Zimbabwe: The price of reconciliation !
Some Zimbabweans remain sceptical about the 'unity' government
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By Andrew Harding
BBC News, Harare
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As Zimbabwe launches a debate about "national healing" after years of political violence, the country's prime minister has told the BBC that those found responsible for a wave of killings and torture should "not necessarily" be sent to jail.
At the same time, some victims have expressed concern they will never see justice or compensation.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was speaking in Harare where the new unity government has just unveiled an "Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration" or ONHRI.
Tsvangirai, who has himself been severely beaten by members of President Robert Mugabe's security forces, stressed that he was "not just saying - forgive, heal and reconcile".
But he said "justice needs forgiveness… and if we do retributive justice, the danger is that we may slide back" towards violence.
John Nkomo, a senior figure in Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF, and chairman of ONHRI, said that "anyone who has broken the law should be put on trial".
But he also argued against a rush to judgment.
"Yes, people were killed; yes, people fight; yes, they may still be fighting, but… this nation is going through a process and these tensions, unless properly managed, could create more tensions for us and we don't want that."
Emmanuel Chiroto says the people who killed his wife are still at large
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None of this seems likely to reassure Emmanuel Chiroto.
One year ago, a group of Zanu-PF militia abducted his wife, Abigail, from their home on the edge of Harare.
Mr Chiroto, an MDC activist, had just been elected the city's deputy mayor. His wife's badly beaten body was found on a roadside soon afterwards.
"I've got the names of six people responsible," said Mr Chiroto, wandering round the ruins of his home, which was firebombed during the attack.
"They live round here. I see them often. But none of them have even been picked up for questioning."
Last week he says he received two threatening phone calls from a male voice saying: "You're forgetting what happened to your wife. Our intention was to kill you."
"We're told things are changing," Mr Chiroto said. "The unity government is in place. But personally I find it very difficult to forgive people who are still boasting about it."
Another MDC activist, Josphat Chidindi, was attacked with an axe on 25 June this year by two men who, he says, were the same Zanu-PF militants who had nearly killed him a year earlier.
His right arm was nearly severed and remains heavily bandaged.
"They wanted to silence me at all costs," he said, dismissing talk of reconciliation in Zimbabwe as "nonsense".
"I want these men to face trial, but I don't think justice will be done as long as Zanu-PF is part of this inclusive government… There is no future to talk about," he said.
Many human rights activists also appear to be sceptical about ONHRI's work.
Maria Mache, from the Crisis Coalition, dismissed it as "a farce".
"We want the perpetrators of violence, those who abducted others, who did so many atrocities in Zimbabwe to be brought to book. We can't talk about reconciliation until there has been transitional justice," she said.
BBC NEWS ERPORT.
Cable fault cuts off West Africa !
It is not clear what has caused the new disruption.
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Large parts of West Africa are struggling to get back online following damage to an undersea cable.
The fault has caused severe problems in Benin, Togo, Niger and Nigeria.
The blackout is thought to have been caused by damage to the SAT-3 cable which runs from Portugal and Spain to South Africa, via West Africa.
Around 70% of Nigeria's bandwidth was cut, causing severe problems for its banking sector, government and mobile phone networks.
"SAT-3 is currently the only fibre optic cable serving West Africa," explained Ladi Okuneye, chief marketing officer of Suburban Telecoms, which provides the majority of Nigeria's bandwidth.
"So all West African countries have to use it."
Companies were being forced to use alternatives - such as using satellite links - to maintain connections to the rest of the world, he said.
Telkom South Africa, one of the shareholders of SAT-3, has not said what caused the problems but said it was aware of "a cable fault on the Benin branch that is being investigated".
The 15,000km (9,300mile) SAT-3 cable lands in eight West African countries as it winds its way between Europe and South Africa.
"The rest of the system is unaffected by this fault," a Telkom South Africa representative said.
Nigeria has been badly hit because around 70% of its bandwidth is routed through neighbouring Benin.
The network, run by Suburban Telecom, was set up to bypass Nigeria's principal telecoms operator Nitel which runs the SAT-3 branch cable which lands in Nigeria.
The SAT-3 consortium is in the process of sending a ship from Cape Town in South Africa to the area to investigate the fault.
Mr Okuneye said that by the time the relevant paperwork was done, it was likely to be "two weeks" before the ship arrived off the coast.
Meanwhile, Benin has been able to reroute its net traffic through neighbouring countries to get back online.
Mr Okuneye said his company was hoping to do the same but said the process would be slower because its bandwidth requirements were so much larger than those of the small republic.
Togo and Niger, which are not part of the SAT-3 consortium, remain offline.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Dutch held 'heading for Somalia' !
Hardline Islamists control much of southern Somalia
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Four Dutch nationals have been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of aiding insurgents in Somalia.
The four 21-year-olds, three born in Morocco, the other in Somalia, were stopped by Kenyan police as they were heading for the border.
The local police were not satisfied with their claims to be tourists.
There have been a series of recent reports that young men from the US, Europe and South Asia have joined the Somali insurgents in a "holy war".
Lamu District Commissioner Stephen Ikua told the BBC the four had travelled by boat from Lamu island before hiring a tractor.
