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 317
13 - 19 January 2007


CONTENTS:

SOUTH AFRICA: Anti-arms campaigners renew calls for probe
SOUTH AFRICA: Closing the gap on gender-based violence
BOTSWANA: President visits San to map out the future
SWAZILAND: "Weak" civil society hampering efforts to address crises
ZIMBABWE: UN donates millions to fight foot-and-mouth
ZIMBABWE: Desperate miners dig to escape poverty
ZIMBABWE: Government accepts help to build homes
ZIMBABWE: The San help themselves out of poverty
MOZAMBIQUE: HIV/AIDS carers to be taught ARV management
ZIMBABWE: Rural health personnel join stayaway
ZIMBABWE: Calls for justice 20 years after massacre
ANGOLA: Church implicated in forced removals
COMOROS: People abandon homes as Karthala rumbles


SOUTH AFRICA: Anti-arms campaigners renew calls for probe

Anti-arms campaigners in South Africa have renewed calls for a "speedy 
investigation" into a controversial multibillion-dollar defence package 
that has already claimed a deputy president.

The deals date back to 1999, and a contract worth over US$4 billion 
involving the British arms manufacturer BAE is the latest to come under 
scrutiny. Jacob Zuma, then South Africa's deputy president, was 
dismissed in 2005 after an investigation into the deal fingered him. Two 
senior figures in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have been 
convicted of corruption and jailed.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57127


SOUTH AFRICA: Closing the gap on gender-based violence

In a country long sickened by the frighteningly high level of sexual 
violence, one of the greatest challenges facing South Africa is closing 
the gap between the rhetoric of gender equality and the reality on the 
ground.

The prevalence of gender-based violence is reflected in stark 
statistics: between April 2004 and March 2005, 55,114 cases of rape were 
reported to the police. The number of actual cases was likely much 
higher, considering only an estimated one in nine women report cases of 
sexual assault, according to the Medical Research Council (MRC). The MRC 
also estimates that a woman is killed by her intimate partner every six 
hours.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57122


BOTSWANA: President visits San to map out the future

Just over a month after a landmark court ruling allowing the San to 
return to their ancestral land in the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve 
(CKGR), Botswana's president, Festus Mogae, and a host of ministers and 
senior government officials, held a public meeting with the San to map 
out a future for the reserve.

The High Court found that the San, also known as the Bushmen, had been 
wrongfully evicted in 2002, and ordered that they be allowed to return 
to the reserve, which covers an area roughly the size of Switzerland.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57124


SWAZILAND: "Weak" civil society hampering efforts to address crises

An umbrella body of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) says 
Swaziland's "weak" civil society is hampering efforts to address the 
humanitarian crisis in the country.

In a recent analysis measuring spending priorities against humanitarian 
needs in the government budget, the Coordinating Assembly of 
Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO) listed poverty, HIV/AIDS, food 
security, governance, employment, corruption and gender-based violence 
as the key challenges facing the small, landlocked country in 2007.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57118


ZIMBABWE: UN donates millions to fight Foot-and-mouth

A US$10.3 million donation by the United Nations to Zimbabwe for 
combating foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) will be insufficient unless the 
ruling ZANU-PF party government also contributes to the fight against 
the cattle sickness, the country's veterinarians said.

The recurrence of FMD has become an almost annual event for the past 
seven years. Small-scale farmers have seen their livestock decimated by 
outbreaks of highly contagious FMD as well as anthrax, and the 
government's failure to address bovine diseases has reduced Zimbabwe's 
national herd from 1.4 million head of cattle in 2000 to about 250,000 
at present.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57119


ZIMBABWE: Desperate miners dig to escape poverty

The Zimbabwe government is struggling to contain a nationwide wave of 
illegal prospecting for precious minerals and metals that is threatening 
the viability of the already troubled mining industry, on which rests 
the hope of turning around an ailing economy by generating foreign 
currency earnings.

