"); NewWindow.document.close(); return false; } // end hiding from old browsers -->

Friday 29 April 2005


Search

Regions

IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 226 for 9-15 April 2005

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: MDC continues court challenges as MPs sworn in
MALAWI: Improved food security could be short-lived
ANGOLA: WFP set to cut rations as money runs out
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Marburg toll rises as neighbours go on alert
COMOROS: Assoumani seeks second term in office
SWAZILAND: EU bans beef exports
SOUTH AFRICA: Country's bumper harvest could help neighbours
INDIAN OCEAN: Need for coordinated response to disasters
NAMIBIA: Fishing industry on the line
BOTSWANA: Minority ethnic groups feel bill still discriminates
MOZAMBIQUE: New immunisation campaign launched
AFRICA: New thinking needed to counter AIDS in rural communities

ZIMBABWE: MDC continues court challenges as MPs sworn in

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has taken its seats in parliament while pressing ahead with court challenges to the 31 March legislative election results.

Forty-one MDC MPs were sworn in on Tuesday as the party geared up for a court battle to prove electoral fraud in several constituencies, while facing the daunting task of remaining relevant to Zimbabwe's political landscape.

Full report

Producers raise prices of basic goods

Prices of basic commodities have increased sharply since Zimbabwe's 31 March legislative elections, causing panic buying and fears of a return to widespread shortages.

Economist Dennis Nikisi told IRIN on Monday that the country's foreign currency shortages were to blame for the current situation, because "84 percent of inputs in the productive sector are sourced through foreign currency".

Full report

Farmers brace for yet more hard times

Zimbabweans are bracing themselves for yet another year of food shortages as adverse weather conditions take a heavy toll on crops.

The government has warned that the impact of drought conditions was expected to be worse than last year, although the extent of the damage will only become clear when the harvest period ends on 30 April.

Full report

Survey records alarming levels of child malnutrition

A survey in 10 districts across Zimbabwe has recorded alarmingly high levels of malnutrition among children.

Interviews conducted by the country's Food and Nutrition Council, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, showed stunting or chronic malnutrition levels as high as 47 percent among children aged from six months to 59 months on commercial farms.

Full report

Govt to go ahead with key constitutional amendments

Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party plans to use its two-thirds parliamentary majority to change the constitution and create a second chamber and the office of prime minister.

National political commissar Elliot Manyika told IRIN the party also intended to "tighten legislation relating to land and economic reform, with a view to giving statutory bodies more control over these crucial sectors and core national assets".

Full report

[Top of the Page]

MALAWI: Improved food security could be short-lived

Overall household food security in Malawi has improved with the onset of the harvest, but aid workers warn that many families are likely to face shortages as early as July.

According to the office of the UN Resident Representative in Malawi, results from the latest crop assessment, released by the Ministry of Agriculture on 1 April, pointed to "impending hunger".

Full report

Land redistribution scheme draws criticism

Rights groups in Malawi have labelled a government land redistribution project as "cosmetic", saying the move was unlikely to improve the lives of the rural poor.

Commissioner of Lands Francis Majankono on Wednesday announced plans to purchase land from tea and tobacco estate owners under the government's willing-buyer, willing-seller policy. The redistribution exercise, funded by the World Bank to the tune of US $28 million, is expected to parcel out land to around 20,000 families in the country's southern region.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

ANGOLA: WFP set to cut rations as money runs out

The World Food Programme (WFP) could be forced to cut its already reduced emergency food rations to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Angolans unless it receives much-needed support from donors.

"If we get no further contributions in the next couple of weeks, then, come the early part of the third quarter, we will have to cut rations even more," WFP Country Director Rick Corsino told IRIN.

Full report

Opposition protests composition of electoral body

Angola's main opposition party, UNITA, on Thursday said it would continue to push for greater representation on the country's proposed National Electoral Commission (CNE).

Opposition parties walked out of a parliamentary commission on Tuesday to protest the lack of consensus on the composition of the CNE, which is to oversee preparations for landmark general elections expected to take place in 2006.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Marburg toll rises as neighbours go on high alert

Neighbouring countries placed their health services on high alert as the death toll in Angola's deadly Marburg epidemic climbed to 192.

With the number of cases of the Ebola-like bug rising to 213, efforts in Angola's northern province of Uige, the epicentre of the outbreak, focused on tracking down what potentially amounts to scores of people who have been in close contact with victims.

Full report

Recurrent dry spells "cause for concern"

The rising temperatures and recurrent dry spells in Southern Africa points to the impact of climate change and are "cause for concern", a senior scientist told IRIN.

Many countries in the region, such as Swaziland and Lesotho, were now entering their fourth year of drought. According to a new Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report, the 2004/05 season "has been marked by adverse conditions, including erratic rains, intermittent dry spells, and flooding in some areas".

Full report

[Top of the Page]

COMOROS: Assoumani seeks second term in office

Parliamentarians in the Comoros have expressed their dissatisfaction with a draft law that allows Union President Azali Assoumani to sidestep a constitutional provision requiring the federal presidency to rotate between the islands, and vie for a second four-year term in elections next year.

