AFRICANEWS
CLIPPINGS
KenyaIn the ongoing events to restart the stalled constitutional review process, two rival committees were set up yesterday to review the Kenya Constitution. In Parliament, Kanu took advantage of a largely absent opposition to push through a Select Committee of MPs to conduct the review - with a built in majority for tehir own party.Across the city, at Ufungamano House, religious leaders set up a parellel committee to speahead talks on reform. It was called by representatives of all the major religious groups in Kenya, including Christians, Muslims and Hindus.
LiberiaA child rights advocacy group, FOCUS, says it disagrees with President Charles Taylor's opposition to the establishment of a truth commission, Star radio reported on 7 December.FOCUS said on 6 December that a truth commission would serve as a forum for dialogue between victims and perpetrators of atrocities during the civil war, according to Star, which reported that the organization believes such a dialogue would foster democracy and sustain peace and respect for the rule of law. FOCUS argues that if the truth were told about atrocities in the war, it would weaken those bent on revenge. On 5 December, Taylor said he opposed the setting up of a truth commission because it would lead to civil violence and reversal of the reconciliation process. He was reacting to a proposal by a city councillor, Marcus Jones, who said the setting up of a truth commission would help complement the work of the National Human Rights Commission.
RwandaSome 36 Rwandan university students are seeking asylum in Uganda, reportedly fearing that their lives were in danger in Rwanda. A UNHCR official told IRIN on 14 December the agency know about the case and was "trying to verify the students' account" with its office in Kigali. The students, born in Uganda to Rwandan parents, had moved back to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide and, finding it difficult to study in French at university level, staged a protest on 16 August that resulted in some arrests. "The demonstration was against the government policy of the introduction of compulsory French language... they were perceived as opponents of the government," the students told UNHCR. The semi-official 'New Vision' newspaper reported onthat some 40 Rwandan students camping at the Old Kampala police station since 7 December had alleged political persecution and were seeking refugee status.The number of new refugees arriving from Burundi over the last week of October and the first week of December totalled 3,260, with the influx decreasing but still steady, the latest emergency report from the WFP stated on 10 December. Some 670 newly-arrived Burundians were registered in Myovosi camp in Kasulu over the two-week period ending 5 December, while a steady flow of refugees into Kigoma, Kasulu, Kibondo and Ngara Districts brought the total to around 3,260, WFP added. �There are estimated to be 400,000 refugees in Tanzania, most of them from Burundi. They are broken down to include 135,259 in Kasulu District (of which some 52,700 are from DRC), 110,269 in Kibondo District, 45,053 in Kigoma District and 109,280 in Ngara District, the report stated. The inflow of refugees in recent months has more than made up for the number returning home from past conflicts, the international NGO Oxfam stated last week in a report on what it called "the forgotten emergencies.Security in the camps is worsening with the situation in Burundi, as the arms trade grows and attacks on the camps become more focused," it said.Oxfam also warned of increasing malaria deaths in some of the camps, and of food shortages in drought-affected communities in Shinyanga and Ngorogoro. JOHANNESBURG, 13 December (IRIN) - The UN's children fund, UNICEF has cited Zambia as a country of hope in Southern Africa in the battle against AIDS. In its 'State of the World's Children - 2000' report, UNICEF said: "In the grip of this calamity and against sobering odds, some Zambian's have chosen to live hopefully even as many struggle with their own poverty and difficult life circumstances. They brave a stigma by their association with AIDS and often are themselves discriminated against as they work to spare future generations from the ravages of this disease." According to the report, one in five Zambian's are HIV positive and that according to local health educators in Zambia, everyone is either affected or infected by HIV/AIDS. "Virtually everyone you meet has lost friends or relatives to AIDS," the report noted. UNICEF said that an estimated 360,000 children had lost at least one parent , most of them to AIDS. Life expectancy at birth, has dropped from 50 to 40 years since 1990, and "child mortality rates are rising to levels not seen since the early 1970's, erasing a quarter-century of progress on children's health and welfare." In UNICEF's under-five mortality rate ranking, a critical indicator of the well-being of children, Zambia has been listed at number 12 in the world, with Sierra Leone at number one. In sub-Saharan Africa, the report said, children's health continued to be under "severe threat", with an estimated 4.1 million children under the age of five dying last year, compared to 3.3 million in 1980.
| CONTENTS | AFRICANEWS HOMEPAGE |
USAGE/ACKNOWLED Contents can be freely reproduced with acknowledgements. The by-line should read: author/AFRICANEWS. Send a copy of the reproduced article to AFRICANEWS.
AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 21255, Nairobi, Kenya
|