He said it was possible they were headed to Somalia to assist one of the insurgent groups there and they would be interrogated in Nairobi.
The Kenyan authorities say they have arrested and deported several other young men from Tanzania and the United States in the same area for the same reason.
BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says in recent months eyewitnesses in Somalia have reported seeing foreigners amongst the insurgent fighters known as al-Shabab.
Al-Shabab wants to overthrow the UN-backed transitional government in Somalia and put in place strict Islamic law.
The hardline Islamists control much of southern Somalia.
Foreigners have headed to Somalia to take part in what they consider a holy war or jihad.
The authorities in Minnesota in the United States are investigating claims that several young men were lured to Somalia to fight.
Since early May, the fighting between the insurgents and the forces loyal to Somalia's government has displaced nearly 250,000 people.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Nigeria forces storm sect mosque !
Security forces poured into Maiduguri earlier in the week
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Nigerian security forces have stormed a mosque where militants from an Islamic sect blamed for days of deadly violence have been hiding out.
Reports say scores of fighters were killed in the assault, which came after a third night of gun battles in the northern city of Maiduguri.
Many of the militants have now fled, attacking police stations on their way.
The group, known as Boko Haram, wants to overthrow the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.
The assault by the security forces came after 1,000 extra soldiers were drafted into the city.
Army commander Major General Saleh Maina told the Associated Press that the deputy leader of the sect was killed in the bombardment, which continued on Wednesday night.
But he said Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the group also known as "Taliban", escaped along with about 300 followers.
An AP reporter who watched the storming of the mosque counted about 50 bodies inside the building and another 50 in the courtyard.
Army spokesman Chris Olukolade told the BBC's Network Africa programme that law and order had now been restored in Maiduguri.
"The enclave of the people causing the problem has been brought under better control and in a short while we believe that everyone will be able to go about his normal duties in that area," he said.
The government eased curfew restrictions overnight, allowing people in the city more time on the streets in the evening.
The latest deaths would mean about 300 people have been killed in four days of clashes since an estimated 1,000 militants began attacking police stations and government buildings in several cities in northern Nigeria.
President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.
Security forces flooded into Maiduguri and began shelling Mr Yusuf's compound on Tuesday, after militants had attacked the city's police headquarters.
The violence broke out in Bauchi State on Sunday, before spreading to the states of Borno, particularly the state capital Maiduguri, Kano and Yobe.
Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.
The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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S Africa chooses new police chief !
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Mr Zuma vowed that his to win the fight against crime
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South African President Jacob Zuma has chosen a new national police chief to replace the former commissioner, who is accused of taking bribes.
Bheki Cele, a provincial transport minister, will replace Jackie Selebi, who is on currently leave pending the outcome of his corruption case.
Mr Zuma said Mr Cele's appointment was essential if South Africa was to win the fight against crime.
The country is plagued by crime, with about 50 people murdered every day.
Mr Zuma told journalists in Pretoria that filling Mr Selebi's position was integral to the government's plan of reducing the country's crime levels over the next five years.
Mr Zuma said he had no doubt that Mr Cele had the experience for his new position and would serve the police "efficiently and effectively".
Bheki Cele has a no-nonsense reputation
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Mr Cele, who was favourite for the job and is seen as a close ally of Mr Zuma, promised to make the streets safer.
"I would like one day for a young girl to be able to walk alone from a nightclub or elsewhere without any fear of attack, abuse or rape," he told a news conference held jointly with Mr Zuma.
"You can't be soft, you can't be moving around kissing crime. You need to be tough because you are dealing with tough guys."
Mr Zuma's announcement puts an end to speculation on who would fill Mr Selebi's shoes, whose contract expires on Friday.
Prosecutors said in 2006 they would bring charges against him for receiving corrupt payments totalling 1.2 million rand ($133,000, £90,000) from convicted drug smuggler Glenn Agliotti.
Mr Selebi was suspended from work early last year.
Despite this, former President Thabo Mbeki renewed his contract for another 12 months in June last year.
BBC NEWS REPORT. |
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Cautious optimism returns to Zimbabwe !
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The Zimbabwe Government has told the BBC there is no ban on its operations and it can resume reporting, legally and openly, in Zimbabwe. The BBC's Andrew Harding returns to an optimistic Harare.
The BBC's Andrew Harding finds the shelves tightly stacked in a supermarket near Harare
It is five months since I was last in Zimbabwe, and there is no doubt that the mood has changed.
I'm here officially now, rather than sneaking around under cover, and of course that alters one's perceptions.
But there's more to it than that.
Almost everyone I've spoken to over the past few days has, with varying degrees of caution, confessed to feeling at least a twinge of optimism about this battered nation.
"If things keep on like this, I think there might be a bright future," said Edmore Mashinga, who manages the meat section of a supermarket on the edge of Harare.
Last year the shelves were almost empty and, with hyperinflation raging, a kilo of tomatoes cost 61 billion Zimbabwe dollars.
Now the national currency has been abandoned, the US dollar is king, and the shelves and aisles are full.
"I earn $250 a month," said Mr Mashinga. "It's a lot more than before, but still not enough because I have a big family."
