Lucius Banda believes he has been made a scapegoat. Malawian musician-turned-politician Lucius Banda has been sentenced to 21 months in jail with hard labour for faking his academic qualifications. The opposition MP moved a motion in parliament last year proposing procedures to impeach the president.
Shortly afterwards, the authorities arrested him over allegations that he forged a school certificate that enabled him to stand for parliament. Mr Banda told the BBC after the verdict that he has been made a scapegoat.
The BBC's Raphael Tenthani says the courtroom in Zomba, some 70km from the commercial capital, Blantyre, was packed with fans of Mr Banda who is popularly known as the "Soldier of the Poor". "You are supposed to be a role model for the youth and Malawians take education seriously and by forging the Malawi School Certificate for Education you betrayed the trust of many," magistrate Luke Mabowoza told Malawi's top selling artist.
The jail sentence means that Mr Banda will lose the seat in parliament he won in 2004. "I know the government is punishing me for the motion I moved [in parliament] but I don't regret it," Mr Banda told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme after his conviction. "I am actually proud of myself and I hope the whole nation knows I did nothing wrong to set procedures for impeachment of a president."
Our correspondent says as Mr Banda was driven away in a police vehicle, scores of his supporters shouted insults at the police, while his aunt and other family members wept uncontrollably. Mr Banda shot to fame when he released music denouncing the rule of the late Hastings Kamuzu Banda, our reporter says. When the long time ruler lost Malawi's first multi-party elections in 1994, the musician continued his music crusade by criticising Hastings Banda's successor, Bakili Muluzi.
But the musician then entered parliament as a member of Mr Muluzi's United Democratic Front (UDF) party. He has since released two albums criticising Mr Muluzi's successor, President Bingu wa Mutharika, who quit the UDF after falling out with Mr Muluzi.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
The bill proposes bugging e-mail and phones. Zimbabwe's opposition and civil society groups have expressed anger at a proposed law to monitor communications. The bill proposes a monitoring centre, apparently with Chinese technology, that would eavesdrop on telephone, internet and other communications. The government says the bill is similar to anti-terror laws elsewhere to protect people from organised crime.
Parliament began public hearings on the Interception of Communications Bill on Wednesday amid heated exchanges.
KEY PROVISIONS
Communications minister can issue warrants for interception
Police, security and revenue service bosses can apply to minister to issue warrant
Warrants can be issued in case of perceived crime or security threats
Warrants valid for three months, can be extended indefinitely
Right of appeal to minister, not to courts
ISPs must install monitoring hardware and software
"One of the key obligations on internet service providers (ISPs) is to install equipment which would allow them to interface between the ISP and the monitoring service," Jim Holland, spokesman for the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers' Association, told the BBC News website. This equipment would have to be installed at the expense of the ISP. Mr Holland said his organisation would seek clarification on whether the bill applied to all companies that provide internet services to the public.
Asked whether Zimbabwe had the technological capacity to implement the changes proposed in the bill, Mr Holland said: "I would imagine it is now here. There are obviously now close links with the Chinese, who are specialists in the interception of radio and internet communication." Zimbabwean telephone calls are already monitored.
"The Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said the interface was already there - all that is required is to connect to the monitoring centre," Mr Holland said. Monitoring internet communication is nevertheless more complicated than monitoring phone calls, and Zimbabweans using an overseas-based webmail service would be able to avoid bugging by the authorities in Zimbabwe. The government has defended the proposal in the name of national security.
"The advancement in technology today means that no one is safe at all from the source of terrorism, mercenarism and organised crime," Brig Gen Mike Sango of the Zimbabwe Defence Force told the hearing. "A piece of legislation has been long overdue on this particular problem." Critics raised concerns that the bill does not make provision for decisions to be reviewed by the judiciary.
