Weekly anb02147.txt #8

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

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 14-02-2002      PART #7/8

* Afrique du Sud. Sida: Mandela s'insurge  -  Le 7 février, Nelson Mandela 
a critiqué les hésitations sud-africaines sur le traitement du sida, 
affirmant que la lutte contre la transmission du VIH de la mère à l'enfant 
est "centrale". L'ancien président faisait référence aux doutes entretenus 
par le gouvernement, et en particulier le président Thabo Mbeki, sur le 
lien de causalité entre le VIH et le sida, sur l'efficacité des 
antirétroviraux et sur les moyens nécessaires. Une attitude de plus en plus 
critiquée par la presse, les Eglises, les syndicats et les médecins. 
Mandela a toutefois laissé entendre qu'un changement de cap était en vue: 
"Beaucoup de gens, en particulier au gouvernement, réfléchissent très 
sérieusement aux remarques qui ont été faites". Le président Mbeki a ainsi 
cessé, du moins publiquement, de mettre en cause le lien entre le VIH et le 
sida. Mais l'Etat est toujours critiqué pour son refus de généraliser les 
antirétroviraux, notamment la Nevirapine, qui empêche l'infection des 
enfants à naître, alors que 70.000 bébés naissent séropositifs chaque année 
en Afrique du Sud. - Par ailleurs, le 8 février, la Commission européenne a 
approuvé un programme de 50 millions d'euros afin d'aider l'Afrique du Sud 
à lutter contre le sida. Ce programme, qui s'étalera sur six ans, a été 
ciblé pour "les plus pauvres d'entre les pauvres". Il est destiné à 
financer des aides aux communautés locales et à domicile, dans le cadre des 
soins de santé de base.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 9 février 2002)

* South Africa. South African bank's accounts frozen  -  Deposits have been 
frozen at the eighth largest bank in Africa after bankruptcy fears spurred 
savers to withdraw more than 1bn rand ($87m) last week. Fears that Saambou 
Bank's bad debts in its microlending business, which lends small sums to 
individuals and small businesses, could pull it under were growing among 
customers who were left unable to access their accounts. Saambou has a 5% 
share of the country's retail savings market. The run on the bank led the 
central bank, South African Reserve Bank, to step in and place it under 
curatorship. Both the bank itself, several economists and the Registrar of 
Banks, Christo Wiese, insisted the Saambou remains solvent. But the Reserve 
Bank said panic withdrawals threatened to leave it with liquidity problems. 
The curator appointed by the Reserve Bank, John Louw, will look at the 
bank's finances before savers will be told when they can once again access 
their accounts. The freezing of Saambou's accounts came less than a month 
after the country's number one retail bank, Absa, was hit by news that its 
small loans arm has run up 1.5bn rand in bad debts in the microlending 
segment.   (BBC News, UK, 10 February 2002)

* Afrique du Sud. Changements de noms  -  La province du Nord sud-africaine 
change de nom à partir de ce 14 février. Elle s'appelera désormais Limpopo. 
Son chef-lieu, Pietersburg, est rebaptisé Polokwane, qui signifie "lieu de 
sécurité".   (Misna, Italie, 14 février 2002)

* South Africa. Magistrates accused  -  The South African government is 
taking up to 28 magistrates to court in a civil action that accuses them of 
abusing several million pounds of public funds to install luxuries such as 
outside lounges and swimming pools at their homes and offices. The 
departments of public works and justice are suing "more than 20 
magistrates" around the country and some contractors who they claim were 
involved in a costly swindle in which departmental concessions were used 
for luxuries instead of maintenance work as intended. The respected 
Afrikaans daily Beeld reported on 13 February that the crack police 
Scorpions unit was also investigating criminal charges of fraud and 
corruption against dozens of senior judicial figures. Beeld exposed the 
"lapa" (outside lounges) scandal four years ago, at the start of an 
official investigation into claims that magistrates or financial 
controllers in their offices abused a justice department concession 
allowing them to authorise up to 3,000 rand for critical maintenance work. 
"The investigation showed that some magistrates used the money to erect and 
fit luxury items such as "lapas", electric gates, new carpets and swimming 
pools at official magistrates' residences and offices under the guise of it 
being necessary maintenance," Beeld reported. At some offices, thousands of 
invoices for small amounts were paid out for work worth millions. Now the 
state is ready to prosecute, two contractors and a financial controller 
have been arrested, summonses are being prepared and the High Court will be 
asked to order magistrates and contractors to repay the government 
"millions of rand". Judge Willem Heath, a former government 
corruption-buster involved in the initial investigation, said: "We will not 
rest before every cent owed the state is recovered from the magistrates and 
contractors."   (The Independent, UK, 14 February 2002)

