SWAZILAND: Unions call two-day strike
Swaziland's trade unions on Wednesday
said they have called a two-day strike in protest over the government's
refusal to amend an Industrial Relations Act they argue is aimed at bashing
labour.
A spokesman of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) told IRIN on Wednesday that the strike - on Thursday and Friday - will affect all sectors of Swaziland's economy, following a decision by teachers and public servants to join the action. "The strike will maximise pressure on government to reverse the damage inflicted on the Industrial Relations Act by advisors of the royal family," Musa Dlamini said.
The legislation has drawn fire from the United States which has given King Mswati's government until Friday to remove the amendments to the Act that holds workers liable for damages suffered during strike action. Washington has threatened to withdraw Swaziland's benefits under its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) that entitle the country to export to US markets at reduced tariffs unless the amendments are removed. "Swaziland's economy cannot survive the loss of trade privileges with the US," Dlamini said.
ANGOLA: Journalists reject new media law
The Independent Union of Angolan Journalists (SJA), the Angolan chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the Associated Journalists group of Angola have decided to reject proposed new draft legislation on the media in Angola, MISA said in a statement on Wednesday.
After a series of debates, it said they had resolved in a joint statement to "refuse the new Media Law draft as a basis for discussion or work, because it bears an unconstitutional logic, therefore violating the guarantees of freedom of the press and the prohibition of censorship as consecrated by the Angolan Constitutional Law". They said it also violated various international charters on press freedom.
They also appealed to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos not to sign any such proposals into law, saying any such legislation should be debated in consultation with journalists themselves. They also demanded that the authorities drop their actions in eight cases against journalists in Angola.
NAMIBIA: New concerns over detainees
Namibian opposition politicians and the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) have said they feared that an unspecified number of Namibian nationals were currently being held among a group of 82 suspected Angolan UNITA rebels rounded up some two months ago near the country's border with Angola. According to a report in 'The Namibian' on Wednesday, the opposition Congress of Democrats (CoD) this week asked Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo to tell parliament whether he was "satisfied that, indeed, all the detainees were non-Namibians".
The NSHR alleged that the 82 men held at the Dordabis detention centre about 100 km southeast of the capital, Windhoek, are members of the Ovimbundu ethnic group to which the UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi belongs. In a growing controversy over the government's reported reticence to disclose more details on the detainees, the newspaper said authorities had reiterated that they would not release the names of those held, whom a spokesman described as "UNITA soldiers and collaborators".
The NSHR said in a statement that the term "UNITA bandit" has been used as a euphemism for Ovimbundu-speaking people in northern Namibia who were "automatically targeted" as UNITA collaborators. Tensions and cross-border raids in northern Namibia have increased since December last year when Namibia granted Angola the right to use its territory to launch attacks against UNITA guerrillas in southern Angola.
NAMIBIA: Churches urge peace in Angola
Meanwhile, the Council of Churches of Namibia (CCN) urged both sides in the Angolan conflict to negotiate an end to the war and said they were "horrified" at the increase in cross-border raids and land mine incidents in northern Namibia, the African Church Information Service reported on Tuesday.
"It pains us to hear about land mines which are planted in our communities and even in churches," said Reverend Nangula Kathindi, general secretary of the CCN. "We are deeply hurt by the abductions of people, rape of women, including little girls".
ANGOLA: Home affairs minister to discuss border crisis in Namibia
Angolan Home Affairs Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias Dos Santos will hold talks in Windhoek, in neighbouring Namibia on Thursday to discuss bilateral security and defence issues, news reports said.
In a statement before leaving Angola, he said the two countries had put in place mechanisms for dealing with cross-border crimes. "The Namibian and Angolan police are already working together. We gave back some vehicles and we hope that the Namibian authorities will act in the same way," he added.
ZAMBIA: Lusaka seeks international help on land mines
Zambia has said it would seek international assistance to tackle the problem of land mines and prevent further loss of lives within its territory, Pana news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Valentine Kayope as saying. In a statement on Tuesday he said the international community had a responsibility to help address a problem which has affected six of Zambia's nine provinces.
