The Mmegi newspaper of 9 October 2008 has reported that the state owned media is being given editorial directives to advance government positions on civic issues such as its fight against alcohol abuse. The newspaper quotes 'reliable sources' saying the government has marshalled the state media to cover positively and extensively it's anti alcohol abuse. The directive was issued this week.

Locked iron gates, entry by invitation, absence of the media and controlled noise behind one of Gaborone’s town houses appeared to be an illustration of innate fear by Batswana lesbians, gay and bisexuals to be outed and recognised as homosexuals during a pride party hosted by the Lesbians, Gay and Bisexuals of Botswana (LeGaBiBo) recently.

Botswana's president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, will not attend a regional summit if Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition fail to reach a power-sharing agreement, Botswanan officials said.

In July 2005, approximately four-fifths of Botswana’s population did not have access to electricity. However, enterprising village entrepreneurs have utilised the opportunity created by the lack of electricity to fill the resultant niche in the market for the recharging of cell phone batteries.

Journalists in Botswana are up in arms over the draft Media Practitioners Bill. Quietly published in the Government Gazette on June 27, the Bill would give the government greater control over the media. Botswana’s media bodies say the news media are already regulating themselves through the Press Council, which was established six years ago, and that the government is seeking to impose itself on the media sector.

Amid mounting fears of phone surveillance by state security agents, Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA) remains adamant with going ahead with the registration of all prepaid mobile phone sim-cards on 15 September 2008.

Botswana’s government is this week promoting the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as a top tourist destination, but it has banned the reserve’s Bushmen from accessing their own water. At this week’s INDABA tourism fair in Durban, the Botswana Tourism Board is promoting Botswana as a top travel destination, and the government has just awarded a safari concession in the reserve to a South African tourist company, the Safari & Adventure Company, close to the Bushman community of Molapo.

Several water boreholes have been sunk in preparation for a diamond mine in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), Botswana, but the Bushmen who live there are forbidden from taking any water at all from their own borehole in the reserve.

Botswana’s laws are still not specific on whether to condemn homosexuality or not but gays and lesbians in that country are forced to remain in the closet for fear of being stigmatised, disowned and marginalised. Speaking openly about sexuality remains a major challenge for many gays and lesbians in Botswana such as 19 year old Selina Sello*. Sello is a lesbian student at the university of Botswana who encountered problems regarding coming out to her family and friends.

The UN Human Rights Committee has criticised Botswana’s government over its treatment of the Bushmen. The committee urged Botswana to ensure that ‘all persons who were relocated are granted the right to return to the CKGR (Central Kalahari Game Reserve)’. The government has so far only allowed those few Bushmen named in the Botswana High Court case, which the Bushmen won in 2006, to return to live in the CKGR; hundreds of others are forced to apply for permits.

Botswana’s Attorney General, the Governor of the Bank of Botswana and the CEO of De Beers Botswana were greeted outside Chatham House in London this week by protesters holding blown-up photographs of Bushman women who have died due to the eviction of the Bushmen from their land.

Representatives from the consultancy firm Marsh Environmental Services have begun a whirlwind twelve-day consultation programme in and around the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), in Botswana. The move is part of plans to develop a $2.2 billion diamond mine within the reserve. In what has since been ruled an unlawful and unconstitutional act, in 2002 the Botswana government removed more than 600 Bushmen from the CKGR without their consent.

Two cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) have been confirmed in Botswana, health officials said. "The two cases were picked up during a routine survey for multidrug- resistant TB (MDR-TB)," Setshwano Mokgweetsinyana of the Department of Public Health, told IRIN. The survey also confirmed 100 cases of MDR-TB.

The government of Botswana announced yesterday that two cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) have been identified in the country. They are the first cases to be reported in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa. Two patients with XDR TB have been quarantined at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gabarone.

13 December marks the first anniversary of the Kalahari Bushmen’s landmark victory in Botswana’s High Court. But the Botswana government has failed to uphold the court’s ruling, and most of the Bushmen remain stranded in resettlement camps. The court ruled that the Botswana government’s eviction of the Bushmen was ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’, and that they have the right to live on their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and hunt and gather there.

Bushmen in Botswana have announced they plan to return to court within a matter of weeks if the government continues to prevent them from returning home. The Gana and Gwi Bushmen were evicted from their lands in the central Kalahari in 2002, but last year won a landmark court case affirming their right to go home.

Women politicians who gathered for a workshop organised by the Botswana Media Women's Association (BOMWA) and the Gender and Media in Southern Africa (GEMSA) complained that women were accused of earning political office by providing sexual favours. The workshop on "Gender is not about women; it's about development" attracted the women's wings of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), Botswana Congress Party (BCP), the Botswana National Front (BNF) and the Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM).

Shocking new details have emerged of the torture and beating of a group of Bushmen in Kaudwane resettlement camp, Botswana. Fifteen men were arrested in late September for hunting, and at least ten of them were tortured. The incidents bring the total number of Bushmen arrested for hunting this year to 53. During this time the government has not issued them with a single permit to hunt on their land, despite Botswana’s High Court ruling in December that its refusal to issue permits was unlawful.

A renowned Yanomami Indian leader from Brazilian Amazonia has made an emotional plea to the Botswana government to let the Kalahari Bushmen live on their land, ‘in peace for the rest of their lives’. Davi Yanomami, UN Global 500 award winner, spoke today from Berlin where he is holding meetings with top German politicians.

In its bid to catch up with the world in embracing and in using information and communication technologies (ICTs), the Botswana government has sent a delegation of high-ranking officials to harness more knowledge at an ICT forum in Califronia. And as explained by a government official who is part of the delegation, their brief is simple. It is to go and identify suitable partners to assist Botswana to become ICT compliant; quicken her pace in entering the information highway.