Weekly Round-Up - IRINSA-307: 10-Nov-06
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 307
4 - 10 November 2006
CONTENTS:
ZAMBIA: Kabwe, Africa's most toxic city
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Climate change threatens regional food security
ZIMBABWE: Undertakers report booming business
ZIMBABWE: Govt issues 99-year leases to boost food production
SWAZILAND: Parliamentarians go on 'strike'
ANGOLA-ZAMBIA: Refugees return home armed with the knowledge of
HIV/AIDS prevention
ZAMBIA: Masai healers fill public health services void
ZAMBIA: Kabwe, Africa's most toxic city
Kabwe, home to 300,000 people, is Africa's most polluted city and has
gained the dubious distinction of being ranked as the world's fourth
most polluted site, according to a survey published by the Blacksmith
Institute, a New York-based organisation monitoring pollution in the
developing world. Kabwe, Zambia's second largest city, grew up around
the 1902 discovery of lead deposits about 150km north of the capital,
Lusaka, and became Africa's largest lead mine. Veins of lead ore, with
concentrations as high as 20 percent, were mined deep into the ground;
smelting operations were established nearby and ran almost continuously
until 1994.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56306
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Climate change threatens regional food security
Climate change could force drought-prone areas of southern Africa to
abandon agriculture permanently in the next 50 years, according to new
research. As a result of global warming, "weather events will become
less predictable and more intense - heavier rainfall and longer and more
frequent drought cycles", said Martin Krause, regional technical advisor
on climate change with the United Nations Development Programme and the
Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF), which helps raise funds for
projects in developing countries.
The projections are contained in a recent report, 'Africa - Up in Smoke
2', an update of an earlier report produced by the British-based Working
Group on Climate Change and Development. Southern Africa has been
grappling with a series of droughts for the past six years, which has
hit regional food security. This year was slightly better, with most
countries receiving seasonal rainfall on time, yet humanitarian agencies
estimate that at least three million people will need food aid until the
end of the lean season in March 2007.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56278
ZIMBABWE: Undertakers report booming business
One sector of Zimbabwe's depressed economy is experiencing boom times.
For those providing services for the dead, business is very healthy. An
area on the western fringes of the central business district in the
capital, Harare, has been dubbed 'Death Valley' in recognition of the
concentration of businesses like undertakers, coffin manufacturers and
funeral insurance companies. Although the capital has six registered
funeral parlours, a further 21 unregistered parlours have sprouted up as
a result of high demand for funeral services. Attempts by the
authorities to shut them down merely drove them underground and they
have reappeared as backyard businesses across the city.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56290
ZIMBABWE: Govt issues 99-year leases to boost food production
In a bid to boost food production, the Zimbabwean government gave
99-year leases to the first batch of resettled black commercial farmers
on Thursday. Ngoni Masoka, permanent secretary in the ministry of lands,
said in a statement that the leases demonstrated government's commitment
to empowering black farmers who had benefited from the government's
controversial fast-track land reform programme. The leases will provide
resettled commercial farmers with security of tenure, which could serve
as collateral for loans to procure inputs. They have cited their
inability to raise money and uncertainty about their future as reasons
for the drop in production.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56267
SWAZILAND: Parliamentarians go on 'strike'
Swaziland's parliamentarians have embarked on an unprecedented stayaway
to protest against Cabinet's inability to get grants paid to the
elderly. Late last month, health and social welfare Minister Njabulo
Mabuza blamed budgetary constraints and "technical problems" for the
failure to pay grants to widows and the elderly. Two-thirds of the
country's roughly 1 million people live on US$2 or less day, and many of
those aged 60 years or older rely on the government's quarterly pay-out
of R240 ($32), or R80 ($10.50) a month, to subsist, often while bearing
the burden of caring for HIV/AIDS orphans.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56308
ANGOLA-ZAMBIA: Refugees return home armed with the knowledge of HIV/AIDS
prevention
Four years after a ceasefire ended decades of civil war in neighbouring
Angola, Zambia is still home to more than 25,000 Angolan refugees
awaiting repatriation. Zambia's HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is about 18
percent; in Angola it is around 4 percent. The challenge is how to keep
Angola's relative low rates of HIV/AIDS in check. About 170,000 refugees
have already gone home, some having fled the fighting in the 1970s. They
are returning to a country where war-induced isolation has helped keep
HIV/AIDS relatively low. The situation poses an acute problem: Will
peace and the reopening of the country mean a jump in infection rates?
The problem is aggravated by Angola's low rates of knowledge about
HIV/AIDS - what the disease is and how to avoid it.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56285
ZAMBIA: Masai healers fill public health services void
Rising demand for the services of traditional healers is drawing
Tanzanian Masai practitioners across the border to fill the void left by
the creaking Zambian public health system, but their discounted prices
are upsetting their local counterparts. Zambia's inadequate public
health system and the relative wealth in the economic heartland of
Copperbelt Province and Lusaka have lured the Masai, but their remedies,
known by the Swahili word Dawa, are substantially undercutting prices
offered by the local healers. Nakaraga's charges range from US$5 to $20,
while the average Zambian healer charges in kind by demanding goods like
goats and cattle, valued at about $300 in monetary terms.
Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56264
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