GHANA

Ghana will seek to boost revenues from its mining industry next year by hiking taxes, according to a text of the 2012 budget delivered to parliament on Wednesday.

Ghana will increase its corporate tax rate for mining companies to 35 percent from 25 percent, and will collect a 10 percent windfall profit tax from miners, according to a text of the 2012 budget delivered to parliament on Wednesday.

Bollore plans to invest 18 billion CFA francs in Abidjan port by 2013 to make it the region's key sea hub, the French logistics and transport group's Africa chief said.

Nigeria plans to change the base year for its gross domestic product (GDP) to 2008 from 1990, a move that could lead to a huge jump in the estimated size of Africa's second biggest economy, the national statistics chief said on Thursday.

Gold Fields Ltd.'s third-quarter profit tripled from the year-earlier quarter as surging gold prices and enhanced efficiency offset higher operating costs, the world's fourth-largest gold miner reported Thursday.

Miss Venezuela Ivian Sarcos, 22, was crowned the Miss World 2011 beauty pageant on Sunday at Earls Court in London.

Ivian Lunasol Sarcos Colmenares, Miss Venezuela 2011, has been crowned Miss World 2011, on Saturday night, at Earl's Court in London. The 21-year-old, who was the favorite going into the final rounds, beat out contestants from over 100 other countries to win the title.

Find out the best places to score both an amazing piece of art and a great deal on every continent!

The Top 10 Beauty with a Purpose finalists are: Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines, Scotland, South Africa, Spain and Zimbabwe.

Researchers found dangerous levels of metals - iron, magnesium, copper, zinc, cadmium, chromium, nickel and lead - across Accra removed from the Agbogbloshie scrap yard where residents burn away plastic to extract metals.

According to reports, of the 54 nations of the Commonwealth, three-fourths (41) have laws which ban homosexuality.

Shares of Newmont Mining Corp., the world's second-largest gold miner, fell Friday after its third-quarter profit slipped eight percent on markdowns of two recently acquired companies.

The International Monetary Fund told officials of Ghana, Africa's second-largest gold producer, that they should consider hiking taxes on the mining sector to boost revenue.

Ghana, Africa's second biggest gold producer, should look at options to increase tax revenues from its mining sector, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

The Ghana cedi continues to extend gains made late last week and could pursue the upward trend if the central bank and mining sector keep supplying the market with dollars, traders said.

The International Monetary Fund hailed the medium-term outlook for Ghana's oil-fueled economy as positive on Monday, but warned it would have to rein in public finances to keep the public deficit under control.

A new vaccine cuts children's chances of contracting malaria in half, according to a major clinical trial sub-Saharan Africa. It is the first successful malaria vaccine and could be an indispensable tool in the fight to eradicate the disease.

An experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline halved the risk of African children getting malaria in a major clinical trial, making it likely to become the world's first shot against the deadly disease.

Guinness Ghana plans to boost its pretax profit in the 2011/2012 financial year by 30 pct on the back of a recovery in the West African nation's beer market, the company's finance director said on Monday.

Ivory Coast's government has ended consultations with cocoa exporters and farmers on planned reforms to the sector that will guarantee its hundreds of thousands of smallholders a minimum selling price, officials said on Thursday.

New findings by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) reveals that if preventive measures are not taken, the annual temperature increases and changing rainfall patterns would most likely hamper crop production efforts in West Africa, which currently supplies half of the world's cocoa produce.