AT least 95 people have died of yellow fever in an epidemic that broke out in central Guinea last month. The epidemic is centred in Mamou, 280km east of the capital Conakry, and has spread to Labe and Koubia in the same region, the relief agency Hopital Sans Frontiere (Hospital Without a Border) said. Yellow […]

FIFTY people have been killed and several injured in a clash in central Chad over a land dispute, sources in the Chadian capital N’Djamena said. The clash occurred this week between two ethnic groups in Djedda, some 350km northeast of the capital in Batha Province. A source close to the interior ministry said the dispute […]

LUCIA MUTIKANI, Johannesburg | Thursday SOUTH African builders expect the industry to expand by at least 3.5% over each of the next three years, but warn that Aids could cut demand for housing in half by 2010. ”The building industry can look forward to a significant period of sustainable growth,” said Building Industries Federation of […]

SOUTH African ferrochrome producers face higher power prices as state-owned utility Eskom is deregulated and electricity contracts are no longer linked to published ferrochrome prices, industry consultant Andrew Jones of Mineral & Market Connections said this week. – Reuters

SOUTH Africa’s Rand Merchant Bank, one of the country’s four main banking groups, said this week that Michael Pfaff had been appointed chief executive officer in place of Paul Harris. Pfaff, 39, is a chartered accountant with more than 10 years of experience in investment banking who had joined RMB in 1997. Harris, 50, would […]

JEREMY LOVELL, Cape Town | Thursday WITHIN five years, one South African will die of an Aids-related illness every minute unless action is taken now to curb Aids and treat its victims, says a leading insurance industry official. ”By 2005 there will be six million people infected with HIV/Aids and there will be more than […]

THE Zambian government will need at least $534m over the next three years for its HIV/Aids intervention programme, President Frederick Chiluba said this week. Spearheading the plea for donor funds, Chiluba said Zambia was in a “desperate situation”, adding that the amount of money appeared colossal, but it reflected the complexity and magnitude of the […]

A TRICKLE of voters marked the start of Malawi’s historic local government elections on Tuesday – Malawi’s first multi-party local government polls since former Life President Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s one-party regime was ousted in the early 1990s. The apathy followed low-key election campaigning and voter education by political parties amidst widespread reports of State intimidation […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday AN internationally renowned dog training expert believes that up to 90% of South Africa’s police dogs will have to be destroyed because they are “fear biters” and “psychologically too sick” to be rehabilitated, Afrikaans daily Beeld reported. Beeld quoted Hans Schlegel, owner of the international K9 training school in Switzerland, […]