SOUTH AFRICA: Give me a home, but not in a Temporary Relocation Area

Photo: Lee Middleton/IRIN Cape Town's 'Tin can town' - Blikkiesdorp

BLIKKIESDORP, 30 April 2010 (IRIN) - Blikkiesdorp - meaning "tin-can town" in Afrikaans - has become a source of controversy in Cape Town, South Africa's most visited city and the host of several important matches in the much-anticipated 2010 Soccer World Cup.



Created in 2008, Blikkiesdorp is sandwiched between sand dunes and the main road through the township of Delft, about 20km outside Cape Town, where over 1,500 box-like units made of metal sheeting line a bleak area of gravel and sand, with not a tree or a bush in sight.



Older units lack insulation and gaps can be seen between the galvanized metal sheets; problems with plumbing result in overflows when it rains - the odour of sewage is distinct.



Some residents have called Blikkiesdorp a "concentration camp", and have attracted media attention with claims that it was created as part of a "clean up strategy" to tidy away Cape Town's poor and homeless before the World Cup starts in June.



Most of the people were relocated from inner-city suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River - a move reminiscent of apartheid's forced removals - but this Temporary Relocation Area (TRA), as it

ZIMBABWE: Court ruling tests patience of blood diamond activists

Photo: Wikimedia Commons Cut diamonds

JOHANNESBURG, 29 April 2010 (IRIN) - Global Witness, a leading light in establishing the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), a global system to prevent "blood diamonds" being sold into the market, is facing a "dilemma" now that the Zimbabwe High Court has allowed the sale of stones from the Marange diamond fields.



There have been reports from Marange that "the military ... carried out widespread atrocities in the diamond fields, including murder, rape and forced labour", Global Witness said in a statement. The court ruling, "apparently" approving the

SWAZILAND: Not much benefit in preferential trade agreement

Photo: Clean Clothes Campaign Textile workers

MBABANE, 28 April 2010 (IRIN) - A decade after the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), a preferential US trade agreement, became law on 18 May 2000, there are questions over the benefits, if any, derived from the initiative.



AGOA was touted by the US government as offering "tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets"; in return, selected countries could access US markets without restrictive quotas or import taxes.



Neither Swaziland nor Lesotho had a textile sector before the advent of AGOA, but the quality of the jobs it created, and the labour conditions and working environment, are being examined by local as well as US authorities.



"We ask: who is the beneficiary of the textile factories that have opened here since AGOA?" said Comfort Gina, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU), an umbrella body. "Jobs were created, but if you take the basic income versus expenditures of a worker, basics like transport, food and accommodation exceed income."



The average monthly wage for a textile factory worker is about US$117, according SFTU data.

Macedonia to head prestigious CoE committee

As officials pledge to continue the Council's work in promoting human rights and democracy, a quarrel with Greece has already erupted over the title chosen for the chairmanship.

By Goran Trajkov for Southeast European Times in Skopje -- 27/04/10

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland (left) met with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski (centre) in Skopje. [Tomislav Georgiev/SETimes]

For the first time in its history, Macedonia will preside over the Council of Europe's (CoE) Committee of Ministers starting in May. It will be the second high-profile chairmanship to have been held by the country, following senior diplomat Srdjan Kerim's 2008 stint as head of the UN General Assembly.

During a

WEST AFRICA: Polio campaign kicks off

Photo: UNICEF/SENEGAL/SHRYOCK/2010 A child receives a polio vaccination in Senegal in the first round of the 2010 campaign (file photo)

DAKAR, 26 April 2010 (IRIN) - The second three-day round of a synchronized campaign to vaccinate 77 million children against polio in 16 West African countries is now underway.



The wild poliovirus has been reported in eight countries in the region in the past six months: Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone, according to the WHO and UNICEF.



