A row has broken out between parallel importers of medicines and local pharmaceutical companies over the planned introduction of a law barring importation. Those who trade in parallel imported medical products claim they are being harassed by Pharmacy and Poisons Board officials and the Police. Parallel importation means that a country can source for patented products from countries where they are cheaper rather than buy locally from manufacturers who are mostly multinationals. It is a key provision in the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) agreement.

Former deputy president Jacob Zuma's irresponsible HIV statements are causing confusion, prompting a body representing more than 12 000 HIV specialists to clarify matters. Zuma stands accused of raping an HIV positive woman in his Johannesburg home. During cross examination at the rape trial Zuma said he took a shower straight after sex with his HIV-positive rape accuser as a way of reducing his chances of contracting the virus and that he had unprotected sex with the woman because he believed the risk of transmission was minimal. Zuma also disclosed that he has multiple sex partners.

Education is a key protective factor against HIV. But school dropouts are increasing in many affected countries. We urgently need new ways to deliver the ‘education vaccine’. Can open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) meet this need? Researchers from the Institute of Education, University of London, address this question through field studies in Mozambique and South Africa.

As the international community commemorated this year’s World Health Day on April 7th, the issue of poor remuneration for health workers in Kenya was debated. "The pay for doctors and other health care givers in the public service is so low that many of these people could not devote their full time to public service – like I have had to engage in private practice because the money I get from the university is not enough to feed me," said the chairman of the Kenya Medical Association (KMA).

'The World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health' contains an expert assessment of the current crisis in the global health workforce and ambitious proposals to tackle it over the next ten years, starting immediately. The report reveals an estimated shortage of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers worldwide. The shortage is most severe in the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where health workers are most needed.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed its grave concern regarding Tunisian journalist Slim Boukhdhir's announcement that he was commencing a hunger strike. Boukhdhir, formerly a journalist with the publications "Akhbar El Joumhouria" and "Essarih", has over several months been restricted to making ends meet by freelance writing and obtaining random contracts with various press organisations. He was previously a correspondent with Alarabya.net and has currently been working at the daily "Al Shouroukh", after a brief stint with the weekly "Al Hadeth" that was cut short.

The South African History Archive (SAHA) is a Non - Governmental Organisation (NGO) dedicated to documenting and supporting the struggle for justice in South Africa. For more information about our programmes please go to The Archive is recruiting for two positions: the Freedom of Information Programme Assistant and Struggles for Justice Programme Archival Assistant.

Tanzanians suffering from tuberculosis (TB) now have fewer pills to swallow, thanks to a new treatment, which reduces the daily dosage of tablets from between 11 and 12 to three or four. A health ministry official said the new treatment, known as the four-drug, fixed-dose combination is widely used in many countries on the recommendation of the United Nations World Health Organization.

Trials on an HIV vaccine aimed at preventing transmission of the virus from infected mothers to their babies through breast feeding are to start in the next few months at Mulago Hospital in Uganda. The study is to last two years and the randomly selected babies shall be monitored by a team of doctors from the clinic at Mulago.

Rise is the title of Mann Friday's new song about Zimbabwe. All proceeds from sales of the single will be donated to health charity Shared Health Empowerment (SHE). Sharing Health Empowerment UK sponsor volunteer doctors and health specialists to visit Zimbabwe and share their skills with the local healthcare community, with particular emphasis on HIV management and the welfare of AIDS orphans.

The military has taken control of food production by small-scale farmers in parts of southern Zimbabwe, a rights NGO headed by church leaders claimed on Wednesday. The Solidarity Peace Trust alleged that under the guise of Operation Taguta/Sisuthi or 'Operation Eat Well', launched last year to help revive the agriculture sector, army units have "hijacked" plots and maize harvests in the southern province of Matabeleland, leaving the smallholder-farmers with no income or food.

The capture of Charles Taylor should be welcomed, but there are several aspects to the former Liberian leader’s trial that are worrying, notes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem. Chief among these are the way in which the trial allows Liberia, and those complicit in Taylor’s rule, to externalize justice for his crimes.

