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/ 26 January 2007

Namibia’s environment plan slow to take off

The Namibian government has adopted all the right policies to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal Seven on sustainable environmental practices, but its good intentions have floundered at the implementation stage. The country has been doing a lot to set up the appropriate policies and regulations conducive to sustainable environmental development.

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/ 21 November 2006

SA, Namibia eye closer energy ties

The leaders of neighbouring South Africa and Namibia pledged on Tuesday to open a new chapter in bilateral relations as they signed a joint trade agreement, largely focusing on energy supplies. After the first top-level meeting in three years, South Africa President Thabo Mbeki said he was determined not to allow a similar period to elapse before the next such talks.

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/ 23 October 2006

Namibian teachers forced to seek other jobs

Pasilius Haingura, of the National Association of Namibian Teachers’ Unions, says that many of the country’s 20 000 teachers want to leave the profession. While noting that Namibian teachers are better off in terms of salaries than other public servants, he says the conditions under which teachers operate leave them with no other option but to seek other jobs.

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/ 1 May 2006

Brad and Angelina are ‘just ordinary people’

Namibia’s relaxed approach when it comes to celebrity is one of the main reasons why Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt chose this arid stretch of Africa to have their baby — and they should be left alone, locals say. In early April, Hollywood’s golden couple quietly jetted into Namibia where Jolie (30) is expected to give birth to their child.

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/ 28 April 2006

Ambassador says Jolie, Pitt put Namibia on the map

Namibia has suddenly gained immense popularity in the United States thanks to the visit by Hollywood golden couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the country’s ambassador to the US said on Thursday. Jolie, who is eight months pregnant and is expected to give birth in Namibia, arrived with Pitt in the Southern African country in early April.

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/ 12 April 2006

Pitt, Jolie cocooned in Namibia ahead of birth

Hollywood glamour pair Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie tried to slip into a vacation resort last week in a sleepy part of Namibia using the names of the characters they played in a film of Mr and Mrs Smith. The couple has declined to confirm reports of their stay at game lodges between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund in the south-western African state, or the purpose of their visit that follows on a trip to Paris.

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/ 17 November 2005

First compulsory Namibian farm sale concluded

”We have cried long enough,” says Hilde Wiese, a commercial farmer from Namibia, her eyes red. ”Now we’re actually pleased that it’s all over.” This week, a chapter of colonial history closed as the Wieses prepared to vacate their farm, the first white-owned farm to be expropriated under Namibia’s fast-tracked land-reform programme.

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/ 1 November 2005

Treason suspects in Namibia want ‘political dialogue’

The trial of 120 Namibians for alleged treason and participation in a failed separatist uprising six years ago resumed on Tuesday with the suspects requesting a ”political dialogue” with the government. Speaking on behalf of the group supposedly active in Namibia’s restive Caprivi region, one of the accused, Martin Tubaundule, made the demand to Judge Elton Hoff.

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/ 28 October 2005

Namibians pay homage to chief who fought Germans

Nama-speaking tribes in Namibia will flock to a tiny village this weekend to pay tribute a famous chief who raised the banner of revolt against German colonial forces but was killed in battle a century ago. Tribal members will descend on Gibeon, a small town about 360km south of Windhoek, to commemorate Hendrik Witbooi, who perished on 29 October 1905 while fighting the German army.

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/ 26 September 2005

Namibia’s land programme is flawed, says NGO

Namibia’s land reform programme is flawed because poor and landless people are not being empowered to become successful farmers once they have been resettled, claims a new report. The Legal Assistance Centre, a local NGO, stressed that land reform involved more than just ”buying or expropriating land from one group in order to give more land to another group”.

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/ 19 September 2005

Namibian farmworkers face eviction

About 70 Namibian farmworkers and their families face an uncertain future after the first expropriation of a white-owned farm by the government and are fighting to retain their jobs and homes. The Namibia Farmworkers’ Union has taken up their case and says the workers, who face penury and homelessness according to the present owner, cannot be cast away on the roadside.

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/ 2 September 2005

Namibia concludes first forced farm sale

The first compulsory sale of a white-owned farm concluded in Namibia this week, bringing fresh impetus to the government’s land-reform programme and raising concerns among white farmers of Zimbabwean-style land seizures. ”we have no choice and we have to make the best of it,” said the farm owner.

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/ 13 August 2005

Chissano ‘ready’ to mediate in Zim

Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano said on Friday he is ”ready” to mediate between Zimbabwe’s ruling party and the opposition, following his appointment to broker talks in the crisis-hit Southern African country. ”I will now assess if the two sides wish to talk to each other,” Chissano said.

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/ 5 August 2005

Namibian govt set to expropriate 18 farms

Namibia’s government is set to serve final notices of expropriation on 18 white commercial farmers after it failed to reach an agreement on the price of the land in the arid Southern African country. ”If there is no other solution, then that is the way to go,” Lands Minister Jerry Ekandjo said late on Thursday.

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/ 18 July 2005

Pohamba extends olive branch to white Afrikaners

Newly elected Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba on Sunday extended the olive branch to the country’s white Afrikaners, but warned that an unwillingness to share land in the arid country ”could spark a revolution”. Pohamba became the first head of state since Namibian independence in 1990 to attend a church service of the Dutch Reformed Church.

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/ 21 March 2005

Namibia swears in new president

President-elect Hifikepunye Pohamba was sworn in on Monday as Namibia’s second president since independence, succeeding veteran leader Sam Nujoma who held power in the Southern African country for 15 years. Pohamba took the oath to uphold the Constitution before 20 000 people assembled at a stadium in Windhoek.