The trial of Nfamara Ndure commenced recently at the Brikama Magistrates’ Court before Magistrate John Njie.

Mr Ndure is being tried for the offence of wilful damage to property. He denied the charge.

Testifying, the complainer Sabati Yaya Bayo told the court that on the day in question he was driving from Katong when the accused asked to be given a lift. And that when he told the accused that he would not be able to give him a lift, he got angry and insulted his mother and threw stones at his vehicle, which damaged his windscreen.

He then reported the matter to the police.

He is expected back in court today.

Mr Touray was found guilt of damaging property value at D3,550.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in a statement on 10 April that "extreme dry weather in several provinces of Zimbabwe is likely to cause serious damage to the main 2008 maize harvest. This could aggravate an already precarious food security situation in the country."

The new year ushered in widespread flooding in low lying areas, FAO said, and this gave way "to prolonged dry spells since February. This will affect maize growth and yields to be harvested in May/June."

Zimbabwe's stagnating economy suffers the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent and this had resulted in farmers being unable to source key inputs, such as fertilizer, seed and fuel.

"The food security situation in Zimbabwe is critical," FAO said. "Of the estimated 1.03 million tonnes of cereal import requirement for 2007/08, some 839,000mt, or about 81 percent of the total, have reportedly been imported so far."

"With dwindling foreign exchange reserves and shrinking purchasing power, another year of low cereal production would severely affect the food security condition for a significant part of the population unless substantial assistance is provided," the UN agency said.

About one third of Zimbabwe's about 12 million population is currently receiving emergency food aid.

Farm invasions

In the aftermath of the March 29 presidential and parliamentary poll, in which President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party lost control of parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war have reportedly begun evictions of the country's last remaining white farmers.

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has also claimed victory for their leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential poll. The official results have yet to be released.

South Africa's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad reportedly said on 10 April, following a meeting last week by South African diplomats with the Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers' Union president Trevor Gifford, that "The problem here...is that most of the farmers are about to harvest their crops and as a result Zimbabwe is at risk of losing food worth millions of dollars."

The South African government had sent a diplomatic note to the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs after war veterans had allegedly forced two South Africans nationals from their land. "[The note was] to plead for the protection of our farmers in Zimbabwe," Pahad said.

Gifford reportedly told international media that veterans loyal to Mugabe had evicted about 60 farmers since the results of the parliamentary elections, including a black commercial farmer for his alleged support of the MDC, from their farms.

In 2000, war veterans loyal to ZANU-PF, were at the forefront of Zimbabwe's fast track land reform programme that saw white commercial farmland redistributed to landless blacks.

Eight years ago there were about 4,500 white owned farms in Zimbabwe, currently there are about 300 white commercial farmers remaining on their farms.

The Monam group of rape survivors in the northern town of Bossangoa in the Central African Republic (CAR) does what it can to keep going, but morale is low and money tight.

"We've been left to fend for ourselves. We get little help from outside. Many of our members have died," the group's chairwoman, Pelagie Ndokoyanga, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Monam, which means "common good" in the Sango language, was set up in 2006 to bring together female survivors of sexual violence committed in 2001 and 2002 amid the mayhem leading up to the most recent of CAR's numerous coups d'etat that brought Francois Bozize to power in March 2003.

As well as providing a forum for solidarity, revenue-generation and wellbeing for women who have suffered gender-based violence (GBV), Monam also aims to combat such abuse, identify its perpetrators and fight against the stigmatisation of women in general and rape survivors in particular. According to Ndokoyanga, several members of the group were abandoned by their husbands after they were raped.

When an HIV testing and counselling centre was set up in Bossangoa in 2005, many of the first HIV-positive cases were the result of rape.

Among them is Nkokoyanga, who also works with the Bossangoa Association of People Living with HIV.

"It's normal to tell relatives when one is infected, it's not a sin," she said when several dozen members of the association met IRIN/PlusNews. "But they are the first to spread the news."

"Nobody has a job here. I have all my certificates but I never get a job because people know I am HIV-positive," she added.

Both organisations would like to enhance their incoming-generating activities such as market trading, but lack of the necessary capital makes it hard to get such projects off the ground.

With UNAIDS estimating CAR's HIV prevalence at 10 percent, with just three percent of HIV-positive adults on life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy, there is a clear and urgent need to scale up HIV education, testing and treatment, but continued armed conflict and insecurity have made this difficult in many areas of the country.

Many rapes, little data

Accurate, detailed statistics about the number of women who suffer GBV in CAR are unavailable. This is partly because of the stigma attached to such attacks, but also because the government barely functions outside the capital and international humanitarian actors have only recently begun working in the country in significant numbers.

In late February 2007, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that "sexual and gender-based violence strikes well over 15 percent of women and girls" in northern CAR.

Such attacks increased during the pre-coup unrest and during rebel clashes in early 2006 and early 2007.

One of the main areas of investigation opened in May 2007 by the International Criminal Court (ICC), following a request by the CAR government, is the "many allegations of rape and other aspects of sexual violence perpetrated against hundreds of reported victims...during a peak of violence in 2002/03", according to an ICC statement.

The court’s prosecutor is also closely monitoring reported incidences of GBV committed after 2005, when two rebellions emerged in the north.