I have been following the arrest and swift dispersal to the UN Special Court in Sierra-Leone, of the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, with mixed feelings. In spite of the tawdry politics surrounding the saga I share the relief of many from Liberia, Sierra-Leone and people of the West African sub region that this gangster of a president was finally caught.

As warlords and rebel opportunism go and their grotesque notoriety and infamy across Africa, Taylor was in a separate class of his own, probably only comparable to the late Jonas Savimbi. He was dubiously even 'luckier' than Savimbi because a nation fatigued by his mendacious war 'rewarded' him with the presidency of the country.

Savimbi 'only' got himself a negotiated vice presidency, after he had lost the popular polls (which he rejected) but pressures were brought to bear on the Angolan government to accommodate his megalomania. This included the ridiculous provision that named him in a special gazette with a compendium of rights and privileges as the 'official leader' of the opposition. All this capitulation to his vanity did not stop him from further conspiring to prolong the war until he finally fell on his sword.

Charles Taylor rode to power on the broken limbs and severed heads of his compatriots. Even as president, Taylor continued his brigandage through murders, smuggling of diamonds, laundering timber, gun running and human trafficking. He basically operated a criminal state infrastructure. But we must be clear that he is not alone, even though he may have been excessive.

The way Charles Taylor was caught just shows again how cowardly these dictators are once they are stripped of their terror infrastructure. It echoes how that other sad sadist, Saddam, was caught in a hole like a frightened rat. Taylor, who had sent so many innocent people to their untimely deaths, was caught trying to run across a border like the common smuggler he was. There was no exchange of fire, no resistance and no act of courage on his part. Even the bags of money that he was carrying and willing to trade for his escape could not help him.

However despite my sharing the relief of many I am not as enthusiastic that the cause of peace in the region will automatically be served by his trial and even conviction. For instance, who is talking about Saddam's trial now? Does it really matter if he is hanged, commits suicide or just rots away in prison?

One needs to be more circumspect and cautious about a one-dimensional definition of justice, which has been tried several times without much success. How long did it take the Hague court to get Milosevik to trial and at the end what happened? Now that he has died without a verdict will his death resolve anything in Serbia?

Since it was established, defendants and their lawyers have bogged down the Sierra-Leone Special Court in procedural matters and deliberate delay tactics, hence not many of those indicted have been convicted. This includes the former militia leader turned defence minister, Hinga Norman. Charles Taylor's comrade in arms, Foday Sankoh, died in prison while awaiting trial. Did his death mean accountability for all the charges against him?

There are other aspects of Taylor's indictment that have always concerned me. He was indicted not for all the atrocities he committed against the people of Liberia but for his foreign misadventures in neighboring countries and especially Sierra-Leone. This has allowed the Liberian political class to externalize the resolution of their own political problems and outsource the search for justice and accountability. Internally he was more or less given impunity. If he had not been indicted for Sierra Leone he would have got away with his atrocities in Liberia. This is typical of most internal settlements in Africa that often reward perpetrators of violence in the name of 'national reconciliation'.

Taylor was not the only beneficiary of national impunity. All other politicians who collaborated with him and the various armed rebel groups for two decades also escaped an accounting for their actions. This is justice by second hand. Since millions of our people already depend on second hand clothes, second hand vehicles, second hand everything, justice coming via second sources is not altogether surprising!

Second hand justice may be better than no justice at all. By this precedent of outsourcing justice many presidents in Africa should not be sitting complacently in their mansions. They may be relatively 'safe' now but justice may catch up with them once they are out of office. For instance, it is now possible that after his third or fourth term, President Museveni could be indicted for the activities of his army or rebel groups he supported, in the DRC. President Omar Al Bashir may never be prosecuted for genocide in Darfur but can be indicted for LRA atrocities in Uganda. Internationally we should be looking at possibilities of Bush and Blair being indicted for their illegal war in Iraq or various French or Belgian leaders being indicted for genocide in Rwanda. Taylor's saga demonstrates that while 'The Strong Man' may intimidate his national compatriots into submissive peace it is possible for him to be tried for regional crimes against humanity.