In a poor suburb closer to the city centre, an enthusiastic crowd quickly surrounded us.
Many were wary about giving their names - fear of President Robert Mugabe's security services remains very strong. But here's what some of them had to say:
People in a suburb of Harare say change is happening very slowly
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"We can afford to get meat and bread now. The schools were closed for a long time. Now there is a change and a future. Ask anyone - even the kids."
"I think life is getting better because last year, even if you had cash, you could buy nothing because there was nothing in the shops."
"Things are not yet improving. It is only stabilising. We are getting some food in the shops, but to get money is a problem. Industry is still down. At the moment only a small percentage (of the population) is working."
"Prices are very high. People don't really know the true value of the (US) dollar. Things are changing slowly. Very slowly."
When it comes to optimism, there is no-one more bullish about Zimbabwe than Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mr Tsvangirai has recently lost his wife but remains an optimist
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He's had a gruelling few months since we last met secretly in Harare on the day after his inauguration.
He has lost his wife and a grandchild.
He has had to fight what one western diplomat called "trench warfare" against hardliners seemingly determined to undermine the power-sharing deal with President Mugabe's Zanu-PF.
Six of his MPs are being prosecuted. His finance minister was sent a live bullet in the post this week. But he remains relentlessly upbeat - like a super-tanker refusing to be pushed off course.
"We were diving into the unknown," he said, describing the shock of sharing government with the party whose thugs had beaten him and terrorised his supporters.
"Sometimes it is frustratingly slow, but there is a working relationship. Let me say the hardliners have come to accept that change is irreversible."
"This is a process that has gathered its own momentum. Zimbabwe is changing. There's so much interest in investing in this country. All those are positive signs."
In another small sign of change, we were given a rare invitation to President Mugabe's stronghold - the imposing headquarters of Zanu-PF in Harare.
Zanu-PF chairman John Nkomo says there are no hardliners in his party
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The party's urbane national chairman, John Nkomo, seemed as upbeat as the prime minister.
Often described as President Mugabe's right hand man, he rejected any suggestion that members of his party were trying to derail the power-sharing government.
"I don't think there are any hardliners in Zanu-PF," he said.
"President Mugabe… is a principled man. Once he agrees on a programme he wants it implemented. It is in the interest of the whole of Zimbabwe that the agreement succeeds."
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BBC NEWS REPORT.
Hostages freed in Nigeria clashes !
Bodies of suspected Islamists lay outside Maiduguri's police HQ
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Police in Nigeria have freed more than 180 women and children from a house in the north of the country where they had been held by a radical Islamist sect.
They told the BBC they were held for six days and lived on dates and water.
They were rescued in Maiduguri, where heavy fighting continues between troops and militants of the Boko Haram sect.
Boko Haram is blamed for attacks on police stations and government sites in northern Nigeria, triggering violence that has killed at least 150 people.
The women and children were said to have been abducted from the town of Bauchi, where the violence erupted on Sunday.
Boko Haram is led by Mohammed Yusuf, who has his base in Maiduguri, capital of Borno province.
Security forces flooded into Maiduguri and began attacking Mohammed Yusuf's compound on Tuesday, shelling it with heavy weapons and exchanging gunfire with militants.
The fierce fighting continued through the night and into Wednesday.
The officer commanding the operation, Col Ben Ahanotu, told the BBC the militants were well-armed and keeping up a steady stream of fire.
He said there were at least 250 armed men guarding Mohammed Yusuf's home, also the headquarters of the sect.
'Foreigners'
There were about another 1,000 people inside the enclave, all believed to be followers of Boko Haram.
Col Ahanotu also said that papers and personal items found on the bodies of the young men that have been killed indicated that many of them were not Nigerian and appear to have come from neighbouring Chad and Niger.
Four states in northern Nigeria have been affected by the violence involving Boko Haram - Borno, Bauchi, Kano and Yobe.
Boko Haram is against Western education. It believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria. President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.
"These people have been organising, penetrating our societies, procuring arms, learning how to make explosives and bombs to disturb the peace and force abuse on the rest of Nigerians," he said before departing on a trip to Brazil.
Maiduguri police said 103 had died in the violence in the city, including 90 members of Boko Haram.
In Bauchi, scene of the first bloodshed on Sunday, 176 people remain under arrest. At least 39 people were killed in Bauchi.
Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.
The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Ghana line up Zambia friendly !
Ghana fans will see their side play Zambia
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Ghana have lined up a friendly against Zambia next month as part of their build-up for the World Cup qualifiers.
The Black Stars will clash with the Chipolopolo in London at Brisbane Road on 12 August.
The West Africans quickly arranged the game after Morocco pulled out of a proposed friendly scheduled for the same day in France.
"We have now agreed to play Zambia in London," Ghana Football Association president Kwesi Nyantakyi said.
"Only some few days ago we had Morocco in the picture but they had to withdraw because they were afraid they will lose.
"Teams are afraid to play the Black Stars because of the fear of losing their positions on the Fifa ranking."
The game forms part of the Black Stars warm-up for September's World Cup qualifier against Sudan in Accra.
Ghana are in pole position in Group Five and they will strengthen their grip on top of the table if they secure a win over the Nile Crocodiles.
