Barely three weeks since spraying of the controversial insecticide DDT to control malaria started in Uganda, the dispute between the government and exporters of organic products is re-emerging, this time over "irregularities" in executing the exercise.

Kenya will lose its preferential treatment in non-agricultural market access in the ongoing World Trade Organisation negotiations, a Nairobi-based research institute says.

A tactical manoeuvre by Pakistan into bilateral free trade arrangements with several Asian neighbours is threatening to throw its multi-billion shilling-a-year-tea trade with Kenya into a spin.

A toll-free mobile service being launched in selected remote areas in Africa promises to save lives by connecting people with emergency medical cases to health personnel.

Tea prices are headed for a record high following a historical drop in Kenya's production, reduced supplies at the Mombasa tea auction and a rise in international market prices.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) have launched a Ksh3 billion ($47.6 million) credit line for Kenyan farmers.

Wholesale prices, especially for maize, are expected to rise still more around East Africa as the national stock position gets tighter in Kenya and Tanzania, according to the Regional Agricultural Trade Intelligence Network (Ratin).

Conservationists say that the offer by Indian industrial giant Tata Chemicals to move a proposed soda-ash plant 35 kilometres away from Lake Natron in northern Tanzania will still devastate flamingo numbers on the lake.

Dozens of local and foreign suitors are lining up to buy a stake in Uchumi Supermarkets, barely two years after the listed chain closed its doors and asked for statutory management.

The Tanzania government is reviewing two huge infrastructure management contracts that formed key planks of its privatisation programme.

A fortnight after Kenya's Equity Bank announced plans to acquire Uganda's largest lender, Uganda Microfinance Ltd, the bank has reported that earnings for for the first quarter of 2008, grew by 81 percent, pushing its liquidity ratio to 74 per cent.

Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya's recent call for debt cancellation calls for more serious analysis than many have accorded it.

The technological advances in computing and other forms of telecommunication have for long been touted as the "enablers" we need to create wealth.

Disagreements have arisen at the Mombasa Town Hall over the cancellation of a parking services contract run by a private company.

We at the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) have read with interest Mr Cabral Pinto's article in your newspaper calling for fundamental reforms in Kenya's labour movement.

Kenya Commercial Bank shareholders on Friday allowed the company to do a Sh5 billion rights issue to raise cash for its expansion.

The government has said it will not let PanPaper Mills collapse even as it announced that the debt-ridden company incurred a loss of Sh320 million during the post-election violence. "The Government of Kenya and its other principal shareholders are solidly behind Panpaper and are committed to its turnaround and growth," Finance minister, Mr Amos Kimunya, said in a statement.

Hapless investors are now taking their stock market frustrations to annual general meetings in what is clearly lack of confidence with the current trends at the capital market.

AAR Health Services has recorded a 34 per cent growth in sales volume for the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2007.

Residents of Singila and Majengo in Taita district could be compensated for economic and socio-cultural losses by a local sisal company if a report released last week is adopted by the government.

Kenyan nurses will be paid Sh10,000 uniform allowance in two months' time.

Shipping stakeholders have dismissed the proposed increase on storage tariffs for containers at the Dar es Salaam port as 'unjustified.'. The Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) recently proposed to raise storage tariffs by 50 per cent in a bid to ease congestion at the port.

The Government will soon start paying pensions directly through national security funds to expedite the process, a senior official said yesterday. Finance and Economic Affairs deputy minister Omar Yussuf Mzee said by August this year, his ministry, which is currently responsible for paying pensions through the Treasury, would leave the task to the respective Funds.

Tanzania is in the process of improving its hides and skins production in order to improve quality and earnings from the sector.

East and Southern African countries are to build regional cross-border alliances to strengthen innovative market institutions and link food insecure smallholder farmers with national and regional markets for staple foods.