About 5 000 needy people, as well as orphans and volunteers affiliated to Catholic Aids Action, will receive emergency food relief over the next six months.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV-Aids has commended Namibia's efforts to fight the impact of HIV and Aids on orphans in the country.

The National Union of Namibian Workers has come out against the outsourcing of water and electricity networks to a South African-owned company, the Southern Electricity Service Company.

Namibia has set the stage for developing Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems in schools throughout the developing world when it became the first country to sign a 'Partnership in Learning' agreement with Microsoft.

It is almost ten years since the end of apartheid - a moment that appeared to promise peace and prosperity for the future of the region. It is also roughly a decade after several other major regional political events - Namibian independence, Mozambique's first multi-party election, Zambia's first non-liberation movement government, the Lusaka Accord for (temporary) peace in Angola. The above organisations held a symposium in southern Africa on the grounds that it was an appropriate time for an evaluation. It was also the time for some thinking aloud about the future. Has the promised peace dividend come to the region? Have the hopes expressed for peace and prosperity in the region come to fruition? If not why not and was another path possible? Are we stuck with a choice of authoritarian nationalism or neo-liberalism?

Our three-day discussion analysed developments over the past ten years such as:
· The challenge of turning liberation movements into governments
· The NEPAD initiative - a "home grown" African leaders response to the worsening crises in Africa. But what of its neo-liberal approach and its lack of consultation and participation in planning?
· The formation of the African Union with its commitments to human rights, and setting limits to absolute state sovereignty.
· It is impossible to speak of liberation without coming to gender considerations, and yet development here appears stalled and inherently liable to reverse.
· The HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has tragically become the context within which development has to take place.
· The political, social and economic crisis in Zimbabwe and lack of firm regional response
· The outbreak of peace, initially inside Angola, and then the Democratic Republic of Congo (the 'African scramble for Africa') but the legacy of major divisions and problems of reconstruction.

The Regional Emergency Management Unit at Katima Mulilo has started delivering food aid to the drought-affected Khwe community in the Omega area in West Caprivi. The situation in the area is said to be severe and, according to some reports, as many as 4 000 people are depending on wild fruit to sustain themselves.

This lifestyles variety radio show, created by youth for youth, airs on the University of Nambia Radio 97.4 FM and can be heard throughout Windhoek. The programmes address different types of lifestyle issues that youth face - alcohol and drug abuse, dating, date rape, staying healthy, and avoiding and preventing STD and HIV infection.

“Men are the cause of many problems in society. We make children, we infect women and then we turn our backs on them. What kind of life is that for a woman?" This was the message of Koffie Plaatjies, the first man to go public with his HIV-Aids status in the Erongo region, when he spoke at the launch of the Take Control video series.

Parents and some volunteers taking care of about 20 disabled children have continued to run the Oponganda Centre for Children with Disabilities at Grysblok in Katutura, after its formal sponsors withdrew in 2001.

Namibia's food security situation is causing growing concern as news reports point to a higher than expected cereal deficit in the Caprivi region, the World Food Programme (WFP) told IRIN on Wednesday. Some 400,000 people across the country may need food aid distributions this year, due to crop failures caused by persistent drought.

Namibia has rejected a United States ultimatum to give American soldiers blanket immunity from prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The US has decided to suspend military aid to countries that refused to enter into an agreement with it, which would effectively grant American servicemen immunity from prosecution in the ICC.

Usakos residents took to the streets after the water supply to two of the town's suburbs was cut by 50 per cent. Water debts owed by residents, mostly from Hakhaseb and Erongosig, already total 2,5 Namiban million.

The proposed building of a massive dam to supply electricity for Namibia has met with fierce resistance from both environmental groups and local tribes. The proposed Epupa dam project - to be built on the Kunene river in the north-west of the country - would dramatically alter the environment by flooding a vast expanse of the region.

The World Food Programme has warned that a serious maize meal shortage has delayed food distribution to refugees in Namibia's Osire camp. In its latest situation report, WFP said food distribution to the 18,000 mainly Angolan refugees in Osire had been delayed until later in the month.

Namibia's oldest political party, the South West Africa National Union, has bemoaned what it says is a rise in censorship and sectarianism in the local media, particularly those controlled by the State. Launching its website in Windhoek, the party accused the media of practising "prostituted journalism", aimed at the ideological indoctrination of the Namibian masses.

The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday granted US $112,000 to assist flood victims in the Caprivi region of north-eastern Namibia. On 12 May 2003, floods caused by the Zambezi River bursting its banks submerged 22 villages in the Kabbe constituency of the Caprivi region, some 1,400 km north-east of the capital, Windhoek.

The Electoral Commission has decided to push ahead with the general registration of voters. The decision was taken despite a pending court application by the Congress of Democrats (CoD) that could affect the countrywide campaign.

The National Assembly finally approved the Electoral Amendment Bill, following two weeks of intense pressure by the Regional Government Ministry that it be passed.

A group of HIV-positive people have launched a project through which they can be "hired" to present talks at schools, churches and other organisations in Namibia.

A total of 127 people died of HIV-AIDS-related diseases between April and December 2002, while 39 succumbed to the virus during the first three months of this year at Outapi in the Omusati Region in Namibia.