AFRICANEWS
ClippingsGHANA Ghana's second largest city, Kumasi, has banned the sale of cooked food and iced water by street vendors in a bid to halt the spread of cholera, media sources told IRIN on 12 october. "Food can only be sold after the Food and Drugs Board and the Ghana Standards Board have certified them," one source at the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said. Ghana's health ministry, the local government authorities of Kumasi and those of the region of which it is the capital, Ashanti, imposed the ban on on 11 October after two people died of cholera and 41 were hospitalised at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. Ashanti Regional Minister Kojo Yanka said the situation had reached "an alarming proportion". The outbreak is being blamed on poor public hygiene and contaminated food in the city of over 400,000 persons, whose director of health, Dr Agatha Bonney, said the department recorded 21 cases cholera and seven deaths caused by contaminated water in July. NIGERIA A newspaper report has indicted health workers in Lagos state for treating patients who are HIV positive as lepers . A report in the respectable PUNCH newspaper of 31 August, quoting investigations by its correspondent, said most medical personnel in public hospitals in the state do not show sympathy towards patients suffering from tuberculosis, a common Aids associated infection. The report quoted a relative of a patient who died of an Aids-related complication at the Ikeja General Hospital as expressing shock at the behaviour of the medical personnel. "I was shocked when on one occasion, a nurse was going to administer medication on a sister-in-law, and turned her back on the patient before giving drugs to her. When I challenged her, she ignored me until she left the ward, before reluctantly saying she feared infection," the woman was quoted as saying. MOZAMBIQUE The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are to send a joint mission to Mozambique next month to asses structural adjustment programmes, media reports said on 12 October. World Bank representative in Mozambique, James Coates was quoted as saying: "The mission is coming to asses everything from the Maputo Development Corridor, to the exports not only of cashew nuts but also of cotton." Last month the Mozambican parliament passed a law to protect the cashew nut industry. This triggered concerns that it might cost the country billions of dollars in debt relief from the HIPC debt relief initiative. The cashew nut industry is one of the most important foreign exchange earners for the country. (Source: IRIN) NAMIBIA Namibia's Immigration Tribunal at the beginning of this month decided to deport about 600 non-residents who were accused of living illegally in the country, The Namibian reported. Many were from Angola, while a sprinkling came from Liberia, Burundi, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa. It said some of the Angolan women among the refugees reportedly complained that they had been arrested at Oshikango and held at Eenhana for three months before being brought before the tribunal. (Source: IRIN) ZAMBIA The leader of a separatist group in Zambia's western Barotseland province has said the struggle for self-rule in the area has been enhanced by the recent discovery of diamonds, 'The Post' newspaper reported on 12 October. Barotse Patriotic Front (BPF) president, Imasiku Mutangelwa, was quoted as saying: "This province is rich, that's why the government does not want to let go. We have diamonds in Lusu Sesheke, in Kataba southwest of Kafue National Park, in Senanga's Nangweshi island on the Zambezi River, at Sioma Falls and Liuwa National Park." He said investors interested in exploiting the resources should not only seek the permission of the government, but also consult local stakeholders. (Source: IRIN) SIERRA LEONE Former rebels have released 70 child soldiers in Lunsar, some 70 kilometres east of Freetown, Major Toby Lyle, military spokesman of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) told IRIN on 7 October. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC - Sierra Leone's former military junta) released the children on October 2 and handed them over to military observers of UNOMSIL and the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). "We expect more child soldiers to be released in Port Loko (northeast of Freetown) this Saturday," Lyle said. The Committee on the Release of Prisoners of War and Non-combatants, chaired by UNOMSIL, has set up two reception centres for released abductees, one in Waterloo on the outskirts of Freetown and the other in the eastern town of Kenema. SOUTHERN AFRICA The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has protested against the detention of an Angolan newspaper editor, demanding that the authorities explain the action or charge or releasehim. William Tonet, the editor and publisher of the independent bi-weekly Folha 8, was detained at his home on October 2 in a pre-dawn raid by officers of the Department of Criminal Investigations (DNIC) which had failed so far to give any reason for the action.
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