an official
silence over a controversial campaign to change the constitution to allow
him to run for a third term in 2004, but opposition leaders are demanding
that he make his position known.
The regional delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and seven West African artists have launched a music album titled 'Man is Man's remedy' that aims to raise awareness of basic principles of humanitarian law. The 8-track, non-commercial album, launched on Wednesday in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, was a collaborative work of four artists from Cote d'Ivoire, Assy Kywah of Benin, Sonia Carre d'as of Burkina Faso and Dama Damwuzan of Togo. Apart from a plea "to give back a little humanity to those who have lost it" in the title track, they also sing of child-soldiers, anti-personnel mines, small arms trafficking, women in war, prisoners, displacement, and respect for civilians during conflict.
The government of Cote d'Ivoire and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will begin on Saturday their latest census of the country's refugee population. Apart from UNHCR, various UN agencies- UNICEF, WFP, WHO- and the National Statistics Institute are participating in the project, it was announced on Friday.
The United Nations is to end the refugee status of hundreds of thousands of Eritreans who have fled decades of fighting in their country, the UN said on Wednesday. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said they were no longer at risk from war – which has blighted the country for more than 30 years.
In an effort to end, once and for all, the 15-year conflict in northern Uganda, in March the Government of Uganda launched “Operation Iron Fist”, a determined military campaign to root out Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) by taking the war into southern Sudan, the LRA’s military and logistical base. In this report, African Rights urges the Ugandan government to consider the plight of captive combatants in the LRA, as well as the effects of conflict on local populations before pursuing a single-minded strategy of conflict.
The campaign against graft received a boost when a source book was launched on corruption prevention in the Public Service. The book is to be used in the Public Service Integrity Programme. The ceremony was led by the Head of the public service, Dr Sally Kosgei, at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, Nairobi.
The Danish Agency for Development Assistance (DANIDA) has threatened to stop grants and loans to Uganda, citing high level corruption in district councils. The Danish Ambassador, Flemming Bjork Pedersen has written to the Minister of Integrity and Ethics, Miria Matembe and the Inspector General of Government demanding action against Rakai's district chairman Vincent Semakula Kiwanuka who allegedly misappropriated millions of shillings.
Bosaso, the commercial capital of the self-declared
autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, was reported to be calm
and returning to normal last Thursday, a day after it had fallen without a fight to forces of Col Abdullahi Yusuf, a local journalist told IRIN.
Eight years after the Rwandan genocide of
1994, there are approximately 25,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees living in camps
in Ngara District, western Tanzania. Both the Rwandan and the Tanzanian
governments are keen to see the repatriation of all of these refugees. At
the same time, however, the case of each individual Rwandan refugee case is
currently assessed by the Tanzanian authorities, which give refugee status
to over 99 percent of them.
Zambia's human rights record has been slammed in a new report by a local human rights NGO, with the police coming in for particular criticism. Afronet executive director Ngande Mwanajiti told IRIN their newly released report, entitled 'Zambia Human Rights 2001', found abuses in freedom of association, freedom of expression and misconduct over the organisation of last year's election.
Zimbabwe's parliament has passed a controversial law aimed at speeding up redistribution of land, as a local human rights group warned that illegal farm invasions had increased. With the Land Acquisition and Amendment Bill being passed on Wednesday a constitutional lawyer, Greg Linnington of the University of Zimbabwe, said the ramifications for farmers were "pretty grim". The passing of the Bill made permanent temporary amendments to the land law by President Robert Mugabe.
Eritrea faces a rapid expansion of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic within the next few years, the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warned on Tuesday. Dominique Mathiot, the UNAIDS Country
Programme Adviser, believes the number of people infected by HIV could increase significantly.
South Africa moved Thursday to weed out what the Environment and Tourism Minister has dubbed the country's "national flower," the ubiquitous eyesore better known as the plastic shopping bag. The minister, Valli Moosa, told reporters the plastics industry had been given 12 months to phase out the thin, plastic shopping bags handed out free in stores and replace them with thicker ones.
