Weekly Round-Up - IRINSA-350: 16-Nov-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
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e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za
SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 350
16 November 2007
CONTENTS:
LESOTHO: Hopes pinned on rain
ZIMBABWE: White farmers to take their case to SADC
AFRICA: New improved disaster response tool
ZIMBABWE: EU to scale up aid
LESOTHO: Women's lib not quite there yet
LESOTHO: Saving the land
SOUTH AFRICA: Gender inequality turns fatal
ZIMBABWE: New forex policy "paralyses" NGOs
MALAWI: Government pushes green vehicles
NAMIBIA: Land reform reproducing poverty
ZIMBABWE: Medical fees hike the "final nail"
SOUTH AFRICA: DDT finds favour in fight against malaria
GLOBAL: Simple measures could radically reduce TB
LESOTHO: Hopes pinned on rain
Rain in the past two weeks has brought some respite to Lesotho's
farmers, who are struggling with one of the country's worst droughts in
three decades.
They are hoping for a more bountiful harvest this time, but with more
than 400,000 people food insecure, some aid workers say it will take
more than the rains to overcome the impact of the drought.
See full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75266
ZIMBABWE: White farmers to take their case to SADC
Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a Zimbabwean rights organisation
advocating the plight of about 4,300 white commercial farmers
dispossessed of their land by the government's fast-track land reform
programme, says it will take its case to the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) Tribunal.
JAG's decision to resort to the tribunal was spurred by a Supreme Court
ruling last week that the government could acquire all farming equipment
and machinery belonging to dispossessed white farmers.
The SADC Tribunal was established by Article 9 of the SADC treaty as a
central institution of the regional body in 1992, but only launched in
2005, and has a mandate to ensure that member countries adhere to the
rule of law.
See full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75262
AFRICA: New improved disaster response tool
A new tool has been developed to help humanitarian agencies and donors
analyse a disaster situation, make a comparison with another disaster
that might be unfolding in a different part of the globe, and plan and
prioritise their response to a particular crisis accordingly.
The Food Security Analysis Unit of the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation in Somalia developed a comprehensive situation analysis
early warning tool in 2004, which uses a "common currency to describe
the nature and severity of a crisis".
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75303
ZIMBABWE: EU to scale up aid
Despite "targeted sanctions imposed on some individuals in government",
the European Union (EU) has "not abandoned" Zimbabweans, according to a
visiting EU official.
Xavier Marchal, who led 14 EU ambassadors on a 2-day tour of projects
funded by the EU in southern Zimbabwe, including Bulawayo, the country's
second city, which is experiencing a diarrhoea outbreak. The European
Commission (EC) and individual EU countries, which are Zimbabwe's
biggest donors, intend to scale up their funding in 2008, said Marchal.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75263
LESOTHO: Women's lib not quite there yet
A year after Lesotho's parliament granted women equal status, few are
aware of the legal changes this could bring about in their lives.
The new Married Persons Equality Act not only overturned the requirement
that women obtain sponsorship from a male relative to acquire property,
but husbands must now obtain their wives' permission to acquire property
or borrow money from the bank.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75305
LESOTHO: Saving the land
The irony of saving cattle from dangerous dongas, or ravines, created as
a result of overgrazing - a common sight in Lesotho's countryside - is
lost on herder Moteophala Tanyani, whose sole objective at this moment
is to carry a calf up a steep eroded hillside to safety.
Overgrazing of marginal land by cattle is a main contributing factor to
the reduction of plants that retain topsoil when the rains come.
Incorrect farming techniques also contribute to soil erosion, a greater
conservation threat to the environment than drought; seasonal rains come
and go but soil erosion never ceases.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75326
SOUTH AFRICA: Gender inequality turns fatal
She was a mother, a nurse, a wife and she had had enough, but days after
laying charges of abuse against her husband, in a township just outside
Johannesburg, South Africa, Roseline Mathole, 49, was missing. A week
later, she was dead.
With one of the highest murder rates in the world, South Africa's police
service reported in 2006 that in about 20 percent of all murders the
victims were related to perpetrators, and many of these crimes took
place in the home, which was normally outside the reach of conventional
policing.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75332
ZIMBABWE: New forex policy "paralyses" NGOs
Zimbabwean non-governmental organisations (NGOs) claim their operations
have been paralysed since the Reserve Bank raided their foreign currency
accounts (FCAs).
In his mid-year Monetary Policy Statement at the beginning of October,
Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said NGOs would
now maintain 'mirror accounts' that would reflect how much money they
had in the bank, while the actual money would be kept by the RBZ. Under
the new arrangement NGOs have to seek the reserve bank's permission to
use their money.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75335
MALAWI: Government pushes green vehicles
As crude oil prices hit a record high, the Malawi government has
launched a project to ensure that all vehicles in the country switch to
the cheaper and greener alternative fuel - ethanol - in a few years.
Besides promoting the production of ethanol from sugar molasses, the
5-year US$1 million project, funded by the Malawi government, is
investigating the possibility of converting conventional vehicles into
dual-fuel vehicles, or flexible-fuel - 'flex-fuel' - vehicles (FFVs),
which can run on a combination of fuels.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75282
NAMIBIA: Land reform reproducing poverty
Namibia's land reform programme is a "zero sum game" that merely swaps
one form of poverty for another in its current resettlement programme,
according to an independent report on attempts to find an equitable
solution to racially skewed land ownership.
The Legal Assistance Centre, a non-governmental human rights
organisation based in the capital, Windhoek, said in a report reviewing
the achievements so far of Namibia's land reform programme, No
Resettlement Available, that "most [resettlement farms] are not doing
very well; in fact, it is not apparent that any are." The size of the
farms allocated and the agricultural methods practiced were among the
problems identified.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75333
ZIMBABWE: Medical fees hike the "final nail"
As Zimbabwe's economic woes continue to load a mounting burden on an
already weakened health delivery system, recent hikes in doctor's fees
have now moved even basic medical care beyond the reach of most.
The Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe, an independent
organisation that sets medical costs with the approval of government,
recently announced new consultation and laboratory test fees, adding to
the financial squeeze that most Zimbabweans feel. Doctors' consultation
and laboratory fees have increased 10-fold in some cases.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75340
SOUTH AFRICA: DDT finds favour in fight against malaria
After years of resistance, people living in the rural areas of South
Africa are beginning to embrace the use of DDT as an effective agent in
the fight against malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
The annual anti-malaria treatment involves spraying the interior walls
of a house with dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), a synthetic
chemical that has been banned for decades in many countries because of
its harmful effect on people and the environment, and the belief that
there are alternative and less harmful insecticides, like pyrethroids,
which are thought to be just as effective.
See report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75354
GLOBAL: Simple measures could radically reduce TB
Better healthcare measures could curb the tide of tuberculosis (TB) and
other lung diseases, even with existing drugs and technology. This was
the final message from the 38th World Conference on Lung Health, in Cape
Town.
At the conclusion of the 4-day meeting this week, Nils Billo, executive
director of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung
Diseases (The Union), said that improving infection control, even using
simple and cheap methods, could significantly reduce the spread of TB
and its death toll, especially among people with HIV.
See reports: http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75304 and
http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75233
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