ACCRA

Though Sudan has accepted the notion of a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, the operation could still be derailed by a lack of funding and political will, AU chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare said on Sunday at the opening session of the summit of the 53-member AU.

Officially, heads of state attending the African Union summit this weekend will be discussing plans for a United States of Africa, a continental body that does away with national borders. Unofficially, the key discussion will be about the things pulling Africa apart in Sudan’s Darfur region and Zimbabwe.

The future of the African Union will come under scrutiny only five years after its creation at a summit this weekend where some heads of state will launch a push for a closer federation across the continent. The three-day meeting will take place in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Eighteen gold miners have been confirmed dead and another 30 are still trapped one day after an illegal mine collapsed in western Ghana, police said on Tuesday. Attempts to rescue the 30 men still trapped in an abandoned mineshaft are being hampered by a lack of earth-moving equipment, they said.

The trend for young doctors and nurses to seek higher salaries and better working conditions, mainly in the West, is killing the healthcare sector in Ghana, a senior public servant said. ”It is the single most significant impact on healthcare delivery in this country,” Ghana Health Service head Agyeman Badu Akosah told Agence France-Presse in an interview.

Thousands of Ghanaians danced in the streets into the early hours of Tuesday in celebrations marking the 50th birthday of the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence. With few street lights in Ghana’s capital, Accra, partygoers swayed under the moonlight to music blaring from trucks mounted with large speakers.

Ghanaians hoisted their Black Star flag across the country on Monday for the country’s 50th birthday party and authorities pledged a two-week respite from power blackouts that have plagued them for months. Tuesday’s jubilee marks half a century since Ghana became the first black African country south of the Sahara to gain independence from colonial rule.

Côte d’Ivoire striker Didier Drogba was named the 2006 African Footballer of the Year on Thursday night at an awards ceremony in Accra, Ghana. He edged out Ghana’s Michael Essien of Chelsea and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o to deny the Barcelona marksman a record fourth successive award.

Hundreds of cheering well-wishers, dancing and waving Ghanaian flags, greeted former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan when he arrived in his native Ghana after 10 years at the helm of the world body. Ghanaian President John Kufuor joined a long line of politicians, diplomats and traditional chiefs awaiting Annan and his Swedish wife Nane.

Ghana’s government said on Friday it is banning a gay and lesbian conference due to be held next week for fear it would encourage homosexuality and undermine the country’s culture and morality. ”Ghanaians are unique people whose culture, morality and heritage totally abhor homosexual and lesbian practices,” Information Minister Kwamena Bartels said.

If Ghanaians could turn back time, they would have Abedi Pele, Anthony Yeboah, Anthony Baffoe, Razak Ibrahim, Mohammed Polo and CK Akonnor, Nii Odartey Lamaptey in the line-up for the World Cup. These players never got the opportunity to play on the biggest football stage, although they were great.

The death toll from a boat accident in Ghana earlier this month was considerably lower than initial estimates suggested, officials said on Thursday as they launched an investigation into the accident. Initial reports said about 120 of the 150 people believed to have been on the boat had drowned, but on Thursday police downgraded the numbers to no more than 30.

The West African state of Ghana is giving its widow’s mite to the United States following the Hurricane Katrina disaster — a gift of cocoa drinks and chocolate. Ghana, the poor West African country that is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa, said it was donating  000 of cocoa drinks and chocolates to victims of the hurricane.

When about 40 miners became trapped at eastern Ghana’s Nyanfoman-Noyem mine earlier this month, the bizarre truth is that it was seen as a normal occurrence that warranted no panic. The belief is that deaths of illegal miners are sacrifices to the gods for more gold. Illegal miners will brush aside such accidents and continue their work.

Rescuers have yet to retrieve any of up to 40 miners missing since an illegal gold pit collapsed in Ghana last week, and hopes are fading for any survivors, authorities at the scene said on Thursday. Rescuers are still pondering how to reach the bottom of the pit.

Dozens of illegal miners were feared on Monday to be trapped in a pit that caved in when they were digging for gold in eastern Ghana, according to witnesses. A combined rescue effort led by the police in conjunction with Newmont and Ghanaian-South African mining company Anglogold Ashanti was under way on Monday.

Ghana’s inclusion in a new plan by the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations for debt relief means that there may be enough money available to invest in improving the health care system, fund new technology and perhaps pioneer treatments for diseases like malaria.

AngloGold Ashanti, a Ghanaian-South African gold mining company, said on Tuesday it would explore for gold in the southeast Asian country of Laos following an exploration alliance with Oxiana Limited of Laos. A statement said the agreement with Oxiana follows AngloGold Ashanti’s investment in Trans-Serbian Gold in Russia and a strategic alliance in the Philippines with Red 5 Limited.

As the first sub-Saharan African nation to shake free of colonial rule, Ghana helped chart the region’s familiar downward path: post-independence euphoria followed by despotic leaders, corruption, economic decline — and often war. But Ghana has now extended its record of consecutive democratic elections to four.

Of all the statements in his decade in public office that John Atta Mills might wish to retract, his 2000 pledge to consult with former president Jerry John Rawlings ”night and day” may rank at the top. For Atta Mills (60) has never been able to shake the image that he dances to the tune called by Rawlings, a charismatic but polarising figure in Ghanaian politics.