In two new reports issued by the World Bank in time for the recent
IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, the World Bank has admitted
that its own Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative is
failing.
This short report outlines the role the US deficit has played in driving the process of globalisation. Secondly, it analyses the way in which poor countries are financing the US deficit and therefore the high living standards of US citizens.
HIV/AIDS is threatening international education efforts because in parts of Africa the epidemic is "killing teachers faster than nations can train them" and impeding students' ability to attend school regularly, according to a World Bank report.
HIV/AIDS could "destroy the global economy" and threatens to disrupt international efforts to combat terrorism, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette told delegates on Monday at a meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce in Denver, the Denver Post reports.
Floods and landslides triggered by weeks of heavy rains across Kenya have killed at least 20 people and affected over 120,000, many of whom have been forced to flee their homes. One of the worst-hit areas was Migori District, southwestern Kenya, where some 13,000 people had been displaced due to swelling of the nearby Migori and Kuja rivers, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Wednesday. "If it continues raining we could see another 20,000 people forced to leave their homes in Migori," sources said.
The UN refugee agency has promised a policy of "zero tolerance" to eradicate the problem of aid workers sexually abusing refugees.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, said new measures included an increase in the number of female aid workers, and a ban on sex between employees and young refugees.
"This administration announced the president's decision to formally notify the United Nations that the United States will not become a party to International Criminal Court treaty. The U.S. declaration, which was delivered to the secretary general this morning, effectively reverses the previous U.S. government decision to become a signatory. The ICC's entry into force on July 1st means that our men and women in uniform-as well as current and future U.S. officials-could be at risk of prosecution by the ICC. We want to make clear that the United States rejects the purported jurisdictional claims of the ICC-and the United States will regard as illegitimate any attempt by the court, or state parties to the treaty, to assert the ICC's jurisdiction over American citizens."
Women Build Africa is a narrative of women organizing for change. The exhibit, 200 m2 in dimension is divided into three zones. The introductory zone The Thousand Faces of Women provides a perspective on the intricate role played by women with regards to the values and practices of their society and the way in which women preserve and pass down their knowledge and know-how from generation to generation. The zone Nurturers and Innovators showcases the nature, diversity and importance of women's involvement in economic development. In the third zone Building the Future visitors are invited to reflect on the progress that must be accomplished in order to enable women in Africa to achieve political, economic and social emancipation. The exhibition underlines the importance of education, central to any strategy promoting women's rights and economic development, and their contribution to peace building. It advocates for mutually empoweing gender relations and increased efforts to create a legislative environment that provides women with acces to key assets such as land and credit. It ends on a positive note by highlighting networks of solidarity that are created between women world-wide and efforts at capacity building and empowerment.
Nearly one year after its imposition in the wake of
a failed coup that shook Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic
(CAR), a nationwide curfew was lifted on Thursday.
Ari Ben-Menashe, the man at the centre of
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's treason case, has been
ordered to repay millions of dollars to the Zambian goverment in a maize
deal gone wrong, the Financial Gazette reported.
Angola's peace process has entered a critical phase. While the government anounced on Thursday with some satisfaction that close to 42,000 UNITA troops had been quartered - corresponding to about 78 percent of the former rebel group's military force - the international community warned that all was not well. Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Representative in Angola, Eric de Mul, told IRIN in an interview that although there was real concern over conditions in the quartering areas, the government was yet to meet with the international community to draw up a plan that would enable them to provide assistance.
This seminar covers core management features and tools of health financing.
The main focus is led on health insurance, whereas the management tools
might be of interest for any financing aspect of health management (hospital
management, management of the Ministry of Health, pharmacy, project management, financial management of AIDS prevention, reproductive health, etc.). Target Group: Participants of the GTZ-supported Health Projects in Africa, Health profes-
sionals and health insurance managers with a minimum of 2 years experience.
