Seven people have been reported dead and about 25 were seriously injured following severe flooding in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, Accra Regional Police Commander Kwame Marfo said on Thursday. Damage to property and infrastructure has been estimated at about seven billion cedi (US $ 1million). Over 5,000 people are reportedly homeless.

Ghanaian journalists must be getting ready to celebrate. Criminal Libel will go, and it will be in style, for the NDC would support the Criminal Libel Law Amendment Bill when it is brought before the House for consideration.

Ghana's minister of defence, Addo Kufuor, has inaugurated a special committee to work out modalities for setting up a national emergency response unit, 'Accra Mail' newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing an official statement. The committee headed by Deputy Minister of Defence Edward Martey Akita is charged with identifying resources, including personnel and equipment, required to set up the unit. The unit will manage disasters around the country and will comprise doctors, nurses, paramedics, army paratroopers, firefighters and divers. This will enable the unit respond effectively to road, rail and aviation emergencies as well as disasters such as oil spills, floods, earthquakes or even communal conflicts, the report said.

UNDP Country Office in Ghana found the editorial note on Study Urges Overhaul of UN, IMF, World Bank very interesting, posted on KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER 20. We would like to know what is the full title of the study and, if possible, we would like to get a copy of the study. Do you have any detailed information regarding the study? We visit the web-site you stated in the newsletter, but unfortunately, we have to say that it does not have a 'user-friendly' design, listing just code of file names, and we have no clue which is the said document.

OUR RESPONSE: Thank you for pointing out the problem with that link. Unfortunately the internet is a constantly changing place and a link that works today may not work tomorrow! Please get in touch with Eberhard Wenzel, Griffith University, Australia ([email protected]) who supplied the material.

As the taste of wine improves with age, for the record number of thirty-nine exhibitors, one hundred and fifty conference delegates drawn from the Liberia, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, South Africa, UK, USA and over seven thousand visitors who made it to the 5th West Africa Computing, Telecomms & Broadcasting Expo, (AITEC 2001) business couldn't have been better.

A British scientist has been banned from Bui National Park in Ghana, which is due to be flooded by a hydroelectric dam on the Black Volta River. University of Aberdeen zoologist Daniel Bennett says he is the only living scientist to have conducted biological research in the 1,800 square kilometer (700 square mile) reserve, which he says contains, "the last pristine wilderness in the entire Volta System."

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) March 14, 2001 Ghana's Food and Drugs Board (FDB) on Wednesday said research has shown that "Always Sanitary Pads" used by women are not infected with the HIV/AIDS as claimed by a story circulated on the Internet.