Tanzania: Lack of Cash Hits Building Sector Hard - The building, construction and real estate industry in the country lags behind in attracting finances from the banking sector. [AA Construction]

Angola: Luanda Counts On Five New Health Centres in May - Luanda will get this month five new health centres under a rehabilitation programme of the local government to spread the sanitary network to the surroundings of the capital city, meant to improve medical assistance, ANGOP has learnt. [AA Construction]

Zimbabwe: WCCE Urges Construction Industry to Shun Corruption - THE World Council of Civil Engineers (WCCE) has warned industry players in the construction industry to shun corruption, which has emerged as one of the biggest obstacles to the country's economic turnaround. [AA Construction]

Winners of 2010 design competition to be announced - By Nthambeleni Gabara
Cape Town - The City of Cape Town will on Thursday announce the winners of its 2010 Green Goal Mouille Point Student Landscape Design Competition.
As a one of the host cities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the city will announce the winners of the competition on Thursday at the Cape Town Hotel.
This is the first ever student competition in Cape Town, linked to the Green Goal programme of the forthcoming world cup.

South Africa: PPC to Raise Cement Prices Again in July - SA's largest cement maker, Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), said yesterday it would hike the price of the building material for the second time this year as manufacturers feel the squeeze of higher input costs. [AA Construction]

New York - The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance following the deadly cyclone which struck Myanmar a few days ago could number in the hundreds of thousands, according to the United Nations which is mobilising aid in the wake of the disaster.

Cyclone Nargis, which swept through Irrawaddy delta region on Friday, left thousands of people dead in its wake and hundreds of thousands without shelter.

With winds of over 190 kilometres per hour, the storm, which hit Yangon later that same night, tore down trees and power lines and caused widespread flooding.

Myanmar authorities have declared five regions - Yangon, Ayeyarwwady, Bago, Mon and Kayin disaster areas.

The population of the declared disaster areas is estimated at 24 million, with an estimated six million in Yangon.

More than 3 000 people are reportedly missing in Ayeyarwady Division alone.

"Unfortunately, we cannot tell you how many people are in need of assistance," Rashid Khalikov, Director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York, told reporters. "But it is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands."

Mr Khalikov said the Myanmar Government has said it will receive international aid, and that assistance is "ready to go in."

He hoped the Government will ease visa regulations in order to speed up the delivery of vital relief supplies, stressing that "this is a critical moment for the affected populations."

In addition, he appealed to the international community to support the relief effort that is unfolding, and added that the UN Country Team in Myanmar is drafting a flash appeal to be launched later this week.

MALI: Urbanisation fuelling begging on streets of capital - BAMAKO Tuesday, January 22, 2008 (IRIN) - Financial collapse after a seven year illness and the loss of his family led Madou Traoere, 35, to flee his village of Sinzani in north eastern Mali to find a better life in the capital Bamako, but ever since he arrived seven years ago he has been living on the streets begging for scraps and small change. [IRIN News]

EGYPT: Living in a cemetery (video) - CAIRO Wednesday, February 06, 2008 (IRIN) - This video short looks at how up to a million poor people have made one of the biggest burial grounds in Egypt their home. Dubbed ‘the City of the Dead’ and located on the outskirts of the capital, Cairo, many of the families who live there migrated from rural areas in search of work. [IRIN News]