Africa
ISS
welcomes nuclear treaty - 13 August
The
Institute for Security Studies has welcomed the implementation of
the African Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty - 13 years in the
making. The so-called Pelindaba Treaty will effectively render
Africa
free of nuclear weapons.- Eye
Witness News website
Congo
Court
gives bail to Congo's Bemba - 14 August
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered the conditional
release of Congolese ex-Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba ahead of
his war crimes trial. However, the court said he would not be freed
until it was decided which country would host him. Mr Bemba, who led
a rebel group during the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war,
was arrested in Belgium last year and extradited to The Hague. The
charges relate to unrest in the Central African Republic. - BBC
News website
Kenya
Kenya
empties its death-row cells - 3 August
More than 4 000 prisoners on death row in Kenya will have their
sentences commuted to life imprisonment, President Mwai Kibaki has
announced. No death sentences have been carried out in Kenya for
more than two decades. Giving reasons for commuting all these
sentences to life imprisonment, President Kibaki said the law did
not allow those prisoners to work. He said this had led to idleness
and had affected general prison discipline. The impact on the
prisoners' mental health was also given as a reason. - BBC
News website
Land Affairs
and Property
Africa
investment sparks land grab fear - 5 August
Long of little interest to outsiders, African land has rarely been
associated with financial reward. But for investors like Susan
Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, farmland in
sub-Saharan Africa is a hot bet. Population increase, changes in
eating habits and demand for bio-fuels are putting farmland at a
premium worldwide. "And African farmland prices are the lowest
in the world," she says. Her fund is in the process of buying
or leasing a total 50 000 hectares, equal to roughly 80 000 football
pitches, in several African countries including Mozambique, South
Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Angola, Swaziland and the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Ms Payne says the investment leads to better
harvests and creates jobs. - BBC
News website
Lesotho
African
dream turns sour for orphan army - 2 August
Gap's decision to develop the production of jeans and T-shirts in
Lesotho had heralded an era of opportunity for one of the world's
poorest nations but a Sunday Times investigation has exposed
an unforeseen consequence of that commitment - the dumping of tons
of waste, much of it dangerous, at unsecured municipal sites. Over
the past 12 months the child rag pickers have been attracted to
garment dumps by the denim and plastic thrown away by a Taiwanese
supplier whose clients include both Gap and Levi Strauss. Such is
the ubiquity of denim and cotton waste in Lesotho that garment
refuse has replaced charcoal as cooking fuel. Alarmingly, for the
two San Francisco-based firms, the waste dumped by their suppliers
Nien Hsing and Formosa Textile - both part of the Nien Hsing Fashion
Group - includes harmful chemicals, needles and razors. Not only
that, but Nien Hsing is leaking chemical effluent into a river from
which cooking water is drawn. - Times
Online website
Levi
Strauss investigates chemical waste claims - 3 August
World renowned denim brand Levi Strauss said on Monday it
was taking claims that one of its suppliers was leaking waste into
Lesotho
seriously. Levi Strauss South
Africa
said its international office sent a social and
environmental team to investigate. - Eye
Witness News website
Sudan
Protests
outside court as Lubna Hussein faces lashes over trousers - 4
August
Scores of women today protested outside court in support of a
woman journalist who faces flogging for wearing trousers in Sudan.
Lubna Hussein, a widow in her thirties, challenged the authorities
on the eve of her trial, saying that she is willing to take
thousands of lashes if it advances the rights of the country's
women. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said last week that
he was "deeply concerned" at the prospect of an employee
suffering a flogging. "The UN will take every effort to
ensure that the rights of its staff members are protected",
he said. - Times Online
website
'Whip
me if you dare' says Lubna Hussein, Sudan's defiant trouser
woman - 1 August
Lubna Hussein left a restaurant under arrest as a "trouser
girl" - humiliated in front of hundreds of people, then
beaten around the head in a police van before being hauled
before a court to face a likely sentence of 40 lashes for the
"sin" of not wearing traditional Islamic dress. The
officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for
mercy, as most of their victims do. Instead she turned the
tables on them - and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare
judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for
women's rights in one of Africa's most conservative nations. She
could easily have escaped punishment by simply claiming immunity
as a UN worker, as she is entitled to under Sudanese law.
Instead, she is resigning from the UN - to the confusion of
judges who last Wednesday adjourned the case because they did
not know what to do with her. - Telegraph
website
Inquiry
urged after Sudan women flogged for trousers - 14 July
A senior Sudanese politician called on Tuesday for an inquiry
into reports young women from Sudan's Christian south had been
flogged for defying Islamic law by wearing trousers in Khartoum.
Police arrested 13 young women earlier this month, accusing them
of wearing indecent clothes in a Khartoum cafe, and later
flogged 10 of them, one of the arrested women told journalists.
Lubna Hussein, who works as an information officer for the U.N.
mission in Khartoum, said some of the women detained with her
were from southern Sudan, where most of the population is
Christian. - Reuters
website
Travel
ban in Sudan trouser trial - 12 August
A Sudanese woman charged with dressing indecently for wearing
trousers has been prevented from travelling abroad. Lubna
Hussein says she tried to leave Sudan on Tuesday to visit
Lebanon where she had been invited to appear on a television
programme. She says an airport official said her name had been
put on a blacklist last Friday, the day she was invited to
France by President Nicholas Sarkozy. If convicted in a month's
time, she could face up to 40 lashes. - BBC
News website
Zambia
Zambia
court postpones ruling in ex-leader's graft case - 14 August
A Zambian court on Friday again postponed judgement in the landmark
graft trial of Zambia's former president, Frederick Chiluba, who is
accused of corruption and stealing $500 000 from public funds.
Chiluba's spokesperson made the announcement to the packed courtroom
in the capital, Lusaka. The presiding magistrate was not present and
no reasons were given for the postponement. - Mail
& Guardian website
Zambia
reporter in 'porn' trial - 5 August
The news editor of Zambia's largest independent newspaper has gone
on trial accused of distributing obscene images. Chansa Kabwela sent
two photographs of a woman giving birth without medical help to the
country's vice-president, health minister and rights groups. She
says she was highlighting issues in the healthcare system and
calling for an end to a nurses' strike. - BBC
News website
Zimbabwe
Fugitive
given vast ranch in Zimbabwe - 2 August
At a time when all but a few hundred of Zimbabwe's white farmers
have been kicked off their land, fugitive businessman Billy
Rautenbach has been handed a vast tract in the south, left in trust
by former Nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo to develop black
agriculture. Some black farmers there claim Rautenbach has
interfered with their ranching and is trying to push them out. This
was revealed in a documentary in the Dispatches slot on Britain's
Channel 4 last Monday. - IOL
website
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