GHANA

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.

Ghana is in talks with gold miners in the country, Africa's second-biggest producer, over additional taxes so as to benefit from the soaring price of the precious metal, the government said on Tuesday.

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women on Friday for their collective nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.

Australian gold miner Resolute Mining said it made a 700,000-ounce gold discovery at its Tabacoroni joint venture with Etruscan Resources that would boost output from its Syama mine in Mali by about 100,000 ounces a year.

Ghana is likely to miss its target of boosting oil production to 120,000 barrels per day by the end of the year due to technical challenges, the head of state oil company GNPC said on Thursday, marking a second delay.

High in the hills of Congo's troubled northeast, a modern mine is ready to pour gold for the first time in five decades.

Top world cocoa grower Ivory Coast has ramped up border security and warned cocoa dealers they could be prosecuted if they are caught smuggling beans to neighbouring countries, farmers and a government source said on Wednesday.

Reports suggest England manager Fabio Capello is considering pairing Manchester United duo of Wayne Rooney and Danny Welbeck in their key Euro Qualifier against Montenegro on Friday.

Thousands of people Saturday gathered in Georgia, U.S. for the funeral of Troy Davis, who was executed on Sep. 21 for the 1989 killing of Mark Allen MacPhail, 27, an off-duty Savannah police officer.

A look at the friendly match in Belem.

Canadian gold mining company Banro will start producing gold at its Democratic Republic of Congo mine on Oct. 10, ramping up output to 120,000 ounces per year by January, the company said on Wednesday.