NGOs

A civil society organisation, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), has asked the Acting Chairperson of the Africa Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Bahame Tom Mukirya Nyanduga, to urgently restrain Libya from executing Nigerians on death row.

The organisation is urging the Africa Commission to urgently invoke Article 111 (Rule of Procedure) authority to request that Libya adopt provisional measures in order to stop the irreparable damage that would be caused to the Complainants and their African Charter rights.

Community Development and Social Services Minister, Michael Kaingu, says he will soon announce the guidelines on the implementation of the recently assented to NGO Act.

Kaingu says that the Act will soon be implemented and urged NGOs which were against it to accept it because it is now law.

He says NGOs should not demonstrate against policies already passed by Parliament and assented to by President Rupiah Banda.

Oxfam has warned that a total failure of the international community to deal effectively with the Somalia crisis and help end the war is resulting in a spiral of human suffering and exodus to neighbouring countries.

The organisation says hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have fled the violence are now trapped in ‘horrifically overcrowded or poorly managed camps’ in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia itself.

A Greek employee of the Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders - MSF) the medical charity, kidnapped in eastern Chad early last month, has been released.

However, army general, Oki Daggache could not reveal all the details regarding the release.

In March, British charity Oxfam estimated that 25 attacks occur every month on NGOs operating in eastern Chad.

The violence is often blamed on bandits, and NGOs have frequently denounced the lack of adequate security.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Southern African leaders to put pressure on Zimbabwe's unity government to make greater political reforms to prevent the country from sliding back into turmoil.

"The region's leaders need to press Zimbabwe openly and publicly for human rights reforms to prevent the country from backsliding into state-sponsored violence and chaos," says HRW Africa director, Georgette Gagnon.

Gagnon further calls on Southern African leaders to stop looking at Zimbabwe through what she calls “rose-colour glasses”.

The National House of Traditional Leaders has vowed to continue with the customary circumcision of young Xhosa and Sotho men, and has warned "intrusive NGOs" opposed to the practice to stay away.

"The intrusive NGOs and groups are in for a real fight because they do not know anything about the importance of (male) circumcision," says chief Gcinikhaya Gwadiso, head of the house's national campaign for safe initiation schools.

Rwanda’s Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration has reminded unregistered NGOs operating in that country that their failure to register could result in punitive measures.

The Directorate started the registration exercise in January this year which was supposed to end in April, but four months after the deadline, a good number of these NGOs continue to operate illegally.

The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) says a key assessment document for the proposed pebble bed nuclear reactor was fatally flawed.

PSAM says that a decision on whether to go ahead with a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) demonstration project involve choices on the use of substantial public resources.