Zambia are also in contention for a World Cup ticket in Group Three are they are only three points adrift of leaders Algeria.
BBC SPORTS REPORT.
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Tackling South Africa's rape epidemic
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Two friends of footballer Zakhe were raped and murdered for being gay
The trial of three of the men accused of the rape and murder of one of South Africa's leading sportswomen, the openly gay football star Eudy Simalane, resumes in South Africa on Wednesday.
Thirty-one lesbian women have been reported raped and murdered in homophobic attacks in South Africa since 1998.
But according to Triangle - a gay rights organisation - only two cases of "corrective rape" have ever made it to the courts; there has been only one conviction.
"This is a sad fact in this country generally, women are very reluctant to come forward," says Sharon Cox from Triangle.
"Corrective rape" is the term used to describe the rape of a lesbian woman by a man to either punish her, or "correct" her behaviour.
Ms Cox says rape is power is South Africa.
"The thinking is, all it takes is one good man to cure you of being a lesbian," she told the BBC's Newshour programme.
Triangle says it deals with up to 10 new cases of corrective rape every week.
Support groups claim an increasingly aggressive and macho political environment is contributing to the inaction of the police over attacks on lesbians and is part of a growing cultural lethargy towards the high levels of gender-based violence in South Africa.
But with the possibility of convictions in the Eudy Simalane case, and another case ongoing in Cape Town, Ms Cox is hopeful of change.
"If we do get sentences in these cases it will be a great step forward for human rights, for women's rights and for gay and lesbian rights."
South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.
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RAPE IN SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa has the highest incidence of rape amongst Interpol states
1 in 4 men admit to rape
Nearly 150 women are raped every day
More than 54,000 cases of rape were reported in 2006
Based on reports by the Medical Research Council, Interpol
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More than 54,000 cases are reported to the police each year.
Among men in their early 20s, it has become almost a game.
There is even a term for the man who leads the process - he is know as the "marhasimani".
"A marhasimani is someone who goes to the club, buys a woman a few beers, then with his friends, he would take that woman and go away and have sex with her," one young man told the BBC on the understanding of anonymity.
Another of the group sitting in a bar in the city of Kempton Park, north-east of Johannesburg explains how it works.
He says the friends hide under the bed until the first man is finished and has left the room, then they take turns having sex with the woman, pretending to be first man.
"The room is dark and the girl is not even going to notice if it's the second guy sleeping with her," explains another friend in the group.
When they are challenged to admit that what they are doing constitutes gang rape, they all deny it.
"It's not about her, we bought her drinks, you know how drinks are expensive," says one of them.
"We can't say it's gang rape because, OK, I know sometimes we have to drug the girl and everything, but it does not happen all the time," says another.
"Most of the time when it does happen, the girl is taking some drinks, but she is quite aware of what is happening."
At the heart of these different manifestations of rape are deep-rooted cultural stereotypes - that men have ownership over women, and are of greater importance.
These are views based on traditional values and gender roles that have been enforced in homes and villages in the past and have been largely unchallenged.
Sense of entitlement
Dumisani Rebombo is a former rapist who now speaks openly and with great remorse about his crime.
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 If you have silence in communities, I think that silence is very loud 
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He was just 15 when he raped a young woman in his village with two of his friends.
He admits giving in to peer pressure: "I did it to prove that I was a boy but also wanting to be accepted."
"It's not something that I enjoyed… immediately I was engulfed with guilt and fear."
Mr Rebombo now works for the Olive Leaf Foundation, an NGO working with men to prevent rape.
He believes that the problem is partly societal - that boys are raised with a sense of entitlement, and the belief that they can to do whatever they want with women.
"Boys are socialised to be tough, to be macho."
The other problem he says is the lack of willingness for anyone to challenge these assumptions.
"You could have as many good men as bad, but if you have silence in communities, I think that silence is very loud."
BBC NEWS REPORT. |
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Alarm over Somalia's child soldiers !
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For years warlords have conscripted children to fight in bitter conflicts over money, power and land. The BBC Somali service's Mohamed Mohamed reveals widespread alarm that the practice is now becoming entrenched in Somalia.
Children man checkpoints and administer lashings in Mogadishu
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Children as young as eight years old are going missing.
Some are drugged, others brainwashed and some paid $50 (£30) for every month they fight.
Most people are frightened to speak openly, but those who can afford it are sending their children out of the country to safety.
An elderly man who did not want to be named publicly told how his 15-year-old son had vanished.
He said he looked everywhere for his boy, and even asked the militant Islamist group al-Shabab whether they had seen him.
They said they had not, but he later found out that al-Shabab had convinced the boy to join their jihad so "he would go to heaven if he died".
Children as shields
"After long search I found out that my son is being held in a training camp on the outskirts of Baydhabo," he said.
"They are using our children as a shield. But the children of people who claim to be leaders are not in the camps. They are not fighting.
"Al-Shabab only use children from the poor as fighters."
A journalist working in Mogadishu says he has seen 10-year-old children on street corners in Mogadishu armed with AK47s.
"A child of about 12 years old, armed with a gun and a whip works at a crossroads in Mogadishu's Bakara Market," he says.