In this second round immunizers will return to areas targeted in the first vaccination

ZIMBABWE: "I shout; I speak out on issues concerning women living with HIV"

Photo: Anthony Kaminju/IRIN Sisters doing it for themselves

HARARE, 22 April 2010 (PlusNews) - Evelyn Mashamba is one of Zimbabwe's most outspoken gender and AIDS activists and has being living with HIV for the past 10 years. She told IRIN/PlusNews how being HIV-positive propelled her into the movement to fight for the rights of women living with the virus.



"I started my work as an activist 2005 in Masvingo [Province in southeastern Zimbabwe]. It so happened that there was a workshop at the College of Primary Health Care and Physicians, and a doctor friend

SOUTH AFRICA: Less sex, more violence for teens

Photo: Anthony Kaminju/IRIN Less sex

JOHANNESBURG, 23 April 2010 (PlusNews) - Schoolchildren in South Africa are having less sex, and those that are, are doing it more safely, the second National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey by the Medical Research Council (MRC) has found.



Over 10,000 students in their last three years of high school participated in the survey, which showed "significant reductions" in risky sexual behaviour.



The first survey, in 2002, found that 41 percent had "ever had sex", but this dropped from to 38 percent in the current survey; the number with two or

SOUTH AFRICA: Less sex, more violence for teens

Photo: Anthony Kaminju/IRIN Less sex

JOHANNESBURG, 23 April 2010 (PlusNews) - Schoolchildren in South Africa are having less sex, and those that are, are doing it more safely, the second National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey by the Medical Research Council (MRC) has found.



Over 10,000 students in their last three years of high school participated in the survey, which showed "significant reductions" in risky sexual behaviour.



The first survey, in 2002, found that 41 percent had "ever had sex", but this dropped from to 38 percent in the current survey; the number with two or

ETHIOPIA: Nearly a quarter of Addis residents lack toilets

Photo: CRS-Ethiopia The ArborLoo latrine

ADDIS ABABA, 20 April 2010 (IRIN) - Almost a quarter of Addis Ababa residents have no access to toilets, says a new report by the Addis Ababa city authorities.



"We estimate that some three million people live in Addis Ababa. Out of this nearly 25 percent of the population have no access to toilets and defecate in rivers crossing the city" the report says.



"We cannot tolerate any more waste in rivers and roads. We should be ashamed. We want to make sure that the city is clean and a better place to live," said Mekuria Haile, a senior local government official, at the launch of the report entitled Cleaning and Beautifying Addis Ababa: Intensifying Environmental and Health Issues with Public Participation.



"Addis Ababa is one of the biggest cities in sub-Saharan Africa… but is still fighting against solid waste management and health problems posed by unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation," said Haile.

FA backs Chelsea FC's Asian Soccer Star

THE Football Association have added their support to Chelsea’s groundbreaking Search for an Asian Star initiative.

The Soccer Star event will offer six young players aged 8-13 the opportunity to win a weeks trial at the Chelsea Academy, playing and training with some of the country’s best young talent.

Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA’s Director of Football Development, welcomed Chelsea’s scheme: "I'm delighted that Chelsea share The FA's view of football for all and providing opportunities for people who want to get involved and play the game. We know that Asian groups are under-represented in football so this is a great scheme for those youngsters to showcase their skills and impress Chelsea's Academy coaches."

The FA

BURKINA FASO: Cross-border land conflict risks

Photo: Anne Isabelle Leclercq/IRIN Of food and fodder- herders seek greener pastures

OUAGADOUGOU, 20 April 2010 (IRIN) - Conflicts in Burkina Faso between herders and farmers threaten to spill into neighbouring countries as herders seek grazing pastures, according to the government.



"Competition for shrinking land will spur migration of herders and their cattle to neighbouring countries, which increases the risk for cross-border conflicts," Tanga Guissou, the director of pastoralism in the Ministry of Livestock, told IRIN.



Sixty percent of herders from Burkina Faso's central-south region now live in Ghana, according to Hassan Barry, the president of a livestock association in the province of Zoumwéogo.



"The problem has become serious," director of agriculture Salam Kaboré from the southern

FA backs Chelsea FC's Asian Soccer Star

THE Football Association have added their support to Chelsea’s groundbreaking Search for an Asian Star initiative.