Analysts attribute the "frightening" magnitude of illegal mining and 
sale of vital minerals on the unofficial market to a desperate 
population seeking to beat poverty, and poor government policies 
regulating the mining industry.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57099


ZIMBABWE: Government accepts help to build homes

A partnership between Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, and the 
International Organisation for Migration (IOM), will bring about the 
construction of much-needed housing to replace homes demolished nearly 
two years ago during Operation Murambatsvina.

Also known as Operation Restore Order, Murambatsvina was touted as an 
urban "clean-up campaign" by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF 
government but condemned by the UN for breaching "both national and 
international human rights law", and left over 700,000 people homeless.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57098


ZIMBABWE: The San help themselves out of poverty

Grinding poverty has condemned Zimbabwe's tiny San population, also 
known as Bushmen, to the fringes of society, but the remaining few are 
taking it upon themselves to improve their lives.

Alleged discrimination at the hands of other ethnic communities and lack 
of government support made the San in Mgodimasili, a poverty-ravaged 
hamlet 200km northwest of Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, where about 
200 of the 1,200 San left in Zimbabwe live, team up and pool resources 
to help themselves by establishing an income-generating project.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57100


MOZAMBIQUE: HIV/AIDS carers to be taught ARV management

The Mozambican Red Cross will begin training hundreds of volunteer 
workers to manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people in their care 
living with HIV/AIDS.

The three-week training package for volunteers, who should have at least 
basic reading and writing skills, includes information on how to judge 
the preparedness of a client to start antiretroviral (ARV) medication, 
ensure that those using the drugs stick to their regimen, and the 
importance of eating nutritious food when taking anti-AIDS medicines.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57084


ZIMBABWE: Rural health personnel join stayaway

Zimbabwe's public health delivery system has ground to a halt as nurses 
and doctors in rural areas join their urban counterparts in a stayaway 
over low salaries and poor working conditions.

Health personnel, on average, earn less than US$240 (at the official 
exchange rate) a month and are demanding a salary hike of 8,000 percent, 
with hefty allowances to cushion themselves against an inflation rate of 
over 1,200 percent annually, and high transport and food costs. A 
compromise reached between the health minister and striking personnel 
has collapsed, with the strikers declaring they will not resume work 
until their monthly salaries are raised to about US$20,000.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57087


ZIMBABWE: Calls for justice 20 years after massacre

Zimbabwe's former minister of information and publicity, Jonathan Moyo, 
intends to move a bill seeking to provide justice for the massacre of 
more than 20,000 members of the minority Ndebele ethnic group by 
Zimbabwean security forces nearly 20 years ago.

Government officials have been dismissive of the proposed bill, citing 
the fact that it came from a former ally of President Robert Mugabe who 
was sacked in 2005 for his role in organising resistance to Mugabe's 
succession plans.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57086


ANGOLA: Church implicated in forced removals

The Angolan government and the Catholic Church have been slated in a 
report by rights group Amnesty International for the eviction of 
thousands of people in the capital, Luanda.

Amnesty International's report, 'Lives in ruins, forced evictions 
continue', covering the period from 2001 until May 2006, said the cycle 
of evictions in the oil- and diamond-rich country had intensified since 
2001, leaving tens of thousands without shelter. The alleged complicity 
of the Catholic Church refers to land owned by the Church before 
Angola's independence in 1975 and returned to the Church in 1998 at the 
request of the late Pope John Paul II.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57073


COMOROS: People abandon homes as Karthala rumbles

Initial fears of a full-blown eruption by Mount Karthala have calmed on 
Grande Comore, largest of the three islands in the Union of the Comoros, 
but authorities remain on red alert as the volcano continues to rumble.

Karthala fired up on Friday night last week, triggering earthquakes that 
sometimes exceeded four on the Richter scale. So far there has been no 
lava flow but the seismic activity drove frightened people out of their 
homes in case they collapsed. The island's 300,000 people have held 
their ground and no population movements have been registered.

See report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57072


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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