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Angola Bad Choice to Host World Habitat Day

The choice of the Angolan capital Luanda to lead the global observance of this year's World Habitat Day provoked controversy among housing and human rights organizations. In a joint letter to the Executive Director of The United Nations Human Settlements Programme UN-HABITAT, who organized the event, Amnesty International, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, the Habitat International Coalition and Human Rights Watch have all voiced their concerns about the choice of venue. The Angolan...

ANGOLA: How free will the elections be?

The prospect of Angola holding free and fair parliamentary elections in September is diminishing, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a watchdog organisation. Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director, said in a statement that with "less than a month before elections, it's clear Angolans aren't able to campaign free from intimidation or pressure and unless things change now, Angolans won't be able to cast their votes freely." The poll for the National Assembly is scheduled...

ANGOLA: Should intentional HIV/AIDS infection be a crime?

Proposedreforms to Angola's Penal Code have divided opinion in the countryabout whether HIV-positive people who intentionally infect others withthe virus should be punished. The law under discussion callsfor a sentence of between three and 10 years in prison for those whoknowingly pass on infectious diseases, including HIV. Some argue thatthe law will act as a deterrent; others say it will bring more problemsthan benefits. "Criminalisation is going to backfire. It goesagainst human rights...

ANGOLA: To tell or not to tell, that is the tricky question

Maria Antónia* began to wonder about her husband's frequent trips to neighbouring South Africa, especially when he was away for 15 days without contacting her on one occasion. She decided to investigate whether he was going to South Africa to see another woman, but discovered that he was going to get antiretroviral (ARV) medication because he was HIV positive. Miguel André's wife died in 2001, officially from typhoid fever, but before she died she told her child's godmother that she had AIDS....

ANGOLA: New clues to mystery illness

The number of people affected by a mystery illness that has already claimed the lives of 4 children on the outskirts of the Angolan capital, Luanda, has climbed to 284. Contaminated food is a suspect but authorities are still in the dark as to the exact cause. "More than 80 percent [of cases] are children, and the four deaths that happened were kids," Vita Vemba, Luanda's provincial health director, told IRIN. The children who had succumbed to the illness were already weakened by high levels...

ANGOLA: Mystery disease strikes 200, kills four

An undiagnosed disease that has affected 200 and left at least four dead in Cacuaco, about 20km north of the Angolan capital, Luanda, has health organisations scrambling to identify the illness. The first cases were reported in early October. "What we know is that new cases keep arriving at the hospital," Balbina Felix, disease control officer at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Luanda, told IRIN. According to the Municipal Hospital in Cacuaco, 20 new cases per day have been reported...

ANGOLA: TB threatens both workers and patients at Luanda Hospital

Luanda Sanatorium Hospital, which has a reputation as being Angola's leading tuberculosis (TB) treatment centre, should be a place of relief and recovery for patients with the disease in the capital, Luanda. But with a lack of protective materials for healthcare workers and crumbling infrastructure, the hospital has become a dangerous breeding ground for TB, infecting both staff and patients. A survey of 119 of the 400 workers at the healthcare facility found that 70 percent of them were...

ANGOLA: Mending children broken by accusations of witchcraft

A three-year old HIV-positive child, who was also suffering from malaria, was accused by neighbours of using witchcraft to kill his parents and abandoned in a coop, where scavenging chickens pecked him, blinding him in one eye. Other villagers, hearing of his plight, rescued him and turned for help to Rev Horácio Caballero, of the Arnaldo Janssen Centre in the capital, Luanda, but the toddler died while the paperwork was being completed for him to receive medical treatment in Spain. Reports...