Nyusi wins Mozambique election race

The ruling party presidential candidate in Mozambique has won the election with about 57 percent of the vote, election officials said on Friday.

Filipe Nyusi, Mozambique’s defence minister, won the race and was followed by the leader of the main opposition party, Afonso Dhlakama, with 36 percent and Daviz Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement, a newer opposition group, with 7 percent, the National Elections Commission said.

The results from the October 15 elections in the Southern African nation must be ratified by the constitutional court, which handles electoral matters. The two opposition leaders say they reject the results, alleging irregularities. Nyusi was the candidate for Frelimo, the ruling party that fought a civil war against Dhlakama’s group, known as Renamo. The two groups signed a peace deal in 1992 and have competed against each other since then.

Tensions and sporadic violence erupted again in the past couple of years between Renamo and Frelimo supporters, but the election was largely peaceful despite the scattered allegations of vote-rigging. Observer missions said these incidents had not disrupted the election.

Nyusi was a relatively unknown figure in politics, but he won a highly contested party election thanks to the backing of outgoing President Armando Guebuza and wealthy businessmen from the recently enriched north of the country, where Nyusi was born.

The election was closely watched by foreign investors who see prospects in Mozambique’s vast energy reserves. — SAPA-AP.

ANC denies Zuma-Mantashe split

There is no rift between President Jacob Zuma and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, the party said on Friday. “The African National Congress dismisses with the contempt they deserve reports . . . claiming a ‘rift’ between ANC President, Comrade Jacob Zuma, and the secretary-general, Comrade Gwede Mantashe,” spokesman Zizi Kodwa said in a statement. “The national officials of the African National Congress function as a cohesive and principled collective in the execution of their duties at the helm of the organisation.”

The Mail & Guardian reported on Friday that Zuma had sidelined Mantashe, openly undermined him and directed cabinet ministers to defy him. The paper claimed the ANC national executive committee members it had spoken to all painted a picture of Zuma openly at odds with Mantashe.

Kodwa said if one was to analyse the country through the “fanciful headlines of the Mail & Guardian, they would be forgiven for believing the ANC, and indeed South Africa, was a faction-ridden amorphous mess in a state of perpetual crisis unable to take any decisions or provide any leadership to this country”.

“This view is devoid of any truth and a continuation of an age-old attempt to sow division and distrust within the ANC and its leadership,” Kodwa said.

He accused the publication of failing to inform the nation of the good work being done by the government but instead reporting on non-existent issues and allegations.

“It is the result of calculated acts at the whim of an opportunistic and malicious media, ignoring to tell our people genuine stories of development and progress, instead choosing made-up versions and fishing expeditions from faceless and nameless sources — gutter journalism at its best,” he added.

Kodwa questioned the motives behind the story and the people it would benefit. He said he wondered if the agenda was a sinister one of “entrenching the racist narrative of a failing state led by incapable, incompetent and self-serving Africans”.

He maintained the leadership of the party remained united and productively conducted their business of providing leadership and guidance to the different structures of the organisation.

“These determined efforts to pit comrade against comrade have dismally failed before and will no doubt fail once again. The Mail & Guardian has abandoned all principles of the SA Press Code and the very ethics of objective journalism to become a propaganda pamphlet masquerading as a newspaper,” he said.

The publication has defended the story and lambasted the party for throwing the “race card” into the argument. — SAPA.

TB Joshua to donate cash to building collapse victims

A R50 000 donation will be paid towards funeral expenses of each family of the victims of the church building collapse in Nigeria, the Synagogue Church of All Nations said on Friday.

“We have done a full audit of each family’s financial needs and assisted with various household expenses as many of the deceased were breadwinners,” spokesman Kirsten Nematandani said in a statement.

Household expenses varied from rent money to school fees and groceries, he said.

It is believed 85 people from South Africa were among those killed when a multi-storey guesthouse attached to the church, run by Nigerian preacher TB Joshua, collapsed in Lagos on September 12. On Thursday, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe announced that DNA samples of the 116 victims had arrived at a laboratory in South Africa for analysis.

The DNA process was in the hands of the Nigerian authorities, who had appointed a laboratory in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, to do the analysis. Nematandani said the church had travelled to all provinces in the past few weeks to visit, counsel and assess families’ financial needs and assist where possible.

“The church has pleaded with the Nigerian government to expedite the repatriation process in order for families to bury the deceased with dignity and receive closure,” Nematandani said. The process of repatriating the victims’ remains to South Africa could start as soon as the Nigerian authorities released the bodies, Radebe said then. A total of 85 bodies will be flown back from Lagos — 81 South Africans, as well as the bodies of three Zimbabweans and a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who were all South African passport-holders. — SAPA.

WHO speeds up Ebola vaccine development by 2015

The World Health Organisation (WHO) set out plans for speeding up development and deployment of experimental Ebola vaccines, saying hundreds of thousands of doses should be ready for use in West Africa by mid-2015.

The Geneva-based United Nations health agency confirmed that two leading vaccine candidates are in human clinical trials, and said another five experimental vaccines were also being developed and would begin clinical trials next year.

“Before the end of the first half of 2015 . . . we could have available a few hundred thousand doses. That could be 200 000, it could be less or could be more,” the WHO’s Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.

Researchers are testing two candidate vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics.

“At least five vaccines are following closely and will be in the clinic in the first months of 2015,” Kieny said. Among those is a potential shot from Johnson & Johnson, which is set to enter human trials in January.

Mali on Thursday became the sixth West African country to have a confirmed Ebola case in the worst outbreak on record of the haemorrhagic fever. The epidemic has killed almost 4 900 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“Vaccines are not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic,” Kieny, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health systems and innovation, told reporters.

Experts aim to conduct a range of different clinical trials in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to produce the first efficacy data by around April, she said.

Plans are most advanced for Liberia, where two different Ebola vaccines would be compared against a control, or placebo, vaccine.

Kieny said there was a lot of discussion during the meeting about financing, with a number of entities including the World Bank and the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) making commitments to help fund Ebola vaccine trials, distribution and deployment. . — Reuters.