Madagascar’s authorities wanted a plane carrying former leader Marc Ravalomanana to land away from the capital so he could be arrested without trouble from with his supporters, officials said. Ravalomanana’s plane was turned back from the capital Antananarivo because of the risk of “certain troubles from Marc Ravalomanana activists”, said a statement released late on [...]
A severe shortage of clean drinking water in parts of Côte d’Ivoire is reaching critical levels and threatening public health, say residents and officials. “Today… uncontrolled urbanization is one the main causes of water scarcity… The continued decline in the quality of groundwater reserves will increase the risk of it being polluted. For now, we [...]
Civil service unions have resolved to scale up their struggle for better salaries and working conditions by embarking on another five-day industrial action next week. This follows their one-day strike yesterday. Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Apex Council chairperson and Zimta Mrs Tendai Chikowore, said workers should report for duty today for feedback and mobilisation. [...]
Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is currently reviewing one of the sector’s major policies the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy. The review has been necessitated by a number of emerging issues including institutional and legislative reforms within the forest sector and current global initiatives such as the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between the [...]
Retired fisherman Sada Fall is upbeat. His two sons are returning from sea with a boatload of “gold”, as he calls shark fins, whose value has near-obliterated the ocean’s top predator in these seas. Fall, 62, walks along the beach in this fishing village in the north of Senegal, his blue-grey boubou flapping in the [...]
Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister for the economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said government is committed to the peaceful resolution of the ongoing strike over removal of fuel subsidy. Okonjo- Iweala made the remark on Saturday in Abuja, adding that the major objective was to ensure that Nigerians get back to work. “I am being positive that the [...]
Swaziland’s military is showing signs of irritation at King Mswati III’s increasingly desperate cost-cutting to avoid democratic transformation. Africa’s last absolute monarch was hoping this week’s visit by current AU chairperson and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo would solve his administration’s short-term cash-flow crisis. Equatorial Guinea certainly has the means to help and [...]
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on Thursday slammed the UN Security Council for allowing the NATO military strikes in Libya that played a key downfall in the downfall of Moamer Kadhafi. Zuma complained to the Security Council that an African Union peace plan for Libya was “completely ignored” and said Libya’s problems had now “spilled [...]
Ghana has the potential to catch up with Ivory Coast in cocoa production by 2015 if present interventions and support for farmers are sustained. This is according to Eric Asare Botwe of Olam Ghana, the third largest Licensed Buying Company in the internal cocoa marketing and a leading trading company operating in 20 products across [...]
Traders in Kampala, Uganda on Wednesday started a- three day sit down strike protesting commercial banks’ refusal to lower interest rates on loans given to them. The traders under their association Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) accused commercial banks of arbitrarily increasing interest rates on even old loans; Interest rates on old loans were increased [...]
