SWAHILI WEB GAME TO TACKLE AIDS !
Players makes choices in virtual relationships.The United Nations children's agency (Unicef) has launched the first computer game in Kiswahili, aimed at halting the spread of HIV and Aids. The game called "What would you do?" (Ungefanyaje?) takes players through various scenarios to explain the importance of prevention and testing.
The UN estimates that around 80% of all young people do not know how to protect themselves from Aids.
Africa accounts for most of the world's 2.3m children who are HIV-positive. More than 100 million people speak Swahili across east African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the Unicef game, players choose from different options as two male and two female characters embark on relationships.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CHINA TO BUILD NIGERIAN RAILWAY !
Nigeria's railways have fallen into disrepair. China is to build a railway line between Nigeria's two main commercial cities, Lagos and Kano. An $8bn contract was signed by the deputy transport minister and the president of the Chinese firm (CCECC).
CCECC President Lin Rongxin said 50,000 Nigerians would work on the 1,315km line which he said was "a design, construct and maintain project". Nigeria's leader said the five-year north-south line was the first phase in a 20-year modernisation programme. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who watched the signing, said the second phase of the railway project would include a link between the southern oil city of Port Harcourt and the central city of Jos.
The existing railway along these routes has fallen into disrepair and new tracks are to be built under the deal with China. China recently granted Nigeria a loan of $2.5bn and much of this is expected to be used in the railway project.Earlier this year Nigeria repaid a multi-billion dollar debt it owed to the Paris Club, becoming the first African nation to settle with its official lenders.
Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil exporters, but it is also one of the world's poorest countries, with the majority of the population living on less than $1 per day.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
GREEN GOVERNMENT PLAN A 'FIASCO' !
Green government plan 'a fiasco'
By Matthew Chapman - Five Live Report .
Governments are coming under pressure to protect the environment. Money pledged by the UK to help an African township cut energy costs is paying for bureaucrats and accountants, BBC's Five Live Report has found out. The donation was meant to make up for the pollution caused by the world leaders flying to last years G8 summit in Gleneagles hosted by Tony Blair. The revelations led to Friends of the Earth calling the scheme "a fiasco".
Questions have also been raised about the UK government promoting firms that offset pollution with other measures. For example, under carbon offset schemes, companies are offering to plant trees or invest in energy saving projects on behalf of air travellers to compensate for the pollution their flights have caused.
Ministers announced that last year's G8 meeting would be the first ever carbon neutral summit and pledged that £50,000 would be given to a scheme in a township in Cape Town which provided energy saving light bulbs and fuel efficient stoves to local residents. The money is being routed through the United Nations-run Clean Development Mechanism, which gives the stamp of approval to energy saving schemes. The travel industry has come under scrutiny over its green credentials.
However, the BBC has learned that the whole scheme has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare for the local council who face being left in debt. Council spokeswoman Shirene Rosenberg said the British money would have to be spent on auditors hired from an international accountancy firm who would check on the efficiency of the scheme. Other sources have said that one of the jobs of the auditors may be to count the light bulbs to check how many have been broken. "It's been a complicated and onerous process," said Ms Rosenberg. "It would definitely make the council think twice about being involved in another project like this."
The scheme allows the council to engage in carbon trading whereby they calculate how many tonnes of carbon dioxide could be saved by the project and then sell off these potential saved pollutants, or carbon rights, to Western donors like the UK government. South South North, an independent organisation involved in the project, has calculated that the scheme will raise £37,000 pounds from selling these carbon rights, which should then be invested back into the poverty stricken township.
However, they have then calculated that filling in all the forms demanded by CDM, as well as hiring auditors, will cost £54,000, leaving Cape Town council in debt to the tune of £17,000. It has also emerged that the South African energy firm Eskom has launched its own scheme to supply energy efficient light bulbs in the very same area potentially replicated the work done on the project. Environmental campaigners say the G8 leaders should have come up with a programme to reduce greenhouse gasses rather than get involved in carbon offset schemes.
"The whole of this G8 offsets scheme has been a fiasco from start to finish," said Mike Childs of campaign group Friends of the Earth. "The government would have done better to concentrate on the supply of low energy light bulbs in the UK before moving on to Africa." The South African project was meant to help fulfil a promise by ministers to create a carbon-neutral government. The Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has responded to the allegations saying that the government wanted the CDM system to become faster and more efficient.
They also said that auditors were needed to check the project was delivering energy efficiency. Defra is thought to be weeks away from announcing which company will have the contract to handle up to £1m of government money aimed at buying carbon offsets to compensate for all the air travel taken by ministers and civil servants. Can planting trees really help offset the effects of a plane journey? One of the favourites is thought to be the Carbon Neutral Company, which along with Climate Care is being promoted on several government websites to airline travellers in the UK.
The Carbon Neutral Company allows people to buy into forests in the UK, but despite references to "your forest" on their website, some customers do not realise they have not bought a tree with their money. Instead some mistakenly make the trek to a remote forest on the Isle of Skye. "Unfortunately yes they do seem to labour under that misconception," said Kevin Sutton, who manages the Orbst Forest on behalf of its owners, a government quango called Highlands and Island Enterprise. "They ask 'where is the tree that I bought?' I have to refer them back to the company," he explained.
What customers of the Carbon Neutral Company have bought stems from a contract between the company and the owners of the forest agreeing not to cut the tree down for 99 years. This allows the company to sell the carbon rights of each tree for 99 years. Several landowners contacted by the BBC, including the Highlands and Island Enterprise, said the forests were going to be grown anyway and being public forests were unlikely to have been cut down. They said the Carbon Neutral Company's investment was relatively small in the overall budgets of the forests.
