- A new report by the ITUC on core labour standards in the countries of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), published on Wednesday to coincide with the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) review of their trade policies, has found that the current legislation limits the right to organise and restricts collective bargaining instead of promoting it. SACU comprises Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Although all SACU member states have ratified both the main ILO Conventions on trade union rights, Conventions No. 87 and No. 98, there remain violations of freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining in most SACU countries, sometimes of an extremely…

Forty one percent of Namibian men believe that wife beating is justifiable while 32 percent of women think there is no problem with their husbands beating them. - According to the Niwemang blog post, in Zambia, nearly half of women surveyed said a male partner had beaten them - the highest percentage of nine developing nations surveyed on three continents. About 80% of Zambian wives find it acceptable to be beaten by their husbands "as a form of chastisement", according to the Zambia Demographic Health Survey. The report said a World Health Organization study has found that while more than a third of Namibian women reported enduring physical or sexual abuse by a male partner, of…

Germany and her SADC partners have plans to establish Regional Science Service Centres for Climate Change and Adapted Land Use in Africa. The aim is to complement scientific capacities in the region with the long-term intention of establishing "Regional Science Service Centres" and research programmes - This is expected to be established in various regions in Africa, interlinked both with each other and with Germany and other international research activities. Namibia’s Deputy Director: Forestry Research in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Dr Gillian Maggs-Kolling said at a roundtable discussion organised by the Federal German Ministry of Education and Rese…

A Chinese company has come to the rescue of copper producer, Weatherly International that shut down its mines during last year with a bid to buy half of the mine in Namibia. - Weatherly International announced that it signed a letter of intent to sell more than half of its shares to East China Mineral Exploration and Development Bureau for about Namibian dollars 199 million (or 16 million pounds). The selling of shares would provide working capital for the four copper mines that Weatherly mining shut down and placed under care and maintenance late last year due to high mining costs and low copper prices. The shutting of the copper mines resulted in more than 600 workers losing their …