Leaders of a Botswana Bushmen organisation left for the United States on Wednesday to obtain support for their fight against their government’s efforts to relocate them. The Botswana government is trying to persuade the Bushmen to opt for relocation to settlements outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
About 6 000 workers at Botswana’s four diamond mines went on strike on Monday, defying a court order banning the work stoppage in the Southern African country, the world’s leading producer of uncut diamonds. The diamond industry is by far Botswana’s leading foreign-currency earner, providing 75% of its earnings.
Botswana has defended its practice of flogging people who cross its borders illegally, rejecting criticism by neighbouring Zimbabwe that the punishment is primitive. ”We do not discriminate and we are not going to give Zimbabweans any preferential treatment,” said Botswana’s assistant minister for presidential affairs.
Botswana on Thursday announced the extraction of coal-bed methane that will deliver gas within six months from a pilot plant. Botswana could become the regional supplier of energy. All its neighbours are net importers of energy. The project will also attract investment to Botswana and fuel local growth.
Botswana President Festus Mogae on Friday joined last-minute negotiations to head off a strike by approximately 5 000 miners at the country’s four diamond mines, which would severely impact on the nation’s income and the world diamond market, already facing a shortage of rough diamond stock.
Botswana, with the highest per-capita rate of HIV infection in world, is struggling to cope with the demand for treatment.
A San Bushman who defied a state order to move out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve told the Botswana High Court on Tuesday that the land had been given to him by God. The court is hearing a case brought by 243 San Bushmen challenging their relocation from the game reserve.
Germany’s ambassador to Botswana has rejected calls for reparations to be paid to the Herero people, who were victims of an extermination campaign under German colonial rule 100 years ago. Ambassador Hans-Dietrich von Bothmer said that while Germany regretted ”this unfortunate past”, it was not prepared to offer compensation.
The Botswana government on Thursday dismissed as ”suspect and mischievous” testimony given by a former colonial commissioner in support of a court claim by the San Bushmen seeking to return to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Bushmen were evicted from the reserve in 1997.
Botswana launched a stinging attack on Tuesday on the human rights group supporting San Bushmen in a land claim in the desert Southern African country, calling it a "fund-raising gimmick". Judges continued inspections in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,where the Bushmen lived before they were evicted in 1997.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118200">Bushmen land claim ‘nonsense'</a>
The development of the judiciary and the rule of law must take account of customary and traditional practices, Botswana’s President Festus Mogae said on Monday. Mogae was opening the Southern African Development Community chief justices’ conference on human rights.
The plight of Southern Africa’s earliest inhabitants, the San Bushmen, comes to the fore on Monday when Botswana’s High Court begins hearing a landmark land case in the Kalahari desert. A group of 243 San Bushmen are challenging their resettlement from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the world’s largest sanctuaries.
Botswana has said that criticism of its policy of routine HIV testing for people using public health services is hindering treatment efforts.
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/ 19 February 2004
The government of Botswana is offering voluntary HIV tests for anyone who goes to a medical clinic with a health problem.
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/ 17 February 2004
Agriculture ministers of eight of the 14 member nations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have called on their governments to increase allocations to agriculture. The eight want the allocations upped to at least 10% of national Budgets.
The Southern African Development Community has been urged to take action on threats to press freedom in the region, particularly in Zimbabwe. A Media Institute of Southern Africa delegation has raised concerns that the mandatory licensing of journalists could be open to abuse by governments.
Bank of Botswana governor Linah Mohohlo has been voted central bank governor of the year for sub-Saharan Africa, an international financial magazine, Euromoney, has announced. Mohohlo received the award after a poll by investors, bankers and representatives of financial and capital markets.
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/ 24 September 2003
Polio is speading across West Africa from Nigeria, the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. A WHO officer said new cases of the virus imported from Nigeria had been identified in Ghana and Niger, adding that the situation was made worse by another outbreak of a new virus in Togo.
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/ 19 September 2003
Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda will visit Botswana on Wednesday, the Office of President Festus Mogae announced on Friday. The visit is part of a Gates’ tour of Africa, which will also take them to Mozambique and then South Africa
Botswana is scheduled to begin tests on an Aids vaccine to find out if it is safe when given to healthy adults, officials said on Monday.
Experts from nine southern and east African countries agreed on Wednesday to recommend to their governments that they seek permission to sell their ivory stockpiles.
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/ 13 September 2001
Botswana, Brazil, Thailand and Uganda were given awards for their actions against Aids.
Alex Sudheim fine art Trevor Makhoba is no stranger to controversy. He has an uncanny knack for disinterring some of the more uncomfortable impulses squirming beneath South African society’s skin. This is all over his show Rebound, currently at Durban’s NSA Gallery. Like a surgeon cutting into flesh to remove a subcutaneous cyst or a […]