"An aggrieved person is given a right to appeal to the Minister (of Transport and Communications), who is neither independent nor impartial. He authorises the interception and monitoring in the first place," argued Wilbert Mandinde, legal officer of the Media Institute for Southern Africa in Zimbabwe. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change agreed: "It seems to give carte blanche - the minister is the judge and the jury, it violates the whole concept of the separation of powers," said MDC legal adviser Jessie Majome.
A special report will be tabled before parliament after the public hearings. President Robert Mugabe's government already faces criticism for laws that curtail free speech and movement. Mr Holland said the lack of judicial oversight in the bill was similar to certain provisions of an earlier communications law that were overturned by the High Court in 2004 on grounds of being unconstitutional.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
White rhinos have been endangered for many decades. Two suspected rhino poachers have been arrested after posing as tourists, South African officials say. The men booked into a safari lodge and proceeded to shoot and hack the horns off two endangered white rhinos, according to wildlife authorities. They are said to have been caught with rhino horns at the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu Natal province.
The white rhino has been endangered since early in the 20th century, and its horn fetches high prices. "It's the first time we've had tourists shooting rhinos," Jeff Gaisford, a spokesman for the reserve, told AFP news agency.
The arrests took place last week, but the authorities reportedly delayed the announcement because of the "sensitive" nature of the information. The men are believed to be linked to a poaching and smuggling syndicate, and more arrests are expected.
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park is home to 1,600 southern white rhinos, out of an estimated total population of about 11,000.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
A Zimbabwe government minister says there is no truth in a report by Church leaders that heavily criticised the state's housing demolitions last year. Church leaders said in a report that almost nothing had been done to house 700,000 people who lost their homes and livelihoods in the demolitions.
Operation Murambatsvina, which the government said was a drive to clean up cities, was also condemned by the UN. Minister Didymus Mutasa said the church report was "absolutely not true". Asked how many new houses had been built, Mr Mutasa replied: "I can't tell you the number immediately, I will have to check. But everyone in the country whether affected by Murambatsvina or not is being considered for decent housing."
He also denied claims made in the report by the church-based Solidarity Peace Trust that most of those people expelled from the cities had since returned. "People cannot have been living in thin air. They must be living somewhere," he said. The report claimed that people in the cities had been crowded into those houses that had not been demolished. "In some houses, people now co-exist in around one square metre per person of floor space," the report states.
Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, chairman of the Solidarity Peace Trust, told the BBC that the government had failed to live up to its promises. "They themselves said that they would construct 300,000 houses," he said. "They've constructed a few hundred houses and none of them have been occupied."
The report said that out of more than 100,000 displaced people in the west of the country, not one person has been officially housed by the government. The informal economy, which was targeted by Operation Murambatsvina, is still in disarray a year after the operation, according to the report.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Chad demands stake in oil output
By Stephanie Hancock - BBC News, N'Djamena.
Deby has ordered Petronas and Chevron-Texaco out of Chad. Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno has said in a public speech the country must have a stake in oil production. Speaking outside his presidential palace in N'Djamena, Mr Deby told crowds a revolution had started. This comes three days after he ordered two foreign oil companies, Petronas and Chevron-Texaco, out of Chad.
The two oil firms control 60% of the consortium which runs Chad's pipeline, the same as the share Mr Deby says the government wants. They were ordered to leave the country as Mr Deby accused them of not paying taxes. If Petronas and Chevron-Texaco had been hoping President Deby might have mellowed since the weekend, they were wrong.
He declared Chad must enter into oil production at what he called a reasonable rate of 60%. Crucially, 60% would give the government of Chad a majority share and therefore control over the consortium which runs the country's pipeline.
Mr Deby did not repeat his earlier demand for the two oil companies to leave Chad, but he did insist they must pay the Public Treasury $1bn. This is double the amount he asked for from the firms at the weekend, and an official later said the president had made a mistake and the amount of tax to be paid is actually $500m.