* Sudan. Government attacks rebels  -  7 February: A spokesman for the 
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said the government of Khartoum has 
not respected the cease-fire in the Nuba mountains and has blocked the 
arrival of international aid for the Nuba population. The spokesman said on 
6 February, in Nairobi (Kenya), that government forces opened fire against 
rebel soldiers on 3 February, creating new hostilities and a climate of 
insecurity. There was no independent confirmation of the claim and no 
immediate comment from the government in Khartoum. Rebels in the mainly 
Christian or animist South, have been fighting the Islamic government in 
Khartoum for a greater autonomy since 1983. The conflict has since killed 
about 2 million people. The UN says hundreds of thousands of people are in 
desperate need of food and aid to survive. The cease-fire, which is 
renewable every six months, was reached in Switzerland during last January, 
between the SPLA and the government of Khartoum. The government of 
President Omar Hassan al Beshir had recently demonstrated particular 
interest in the cease-fire in the region, particularly aimed at restoring 
peace in the nation's main oil zones in the State of El Ouahda (450km 
south-west of the capital).   (MISNA, Italy, 7 February 2002)

* Sudan. Cardinal calls for protest campaign  -  One of the Holy See's 
highest exponents proposed the launching of an international campaign of 
protest against Sudan for violating human rights. Cardinal Roberto Tucci, 
president of Vatican Radio's administration committee, launched this 
initiative today when commenting on the case of 18-year-old Christian Abok 
Alfa Akok, condemned to death by stoning for being pregnant out of wedlock. 
The woman says she had been raped. "For years in Sudan there has been 
authentic persecution by the Muslim government against the peoples of the 
south, black skins, of Christian or animist religion," the Cardinal told 
Vatican Radio. "At the end of the year 2000, the civil war that began again 
in 1983 between the Arab Muslim north and the Christian, animist south, had 
cost the lives of some 2 million people," he said. "The Shariah [Islamic 
law] has been applied to a person who is not Muslim," he said. "It would be 
appropriate to start a campaign of protest against what is happening. Why 
doesn't the UN intervene?" the Cardinal wondered. "The United Nations 
Commission for Human Rights is concerned with the case, but perhaps this 
action should be supported by an authentic international campaign that will 
serve to shed light on the Sudanese situation." The first to support the 
Cardinal's initiative was Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of 
Kisangani, president of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of 
Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).   (Zenit, Italy, 7 February 2002)

* Soudan. Chrétienne graciée  -  Une chrétienne soudanaise de 18 ans, 
condamnée selon la charia à la lapidation pour être enceinte sans être 
mariée (voir En brefANB-BIA 2 février), a finalement été graciée, a annoncé 
la communauté Sant'Egidio à Rome. Une large campagne, soutenue notamment 
par Radio-Vatican, avait été menée en sa faveur.   (La Croix, France, 12 
février 2002)

* Sudan. UN protests at bombing  -  The UN food agency is to protest to 
Sudan after two children were killed by bombs dropped by a government plane 
near a food distribution point. The World Food Programme (WFP) said the 
incident took place on 11 February in the town of Akuem in the southern 
province of Bahr El Ghazal, where government troops are battling rebel 
forces. It said a 12-year-old girl and another child were killed and around 
a dozen people injured in the raid by a plane from the government side. 
"The WFP condemns firmly these bombings that have killed people (and) it 
will lodge an official protest with government authorities," the United 
Nations agency said in a statement. "It is the responsibility of the 
government to ensure that food aid can be distributed in complete safety to 
the people who need it to survive," it added.   (CNN, USA, 13 February 2002)