“[Following a failed coup attempt in late 2002] there emerged a pattern of massive rapes and sexual violence perpetrated by armed individuals. Sexual violence appears to have been a central feature of the conflict," the ICC statement said, adding that at least 600 victims of GBV had been identified over the course of just five months.

Those targeted included elderly women, young girls and men, the ICC said.

"There were often aggravating aspects of cruelty such as rapes committed by multiple perpetrators, in front of third persons, sometimes with relatives forced to participate," the statement added, noting that the social impact of such crimes "appears devastating".

Programmes slowly getting off the ground

For now, there is little outside help for those directly affected by GBV. Clients of the Organisation pour la compassion et le développement des familles en détresse (OCODEFAD), a domestic NGO, have given testimony about sexual attacks against them to the Bangui office of the ICC prosecutor.

OCODEFAD was founded by Bernadette Sayo, a secondary school teacher whose husband was killed in front of her in 2002 by DRC rebels allied to CAR's then president Ange-Félix Patassé amid a coup attempt. The gunmen subsequently raped her.

OCODEFAD registered hundreds of women and dozens of men, as well as young children and elderly people, sexually abused during this period of unrest. It was largely thanks to pressure from this organisation and international rights groups that the government in Bangui called on the ICC to open its investigation.

In terms of foreign assistance, one NGO, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), set up a GBV programme in the northern town of Kaga-Bandoro in May 2007, providing free medical care and psycho-social counselling for its clients, raising awareness about GBV in nearby communities and holding discussions with various military groups.

Language, as well as stigma, was an obstacle in the beginning. "It took us a month to get a definition of rape. There's no word for it in Sango," Catherine Poulton, IRC GBV coordinator in CAR, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Since it began, the IRC's programme - which covers households along a 50km stretch of road - has handled 1,040 cases of GBV, dealing with associated problems such as sexually transmitted diseases, trauma and rejection by families.

Another seven GBV programmes are in the pipeline for 2008, involving agencies such as the UN World Health Organization, UNICEF, the UN Population Fund and Comité d'Aide Medicale.

In the case of CAR, where the data is so limited, donors may need to break with the tradition of seeking detailed assessments of a problem before signing their cheques. According to some analysts, one has to assume widespread prevalence; in IRC's experience the data emerged from the programme, rather than vice versa.

Basiru Janneh, a resident of Bundungka-Kunda, was recently granted bail in the sum of D20, 000 and would undergo trial soon.

Basiru was charged with three-count offences of criminal trespass, assault and causing wilful damage to property.

He stands accused of assaulting one Saidy thereby causing him actual bodily harm. He also stands accused of causing wilful damage.

Few weeks after reports of a mysterious fire at Arab Gambia Islamic Bank (AGIB), the management of the bank has been beset with yet another incident, this time resulting in damage to materials.

In a press release issued to this paper, the management of AGIB underlined its wish to inform “its valuable customers that a fire incident happened at its branch located at Westfield Junction,” bemoaning that it had “resulted to damages of equipment and furniture.”

The management however reassures the general public that the situation is under control as “…work is in progress to ensure that normal operations continue today, 26 February 2008.

“Meanwhile, customers are requested to visit either Banjul or Senegambia branches for their usual transactions,” the release stressed, concluding that they “sincerely regret and apologize for any inconvenience it might cause.”

One Amadou Njie, a Gambian national, was recently arrainged before Senior Magistrate Abdoulie Mbacke of the Kanifing Magistrate Court, charged with wilful damage to a property contrary to the laws of The Gambia.

According to the particulars of the offense, Mr Njie on February 10, at the Serrekunda suburb of Bambo, wilfully and unlawfully  damaged the windscreen of  Malick Faal’s car.

When the charge sheet  was read to him, he pleaded not guilty to the charge preferred against him.

The case was then adjourned. He was how-ever granted a court bail in the sum of D1500 or with a Gambian surety and a landed property.

A legal suit filed by the plaintiffs Timber and Furniture Company against Tamsir Jasseh, former Immigration Director-General, is now set for judgment.

Presiding Magistrate Kayoidy of the Banjul Magistrates’ Court, on Thursday informed the court that he would deliver judgment on the 21st February 2008. Ousman Tasbasi, the company’s Managing Director, told the court that the plaintiff had let to the defendant Tamsir Jasseh premises situated at No. 62 Gloucester Street in Banjul at an annual rent of US $12,000 per annum. He said the rent agreement was for five years, adding that the defendant only made one year’s payment in 2006 and a receipt had been issued to that effect.

He disclosed that the defendant did not pay rent for 2007 and he continued in occupation despite service of notice on him. He added that the rent owed now stood at $24,000 and that the company is now seeking possession of the property and recovery of the rent arrears.

According to the plaintiff’s claim, by an agreement made in December 2004, the plaintiff let premises situated at 62 Gloucester Street in Banjul at annual rent of US $12,000. It added that the defendant paid two years rent in advance. The said agreement expired at the end of December 2006 but the defendant has continued to occupy the premises despite notice to quit issued to the defendant by the plaintiff and he has refused to pay the rent despite demand by the plaintiff for him to do so, the claim stated. The defendant is therefore illegally in occupation of the premises which is causing loss and damage to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff’s claim is for the possession of the premises situated at 62 Gloucester Street in Banjul the sum of D316, 000 being arrears of rent from January to December 2007. The case is set for judgment on 21st February 2008.