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 223
19 - 25 March 2005


CONTENTS:
ANGOLA: Outgoing ambassador urges greater transparency and donor
   patience
ZIMBABWE: Parliamentary election pits "Tony Blair" against Robert
   Mugabe
ZAMBIA: Country could be facing severe food shortages
SWAZILAND: Scant hope of economic and political progress
NAMIBIA: Fishing industry gasping for air, says expert
COMOROS: Strong-arm tactics threaten political stability
BOTSWANA: Reintroduction of school fees draws mixed response



ANGOLA: Outgoing ambassador urges greater transparency and donor 
patience

British Ambassador to Angola John Thompson this week urged Angola to 
cement a sound relationship with the International Monetary Fund and 
embrace the UK Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

"It is essentially a question of building up the trust, and that trust 
will then hopefully transmit itself to the donor community but, more 
significantly, the investor community," Ambassador Thompson, who is 
retiring at the end of March, told IRIN.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46316


Health officials identify Marburg virus, 96 dead

A deadly haemorrhagic fever, which has claimed the lives of 96 people, 
mainly children, in Angola's northern Uige province, has been identified 
as the rare Marburg virus, officials from the Ministry of Health and 
World Health Organisation (WHO) said late on Tuesday.

The illness, characterised by high fever, severe headaches, vomiting and 
diarrhoea, was first spotted in Uige and is from the same family as the 
deadly Ebola virus.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46271


ZIMBABWE: Parliamentary election pits "Tony Blair" against Robert Mugabe

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is in for a hiding when he contests 
Zimbabwe's 31 March parliamentary poll, according to 65-year-old 
Thokozile Hlatshwayo, a subsistence farmer in rural Matabeleland.

Although she has not voted in the last few elections, she is itching to 
cast her ballot in this month's poll, and aims to be among the first in 
the queue to register her support for the ruling ZANU-PF party. "He 
[Blair] should stay away from us. What does he want in our country? Why 
should he participate in our election?"

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46232


Expatriates an untapped development resource, IOM

Zimbabwean expatriates living in the United Kingdom and South Africa are 
an untapped development resource, says a study by the International 
Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The organisation conducted a survey of 1,000 Zimbabwean expatriates in 
South Africa and the UK last year and found that, apart from economic 
remittances to Zimbabwe, "nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of 
respondents wanted to participate in a skills transfer programme and ... 
77 percent wanted to contribute to the development of Zimbabwe".

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46275


Media monitor condemns radio jamming

Zimbabwe's Media Monitoring Project (MMPZ) this week described the 
alleged jamming of a London-based anti-government radio station as the 
"latest deliberate assault on freedom of expression".

The reported jamming of 'Short Wave (SW) Radio Africa', run by a group 
of exiled Zimbabweans, was confirmed by the BBC Monitoring Services, 
which said the "interfering signals were present only for the period of 
the SW Radio Africa programming" on 16 March.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46225


ZAMBIA: Country could be facing severe food shortages

Zambia could be facing severe food shortages, a disaster official told 
IRIN on Tuesday.

"We found 40 to 80 percent crop failure in five provinces [in the 
southwest] - the situation could be worse than the severe maize shortage 
after crop failure in 2000-01," said Stanley Ndhlovu, disaster 
management coordinator with the Zambia Red Cross Society.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46243


WFP urges donors to provide funds as drought looms

Zambia could be facing a "drastic shortfall" in its maize output, and 
the World Food Programme (WFP) has called on donors to step forward with 
funding.

WFP spokeswoman Jo Woods told IRIN that the agency, which was part of a 
Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC) that toured a drought-affected 
arc of five southwestern provinces last week, recorded crop failure of 
up to 90 percent in some areas.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46282


SWAZILAND: Scant hope of economic and political progress

Reports by Swaziland's major business and civic organisations paint a 
gloomy economic picture, predicting that the tiny landlocked country may 
never return to the boom years of the 1990s, when it benefited from 
economic sanctions against neighbouring South Africa during apartheid.

"The issue of fiscal discipline and the prudent management of the fiscus 
continue to be a concern: the spending priorities, which focus on 
capital projects such as the Sikhupe Airport; the dramatic increases in 
civil service salaries within a bloated civil service; the increasing 
expenditure on defence, when the only war we are fighting is HIV/AIDS, 
are worrying signals," said Treasure Maphanga, CEO of the Federation of 
Swaziland Employers and Chamber of Commerce (FSE/CC).

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46320


UNAIDS praises community efforts to combat HIV/AIDS

Swaziland's efforts to tackle AIDS at the community level have won the 
praise of the executive director of the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS 
(UNAIDS), Peter Piot.

"I have seen how communities are standing up to fight against the 
scourge, especially the women, who are initiating projects to help those 
infected and affected, including orphans and vulnerable children," Piot 
said at the weekend.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46233


Coping with diminishing water resources

Deepening poverty continues to complicate efforts by Swazi authorities 
to raise awareness of water resource management, officials acknowledged 
at a ceremony to mark World Water Day on Tuesday.

The ministry of natural resources noted that the government had found it 
difficult to regulate water usage, despite existing legislation aimed at 
improving efficiency.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46253


NAMIBIA: Fishing industry gasping for air, says expert

A three-year battle with a weak US dollar, high fuel prices and 
declining catches have left many Namibian fishing companies on the verge 
of losing credit support from banks and facing closure, according to a 
financial expert.

At the first public business meeting ever held on the fishing industry, 
bank manager Werner Thesen asked the Namibian government to intervene 
with a moratorium on quota levies and usage fees, to allow companies to 
overcome their cash-flow problems and reduce overhead costs.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46211


New president aims to tackle corruption

Namibia's President Hifikepunye Pohamba identified corruption, and 
economic and rural development as priorities when announcing his cabinet 
and the creation of a new ministry of safety and security shortly after 
his inauguration this week.

Promising to continue the legacy of founding president Sam Nujoma, 
69-year-old Pohamba declared a "zero tolerance for waste and corruption" 
in the public sector.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46250


COMOROS: Strong-arm tactics threaten political stability

Human rights activists on the Comoran island of Anjouan have accused the 
government of riding roughshod over basic civil liberties, which has 
contributed to growing hostility between the state and the local 
population.

The latest incident occurred in early March, when ongoing public 
protests over a teachers' strike left two high school students dead, 
amid allegations of heavy-handed police conduct. In what it claimed were 
legitimate concerns over national security, authorities on the tiny 
island imposed an immediate curfew in the capital, Mutsamudu.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46280


BOTSWANA: Reintroduction of school fees draws mixed response

The planned reintroduction of school fees in Botswana from January 2006 
has received a mixed response from opposition parties and educators, 
IRIN reported on Tuesday.

Minister of Education Jacob Nkate said school fees were part of the 
government's cost recovery strategy, instituted as a result of the 
increasing demand for social services in the face of the country's 
declining revenue.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46252


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 895-1900
Fax: +27 11 784-6759
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 
2005


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Southern Africa                  www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/safrica