"The boy stops pubic transport and checks if there are men and women passengers sharing the seats.
"If he finds them, he tells them to get off the bus and flogs them in public while other members of al-Shabab sit under roadside trees nearby."
Hundreds of Somali youngsters are recruited and trained in camps in southern Somalia by al-Shabab, according to a senior police officer.
"The people involved in training children are foreigners who speak English or Arabic and they use translators to help them," says Colonel Abdullahi Hassan Barise.
"They are from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya and other countries."
He said a few months ago, the police caught a small bus carrying teenagers at a police checkpoint outside Mogadishu.
The children were from villages and towns in Lower Juba and they had been transported by al Shabab.
In their inquiries he said they found that some of the children were threatened while others were brainwashed into believing that they would go to paradise if they took part in what was described as the defence of Somalia and Islam.
"Some of the children said that a Pakistani trainer used to spike their drinks with something," he said.
He also said that some of the street children in Mogadishu are recruited as they are the most vulnerable, because there is no family to look after them.
Somalis who live overseas are not even safe from the child recruitment effort of the Islamists.
In the US state of Minnesota some young men from the Somali community have been recruited to fight with al-Shabab, and have been killed.
Children are brainwashed, threatened, drugged or paid to fight
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In October last year at least one of them, Shirwa Mohamed, carried out a suicide attack against security services in Bosasso in north-eastern Somalia.
Omar Jamal, a community leader in Minnesota, blames local jihadists' influence on young people.
"They were targeting young, vulnerable boys at colleges and universities to indoctrinate them and tell them to join and fight the jihad," he says.
"Some of them were provided cash and Somali passports and they were persuaded to join this global jihadist ideology and they fall for it.
"We want this to come to an end and we want the US government to investigate."
Meanwhile, the FBI is already looking into how and why these Somali youngsters choose to leave a comfortable life in the US for the dangerous conditions in Somalia.
A worker for a children's rights group in Somalia says that while using children as soldiers is not new, the scale, number and age of those involved is worrying.
Parents try to stop their children from being recruited but the lack of schools or other activities as well as in some cases, peer pressure makes it difficult.
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SA doctor: 'Turning patients away'
Striking workers are demanding a 15% wage increase
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A doctor in South Africa says strikes by municipal workers have left his hospital without adequate water.
Dr Dominic Waddington works in Saint Apollinaris Hospital in Centocow, KwaZulu-Natal.
The British medic says he can't perform x-rays to diagnose tuberculosis, or even wash his hands properly.
Around 150,000 workers in South Africa are on strike, demanding a 15% pay rise.
As soon as the strike began, our water supply went off.
It has been cut off throughout the entire municipality.
We are not able to perform many essential laboratory tests.
We are not able to wash our hands properly.
And we are not able to carry out X-rays, as water is needed for processing the films.
There are patients who I think have probably got tuberculosis. And I can't do an X-ray test.
So they are having their diagnosis delayed.
And that increases the likelihood of their passing TB on to their family and others.
We also need X-rays for broken bones, for pneumonia and broken skulls, and sometimes X-rays for the abdomen.
I've no idea how big the backlog is - we don't keep track of how many patients have missed out.
We have got some water in a tanker, so we have enough for the operating theatre, for emergencies.
If the strike goes on, the hospital will just have to keep focusing on emergency cases and keep doing our best to manage the rest.
But we're relying on a tank of water.
At the moment, there is sufficient stored water to allow flushing of the toilets. But that may not last indefinitely.
And the combination of poor hand hygiene and inadequate sewage has the potential to spread gastrointestinal (and other) infections throughout the hospital.
I don't know how the cleaning staff are managing.
We are in a very rural area.
People travel a long way to come to the hospital. And they have to use a large proportion of their income.
It's really unfair on the locals to come all the way to the hospital only to get no treatment.
We can't send a message out saying "don't come" because then people with pneumonia would miss out on their antibiotics and they might die.
But certainly the hospital is much quieter today - about one third of the attendance it would normally be.
So I presume people must know that the hospital doesn't have an adequate supply. The water's been cut off throughout the surrounding community.
I'm told by my patients that their stand pipes are also cut off. So I presume some of them are now using water that is potentially harmful.
But my patients tolerate all this extraordinarily well. They don't complain.
And they're used to this because it happens all the time.
Their healthcare expectations are incredibly low.
Needless to say I don't support the strike.
However, I have greater sympathy for the relatively poorly paid municipal workers than I had for the South African doctors, who went on strike a few weeks ago.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Hunt for Nigerian Islamist sect !
Nigerian troops are tracking down members of an Islamist sect who went on a killing spree in northern cities.
Soldiers are searching areas near the home of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
On Tuesday the army shelled the compound, exchanging heavy gunfire with militants. At least 140 people have been killed in three days of violence.
President Umaru Yar'Adua said the army had acted to nip a potentially dangerous problem in the bud.
Nigeria's security services have been flooding Maiduguri, the city worst affected by the violence, the BBC's Caroline Duffield reports.
Maj Gen Saleh Maina told the Associated Press news agency troops were hunting for sect members in homes and a mosque and near the railway station. He said the operation was being carried out "to prevent further loss of lives and property".
