MISCELLANY

The Zanzibar House of Representatives has passed unanimously a Bill that gives the Isles their own flag. The flag will not be hoisted however at the UN, African Union, East African Community, Commonwealth or other international forums where Zanzibar is not recognized as a sovereign state. Despite their support for the Bill, opposition MP’s maintained their dissatisfaction with the Union flag being superimposed on the Zanzibar flag. Colours of the new flag are black, dark blue, green, gold and light blue. Contempt for the flag carries a five-year jail term or a fine not exceeding TShs 700,000 or both – Guardian

Dar es Salaam’s Inter Consult Limited, whose chairman is Britain Tanzanian Society committee member Dr. Strato Mosha, has been awarded the ‘Golden Europe Award for Quality and Commercial Prestige.’ The Paris-based firm, ‘International Research and Consultancy’, issues the award to distinguish firms from any country in the world that devote their efforts to the development and enhancement of quality and modern technology. Inter Consult Limited has, over the last 26 years, handled 400 projects and has neither faced litigation nor left a project uncompleted – Guardian.

Defence Minister, Prof. Sarungi, has said that the Government would not send peacekeeping troops to Darfur, Sudan as asked by the UN and AU unless certain conditions were met. Peace had first to be established there and Tanzania had to be assured as to who was going to pick up the TShs 2.0 billion bill if troops were to be sent – Uhuru.
It is reported that wildlife scientists are investigating a severe tick born infectious ear disease (Otitis media) that is reported to have affected up to 30% of an estimated 300 giraffes in Mikumi National Park. Research workers think that there could be other causes – a high giraffe population, decreased browsing material, animal stress, low predator population or high tick density. Although all immobilised animals have recovered following treatment with antibiotics, other researchers say that the capture of giraffes for treatment was costly in terms of manpower, drugs and equipment, let alone the risks involved for both personnel and animals – East African.
The acute shortage of burial space in Dar es Salaam has reached monumental levels as desperate residents are forced to excavate congested graves to find a place to bury their loved ones, uncovering remnants of the dead bodies in the process, according to the Express. The paper said that the increasing demand for burial places was making grave excavation a lucrative business. The situation had been aggravated by the HIV/AIDS scourge. Body cremation was not popular as it was said to be frowned on by both Catholics and Muslims.
Six people died and 42 others were seriously injured when a Kilimanjaro Express bus crashed on October 4th on its way to Dar-es-Salaam from Mbeya. The accident, the second in hardly more than a week involving the same bus company, occurred at around 1:00pm on the slopes of Kitonga Escarpment on the Tanzania Zambia Highway, in Iringa Region – Guardian.

The Oldonyo Lengai Mountain in northern Tanzania has been selected as a potential candidate in the world-wide race to establish international centres for conservation of geological heritages. Speaking at Elengasero Village near Oldonyo Lengai, Prof Sospeter Muhongo of the University of Dar es Salaam said a team of geoscientists from East Africa and Europe, met in Arusha for four days and decided to earmark Oldonyo Lengai Mountain as an East African geopark because it is the only active volcanic mountain that has been erupting alkaline lava. It is unique in the sense that it is not as explosive as other active volcanoes in the world. “This is the first time for me to see live eruption of a volcano without causing damaging effects to animals and people. This is a marvellous natural heritage” said a French tourism expert – Guardian.

At a ceremony organised by the U.N.’s Economic Commission for Africa in South Africa to honour African journalists who excelled in writing, the top prize of $3,000 in the category ‘Information and Communication Technology’ was awarded to John Patrick Mireny, the managing editor of Tanzania’s leading business and finance weekly paper, the Financial Times, published by the Guardian Co Ltd. His article on ‘How ICT policy harmonization could foster regional integration goals in Africa’ was said to have been ‘sharply focused, extensively researched, and had met all the expectations of the judges’

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.