A spokesman for the Carbon Neutral Company said they had a raft of quality assurance measures in place to make sure that all their projects represented the best practice in the market. They said all their projects were continuously reviewed by an independent advisory board.
Matthew Chapman's report, Trading Trees can be heard on Five Live Report on Sunday 29 October at 1100 GMT and will also be available at the Five Live Report website.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
PRISONERS DIE IN MOZAMBIQUE MINE !
Four prisoners in Mozambique have been killed in a mudslide while working at a goldmine in central Manica province, close to the border with Zimbabwe. They were digging a ditch before the installation of mine equipment. Some of those who died were detainees awaiting trial. It is not yet known what caused the mudslide.
An inquiry has been ordered into why they were being used as prison labour, when this is normally restricted to convicted prisoners. The BBC's Jose Tembe in Mozambique says it is common practice for private companies to recruit and pay for prison labour but only for those who have been convicted. This is the second time in less than 10 days that a mudslide has killed people in a Manica goldmine.
In the first incident, five illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe panning gold in the district of Sussundenga died after getting buried a week ago. Police spokesman Jeronomo Brago says heavy rains caused that mudslide. Thirty Zimbabweans perished in March this year at the same place when they were swept away by heavy rains which flooded rivers in Binga Mountains.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
FRANCE MOVES TO STOP BUS ATTACKS !
The bus attacks have fuelled fears of a new wave of rioting. The French government is holding an emergency meeting on transport security after youths set a bus ablaze on Saturday, critically injuring a woman. The attack in the southern city of Marseille left 26-year-old Mama Galledou from Senegal with burns to nearly 70% of her body.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin appealed for witnesses to the attack. Masked youths have set several buses ablaze, a year after riots by gangs mainly of African and Arab origin. Both Mr de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy pledged that the Marseille perpetrators would be tracked down and punished. About 200 extra police were deployed in the city.
A group of teenagers reportedly forced open the doors of the vehicle and threw an inflammable liquid inside before fleeing. About 200 vehicles were set alight in incidents around the country on Saturday, and nearly 50 people were arrested. The French news agency AFP said youths in Grenoble threw a stone from a bridge onto a tram, smashing the window and injuring the driver.
Last year's riots were sparked by the deaths of two teenagers in a suburb of Paris. There is dispute over whether they were chased by police before they were electrocuted while hiding in an electricity substation. During the violence last year - between youths of mainly North African origin and police - more than 10,000 cars were set ablaze and 300 buildings firebombed.
Community leaders in run-down French suburbs have warned that the factors which played a key part in the riots - high unemployment, racial discrimination and youth alienation from mainstream society - remain unchanged.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CHAD ARMY CHIEF SHOT BY REBELS !
The army has been unable to end the rebellion.One of Chad's top army officers has been killed in fighting with rebels in a battle near Chad's border with Sudan. Gen Moussa Seugui died after being shot in the shoulder in the south-eastern town of Hadjer Meram, Defence Minister Bichara Issa told the BBC.
The general was taken to hospital but doctors were unable to save him. Mr Issa said the army had lost four of its men and claimed 100 rebels had been killed although there is no independent confirmation of the figures.
The BBC's Stephanie Hancock in Chad has been told by military sources that casualties from the fighting were extremely heavy and the actual number may be far higher. The fighting is part of a week-long offensive by rebels of the recently-formed Union for the Forces of Development and Democracy. They have been moving through a series of towns in eastern Chad, clashing with government forces from time to time. Both sides say they have the upper hand in the fighting.
"The humanitarian fallout is extremely serious," UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno has warned. As well as clashes between Chadian soldiers and rebels intent on overthrowing President Idriss Deby, relations between Chad and Sudan have also deteriorated.
Last week, Chad accused Sudan of backing the rebels, and on Saturday accused Khartoum of bombing villages in eastern Chad - a charge Sudan has denied.
Sudan in turn accuses Chad of backing rebels in its war-torn Darfur region, which has a similar ethnic make-up to eastern Chad. In April, a rebel advance reached the capital, N'Djamena, before being pushed back.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
AFRICA'S FORGOTTEN HIV CHILDREN !
Children with HIV and Aids in the developing world are half as likely as adults to get life-saving drugs. This means fewer than one in 10 of over two million children infected get anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs). The BBC's Angus Crawford met three children living with the illness in Swaziland, which has the highest rate of infection in the world.
Nkhosibona is very shy. He sits in his mother's arms, wriggling and putting his head on her shoulder. His father died of Aids three years ago and his mother Phindile is HIV-positive. But what she can't do, like thousands of others, is find out if her boy is infected too. "I don't have money, the hospitals are too far, I have to go by bus," she says. "There are many families here facing the same problem."
I ask her what happens to those children. "We wait until they get ill and die," she says. The first barrier to treatment is diagnosis. Just like Nkhosibona, more than 90% of those with HIV in the developing world don't know they have the disease. Half of all children born with the illness will die before their fifth birthday. "Children have been the missing face in the fight against HIV and Aids because they don't speak for themselves and they cannot be tested until they are over 18 months," says Pelucy Ntambirweki of the UN children's charity, Unicef, based in Swaziland.
Thembelani is wearing a bright yellow shirt covered in red pineapples and the word Hawaii. The drugs are not always in a form children can take. When he sees us he runs to a small mud brick house surrounded by weeds. His father Jeremiah comes out to greet us. He and his wife are both on ARVs but he doubts whether his son, who's also HIV-positive, will get the treatment. "They want you to be very, very sick - be bed-ridden first," he said.