It is not only Charles Taylor's supporters who will be monitoring this trial keenly. There is a need to widen the trial to include those companies and individuals (arms dealers, diamond dealers etc etc) who aided, abetted and facilitated him and his cohorts for all these years. This will certainly open up a huge Pandora’s Box. Senior elements in the new political establishment, including the president herself, cannot wash themselves clean of previous associations and culpability in Taylor's bloody match to Monrovia from 1989. That is why it is convenient for them to have him tried for his foreign intervention instead of welcoming the opportunity to try him at home.

If Taylor goes for broke and comes clean on his bloody career we might yet get to know those who facilitated his escape from a US prison, after which he went on to build a rebel army which was initially popular. Libya and Burkina-Faso are regularly mentioned as countries that helped him to power, but so did Jerry Rawlings in Ghana and the Late Houphoet-Boigny of Ivory Coast. Who are Charles Taylor's bankers? Where are his billions kept? Where would the blood trail stop?

There are millions crying out for justice but there are powerful interests too that may not want Taylor to face full justice. It is rather too early to be congratulating ourselves that Taylor is behind bars. In spite of all the contradictions and uncertainties, his arrest and impending trial at a symbolic level should warn our leaders that indeed 'no condition is permanent'. Strong men of today may become the weakling cowards of tomorrow. Taylor, Saddam and Milosevik must have once thought of themselves as untouchables, just like some of our presidents who are riding roughshod over the basic rights of their peoples. After Charles Taylor, some of them may be next.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

The Ugandan military has barred soldiers who are HIV positive from some training programmes. Military officials say the decision was taken on humanitarian grounds so that HIV/Aids sufferers did not have to undergo strenuous military training. But the move has been strongly criticised by Aids campaigners, who say it shows ignorance. Uganda has been held up as a model of how to fight HIV/Aids, with infection rates falling from 15% to 5%.

People with AIDS all over the world are fortunate to have fellow sufferers in America and Europe, says this New York Times article. "In poor countries as well, it helps that AIDS strikes all social classes. Brazil would never have become the first poor country to guarantee free AIDS treatment to all who need it without the activism of its many homosexual organizations. For every AIDS victim, though, there are many more suffering from diseases that lack this kind of constituency. Today, contracting a serious disease that affects only poor people is the worst luck of all."

An article in this International Labour Organisation publication, Merchants of Labour, examines the role of migration on health workers and systems. It reflects on the question of whether health worker migration constitutes a brain drain, brain gain or brain waste and underline that the international recruitment of health care workers has adverse effects on strained health systems of poor countries, which raises moral concerns.

More than 240 HIV-positive inmates at Westville Prison in Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday ended a hunger strike to advocate for access to treatment, Agence France-Presse reports. According to Xolani Ncemu, chair of the prison's HIV/AIDS support group, he and 241 other inmates launched the strike after months of negotiations with officials to resolve issues that have prevented some inmates from accessing treatment such as requiring identification documents.

Three Cabinet ministers in Kenya, separately told anti-corruption czar John Githongo of close links between President Kibaki and a businessman behind an Anglo Leasing type deal who is said to have paid the head of state's medical bills in Britain, according to a report by the Daily Nation. The businessman had reportedly helped the President during the election campaigns in 1997 and 2002, and are said to have helped to meet his medical expenses in the UK following his car crash in 2002 on the election trail.

After the deaths of 14 children in the last few months, health experts are now warning that Nairobi and several other districts could be on the verge of a measles outbreak. After the upsurge in cases and deaths caused by the highly infectious disease, the Government issued a red alert after three children died in Nairobi's Kayole estate last week. The children aged six, five and eight months died one after the other over a period of 10 days.

Research Matters is currently seeking several writers interested in writing on the topic: "What does an affordable and sustainable 21st-century African health system look like?"

An Israeli company is using the latest water-saving technology to grow fruit and vegetables in Angola, which imports much of its food after 27 years of civil war. A computer programme calculates the exact amounts of water needed, depending on temperature and humidity.