But it was clear from Mr Deby's emphatic language that he believed Chad had a sovereign right to take more control of its own oil.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Ms Nyiranshongore said she was sorry for administering the poison. A woman in Rwanda has confessed to poisoning wedding guests by putting rat poison in a pot of local homemade beer. One person has died and 52 others, including the bride and groom, were admitted into hospital after the wedding celebrations on Friday night.
Xavera Nyiranshongore said on Tuesday that she was promised 100,000 CFA ($190) to doctor the brew by the mother of the groom and another woman. Both women deny her allegations, which police say they are investigating. Sixty-year-old Ms Nyiranshongore, who was arrested on Friday, apologised for what she had done. She said she added the rat poison to the pot of ikigage, a local beer made from Sorghum, as it was being brewed on the outskirts of the capital, Kigali, before the festivities.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says it is common to drink ikigage at weddings and is a very symbolic drink in Rwandan culture. Police spokesman Willy Marcel Higiro said the case was a warning to the public to guard ikigage brews until they were served. Some of the guests have recovered and are beginning to return home, our correspondent says, although the bride and groom remain in hospital.
BBC NEWS REPORT
A Malian man has died after he and 50 other would-be migrants were dumped by the Moroccan authorities in the Sahara. The group, including citizens of Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Guinea had been trying to reach Europe in small boats when they were intercepted. They were left in a desert border zone between Mauritania and Western Sahara without food or water, aid workers say.
Over 18,000 African migrants have arrived on the Canary Islands in boats this year, hoping for jobs in the EU. "Neither the Moroccans nor the Mauritanians accept them on their territory," Ahmedou Ould Haye of the Mauritanian Red Crescent told Reuters news agency. Spanish relief agency Medicos del Mundo said its members had brought them food, water and plastic sheets with which to build shelters.
Mauritania has reported finding the bodies of 16 migrants washed up on its beaches in recent days.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
The presidents of Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe have signed a deal to build a bridge linking the three countries across the Zambezi River. The project, expected to cost $70m, has been under consideration since 1999. Boundary difficulties have prevented previous attempts to build the bridge, but during talks in Harare, leaders agreed to lay these aside.
The bridge at Kazungula will take the most direct route possible, crossing islands in the middle of the river. The Kazungula crossing, upstream from the Victoria Falls, has been an important trading link since the 19th century, when colonial powers sought access to the Zambezi. The borders of four countries - Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia - converge there.
The Kazungula border crossing is currently served by a vehicle ferry, which capsized three years ago, killing at least 15 people. Political borders have long been economic barriers in Africa and growth has always been hampered by poor infrastructure, BBC southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says.
It is hoped that the Kazungula Bridge will open up this regional trade route between southern Africa and countries to the north.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Cattle raids are frequent in the border area. Police in northern Kenya have killed 17 Ethiopian cattle rustlers who took part in a cross-border raid, according to the Red Cross and police officials. Officers fought running gun battles throughout Sunday with about 300 Ethiopian bandits who had stolen thousands of animals, police said.
The bandits had raided a village in Kenya's northern Marsabit district, killing one herdsman, officials said. Kenya's remote north is notorious for banditry and inter-communal clashes. The latest attack brought the number of dead from cattle rustling in the area to more than 200 in the past year alone, the Kenya Red Cross secretary general Abbas Gullet told the Associated Press news agency. "We are hoping that something will be done by the two governments to find a lasting solution to this problem because it is really taking a heavy toll on human lives," Mr Gullet said.
The cattle raid occurred close to the Ethiopian border, about 650 km (400 miles) north of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Police said they recovered 21 head of cattle and 6,000 goats and sheep, Reuters news agency reported. Cattle rustling is carried out by villagers from both sides of the border and has been going on for years, said Mutea Iringo, the Kenyan District Commissioner for the border region.
In one of the worst incidents, in July 2005, at least 71 people were killed, including more than two dozen children, during an attack on the Kenyan village of Turbi.