The journey to the clinic takes five hours by bus but they don't have enough money for the fare. A second barrier to treatment is poverty, poor infrastructure and a lack of medical staff. Pelucy says the chances of a child like Thembelani getting treatment "depend on who is taking care of him, how far he is from the clinic, and if there is access to the right medication". Thanks to charities, governments and drugs firms those medicines are usually free to the poorest. But they are not always user-friendly.
Xolani is tiny. He is 12, but is the height of a five-year-old. He proudly shows me his ARVs. "He has improved very, very much - tremendously health wise," says his father Mangaliso.
Many child victims of HIV and Aids die before they are five years old
That is because Xolani is taking adult drugs which are broken in half.
Before he took bottles of syrups designed for children, but his father found it hard to get the dose right. He gave his son three bottles, twice a day in a hut with no light. The markings on their one syringe rubbed off.
Xolani became more and more ill. What doctors in Swaziland want are easy to use, fixed-dose combination drugs - they exist for adults but not yet here for children.
"Having a product that is one size fits all - no one is saying that's feasible," says Jon Pender, director of government affairs for GlaxoSmithKline, the largest pharmaceutical company in Europe. They provide their ARVs at cost price to Africa and deny they are neglecting investment in child-friendly drugs. "The tools are there to treat children but most mothers in Africa don't have access to any kind of health care systems at all," he says.
For Xolani, Thembelani and Nkhosibona, it is ultimately poverty which will decide whether they live or die.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
QUOTES
"WHEN POWER NARROWS THE AREA OF MAN'S CONCERN,
POETRY REMINDS HIM OF THE RICHNESS AND DIVERSITY
OF HIS EXISTENCE"!
## JOHN F KENNEDY ##
Ghana edge out Mali at AWC !
Ghana edge out Mali at AWC
By Oluwashina Okeleji - BBC Sport, Ughelli.
The 1-1 draw was not what Cameroonian fans were hoping for. Ghana moved to the top of Group B at the African Women's Championship in Nigeria with a 1-0 win over Mali, after Cameroon and the DR Congo could only battle out a 1-1 draw. A counter-attack lead to Tahiru Rumanatu scoring the only goal of the game in Oghara in the 56th minute to give Ghana the win in their opening game at the tournament.
Mali looked impressive as Ghana struggled without sveral of their key players, who have not been released by their clubs in the USA. Earlier in the day Cameroon, the 2004 runners-up, were held to a 1-1 draw by ten-man DR Congo in Ughelli. The Indomitable Lionesses shot ahead in the first ten seconds of the Group B game through Ngono Madeleine, who capitalized on defensive lapses to stun the bewildered Congolese.
DR Congo fought back gamely against the 2004 runners-up and Zonga Francine was unlucky as her 30th-minute strike hit the upright. Yet their resilience paid off in the 57th minute as Kisita Milandu fired in a free-kick which sailed past Cameroon goalkeeper Nguele Valentine. The equaliser sent the mammoth Ughelli crowd into raptures, with the fans cheering every Congolese move.
Although Kuyangisa Odille was sent off after 75 minutes for a rash tackle on Mekongo Cecille, DR Congo gave a spirited display to share the points. "It's a terrible thing because the red card was not right," DRC coach Mira-Konga told BBC Sport. "We are satisfied with the result because no one gave us a chance against the Cameroonians."
The water-logged pitch, a result of torrential rainfall in Ughelli, distorted the game, with the players struggling to put their passes together in this group B encounter.
BBC SPORTS REPORT.
Author Nadine Gordimer attacked !
Gordimer campaigned against censorship during the apartheid era.Former Booker winner and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Nadine Gordimer, has been attacked at her home in South Africa. Gordimer, 83, was assaulted when three men broke into her home in Johannesburg on Thursday, taking cash and jewellery.
The author, who was locked in a store room with her maid while the burglars fled the scene, did not receive any serious injuries.
Police spokesman Sergeant Sanku Tsunke said no arrests had been made. Despite demands to hand over her jewellery, Gordimer refused to part with her wedding ring from her marriage to art dealer Reinhold Cassirer, who died in 2001. The author, who is well-known for her anti-apartheid works, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991.
Several of her novels, which include The Conservationist and July's People, were banned under the apartheid regime. Her most recent work, Get A Life, was long-listed for the 2006 Booker prize.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CLIMATE CHANGE 'HITTING AFRICA' !
Bones of cattle which died during 1996 drought in Hadado, northern Kenya.Droughts are becoming more frequent, the report saysClimate change is already affecting people across Africa and will wipe out efforts to tackle poverty there unless urgent action is taken, a report says.
Droughts are getting worse and climate uncertainty is growing, the research from a coalition of UK aid agencies and environmental groups says.Climate change is an "unprecedented" threat to food security, it says.It calls for a "climate-proof" model of development and massive emissions cuts to avoid "possibly cataclysmic change".The report, Up In Smoke 2, updates previous research from the organisations - Oxfam, the New Economics Foundation and the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, an umbrella group of aid and green groups.
It says that although climates across Africa have always been erratic, scientific research and the experience of the contributing groups "indicates new and dangerous extremes".Arid or semi-arid areas in northern, western, eastern and parts of southern Africa are becoming drier, while equatorial Africa and other parts of southern Africa are getting wetter, the report says.
The continent is, on average, 0.5C warmer than it was 100 years ago, but temperatures have risen much higher in some areas - such as a part of Kenya which has become 3.5C hotter in the past 20 years, the agencies report.