The course will be taught in English and French. Please send your application latest by 22 May 2002 to the GTZ project.
Three new species of fish and nine species of coral new to science have been discovered in the waters around the African island country of Madagascar.
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party has canceled negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), mediated by Nigeria and South Africa. But the MDC has been told by South African and Nigerian diplomats that the dialogue will resume Monday, as planned. Zanu-PF said last week it was postponing talks with the MDC until the outcome of the opposition's challenge to the High Court, alleging widescale vote-rigging in the presidential elections.
Pretoria and Harare seemed to be on a collision course last night after the Zimbabwean government unilaterally postponed unity talks between the ruling Zanu PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The Zimbabwean government has warned it will crack down on non-governmental organisations, churches and opposition officials involved in "subversive" activities, the Sunday News reported. Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo told the state-run newspaper that the government was aware of "churches, NGOs and human rights groups that are actively involved in undermining the nation's internal security". Foreigners "masterminding such acts" will be deported, Nkomo told the paper.
The ruling party in Zimbabwe will sue media organisations, including those outside the country, and the main opposition party for reporting a false story, the state-run Sunday Mail reported. The story concerned a false claim by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) two weeks ago that a woman was beheaded by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's party.
Zimbabwe is now a country of islands. In some courtrooms, in some businesses, on farms, in some churches, even in the quiet corners of some barracks, decent people do what they can to resist the regime.
We strongly support the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. We are shocked to learn that the United States circulated a draft resolution to members of the United Nations Security Council supporting a "framework agreement" that legitimizes Morocco's occupation and annexation of Western Sahara. The U.S. should strongly support the legal right of self-determination for non-self-governing territories and use its prestige and influence to support the holding of a referendum in Western Sahara. The U.S. should make clear to the government of Morocco our support for the referendum and our opposition to its continued obstruction of the settlement process.
An annotated directory of information, on the internet, about women in Africa. Full text articles, women's organizations, bibliographies, discussion lists.
GENDER inequality is the root of the AIDS crisis, a conference on HIV/AIDS held in Kampala over the weekend, was told. The recent trends show more women becoming infected at a very early age. The conference also heard that HIV/AIDS will surpass the bubonic plague as history's worst pandemic.
Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said yesterday that when the International Criminal Court was established he would work to ensure that people responsible for recruiting child soldiers were among the first to be indicted.
A research study on the needs of children with disabilities in South Africa is being conducted by Samaita Associates on behalf of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Organisations that have programmes or projects that benefit disabled children are invited to participate in the study. The deadline for submissions is 17 May 2002.
Angola is one of the worst places in the world to be a child. One child in three dies before the age of five and only 30 percent of those who survive ever make it to school, a new rights monitoring group said on Wednesday.
A new report demonstrates just how devastating the health impact will be on adolescents worldwide if the Bush administration succeeds in dismantling existing international agreements on adolescent reproductive rights at the United Nations Special Session on Children, May 8-10.
Hopes that President Moi would block a controversial law restricting media freedom were dashed on 13th May when he declared his firm support for it. The President said he would assent to the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Bill to curb what he termed as "irresponsible journalism".
They heard plenty of promises from world leaders who vowed to improve their health, education and rights -- or simply provide them with food. But children attending the UN Special Session on Children demanded one thing: action.
Farraja Kotta is a 16-year-old Tanzanian girl who has just finished her O-level education. But on Wednesday, she had the honour of speaking on behalf of African children in an event on promoting children's participation, held at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in New York.
The goal of the webstite is the global defense and encouragement of women's right to free expression. In addition to news and events, and information on our
organization's history, affiliates, board, regional programs, and human rights work, the Women's WORLD website has the following special features: African women's voices, voices for peace in Israel-Palestine, writing on global political and economic crises, and practical advice and links for women writers.
Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) invites you to participate in an online
conference on Information Access for Rural Women and contribute material you may have that is relevant to the subject of information access for rural women. This material could be in the form of reports or articles on your activities in the area or links to relevant sections of your website. Information, communication and entertainment are as critical for rural living as they are for urban living, and indeed there is increasing demand for information and communication equipment and services in rural areas.
The Experts/Ministerial meeting on the Draft Protocol women's human rights to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights has been postponed for the second time because only 4 Ministers had confirmed their participation. We need to continue lobbying our governments at national level especially ministries of gender and justice and gender desks of regional economic communities and encourage them to participate to ensure that it is postponed again.
Togo's office of the International Catholic Child Bureau, using a US $343,000 contribution from the French government, has launched a three-year project to combat child labour across the country.
Postgraduate studies in Women's Health by distance education are offered at
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia.
The nature of armed conflicts changed dramatically during the latter half of the twentieth century, with casualties among civilians increasingly outnumbering those of military personnel. Women and girls became especially vulnerable in such conflicts. Because of this, significant ethical, analytical and operational challenges have emerged for the United Nations system, not least for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). One of the most critical challenges is the need to develop integrated, gender-sensitive strategies and programme interventions for addressing conflict situations.
Pervasive Poverty and the Aids epidemic are frustrating many of the efforts by East African governments to improve living conditions for children, leaders of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania told a United Nations conference last week.
Ensuring equal opportunities for girls in education is the key to achieving social and economic gains in developing countries, delegates declared on the opening day of the United Nations "Children's Summit" in New York Wednesday.
The UN Special Session for Children has evoked high hopes from organisations working for the benefit of children. Many organisations, advocacy groups and NGOs list out their expectations from the session.
The African Association for Guidance and Counselling was launched at the Conference on Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development in Africa, in Nairobi (22-26 April 2002). The aim of the Association is to provide professional support to counsellors and facilitate networking with international partners.
Examining budgets through a gender lens can help identify gaps in access to and distribution of public resources. Such budgets are not budgets formulated separately for men and women. Rather, the overarching objective of bringing gender-analysis to budgets is to redefine priorities and reallocate relevant resources that respond to the needs of the entire population, taking explicit account of women's disadvantaged position.
Gender-aware budgets promote both equity and efficiency.
With this week's elections, Sierra Leoneans are hoping to put behind them the bitter memories and atrocities of more than a decade of brutal civil war. They want to close a page that has sullied their reputation and tarnished their history. It will not be easy. Though fighting has stopped, the political battle continues.
Fighting between Liberian government forces and armed opponents was reported on Monday to be moving closer to the capital, Monrovia, humanitarian sources told IRIN. Attempts by humanitarian workers to conduct a rapid needs assessment among the internally displaced people (IDPs) were delayed due to the security situation. But it was estimated that some 6,000 IDPs had reached Ganta in Nimba County while another 5,000 had reached Totoka, south of Gbarnga. The total number of IDPs in Liberia was estimated to be at least 40,000.
Panic gripped Liberia's capital, Monrovia, this week as the sound of approaching gunfire sparked fears that fighting between rebels and President Charles Taylor's forces was drawing near.
Small arms proliferation is threatening lives of pastoral people in Africa, a report just released warned. The report on: "Pastoralism and Conflict in the Horn of Africa", jointly compiled by the University of Bradford, UK, Safe World, UK and Africa Peace Forum, Nairobi, Kenya pointed out that cattle rustling in the Horn of Africa has increased in which many are killed as a result of the proliferation.
The top decision-making body of the World Health Organization begins its annual meeting Monday in Geneva. Humanitarian groups like Doctors Without Borders are appealing to the organization to encourage more research and development into new drugs to fight disease, especially in the developing world.
The Bush administration's nullification of the United States signature to the 1998 Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) has drawn heavy fire from major U.S. human rights, church, and peace groups as a potentially disastrous precedent certain to alienate Washington's closest allies.
