U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa

Tel: +27 11 880 4633
Fax: +27 11 880 1421
e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 158
6 - 12 December 2003


CONTENTS:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC disagrees with Commonwealth over Zimbabwe
ZIMBABWE: Mixed reactions over Commonwealth withdrawal
ZAMBIA: Getting girls back into school
COMOROS: Hope of political peace from Paris meeting
ANGOLA: Transparency key to transition
NAMIBIA: PWAs hopeful about treatment programme
SOUTH AFRICA: Court ruling favours children oprhaned by AIDS
SWAZILAND: Community provides "shoulders to cry on"


SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC disagrees with Commonwealth over Zimbabwe

The fallout over Zimbabwe's decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth
continued to drift through the region this week, with the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) condemning the 54-member organisation for
mainting sanctions on Harare.

A South African Foreign Affairs Department statement on behalf of Lesotho,
as chair of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, noted that
"as we warned, it has resulted in Zimbabwe withdrawing from the
Commonwealth."

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38317


ZIMBABWE: Mixed reactions over Commonwealth withdrawal

IRIN reported on Monday that Zimbabwe's human rights and pro-democracy
groups were concerned that President Robert Mugabe's decision to pull
Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth had scuppered hopes of dialogue between
the government and the main opposition party, prolonging the country's
political crisis.

"It's disappointing and it's distressing. It means that Zimbabwe is now
out of an organisation that had the potential to resolve the current
political crisis," Tawanda Hondora of the umbrella NGO, Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition, told IRIN. "From Mugabe's perspective it's a great Houdini act,
stifling international criticism."

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38299


Rising numbers in need of food aid

As the political stalemate continues, the number of Zimbabweans needing
food aid next year is expected to rise well beyond original estimates,
according to new research.

Aid agencies had forecast that 5.5 million people - half the population -
would require food aid during the pre-harvest months of January, February
and March 2004. However, the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWS NET) report on Zimbabwe noted that "the Zimbabwe Vulnerability
Assessment Committee has revised the estimates of the rural population in
need of food assistance from October to December to 4.1 million, and for
January to March to 5.1 million".

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38356


Illegal mining a health and environmental crisis

An IRIN feature on Wedneday examined the rise of illegal mining as a
coping mechanism for the poor. Both the authorities and NGOs have warned
of significant health and environmental risks associated with the
widespread practice. The prevalence of prostitution in mining communities
has also raised fears of increased HIV infection.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38338


ZAMBIA: Getting girls back into school

Zambian girls are defying traditional barriers, teenage pregnancy and the
risk of HIV infection to go back to school to finish their education, IRIN
reported on Thursday.

They are doing this despite the findings of a new report that girls in
sub-Saharan Africa face the highest school drop-out rate in the world,
with up to 83 percent of all girls who no longer attend school living in
the region.

"The State of the World's Children", released on Thursday by the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF), found that the number of girls in sub-Saharan
Africa who had left school before completing their education rose from 20
million in 1990 to 24 million in 2002.

But the report also lists the Programme for the Advancement of Girls'
Education (PAGE), a collaboration between the Zambian government and
UNICEF, as an example of the type of action required by governments and
the international community to reverse the trend.

The project's interventions "have been so successful that what was a pilot
project in the mid-1990's has now been extended all over the country."

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38366


New pockets of need emerge

On Tuesday IRIN reported that while the World Food Programme (WFP) gears
itself to meet new needs in Zambia, it has received no further
contributions toward its food aid pipeline.

WFP said in its latest situation report that food stocks were set to run
out next month, while at the same time "significant hunger pockets are
emerging in areas such as Kaputa, in the Northern province".

Lena Savelli, WFP Zambia public information officer, told IRIN "this is
the time of year when many households become food insecure". The Zambian
Vulnerability Assessment Committee, made up of government, UN agencies and
NGOs, was examining the situation in the Northern province, the report
noted.

More details:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38310


COMOROS: Hope of political peace from Paris meeting

Almost three years after a deal was struck between leaders in the Comoros
to resolve a secessionist crisis, political stability continues to escape
the troubled Indian Ocean archipelego, IRIN reported on Thurssday.

A protracted dispute pits federal President Azali Assoumani against Grande
Comore President Abdou Soule Elbak over the respective powers of their
offices.

Elbak has accused Assoumani of riding roughshod over the country's
recently adopted constitution. On the other hand, supporters of the
federal government claim that Elbak – relatively new to politics on the
main island - is being manipulated by a small group of detractors, whose
aim is to derail the fragile peace process and eventually oust Assoumani
from power.

The long-running standoff has delayed economic development, as investors
remain wary of the precarious political situation in the country.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38367


Trouble in paradise

On Monday, IRIN reported that years of political instability and a
weakening economy have left the Comoros mired in poverty.