Andrew Simms, from the New Economics Foundation, said: "Global warming is set to make many of the problems which Africa already deals with, much, much worse," he said."In the last year alone, 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have faced food crisis."Global warming means that that many dry areas are going to get drier and wet areas are going to get wetter. They are going to be caught between the devil of drought and the deep blue seas of floods."He added that the "great tragedy" was that Africa had played virtually no role in global warming, a problem he said was caused by economic activity of the rich, industrial countries.Mr Simms said unless climate change was tackled all the "best efforts" to help Africa could come to nothing.
One of the biggest threats is growing climate unpredictability, which makes subsistence farming difficult, the report says.The average number of food emergencies in Africa per year almost tripled since the mid 1980s, it points out.But it says that better planning to reduce the risk from disasters, together with developing agricultural practices that can withstand changing climates, have been shown to work and could help mitigate the impact if used be more widely.
Up in Smoke 2 also laments the failure of industrialised governments to help developing countries adapt to climate change.Between $10bn (£5.2bn) and $40bn is needed annually, the report says, but industrialised countries have given only $43m - a tenth of the amount they have pledged - while rich country fossil fuel subsidies total $73bn a year.The agencies say that greenhouse emissions cuts of 60% - 90% will ultimately be needed - way beyond the targets set in the Kyoto agreement.
"Climate change is overwhelming the situation in Africa... unless we take genuine steps now to reduce our emissions, people in the developed world will be condemning millions to hunger, starvation and death," said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth.The report comes two weeks before a key summit on climate change in Nairobi, where delegates will look at the progress made on the Kyoto agreement that requires industrial nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.
Delegates will also consider what system should be adopted when the current period ends.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
NIGER SUSPENDING ARAB EXPULSIONS!
Niger's government has suspended a controversial decision to deport thousands of Arabs back to Chad.
The Mahamid Arabs, who are mostly nomads with animals, have lived in arid areas of Niger for several decades.
The communications minister told Reuters news agency that neighbouring countries intervened to request a halt to the expulsions begun on Thursday. The Mahamid were accused of wrongdoing, including theft and rape, but critics say the move was politically motivated.
The Niger government initially said it was expelling more than 150,000 people who, it said, were in the country illegally. The French foreign ministry said later that the actual figure was more likely to be around 4,000. Many of the Mahamid crossed into Niger more than 30 years ago to escape drought, famine and fighting in Chad. The decision to suspend the expulsions came after a cabinet meeting on Friday.
NIGER'S MAHAMID ARABS
Originally nomads from Chad
150,000 live mainly in Diffa State
Many came after 1974 drought
More fled 1980s Chad fighting
Fought against 1990s Tuareg rebellion
Earlier this week, the governor of Diffa State, where most of the Mahamid live, told them it was "high time" to pack and return to Chad. While Niger's Interior Minister Mounkaila Modi said the Mahamid possessed illegal firearms and were a serious threat to the security of local communities and that their camels were draining local oases.
But observers say that the Mahamid, many of whom are wealthy and control the much of eastern Niger's economy, are backing a politician who plans to challenge President Mamadou Tandja in elections due in 2008. There are also racial tensions with the local black population who accuse the Arabs of being "arrogant".
On Wednesday, Mahamid leaders told reporters they would defend themselves against attack and called on the United Nations to intervene. They insisted they were citizens of Niger and "have no other country to go to", after being given five days to leave the country. Many of the Arabs came to Niger from neighbouring Chad following the 1974 drought in Chad. Others who were fleeing fighting in Chad arrived in the 1980s. Many have since risen to senior positions in the military, local administration and in business.
Like the rest of the country, the east of Niger is extremely arid. It is populated by nomadic cattle herders, whilst the Arabs also own camels. Not surprisingly, one source of the tension between the communities is water. With the Sahara desert expanding quite quickly there are growing fears that the scarcity of water could spark future problems in many African countries in the region.
The BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross says that with the spread of Islam to Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, Arabs greatly expanded their presence and influence and there are many examples of how the African and Arab cultures have mixed.
For example, some 20% of East Africa's Swahili language comes from Arabic. Arab and non-Arab Africans both had the common goal of opposing European colonialists. But there have also been areas where the cultures have clashed, one example being Sudan, which has been plagued by conflict between the Arab dominated government in the north and the black African south.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
TANZANIA ARRESTS OVER BABY PARTS!
Tanzania arrests over baby parts
By Vicky Ntetema
BBC, Tanzania.
Two men suspected of murdering a baby after being caught with body parts have been detained in Tanzania, say police. The two were caught in the northern region of Shinyanga which is famous for belief in witchcraft and mob killings of elderly people accused of sorcery.
Despite efforts to punish perpetrators, witchcraft-related crimes are on the increase in some cattle-keeping areas in the north, say the authorities. Police also came across body parts earlier this year in the area.
A few months ago they discovered a woman's body abandoned in the bush without its private parts. It is believed that they were removed by unknown people for rituals. Shinyanga Regional Police Commander Sirro Nyakoro told the BBC a 28-year-old was caught red handed on Wednesday trading body parts, including the skull and ribs, to another man who is also under police custody.
Belief in witchcraft is common in Tanzania, where suspected sorcerers, often elderly, can face mob justice. According to the police, killings are often old women who have red eyes from being too close to cooking smoke.
Although the government condemns these practices very few arrests are made as villagers are often frightened to name the culprits.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CATHY's weekly letter from Zimbabwe.
