The Roman Catholic Church in Francistown has offered to assist refugees at Dukwi refugee camp to access anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. The refugees have been excluded from the government- funded ARV programme because it is exclusively for Batswana only. The under Secretary for Political Affairs in the Office of the President, Ross Sanoto, appreciated the gesture by the church, but added that sustaining the programme would be a challenge. The bishop said his church would work along side the UNHCR to ensure that the refugees continued accessing the drugs even when they would have returned to their countries.

On 1 June, Professor Kenneth Good, a political science lecturer at the University of Botswana for the past 15 years, was deported from the country by legal order and a decree from President Festus Mogae. Good's deportation came only hours after the Lobatse High Court upheld the government's right to deport him. In their judgement, the three High Court Judges dismissed the arguments of Good's lawyer given on 3 May and said the deportation order and presidential decree should be allowed to stand.

Gaborone businesswoman Kenamile Mosiieman is a locksmith, a profession that has always been associated with men. Mosiieman has been operating her locksmith business - known as Kenny's Locksmith - since 1994. She recalled that it was very difficult when she started the business, which is situated at African Mall. "Starting the business was not easy. I used to make around P4.50 per day and rentals were high. Everything was difficult," said Mosiieman, who is the first Motswana businesswoman to operate a locksmith.

The Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) and the Public Service Workers Association (PWSA) are to embark on a series of demonstrations this weekend to press the government for labour legislation to protect workers from general victimisation, unfair dismissals and discrimination on the grounds of their HIV/AIDS status. According to the unions, the demonstrations will begin on Saturday and end on 4 June, when a petition will be handed over to President Festus Mogae.

Tolerance. What a word. What a concept. Oh what a dream. It conjures up images of people going about their lives, styles and lifestyles uninhibited. It denotes the freedom to be oneself and not suffer harsh consequences from others who do not accept who and what you are. In a tolerant society, people can and do, speak their minds, secure in the knowledge that their right to think, speak and act differently will not be violated. The essence of tolerance is to allow a realm of private morality, which is not the law's business. Understood this way, tolerance would close off majoritarian tyranny. It would protect minorities, be they sexual, ethnic or those who may hold and champion unpopular views. It is this kind of tolerance that this country desperately needs. Tolerance is inconsistent with homophobia, the suppression of unpleasant views, the bludgeoning of critics and the deportation of those whose ideas the leadership finds distasteful.

The Director of Information Technology (IT) has described the move by Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to harmonise Internet laws as an indirect call for Botswana to develop its own cyberspace legislation to deal with the increasing use of technology. Since Botswana’s trading partners are within the SADC region, it has become necessary that Botswana develops its own cyberspace laws that are non-existent at present.

Tourists visiting Botswana invariably buy some of the colourful baskets on offer in crafts shops to take home as souvenirs. Little do they know that these baskets are the material proof of one of the most successful refugee integration stories in southern Africa. The baskets are made by women whose parents and grandparents came to the country as refugees from Angola. They brought with them traditional basket-weaving skills and combined them with the dyes and colourful patterns that are part of Botswana's culture.

Botswana signed up to the goal of universal primary education (UPE) in 1980. Facilities have improved, many more teachers have been recruited and enrolment rates have risen dramatically but many argue that the introduction of UPE has led to low quality education. The quality of public education remains low in those poor and remote rural districts with stubbornly high drop-out and repetition rates.
* Related Link: Reintroduction of school fees draws mixed response
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46252

The Botswana High Court ruled on Monday that Australian-born academic Kenneth Good may stay in the country while his lawyers challenge the constitutionality of a deportation order. President Festus Mogae gave Professor Good, a political analyst at the University of Botswana, 48 hours to leave Botswana two weeks ago for lambasting Mogae's decision to handpick Vice-President Lieutenant-General Ian Khama as his successor.