He told a group of visiting American mine clearance experts that Zambians required training to deal with the problem as well as equipment. In one case, he said land mines had stalled a World Bank development project for the rehabilitation of roads, construction of storage dams, rural health centres and schools in Gwembe, in the southern lower Zambezi valley. The minister said the development programme was halted after a project consultant was killed by a landmine in May 1999 during a survey. Land mines in the area were suspected to be among the remnants of those used by nationalist movements, which fought the then rebel Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Robert Dolce, policy analyst for the Humanitarian Demining Programmes from the US Department of State, who is leading the American delegation, said the primary goal of the visit was to help Zambia establish a sustainable demining programme which would also include assistance in training and equipment. The UN Mine Action Services (UNMAS) recently sent an inter-disciplinary assessment mission to Zambia to determine the extent of the landmine problem in the country. The mission had noted that land mines and unexploded ordinance (UXOs) in Zambia was limited to the borders with Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, as well as around former bases of national liberation movements.
ZIMBABWE: New court ruling on farms
White commercial farmers in Zimbabwe whose lands have been requisitioned for resettlement by landless black peasants will not be evicted from their farms until they have been given court orders providing at least 90 days' formal notice to leave. According to the state daily, 'The Herald' on Wednesday, the supreme court decided on the move after granting an interim order in a case brought by the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) against four ministers, the commissioner of police and the president.
The order, which does not stop the acquisition process, but does slow down resettlement, was granted after both the CFU and the Attorney-General's Office agreed to its terms. "Resettlement is a three-stage process," the newspaper said. "First, the land must be acquired, then the previous occupants must be evicted, and then the new settlers allowed in. For the 2,100 farms that have been listed in recent weeks, the government is still in the first stage."
Further charges in a CFU suit against the minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, the minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, the minister of Rural Resources and Water Development, the minister of Home Affairs, the commissioner of police and President Robert Mugabe will be heard in November.
MALAWI: Journalist claims harassment
A Malawian journalist and three other employees of a Catholic Church publication released on bail in connection with the alleged theft of laptop computers has claimed the government had taken the action because it was upset with a story he published recently, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) said on Wednesday. It said the journalist, Prince Jamali, works for the quarterly 'Lamp' and 'Together' magazines published by the Catholic Montfort Missionaries.
"He claims that he was implicated in the incident because of a story about alleged police brutality he had written earlier. In the article, Jamali had documented incidents of torture that had allegedly been perpetrated by the Malawi Police Service since a reform programme started two years ago," MISA said. A police spokesman told the Malawi News Agency, however, the authorities were not aware that the reporter was being threatened or harassed.
SOUTH AFRICA: Foot-and-mouth outbreak prompts livestock cull
The authorities in South Africa's eastern KwaZulu-Natal province said on Wednesday they would cull more than 3,000 pigs, 400 head of cattle as well as sheep and goats following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the area. News reports said the livestock would be slaughtered to create an isolated zone around two infected farms in the Camperdown area.
"Such an approach is regarded as absolutely essential not only for the local farming community, but for the entire agricultural industry in South Africa," a government statement said. It said this "traumatic, but essential decision" would be implemented in a humane manner under the direct supervision of senior officials and with the logistical support of the security forces. A number of countries including Botswana, Singapore, Mauritius and Namibia have already banned imports of certain livestock and animal products from South Africa since the outbreak was confirmed earlier this month.
SOUTH AFRICA: Lekota signs defence pact with India
The South African and Indian defence ministers on Wednesday signed a cooperation agreement on defence, military research and procurement, saying it could facilitate arms trade between the two countries. Media reports quoted Mosiouoa Lekota, South Africa's defence minister, as saying: "If we identify equipment we require that was available from India we would take advantage of that." He added that South Africa wanted to learn from India's experience in peacekeeping to better prepare itself for the planned UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said the two countries, with their shared histories of British colonial rule and underdevelopment, were interested in pooling their military research and developing products together. "We are looking at pooling our resources, technical and scientific, and going into joint ventures where necessary and possible," Fernandes reportedly said.
AFRICA: SA finance minister appeals on debt relief
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has told the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) ministerial meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, that wealthy countries had still not put enough on the table for debt relief. The South African daily, 'Business Day', quoted him as saying he hoped a proposal by the European Union's commission for duty- and quota-free access for poor countries would be accepted.
The move at the weekend to extend the highly indebted poor countries initiative by two years may give a number of countries involved in conflicts time to obtain debt relief. In addition, the bank and IMF have said that they would make a special effort to push through debt relief for another 10 countries this year. The Group of Seven industrial countries (G-7) made an earlier commitment for 24 developing countries to obtain relief by the end of the year.
The developing country group at the meetings, which includes oil producers, called for measures to stabilise oil prices and IMF help for countries that have been hard hit by the surge in crude prices.
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