Dear Family and Friends,
There were about sixty people standing in a line that snaked across the car
park outside a post office a few days before the end of the month. This is
October and the month notorious for seethingly hot temperatures and this
day was no exception. Before 8.30 in the morning jerseys and jackets had
been discarded, most people were wearing slip slops or sandals and short
sleeved tops. The queue was made up of people waiting to draw money out of
post office savings accounts. A few minutes before opening time a man
emerged carrying a small pile of brown cardboard squares, each the size of
a thumbnail. On each scrap of grimy, slimy cardboard was written a number
from one to fifty and the man prepared to start giving them out to the
people in the line. A peaceful, patient line turned immediately into chaos
and it was like watching a spreading pool of petrol and waiting for someone
to drop a match. Louts that hadn't been in the queue ran across the car
park to grab a square of cardboard, desperate people at the back surged
forward, arms stretched out, voices rose up and angry shouts were heard.
Then suddenly it was over, the squares of cardboard had been issued and it
was simple - no bit of cardboard equals no money for you. Only the people
with a numbered square of cardboard would be able to draw their money out
today - there just isn't enough money to go round anymore and so the levels
of deprivation increase another peg.
I drafted this letter one day before rural council and mayoral elections
got underway across the country. In the run up to the vote it has been
blatantly obvious that the ruling party are as bereft of ideas as the post
office is of money. Year after year, election after election - absolutely
nothing changes. In the last week the President of the Council of Chiefs
publicly declared that villagers who did not vote for the ruling party
would be evicted from their homes. TV news reports have showed ruling party
officials addressing rallies and from both speakers and audiences its just
the same old same old. The clenched fist-raising in praise of the ruling
party, the stream of "pasi na" (down with) slogans which are declared about
anyone who dares to differ, and the predictable shouting and berating by
the leaders and candidates who don't seem to know how to charm or persuade
audiences and so they just tell them off. Ever present too is the huge
range of clothing decorated with the President's face and the gyrating
women dancing frantically in front of the candidates. All this takes place
outside in the open in the dripping October sun and there is no laughter,
pleasure or even interest on peoples faces.
Zimbabwe's rural infrastructure is crumbling, everyone sees and knows it -
roads, clinics, schools, boreholes and transport systems. It is not all
hard to know who to vote for in rural elections. It is very very hard to
pay attention to the shouting, berating and anger of prospective candidates
when you know this and some of the other facts about life in Zimbabwe this
week:
A four rung, five foot wooden ladder, unvarnished and untreated cost 76
thousand dollars, this is 8 times more than the monthly wage of a garden,
house or farm worker. A consultation and filling at a private dentist costs
38.5 thousand dollars - this is more than most government school teachers
take home in a normal month. One orange from a roadside vendor this week
cost 550 dollars - this was how much a 1000 acre farm cost just a little
over ten years ago - a farm with 2 dams, a dairy, tobacco barn, trading
store, large farmhouse and 10 farm workers houses.
This week it doesn't matter where you go or who you talk to, rural or
urban, everywhere the clarion call is the same - how much longer. Until
next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle
28 October 2006. http:/africantears.netfirms.com My books "African Tears"
and "Beyond Tears" are available from: orders@africabookcentre.com
MIJAILOVIC BAN FOR MACARTHY ABUSE!
McCarthy was subjected to racist abuse. Wisla Krakow defender Nikola Mijailovic has been banned for five Uefa matches for the racial abuse of Blackburn striker Benni McCarthy.The Serbian was found guilty of the offence that took place when the sides met on 19 October, by European football's governing body Uefa.
The 24-year-old was charged based on a complaint by Blackburn, the FA and match referee Stefan Johannesson. Mijailovic, who denied the allegations, has until Monday to appeal. Blackburn welcomed the outcome of the case. "Firstly, we appreciate Uefa's speed in dealing with this important issue," said a statement on the club website. "Secondly, we believe that Uefa's decision sends out a clear message that racism will not, and should not, be tolerated in the game."
Piara Powar, a spokesman for anti-racism campaigners Kick It Out, added: "A ban for five matches is strong stuff and very welcome. "It is the sort of sanction that people across Europe will think, 'There is a message to be learned here'. "The concern in the past has been that many incidents have gone unpunished. "It is time we were able to demonstrate that racism is being challenged in European football. "Uefa are doing a lot of work in this field and this guy (Mijailovic) has been nailed in the right way. "It seems that Blackburn and other officials were able to produce eye-witness evidence, allowing action to be taken."
McCarthy apparently approached Johannesson at half-time but alleged that the taunts continued. "Benni was upset by a number of personal comments directed at him by one of their players," Blackburn boss Mark Hughes said last week. "It happened right throughout the game. Benni, to his credit, did not react to them and he highlighted the issue to a number of Krakow players and the referee at half-time.
"The situation still developed and there were more comments at the end of the game."
BBC SPORTS REPORT.
NIGER STARTS MASS ARAB EXPULSIONS !
Niger's government has expelled a number of Arabs, mostly nomads with animals, from the arid Diffa area after escorting them to the border with Chad. Local governor Umaru Yacuba told the BBC that it was implementing in earnest a controversial decision to expel the Mahamid thought to number some 150,000.
The government ordered all the Arabs to go back to Chad after accusing them of wrongdoing, including theft and rape. But an official backtracked, saying it will expel only those without papers. Government spokesman Mohamed Ben Omar told the BBC it was an immigration issue and he estimated that only about 3,300 would have to leave. When asked what the government would do about those who do not have the right papers, but who work as civil servants and in the police - or even as MPs, Mr Omar said they would have to think about it.