BBC NEWS REPORT
Vlok was granted amnesty during the 1990s. A prominent South African clergyman and opponent of apartheid has told how an apartheid-era minister washed his feet in a gesture of contrition. Rev Frank Chikane survived a murder attempt in the 1980s. He said he was grateful for the gesture made earlier this month by ex-minister Adriaan Vlok. Other former detainees say Mr Vlok should have apologised personally to all victims of police abuse. Mr Vlok testified to the post-apartheid truth commission and received amnesty. Mr Vlok was security minister in the late 1980s, a period when emergency laws granted police sweeping powers of arrest and detention against anti-apartheid activists.
Rev Chikane, former head of the South African Council of Churches, told at the weekend how Mr Vlok had arrived at his office and given him a Bible with the words "I have sinned against the Lord and against you, please forgive me (John 13:15)" on its cover. "He said 'I take you as a representative and an embodiment of all the other people I should be talking to,'" Rev Chikane said, quoted by the Pretoria News. "He then asked for water ... he picked up a glass of water, opened his bag, pulled out a bowl, put the water in the bowl, took out the towel, said 'you must allow me to do this' and washed my feet in my office," Rev Chikane said.
Mr Chikane, who was head of the South African Council of Churches during the state of emergency of the late 1980s, survived an assassination attempt when clothes impregnated with poison were placed in his suitcase while he was travelling. Rev Chikane survived an assassination attempt. Mr Vlok's symbolic apology has drawn some criticism.
Former activist Shirley Gunn, who was detained with her baby son for more than two months, described the foot-washing gesture as "provocative and insensitive". "I still haven't got the truth out of (Mr Vlok) about what happened to me," Ms Gunn said. "He can't just wash Frank Chikane's feet and think that that is the end of it ... he needs to apologise to his victims directly."
Current SACC General Secretary Eddie Makue commended Mr Vlok's gesture, but said it was no substitute for full disclosure. "Many high-ranking members of the former government failed to participate unreservedly in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process," he said, quoted by the South African Press Association. "As a result, we are left with many unanswered questions concerning responsibility for gross human rights violations during the apartheid years." Rev Chikane is now director general of the South African president's office.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Mr Obama was reunited with his grandmother.US Senator Barack Obama is due to visit one of Africa's largest slums in the Kenyan capital on the fourth day of his trip to his late father's homeland. He will go to an HIV-prevention scheme during his visit to Nairobi's Kibera slums, which is home to 600,000 people. On Saturday the Illinois Democrat was reunited with family in western Kenya and took an HIV test in a nearby city to encourage locals to do the same. He is the only black US Senator and is seen as a rising star of the Democrats.
Mr Obama was due to start Sunday with a visit to Wajir, a rural area in north-eastern Kenya which has been hit by a severe drought that has affected the Horn of Africa region. Kenyans see Mr Obama as one of their own. On Sunday afternoon, he planned to return to the capital and visit programmes in the notorious Kibera slums. Kibera lacks almost all government services, including water. One in five of the slum's population are HIV positive, disease prevention groups say.
On Saturday Mr Obama and his wife Michelle took HIV/Aids tests at Kisumu, which has one of Kenya's highest rates of HIV prevalence. Among Kenya's 32 million people, some 1.2 million were infected with HIV as of 2004, according to the Associated Press. "I and my wife are personally taking HIV tests," the senator said. "And if someone all the way from America can come and do that, then you have no excuse."
Tens of thousands of people had lined the streets of the city as he arrived to visit the hospital and a nearby village, where he saw his grandmother and father's grave. Mr Obama began his African tour in South Africa but has cancelled plans to visit Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Tories wrong on Mandela - Cameron
Mr Cameron was very impressed by Nelson Mandela. Conservative leader David Cameron has denounced his party's policy on South Africa during Margaret Thatcher's era, in an article in the Observer. "The mistakes my party made in the past with respect to relations with the ANC and sanctions... make it all the more important to listen now," he wrote. During the 1980s, Lady Thatcher refused to back sanctions, and called Mandela's African National Congress terrorists.
