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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 238 for 2-8 July 2005

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

CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: Destroy your home or the bulldozers will, residents told
ANGOLA: Fighting flares up again
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Ten million in need of food aid, agencies warn
BOTSWANA: Public flogging causes outrage
ZAMBIA: Media freedom under threat says watchdog
MAURITIUS: New broom's promise to sweep clean
SOUTH AFRICA: New action plan to assist OVC underway
SWAZILAND: Price shock of higher transport costs will hit the poor
AFRICA: Slim pickings at Gleneagles

ZIMBABWE: Destroy your home or the bulldozers will, residents told

The Zimbabwean government has continued with its programme of demolishing illegal homes, despite urgent calls by aid workers to halt the operation.

In Epworth, an old settlement of around 300,000 people 15 km east of the capital, Harare, residents began destroying their own homes on Tuesday rather than pay a fee of US $150 per room if the job was done by government bulldozers.

Full report

MDC meets with Mbeki, ahead of AU summit

The Zimbabwean opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), met with President Thabo Mbeki at the weekend, ahead of a meeting of African leaders in Libya.

Speaking to IRIN on Monday, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said, "We want to show we are part of the solution and do not want to become part of the problem."

Full report

Defiant informal traders battle to survive

Zimbabwean informal traders affected by the government's controversial cleanup operation have come up with ways - often novel - to keep their businesses alive and out of the watchful eye of the authorities.

From locating business operations at their homes to displaying wares as "samples" on the street, defiant traders were fighting to survive because they had no alternative source of income, said analysts.

Full report

Forced evictions could aggravate disease - health experts

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) is concerned that an ongoing government crackdown on informal settlements and markets is likely to aggravate disease.

Of particular concern to ZADHR was the negative impact of the campaign on children and families infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Full report

Concern that transit camps will become permanent

The creation of transit camps as a result of the Zimbabwean government's forced eviction campaign has a familiar ring - a homeless people's rights NGO says many of the suburbs in the recent eviction drive arose as transit camps after demolitions in previous years.

In the cleanup campaign, launched in May, thousands of informal settlements have been demolished and at least 375,000 people left homeless; the authorities have claimed it was part of an urban renewal strategy that will eventually build 10,000 homes at a cost of US $300 million.

Full report

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ANGOLA: Fighting flares up again

Civil society groups in Angola's oil-rich Cabinda enclave have confirmed that a "major offensive" against separatist rebels is underway in the interior of the province.

Agostinho Chikaia, leader of the Mpalapanda Civic Association in Cabinda, told IRIN on Wednesday that although the clashes between government troops and the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) have not yet "seriously impacted" on the civilian population, insecurity in the affected areas had heightened.

Full report

World Bank says reconstruction programme is critical

A 423 km road trip from Luanda, the Angolan capital, to the central province of Malanje takes 13 hours - underlining the need to rehabilitate the shattered infrastructure, according to World Bank representative Laurence Clarke.

"The road was very, very bad ... 13 hours gives you a sense of just how bad the road was," explained Clarke, who recently completed the bone-jarring journey.

Full report

A mixed report card by the IMF

Rising receipts from oil production continue to boost Angola's post-war economy, but the benefits have yet to filter down to millions of poor families, an annual International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment has shown.

The report, released earlier this week, painted a mixed picture of the country's performance over the past year, and observed that although the economy has grown by about 9 percent a year since a ruinous civil war ended in 2002, "poverty remains deeply entrenched".

Full report

Diamond areas short-changed by development, says report

Angola is likely to produce diamonds worth nearly US $900 million this year, but little of that money will be spent on development in the diamond-producing areas, according to a new report.

The report by Partnership Africa Canada noted that "three years of peace is enough time for an oil-rich, diamond-rich government to have made wider social investments in the diamond areas, and to have produced development policies that are more supportive of Angola's artisanal miners".

Full report

Desperately seeking skilled migrants

A new study conducted in Angola and Zambia brings into sharp focus the negative impact of migration on the development of struggling countries, and proposes solutions to reversing the exodus of scarce skills to richer pastures.

'Migration and Development: New Strategic Outlooks and Practical Ways Forward - The Cases of Angola and Zambia', by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), noted that although they have very different histories, the two countries face similar challenges: stemming the brain drain and enticing skilled migrants to return.