Many of the nation's citizens face a daily struggle to make ends meet.

Halima Said, a 35-year-old mother of two, told IRIN that "most of the time
we have just two meals a day. I am worried that my children don't have
enough to eat, but what can I do but just carry on and try to provide for
them?"

Some 15 km outside the country's capital, Moroni, Halima and six other
women from Mvouni village have laid claim to a patch of land. The
vegetables she cultivates provide her family with a meagre income.

"I mainly grow tomatoes, onions, leeks and other vegetables, which people
can use when they make salads. Half of the produce I keep for my family
and the other half I take to the market to sell. With the little money I
make, I buy meat, milk and oil for my children. This is how I have managed
for years," she told IRIN.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38294


ANGOLA: Transparency key to transition

The Open Society Institute (OSI), a foundation funded almost entirely by
billionaire investor George Soros, has spent the last six years working to
give civil society a louder voice in Angola.

In the last three months it has also begun negotiating directly with the
Angolan government in an effort to encourage transparency in the oil- and
diamond-rich country.

On Wednesday IRIN published an interview with OSI's president Aryeh Neier,
who was on his first visit to Angola, about the "publish what you pay"
campaign and the "curse" of over-reliance on high-value primary
commodities like oil.

More details:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38334


Oil - curse or cure-all?

Two offshore Angolan oilfields came onstream this month, signifying the
start of a raft of new projects that should spawn an unprecedented level
of growth in oil revenues over the next five years.

But Angola-watchers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are
reserving judgment before cracking open the champagne. There are a whole
host of reasons why it will take years for this income to trickle down to
ordinary citizens.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38400


Irish NGO calls for increased AIDS prevention

IRIN reported on Monday that the voluntary counselling and HIV testing
clinic run by the Irish development agency, GOAL, in Angola's capital,
Luanda, is always busy. The simple chairs in the waiting room are occupied
by people from all walks of life.

Dr Eduardo Fulai, the supervisor at the clinic, has heard the same story
dozens of times from people coming to be tested.

"A typical scenario is that a boy comes in and says he had a girlfriend,
but left her for another. He had learnt that his former girl was having
sex with other boys during their time together. Now he has got a
'condition' in his penis. He is very bothered by the situation and is
afraid that she has infected him with HIV," Fulai told IRIN.

GOAL has found that between five and 10 percent of people who undergo the
test are HIV-positive.

More details:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38296


NAMIBIA: PWAs hopeful about treatment programme

Plans to provide anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-positive Namibians are slowly
taking shape, but the pace of implementing the government's treatment
programme is still cause for concern, activists told IRIN on Wednesday.

"Things are happening, but not at the pace we want; treatment is being
rolled out, but it is still not country-wide," said Conny Samaria,
advocacy manager for Lironga Eparu, an NGO assisting people living with
HIV/AIDS.

The government promised that eight sites would be distributing
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of the year. After announcing it
had budgeted US $10.9 million for the purchase of ARVs in April this year,
the health department began providing the medication in five hospitals
across the country - in Windhoek, Rundu, Oshakati and Walvis Bay.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38337


SOUTH AFRICA: Court ruling favours children oprhaned by AIDS

IRIN reported on Monday that orphaned HIV-positive children in South
Africa will be able to access antiretroviral (ARV) treatment more easily
after a High Court ruling.

The ruling allows caregivers to give permission for such an intervention.
The court ruled in favour of an application made by the AIDS Law Project
(ALP) and groups of paediatricians working in Chris Hani Baragwanath,
Coronation and Johannesburg General hospitals, who challenged existing
legislation that prevented orphaned HIV-infected children from receiving
ARV drugs.

The decision made by the Johannesburg High Court last week was limited to
three "paediatrician working groups" in Johannesburg, the country's
economic hub, attorney Liezl Gernholtz of the ALP told IRIN.

More details:  http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38297


SWAZILAND: Community provides "shoulders to cry on"

On Thursday IRIN reported that a legion of volunteer community activists
in Swaziland are identifying orphans and vulnerable children - many of
them affected by AIDS - and seeing to their nutritional, medical,
educational and psychological needs.

"The community worker is called 'lihlombe lekukhalela', which means
'shoulder to cry on'. They are the person who children know they can go to
for assistance. They can tell their troubles to this person, and find
help," Ezrome Magagula, the community volunteer coordinator for the Deputy
Prime Minister's Office, told IRIN.

The number of orphaned and vulnerable children as a result of AIDS is on
the rise, according to the latest report from the National Emergency
Response Committee on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA). Out of a national population of
approximately 950,000, an estimated 120,000 children under 15 will have
lost both parents to AIDS by 2010, up from an earlier projection of
110,000.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38365


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 880-4633
Fax: +27 11 447-5472
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web:  
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
    Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Southern Africa                  www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/safrica