Weekly anb07054.txt #7

[anb-bia <anb-bia at village.uunet.be>]

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 05-07-2001      PART #4/7

* Malawi. Prisonniers graciés  -  Le 2 juillet, à la veille du 37e 
anniversaire de l'indépendance du pays (le 6 juillet), le président Muluzi 
a ordonné la libération de 880 prisonniers de la maison d'arrêt de Zomba. 
M. Muluzi a effectué une visite surprise à cette prison, la plus grande du 
pays, pour se rendre compte des conditions de vie des détenus. Le chef de 
l'Etat a fait savoir que les prisonniers ayant une bonne conduite et ceux 
qui sont malades seraient les bénéficiaires de la mesure de grâce. La 
plupart des 7.000 prisonniers du Malawi, répartis dans diverses 
institutions carcérales, vivent dans des conditions épouvantables qui les 
exposent très souvent à des maladies contagieuses.   (PANA, Sénégal, 2 
juillet 2001)

* Malawi. President frees 880 prisoners  -  Malawian President Bakili 
Muluzi has released 880 prisoners as part of activities marking Malawian 
independence from Britain. There were emotional scenes late on the 
afternoon of 2 July at Malawi's main prison, the Zomba Central Prison, 
where the President was a surprise visitor. The president had undertaken 
the surprise visit to see the conditions the prisoners were living under. 
Mr Muluzi said those to benefit from his clemency would be those who had 
shown good behaviour and those who were sick. Most of Malawi's estimated 
7,500 prisoners live in appalling conditions, often contracting contagious 
diseases like tuberculosis and scabies. Most live on bare floors. It was 
for these inmates that the President brought at least 2,000 blankets and 
donated $27,000 to look into the prisoners' immediate needs. Soon after the 
prisoners learnt the country's President was amongst them, a group of 
prisoners fell to their knees, chanting: "Forgive us, boss, we have 
repented, we won't do it again." The President stole the moment by ordering 
the immediate release of three women. One of them confessed to the 
President she was doing time for stealing a baby because she was barren, 
while the other two were in prison for beating up other women in fits of 
jealousy. Perhaps the most heart-rending moment was when the President 
cuddled a young baby who was born in the prison. The President ordered that 
the prisoners should be released by Thursday 5 July, in time for Friday's 
Independence Day celebrations scheduled to take place in the northern city 
of Mzuzu.   (BBC News, UK, 3 July 2001)

* Mali/Guinée. Conférence islamique  -  La 28e Conférence islamique des 
ministres des Affaires étrangères de l'Organisation de la conférence 
islamique (OCI), qui a pris fin le 27 juin à Bamako, a dans une de ses 
résolutions, dénoncé "l'agression dont est victime la Guinée". Se disant 
préoccupés par la recrudescence des attaques armées contre la Guinée, les 
ministres se disent solidaires de la Guinée. Ils invitent l'OCI à 
"s'impliquer dans la recherche de solutions afin de mettre définitivement 
un terme à ces agressions". - Les ministres se sont aussi félicités de la 
décision des pays du Sahel de mettre sur pied des commissions nationales de 
lutte contre la prolifération d'armes légères, et ont invité les Etats 
africains à renforcer leur coopération en vue d'éradiquer ce trafic 
illicite.   (PANA, 28 juin 2001)

* Mali. President faces tough challenge  -  A former Malian prime minister 
has launched a new political party representing the stiffest challenge yet 
to President Alpha Oumar Konare in next year's elections. Boubakar Keita's 
new party, the Rally for Mali, is the 74th to register, and has caused a 
split in the ruling Adema party, of which Mr Keita was a member. Twenty 
thousand people attended the launch of Mr Keita's party. Such was the state 
of excitement that Mr Keita's bodyguards found it almost impossible to 
clear a path through the crowd for him to make his way to the podium. Mr 
Keita will doubtless be one of the most formidable presidential candidates 
in Mali's elections, due in eight months time. The Rally for Mali is now 
the second most powerful party in the National Assembly, with about 30 
parliamentary deputies leaving Adema to join the new party. The support for 
Mr Keita's party comes almost exclusively from disaffected members of 
Adema. This is partly because his sphere of influence remains with the 
ruling party, given that he was so close to President Konare for so long. 
It is thought that the alliance between the two men crumbled after Mr Keita 
refused to support the president in his quest for a third term. Although Mr 
Konare has always denied that he wants to stand for a third term, there 
have been reports that he would like to, despite that fact that the 
constitution forbids it.   (BBC News, UK, 3 July 2001)