A 500-km long electrified fence officially aims to block the mixing of herds on common pasture, but some hope it will also keep out the thousands of Zimbabweans escaping poverty at home, who sneak cross the border looking for work in more prosperous Botswana. An estimated 36,000 illegal migrants were deported last year alone and, with xenophobia now firmly on the rise, Zimbabweans have become the target of a growing vigilante movement.

The University of Botswana Academic and Senior Support Staff Union (UBASSSU) has expressed outrage and dismay at the declaration of Professor Kenneth Good as a prohibited immigrant. Good, a political science professor and an independent minded critic of Botswana's democracy, was served with deportation papers on Friday evening and instructed to leave the country within 48 hours. He was granted an extension by the High Court following an urgent application lodged on Saturday.

The World IT Forum (WITFOR) is coming to Africa for the first time in September, when it will be staged in Gaborone, Botswana. WITFOR is a UNESCO initiative sponsored by the European Union, and will be hosted by the Botswana government, in partnership with the International Federation for Information Processing. The event is expected to attract around 700 decision-makers from around the world, and aims to generate proposals for ICT-based initiatives that will accelerate economic progress in developing countries.

Botswana has unveiled plans to build an additional centre to house the growing numbers of illegal immigrants crossing into the country, mainly from neighbouring Zimbabwe. The new centre, expected to be situated in Molepolole, a village 60 km west of the capital, Gaborone, is meant to ease the pressure on a similar facility in Francistown, which is already stretched to capacity. Tension between the two countries has been simmering in recent years as increasing numbers of Zimbabweans entered Botswana, both legally and illegally, in a bid to escape the economic crisis at home.

"The first Bushman woman to give evidence during the court case in which 243 Bushmen are suing the government for the right to return to their ancestral land has told the court that she 'feared for her life' when being evicted in 2002. Mongwegi Tlhobogelo described how huge numbers of vehicles and people suddenly arrived at her community in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and ordered that all the Bushmen's huts be dismantled. Her husband had already been relocated without her knowledge. The men then emptied out all the Bushmen's water tanks, and loaded them onto lorries."

President Festus Mogae says his government will ensure that the provision of high quality education and training continues to improve in order to produce a more competent and innovative labour force that can drive socio-economic and technological development. He said that his government was committed to ensuring better education by ensuring that opportunities for tertiary education are improved through the expansion of the University of Botswana, the building of a second university, whose curriculum would focus on science and technology, as well as a medical school.

The landmark court case against Botswana's government by evicted communities of the San people is to recommence next week. The case was adjourned in July. The San communities are fighting for their right to return to their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Gana and Gwi communities of the San people - also called "Bushmen" or "Basarwa" - are fighting for their right to maintain their extensive hunting and gathering livelihood in the desert reserve after having been evicted by the Batswana government.

Botswana's ruling party has won general elections, giving President Festus Mogae a second term in office. The Botswana Democratic Party, which has ruled the country since independence in 1966, took 44 of the 57 parliamentary seats. The fragmented opposition divided the vote, and the opposition Botswana National Front won just 12 seats.

At the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Botswana, Prof. Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, sent a 15-member multidisciplinary team of observers to participate in the forthcoming general elections, which will be held countrywide on October 30. The African Union Observer Team, led by Hon. Justice J. B. Kalaile, Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission in Malawi and composed of Parliamentarians, members of Electoral Management Bodies, Civil Society Organisations and other officials drawn from various African Countries, arrived in Botswana on October 24.

The UNHCR representative in Botswana, Benny Otim, told Angolan refugees yesterday that his office would immediately start registering those willing to return home. Otim was briefing refugees at the Dukwi refugee settlement outside the city of Francistown. His registration call comes at a time when only about 50 of an estimated 882 Angolan refugees living at the Dukwi refugee camp has registered for voluntary repatriation.

Botswana was warned last week by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in a document made public on October 4th, to ensure that trade agreements do not undermine Botswana's ability to ensure access to affordable treatment for children or other people with HIV/AIDS.