The World Bank has finally debarred Acres International, nearly two years after it was found guilty by a Lesotho court of corruption on Africa's largest dam project. Reacting to the move, Korinna Horta of the US-based group Environmental Defence said, "This long overdue action on Acres is very much welcome, and hopefully signals a more forceful World Bank approach to corruption on its projects. But the fact that a court case in Lesotho was decisive in the limited debarment of Acres appears to be a case of the tail wagging the dog. It remains to be seen if this will lead to more systemic changes in how the Bank approaches corruption."

Unemployment, low wages and sexual discrimination in the tiny kingdom of Lesotho have fueled an HIV infection rate of 50 percent among young women, the New York Times reports. Half of women aged 15 to 24 are infected with the virus, compared to 25 percent of men in the same age group. Overall, Lesotho's HIV prevalence among adults is 28 percent, higher than that of South Africa, which entirely surrounds it.

Lesotho would pursue bribery cases against multinationals on one of the world's biggest dam projects despite the lack of foreign support, attorney-general Lebohang Fine Maema said on Monday. Maema said the tiny kingdom -hailed for its battle against corporate graft - had been largely fighting alone, despite pledges of financial support from developed countries.

Culture and poverty have contributed to the spread of HIV among women in Lesotho, where one in two women ages 15 to 24 is HIV-positive compared with one in four men, the New York Times reports. In addition to being biologically more vulnerable to HIV, African traditions that afford women little autonomy have contributed to the disproportionate spread of the disease in the country.

Lesotho wants to sign up for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), according to a New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) communique. Lesotho's intention was discussed at a recent meeting of the APRM Panel of Eminent Persons, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The mechanism, overseen by the panel, monitors a country's progress towards political and economic reform and was put in place earlier this year. Seventeen African countries have signed up so far.

Few would have predicted that a small, impoverished mountainous kingdom in southern Africa would set new precedents in the global fight against corruption, but, against all odds, the government of Lesotho continues to do just that. For the past five years, Lesotho has been doggedly prosecuting multinational companies who paid approximately $2 million in bribes to the former chief executive of the World Bank-funded Lesotho Highlands Water Project, a massive dam scheme that affected thousands of rural families. Their efforts have been remarkably successful. The former chief executive was sentenced to 12 years in prison; a South African man pled guilty to acting as a conduit for the bribes; and, most importantly, three multinational companies have been convicted and fined.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has started to investigate allegations of corruption in projects funded by the World Bank and its affiliates, Senate sources said Tuesday. Committee staff have been quietly looking into charges for some time and the first public hearing is set for May 13. Projects under review include the Yacyreta Dam on the Argentina-Paraguay border, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and projects in Cambodia, according to letters obtained by Reuters.

The Lesotho appeal court has not only upheld the bribery and corruption conviction of a third multinational contracting firm involved in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), but has increased its fine. Lahmeyer International, the biggest engineering consulting group in Germany, was convicted of bribing Masupha Sole, the chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, the agency that was responsible for the construction of the Katse and Mohale dams.

The weekly Sesotho tabloid, Mololi, a publication of the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy political party, has been served with a court summons by a Member of Parliament for Mokhotlong constituency No. 79, demanding maloti 350 000 (approximately 54 000 US dollars), for defamation.

Acres International has snubbed the impoverished kingdom of Lesotho by not paying a R13 million fine after being convicted of corruption and bribery. Instead, the Canadian engineering and construction company wants to pay the penalty in instalments, according to Lesotho attorney-general Fine Maema, who said he had flatly refused the request. Parent company Acres Group had a gross revenue of R1 billion in 2002, the year Acres was convicted. On Friday, Acres seemed unaware that its offer had been rejected.

The World Bank has formally reopened a corruption inquiry into a leading Canadian engineering company which could lead to the first blacklisting of a major international firm. The move follows the conviction of Acres International in the high court of Lesotho in southern Africa, an unprecedented example of a western firm being prosecuted for bribery by a developing country. The Ontario company was the first of several to be found guilty of bribing Masupha Sole, the chief executive of the multibillion-dollar Lesotho Highlands Water Project, a massive series of dams providing water to South Africa and electricity to the tiny, landlocked country.

What does it mean to a town to have 10% of its children lose parents? Sarah Crowe from Unicef visited a school in Thaba Tseka, one of the worst hit districts in Lesotho. Residents blame large-scale development projects and road construction that have brought migrant workers to the area for the increasing HIV/Aids prevalence rates.

Lesotho's Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili at the weekend became one of the first heads of state to publicly test for the HI virus as he kicked off a free national HIV testing programme. Mosisili, joined by other members of his cabinet, said that with his test he hoped to stem the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Lesotho will require international assistance for a third consecutive year due to the combined impact of another devastating drought and the worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic, warned James T. Morris, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa. “Any hopes that Lesotho’s humanitarian crisis would begin to ease this year have been dashed by yet another drought and by the increasingly devastating impact of HIV/AIDS,” Morris said.

One of the world's leading electrical companies, Schneider Electric, was fined R10-million in the Lesotho High Court after admitting to bribery. The global giant avoided a trial by pleading guilty on 16 counts of bribery, all relating to the construction of the now-completed Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The corruption involved around R16-million.

The Lesotho chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MILES) has won the bid to host this year's Annual General Meeting of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). At a meeting of the Regional Governing Council of MISA held on Wednesday, February 18 2004, in Pretoria, it was decided by a vote of nine to one to hold the next MISA annual general meeting and conference in Maseru in August 2004. The other bidding chapter was Namibia. It will be the first time that Lesotho will be hosting this prestigious event.

Two new laws, one currently going through the legislative pipeline - the Child Protection Act - and another enacted last year - the Sexual Offences Act - are key to addressing the confluence of social problems that are contributing to Lesotho's humanitarian crisis. It is hoped that the Sexual Offences Act will have an impact on the spiralling HIV rates.

The tiny African kingdom of Lesotho declared a state of emergency Wednesday and appealed for more food aid, saying thousands of people would otherwise face severe shortages because of prolonged drought. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said the mountainous territory's population of around 2 million required 57,000 tons of food products to feed some 600,000 people who would need aid until the 2005 harvest. "The severe drought during the 2002/2003 cropping season led to untimely planting of food crops, and the last winter saw neither rain nor snow throughout the season," Mosisili said.

Lesotho remains a fragile democracy despite electoral reforms designed to strengthen its political system, a South African political think-tank has argued. A new report by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) argues that steps towards deepening democracy in the tiny country continued to be undermined by ongoing social and economic problems, which could serve to reverse some of the gains made so far. The report, "The Road to Democratic Consolidation in Lesotho, Reforms and Challenges", noted that the political culture remained adversarial, and problems of political violence and poor accountability should not be regarded as solved.

A new 71 page research report from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) seeks to evaluate the prospects for the endurance of multiparty democracy in Lesotho. The data used is based primarily on information gathered during interviews with key stakeholders - i.e. political parties, electoral commissioners, civil society and the donor community - in the political processes in Lesotho. The text is descriptive and analytical. It is mainly concerned with current events and the recent past in Lesotho, but also places events in context by bringing out distinguishing characteristics of the country's politics, its problems and prospects, and the principal elements of its democratization process.