MALAWI’S revenues from tobacco, the nation’s top foreign currency earner, are expected to drop 13% this year. Projected earnings from the 2001 crop are $143-million, 13% less than in 2000 and 23% less than in 1999, said Godfrey Chapola, general manager the parastatal Tobacco Control Commission (TCC). Chapola blamed the drop in earnings on smaller […]
THE Kenyan government has identified six foreign firms to bid for the purchase of state-owned Kenya Reinsurance Corporation, a government official announced here on Wednesday. Finance ministry investment secretary Esther Koimett said in a statement that a total of eight local and international firms had sent in expressions of interest on or before the July […]
FIRE-fighters continued to keep a close eye on the Hogsback area on Wednesday after a runaway fire razed a large section of the forest and gutted a home on Tuesday. The fire was brought under control at about 7pm. An estimated 2 000 hectares of pine plantation and a house were destroyed, while three more […]
UP to 40 people were reported missing or dead on Wednesday after a river in northern Nigeria burst its banks, flooding dozens of villages. Manir Babba Dangundi, the council chairman of the affected Kumbotso area of Kano State, said 40 people were missing or dead. State government officials were unable to confirm any deaths but […]
A NUMBER of children were seriously wounded in the capital of breakaway Somaliland last week when police exchanged fire with a group of civilians accused of holding an illegal meeting, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said on Wednesday. Police reported one person killed and six wounded in the clashes in Hargeisa last Thursday. Unicef […]
THE International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) is to begin testing two HIV vaccines in Uganda soon with the collaboration of the Ugandan government. Under the memorandum of understanding, the two signatories will begin trials for a vaccine which will prevent the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. Under the agreement, IAVI will sponsor […]
POLICE in Tanzania’s northern region of Arusha this week burnt 120 tonnes of marijuana impounded recently, a senior official said on Thursday. “The exercise took place at a forest on the slopes of Mount Meru and it took three days to destroy all 120 tonnes,” said Placid Chaka, the Arusha regional police commander. Police also […]
Gregory Mthembu-Salter “Dull. A bit slow. Very slow” is how prominent independent Zambian politician Dipak Patel describes Levy Mwanawasa, Zambia’s ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy’s (MMD) presidential candidate. Zambia is due to hold general elections in November, but until last week the MMD was without a candidate, after President Frederick Chiluba was forced to abandon […]
When Johnny Reb was entered in a B division race over 1600m in June, there was almost universal consensus that he wouldn’t see out the distance. After all, his breeding (by Fast Gun, out of the Lancaster mare War Baby) seemed to be all about speed, he had sprinted well and, to top it all, […]
Marianne Merten For the women of Silvertree Rugby Football Club in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats playing rugby is nothing new they have been at the game since 1954. Since the club’s inception in the historic District Six almost 50 years ago, women have played rugby at fundraising games. Today the mother of one […]