Denouncing what it called increasing U.S. protectionism, South Africa vowed on Tuesday to cooperate with other affected nations to resist Washington's new domestic farm subsidies. "We will fight this out," Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said. He said South Africa would work with Brazil, Australia, and the 18-nation Cairns group of food exporting countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to try to make the United States back off.

A recent survey within a South African gold mining community revealed that 69 percent of local commercial sex workers (CSWs) are HIV-positive. Health education programmes and free condom distribution have not stopped these women from having unprotected sex. Why are conventional HIV prevention programmes failing among CSWs?

This is a consolidated Land Aquisition Act which takes into account the amendments passed by Parliament and Gazetted on Friday 10th May 2002, with immediate effect. [Acts 3/1992, 15/2000(1), 14/2001(2), 6/2002(3). This consolidated Act states the law as from 10th May 2002.] An act to empower the President and other authorities to acquire land and other immovable property compulsorily in certain circumstances; to make special provision for the compensation payable for agricultural land required for resettlement purposes; to provide for the establishment of the Derelict Land Board; to provide for the declaration and acquisition of derelict land; and to provide for matters connected with or incidental to the foregoing. Download the Land Acquisition Act from the www.kubatana.net web site.

The complexities dogging Zimbabwe’s controversial land reforms demand intelligent, fair and accurate analysis from the media. But this was not the case during the week when government again bulldozed through Parliament the enactment of the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, which gives government immediate control of white-owned farms targeted for resettlement. Parliamentarians were hastily assembled before the official opening date to regularize the law reincarnated last November by presidential decree after a Supreme Court ruling nullified the General Laws Amendment Act to which the amendment originally belonged. Coverage of this important development in the public media was especially unprofessional.

The remains of what is thought to be the oldest settled agricultural community in Africa have been discovered on the outskirts of the Eritrean capital, Asmara. Experts say the sites are of "global importance", and believe they could change the way the history of the Horn of Africa is viewed.

Poachers in Rwanda have killed two of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas, a highly endangered species, in an attempt to capture and sell their young, Rwandan wildlife conservation officials said. "With just some 350 of them remaining, the population is so fragile that every individual lost is significant in terms of the viability of the mountain gorilla," said Katie Fawcett, director of the Karisoke Research Centre in the northwestern town of Ruhengeri.

The South African Weather Service said it expects El Nino weather conditions to hit southern Africa at the end of the year, bringing yet another dry spell after this year's already disappointing harvest. "Indications are showing that an El Nino is coming and the data we are getting month after month shows it is under way," said Melton Mugeri, a meteorologist at the South African Weather Service.

Malawi has started implementing its controversial national land policy even though parliament hasn't ratified it. The controversial policy insists that foreigners owning land renew their residency every seven years, failing which the government will seize the land and give it to landless people. Critics say this will deter foreign investment.The ministry of land has bought Makande Tea Estate in the southern Thyolo district from the Lonrho Company and started registering landless people from neighbouring Mulanje district.

UGANDA is to host a five-day conference for environmental ministers from Africa ahead of the 10th commemoration of the Earth Summit to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Angela Luh of the United Nations Environment Programme told a press conference on Monday that the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) would take place in Kampala in July.

At least 8,000 people have been made homeless and thousands of acres of grazing land flooded by torrential rains lashing Tana River district.

Three new species of fish and nine species of coral new to science have been discovered in the waters around the African island country of Madagascar.

About 5,500 children die each day around the world from diseases caused by polluted air, water and food, concludes a new study released Thursday by three United Nations agencies. The report details the deadly threat that environmental degradation poses to the Earth's most vulnerable citizens.

South Africa moved Thursday to weed out what the Environment and Tourism Minister has dubbed the country's "national flower," the ubiquitous eyesore better known as the plastic shopping bag. The minister, Valli Moosa, told reporters the plastics industry had been given 12 months to phase out the thin, plastic shopping bags handed out free in stores and replace them with thicker ones.

Zimbabwe's parliament has passed a controversial law aimed at speeding up redistribution of land, as a local human rights group warned that illegal farm invasions had increased. With the Land Acquisition and Amendment Bill being passed on Wednesday a constitutional lawyer, Greg Linnington of the University of Zimbabwe, said the ramifications for farmers were "pretty grim". The passing of the Bill made permanent temporary amendments to the land law by President Robert Mugabe.

When Nigeria's Supreme Court ruled last month that all of the country's offshore oil and gas resources belonged to the federal government, it was an apparent triumph for President Olusegun Obasanjo. Not quite, analysts warn. "While Obasanjo has won a significant legal battle at the Supreme Court, an enormous political battle lies ahead of him," Ike Onyekwere, a political analyst, told IRIN. "And how he goes about it bodes a lot for Nigeria's political stability."

In the early 1990s, under increasingly severe criticism of neo-liberal structural adjustment policy, the World Bank announced the need to reinforce its anti-poverty programs. Land reform became a priority as part of this shift, but the World Bank has been criticised by rural social movements for emphasising market-based approaches to land redistribution. They argue that "land for whoever works it" has become "land for whoever can buy it" and say that existing land reform programmes should have been continued and improved.

Green campaigners are accusing a Greek flooring company of contributing to the destruction of ancient rainforests by being one of the gateways into the European Union for imports of west African timber. Greenpeace activists boarded the MV Zini, which is owned by Shelman, in the port of Kalamaki, near Corinth, on 15 April and found logs that they claimed were loaded in the Liberian port of Buchanan.

The Independent Online (IOL) reports that Libyan oil company Tamoil, which supplies 70 percent of Zimbabwe's total fuel imports, has recently pulled out due to lack of payments received. Libya has moved close to Zimbabwe and has been accused by Zimbabwe's opposition of attempting to 'colonize' the southern African country.

While life may be wonderful for tourists visiting Zanzibar, the eastern Tanzanian archipelago renowned for its tranquillity and the unspoilt beauty of its beaches, most urban and rural communities on the islands suffer from poor living conditions and an inadequate supply of clean and safe water. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Tanzania is now backing the development of six water projects intended to provide adequate water supply and sanitation for more than 45,000 people on the largest island of Unguja (popularly known as Zanzibar) and its sister island, Pemba.

The strategies and methodologies in current practice aimed at achieving sustainable, participatory conservation are inadequately developed, and their implications are poorly understood by policy makers, managers and communities among other user groups. Possibilities of conflict and jurisdictional overlap exist. Institutional arrangements and policy instruments that facilitate the alleviation of poverty in the mountain adjacent communities through rural development should be integral components of sustainable mountain conservation. The local community though fully aware of the ecosystems biodiversity values have insufficient insights on all issues at stake, as they have limited capacity to interact at par with research institutions and government agencies as key stake holders. This paper takes a candid look at possibilities existing within the indigenous knowledge systems, community structures, institutional management agencies and other resource users for sustainable mountain and site-based resources conservation. This is in view of current policy shifts, and the gaps that exist in practice between the policies and actual enforcement.