Weekly Round-Up - IRINSA-316: 12-Jan-07
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 316
6 - 12 January 2007
CONTENTS:
ZIMBABWE: South Africa tries to close the back door
ZIMBABWE: Scepticism over govt plan to treble ARV beneficiaries
BOTSWANA: San look set to return home
ZIMBABWE: Cost of living rockets as maize shortage bites
MALAWI: Glitches in key agriculture subsidy programme
ZIMBABWE: Govt takes aim at remaining independent media
ZAMBIA: Kids slip through the ARV net
ZIMBABWE: Govt dismisses reports of diamond smuggling
ZIMBABWE: South Africa tries to close the back door
Zimbabweans returning illegally to South Africa in search of work after
visiting family and friends for the Christmas holidays are having a
harder time than usual getting back into the country.
Where previously a backhander to immigration officials might have
sufficed, now Zimbabweans escaping their country's economic meltdown are
threatened to be thrown in jail for attempted bribery, and forced to
consider other re-entry alternatives like crossing the Limpopo River, a
natural border between the two countries where recent rains have made
the water level dangerously high.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57030
ZIMBABWE: Scepticism over govt plan to treble ARV beneficiaries
The Zimbabwean government has announced its intention to treble the
number of people on its free antiretroviral (ARV) programme in 2007, but
experts are sceptical about the health sector's capacity to achieve this
goal.
The government hopes to enrol about 160,000 people in the ARV rollout
programme by the end of 2007, but AIDS activists were quick to question
the government's targets, describing them as "empty and just too
ambitious". Continuing hyperinflation, now hovering around 1,200 percent
annually, and a scarcity of foreign currency have crippled healthcare
provision, creating shortages of drugs, medical equipment and even
personnel, who have migrated in search of better salaries and living
conditions.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57031
BOTSWANA: San look set to return home
Botswana's displaced San finally look set to return home after winning a
long-fought court battle to be allowed back to their ancestral land in
the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR), in the Kalahari Desert.
In December 2006 the High Court of Botswana ruled that a group of San,
also known as Bushmen, had been wrongfully evicted four years earlier
from the remote CKGR but two weeks after the court ruling, some 20
Bushmen were refused entry into the reserve. The First People of the
Kalahari (FPK), an advocacy group for the San community, contends that
the judgment applies to all the 50,000 San in the country and cannot be
confined to the 189 applicants involved in the litigation.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57033
ZIMBABWE: Cost of living rockets as maize shortage bites
The month-on-month cost of living for an urban family of six in Zimbabwe
has surged by 43 percent, while basic commodities, such as cooking oil,
maizemeal and flour have been "consistently unavailable" on the formal
market since the onset of the festive season, said the latest report by
the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ).
Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, which saw levels persist stubbornly above
1,000 percent in 2006, has resulted in a family of six now having to
spend US$1,406 to subsist in January, as opposed to the US$982 monthly
income required in December 2006. The CCZ noted that the steepest
increases were recorded in education (261.9 percent), bread (179.7
percent), white sugar (166.7 percent) and cooking oil (78.3 percent).
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57026
MALAWI: Glitches in key agriculture subsidy programme
As the planting season draws to a close, the Malawian government has
pronounced its subsidised fertiliser programme a success, but some
small-scale farmers claim they have yet to benefit.
The US$50 million programme aims to distribute three million fertiliser
coupons to farmers before the planting season ends next month, but in
the southern districts of Blantyre, Machinga and Zomba, where some
farmers' maize is almost 30cm high, others claim that using chiefs and
local leaders as "custodians of the coupons" has led to widespread
corruption.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56965
ZIMBABWE: Govt takes aim at remaining independent media
There are renewed fears that the Zimbabwean government is intensifying
its campaign against the few remaining privately owned media
organisations, in the wake of severe press criticisms of its human
rights violations, a dismal economic record and President Robert
Mugabe's plans to extend his stay in power by another two years.
The government has stripped newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube of his
Zimbabwean citizenship on the grounds that he is Zambian. Media analysts
said the Zimbabwean government allegedly wanted to use the citizenship
issue as a means of closing down the country's two remaining independent
weekly newspapers, which Ncube publishes, The Standard and The Zimbabwe
Independent, or enable the authorities to hand control of the newspapers
to people sympathetic to the ruling ZANU-PF party.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56953
ZAMBIA: Kids slip through the ARV net
A shortage of paediatric testing kits and specialised medical staff in
Zambia is causing delays in rolling out antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for
children infected with HIV/AIDS.
Despite the National AIDS Council (NAC) having enough ARV medication to
treat about 19,000 children, only about 5,000 are able to access the
drugs.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57046
ZIMBABWE: Govt dismisses reports of diamond smuggling
Zimbabwe's government on Friday dismissed reports that diamonds were
being smuggled into neighbouring South Africa by a Zimbabwean company as
"politically motivated rumours" cooked up by its enemies, who had an
agenda of effecting regime change.
Last month, the New York-based WDC said it had received reports that
Zimbabwean diamonds were possibly being combined with blood diamonds
from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and smuggled into
neighbouring South Africa, where they were being certified as legitimate
and exported.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57054
IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 895-1900
Fax: +27 11 784-6759
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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