Mr Cameron met Mr Mandela in South Africa last week. He called him "one of the greatest men alive" and said he had learned lessons from him. He wrote: "The fact that there is so much to celebrate in the new South Africa is not in spite of Mandela and the ANC, it is because of them - and we Conservatives should say so clearly today."
However, former Tory party chairman Lord Tebbit defended Lady Thatcher's policy of "constructive engagement" with South Africa and said it had "been a success". He told the Observer: "Because of his age, Mr Cameron is looking at these events as part of history. Others of us who lived through them and had input into the discussions at the time see things very differently." He added: "The result was an overwhelmingly peaceful transition of power in which the final initiative for the handover came not from foreigners but from native South Africans - Afrikaner South Africans, at that."
Mr Cameron said in his newspaper article he had drawn "two big lessons" from his visit to South Africa. The first was the importance of patience when trying to achieve long-term change. "The second lesson is a related one: the importance of humility," he wrote.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Police in Mauritania say at least eight people have died while trying to illegally enter the Spanish Canary Islands by boat from Senegal. One report said their bodies were found washed up on a beach and it was suggested scores more may have drowned. Mauritania said it had rescued more than 100 other African migrants before their boats sank on Saturday night.
Spain is appealing for more European Union funding to curb the record numbers of migrants arriving illegally. A Mauritanian police official who requested anonymity told the AFP news agency that migrant boats usually carried 90 to 96 people and there were probably "more bodies in the ocean". The dead people found were certainly illegal immigrants, he added, because there were no reports of missing fishermen.
Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, is due to travel to Finland on Tuesday to ask the EU presidency for greater aid in stopping uncontrolled migration. More than 18,000 migrants, mostly young men, have arrived on the Canary Islands in fishing boats this year. Nearly as many arrived in the first three weeks of August as in the whole of last year, according to official figures.
"We need more political engagement and more resources," the minister told reporters on Friday.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Looting and anger in Congo capital
By Said Penda -BBC News, Kinshasa.
Dead bodies still lay on the streets of Gombe on Wednesday morning. People seen as close to the president were targeted by looters This was the neighbourhood of the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, where men loyal to President Joseph Kabila and those of his rival and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba did battle from Sunday, when first-round election results were announced, until a peace agreement on Tuesday.
The United Nations mission was trying on Wednesday morning to enforce the peace accord, which requires the two factions to withdraw their troops to where they were before the clashes began. But until midday, armed men loyal to Mr Bemba were at large in parts of Gombe, while police and soldiers loyal to Mr Kabila controlled other sectors.
UN armoured vehicles patrolled the 30 June Boulevard, which seemed to be the line of control between the two factions. So it is a fragile calm that has taken hold of the capital. Public transport is running again, but Gombe still looks nothing like a normal weekday, when hundreds of thousands of people converge on the district. Many people waited in front of banks, which have not yet opened their doors.
DR CONGO RESULTS BY PROVINCE
NATIONALLY:
Joseph Kabila: 45%
Jean-Pierre Bemba: 20%
Antoine Gizenga: 13%
Nzanga Mobutu: 5%
Oscar Kashala: 4%
Turnout: 70%
Source: CEI
Young people attacked and looted the headquarters of PAREC, an organisation involved in disarmament which is headed by one of President Kabila's advisers. The youths accused the president of starting the fighting. Elsewhere in Gombe, the police fired a few rounds into the air to disperse other groups of youths who were looting a church where the priest is thought to be close to the president.
President Kabila is very unpopular in the capital, where he barely received 13% of the votes, while Mr Bemba received over 60%. Residents of the capital, who live below the poverty line in this country so rich in natural resources, have had enough. "We don't know why they are fighting, because they both qualified for the second round, " one 40-year-old told me. "All we want is for them to go to the second round and for the president not to be chosen through weapons, " he said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Raining Leaves!
Dear Family and Friends,
This week I write about peculiar and mixed messages. This is very similar to
what our lives have become here - disjointed, fragmented, confusing and almost
always with nothing guaranteed.