Full report

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SOUTHERN AFRICA: Ten million in need of food aid, agencies warn

More than 10 million people will need humanitarian assistance in six countries across Southern Africa in the coming year, two UN agencies and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) warned on Thurday.

The agencies issued an urgent appeal for US $266 million in food aid to assist the region's vulnerable people.

Full report

Textile industry undone by globalisation

The textile and clothing manufacturing industry is not a sustainable option for Southern Africa in the long term, according to a UN economist. The sector - one of Southern Africa's few export industries - is struggling to compete in a quota-free global market.

Manufacturers have been hard-hit by the termination of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which came to an end in January this year. The MFA was introduced 30 years ago to protect the textile industries of developed countries by imposing quotas on high-volume producers such as China, Korea and India.

Full report

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BOTSWANA: Public flogging causes outrage

Two weeks ago Tebogo Malete was publicly flogged at a traditional court in Old Naledi, a village southeast of the Botswana's capital, Gaborone; a photograph of his punishment was published in the weekly newspaper, The Midweek Sun.

Malete, 27, a petty thief, had been sentenced to five lashes for housebreaking at the customary court presided over by the village headman. The humiliating newspaper photo showed him with his pants down and a police officer using a lash on his bare buttocks, sparking outrage in human rights circles.

Full report

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ZAMBIA: Media freedom under threat says watchdog

Zambian police are investigating charges of sedition and criminal libel against two journalists, raising concern that freedom of expression is under threat.

Sipo Kapumba, a spokesman for the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia, told IRIN this week that the police had summoned Fred M'membe, editor of the privately owned The Post newspaper, on 29 June after a series of editorials critical of President Levy Mwanawasa's government.

Full report

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MAURITIUS: New broom's promise to sweep clean

The opposition Social Alliance (SC), led by Navin Ramgoolam, swept to victory in general elections in Mauritius, netting 38 out of 62 seats in Sunday's poll.

Ramgoolam has promised to tackle growing frustration with rising unemployment and inflation as the country's grapples with the loss of preferential trade deals with the United States and the European Union (EU).

Full report

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SOUTH AFRICA: New action plan to assist OVC underway

As a growing number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS seek assistance from the state, South Africa's social development department has begun drawing up a plan to address their needs, IRIN reported on Monday.

An estimated one million children have been orphaned and, according to the South African Medical Research Council (MRC), at least 5.7 million could lose one or both parents to AIDS by 2015. Civil society organisations have been calling for new regulations and better enforcement to protect orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) for several years.

Full report

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SWAZILAND: Price shock of higher transport costs will hit the poor

A hike in commuter fares this week - by as much two-thirds for some urban destinations - has highlighted the burden of high oil prices on the nation's poor, as well as the limitations of Swaziland's public transportation system.

"There is no one to look after the interests of ordinary travellers. Unemployment is going up and those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs do not get salary increments to match a 50 percent rise in taxi fares," complained Nhlanhla Dube, a carpenter at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, outside the central city of Manzini.

Full report

New bill to nab delinquent dads

On Thursday IRIN reported on the government's attempts to crackdown on delinquent fathers and negligent custodians of children.

Parents who do not send their children to school will be subject to a R5,000 (US $746) fine per child, according to new draft legislation aimed at addressing the problem of "deadbeat dads" who refuse to provide financial support to their children.

Full report

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AFRICA: Slim pickings at Gleneagles

Expectations that leaders of the world's richest nations meeting in Scotland this week would take far-reaching steps to eradicate poverty in Africa have not been met, with limited progress on debt relief, increased aid to the continent or the dismantling of unfair trade practices.

At the close of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Gleneagles on Friday, anti-poverty campaigners expressed disappointment the overall outcome of the much-publicised event.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent SOUTHERN AFRICA reports:

IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

Volume of food aid causes transport bottleneck, 19/Dec/05

IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 261 for 10-16 December 2005, 16/Dec/05

Renewed calls for culling in wildlife reserves raises alarm among conservation groups, 15/Dec/05

South Africa's fuel shortage hits neighbours, could affect humanitarian operations, 13/Dec/05

Other recent reports:

RWANDA: Body found in Brussels canal confirmed that of ex-minister's, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 23/Dec/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 51 covering the period 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

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