The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
Why should epidemiological studies include social aspects of diseases? Public health requires an interdisciplinary approach. So, at the hsrc we study all factors that cause disease and what prevents people from accessing health care. For example, in my area of interest, hiv and poverty, we found that not only do …
bacco off the shelf: Thailand has taken a strong step against tobacco sales in the country. They ordered vendors in September to remove all cigarettes from display or risk a US $50,000 fine. Activists say cigarette packets are also effectively an advertisement and so should be hidden from view. sa …
• Army contractors halted operations at the Newport Chemical Depot, in western Indiana, as nearly 500 gallons of caustic wastewater containing hydrolysate, leaked into a sealed area at the facility. This plant is used for destroying Cold War era chemical weapon VX. • A regional conference on sustainable transportation and …
a 3.8 metre-long female great white shark has completed the first documented round-trip ocean crossing by a shark. It travelled from South Africa across the Indian Ocean to Australia
South Africa (sa), again wants to cull elephants, a practice it halted in 1994 in the face of public outrage. Between 1967 and 1994 over 14,000 elephants were "removed' from the country's Kruger National Park by culling and over 2,000 relocated to other game reserves. Government scientists complain that the …
City authorities in Durban, South Africa, have discovered up to 4,000 times higher concentration of the chemical hexavalent chromium, or Chrome 6, in groundwater near a factory owned by Lanxess, an offshoot of German multinational company Bayer. Chrome 6 is a carcinogen that enters the body by inhalation, ingestion or …
A major challenge facing developing countries is how to allocate scarce capital, especially public capital, for the provision of basic services. Electrification, as part of an integrated service delivery package, is both a large draw on public funds and also an important catalyst for economic development. One of the major …
Two hundred thousand traditional medicine practitioners of South Africa will be officially recognised as health-care professionals. So says a new legislation passed on September 9. According to health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the Traditional Health Practitioners Bill received near unanimous backing in the South African parliament. Under the new law, a …
close on the heels of Japan banning asbestos, South Africa too has decided to prohibit the manufacture and new use of the mineral fibre. South Africa's environment minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, made this declaration on June 21. "For certain products, where no current alternatives are available, we will allow for …
It is difficult to make people pay for something they perceive to be their natural lawful right. That is the problem facing the company that supplies water to the South African city of Johannesburg and the giant townships nearby. With new investment from foreign companies, supplier firm Johannesburg Water is …
progressiveness, flexibility, neutrality and proportionality. These are the key words in a recent proposal floated by g-20, the developing country grouping in the World Trade Organization (wto), to enable wto members to fulfil their three-year-old commitment of reducing import duties on agricultural products. Since negotiators of wto members in Geneva, …
better chick-pea variety: Scientists from New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute have developed a drought-resistant variety of chick-pea. The variety, Pusa-1053, has a yield of about 1,300 kilogrammes per hectare, which is significantly higher than the 700 kilogrammes produced per hectare by the traditional varieties of the seeds. more heat, …
The pharmaceutical industry in South Africa (sa) is threatening to shut up shop unless the country's government rethinks its new drug policy. The policy has been in place since January 2004. It controls the incremental rise in prices at different stages after a drug leaves the factory. The industry argues …
the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (cites) has deferred the one-time sale of 60 tonnes of stockpiled ivory by South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. The decision was taken at the panel's meeting, which took place in Geneva from March 15-19. Earlier, in November 2002, …
South Africa's privately-owned game reserve sector is at the receiving end of a drought. Former cattle ranchers and other operators, who made hay while the US $137-million industry was at its prime, are today looking to sell the animals. The drought has forced reserve owners to supplement the natural diet …