Everyone thought there would be an extension to the 21 days given by the
Reserve Bank to hand in old currency and convert to the new money - that isn't
really money and has been pruned of three digits. It seems we Zimbabweans
haven't learnt a thing though, least of all the lesson that what we most expect
is that which is least likely to happen. There was no extension to the deadline
and in the first week of the new money most people were totally confused. Having
just got used to counting zeroes and being able to distinguish between hundreds
of thousands, millions and even billions, now suddenly we are back to hundreds
and thousands. Our purses, pockets and handbags are frighteningly light in
weight and most people are adding on three zeroes in their calculations to try
and work out just exactly how much things really cost. The loss of three zeroes
really is an illusion and it is just going to take a bit of time to get used to
less digits which still don't buy enough and still leave you stone broke.
On the first night after the old notes had gone, the newsreaders on ZBC TV were
on a propaganda high, glowing and grovelling and singing the praises about what
they said had been a smooth changeover. This was despite monstrous queues at
banks, building societies and cash machines which were painfully slow and
clearly visible. By the next day the propaganda had done a complete U turn and
ZBC was talking about people swarming banks and police having to control crowds
who were stranded with the old money. Then on the third day the spin was back
and the reports were about the happiness of the "Transacting Public." You simply
had to laugh by then and wonder about which clever cookie had come up with the
phrase Transacting Public!
Five days after the money changeover deadline had passed came a speech from the
Governor of the Reserve Bank. This was serious stuff now and his vote of thanks
included everyone who is anyone in Zimbabwe and went on for some considerable
time. Nothing was said about the fact that neither the old money nor the new is
backed up by adequate gold reserves. Everything assumed elevated proportions in
the Governors speech and ordinary words became proper nouns and were given
capital letters. We were told that a Special Window had been opened for Special
Cases of people in remote areas in a Mop Up Programme to hand in their old
money. This was apparently the last attempt to recover 10 trillion dollars of
money that had not been accounted for. You have to shake your head in wonder at
the utterly absurd thought of desperately poor people living in dusty villages
without electricity or running water having 10 trillion dollars buried in their
back gardens!
There are some good things about life in Zimbabwe this week - it's raining
leaves and summer is almost upon us. The temperatures are warming up and
everything in the garden has started growing again. For this we are thankful.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle 26
August 2006. http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:
orders@africabookcentre.com
Nqakula has previously criticised those who 'whinge' about crime. South Africa's police minister has told police that they can ride donkeys or bicycles to get to crime scenes if they do not have cars. Speaking at a police awards ceremony, Charles Nqakula said police who failed to do their job could quit the service. South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime.
Earlier this year, the minister sparked controversy when he told opposition MPs that if they wanted to "Whinge" about crime, they could leave the country. But speaking at the ceremony in Pretoria on Thursday, he urged the police and the South African public alike to be less tolerant of crime. "If you don't have a car, ride a bicycle or a donkey," Mr Nqakula said in response to police who offered the excuse of not having transport when investigating crimes, reports the Pretoria News newspaper.
"We are living in a society where tolerance is allowing people to get away with murder. I will not condone policemen and women who say they cannot help the people they have sworn to help. "If you cannot or are not willing to do your job then get out of the organisation," he said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Bike taxi ban hits Lagos commuters
By Alex Last - BBC News, Lagos.
Since last week, Hassan Nurudeen's daily journey home from work in a Lagos bank has taken him four hours on a battered yellow bus. Drivers are no longer allowed to work after dark. He is one of the many Lagos commuters hit by a curfew that the authorities have placed on motorbike taxis, known as okadas.
"The okada is one of the fastest modes of transport we have ever had. For the past few days, we have been suffering, trekking a long time to get home from work," Mr Nurudeen says. The bikes weave past endless lanes of cars, stuck in the infamous traffic jams in this city of 15m people. They are also pretty cheap, about $0.50 for a local journey, so many risk life and limb, and take an okada.
