The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s year-on-year inflation rate could reach over 100 000% by the end of the year. ”If recent monthly trends continue, [IMF] staff projects that year-on-year inflation could well exceed 100 000% by year-end,” Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, director of the IMF’s Africa department, said.
Nearly 12 000 people have been displaced and one person has died in western Ethiopia in flash floods over the weekend, an official said on Tuesday. ”As of now, we only know that 11 886 people have been displaced and one killed from the flood that resulted from Sunday’s heavy rainfall,” Ojulu Bach, head of disaster prevention programme in the Gambela region, said.
More than 1Â 000 Mozambicans, including children, are trafficked to South Africa every year where they are forced into prostitution or used as free or cheap labour. In response, Mozambique’s Cabinet last week approved a new law that will make human trafficking a crime punishable by long prison sentences.
Each time a Durban woman objected to being kissed while she was being raped, her attacker pressed a Smith and Wesson revolver to her head, the Scottburgh High Court heard on Tuesday. His HIV-positive accomplice then asked her: ”Was it fun? Are we having a good time?”
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Visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday that he and United States President George Bush will ”step up” pressure to end violence in Sudan’s Darfur province, as the two leaders wrapped up talks. ”I’ve agreed with the president that we step up our pressure to end the violence that has displaced two million people,” Brown told a press conference.
A total of 103 petitions have been filed to Cameroon’s highest court to annul results of this month’s legislative elections that handed President Paul Biya’s governing party a landslide victory, a court official said on Monday. A number of the 45 parties figuring on the election lists on July 22 had filed petitions, but most came from the main opposition parties.
Liberia on Monday resumed diamond trading after lifting a self-imposed ban on the gems, officials said. The embargo imposed four years ago had been in line with a United Nations ban on the country’s diamonds, blamed for fuelling a barbaric 14-year civil war in the resource-rich West African nation.
The South African emerging players cricket squad that participated in the 2007 Emerging Players Tournament in Brisbane, Australia, over the past two weeks landed back home with the trophy in hand after beating strong teams from Australia, New Zealand and India. On Saturday South Africa beat New Zealand in the final of the tournament by 82 runs.
Opposition parties in the Johannesburg city council are furious at the ruling African National Congress (ANC) limiting their speaking time to four seconds per councillor. The parties quoted the ANC’s chief whip in the council as saying: ”If a party cannot say what they want to say in eight seconds, it is not worth saying.”