Luanda

An Angolan Airlines plane crashed on landing at an airport in northern Angola on Thursday, killing five people on the same day the European Union said it was blacklisting the airline due to safety concerns. The Boeing 737 plane crashed and broke in half when it landed at an airport in M’banza Congo, north of Luanda.

Angola may extend the period for registering voters for its first elections in over a decade, fuelling concerns among some political observers that the ballot in the oil-rich nation could be delayed further. An estimated 7,5-million Angolans are being registered for elections next year and in 2009, seen as an important democratic test for the country.

Angola was on Wednesday celebrating five years since the end of its brutal, three-decade-long civil war, with veteran President Jose Eduardo dos Santos identifying a ”rebirth of hope” in the oil-rich nation. A national holiday has been declared to mark the anniversary of the signing of a peace accord on April 4 2002.

Angola on Wednesday celebrates five years of peace after a 27-year civil war as one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, thanks to an oil boom which has however done little to raise living standards. The signing of an accord on April 4 2002, between the government and Unita rebels drew the line under a conflict that left half a million people dead.

A British human rights worker accused of espionage in Angola can leave the country on condition she return if asked to do so, her lawyers said on Thursday. Wykes, an anti-corruption campaigner with Global Witness who was investigating transparency in Angola’s oil sector, was arrested last month.

A British woman working for Global Witness is being held by Angolan police in the province of Cabinda after being arrested at the weekend for spying, her lawyer said on Monday. Sarah Wykes was detained on Saturday in the oil-rich northern province while she was meeting members of civil society organisations.

Storms that lashed Angola in recent weeks killed at least 114 people, according to a government report cited by state media on Wednesday. Ten people are still missing and more than 28 000 were left homeless by the torrential rain that caused flash floods and mudslides, according to a report presented to Parliament on Tuesday.

Seventy-one people have died in flash floods following torrential rains across Angola, with almost all the fatalities reported in the seaside capital Luanda, the fire service said on Thursday. Luanda is home to about 4,5-million people and despite Angola’s oil riches has a skeletal infrastructure, which has been further damaged by the downpours.

Fifty-three people have died in Luanda, Angola’s seaside capital, in torrential rains that have lashed the city for three days, a police spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”We have recorded 53 deaths until now,” Divaldo Martins said, adding that more than 1 300 families were homeless.

A mystery illness that left 12 people dead in northern Angola late last year was caused by intestinal parasites and was not a recurrence of the Ebola-like Marburg virus, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. The spate of deaths in Uije province had raised fears that the Marburg virus had flared up again in the region.

The Angola government launched a plan on Wednesday to halve the number of cases of malaria by the end of the decade in a country where up to 30 000 people are thought to die of the disease every year. ”Malaria is the deadliest disease in Angola,” Health Minister Sebastiao Veloso told a press conference.

Angola has rolled out a massive voter-registration drive ahead of its first elections since 1992, but questions remain over when the long-awaited polls will take place in the oil-rich nation recovering from civil war. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was the first of Angola’s 13-million people to register on Wednesday for elections that could take place as early as next year.

Angola on Tuesday launched a voter-education programme ahead of its first post-war polls due next year with the prime minister warning against foreigners being registered for the key election. ”We have to be careful that those who do not fulfil the conditions required by law to vote are not registered,” Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias Dos Santos said, kicking off the campaign in the oil-rich nation.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has offered his country’s oil expertise to Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s number two crude producer, in a strategy to boost ties with what he calls "Mother Africa" and counter United States influence there. "It’s absolutely a lie that the destiny of the world has to be signed off by Washington," he said in a speech at the presidential palace in Luanda.

A 20-strong alliance of opposition parties denounced on Friday what they called the slow rate of preparations for staging Angola’s first elections since the end of the civil war four years ago. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in power since 1979, has pledged to stage the historic ballot before the end of next year.

Angola has reinforced troops along its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), fearing possible unrest in the area after the winners of landmark elections are announced, a top army official said on Wednesday. ”We do not know what could happen in the DRC after the results are announced,” General Geraldo Sachipendo Nunda said on radio.

The Angolan government signed a peace agreement on Tuesday with a group that has fought for self-rule in the country’s main oil-producing region, but other armed separatists said they would continue their struggle. Senior governing party politicians and military chiefs signed the deal along with Antonio Bento Bembe, who said he represented the Cabinda Forum for Dialogue.

Cholera in Angola has spread to a 15th province as the death toll reached 2 089 and the number of cases exceeded 50 000, the World Health Organisation said on Monday. The deadly but easily treatable water-borne disease broke out in Luanda’s northern slum of Boa Vista and rapidly spread throughout the seaside capital.