But now, the Lagos state government has said that from 1900 until 0600 the next day, anyone using one of these faces a fine of up to $400. The government says it is part of its fight against the high crime rate, as criminals sometimes use motorbikes to commit crimes at night.
"The government was considering a situation where some of the okadas - a few of them - were involved in criminal activities," says Deputy Superintendent Olubode Ojajuni, public relations officer for Lagos state police.
Robbery, picking up handsets, stealing handbags, generally harassing people. Because it's difficult to identify those who were responsible, they thought it best to restrict their activities." He denied it was a drastic measure. "We are talking about crime - even if you beat the traffic and you are attacked, what's the benefit," he says.
Mr Nurudeen, facing a long ride home in a minibus, rejects this argument. "Okada riders are not the thieves," he insists. "We hear of armed robbers using okadas, but they also use cars - so they should stop all traffic at night if they want to stop armed robbers. This is not the solution."
Under an overpass in Lagos Island, okada drivers are parked by the side of the road, some tinkering with their machines, others sitting or leaning on their bikes, waiting for a passenger. "The people who really suffer from this curfew are the workers, the civil servants who work late," said Godwin, an okada driver.
Okadas are the best way to avoid Lagos's notorious traffic. "I've stopped driving at night, nobody is above the law." He said the cost of getting caught was high, and said the police were practising extortion - a charge the police deny. "Once you are arrested you are forced to pay 1,000 naira (almost $8)," Godwin says. "If you protest, they take you to the police station and charge you, and impound your bike. It will cost a lot more to get it back." "It's a big problem when you do this risky work, earning a little money all day, having to hand it over. No good okada rider is involved in criminal activity. We already risk enough, riding in between cars."
Some people approve of the curfew, but without the thousands of okadas after 1900, many face the prospect of longer journeys. "The ban starts too early - it gives me a lot of stress getting home from work," said commuter Segun Akintunde. His colleague, Afolayan Olasunkanmi, agreed: "It means I won't be able to stay out. The okada ban is causing so much havoc. It will never work." These days there are very few motorbikes on the streets after nightfall, only a few stragglers making their way home.
But many okada drivers know where the checkpoints will be and how to avoid them. Given the need to move around this city, let alone the ever-present desire to make some money, there's some doubt about just how long these okadas can be kept off the road.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
South Africa's government says it needs to find new stratgies for communicating its message on HIV/Aids.The announcement comes as activists called for a "day of action" to try to get the health minister to resign. The government has been criticised for recommending natural cures as well as anti-retroviral drugs to Aids patients. The UN special envoy on Aids accused the government of being "negligent" in its Aids policies at the International Aids Conference in Toronto last week.
"Cabinet decided that work should be done, locally and abroad, to enhance understanding of our comprehensive HIV and Aids programme, to address any doubts about government's commitment to the fight against HIV and Aids," government communications head Themba Maseko told journalists on Thursday.
He said a cabinet meeting on Wednesday had noted the impact of "false allegations" that the government did not have a comprehensive programme to deal with HIV and Aids. "Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "Our responsibility is to find a better way of communicating the strategy so we are not seen to be over-emphasising one aspect", he said, apparently referring to criticism that the government's endorsement of natural remedies was discouraging people from seeking ARV treatment.
Protests led by the Treatment Action Campaign took place on Thursday in cities around South Africa, where more than 5m people - 12% of the population - are infected. Police used pepper spray to evict dozens of TAC supporters from a government building in Cape Town, Reuters news agency reports.
Launching its day of action, the TAC called for:
the dismissal of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang;
a national meeting to formulate an emergency strategy to tackle the Aids crisis;
treatment and care for prisoners with HIV/Aids.
This follows the death in custody of a prisoner identified as "MM", who was among a group of prisoners who won a court case guaranteeing their right to ARV medication, but who TAC says received the drugs too late.
