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SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 246
27 August - 2 September 2005


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: US $120 million keeps IMF at bay, but food crisis still looms
MALAWI: UN makes $88 million "smart appeal" to head off hunger
SOUTH AFRICA: Zuma controversy may threaten stability, say analysts
SWAZILAND: Community libraries prove the power of access to knowledge
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Relief agencies concerned over escalating maize prices
MOZAMBIQUE: Bipartisan bickering perpetuates mistrust
MADAGASCAR: Campaign launched to immunise 650,000 children against
   polio


ZIMBABWE: US $120 million keeps IMF at bay, but food crisis still looms

In a surprise move, cash-strapped Zimbabwe has paid off a substantial
part of its arrears to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but
economists are raising questions over the government's capacity to
import enough maize to feed up to 4 million people facing food
shortages.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono told the official Herald newspaper
that the government had paid back US $120 million of the US $295 million
it owed, saying the funds had been sourced from exporters and holders of
free funds.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48868


UN and govt to rework text of $30m flash appeal

The United Nations and Zimbabwean authorities went back to the drawing
board on Tuesday after President Robert Mugabe's government raised
serious objections to a draft emergency appeal to provide immediate aid
to 300,000 people.

The UN flash appeal would cover those hardest hit by the government's
controversial urban cleanup campaign, but last week Mugabe refused to
endorse the US $30 million request after raising questions about the
text.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48822


"Third way" runs into criticism

Reviled by both sides of the political divide in Zimbabwe, sacked
information minister Jonathan Moyo is back at the centre of controversy,
promoting a "third way" to break the logjam between the ruling party and
its main opposition.

Moyo, the only independent candidate to win a seat in the parliamentary
elections in March, argues that his United People's Movement (UPM)
offers an alternative to ZANU-PF's 25-year grip on power, and the
labour-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has lost three
elections in a row since 2000 in ballots many regard as rigged.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48847


Rights activists condemn constitutional changes

Zimbabwean human rights activists condemned sweeping constitutional
amendments approved by parliament on Tuesday, arguing that the
government has undermined basic freedoms.

Describing the proposed changes to the constitution as the "worst piece
of legislation yet", Joseph James, president of the Law Society of
Zimbabwe, said lawyers "across political and ideological lines" had, for
the first time, taken a stance against the new legislation.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48833


Children living in borderland limbo

Lucas Mavhube, 17, sat hiding under a clump of bushes in the dark, a few
kilometres from the border gates at Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, waiting for an
opportunity to slip through the fence that separates his country from
South Africa.

"I waited and waited. My time came when I saw some soldiers go past the
security gate, late in the night - the guards were distracted, and I
then slipped through."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48845


Cleanup campaign squeezes rural communities dry

The Zimbabwean government's clampdown on informal trade has dealt a
heavy blow to rural communities already struggling to make ends meet in
the wake of another dry spell in the southern Beitbridge district.

Sikhululekile Makusha, a small-scale farmer in the village of Chitikwa,
about 10 km outside the town of Beitbridge, used to earn more than US $1
a day selling vegetables - enough to support herself and her three
children. "Now they don't let us sell anything - I have nothing to feed
my children," she said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48803


MALAWI: UN makes $88 million "smart appeal" to head off hunger

The United Nations launched a US $88 million appeal on Tuesday to cover
both immediate food aid needs and to boost next season's agricultural
production in drought-hit Malawi.

At least 4.2 million people - 34 percent of the landlocked country's
population - are at risk of serious food shortages until the new harvest
in March 2006. There is also concern that without intervention to raise
output, Malawi's impoverished farm households could face another food
crisis next year.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48829


DFID defends spending on consultants for aid projects

News that foreign consultants in Malawi are lavishly spending British
aid money on hotels and meals has ignited controversy.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that over a period of four
years, some P586,423 (US $1 million) of a P3 million ($5.3 million)
donation by the United Kingdom's Department for International
Development (DFID) to a project aimed at strengthening Malawi's
parliament and civil society was spent on hotels, while another P126,062
($226,395) went on meals.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48832


Defiant Mutharika's loan scheme provokes opposition

President Bingu wa Mutharika plans to go ahead with the distribution of
loans to the country's poor from the Malawi Rural Development Fund
(Mardef) despite objections raised by parliamentarians.

Parliament suspended the MK 5 billion (US $40 million) loan scheme in
June after allegations that Mardef money had largely benefited
supporters of Mutharika's recently formed Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP).

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48869


SOUTH AFRICA: Zuma controversy may threaten stability, say analysts

The ongoing controversy over axed former deputy-president Jacob Zuma,
who faces charges of corruption, is a potential threat to South Africa's
stability, warned two leading analysts this week.

Zuma was fired by President Thabo Mbeki soon after the fraud trial of
his former financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, came to an end.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48805


Farm workers right to tenure still under threat

The number of mainly black workers evicted from farms has increased
since South Africa's democratic era began in 1994, primarily due to
perceptions of political and economic risk, says a new study.

According to the National Evictions Survey, conducted by the Nkuzi
Development Association and Social Surveys, just under 1.7 million
people were evicted from farms in the period between 1994 and the end of
2004, compared to 942,000 in the previous decade.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48844


SWAZILAND: Community libraries prove the power of access to knowledge

African libraries are discovering new roles in society - no longer
stuffy repositories of tattered books, but centres of community
relevance where the youth can learn the habits of good citizenship.

"We are rethinking what a library is supposed to be. In Africa it can be
much more than a warehouse to keep books," Katherine Parr, a consultant
with the International Reading Association (IRA) working in Uganda, told
IRIN.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48859


The role of women stirs debate at the reed dance

Throngs of young Swazi women and girls gathered on Sunday to deliver
bundles of reeds cut a week earlier and transported on foot to the Queen
Mother's residence in Eludzidzini.

Wearing little more than the short, beaded skirts and tasselled scarves
that traditionally denote virginity, the girls danced and chanted their
way through cold, drizzling rain to the Queen Mother's quarters, pausing
only to mug enthusiastically for tourists' cameras.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48834


SOUTHERN AFRICA: Relief agencies concerned over escalating maize prices

Soaring maize prices in Southern Africa have sparked "serious concern"
by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), particularly in Malawi, which
has suffered its worst harvest in a decade.

The initial food needs assessment in Malawi by the UN, NGOs and
government was based on a maize price of between 15 and 18 US cents per
kg, "but already some markets have recorded prices between 22 and 25
kwacha [17 to 20 cents] per kg - clearly, needs are going to increase,"
said WFP Regional Director Mike Sackett.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48867


MOZAMBIQUE: Bipartisan bickering perpetuates mistrust

Residual mistrust between Mozambique's major political parties continues
to threaten the country's hard-won democracy, according to political
observers.

Although the FRELIMO government and the rebel movement, RENAMO, finally
signed a peace agreement in 1992 after 16 years of war, neither side has
totally let their guard down.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48846


MADAGASCAR: Campaign launched to immunise 650,000 children against polio

The re-emergence of polio in Madagascar has forced health authorities to
launch a nationwide immunisation campaign covering 650,000 children
under the age of five.

Two cases of the virus were reported in southern Madagascar in the last
few weeks, which officials said had set back eradication efforts by at
least three years.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48824


IRIN-SA
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Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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