Members of the House of Representatives of the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar have endorsed a new education policy intended to make major reforms, including allowing students who fall pregnant to resume their studies after giving birth. For more than 20 years, pregnant Zanzibari girls were forced to leave school permanently. Until the repeal of a law in 2005, they could even be imprisoned.

The new administration in Tanzania has weathered its major political test after the Government declined to heed MPs' demand for higher salaries. The MPs were demanding salaries and other perks that would bring them at par with their counterparts' in other East African countries. Western envoys in Tanzania were reportedly relieved when the Government made its position on MPs' salaries public.

A three-decade law banning pregnant girls from attending school has been scrapped by MPs in Zanzibar. Under the ban, girls under 18 who became pregnant on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian islands had to drop out of school and could not return. Women's groups had been campaigning to abolish the law saying it infringed on the girls' human rights. The BBC's Ally Saleh in Zanzibar says it has been hailed as a landmark for the predominantly Muslim archipelago.

The search for the new Secretary General of the East African Community has began as plans to admit Rwanda and Burundi into the regional body are said to have reached an advanced stage with the crucial verification process already concluded. Current Secretary General, Ugandan Nuwe Amanya Mushega, ends his term in July 2006 and, a Tanzanian national will take over the expanded Community, which by May this year is expected to have the two central African states.

Campaigns to fight HIV/AIDS often focus on the "ABC" strategy - or Abstinence, Be faithful and use Condoms. However, on the ultra-conservative, predominantly Muslim island of Zanzibar, the condom remains taboo and is rarely incorporated into public awareness messages.

Tanzanian opposition political parties are crying foul over a decision by the Civic United Front (CUF) to shut them out from the official opposition in the Union Parliament. CUF is one of the strong parties that posed a serious challenge to the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi in the 2005 general elections, winning all 19 in parliamentary seats in Zanzibar but losing all the seats on the Mainland.

For the vast majority of Tanzanians, it is the radio that reigns supreme in providing their news. For 35 years, they have been listening to the government-owned Radio Tanzania and getting a steady diet of mostly government propaganda and anti-apartheid sermons. The coming of economic liberalization has brought the liberalization of the press, which has resulted in dozens of FM stations, 350 registered newspapers, and a dozen TV stations, reports World Press Review.

This UNDP paper explores transaction costs (TCs) in the Tanzanian education sector. It looks at the different kinds of transaction costs, including administrative, tying and fiscal, to see how they play out through different funding instruments such as projects, pooled fund support to the education sector, sector support, and examines their likely implications in the context of moves towards increased budget support.

The XVII Standing Conference of Eastern, Central and Southern African Library and Information Professionals (SCECSAL XVII) will be hosted by the Tanzania Library Association (TLA) in Dar es Salaam on 10-14 July 2006. This conference will bring together some 500 delegates from all over the world, most will be from Africa. SCECSAL's conference and exhibition is the biggest African event for professionals within the library and information sector.

From its peak of 5,000 refugee returns from Tanzania to Burundi in August, the number had dropped to less than 500 a month by the end of December. According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, this is explained by cyclical factors as refugees are less willing to return home during the rainy season and wish to leave after they have harvested their crops to ensure they have enough food to last them until the next season.

A report by the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks argues that Mkapa's term in office brought Tanzania significant economic progress, although much more remains to be done. At the start of his administration, Mkapa vigorously pursued recovery programmes, robust macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, including privatisation initiated by his predecessor. Newly elected President Kikwete, has vowed to improve the country's economy by consolidating the foundations laid down by his predecessors.

A major study based on evidence gathered from the Tanzanian island of Pemba has concluded that giving generalised iron and folic acid supplements to young children in malarial areas increases the likelihood of those children dying.The London-based medical journal "The Lancet" has published details of the trial which points out that the World Health Organisation still recommends routine supplementation with iron and folic acid in countries where anaemia is widespread - despite growing scientific opinion that anaemia could be a natural defence against the malarial parasite.

The Tanzanian government has pardoned and rehired 224 medical personnel it had sacked in November 2005 after they went on strike for better pay and working conditions, according to Health Minister David Mwakyusa. However, he said Tuesday's pardon did not extend to 29 others believed to have been the ringleaders of the strike. The doctors' action lasted several weeks, paralysing operations at the Muhimbili National Hospital, the country's largest health facility.

At least 52 cases of cholera have been reported in parts of the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, over the last month, a city official said on Tuesday (January 10). "We are worried over more new cases although we have warned the people to adhere to rules of hygiene, including boiling drinking water, use of toilets and washing hands with soap," Gaston Makwembe, the Dar es Salaam City Information Officer, said.

Roman Catholic bishops in Tanzania have condemned as "unacceptable" a new science syllabus for primary schools that incorporates the teaching of proper condom use. "Introduction of the [teaching of] use of condoms in schools, apart from being sinful, is indeed justification and opening the door for immoral lifestyles," Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, the archbishop of Dar es Salaam, said on Monday (January 9) in a statement issued on behalf of Tanzania's Episcopal Conference.

The new Tanzanian cabinet comprises of 29 ministers and 30 deputies. The cabinet has many new faces and the highest number of women the country has had since independence. The women in the new cabinet are seven ministers and 10 deputy ministers. The previous cabinet had four female ministers.

Tanzania's new Cabinet begins work tomorrow amid disappointment that greeted the new President's decision to drop 14 of 26 ministers who served in the last government. As the Cabinet was being sworn-in critics inside and outside the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi pointed out that Kikwete had taken the first bold step towards scuttling a ring of powerful individuals that gravitated around his predecessor, Benjamin Mkapa.

Tanzania's newly elected president, Jakaya Kikwete, has pledged to invest heavily in scientific training, research and development to overcome years of neglect for the field. Kikwete told SciDev.Net on the eve of the election (13 December) that the US$600,000 research budget allocated to the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology was "a joke". He commented that the sum might only be enough to properly fund a single large research project.

Tanzania could start rationing power this month to cope with shortages resulting from a long drought that is causing famine and threatening east Africa's economies, officials said on Saturday (January 7). Falling water levels have cut in half the output of hydroelectric generators that power much of the east African nation, said Patrick Rutanzibwa, principal secretary with Tanzania's Ministry of Energy and Minerals.

Newly elected Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete announced his cabinet on Wednesday (January 4), comprising 29 ministers and 30 deputies. The cabinet has many new faces and the highest number of women the country has had since independence. "This is a new government, with new goals and that is why we have several new faces. There are, however, several veterans around," Kikwete told a news conference at State House, his first since he was sworn-in as president on 21 December 2005.