On November 24 2004, the High Court of Tanzania, in Zanzibar, delivered its ruling on the long awaited case launched by the 'Dira' newspaper management team to challenge the Act used to close the only independent weekly in the Isles. According to sources from Zanzibar, the paper will remain closed because the High Court ruling has discovered that it violated registration procedures. "The result is zero-zero," Sports Editor of the then Dira newspaper, who is also BBC Kiswahili Correspondent in Zanzibar, Ally Saleh, told the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Tanzania in a telephone interview soon after the High Court's ruling.

International justice systems must be retained for effective prosecution of perpetrators of serious crimes, an official of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said last Thursday. ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow said international courts such as the ICTR, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone have proven viable in ensuring the prosecution of people bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes. He was speaking at the beginning of a three-day colloquium of prosecutors in Arusha, Tanzania, which is also the headquarters of the Rwanda tribunal.

Tanzania is highly dependent on donor aid. It has one of the highest proportions of donor aid to gross national product (GNP) of any developing country. In recent decades a number of new strategies - from structural adjustment to sector-wide approaches and poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) - have been field-tested in Tanzania. Yet despite all these efforts at poverty alleviation and a huge donor presence, Tanzania has steadily slipped down the Human Development Index. Should donors pause to consider whether they need to stop trying new approaches and instead focus on long-term activities?

The number of Burundian refugees returning home voluntarily has dropped by two thirds after the country’s general elections were postponed. Ngara District Commissioner Samuel Ndomba, told The Guardian at the weekend that before the elections were rescheduled, an average of 3,000 refugees returned home monthly. The number has now dropped to 1,000.

The African Conservation Foundation (ACF) has announced an exciting new Art for Conservation project, “When Paintings Come Alive” - The Endangered Species Project and are teaming up with internationally renowned creative artist Daniel Taylor to raise funds for the conservation of three endangered species in Africa: gorillas, elephants and lions. Taylor will create an original wildlife painting of each of these animals in the unique style of High Realist painting in acrylic. ACF will receive 100% of the revenues from the sale of these signed and numbered limited edition prints. The money raised will be used to fund the conservation of gorillas, elephants and lions in Africa.

As corruption becomes the surest way for people to access certain rights and services, Tanzanians are increasingly forced to dispose of their assets in order to obtain cash to bribe officials. As a result, corruption is exposing both households and individuals to a constant erosion of income or asset-related resources. In this context, violence, robbery and insecurity are prevalent even within households, where women are now at greater risk than in public places.

Toll-free help lines in Tanzania have logged more than 22,000 calls inquiring about HIV/AIDS information and counseling services. Thirty per cent of the calls requested information on HIV transmission, 22 per cent on AIDS testing, 11 per cent on condom use and 6 per cent on AIDS treatment.

City-dwellers in one of Africa’s poorest countries have faced soaring bills and mass disconnections since an international consortium, which includes the British company Biwater, was put in charge of their water supply. According to a new report from the development charity ActionAid, water privatisation in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam has neglected the needs of poor people, despite the World Bank’s assurances that access to water for poor residents would be improved.

The Communications Specialist will function as the communication advisor, developing innovative and effective behavior change and social marketing approaches for the Tanzania Marketing and Communications: AIDS, Reproductive Health (RH) and Child Survival (CS) Project. He/she will work as part of the overall AED team in Dar Es Salaam and will work closely with Government, NGO and private sector organizations/institutions implementing the communications and marketing aspects of the program.

According to outgoing French Ambassador to Tanzania, Jean Francois Lionnet, France has cancelled Tanzania's debt of Euro 116 million ($139m) as part of debt relief to the country. In an exclusive interview as his four-year tour of duty comes to an end, Ambassador Lionnet said the main part of the debt, Euro 89 million would simply be written off and the balance converted into additional development programmes, specifically targeting primary education.

A R9-million housing development will soon be unveiled to cater for an estimated 5, 000 descendants of former Zanzibar slaves in KwaZulu-Natal. The Zanzibaris, one of the smallest minority groups in the province, were forcefully removed from King's Rest in Bluff, south of Durban and taken to Chatsworth in 1961 as part of the apartheid government's land policies.

An ambitious plan to open a big marine park that includes a large area of land with over 30,000 people living on it has been launched in southern Tanzania. Unlike most marine parks which have no human habitation, the Mnazi Bay - Ruvuma River Estuary Park will have to match the goals of marine conservation with the needs of the fishermen and farmers who live off the sea.

The Tanzanian government and the World Bank have devised a means of exploiting the country's natural gas resources to increase the country's much needed electrification. A private international consortium, Songas, has built a 200-km underground pipeline at a cost of US $295 million to carry natural gas from the island of Songo Songo to the industrial area of Ubungo in the country's commercial centre, Dar es Salaam.

Donors have flocked to support Tanzania's pastoralist land rights movement. However, well-intentioned desires to promote democracy, indigenous rights, participatory development and community conservation have had perverse consequences. Leaders of pastoral non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become less and less accountable to their communities. The pastoralist movement has lost momentum as its energies have been diverted into activities to please donors.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa on Wednesday said that the government by next month plans to provide antiretroviral drugs free-of-charge to people living with HIV/AIDS in the country, Xinhua News Agency reports. Mkapa made the announcement during a ceremony in which the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Tanzania $87.9 million to fight HIV/AIDS, according to the country's Daily News newspaper, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa announced on Tuesday that the government would start distributing anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) free to HIV/AIDS patients from October. "There is no cure for AIDS yet, these drugs can only prolong lives," Mkapa said in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, during the signing of an US $87.9-million grant from the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

In the next six years, the number of Tanzanians killed by malaria could be halved. They just need to start using insecticide-treated nets. "Treated nets can reduce mosquito bites by more than 80 percent and kill more than 50 percent of all mosquitoes that enter houses," Alex Mwita, manager of Tanzania's National Malaria Control Programme, said. Medical experts say the use of bed nets would cut the number of children killed by the disease by 27 percent.

After the International Women Conference held in Beijing, China 1995, so many songs were sung. These songs, concerning women’s emancipation, empowerment and discrimination against women started hitting the world, particularly the African continent whereby due to the norms of traditional African culture, women were not very much considered as appropriate players in political, economic and social activities.

Tanzanian wildlife authorities have expressed fears for the survival of thousands of hippos due to acute shortage of water facing the country's southern western Katavi National Park. "We are concerned with acute shortage of water flowing into the park. If the river dries up, thousands of hippopotamus might die," the park's chief warden Stephen Quoli told AFP on Sunday.

Tension has gripped Zanzibar, with fears of political violence as each of the 17 political parties prepare for the October 2005 general election. Already the Civic United Front (CUF) has alleged that Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) is building and training youth brigades aimed at disrupting the election.