The Soccer Star event will offer six young players aged 8-13 the opportunity to win a weeks trial at the Chelsea Academy, playing and training with some of the country’s best young talent.

Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA’s Director of Football Development, welcomed Chelsea’s scheme: "I'm delighted that Chelsea share The FA's view of football for all and providing opportunities for people who want to get involved and play the game. We know that Asian groups are under-represented in football so this is a great scheme for those youngsters to showcase their skills and impress Chelsea's Academy coaches."

The FA

Cuban tourist products presented in El Salvador

HAVANA, Cuba (ACN) -- Cuba presented on Thursday in El Salvador a group of tourist offers for local travellers, as part of a strategy that seeks to attract Central American visitors to the island.

Eduardo Acosta, director of the tourist office based in Venezuela, said in this regard  ways for Cuban tourism are being opened, supported by the recently opened embassy in San Salvador.

He said that the Cuban official mission will favor work relations with travel agencies and airlines, with the
purpose of finding better ways for Salvadorans to visit Cuba.

According to the Spanish EFE news agency, who

ZIMBABWE: North Korea's soccer team brings bad memories

Photo: Graeme Williams/UNICEF Unaccompanied children at the Zimbabwe/South Africa border

HARARE, 12 April 2010 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's plan to host a North Korean soccer side for the June 2010 FIFA World Cup in neighbouring South Africa is rekindling memories of the Matabeleland massacres in the 1980s, amid a current climate of political intolerance.



Soon after independence from Britain in 1980, President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF launched Operation Gukhurundi - a Shona phrase for "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains" - on the pretext of tackling insurgents and counter-revolutionaries sponsored by apartheid South Africa.



He unleashed the Zimbabwean army's North Korean-trained 5th Brigade in the provinces of Matabeleland North and South, and Midlands in southwestern Zimbabwe, strongholds of the rival ZAPU party, led by Joshua Nkomo. More than 20,000 people were killed in Operation Gukhurundi.



Now, the planned visit by the soccer side is leading to a resurfacing of emotions and vows of protests against the "unwanted visitors".

ZIMBABWE: North Korea's soccer team brings bad memories

Photo: Graeme Williams/UNICEF Unaccompanied children at the Zimbabwe/South Africa border

HARARE, 12 April 2010 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's plan to host a North Korean soccer side for the June 2010 FIFA World Cup in neighbouring South Africa is rekindling memories of the Matabeleland massacres in the 1980s, amid a current climate of political intolerance.



Soon after independence from Britain in 1980, President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF launched Operation Gukhurundi - a Shona phrase for "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains" - on the pretext of tackling insurgents and counter-revolutionaries sponsored by apartheid South Africa.



He unleashed the Zimbabwean army's North Korean-trained 5th Brigade in the provinces of Matabeleland North and South, and Midlands in southwestern Zimbabwe, strongholds of the rival ZAPU party, led by Joshua Nkomo. More than 20,000 people were killed in Operation Gukhurundi.



Now, the planned visit by the soccer side is leading to a resurfacing of emotions and vows of protests against the "unwanted visitors".

SIERRA LEONE: Don't forget disabled in country's development

Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN Sehid Souleymane Conteh, an artist in Freetown, says people with physical disabilities have countless skills to contribute to society

DAKAR, 13 April 2010 (IRIN) - People with disabilities must be taken into account in Sierra Leone's development and poverty reduction plans, say the authors of a new study on living conditions of the country's disabled.



The study was developed by the UK-based NGO Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD).



The authors – who call the study a "snapshot" and a first step for further research – hope it will help clarify the disabled community's most pressing needs as the government and its partners rebuild infrastructure and social services.



"The disabled community's voice is generally a voice that is not heard in discussions of development," Bentry Kalanga, LCD senior programme manager for Africa.



"Up to now disability has not been regarded as a major development issue; it must be highlighted more."

