EGYPT APARTMENT BUILDING COLLAPSES, NINE KILLED

An Apartment building collapsed in the city of Alexandria on Egypt’s northern coast overnight and rescue workers have pulled nine bodies from the rubble, security sources said on Wednesday. Atleast three more people were missing and feared dead, the sources added.

The dead include a mother found clutching her baby, state news agency MENA reported. At least 10 others were injured, and rescue workers were combing the ruins of the five-storey building for more victims, MENA added.

Samih Nazmi, a 28-year-old storeman who lived on the ground floor with his parents, said the building made a sound like an exploding gas cylinder when it collapsed.

“Luckily the ground floor was mostly intact. My parents and I climbed out through a gap into the neighbouring house,” he told Reuters at the scene of the collapse.

The building, in the centre of the Mediterranean city, was built in 1955 and the owner added a fifth floor in 1997 in violation of building regulations, a common practice in Egypt, police sources and residents said.

The residents had complained to the local authorities that the building was unsafe and the authorities had ordered the removal of the fifth floor and other structural changes, they added. But the orders was not implemented, they said.

Thirty-six people in six households lived in the buidling but some of them were not at home at the time, they said.

100 SOUTH AFRICANS IN HEALTH WATCH

More than 100 people in South Africa are under medical observation after coming into contact with people who died from suspected haemorrhagic fever. Doctors have tried to calm fears that the disease could spread throughout the wider population in Johannesburg.

The initial patient was a woman from Zambia who died in mid-September, two days after arriving in South Africa. A paramedic who accompanied her and a nurse who treated her have also since died with similar symptoms.

These included fever, nausea and external bleeding, which indicts that is a haemorrhagic fever, but a definitive diagnosis is yet to be made. “The public at large are not at risk,” South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper quotes intensive care specialist professor Guy Richards as saying.

Those under observation will have their temperatures monitored every six hours for the next 21 days. Meanwhile, the UN World Health Organization has been brought in to help health authorities, the South African Press Association reports.

“We are helping with the investigation to identify the cause of the disease and have flown in two experts,” WHO spokesperson Dr James Mwanzia said. He said the world health body was also working with the Zambian authorities.

Ebola and a few other haemorrhagic fevers have been responsible for a tiny number of deaths compared to Aids in Africa.

But the devastating speed at which they strike, and the far higher possibility of transmission from human to human have made the thought of a major outbreak a terrifying prospect.

Zambian health ministry official Simon Miti told the Mail and Guardian that no other cases had been reported in Zambia

SOURCED FROM BBC

KENYA DENIES TANKS EVIDENCE

A Kenyan minister has denied BBC reports that the tanks seized by Somali pirates were bound for South Sudan. According to the cargo’s manifest, obtained by the BBC, the contract included the phrase “GOSS”, widely used to mean the Government Of South Sudan.

But Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said it meant General Ordinance Supplies and Security and that this was a code for the department of defence.

The Ukrainian ship carrying the tanks is still moored off the Somali coast. The MV Faina is surrounded by warships from the US, Russia and other countries.

Last week, the Somali government said the ship’s owners were involved in direct negotiations with the pirates, who are demanding a $20m (£11m) ransom. Kenya has always insisted that the military hardware was destined for its army but refused to comment on the BBC evidence on Tuesday.

But various military and diplomatic sources say it was being passed on to South Sudan. They told the BBC on Tuesday that the GOSS in the contract did indeed mean Government Of South Sudan.

The BBC’s Karen Allen in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, says that although the import of military hardware to Sudan is not illegal, if the weapons were being passed on, it would put Kenya in a tight spot diplomatically as Kenya helped broker an end to the civil war between South Sudan and the government in Khartoum in 2005.

But Francis Nazario, head of South Sudan’s mission in Brussels, said he had seen the manifest and it did not prove anything.

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EGYPTIAN KILLED FOR CONVERTING WIFE TO ISLAM

Egypt’s occasionally fragile sectarian ties have been shaken by the murder of a Muslim whose wife converted to Islam against her Christian family’s wishes. Police said Mariam Khilla’s brother, Rami, broke into their Cairo home and opened fire, killing her husband and injuring Mrs Khilla and their daughter.

Mr Khilla had been searching for Mariam ever since she left home to marry Ahmed Saleh about two years ago, police said. Muslim-Christian friction is unusual in Egypt but sometimes leads to violence.

Clashes are usually triggered by disputes over land, religious buildings or inter-marriage, correspondents say.

Police said Mariam Khilla and baby daughter Nora were critically wounded in the attack which took place overnight on Monday.

They are searching for Mr Khilla and his uncle who is alleged to have taken part in the attack.

Police sources said he had urged the couple to divorce and for Mrs Khilla to return to Christianity, but they had refused.

The killing came less than a week after a Christian man was killed in sectarian clashes in southern Egypt after a Muslim man was accused of flirting with a Christian girl.

Egyptian Christians – known as Copts – are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, making up an estimated 10% percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million.

SOURCED FROM BBC

MBEKI’S ALLY WARNS OF AN ANC SPLIT

Former South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has warned that some members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) may leave the party.

Lekota who stopped just short of announcing the formation of a new party said the split in the ANC is a result of a lack of expression in the African national congress.”This will please those members of the ANC who are dissatisfied” he said, announcing a conference in the next few weeks where a decision may be taken to split from the ANC.

Mr Lekota is a close ally of former President Thabo Mbeki who was forced to step down last month. General elections are due in South Africa in the first half of next year.

The governing party is divided between supporters of Mr Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, who won party elections last year. The position of former President Thabo Mbeki is unknown since both the splinter group and the ANC are currently seeking Mr Mbeki’s support

Mr Lekota, also known as “Terror” because of his prowess on the football field, is a former ANC chairman. “We hope that sense may still prevail in us… If not, there’s no going back,” he warned, Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

Last week, Mr Lekota wrote an open letter, in which he accused the new ANC leadership of damaging democracy. Transport Minister Jeff Radebe responded by saying Mr Lekota and those who supported him were free to leave the party.

Mr Mbeki stood down after a judge suggested he may have interfered in the prosecution of Mr Zuma on corruption charges

SOURCED FROM BBC