The Kenyan authorities have asked the office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to relocate about
10,000 Somali refugees who have been living in the northeastern Kenyan
border town of Mandera, the Nairobi-based Sunday Standard reported on 12
May. The Mandera district commissioner, Jamleck Baruga, was quoted by the
paper as saying he had met UNHCR officials, who told him they would comply.
The U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Children ended Friday night with a compromise and overall endorsement of the conference's final document after 30 hours of "bitter non-stop negotiations" over references in the draft declaration to access to abortion and abstinence-based sex education. The final document does not contain any reference to reproductive health services,a phrase US delegates -- with the support of the Vatican and several Islamic nations -- argued implied access to abortion.
Amara Essy was appointed secretary-general of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) in July last year to oversee the body's crucial one-year transformation into the AU and the launching of the new organisation. OAU experts have now recommended that the transition period be extended - just two months ahead of the AU's scheduled launch in July. Essy told IRIN why the AU was critical to the continent's future development, and about the complexities and difficulties faced in the transition process.
The spokesman for rebel group Rassemblement
congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), Kin Kiey Mulumba, told IRIN on
Monday that "no real progress" had been made during talks held among
opposition groups and the RCD late last week in Cape Town, South Africa. The
informal talks had been held, "to see what can be done to push forward the
peace process", following the end of the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD).
Fighting between government forces - supported by
Angolan troops - and Ninja militias allied to the Rev Frederic Bitsangou
(alias Ntoumi) in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo (ROC) is now well
into its second month. The total number of persons displaced by the conflict
there remains unknown, but is "at least 22,000 and probably more", according
to humanitarian sources in the country.
Organisations of all sizes are faced with the challenge of having to manage employees infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. The sensitivities and complexities of HIV/AIDS can pose a special challenge to manage-
ment and staff of all organisations. Addressing the effects and impacts of HIV/AIDS is critical in ensur-
ing smooth running of an organisations' activities and maximising investment in human resource; development. This course provides managers from both the private and public sector with skills to plan, implement and evaluate HIV/AIDS workplace efforts.
Time and again, writing letters to those in power has proved to be one of the most effective tools for securing concrete change for tribal peoples. Survival letter-writing campaigns have helped tribal peoples win recognition of their land rights, put an end to logging or mining on their land, or halt government violence and oppression.
Your letter really can make a difference to the Gana and Gwi Bushmen. Please write a brief and polite letter or fax (in English, Setswana, or your own language), including the following points:
The Botswana government is ignoring international law by failing to recognise the Gana and Gwi's ownership rights over the land they have traditionally lived on and used.
Services on which the Gana and Gwi Bushmen have become dependent should be maintained – the cost is not prohibitive and the European Union has offered to fund it.
The Gana and Gwi Bushmen have the right to decide for themselves how they want to live – they are not 'primitive' simply because they are hunters.
Please send your letter to:
The Hon F G Mogae
President of the Republic
Private Bag 001
Gaborone
Botswana
The inaugural meeting of a new United Nations body, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues -- which will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday, 13 May, in Conference Room 2 -- will bring together indigenous leaders and civil society from all parts of the world. This is the first time that indigenous voices will be heard at such a high level by the world Organization. The new Forum represents an historic advance in indigenous peoples' efforts to reach the ear of the international community and make their needs and concerns known. While they have made steady progress at the United Nations -- from their first approach to the League of Nations, to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the subsequent establishment of the International Decade -- the creation of the Forum as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council is a breakthrough achievement.
Dozens of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and perceived supporters, have been abducted and sometimes "disappeared" in what appears to be a systematic campaign of intimidation against government opponents. MDC polling agents and other members of the party structure remain at high risk of attack from state-sponsored militia, which include veterans of the liberation war that led to independence in 1980.
Zimbabwean election regulations required that the names and addresses of MDC polling agents and other members of the party structure had to be printed in newspapers, and reports confirm that the militia are using these lists to target their attacks and abductions. Sign the Amnesty petition online.