ZIMBABWE: Worrying rise in STIs among young people

Photo: Obinna Anyadike/IRIN Limited sex education in schools

HARARE, 14 April 2010 (PlusNews) - A new report by Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council (NAC), showing a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people aged 15 to 24 in the capital, Harare, has health experts worried that the country's success in reducing HIV could be unravelling.



STIs heighten vulnerability to HIV infection, and this age group is one of the hardest hit. According to the NAC report, more than 24,000 people were treated for STIs in 2009, compared to 8,500 cases recorded in 2008; over 60 percent of the cases were women.



During this time almost 900,000 male condoms and over 155,000 female condoms were distributed in Harare. Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), a network of civic groups that promote health awareness, blamed the rise

Israel warns citizens of Egypt kidnap threat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)

Israel on Tuesday told its nationals vacationing in Egypt's Sinai desert to leave the peninsula immediately, saying it had concrete information of an imminent plan by militants to kidnap an Israeli citizen.



The warning by Israel's security agencies came after a rumor that an Israeli had been kidnapped in Sinai. The Israeli emergency service Zaka later said the rumor was untrue.



"According to concrete intelligence we anticipate an immediate terror activity to kidnap an Israeli in Sinai," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

Israel's Channel 2 television said some 20,000 Israelis vacationed in Sinai

MALAWI: Lazzar Phiri,* "It's a thing that we needed to discuss."

Photo: Edgar Mwakaba/IRIN "This is a girl that I would like to marry"

LILONGWE, 12 April 2010 (PlusNews) - Lazzar Phiri*, a health worker in Malawian capital, Lilongwe, doesn't only preach the benefits of male circumcision - he knows them first hand. Almost a year ago he went for the minor operation at a clinic run by the family planning organization, Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) - Future Family in the Chichewa language. In a country where "the cut" remains controversial, Phiri sat down with IRIN/PlusNews to talk about it.



"It was a thing I

CARICOM places competition policy and law in the same spotlight

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The importance of competition policy and consumer welfare in the regional integration process will be the focus of a seminar on competition policy and law and consumer welfare to be held in Trinidad and Tobago on 12 April 2010.

Topics to be discussed at the one-day seminar include competition policy in CARICOM, consumer affairs and consumer protection law and policy.

Participations will hear from representatives of the Ministry of Legal and Foreign Affairs, the CARICOM Competition Commission, Jamaica Fair Trading Commission, OECS Secretariat, CARICOM Regional Organization for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), Caribbean Consumer Council and the CARICOM

CARICOM places competition policy and law in the same spotlight

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The importance of competition policy and consumer welfare in the regional integration process will be the focus of a seminar on competition policy and law and consumer welfare to be held in Trinidad and Tobago on 12 April 2010.

Topics to be discussed at the one-day seminar include competition policy in CARICOM, consumer affairs and consumer protection law and policy.

Participations will hear from representatives of the Ministry of Legal and Foreign Affairs, the CARICOM Competition Commission, Jamaica Fair Trading Commission, OECS Secretariat, CARICOM Regional Organization for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), Caribbean Consumer Council and the CARICOM

More than a million Haitians given tents

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- More than a million Haitians, about 90 percent of those made homeless in January's devastating earthquake, have received tents or other means of shelter, UN officials said on Thursday.

At the current pace, all Haitians who lost their homes in the quake will have some form of shelter by May 1, said officials from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA has been racing to get shelter for Haitians still without homes ahead of the start of the rainy season.

Hundreds of Haitians have died in past years in their flood-prone country,

Stanford stakes in horse magazines, bank are for sale

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins

HOUSTON, USA (Bloomberg) -- The court-appointed receiver for Allen Stanford’s businesses has asked permission to sell the indicted financier’s stakes in a Houston television station, a pair of glossy horse-industry magazines, a boutique bank in the US Virgin Islands and a publicly traded precious-metals company.

Ralph Janvey’s private-equity advisers have found three buyers willing to pay a total of $6.1 million for Stanford’s holdings in the companies, all of which are experiencing financial difficulty, according to Janvey.

