SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 397 for 11 - 17 October 2008
JOHANNESBURG, 17 October 2008 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:
SOUTH AFRICA: The global village is slowly going digital
MOZAMBIQUE: "We keep going round until everyone knows a cyclone is coming"
SOMALIA-SOUTH AFRICA: Foreign competitors not welcome
SOUTHERN AFRICA: The economic future may be darker
ZIMBABWE: All aboard for a 2,500km shopping trip
MOZAMBIQUE: "We cannot live here because the floods come quickly"
ZIMBABWE: A day in the life of hyperinflation
SOMALIA-SOUTH AFRICA: Mahad Omar Abdi: "I cannot go back to Somalia"
SWAZILAND: A cow in the field is worth two in the EU
ZIMBABWE: Power-sharing deal collapsing
SOUTH AFRICA: The global village is slowly going digital
Computers are increasingly ubiquitous in the developing world as software and internet companies create operating systems, computing programmes, and web-based portals in hundreds of indigenous languages.
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MOZAMBIQUE: "We keep going round until everyone knows a cyclone is coming"
Mozambique is struck by devastating floods and cyclones almost every year, but investments in preparedness, early warning and communication at community level are saving lives.
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SOMALIA-SOUTH AFRICA: Foreign competitors not welcome
About 200 Somali businessmen in South Africa's Western Cape Province are being threatened with violence if they continue doing business in the townships. They recently returned to the areas after fleeing a wave of xenophobic attacks in May 2008. A group of local township businessmen, acting under the banner of the Zanokhanyo Retailers Association (ZRA), sent the Somalis letters in September, warning them to close their shops or face "actions that will include physically fighting".
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SOUTHERN AFRICA: The economic future may be darker
Africa's marginalisation in the global financial system will not spare it the repercussions of the market meltdown affecting the rest of the world, but how hard its economies will be hit is unclear. The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) October survey projected that growth in sub-Saharan Africa was likely to slow to 6 percent in 2008 and 2009, down from 6.5 percent in 2007. The deceleration for oil-importers could be sharper, dropping to 5 percent.
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ZIMBABWE: All aboard for a 2,500km shopping trip
The bus route between South Africa, the continent's largest economy, and Zimbabwe, the world's fastest shrinking economy outside of a war zone, is a crucial lifeline for people faced with increasing food insecurity. The UN estimates that in the first quarter of 2009 more than five million people, or nearly half Zimbabwe's population, will require food assistance, and shortages of basic foods are forcing people to buy in neighbouring countries.
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MOZAMBIQUE: "We cannot live here because the floods come quickly"
Manuel Fanso, 51, went back to the riverbank to earn his living as a fisherman after the floodwaters receded. Up to 300,000 people in river communities throughout central Mozambique were displaced in early 2008, and his family has moved to higher ground. Floods swamped the country in 2000, 2001 and 2007, and the government has been encouraging resettlement in designated 'safe areas' to avoid further loss of life and expensive evacuation operations when the Zambezi River Basin floods again, an inevitable occurrence according to government projections.
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ZIMBABWE: A day in the life of hyperinflation
Tendai Moyo, 28, living in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, goes into a shop in the downtown area and heads for a shelf where, a day ago, she saw a feeding bottle she wanted to buy for her three-month-old son. She picks it up and goes to the till, convinced she can afford this luxury for her child, but the cashier nonchalantly tells her the price has more than doubled, and the new price is more than the cash she has on her.
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SOMALIA-SOUTH AFRICA: Mahad Omar Abdi: "I cannot go back to Somalia"
Mahad Omar Abdi, 33, from Somalia, owns a supermarket in the sprawling dormitory township of Khayalitsha, on the outskirts of the Atlantic port city of Cape Town. His shop was looted during xenophobic attacks in South Africa in May 2008. "I belong to the Hawiye tribe, one of the main tribes in Somalia, and I lived in Mogadishu [the capital] before I left in 1994 because of the fighting. At that time I was only 18 years old and there was no hope or future in my homeland.
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SWAZILAND: A cow in the field is worth two in the EU
Swaziland's failure to take advantage of the opportunity to export unlimited quantities of beef to the lucrative European Union (EU) market is being attributed to poor animal husbandry, high livestock mortality rates, and cultural practices that deter farmers from selling their cattle. The EU's new trade agreement with the impoverished country has opened the world's richest market to Swaziland's hormone-free beef but the lure of cash has failed to entice farmers to sell, and few people will benefit from the trade concessions even though the majority of Swazis own cattle.
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ZIMBABWE: Power-sharing deal collapsing
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is expected to arrive soon in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in a bid to salvage a power-sharing deal that is in danger of collapsing a month after it was signed. The deal brokered by Mbeki - appointed as mediator by the South African Development Community (SADC) in 2007 - was hailed as a way out of the beleaguered country's political and economic morass, but within days of being signed on 15 September it began to run into obstacles.
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Theme(s): (PLUSNEWS) Aid Policy, (PLUSNEWS) Avian Flu, (PLUSNEWS) Children, (PLUSNEWS) Conflict, (PLUSNEWS) Drought2006, (PLUSNEWS) Early Warning, (PLUSNEWS) Economy, (PLUSNEWS) Education, (PLUSNEWS) Environment, (PLUSNEWS) Food Security, (PLUSNEWS) Gender Issues, (PLUSNEWS) Governance, (PLUSNEWS) Health & Nutrition, (PLUSNEWS) HIV/AIDS (PlusNews), (PLUSNEWS) Human Rights, (PLUSNEWS) Migration, (PLUSNEWS) Natural Disasters, (PLUSNEWS) Refugees/IDPs, (PLUSNEWS) Urban Risk, (PLUSNEWS) Water & Sanitation
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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] |
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