* Soudan. Bombardements au Sud  -  Le 12 février, les Etats-Unis ont 
condamné fermement un bombardement de l'armée de l'air soudanaise survenu 
la veille contre des civils regroupés pour recevoir de l'aide alimentaire. 
Deux enfants avaient été tués. Le bombardement est survenu à Akuem (région 
du Bahr el-Ghazal) après qu'un appareil du Programme alimentaire mondial 
(PAM) venait de parachuter des vivres. "Cette attaque horrible montre que 
la prise pour cible d'opérations civiles continue", a déploré le 
porte-parole du département d'Etat, Richard Boucher.   (ANB-BIA, de sources 
diverses, 14 février 2002)

* Tanzania. Fighting US gem boycott  -  A Tanzanian mining industry 
delegation has left for Washington to try and persuade US jewellers to lift 
their boycott of the semi-precious gem, Tanzanite. The boycott was imposed 
after a Wall Street Journal article alleged that sales of the 
blue-to-violet gemstones were funding the al-Qaeda network. The mining 
industry in Tanzania -- the only country in the world where the gemstone is 
found -- has been hit hard by the boycott, announced last November. 
Minister for Energy and Minerals Edgar Maokola-Majogo is leading what his 
ministry is calling a "high-powered" delegation. A representative of the 
Tanzania Miners Association met the minister in the capital Dodoma this 
week, warning him that the boycott could effectively wipe out the Tanzanite 
industry.   (BBC News, UK, 7 February 2002)

* Tanzania. African peacekeeping exercise  -  Sixteen African countries 
will join a French-led exercise to boost the continent's peacekeeping 
skills to be held in Tanzania this month. More than 2,000 troops are due to 
join the manoeuvres from February 15 to 22 under the auspices of France's 
Reinforcement of African Peacekeeping Capabilities scheme, as part of an 
initiative to improve coordination between the continent's armies, French 
officers said. The exercises are to assist African governments to cope with 
crises in the field of political backlash, humanitarian or natural 
disasters like earthquakes. The French-led initiative coincides with an 
exercise by 3,000 US troops in Kenya this month to improve the US 
military's cooperation with the east African country. Troops from France, 
Kenya, Madagascar and the 14 member states of the Southern African 
Development Community (SADC), which includes Tanzania, will participate in 
the exercise. Twelve navy ships including the amphibian Siroco, three ships 
from South Africa, three from Kenya, two from Tanzania and one from 
Madagascar will be involved in the exercises around the coastal cities of 
Dar Es Salaam and Tanga. The United States, Britain, Germany, Belgium, 
Portugal, Spain and Canada are also taking part, while observer countries 
include China, Japan, India, Australia and Argentina.   (CNN, USA, 7 
February 2001)

* Tanzania/Mozambique. Winning US export rights  -  Tanzania and Mozambique 
have secured the right to export clothes duty-free to the US under the 
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) scheme. Tanzania was given 
approval on 11 February and Mozambique's will be published shortly. 
Tanzania's approval comes 18 months after it became eligible and began to 
implement AGOA's strict conditions, which includes a system to verify the 
goods exported were actually produced in Tanzania. Under AGOA, countries 
can export unlimited amounts of apparel made from US textiles to the US 
without duty or quotas. Existing quotas on exporting locally produced 
fabrics to the US will also be enlarged. The US law also means that 
low-income countries like Tanzania and Mozambique can export some textile 
products made from cloth which they themselves have imported from countries 
other than the US.   (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 12 February 2002)

* Tanzania. Muslims in mosque riot  -  Rival groups of Muslims have held 
running battles with armed riot police around a mosque in the Tanzanian 
commercial capital of Dar es Salaam. The two groups had been at loggerheads 
over use of the Mwembechai mosque for a service to commemorate two Muslims 
who died in religious riots in 1998. Riot police surrounded the mosque 
early on the afternoon of 13 February to prevent what they termed a 
possibly volatile situation. But violence flared after members of the 
so-called Ponda group gathered in the area with the intention of holding 
special prayers without the permission of the group currently occupying the 
mosque. Correspondents say police with batons arrested and beat scores of 
Muslims and used teargas in an attempt to disperse the crowd. Police sealed 
off the area, saying they expected to spend the night outside the mosque to 
ensure that demonstrators did not return. It was unclear how many people 
had been injured in the rioting.   (BBC News, UK, 14 February 2002)

Weekly anb0214.txt - #7/8