The Park Hill Group, which is marketing Stanford’s private- equity portfolio for Janvey, “concluded that these offers represent the highest

SUDAN: What they're saying about the elections

Photo: Ben Parker/IRIN

NAIROBI, 7 April 2010 (IRIN) - The 11 April elections in Sudan - the first for more than two decades – and the 2011 referendum on the status of Southern Sudan have prompted a flurry of reports. Most highlight the uncertain future facing a divided country still at grave risk of renewed war, despite the 2005 signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between north and south. All were written before the Sudan People's Liberation Movement decided to boycott some of the polls on 7 April.



Here follows a selection (in no particular order):



The UK's Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan warns that with less than a year left in the CPA Interim Period that ends with the 2011 referendum, Sudan's peace process faces many hurdles and requires continued and intense international support to avoid collapse. On the brink: Towards lasting peace in Sudan provides an overview of recent armed conflict in various regions of Sudan and warns that a separate peace process in the east has had "little impact" on the ground. Issues of governance, human rights and resource management are also examined.



The Carter Center, the lead agency monitoring the polls, called for security to be improved, especially in Darfur and the east, where the "possibility

Force India grab 2009 F1 ‘Moment’

FORCE INDIA has something to celebrate – they bagged the best moment ofthe 2009 season.

The team’s remarkable stint at last season’s Belgium Grand Prix when driverGiancarlo Fisichella bagged pole position and then finished the race in second was awarded the LG Moment of the Year.

Over 88,000 Formula 1 fans worldwide voted in the poll, with almost one fifth choosing Force India’s achievement ahead of Jenson Button’s championship clinching drive in Brazil.

The award comes as a double boost for the team who picked up points in last weekends Malaysian Grand Prix.

Team owner Dr Vijay Mallya said the award was a “real honour.”

'It's a real honour that genuine fans of the sport

Akeem Dewar gives Jamaica the advantage against Ireland

ST CATHERINE, Jamaica -- On a day when West Indies youth player, Akeem Dewar, starred with the ball, after bagging 4 for 81 in his maiden First Class match, Ireland were left struggling some 55 runs behind Jamaica’s first innings total of 330 after closing day two on 275-9 in their Jamaica Cricket Festival clash at Chedwin Park on Sunday.

The leg spinning Dewar, who was also instrumental in Jamaica’s regional Under-19 success last year, showed good control in his economical 23 overs, which cost just over three runs per over, to lead Jamaica’s defence of their first innings tally.

The

Texas Congress discuss violence from drug war along border with Mexico

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve Mc Craw: “things will get worse before they begin improving” Zoom Image

“Colombia was never threatened like the government of Mexico is with the level of violence,” McCraw told the House Select Committee on Emergency Preparedness at a Capitol hearing.

The committee and its chairman, state Rep. Aaron Peña, focused many of their questions about Texas emergency preparedness on the current violence just across the border in northern Mexico, particularly in Ciudad Juarez.

“Each and every day we hear about killings, shootings, assassinations, kidnappings,” said Peña, whose hometown is about 10 miles from the Mexican city of Reynosa. While McCraw said the violence will get worse before it gets better and has already outpaced the scariness of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel in Colombia.

But one US-Mexico border expert disagreed, saying that the United States would never let the situation in its neighbouring country devolve

Texas Congress discuss violence from drug war along border with Mexico

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve Mc Craw: “things will get worse before they begin improving” Zoom Image

“Colombia was never threatened like the government of Mexico is with the level of violence,” McCraw told the House Select Committee on Emergency Preparedness at a Capitol hearing.

The committee and its chairman, state Rep. Aaron Peña, focused many of their questions about Texas emergency preparedness on the current violence just across the border in northern Mexico, particularly in Ciudad Juarez.

“Each and every day we hear about killings, shootings, assassinations, kidnappings,” said Peña, whose hometown is about 10 miles from the Mexican city of Reynosa. While McCraw said the violence will get worse before it gets better and has already outpaced the scariness of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel in Colombia.

