coupures 13 juin 07 (eng)

Congo cuts power supplies to Zimbabwe over debt: report
Tue Jun 12, 6:52 AM ET
HARARE (Reuters) - The
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Democratic Republic of Congo has cut electricity to Zimbabwe over non payment of a $5 million debt, official media reported on Tuesday, as the country continues to suffer massive power blackouts.
Zimbabwe imports 35 percent of its electricity needs from South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo because it can not produce enough from its ageing local generating plants.
Electricity shortages and blackouts are forcing many households in towns to resort to firewood for cooking while middle-class families are installing generators.
Zimbabwe's state-owned power utility ZESA Holdings says it needs to charge economically viable prices if it is to survive but the government traditionally caps prices, arguing that this is meant to cushion consumers.
"ZESA is failing to pay about $5 million to the DRC and ... has since cut off supplies," the state-owned Herald newspaper said, quoting an unnamed ZESA official.
"As such the debt has adversely affected our power imports ... leading to the burdening of the already weak local power supply," the official said.
ZESA officials were not immediately available for comment but the newspaper said before cutting supplies, DRC used to supply 100 megawatts of electricity to Zimbabwe.
In the past DRC has suspended power supplies to Zimbabwe over debts and in April this year, Mozambique's power utility EDM threatened to cut off its neighbor over payments.
Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis that has produced the world's highest inflation rate of above 3,700 percent, unemployment of around 80 percent and chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.
The country has grappled with chronic power shortages over the last two years but has suffered severe blackouts in the last few days after some of ZESA's generators broke down and the agency also failed to buy coal for the others.
The worsening power shortages have fuelled public anger against President Robert Mugabe's government in restive urban townships hit by erratic water supplies, burst sewer pipes and rising rents.
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Congo denies cutting power supply to Zimbabwe
Tue Jun 12, 7:56 AM ET
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Democratic Republic of Congo denied a report on Tuesday by Zimbabwe state media that it had cut off power supplies to the energy-starved southern African state.
"There was a problem with the line over the weekend. A cable fell. But we worked on it Saturday and Sunday," Energy Minister Salomon Banamuhere told Reuters. "We fixed it on Sunday at around 20h00, and there is now electricity going through."
Official media in Zimbabwe reported earlier that Congo had cut electricity supply over non-payment of a $5 million debt.
Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis that has produced the world's highest inflation rate of above 3,700 percent, unemployment of around 80 percent and chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.
The country has grappled with chronic power shortages over the last two years but has suffered severe blackouts in the last few days after some of state-owned power utility ZESA's generators broke down and it failed to buy coal for the others.
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DRC's Kabila to visit SA


Cape Town, South Africa
12 June 2007 02:17

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila is scheduled to arrive in Cape Town on Wednesday on a three-day official visit.Kabila will hold discussions with President Thabo Mbeki at Tuynhuys on Thursday, the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement on Tuesday.Issues on the agenda were expected to include bilateral political and economic relations, recent political developments in the DRC and support from the international community, including the United Nations, for political and economic processes in the DRC. Kabila would also address a joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday, meet with Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and attend an official dinner hosted by Mbeki in his honour.On Friday, Kabila and Mbeki would participate in the DRC business forum before Kabila leaves Cape Town for a visit to the North West. -- Sapa
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Congo-Kinshasa: African Child Day - Launch of a Joint Child Protection Campaign By Monuc And the Congolese Police

United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
11 June 2007Posted to the web 12 June 2007
Monuc Press Release
On Saturday June 16 2007, the sixteenth international African Child Day will be commemorated throughout the African continent. MONUC's Child Protection Division and the Congolese National Police (PNC) decided to link their efforts to celebrate this day through a joint campaign for child protection, from June 16 to November 20, 2007.
The situation of the child remains precarious in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is characterized by many rights violations. On the one hand this campaign aims to further sensitise the PNC on child protection while reinforcing their capacities and, on the other, to make it a child protection organ of excellence, through specialised units.
To celebrate African Child Day and mark the launching of the campaign, a press conference will be held on Thursday June 14, 2007, at 11am in MONUC's Kinshasa Headquarters. In attendance will be the DRC Ministries for the Interior and the Condition of Women and Family, the General Inspectorate of the PNC, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), as well as MONUC Police.
A special programme on Radio Okapi (Okapi Action) will be broadcast on June 15 2007, to speak about the role of the PNC for child protection during family breakups. Educational sketches, talks and parades will be presented at Lufungula Camp in Kinshasa, with the participation of many children, during another ceremony on June 16, chaired by the PNC Kinshasa Provincial Inspector.
African Child Day was instituted in July 1990 by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now called the African Union (AU), in commemoration of the massacre of children in the black suburbs of Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 16, 1976.
On that day, black students and schoolchildren had gathered to protest against the apartheid government's obligation for blacks to study in Afrikaans, the language of the principal white community of the country.
The demonstration quickly became a riot because the police force, which had received instructions to restore order at all costs and by all means, opened fire on the crowd, killing more than 500 and wounding 1,000. Since then, this day is commemorated by the whole of the African community through various reflection themes.
Beyond the historical dimension of this commemoration, it acts, for the African states preoccupied by the well being of their children and thus of all on the continent, to give a progress report on the situation of the child in their respective countries, especially of the child in difficult situations.
It also aims at deepening the thinking on certain specific problems, and of taking suitable measures in order to ensure the greater comfort of any child.