The BBC is reporting that a man has been condemned to death by stoning by an Islamic (or Sharia) court in northern Nigeria. He was convicted of rape in the northern State of Jigawa. This comes on the heels of the cases of two women who were recently sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but had their sentences reduced largely due to outcry from the international community.
Last week, by an odd twist of my schedule, I found myself visiting two sites in two hemispheres that each focus on apartheid. One is well known: Robben Island, the prison off Cape Town, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 18 years. The other is hardly visible: Maticni Street in Usti nad Labem, a gritty industrial town in the Czech Republic, where locals built a block-long wall in 1999 to separate an enclave of the Roma (gypsies) from the Czechs across the street. Robben Island, a seminal training ground for anti-apartheid forces, was a maximum-security facility from which no political prisoner ever escaped. The wall at Usti, a seven-foot-high noise barrier with several open gates through it, prevented nobody from moving anywhere. Robben Island endured for decades. The so-called "wall of shame" lasted about a month. Some say the story out of Usti -- near the border with the former East Germany, and only a decade distant from the Berlin Wall -- loomed larger in the press than it deserved to. But did it? Apartheid comes in many forms. But it always starts from a premise that "they're different from us," and that they need to be separated from us, often forcibly.
Isis International-Manila is coming out with the second issue for 2002 of its magazine, Women in Action, with the theme, "Women and Communication." Deadline for submissions for Issue No. 2-2002 is June 30, 2002.
The International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest journalist's group, and the Eastern Africa Journalist Association (EAJA) have expressed their strong concern regarding the adoption of a media regulation that has been passed in Kenya. "This law is repressive regulation that is potentially seriously damaging to press freedom," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.
A magistrate court in Harare ruled on May 7 that arrested "Daily News" journalist, Lloyd Mudiwa and Zimbabwe correspondent for the British paper "The Guardian", Andrew Meldrum, have a case to answer. The two were remanded out of custody to May 22, 2002. Charges against the other accused, Collin Chiwanza of "The Daily News", have been dropped.
The licensing of a wholly owned government signal carrier company, Transmedia, to offer satellite broadcasting services in partnership with the DStv Network represented by MultiChoice-Zimbabwe, has sparked an uproar among other applicants.
In the past few weeks the National Intelligence Agent (NIA) in South Africa raised an outcry among journalists after it demanded intimate details about their private lives.
Members of the controversial Tent of the Living God sect have denied claims that they planned to circumcise women by force. They termed the allegations as malicious.
Women in many Asian, African and may be in Europe and America, have similar never ending stories, full of pain and sorrows. The more women compromise, the more men take advantage of them. The more they give, the more men take from them physically, mentally and spiritually. This is the never-ending situation for women of a male dominating society.
"How do I hold hands with my sisters in the North without also remembering that for 500 years an estimated 100 million Africans, most of whom were women, were brutally dragged across the world and scattered to every corner of the ‘empire’, while millions more - my fore-parents in the widest sense of the word - slaved on plantations and mines across this region, producing the very wealth that made it possible for European women - of all classes - to renegotiate the distribution of critical resources between themselves and the state through the mechanism of the welfare state. And yet, in this new and very interesting time of the 21st century when the very same forces that invented racial and location difference among and between peoples and women as an exploited and oppressed group, have, through the further entrenchment of social inequality and difference, begun to threaten those very essential bonds that women worked so hard to emphasize during the past hundred years. Clearly, globalization requires that we interrogate more critically those things that have kept us apart - among which most importantly is the issue of white privilege between women in a world divided into North and South."
UNOPS-SEHD is seeking expressions of interest from qualified candidates as
senior managers to lead the promotion and development of four Local Economic Development Agencies in different districts of Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Limpopo.
Analysts and NGOs on Monday warned of a wider and more vicious confrontation in Madagascar if no political solution is found soon. Six people were killed and many others injured over the weekend in a fresh outbreak of violence in the north-western town of Mahajanga. Local news reports said the civil strife erupted after supporters of ex-president Didier Ratsiraka attacked members of ethnic groups they accused of favouring new president Marc Ravalomanana.
