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 …
Over 400 homes in south African villages now have electricity, and thousands more will be getting it soon, thanks to an old method that has been reworked by the African arm of a uk-based engineering consultancy firm. The technique, called single wire earth return (swer), sends electricity out along a …
some two decades ago, South Africa's powerful asbestos mining companies closed shop. Most of them left open waste dumps of the deadly fibre to be spread by wind and water. Now, the University of Potchefstroom's Research Institute of Reclamation Ecology (rire) has been handed over the task of rehabilitating many …
the human immuno-deficiency virus ( hiv) that causes aids , has caught most South Africans unawares. Much of central and east Africa has been invaded by the infection since the 1980s. But in South Africa, the virus is a relatively new arrival, its spread hastened by the opening up of …
The latest furore in South Africa is over the Cloudy Creek or Rietspruit wetland on the south bank of the Vaal river. The Sasol Chemical Industries wants to strip mine the area for coal as feedstock for the plant, which requires seven million tonnes of coal per annum to turn …
An elephant story, and that of family values gone haywire! Cow elephants in the Kruger National Park were introduced to contraceptive pills to cut down their population into small and happy families. But the outcome was a mammoth problem - elephantine free love resulted in a jumbo-sized social and sexual …
Twenty four black South African workers are planning to give evidence in London against three British companies, which they say poisoned them with asbestos and mercury. Reportedly, two workers have died from mercury poisoning in 1992, and hundreds from asbestos-related diseases after working at British plants set up in South …
The number of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) cases is exploding in South Africa, according to Action TB, a research group funded by the British pharmaceuticals company Glaxo Wellcome. The Kwazulu-Natal region alone has witnessed a 300 per cent rise in the number of multidrug-resistant TB cases in just one year. "The …
South African President, Nelson Mandela, recently called upon the global community to act together to wipe out aids, which is wreaking havoc on nations all over the world. "As the freedom of each nation is interdependent with that of others, so too is health and the well-being of peoples... the …
Elephants of the Kruger National Park are once again in the centre of a controversy. Recently, the park officials introduced contraception as an alternative to culling to control the exploding numbers of the pachyderms. Last month, South African and American scientists injected 21 female elephants with pig zona pellucida (p …
IRATE South Africans are protesting the European Union (EU) ban on their ostrich meat and live birds following an outbreak of Congo fever. The EU ban came into effect after an abattoir worker died recently and 16 others were infected with the fever in Oudtshoorn, a town close to South …
Scientists from the University of Pretoria in South Africa have developed a new, non-toxic, cryopreservant liquid that would make possible the preservation of organs at very low temperatures. Efforts at doing so had been frustrated till now because extreme cold damages cell membranes beyond repair. The researchers have just resuscitated …
hiv -positive mothers double the risks of passing hiv to their babies through breast milk, suggests a controversial South African study. Breastfeeding is believed to be the best prevention against diarrhoeal or respiratory diseases which claim the lives of thousands of infants in developing countries. The danger of hiv infection …
Quelling fears about transmission of feline aids from lions to humans, a leading South African veterinarian, Dewald Keet has said that the disease which has infected 83 per cent of the lions in the Kruger national park poses no threat to either humans or other animals. The presence of aids …
Once considered to be the backbone of the country's economy, gold mines have become a health hazard for mineworkers. Thousands of mineworkers in the country could be suffering from serious chest diseases as a result of working underground in the gold mines. The workers are left to fend for themselves …
Tuberculosis (tb) is affecting thousands of people in South Africa. Last year, nearly 140,000 people contracted the disease, according to World Health Organization ( who) and South African officials. South Africa has the world's highest incidence of tb and multidrug resistant tb, which kills 80 per cent of those who …
A new land reform law in the country aims to strike a balance between conservation and community development. The reforms seek to restore property taken from some 3.5 million South Africans during the apartheid era. Large areas of national park; as well as some farms and primate game reserves, will …
A wetland in the St Lucia estuary on the cast coast in KwaZUILI-Natal province was saved from devastation when the country's cabinet banned the development of a mineral sands project by Richards Bay Minerals (RBM). The ban brought to an end a six-year struggle by environmental groups to prevent exploitation …
The conflict-ridden continent can still hope for peace. In a concerted effort to ban nuclear weapons in the continent, government leaders and ministers from all 53 African countries are set to sign a treaty to this effect in this month. The treaty, drafted with the support of United Nations, aims …
Nearly 100 caged baboons had the fright of their lives when the inundated Olifants river climbed under their cages at a remote reserve in northern South Africa recently. Rescue workers worked night and day to carry the baboons and some other animals like jackals, civets, warthogs and monkeys to the, …
