Malawi joined other countries on Wednesday in commemorating World Tuberculosis Day. However, the efforts of Malawian officials to curb tuberculosis (TB) are being dogged by the theft of TB drugs from state hospitals — a problem that is leading to the development of a multi-drug-resistant strain of TB.
South African producer prices for all commodities fell by 1% in the 12 months to the end of February from a 1,4% decline for the 12 months to the end of January, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. On the month, the PPI was up 0,5%, compared with no change in January.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu visited an inmate on Texas’s death row on Wednesday, saying it would be ”one of the greatest tragedies” if the man was executed and describing capital punishment as an ”absurdity that brutalises society”.
South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is disappointed by a pharmaceutical company’s response to the government’s plans to reduce drug prices in South Africa. ”Bully tactics adopted by the company will not undermine our effort to make medicines more affordable,” said Tshabalala-Msimang.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) is considering how the International Transport Workers’ Federation could help its strike against Equity Aviation, a statement said on Wednesday. Further negotiations last week at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration were fruitless.
A knack for making the best of a poor situation is a prerequisite for most estate agents, but few need it more than Abdurashid Abdullahi. Business is bad. Abdullahi needs to sell at least one property a month to support his family, but not many people want to buy a home in Mogadishu.
A moral panic over homosexuality in Zanzibar has prompted the island’s government to draft a law imposing life imprisonment for men convicted of gay sex. The proposed law bans same-sex marriages and sanctions a 25-year jail term for sex between men and a seven-year term for lesbians
The Israeli army said on Wednesday that Hassam Mohammed Hufni Abdo, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who tried to kill soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint with a belt of explosives strapped to his body, would have been the youngest Palestinian suicide bomber.
The escalating public row over the September 11 attacks reached a new pitch on Wednesday as the CIA director and a former White House counter-terrorism adviser clashed over whether the Bush administration had taken the al-Qaeda threat seriously.
In the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> would like to throw down a challenge to South Africa’s Jewish community — or at least the many members of the community who uncritically back the government of Ariel Sharon.