Weekly ANB1016_6.txt #6

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

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 16-10-2003      PART #6/6

* Tanzania. New outbreak of cholera  -  Four people have died and 90 others 
are presently being treated following a new outbreak of cholera in Dar es 
Salam, Tanzania's commercial capital and main city. Cholera is endemic in 
Tanzania (over 35 million inhabitants with a per capita income of $457 a 
year), where sanitary conditions in many areas are still precarious, thus 
favouring the spreading of such infection.   (MISNA, Italy, 14 October 2003)

* Chad. Chad reassures on oil wealth  -  9 October: President Idress Deby 
has moved to counter fears that the country's new-found oil wealth may be 
mismanaged. Speaking ahead of the formal opening of a new multi-billion 
dollar oil facility tomorrow, President Deby pledges that the cash will be 
used responsibly, saying the country's coming oil wealth "should not divert 
us from our usual economic activities. We must build a modern and working 
Chad together," he adds. The new $3.7bn oil facilities, which include a 
1,000 kilometre pipeline designed to carry oil from Chad to the coast of 
neighbouring Cameroon, are expected to boost the impoverished West African 
nation's revenues by at least $2bn over the next 25 years. According to the 
World Bank, the money could help lift average income per head in the 
country from $250 to $550 a year by 2005. But international charities have 
raised concerns that, as in many other oil-rich developing countries, the 
oil bonanza will not filter through to Chad's poor. These fears were 
heightened three years ago when the government admitted diverting $4m of 
the pipeline's investment funds to buy weapons for use in its war against 
northern rebels. The World Bank, which funded the pipeline jointly with oil 
giant Exxon Mobil, has stipulated that the bulk of the revenues be kept in 
a London bank account and subjected to close scrutiny. Meanwhile, the 
Chadian government has also passed a law under which 80% of the income will 
be used to finance education, health, environment, water and rural 
development.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 9 October 2003)

* Tchad. Inauguration du pipeline  -  10 octobre. C'est en grande pompe que 
le Tchad a fait aujourd'hui son entrée officielle dans le club des pays 
producteurs de pétrole. Le président tchadien, Idriss Deby, a inauguré en 
effet le gigantesque oléoduc reliant le champ pétrolier de Doba au port 
camerounais de Kribi (plus de 1.000 km de long), en présence de 600 invités 
de marque, dont cinq chefs d'Etat. Le gouvernement de N'Djamena attend, sur 
une période de 25 ans, des retombées d'environ 2 milliards de dollars et 
une production qui devrait avoisiner, les premières années, 225.000 barils 
par jour. Et pourtant les inquiétudes sont vives. Plusieurs associations de 
défense des droits de l'homme s'inquiètent du manque de "garanties de bonne 
gouvernance" et dénoncent par avance la confiscation de la rente pétrolière 
par le régime. Elles ont appelé les Tchadiens à observer une "journée de 
deuil". Cependant, au Tchad, les recettes de la manne pétrolière seront 
(théoriquement?) soumises à un contrôle rigoureux de la communauté 
internationale, une première en Afrique.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 
10 octobre 2003)

* Ouganda. LRA: la guerre insensée  -  L'armée a annoncé avoir sauvé plus 
de 400 enfants des mains des rebelles de l'Armée de résistance du Seigneur 
(LRA) dans le nord du pays. Les enfants ont été récupérés le 11 octobre, 
alors que l'armée poursuivait un groupe de rebelles qui avait attaqué la 
veille le village reculé de Pajule, à quelque 380 km au nord de Kampala. 8 
civils et 19 rebelles ont été tués dans cette attaque. Les rebelles 
poursuivis ont abandonné les enfants, sans doute parce qu'ils les 
ralentissaient. Nombre d'entre eux semblaient victimes de malnutrition et 
épuisés, a indiqué le lieutenant Ankunda. Certains d'entre eux auraient 
affirmé avoir été enlevés il y a plus de trois ans. -- D'autre part, le 
président Museveni s'est dit disposé à dialoguer avec les rebelles de la 
LRA, s'ils renonçaient à leur option militaire vieille de 17 ans. "Je suis 
ouvert à discuter avec eux s'ils abandonnent le terrorisme", a-t-il déclaré 
dans un discours prononcé le 9 octobre à l'occasion du 41e anniversaire de 
l'indépendance du pays. Mais le même jour, la LRA a attaqué le village de 
Dudui, au nord-est de Soroti, qui était sous la protection d'un détachement 
d'une milice pro-gouvernementale, et tué plus d'une dizaine de civils. -- 
Le soir du 13 octobre, les rebelles de la LRA ont encore tué 22 personnes 
dans une localité du district de Lira. Ils ont attaqué un bar où se 
trouvaient 18 hommes et 4 femmes, et les ont abattus. Le méfait a pris 
moins de 30 minutes.   (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 12 octobre 2003)