Residents and civilians have been told to leave.
Mr Yusuf's group, known as Boko Haram, is being blamed for attacked on police stations and government buildings in four states in Nigeria.
Many civilians were also shot dead or stabbed at random.
Boko Haram is against Western education, and believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria.
Late on Tuesday explosions and gunshots could be heard from the Doidamgari area of Maiduguri, where Mohammed Yusuf's home is situated and the Boko Haram have their spiritual headquarters.
President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.
"It is the government that has moved to nip a potentially dangerous problem in the bud," he said before leaving on a visit to Brazil.
"These people have been organising, penetrating our societies, procuring arms, learning how to make explosives and bombs to disturb the peace and force abuse on the rest of Nigerians.
"And I believe the operation we have launched now will be an operation that will contain them once and for all."
Outside Maiduguri, there is a heightened state of alert across the northern states:
• In the city of Kano, police arrested 53 people after an attack on a police station outside the city on Monday; police also shot and killed three suspected militants as they tried to reach Maiduguri
• In Sokoto, in the far north-west, police arrested five men said to have been caught in the act of planning an attack
• In Bauchi, scene of the first bloodshed on Sunday, 176 people remain under arrest
A BBC reporter counted about 100 bodies of residents and militants in the streets of Maiduguri on Monday.
Maiduguri police said 103 had died in the violence in the city, including 90 members of Boko Haram, eight police officers, three prison officials and two soldiers.
At least 39 people were killed in the violence in Bauchi.
Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.
The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Tanzania launches bank for women!
Tanzania has launched a bank aimed specifically at women in what officials say will be an empowering move.
The bank says women need only an ID card or passport to open an account, unlike other banks which require title deeds or other proofs of wealth.
And applicants need only 3,000 Tanzanian shillings ($2) in savings - much less than other banks.
Although the bank, which is based in Dar es Salaam, targets women with its services, men can also open accounts.
The bank's management says it will give women expert help and advice.
Margareth Mattaba Chacha, the managing director, said: "We know some women hesitate to come forward - they are too shy and think they don't know anything.
"But here we're going to have a big group of professionals to take women through step-by-step until we really reach our women."
The BBC's Zuhura Yunus, in Dar es Salaam, says 110 people had opened accounts at the Tanzania Women's Bank by the end of the morning.
Officials hope there will be 200 more people coming in every day and say the Dar es Salaam branch is just the beginning of a countrywide network.
Margaret Sitta, Minister of Community Development, Gender and Children, said the bank would empower women, but stressed that the accounts were open to all.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Sudanese woman 'faces 40 lashes'!
Lubna Hussein was arrested in a restaurant in Khartoum
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A Sudanese woman who is due to appear in court in Khartoum says she faces up to 40 lashes for wearing trousers.
The woman, Lubna Hussein - a former journalist who now works for the United Nations - has invited journalists and observers to the trial.
She was arrested in a restaurant in the capital with other women earlier this month for wearing "indecent" clothing.
She said 10 of the women arrested, including non-Muslims, later each received 10 lashes and a fine of $100.
Ms Hussein and two other women asked for a lawyer, delaying their trials.
Now Ms Hussein has printed 500 invitation cards and sent out emails, saying she wanted as many people as possible to attend her hearing on Wednesday.
She says she has done nothing wrong under Sharia law, but could fall foul of a paragraph in Sudanese criminal law which forbids indecent clothing.
"I want to change this law, because this law doesn't match in constitution," she told the BBC.
"It is important that people know what is happening," Ms Hussein is reported to have written on the invitations she circulated.
"They will lash me 40 times, and also fine me 250 Sudanese pounds ($100)."
The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says Ms Hussein is determined to generate as much publicity as she can.
In a related development, a female journalist who wrote an article critical of the way Ms Hussein has been treated has been charged with defaming the police.
Amal Habbani faces a substantial fine if found guilty, AFP news agency reports.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
EU to train Somali piracy force !
The EU already runs an anti-piracy mission off the Somali coast
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The European Union has announced plans to train Somali security forces to tackle the pirates operating along the country's coast.
It will send a planning team to the region next month. The training will take place in neighbouring Djibouti, which has French and US military bases.
EU nations have already sent ships to fight the pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
But Somalia's embattled government has always argued that training its forces is the best way to defeat the pirates.
France, however, is sceptical about how many EU nations will take part.
The EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced the training plan following a meeting of the EU's 27 foreign ministers.
He said the EU was concentrating on three issues:
• the training itself
• how to pay the salaries of the new security force
• how to cooperate with the African Union peacekeeping mission already in Somalia.
Mr Solana said he hoped the plans could be finalised next month.
Quoted on the news agency AFP, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said other countries did have good intentions.
But he added: "France is the only one for the moment that is determined to do anything. I hope that will change."
Two dozen ships from European Union nations, including the UK, France, Germany and Italy, are currently patrolling an area of about two million sq miles (3.21 sq kms) off the Somali coast.
Other countries have also sent vessels, including the US, Russia, Malaysia and China.
Somalia's UN-backed government is battling Islamist insurgents and only controls a small part of the country.