International conventions have not stopped multi-national corporations from trying to secure valuable contracts by bribing government officials in the world's emerging economies - especially in the arms and defence, and public works and construction industries. ''Fine words are not enough. Until people are brought before the courts, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Convention (OECD) convention on bribery will not make a difference to the developing world, where money is siphoned off from schools and hospitals and essential public works projects,'' said Transparency International Kenya Director, John Githongo.
The world's richest countries must help prevent the continuing use of rape by HIV-infected militia as a weapon of war in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), according to a new report from British-based charity Christian Aid.
Proponents of free trade and fair trade alike decried on Monday legislation giving U.S. farmers 190 billion dollars in subsidies over the coming 10 years, saying the move would hurt poor farmers around the world. "It is indeed a sad day for world farmers," said a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This is surely a step backward."
Although Congo's ongoing conflict was an important part of discussions Uganda president Yoweri Museveni held with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as the first phase of his 10-day working visit to the United States ended Tuesday, Museveni stayed firmly "on message" in his campaign to project Uganda's trade and investment opportunities and the need for industrialized nations to remove protective barriers.
APC Policy Monitor Websites gather legislation, policy information and valuable documentation for campaigners and civil society organisations.
TrainingPoint is an experimental project with the goal of creating a self-supporting online community of nonprofit technical assistance providers. Take a look at the online lessons/tutorials (only Microsoft, so far) that are online.
This issue of Drum Beat includes just some of the all-embracing, bilateral and multilateral Africa initiatives, and some of the policy frameworks developed on a country level.
The Kenya Urban Transport Infrastructure Project director has been for allegedly receiving 8m shilling [equivalent to about 103,000 US dollars] bribe from World Bank officials in Washington DC. His arrest comes in the wake of the return of a team of local investigators from the US, where they had been to investigate the bribery claims.
The Tanzanian government has reacted strongly to Transparency International's (TI) most recent report that gave Tanzania the "filthy" tag, reports this week's East African newspaper. Asked about TI's Corruption Perception Index 2001 that gave Tanzania a 2.2 rating out of 10, thereby classifying it as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, Wilson Masilingi, the minister responsible for good governance, denied the existence of rampant corruption in the country, and described TI as "an enemy of developing countries".
At its meeting, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 9 May 2002, the Executive Board of the International Press Institute (IPI) unanimously agreed to keep Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe on the "IPI Watch List".
The report by a panel set up last week by the Federal Government to investigate an allegation in the Time magazine that foreign correspondents resident in the country were bribed with $400 each to give the nation a less negative image described the allegation as unfounded, adding that officials of the Ministry of Information and National Orientation "acted above board in the circumstance."
The Congress of South African Trade Unions deplores the fact that 40 percent of the new phone lines that Telkom has delivered over the last four years have been subsequently disconnected. This news confirms our worst fears about the effects of the privatisation process.
A group of eight people, including all members of one Florida family, had an implant chip, roughly the size of a grain of rice, injected under their skin on Friday, May 10. Manufactured by Applied Digital Solutions (ADS), the chips store a special identification number that enables the retrieval of personal and medical information. In the event of a medical emergency, a special handheld scanner activates the dormant digital implant, which provides identification data with which medical personnel can query ADS's database, the location of the patient's medical records (from The Internet Scout Report).
Women's Caucus for Gender Justice is appealing to all concerned groups and individuals to join the campaign for women’s equal representation in the elected judges of the International Criminal Court, which is due to be operational on 1st of July 2002.
The first reaction upon hearing about the topic of battered men, for many people, is that of incredulity. Author David Gross writes, "Battered husbands are a topic for jokes - such as the cartoon image of a woman chasing her husband with a rolling-pin."
As more women clamour for political offices in the forthcoming elections, an Islamic scholar in Bauchi has warned muslim women against participating in partisan politics.