* Uganda. Rebels shoot drinkers dead  -  15 October: Lords Resistance Army 
(LRA) rebels have killed 23 people as they were drinking a local alcoholic 
brew in the northern district of Lira. This happened on 13 October at Abako 
market where a group of some 17 rebels rounded up the drinkers before 
shooting them. In addition to the deaths, 17 others were critically 
injured. An unknown number of civilians have also been abducted. The Lira 
district commissioner said that reinforcements from the Uganda Peoples 
Defence Force (UPDF) were on 14 October dispatched to the area to assist 
the Rhino Defence Unit -- a militia unit -- to pursue the 
rebels.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 15 October 2003)

* Western Sahara. Polisario congress  -  Members of the Polisario Front 
(Popular Liberation Front of Saguiat el Hamra and Río de Oro) independence 
movement have gathered in "liberated territories" of Western Sahara for the 
first time in 30 years, the Algerian news agency, APS, said. In the past, 
the movement met in the Saharawi refugee camps in the Algerian city of 
Tindouf, where the Polisario Front has its headquarters. The organisers say 
the congress, which opened on 13 October in Tifariti (over 500 kilometres 
northeast of Al Ayoun), "will mark an important step in the regrouping of 
the ranks and in the concentration of the country's efforts to end Moroccan 
colonialism of the territory, allowing our people to exercise their right 
to self-determination and independence". The meeting, which ends on 15 
October, should also lead to a political programme for the next four years 
in the light of recent developments. On 31 July, the United Nations 
Security Council approved a plan --the fifth in five years -- providing for 
a referendum on the definitive status of Western Sahara within five years, 
putting an end to a 25-year dispute. Since the withdrawal of Spanish troops 
in 1976, Western Sahara has been annexed to Morocco, forcing tens of 
thousands of its Saharawi inhabitants into exile in Algeria. In that year, 
the Polisario Front, backed by Algiers, began an armed rebellion, which 
ended in 1991. Since then, a small UN peacekeeping mission has been 
present.   (MISNA, Italy, 14 October 2003)

