* South Africa. Anti-AIDS Conference — Two hundred delegates representing 32 African countries are due to participate in the second edition of the international conference «Sister 2 Sister», the network of women working to relieve the suffering caused by AIDS, thanks also to the direct involvement of the «Scalabrini Development Agency». The «S2S network» supports the women and provides them with up-to-date information for use in their delicate task. The conference will be held from 25 October to 1 November at the Scalabrini Centre in Cape Town. Of the 30 million people infected with HIV (the virus that leads to AIDS) on the African continent, 67 per cent are women and girls, who are the most vulnerable due to the devastation of war and domestic violence. (MISNA, Italy, 14 October 2003)

* Afrique du Sud. Eloge des religieux — Le ministre sud-africain des Affaires sociales, Zola Skweyiya, a loué l’apport des religieux dans le pays. Grâce à eux, des millions de Sud-Africains ont accès aux services sociaux, a-t-il affirmé lors d’une allocution au KwaZulu-Natal à l’occasion de la semaine du développement social. Il estime que 3,8 millions d’enfants et 2 millions de personnes âgées profitent de ces services. Il a appelé à lutter ensemble pour éradiquer la pauvreté et la faim dans la société sud-africaine. (Kerknet, Belgique, 15 octobre 2003)

* South Africa. Hollywood arrives in Cape Town — 15 October: Plans to build the biggest film studios in Africa near Cape Town have been given the go-ahead. The Hollywood-style studios will cost over $60m and are due to open in 2005. It is hoped they will transform the film industry in South Africa where low budget movies have struggled to compete with those of international film makers. Mike McCarthy, one of the directors of the Dreamworld Film City consortium, drove me round the site for the new studios. They will be built near one of Cape Town’s poorest townships — Khayaleitsha — and it is hoped the 200  acre site will revitalise the area and create around 8,000 jobs. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 15 October 2003)

* Sudan. Hassan al-Turabi released — 13 October: Sudan has freed Hassan al-Turabi after more than two years in detention and lifted a ban on his party’s activities. Speaking to reporters at his home in Khartoum hours after his release, Mr Turabi said he had been released due to internal and international pressure. «I will continue working for the same principles for which I was arrested: democracy, freedom of expression and human rights,» he said. Mr Turabi was arrested in February 2001 after a power struggle with his former close ally, President Omar el-Bashir. Mr Turabi, leader of the Popular National Congress (PNC), was accused of crimes against the state. In August, Sudan promised to free all political detainees as part of peace talks with the southern rebels. Further talks are taking place later this week aimed at ending more than 30 years of civil war in Sudan. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 13 October 2003)

* Soudan. Al-Tourabi libéré — Le 13 octobre à Khartoum, les autorités soudanaises ont libéré l’opposant islamiste Hassan al-Tourabi, en résidence surveillée depuis près de trois ans, et levé l’interdiction qui frappait son parti, le Congrès national populaire (CNP). Sept autres détenus ont également été libérés. Al-Tourabi, ancienne éminence grise du régime qui a aidé le président Omar el-Béchir à s’emparer du pouvoir en 1989, avait été arrêté en février 2001 après avoir signé un accord avec les rebelles de l’Armée de libération populaire du Soudan (SPLA). La libération de Tourabi, 71 ans, intervient alors que les pourparlers entre le pouvoir et la SPLA, qui se tiennent au Kenya, semblent progresser. Le 25 septembre, les deux parties ont conclu un arrangement sur les questions de sécurité durant la période de transition de six ans, censé mettre un terme à 20 ans de guerre civile. La libération de M. Tourabi et des autres détenus politiques est considérée par certains observateurs, comme un effort de rallier sous un front uni les groupes d’opposition du Nord, afin de renforcer la position du gouvernement aux négociations. (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 14 octobre 2003)

* Soudan. Poursuite des pourparlers — Des divergences fortement ancrées sur le futur statut des régions du Nil Bleu austral, d’Abyei et des monts Nouba, émergent des pourparlers de paix intersoudanais qui se tiennent à Naivasha, au Kenya. Les représentants du gouvernement et de l’Armée populaire de libération du Soudan (SPLA) ont échangé leurs déclarations de principe sur ces trois régions, objet des discussions cette semaine. Celles-ci sont situées au centre du pays, où les rebelles sont actifs bien que ces régions ne fassent pas géographiquement partie du Sud. La SPLA affirme  avoir été mandatéé par ces trois territoires pour les représenter aux négociations et réclame leur droit à l’autodétermination. Mais dans le cadre des frontières coloniales délimitées en 1956, ces trois régions ont été placées sous le contrôle de l’administration du Nord, et Khartoum déclare en contrôler 90%. (D’après PANA, Sénégal, 14 octobre 2003)

* Sudan. New newspaper in south — 15 October: A new newspaper has been launched in war-torn southern Sudan — the first for a generation. The Sudan Mirror will try to reach tens of thousands of people across the region, which is now daring to hope that 20 years of conflict may soon end. The people of southern Sudan have been starved of information, left to suffer in the dark as their villages have been bombed, their homes raided, their families whittled away by famine. But this week the Sudan Mirror is finally hoping to break the spell. The first 20,000 copies are already heading into the south, flown in by the many aid agencies working across this vast, inaccessible region. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 15 October 2003)

* 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)