TAC described MM's death as "the tip of an iceberg". "Today, we face a crisis of HIV infection, illness and death. Above all, we face a crisis of governance," TAC said. More than 1,000 new infections and more than 800 deaths occur every day, according to TAC.
UN envoy Stephen Lewis said at the International Aids Conference that South Africa promoted a "lunatic fringe" attitude to HIV/Aids, and described the government as "obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment". The South African display at the conference included lemons and garlic, which Dr Tshabalala-Msimang has advocated for many years as helpful to people with HIV. After pressure from activists, South Africa changed its policy and started distributing ARVs at government clinics in 2004.
The government currently gives ARVs to more than 100,000 of the approximately 6m South Africans who are HIV-positive. Critics say that the government's emphasis on natural remedies is leading people to see them as an alternative to ARV medication.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Kenyans see Mr Obama as one of their own. Kenyans are preparing a hero's welcome for US Senator Barack Obama, who has started his first visit to his father's homeland since his 2004 election. The road to his family village of Nyangoma Kogalo in western Kenya has been upgraded and local residents have been busy cutting the grass.
Pupils at a local school have been rehearsing a song to welcome him. Mr Obama is the only black US Senator and is seen as a rising star of the Democratic party. He landed in Nairobi and is expected to travel west at the weekend.
The BBC's Muliro Telewa says Mr Obama will need to speak to his grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama through an interpreter, as she does not speak English. "He will learn [Luo, the local language]," she told our reporter.
Barack Obama is to take an Aids test in Kenya. Before leaving the US for his tour of Africa, Mr Obama tried to dampen expectations that he would go "home" laden with lots of aid. "There is a sense that somehow I can deliver the largesse of the US government," he was quoted as saying. "And I can't."
But the barefooted children at the school 1km from his father's grave sing: "We need a modern library to help raise our standard of education." Others hope he will fund better access to water.
Vendors have been selling T-shirts with the slogan Senator Obama, Welcome Home. Kenyans have also renamed the local Senator beer "Obama". "Most people have forgotten the real name of the beer because we want to identify with Obama," drinker Carillus Onyango, 24, told the AFP news agency. "He is the only senator we know of, he is close to us and we are proud of him."
Mr Obama is expected to take an Aids test in the nearest city, Kisumu, in order to encourage local people to take the test themselves.Kisumu has one of Kenya's highest rates of HIV prevalence. He began his African tour in South Africa but has cancelled plans to visit Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Chances of survival are small if a parachute fails to open. A South African man who survived a 1,000m skydive fall with a few bruises has vowed never to parachute again. Benno Jacobs, 35, took his maiden parachute jump last Friday, hoping to land safely in a field near the city of Bloemfontein. Instead, he plummeted to the ground as his parachute failed to open properly for reasons that are still unclear.
Mr Jacobs told the BBC that during the 60-second plunge he thought about his wife and children, and prayed. "I thought maybe this is the speed you usually travel in a parachute," he said.Once he hit the ground, he stood up and started walking towards the clubhouse under the gaze of stunned family and friends. "I could see on their faces that something terrible had happened, and they couldn't believe what was happening."
Mr Jacobs said the moment he went into a spiral, people on the ground called an ambulance fearing the worst. "They stopped the bystanders from going there because they said there would only be a bag of bones lying there," he told the BBC's World Today. The father of two was later treated in hospital with bruises and a swollen lip. "It's really a miracle that no one can understand in South Africa - or I think in the world - what happened," he said.
Mr Jacobs blames his failed first jump on a line that was twisted when he left the plane. As he spiralled towards the ground, he tried pulling all the cords, to no avail. But the Parachute Association of South Africa has put the incident down to "pilot error". PASA safety and training officer Mark Bellingan said Mr Jacobs held the right-hand steering toggle down, causing him to spiral and hit the ground at greater, but not fatal, speed. "If it were true that the parachute did not open, there was no way he would have survived," Mr Bellingan told the South African Press Association.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Posted by: Mara at August 23, 2006 13:19 |
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