NIGER'S MAHAMID ARABS
Originally nomads from Chad
150,000 live mainly in Diffa State
Many came after 1974 drought
More fled 1980s Chad fighting
Fought against 1990s Tuareg rebellion
But in Diffa, security forces have started to round up groups of Arabs, escorting them to the border, houses and scrubland are also reportedly being searched. On Wednesday, Mahamid leaders told reporters they would defend themselves against attack and called on the United Nations to intervene. They insisted they were citizens of Niger and "have no other country to go to", after being given five days to leave the country.
Many of the Arabs came to Niger from neighbouring Chad following the 1974 drought in Chad. Others who were fleeing fighting in Chad arrived in the 1980s. Many have since risen to senior positions in the military, local administration and in business.
Earlier this week, the governor of Diffa State, where most of the Mahamid live, told them it was "high time" to pack and return to Chad. "We have decided, starting today, to expel these nomadic Arab 'Mohamides' to their home countries," Niger's Interior Minister Mounkaila Modi told national television. "These foreigners have shown no respect to the rights of the natives and they're putting pressure on pastures in this region. We can no longer accept seeing our ecosystem degraded by foreigners." Mr Modi said the Mahamid possessed illegal firearms and were a serious threat to the security of local communities and that their camels were draining local oases, Reuters news agency reports.
Like the rest of the country, the east of Niger is extremely arid. It is populated by nomadic cattle herders, whilst the Arabs also own camels. Not surprisingly, one source of the tension between the communities is water. With the Sahara desert expanding quite quickly there are growing fears that the scarcity of water could spark future problems in many African countries in the region. The BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross says that with the spread of Islam to Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, Arabs greatly expanded their presence and influence and there are many examples of how the African and Arab cultures have mixed.
For example, some 20% of East Africa's Swahili language comes from Arabic. Arab and non-Arab Africans both had the common goal of opposing European colonialists. But there have also been areas where the cultures have clashed, one example being Sudan, which has been plagued by conflict between the Arab dominated government in the north and the black African south.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
U.N. INITIATES ARMS TRADE AGREEMENT !
Major arms manufacturers Russia and China abstained from the vote.A United Nations committee has voted overwhelmingly to begin work on drawing up an international arms trade treaty. The measure would close loopholes in existing laws which mean guns still end up in conflict zones despite arms embargoes and export controls. It could also stop the supply of weapons to countries whose development is being hampered by arms spending.
Only the US - a major arms manufacturer - voted against the treaty, saying it wanted to rely on existing agreements. A total of 139 states voted for the motion. There were 24 abstentions. Major weapons manufacturers such as Britain, France and Germany voted to begin work on the treaty, as did major emerging arms exporters Bulgaria and Ukraine.
Russia and China, also major arms manufacturers, were among the countries to abstain.
The UK ambassador for disarmament at the UN, John Duncan, said the vote was "a great success". "We have 139 nations which have said: 'Yes, we want a responsible arms trade and we're prepared to discuss it in the UN, with both the consumers and the producers,'" he said.
The UN secretary general has one year to produce a report on how to introduce common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms. A new treaty would close loopholes in existing laws.The BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN says it could be years before an international arms trade treaty is actually agreed - but this vote is an important first step.
Globalisation has made existing export controls inadequate, our correspondent says - often, a weapons company with its headquarters in a country with strict export controls will manufacture components in nations with lax laws. Some developing countries fear a treaty will just create a cartel or a suppliers' club for the major weapons exporters, our correspondent adds.
Human rights organisations have welcomed the move. Amnesty International described the vote as "an historic opportunity", saying "any credible treaty must outlaw those transfers, which fuel the systematic murder, rape, torture and expulsion of thousands of people". One of those campaigning for the treaty was Richard Wilson, whose sister was taken from a bus and shot dead in 2000, while working in Burundi as a school teacher.
He told the BBC's World Today that the major arms exporting countries had to acknowledge their role in providing weapons to the poorest parts of the world. "The attackers fired off nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition. This is in the poorest country in the world. "That says something about the easy availability of weapons, and anything that can be done to reduce that can help to prevent at least some of these tragedies in the future," he said.
Nobel peace prize winners, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have also backed the idea of such a treaty.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
HEAD TO HEAD: DARFUR SITUATION !
Gamal Nkrumah and Eric Reeves debated Darfur's complex issues.
Gamal Nkrumah, the foreign editor of leading Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, and Eric Reeves, professor at Smith College (Massachusetts) and a Sudan researcher and analyst, debate what action the international community should take over the worsening conflict and humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
Eric Reeves, Massachusetts, US
In the face of rapidly accelerating genocidal destruction in Darfur, and given the ongoing collapse of humanitarian operations in vast areas of this devastated region, the international community should issue an ultimatum to the National Islamic Front (National Congress Party) regime in Khartoum: Immediately accept the robust force stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1706 (31 August, 2006) or face non-consensual deployment of the forces required to protect civilians and humanitarians.
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
The phrase "international community" is often used as a euphemism for the United States and other Western powers' political agendas. Non-consensual deployment of foreign, non-African troops, is a non-starter.
It is an act of aggression that infringes on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan.
About 7,000 African Union troops are deployed in Darfur.
As stipulated by Resolution 1706, the deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops must have prior and explicit approval of the Sudanese authorities. Previous US-led military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq have aggravated the situation in the respective countries. The worse scenario is for Darfur to denigrate further into an Iraqi or Afghan quagmire.
The only way forward is to strengthen the African Union peacekeeping contingency in Darfur in both financial and logistical terms.
