DRC: Ilunga new rebel leader | Zimbabwe: It's Weil's disease, not Ebola | Media urged to play active role in Mozambican poll | Malawi: Private sector urges government to protect textile industry

DRC: Ilunga new rebel leader
The rebel Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD) recently named medical doctor Emile Ilunga as its new leader replacing the ousted Ernest Wamba dia Wamba. The change was announced after a special congress of 50 RCD founder members and 22 military commanders in the their capital Goma, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported.

The news agency said the aim of the congress was to solve an internal power struggle which intensified two months ago, culminating in Wamba transferring his base from Goma to Kisangani. Another top official, Lunda Bululu, was also ousted from the leadership.

One of the new leader's urgent tasks is to try and unify the movement and resolve the squabbles that rocked the former leadership, RNA said. Other news organisations quoted RCD official Bizima Karaha as saying Wamba's exit was the "only way" to resolve the leadership struggle. The movement also retained military commander Jean-Pierre Ondekane and Moise Nyarugabo as first and second vice-presidents respectively. Ondekane told AFP Ilunga was "an experienced man who has run military campaigns and worked in politics". (IRIN)

...top

Zimbabwe: It's Weil's disease, not Ebola
Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and child Welfare has reported that the two patients believed to have been suffering from the deadly Ebola virus did not die from that disease, but from a viral haemorrhagic fever called Weil's disease spread by rats.

The health ministry says that this was the first time the disease has occurred in Zimbabwe. Three cases had been reported and the third patient is said to have recovered.

Following the recent outbreak of an Ebola-like disease, samples sent to the institute of virology in South Africa for testing were all negative. The deadly disease was first reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January. (SARDC/Daily News)

...top

Media urged to play active role in Mozambican poll
The General Director of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), Antonio Carrasco, recently urged the Mozambican media to contribute to raising awareness among the population of the forthcoming general elections.

Speaking at a Journalism seminar organised by the Maputo Journalism School, Carrasco urged reporters to play their role in ensuring that there is a mass turn-out on polling day. He noted that in the 1998 municipal elections, 85 percent of the electorate abstained. He said such high levels of abstention could be avoided in the presidential and parliamentary elections, if the media was seriously committed to a programme of voter education.

However, the editor of the weekly, Savana, Salomao Moyana, warned that "during the elections, the mass media should be very careful to avoid political manipulation".

"Some political parties make use of the difficulties facing some of the media to manipulate them", he said. (AIM)

...top

Malawi: Private sector urges government to protect textile industry
The private sector in Malawi has warned government ahead of the 15 June general elections to exercise extreme caution at the forthcoming round of negotiations on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Trade Protocol scheduled for Zambia in June.

Government representatives and trade experts from 14 SADC members are expected to meet in Zambia in June to discuss modalities on tariff reduction under the Trade Protocol which seeks to establish a free trade area in the southern African region.

Neville Williamson, Chairman of Malawi's National Working Group, a private sector-led body, said the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has indicated that it will table separate proposals on tariffs on textiles and footwear for consideration at the forum. He said the new proposals by SACU differed in many ways from ones in the Trade Protocol which had already undergone thorough discussions since 1996 when it was signed.

Addressing a private sector meeting in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial hub, Williamson said SACU proposals are more stringent on rules of origin while the Trade Protocol has tried to strike a balance by proposing, for instance, a 35 percent local content in textile exports.

Williamson, who is also Chief Executive of the textile giant, David Whitehead and Sons, said Malawi could not afford to sweep under the floor what it has been trying to correct for years because of "one deceiving SACU document".

"SACU is trying to enter our market through the back door and we can't allow that," charged the textile producer.

The SACU proposals are not coming to this forum for the first time. They were tabled at a previous one in Maputo where member states recommended that further work be done on them. This was seen by many as a diplomatic way of saying no to the proposals.

It appears Malawi's position on the issue has not changed much since the previous meeting. Harrison Mandindi, Deputy Director of Commerce in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said the government of Malawi was taking its private sector-s advice seriously. "We stand by what the trade protocol stipulates," he said.

If government position here in Blantyre is not a mere gimmick to please the business community in the run-up to elections scheduled for 15 June, SACU members are certain to face a strong resistance at the Lusaka meeting next month. (SARDC)

...top