But one US-Mexico border expert disagreed, saying that the United States would never let the situation in its neighbouring country devolve

LIBERIA: "It is more scary not to get tested for HIV"

Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN Youth workers at Pipeline health clinic use drama to persuade their peers to practise safe sex

MONROVIA, 2 April 2010 (IRIN) - Sexually transmitted diseases are among the top causes of morbidity in Liberia, and more young people are going for counselling and sexual disease tests, but most still fear an HIV test.



"Teenagers need to persuade each other to get tested for STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] and HIV, otherwise they're too scared to come in," said Elizabeth Blama, a counsellor at a centre in Monrovia's Pipeline neighbourhood, supported by health-focused NGO Merlin.



Official estimates put the HIV infection rate at 5.2 percent, but the 2007-2011 National Health Plan said the data were inadequate and no firm conclusions could be drawn; the capital, Monrovia, is thought to have much higher rates than the rest of the country.



A 2007 demographic survey found that 90 percent of Liberians had

Sudan opposition parties join election boycott

KHARTOUM (Agencies)

Sudan's main opposition parties have withdrawn from presidential elections, a senior member of one of the groups said on Thursday, a move that could wreck the looming vote and damage a faltering peace process.



"On the level of the candidates of the Presidency of the Republic, most of them (Sudan's opposition groups) decided to withdraw," said Mohamed Zaki, head of office for Sadeq al-Mahdi, leader of the opposition Umma party.



Zaki said only five independents and representatives of smaller parties were still in the race against incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in the oil-producing state.

Zaki said there was still a chance the main opposition candidates would review their decision if the government agreed to an overhaul of the country's National Elections Commission, and responded to their complaints of widespread fraud. Sudan's presidential and legislative elections, due in less than two weeks, are central to the implementation of a 2005 peace accord that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war. Thursday's announcement came a day after south Sudan's leading party, the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), withdrew its candidate, Yasser Arman, from the presidential poll, in protest against electoral irregularities and insecurity in Sudan's western Darfur region.

Investigation Omar Hassan al-Bashir The SPLM and opposition groups have demanded an investigation into how a government company won a tender to print voting papers and have made numerous complaints of fraud during voter registration and other preparations. Washington's Sudan envoy, Scott Gration, flew into Khartoum after hearing about Arman's withdrawal and spent the day holding crisis talks with government and opposition figures. "The Americans are here to save the process," said the presidential candidate for the breakaway Umma Renewal and Reform party, Mubarak al-Fadil, after meeting Gration. Fadil said Gration asked opposition groups to list their complaints about the poll preparations and offered to mediate with the government and election officials. Fadil was one of the candidates who later withdrew, said Zaki. "We have concerns about the credibility of the election. We want to see it as inclusive and competitive as possible. Scott is there trying to help work here in the home stretch as we get ready for elections coming up," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

Boycott April polls Yasser Arman Sudan's Communist Party told Reuters it had decided to boycott all levels of the April elections. The Popular Congress Party announced its presidential candidate, Abdullah Deng Nhial, would stay in the race. No one was immediately available for comment from Sudan's major opposition Democratic Unionist Party to confirm it had withdrawn its candidate alongside Umma. The SPLM said it would also boycott all voting in Darfur, the scene of a seven-year conflict. Analysts said Arman's withdrawal effectively handed the presidential race to Bashir and could be part of a deal with Bashir's northern-based National Congress Party to guarantee a referendum in January 2011, also promised under the peace deal, on independence for the south. But Arman denied any deal, telling Reuters there was no point in participating in the election, and that the NCP had already rigged it for Bashir to win. People in South Sudan said they were disappointed the SPLM would not field a contender against Bashir, but that the independence vote was more important to them. "This election is not going to be free and fair -- the NCP is going to rig it, everyone knows this," said doctor Victor Jal. "What is important for us is just the referendum."

Source: Alarabiya.net | Middle East