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/ 30 October 2006
The hope that years of strife and stand-off may be giving way to a more inclusive and participatory Aids policy cannot come a moment too soon. It is particularly important to ask how the mixed messages of the government and its conflicts with civil society exacerbate fears and beliefs about antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.
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/ 30 October 2006
Chilean investigators were examining reports this week that nine tonnes of gold had been found in a Hong Kong bank under the name of Augusto Pinochet. The gold, valued at $160-million, was found during an ongoing investigation into tax evasion and money laundering by the former dictator.
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/ 30 October 2006
The dawn of a more equitable society is breaking, according to a United Nations Development Programme paper released this week that shows inequality in workers’ earnings has declined from 2000. But the light of the new dawn is having about as much effect as shining a torch into a black hole as the slight improvement in earnings inequality has done little to reduce high levels of unemployment and inequality.
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/ 30 October 2006
While African economies concentrate on agriculture and industry, tourism has been paid scant attention, despite its potential to deliver economic growth. This was the view of Dan Kagagi, CE of the Tourism Trust Fund in Kenya, who was addressing delegates to the African Business Leaders Forum in Johannesburg last week.
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/ 30 October 2006
The equity markets are breaking new records and the party has only begun. No, sorry, they have peaked and could be looking at a sharp correction … Anyone could be confused by the conflicting messages coming from market pundits. The only things we can be certain of are that the JSE and Wall Street are hitting new highs and that no one is sure what the next move is going to be.
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/ 30 October 2006
Africa’s political leaders are being offered a $5-million prize and a stipend for life if they do not plunder the national coffers or rig elections. Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton are backing the initiative to be formally launched in London this week by a foundation started by a Sudanese-born telecom tycoon, Mo Ibrahim.
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/ 30 October 2006
Free train rides, free rock concerts, free baseball games, December bonuses in November: Christmas has come early to Venezuela. Or, to put it another way, an election is due. The government is striving for a feelgood atmosphere by unleashing a torrent of cash and promising more to come in the run-up to a poll in which President Hugo Chávez is seeking another term.
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/ 30 October 2006
Moves to expel 150 000 Arabs who have settled in Niger over the past three decades are already underway, one day after the government made the surprise announcement that the Arabs, known as Mahamid, would have five days to leave the country. Many of the Arabs settled in Niger after leaving neighbouring Chad following the 1974 drought and again during the Chadian civil war of the 1980s.
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/ 30 October 2006
For millennia, the Mediterranean has fed its coastal peoples with abundant fish, but now it threatens to become a barren sea. Overfishing is taking a heavy toll on fish stocks, with the numbers of tuna plummeting and anchovy becoming scarce in the western Mediterranean. ”Many species are becoming increasingly rare,” says Alain Bonzon, secretary general of a commission monitoring fishing in the Mediterranean.