It has not had an effective central government for more than 18 years and this lack of law and order has led to the rise of piracy.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Nigeria's 'Taliban' enigma !
Northern Nigeria has been shocked by the attacks
They have launched co-ordinated attacks across northern Nigeria, threatening to overthrow the government and impose strict Islamic law - but who exactly are the Nigerian Taliban?
Since the group emerged in 2004 they have become known as "Taliban", although they appear to have no links to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Some analysts believe they took inspiration from the radical Afghans, others say the name is more a term of ridicule used by people in Maiduguri, the area where they were founded.
The group's other name, Boko Haram, means "Western education is a sin" and is another title used by local people to refer to the group.
Isa Sanusi, from the BBC's Hausa service, says the group has no specific name for itself, just many names attributed to it by local people.
If their name is uncertain, however, their mission appears clear enough: to overthrow the Nigerian state, impose an extreme interpretation of Islamic law and abolish what they term "Western-style education".
In an interview with the BBC, the group's leader, Mohammed Yusuf, said such education "spoils the belief in one god".
"There are prominent Islamic preachers who have seen and understood that the present Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam," he said.
"Like rain. We believe it is a creation of god rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.
"Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism."
Mr Yusuf himself is something of an enigma.
He is believed to be in his mid-thirties, and analysts say he is extremely wealthy and highly educated.
"He is graduate educated and very proficient in English," says Nigerian academic Hussain Zakaria.
"He lives lavishly - people say he drives a Mercedes Benz. And he is very well-educated in a Western context."
Despite the secrecy surrounding the group, many in Nigeria say the attacks were far from surprising.
Mannir Dan Ali, a journalist with Abuja-based Trust newspapers, says there was a minor incident in early June which appeared to spark a series of statements from the group threatening reprisals.
"The whole situation seems to be a failure of intelligence, a failure of the security forces to act before matters reached the point that they have now reached," he says.
"We could literally see it coming over the past few weeks."
There has been widespread criticism of the security forces for their perceived laxness in monitoring the group.
Its members are largely drawn from disaffected youth - university students and jobless graduates among them.
Amenu Abu Bakka, a journalist covering the area for the AFP news agency, says it is widely believed that the authorities were reluctant to deal with the militants because some of them come from rich families with connections to the government.
"People believe the government didn't want to crack down on these people because their parents would get angry," he says.
"But now it is becoming a monster, the government has realised it has made a mistake and the earlier they deal with these people, the better."
Divisions remain on how much of a threat the group poses - and how to deal with it.
Information ministry spokesman Sunday Dare says support for the militants' cause is waning.
Bodies were piled up on the streets of Maiduguri on Monday
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"We live in a country where people are quite educated and I guess people are happy to make their decisions about Western education or otherwise and how it corrupts their values," he says.
"I don't see a swelling in their ranks at all."
And Patrick Wilmot, a former lecturer at Jos university, said mainstream Muslims look on the so-called Taliban as "crazy".
"They don't need to be taken that seriously, they just need to be monitored."
The BBC's Caroline Duffield, in Lagos, says the group has isolated themselves from the rest of the community.
She says there have been incidents where local groups have prevented them from meeting in mosques and there is very little support for their stance in the wider community.
But the upsurge in violence has caused real alarm throughout Nigeria.
More than 100 people were killed as a wave of unrest spread from the city of Bauchi on Sunday through Borno, Yobe and Kano states the following day.
And no-one seems to know just how big a threat the so-called Taliban pose, how big their membership is, or what their next move could be.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Zuma's daughter in SA soap opera!
Gugulethu Zuma has also performed in local theatres
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Jacob Zuma's daughter, Gugulethu is to make her debut on one of South Africa's most popular soap operas, Isidingo.
South Africa's first daughter plays the part of a young woman who returns to her humble beginnings after studying abroad for five years.
This will be her second appearance on the small screen. Her first TV role was as a police officer in a local police drama last year.
She has denied suggestions that she got the role because of her father.
She secured the part after three auditions.
The character she plays grew up on a farm where her father worked as a stableman.
Isidingo, broadcast on the state-run SABC, is set in a small mining town and follows the lives of its residents, black and white, rich and poor.
Ms Zuma, 24, has a BA degree in Live Performance from the AFDA film school, one of South Africa's most reputable performance arts schools.
She is married to Bongani Ncube, the son of Zimbabwean minister Welshman Ncube, a senior member of one faction of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The couple tied the knot last year.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Morocco court convicts Islamist!
Abdelkader Belliraj's was the figurehead of the Islamist group
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A Moroccan-born Belgian man accused of leading an Islamist militant group and committing six murders in Belgium has been imprisoned for life in Morocco.
Abdelkader Belliraj was also convicted by the court in Sale of arms smuggling and threatening state security.
Belliraj was one of more than 30 people, including six Islamist politicians, arrested in February 2008.
During the trial, his lawyer argued he had been made visits to militant groups for Belgium's intelligence services.
But Mohammed Ziane accepted that his client had been found with weapons originally sent to Islamists in Algeria, and that these had later returned to Morocco.
"We cannot argue with court's decision but it was only the first stage in this trial and we still have to go to the appeal court," Mr Ziane said after the verdict on Monday.