Eric Reeves, Massachusetts, US
The international community, as represented in Resolution 1706, has implicitly but clearly recognised the radical inability of the African Union force in Darfur.
Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict
No conceivable augmentation of the AU can possibly staunch the flow of genocidal violence in Darfur, protect the more than four million conflict-affected persons in this vast region (including eastern Chad), or provide the protection necessary for the humanitarian operations upon which this desperate population depends - operations that are now collapsing ("in free fall" was how they were described by UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland a month ago).
Although 1706 "invites" Khartoum's consent, it does not require it.
While 1706 explicitly guarantees the Sudan's national sovereignty, it was passed under Chapter VII authority and confers enforcement authority upon a deploying force. What is required is not Khartoum's consent but the international will to accept unambiguously the "responsibility to protect" civilians threatened by genocide, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity - a responsibility unanimously accepted by the UN at its World Summit in September 2005 and explicitly reaffirmed by the unanimous passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1674 (April 2006).
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
More than two million people have been displaced during the conflict
The international community would serve the interests of the people of Darfur if wealthier countries - oil-rich Gulf Arab, Western and Japan - treble humanitarian relief assistance, development aid and step up medical and relief supplies in the short term.
In the longer term, trade and development aid, including investments in medical and educational services, would be vital.
Also of paramount importance is improved logistical and financial support for African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.
Eric Reeves, Massachusetts, US
There can be no doubt that when violence finally ends, the people of Darfur - particularly the targeted non-Arab or African tribal populations - will need immense financial resources to rebuild their lives and communities after three-and-a-half years of genocidal destruction orchestrated by the Khartoum regime.
This destruction has included the burning of thousands of villages, deliberate poisoning of water wells with human and animal corpses, destruction of food- and seed-stocks, and looting of cattle (representing generations of wealth).
But while international assistance will be required, most of this reconstruction financing should come from Khartoum, which is overwhelmingly responsible for the deliberate, ethnically-targeted destruction of lives and livelihoods throughout Darfur.
International mechanisms, with effective enforcement mechanism, should be devised so that Sudan's massive oil revenues (Sudan is now the third largest oil producer in Africa) are directed equitably and efficiently to Darfur.
Other international aid will be required; but the genocidaires must be forced to accept responsibility for the economically devastating consequences of their brutality and savage conduct of the war.
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
The flurry of diplomatic activity concerning Darfur shows that Sudan is already attracting world attention. British international cooperation minister Hilary Benn and US Sudan envoy Andrew Natsios's recent trips to Sudan, for example.
I suspect, though, that oil and not human rights are the main motivation behind the heightened interest of US President George W Bush in Sudan.
It is Sudan's oil, like Iraq's oil, which fuels American interest in Sudan.
Moreover, it is oil which is strengthening Sudan's international position. UN Security Council permanent member China, for example, which imports 6% of its oil from Sudan, will veto any anti-Sudan sanctions.
The Sudanese authorities capitalise upon Chinese support.
Eric Reeves, Massachusetts, US
Critical to understanding the issues of oil development and revenues in Sudan is the country's geography: all current oil development, exploration, and production occurs in southern Sudan or along the traditional North/South border.
Moreover, the concession rights for oil development are virtually all sewn up by Asian companies and TotalFinaElf of France. The effort to suggest that oil interests in Darfur - where there is no present oil production or exploration - are what lie behind Western diplomacy is deeply misleading.
In fact, there is no credible evidence that Darfur has significant oil reserves.
As has been suggested, what is of real significance is that China, Khartoum's primary diplomatic ally at the UN, dominates the two major producing consortia in southern Sudan and southern Kordofan province.
If we want to understand why the National Islamic Front (National Congress Party) feels so emboldened in defying the international community, and in pursuing its genocidal counter-insurgency warfare in Darfur, we should look not to Western but to Chinese oil interests.
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
Chad, Darfur's neighbour to the immediate West has huge oil reserves, there is no doubt that there are oil reserves in Darfur itself. The Chinese and TotalFinaElf of France know all too well that the potential for exploiting Darfur's oil in commercial quantities is tremendous.
The US is most concerned about the Chinese, other Asian and French monopoly of Sudanese oil.
Darfur is of great strategic importance it straddles Libya, Egypt, Chad, and the Central African Republic.
Sudan has accepted African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur. So it is best for all concerned if AU troops are deployed to keep the peace in Darfur.
The AU troops, however, must have financial and logistical support from the UN and Western powers as well as oil-rich Gulf Arab countries. Only then will peace prevail in Darfur.
Reserves in more westerly parts of Chad tell us nothing about Darfur; there is no geologic evidence, no seismic data - nothing that indicates there is oil in Darfur.
But there is a terrifyingly great deal of evidence about the scale of human destruction that will ensue if we do not respond urgently to the acute lack of human security.
Four million people have been affected by the conflict in Darfur.
With or without Khartoum's consent, the international community must uphold its "responsibility to protect civilians" in Darfur - civilians not simply unprotected by the National Islamic Front/National Congress regime - but targets of an ongoing genocidal campaign orchestrated in Khartoum.
Such "responsibility to protect" supersedes claims of national sovereignty. This principle was the explicit conclusion of the UN World Summit Outcome Document, paragraph 139, unanimously adopted in September 2005.
The AU is simply incapable of being transformed into a force that can take up this responsibility with sufficient urgency; it cannot possibly become the force contemplated in UN Security Council Resolution 1706.
To pretend otherwise is the treat with a scandalous moral carelessness the lives of more than four million conflict-affected Darfuris.
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
The interests of the US should not be confused with the interests of the international community. It is clear that the aggression against Iraq was a pretext to control the vast oil reserves of that country.