* Zambia. Zambia's garbage hell  -  A staggering one billion people 
currently live in slums, according to a United Nations report, "The Slum 
Challenge", released this week. In the Zambian capital, Lusaka, nearly half 
a million of the city's two million people live in sub-standard housing, as 
Rubsta Mpuvula said during a tour of Kanyama suburb. "I am the 
neighbourhood committee chairman for Kanyama, a community which has a 
catchment of about 120,000 people. We have no system of managing our 
garbage situation in the community and hence the people just dump garbage 
indiscriminately, in the middle of the roads. They have chosen this part to 
be a dumping site because when you go into the houses, nearly every house 
has no space to dump their garbage. Most of this is charcoal -- you know, 
most of the houses here have no electricity and they use charcoal. So this 
is the charcoal waste and ashes which have been thrown about. Also there is 
no recycling system for plastic material in our country. And small children 
walk and play all around. There is a problem with housing here -- the 
houses are so few that a single house is turned into many apartments for 
occupation by different families. You will find that in one house there are 
five, six, eight families in the same house... you will find some families 
have up to 10 members. Some house have cracks or are not repainted. Most 
are not plastered and yet this is a planned area under the city council. So 
they should not be building like this. According to law it is not allowed. 
There is a very high demand for housing in Kanyama --but it is not in 
Kanyama alone. This is because most people are migrating from the villages 
coming into town to look for employment. Not all the houses have pit 
latrines -- in fact I would say that out of 10 houses, four have pit 
latrines. But we are worried about the six without latrines -- they either 
do not have space to dig pit latrines because they have developed the whole 
plot into houses, or the pit latrines are filled up. In the rainy season we 
have a problem because the pit latrines tend to get full because of the 
water table. The underground is very rocky so the few pit latrines that are 
deep tend to bring up the faeces, breeding many diseases, especially 
diarrhoeal diseases. There is no drainage system in existence.   (BBC News, 
UK, 8 October 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Cricket player Olonga receives UK visa  -  8 October: Former 
Zimbabwe Test player Henry Olonga has been granted a five-year visa to 
remain in Britain. Olonga hit the headlines earlier this year when he and 
team-mate Andy Flower staged a protest against the Zimbabwe government 
during a World Cup game. They said they were mourning the "death of 
democracy" in their country. Olonga, who is planning a musical career, is 
due to undergo knee surgery later this month and believes he may not play 
first-class cricket again. "I've torn about a square centimetre of 
cartilage which is floating around in my knee," he says. "It's got to be 
taken out and then they've got to find the source. The specialist reckons 
it's from the back of my knee but he can't say how bad the damage is until 
he goes in".   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 8 October 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Food shortages feared  -  10 October: An American-based 
monitoring agency says Zimbabwe has imported less than a third of the grain 
it will need to meet its requirements up to the end of March. In its latest 
monthly report, the Famine Early Warning System Network says grain from 
last year's harvest is running out for most rural households, and food is 
selling at prices that are rising beyond the reach of most people. The 
network said that high inflation and a shortage of cash were making it 
difficult for people to get food in urban areas. It added that if current 
shortages of items such as fuel, fertiliser and seed persisted, Zimbabwe 
would only be able to produce two-thirds of the country's staple food, 
maize, that it needed in the next agricultural season.   (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 
10 October 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Newspaper reborn on website  -  Zimbabwe's banned Daily News 
has resurfaced in exile with a new website and plans to print an 
international edition. The newspaper, which Zimbabwean authorities closed 
last month, will this week resume publishing an online edition edited from 
an office in Johannesburg's Sandton suburb. The South African-registered 
site's letters page and readers' forum are already up and running. Police 
shut down the paper, Zimbabwe's most widely read independent title, after 
accusing it of failing to register as required under the country's punitive 
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The High Court later 
overturned the decision, but authorities refused to allow the paper to 
resume printing, and did not accept its later licence application. The 
paper will this week appeal against the latter decision in administrative 
court, Ms Moyo said. The paper's silencing, widely condemned abroad, has 
created a growing information vacuum as the state controls all electronic 
media and other daily newspapers. Accreditation rules mean few foreign 
correspondents work in Zimbabwe. The paper is not formally aligned with the 
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, but was one of the only media 
within Zimbabwe to report accurately on its activities. Speaking at a 
conference in Johannesburg at the weekend, Welshman Ncube, the MDC's 
secretary-general, called the paper's closing "principally an attack on the 
MDC."   (Financial Times, UK, 13 October 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Inflation hits new high  -  14 October: Annual inflation in 
Zimbabwe has risen to 455.6% for September, a new unwanted record for the 
country's troubled economy. The rise, from 426.6% in August, has been put 
down to price increases in the average price of everyday items such as 
meat, bread, cereals, fruit and vegetables. The country was once southern 
Africa's breadbasket, but now seven million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people 
are believed to be at serious risk of famine. There are fears that the 
economic difficulties, following President Robert Mugabe's controversial 
land reforms, are forcing more people out of the country.   (ANB-BIA, 
Belgium, 14 October 2003)

* Zimbabwe. Appel au dialogue  -  Le 15 octobre, le secrétaire général du 
Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, a souligné l'importance d'instaurer un dialogue 
au Zimbabwe entre les deux principaux partis politiques, une intitiative 
qu'il juge essentielle pour parvenir au règlement de toutes les autres 
questions concernant le pays. Il a souligné que la suspension du Zimbabwe 
du Commonwealth ne sera levée que si ce pays tient compte de cinq questions 
importantes, dont la nécessité d'instaurer un dialogue et la réconciliation 
nationale. -D'autre part, l'Assemblée parlementaire paritaire ACP-UE, 
réunie à Rome, a débattu d'un rapport réalisé après une mission de 
parlementaires ACP au Zimbabwe. La mission affirme que les difficultés tant 
politiques que sociales que traverse le Zimbabwe sont largement dues à la 
réforme agraire entreprise par le gouvernement. Le rapport souligne aussi 
que les sanctions ciblées décrétées par l'Union européenne ont un impact 
négatif sur le développement du pays, et que c'est la population qui en 
souffre.   (D'après PANA, Sénégal, 15 octobre 2003)

Weekly anb1016.txt - #6/6 - THE END




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Un homme meurt chaque fois que l'un d'entre nous se tait devant la tyrannie 
(W. Soyinka, Prix Nobel litterature)
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Everytime somebody keep silent when faced with tyranny, someone else dies 
(Wole Syinka, Nobel Prize for Literature) *
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