* Mali. Trafic d'enfants passible de prison  -  Le Mali, un des premiers 
fournisseurs de main-d'oeuvre enfantine, vient d'adopter un texte punissant 
de cinq à vingt ans de prison les trafiquants. Des enfants, achetés à leur 
famille, travaillent dans les plantations de café ou de cacao des pays 
voisins plus riches (Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria) ou comme 
domestiques.   (La Croix, France, 3 juillet 2001)

* Morocco/France. Moroccan dissident's murder exposed  -  Revelations have 
been emerging in France and Morocco about a political intrigue that has 
remained unresolved since the mid 1960s. The story involves the unexplained 
disappearance of the Moroccan opposition leader, Mehdi Ben Barka, while he 
was in exile in Paris. The French newspaper, Le Monde, and a Moroccan 
magazine, Le Journal, have jointly published evidence suggesting that 
French and Moroccan intelligence hid details of Mr Ben Barka's apparent 
murder and the subsequent disposal of his body in a bath full of acid. A 
leftist opposition leader, Mr Ben Barka was a thorn in the side of the 
Moroccan government in the 1960s at a time when the country was politically 
repressive and the new king, Hassan II, was trying to assert his authority. 
Mr Ben Barka fled to France, whereupon a Moroccan court sentenced him in 
absentia to death. Mr Ben Barka seemed set to live his life in exile, and 
then suddenly, in October 1965, he was abducted in broad daylight from a 
Paris cafe. He was never seen again, and his fate has been the subject of 
much speculation ever since. The French newspaper, Le Monde, has just 
published the results of an exhaustive enquiry in which, for the first 
time, both senior Moroccan and French intelligence officials have 
corroborated key details. They make startling reading. The paper concludes 
that Moroccan intelligence hatched a plot to kidnap Mr Ben Barka, but that 
things got out of hand. Mr Ben Barka is said to have been tortured to death 
in a French hideaway at the hands of the Moroccan security chief, General 
Oufkir. With French official connivance, the body was flown to Rabat, where 
officials are quoted as confirming that it was disposed of in a bath of 
acid.   (BBC News, UK, 1 July 2001)

* Maroc. Commissaire européen en visite  -  Le commissaire européen au 
Commerce Pascal Lamy est arrivé le 28 juin au Maroc pour une visite de 
travail de trois jours destinée notamment à exprimer "l'appui constant" de 
l'Union européenne à un pays considéré comme "partenaire privilégié". Le 
Maroc et l'UE sont liés depuis mars 2000 par un accord d'association qui 
prévoit un démantèlement douanier progressif et la création d'une zone de 
libre-échange à l'horizon 2010. L'UE est le premier et principal partenaire 
commercial du Royaume dont elle absorbe 70% des exportations et fournit 60% 
de ses importations. Selon le quotidien casablancais l'Economiste, M. Lamy 
souhaite promouvoir les investissements européens qu'il juge insuffisants, 
favoriser la suppression des nombreuses entraves administratives au Maroc, 
et relancer un processus euro-méditerranéen qui "bouge dans le bon sens 
mais pas assez vite".   (AP, 28 juin 2001)

* Morocco. 134 million dollars raised against drought  -  The Moroccan 
government has mobilised about 134 million US dollars to fight the effects 
of drought in the country, State television has announced. The amount comes 
under the third phase of a national programme set up by the government to 
help farmers severely affected by drought. The credits will finance 
investment and employment in the agricultural sector, water supply to 
villages and the protection of forests against degradation, the Television 
quoted Agriculture Minister Ismail Alaoui as saying. Alaoui said the 
government has also released 1.2 billion dirhams to alleviate the farmers' 
debt burden. (11 dirhams=1USD).   (PANA, Senegal, 3 July 2001)