"What we expect is that the court will be more fair, take their conditions into consideration and base its verdict on concrete and proven facts," he added.
Belliraj repeatedly told the court: "I never brought weapons into Morocco and deny making any attempts to overthrow the regime."
State prosecutors had initially sought the death penalty for Belliraj.
The case divided Morocco with some political parties and human rights groups springing to the defence of the arrested politicians.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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Security boosted in north Nigeria !
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Offices and buildings were razed in two days of violence
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The Nigerian authorities have stepped up security across the north of the country, following two days of violence in which at least 100 people have died.
Soldiers have set up road blocks and imposed dusk-to-dawn curfews in affected areas in Yobe, Kano, Borno and Plateau states.
Islamist militants staged attacks on police and government offices.
There have been reports of youths armed with machetes and guns killing police officers and civilians at random.
Nigeria's military and police have been ordered to use all means necessary to contain the violence, the BBC's Caroline Duffield in Lagos reports.
Eyewitnesses told the BBC that police stations had been attacked and civilians pulled from their cars and shot dead.
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ANALYSIS
By Caroline Duffield, BBC News, Nigeria
Tensions are never far from the surface in northern Nigeria. Poverty and competition for scarce resources, along with ethnic, cultural and religious differences have all fuelled sudden violence.
But the latest violence is not between communities, it involves young men from religious groups, arming themselves and attacking local police.
Fringe religious groups in Nigeria have claimed links to the Taliban before - individuals have also been accused of links to al-Qaeda. But Nigeria is very different to countries like Mali or Algeria, where groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operate.
The idea of radical Islamist militants gaining a serious foothold in Nigeria is usually dismissed, because of the strength of local identities and traditions.
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In the town worst affected by the violence, Maiduguri in Borno State, bodies of residents and militants have been piled outside the police station and in the streets.
A BBC reporter there counted 100 corpses.
Some of the militants are believed to be supporters of a preacher based in Maiduguri, Mohammed Yusuf, who says Western education is against Islamic teaching.
Nigeria's police are understood to be searching for him.
Late on Monday night there were still reports of shooting in Maiduguri.
Earlier, witnesses told the BBC that a battle had raged for hours in Potiskum, Yobe State, where a police station and neighbouring buildings were reportedly razed.
There was also attacks on police in Wudil, some 20km (12 miles) from Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria.
Security is said to have been particularly beefed up in Plateau State, to the south of Bauchi, where hundreds were killed in clashes between Muslims and Christians last year.
Mr Yusuf's followers are known as Boko Haram, which means "Education is prohibited".
Youths began attacking police stations on Sunday after some of the group's leaders were arrested.
Correspondents say Boko Haram has aroused suspicion for its recruitment of young men, and its belief that Western education, culture and science are sinful.
Reuters news agency reports that one of the group's leaders, arrested in Kano state, said his followers were standing up for their faith.
"Even if I'm arrested, there are more to do the job," Abdulmuni Ibrahim Mohammed is quoted as saying.
Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.
The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims and Christians and the two groups generally live peacefully side by side, despite occasional outbreaks of communal violence.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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Charles Taylor denies cannibalism !
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Charles Taylor faces 11 counts related to the war in Sierra Leone
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Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has denied eating human flesh or ordering militias to eat their enemies.
Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Mr Taylor was quoted as saying accusations of cannibalism levelled against him were "total nonsense".
Some of Mr Taylor's former fighters have previously told the court that he had ordered them to eat their enemies.
Mr Taylor has denied 11 charges related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia's neighbour.
At the start of the third week of his trial, Mr Taylor also said impassable roads would have made it impossible for him to trade weapons for Sierra Leone's diamonds, as the prosecution alleges.
On trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor is accused of having armed and directed rebel groups from Liberia in order to seize control of Sierra Leone's diamond riches.
The 61-year-old denies charges including terrorism, murder, rape and torture.
He is the first African leader to be tried by an international court.
Responding to the allegations of cannibalism, Mr Taylor was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: "It is sickening. You must be sick to believe it."
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CHARLES TAYLOR CHARGES
Violation of humanitarian law: Conscripting child soldiers
Crimes against humanity: Terrorising civilians, murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement
War crimes: "Violence to life", cruel treatment (including hacking off limbs), pillage
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"It makes you feel like throwing up."
The former Liberian leader said there were cannibals in parts of his country, but he was not among them.
One witness had told the court he had eaten human flesh with Mr Taylor at a meeting of a secret society, Poro, AFP reports.
"It never happened," the former president responded. "I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone."
Denying accusations that he had traded diamonds for arms, he said neither of the two roads leading to the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone could support vehicles laden with weapons.
One of Mr Taylor's former bodyguards testified last year that he had escorted such vehicles, and the court was shown a photo with a lorry allegedly pictured near the border.
Mr Taylor said on Monday that the accusation was a "lie", also dismissing allegations that he accepted diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.
An estimated 500,000 people were killed, mutilated or suffered other atrocities in the civil war in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 until 2002.
A verdict in Mr Taylor's trial, which was moved from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands because of security concerns, is expected next year.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
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