Poverty and malnutrition are undermining Zimbabwe’s battle against HIV and Aids.
Doctors who have been examining the impact of anti-retroviral drugs in Zimbabwe have found that the anti-Aids drugs are too expensive in a country where some three-quarters of the population live in poverty.
African and developed countries are to devise a joint plan by next year to transform broad commitment to the continent’s development into concrete action, says the chairperson of the secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), Wiseman Nkuhlu.
Twenty people were arrested on Wednesday in dawn raids targeting an immigration scam that brought more than 1 000 people, mainly South Africans, into Britain using fraudulently obtained student visas. The raids were aimed at a huge immigration racket estimated to have earned the perpetrators millions.
On Monday Uganda became the latest African country to begin distributing free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to HIV-positive people.
Equatorial Guinea has accused Spain of trying to overthrow its government in the alleged plot by foreign mercenaries to kill the president. President Teodoro Obiang’s special adviser, Miguel Mifuno, accused Madrid of sending a warship to the country with 500 marines on board.
More than 300 people gathered at the Hector Peterson memorial on Wednesday for a wreath laying ceremony as part of Youth Day commemorations. Peterson, then aged 13, was shot dead by police in the June 16, 1976, schoolchildren’s uprising. He was the first victim of that event.
Russian Elena Nurgalieva was the class act of the Comrades Marathon when she followed up with her ”down” victory last year with a record win for the women’s title from Durban to Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday. She finished almost three minutes ahead of fellow Russian Marina Bychkova.
Springbok backline coach Allister Coetzee is supremely confident that Jake White is the man to finally lead the Springboks out of the chasm into which they have plunged in recent seasons. Saturday’s first Test win over the Irish was the start of what Coetzee hopes is a road that leads the Boks back to the top of the world.
Vladimir Kotov, the 46-year-old ultra-distance marvel from Cape Town, stunned his opposition with an impeccably-timed attack for his third victory in the final stages of the 84,67km Comrades Marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Kotov is from Belarus, but he ran for South Africa on Wednesday.
It could take Greece over a decade to pay back a multi-billion dollar deficit created by the ballooning costs of hosting the Olympics. Mounting disillusionment over the economic repercussions of hosting the the games deepened after the government said borrowing requirements had overshot budget targets.