Human rights and democratisation had nothing to do with the Bush administration's aims.
Abu Ghraib and numerous other atrocities committed against the people of Iraq clearly demonstrated that the US is not interested in the welfare of the people of Iraq. Neither is the Bush administration interested in the welfare of the people of Darfur.
The main goal of the Bush administration, with its extensive oil interests, is to challenge Chinese oil interests and economic clout in Sudan.
The so-called "international peacekeeping force" is a euphemism for foreign military intervention which is destined to have disastrous repercussions for the people of Darfur and Sudan as a whole.
The US must stay out of Darfur.
Eric Reeves, Massachusetts, US
To invoke Iraq and Abu Ghraib when the issue clearly is saving lives in Darfur is disingenuous.
That Iraq was a terribly misconceived debacle that will haunt US foreign policy for years could not be clearer; but this doesn't diminish in the slightest the extraordinarily urgent need for international protection of the more than four million human beings the UN estimates are affected by genocidal conflict in Darfur and eastern Chad.
Just as urgent is the protection of those aid operations upon which this vast population grows increasingly dependent: humanitarian access shrinks almost daily, with many hundreds of thousands of Darfuris completely beyond the reach of food and medical assistance, living without adequate clean water or shelter.
Khartoum continues its large military offensives in North and West Darfur, and in such a context the African Union force currently deployed, even if augmented, is simply incapable of providing protection to the civilian and humanitarian populations.
UN Security Council Resolution 1706, which Khartoum defiantly rejects, provides an appropriate international force of 22,500 troops and civilian police, as well as a strong civilian protection mandate.
This force must deploy with or without Khartoum's consent, with whatever additional forces are required if consent is denied.
The alternative is to watch from afar as - in the words of UN humanitarian aid chief Jan Egeland, "the lives of hundreds of thousands could be needlessly lost."
Gamal Nkrumah, Cairo, Egypt
The ongoing aggression of the Sudanese authorities against innocent civilians is deplorable. However, a Western, US and Nato-led military intervention to end the Darfur crisis would have the opposite and extremely negative impact on a volatile region.
The fighting in Darfur cannot be seen in isolation of the wider regional context.
The arid Sahel region of Africa, and Darfur is very much a part of the Sahel, has witnessed a scramble over meagre resources especially between nomadic, mainly but not exclusively, Arab tribes and pastoralists with non-Arab agriculturalists, and has become endemic in the area.
The crisis-ridden region of the Sahel is a political powder-keg.
Western intervention would exacerbate matters.
In Niger ethnic Arabs, known as the Mahamid, have recently been threatened with deportation. In neighbouring Chad, the authorities have accused Khartoum of supporting the armed opposition groups including the Union of forces for Democracy and Development.
The only way forward is to strengthen the AU forces by logistical and financial support on a massive scale.
Oil-rich Arab countries, Western nations and Asian trade partners of Khartoum must step up aid and trade with Sudan in order to reinvigorate the Sudanese economy, and especially the Darfur economy shattered by years of war.
The international community must multiply humanitarian and development assistance to Darfur instead of sending in troops and instigating more fighting.
Peace must prevail in Darfur and the entire Sahel region.
Co-operation between Arabs and indigenous non-Arab communities is the only way forward, but it must be buttressed with international development aid.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CONGO'S CANDIDATE DEBATE SCRAPPED !
A debate between the two presidential candidates in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been cancelled ahead of this Sunday's final round vote. Incumbent President Joseph Kabila and his challenger Jean-Pierre Bemba failed to agree on the terms of the debate. Mr Bemba wanted a live face-to-face discussion but the president wanted seperate pre-recorded interviews to be edited together before airing.
Meanwhile, the UN mission in DR Congo has appealed for calm before the poll. The United Nations has its biggest force anywhere in the world in the DR Congo, where it is monitoring a peace agreement between warring factions signed in 2002. UN spokesman Jean Tobie Okala condemned a number of isolated incidents which have taken place since the start of the election campaign. Tensions are high because the two candidates were belligerents in the civil war and both still have loyal armed forces.
The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in the capital, Kinshasa, says Mr Bemba's supporters, climbed on trucks and sang rallying singing slogans against Mr Kabila as the debate was cancelled. UN peacekeepers are being backed up by extra EU troops.According to the country's electoral law the candidates should hold a debate before the second round of voting.
The live and pre-recorded options had been proposed by the media authority, but as the candidates themselves failed to reach an agreement the debate was cancelled. Our correspondent says that most people in the capital blamed Mr Kabila for the cancellation and accused him of being unable to stand up to Mr Bemba in a live discussion.
But Mr Kabila's spokesman rejected this suggestion and said that security was the issue and the Mr Bemba's temper made a live debate untenable. "The objective of the debate is to give the opportunities to those who are going to vote actually to hear the vision of both candidates," Antoine Gonda said. He went on to explain that pre-recorded interviews would ensure an equal playing field as both candidates would be able to answer the same questions in the same amount of time. Mr Kabila won more votes overall than Mr Bemba in the first round, but did badly in Kinshasa.
The areas around the capital are now the key battleground for votes. One aspect of the campaign so far is that the country has been broadly split politically into language areas In the first round of voting, when there were over 30 candidates, there was a strong tendency for the incumbent President Kabila to do well in the east, where the lingua franca is Swahili and for Mr Bemba to do well in the west, where most people speak Lingala.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
QUOTES
"YOU WERE BORN AN ORIGINAL.
DONT DIE A COPY " !
## John Mason ##