* Mozambique. Overhauling Mozambique's health system  -  The Sant'Egidio 
Community of Rome has initiated a plan to combat AIDS in Mozambique, 
entailing an overhaul of the country's health system. Launched in December 
with an investment of more than $1 million, the project provides for 
European doctors, members of Sant'Egidio, to work in Mozambique. Leonardo 
Palombi, associate professor of epidemiology at Rome's Tor Vergata 
University, is collaborating in the project. He said: "AIDS is literally 
mowing down the young African generations, the continent's new forces. In 
the sub-Saharan area, there are 15 million people who are sick. In 
Mozambique, we have 1.25 million out of a population of 18 million." To 
keep down the costs, the project uses medicines with the same active 
ingredients as those of the best-known AIDS medicines, following an 
initiative carried out on a large scale in Brazil and India. The project 
also has financed the restructuring of the country's three main 
pharmaceutical laboratories, in the cities of Maputo, Beira and Nampula, 
especially in order to offer accurate blood analyses. Health personnel will 
be trained, and hospital equipment modernized. Improvements will also be 
made in maternity departments. Each year, almost 25,000 of the country's 
800,000 newborns are seropositive.   (Zenit, Italy, 2 July 2001)

* Mozambique. Aide japonaise  -  Le Japon a annoncé le 28 juin qu'il allait 
débloquer 2,8 milliards de yens (environ $26,6 millions) pour des projets 
de développement dans le centre et le sud du Mozambique. La subvention 
servira à la construction ou la rénovation d'écoles, et à la réhabilitation 
d'un vaste programme d'irrigation.   (PANA, Sénégal, 29 juin 2001)

* Namibia. Farmers push for land reform  -  Black and white Namibian 
farmers joined forces on 2 July to put pressure on the government to speed 
up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm invasions. "Although many of 
our people... need land to improve their living conditions, political 
anarchy, violence, land grabbing and farm invasions and mismanagement 
should be avoided at all costs," Moses Katjiuongua said at the launch of a 
farmers' group called Beyond 2000 Movement. He warned the government to 
deal swiftly with land reform or face "another Zimbabwe," where hundreds of 
mainly white-owned farms have been seized by veterans of the 1970s 
liberation war with the support of President Robert Mugabe's government. 
Although Namibia has suffered no farm invasions, farmers fear landless 
people soon will grow impatient with the slow pace of reform. Since 
independence from South Africa in 1990, only about 35,000 Namibians have 
been resettled on commercial farmland. Some 243,000 are still waiting for 
land, and to resettle them the government needs $112 million to buy 9.5 
million hectares (23 million acres). Namibia has 4,045 commercial farms. 
About 30.5 million hectares (75 million acres) of land is owned by white 
farmers and 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) by black farmers, 
according to government statistics.   (CNN, USA, 3 July 2001)

* Niger. Journalists to set up Press Centre  -  Managing Editors and 
Editors-in- Chief of media houses in Niger, have decided to set up a Press 
Centre in Niamey, the private daily Tenere Express reported. It is to 
co-ordinate communication and dialogue among journalists. The Centre will 
also help to negotiate the price, purchase and distribution of newsprint, 
films and other items needed by journalists in the gathering and 
dissemination of news. Niger's private press has been boosted by the 
democratisation process following the national conference in 1991. Since 
the conference, several news organisations especially in the print media, a 
news agency and periodic publications have been launched. However, most of 
the publications only survived for a year and disappeared due to the lack 
of funds mainly from advertisements, small circulation and a low purchasing 
power on the part of readers. Only the private daily, Le Republicain, whose 
publisher has a printing press, is regular on the news-stands.   (PANA, 
Senegal, 3 July 2001)

Weekly anb0705.txt - Part 4/7