Under the archipelago's new national constitution, adopted in 2001, the federal presidency rotates every four years among the elected presidents of the three islands in the Union: Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SWAZILAND: EU bans beef exports while innoculation records remain lost

The recent suspension of Swazi beef exports to the European Union (EU) is expected to exert further pressure on the country's weakening economy.

Beef products were banned by the EU after Swaziland failed to produce the necessary paperwork needed to track the provenance of slaughtered cattle, including their inoculations.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

SOUTH AFRICA: Country 's bumper harvest could help neighbours

Although the rest of Southern Africa is threatened by a poor maize crop, South Africa is set to produce a bumper harvest, according to new forecasts.

"That surplus will be needed by South Africa's neighbours," the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in its latest crop report for Africa.

Full report

Textile and garment workers strong-arm retailers

South African textile and garment workers have turned up the pressure on major clothing retailers to sign an agreement committing them to buy at least 75 percent of their stock from local manufacturers.

Earlier this week the Save Jobs Campaign, led by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Council of Churches and various NGOs, handed over a memorandum to Truworths and Woolworths - two of the country's leading fashion retailers - saying that clothing imports had seriously undercut local manufactures, resulting in hundreds of job losses.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

INDIAN OCEAN: Need for coordinated response to disasters, says UNRC

Preventing loss of life and minimising shocks to fragile economies were key motivators in racheting up the early warning, disaster preparedness and response systems in Indian Ocean islands, the United Nations Resident Coordinator (UNRC) for Mauritius and Seychelles told IRIN.

UNRC Aese Smedler said early warning and disaster preparedness was "an area we feel is of extreme importance".

Full report

[Top of the Page]

NAMIBIA: Fishing industry on the line

Hopes of government relief for Namibia's beleaguered fishing industry - struggling to cope with a weak US dollar, high fuel prices and erratic catches - were dashed on Wednesday.

Reacting to a recent submission by the industry, urging the cancellation of catch quota levies, a rebate on fuel prices and lower port usage fees, Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Abraham Iyambo told a meeting of 300 industry captains that the onus was on them to steer the sector out of trouble.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

BOTSWANA: Minority ethnic groups feel new bill still discriminates

Member of parliament Filbert Nagafela has decided to register his own personal protest against the Botswana constitution by refusing to sing the national anthem until all references to the country's ethnic groups are removed.

Nagafela is a member of the Kgalakgadi people, one of the eight ethnic groups not recognised by the current constitution and, as such, he feels he is unable to identify with the phrase "this land is our inheritance" in the anthem.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

MOZAMBIQUE: New immunisation campaign launched

Poor health coverage and bad road networks pose a challenge to immunising nine million children in Mozambique, a senior health official told IRIN.

The children are part of a national immunisation campaign against measles and polio, launched last week in the capital, Maputo, by President Armando Guebuza. The Ministry of Health hopes to be able to declare Mozambique polio-free by the end of 2005.

Full report

Visas no longer required for inter-country travel

Mozambicans have welcomed the waiving of visas to enter South Africa, announced on Friday by the leaders of both countries at a meeting on strengthening bilateral trade.

The new ruling comes into force on Monday and will also apply to South Africans visiting Mozambique.

It used to cost Mozambicans around R400 (about US $70) in visa fees to enter their economically powerful neighbour - more than most earn in one month. "I'll be very happy when we do not have to pay for our visa. It was just too much money," Lole Buque, a Mozambican businessman, told IRIN.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

AFRICA: New thinking needed to counter AIDS in rural communities

The link between HIV/AIDS and hunger in rural communities has received a great deal of attention over the past few years - particularly in Southern Africa, where HIV/AIDS has added a new dimension to the recent food crisis.

But research emerging from this week's international conference on 'HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security' in Durban, South Africa, showed that very little is know about the actual impact of the pandemic on rural communities.

The three-day conference, organised by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), brings together policymakers, donors and researchers to develop strategies for improving and expanding the response to HIV/AIDS and food security.

Full report

[Top of the Page]

[ENDS]

Other recent SOUTHERN AFRICA reports:

Large cross-border informal food trade recorded, 26/Apr/05

IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 227 for 16-22 April 2005, 22/Apr/05

HIV/AIDS, poverty keeping children from schools, says UNICEF, 18/Apr/05

Recurrent dry spells "cause for concern", 15/Apr/05

Marburg toll rises as neighbours go on high alert, 11/Apr/05

Other recent reports:

ETHIOPIA: Final piece of obelisk returned, 26/Apr/05

IRAQ: Government works to support newlyweds, 25/Apr/05

NEPAL: Humanitarian re-orientation needed, says UN official, 25/Apr/05

ZIMBABWE: Call to boycott elections, 25/Apr/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 22/Apr/05

[Back] [Home Page]

Click here to send any feedback, comments or questions you have about IRIN's Website or if you prefer you can send an Email to Webmaster

Copyright © IRIN 2005
The material contained on www.IRINnews.org comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the IRIN copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.