Ottawa’s International Development Minister  says she’s afraid that taking such punitive action will hurt innocent people.

Tanzanian President John Magafuli’s crackdown on homosexuals has caused the EU to withdraw its ambassador to Dar es Salaam and review its $88m aid package to the East African country.

Denmark’s withholding $10 million from Tanzania and Washington has issued a travel advisory warning  of homophobia there.

Canada’s aid minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says her country’s involved in health and education projects in Tanzania she believes are making a difference.

A quarter of Canada’s aid to Tanzania goes directly to government. Most of  of the $90m directed there this year is going to multilateral projects and non governmental bodies.

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The annual report of the Bill and Melinda Gates Fund says 90% of extreme poverty on the planet exists in Africa.

The world’s second richest man has what he calls a simple plan to tackle poverty in Africa.

He says having the world invest in the health and education of the next generation of Africans will achieve this.

The Global Fund ,supported by the foundation he shares with his wife Melinda, has halved maternal deaths, halved deaths from malaria and more than halved global prpoverty.

But it still has the job of meeting the global goal endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly of wiping out extreme poverty by 2030.

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However the finance minister promises government will do what it can to save money.

South Africans face their first tax increase in two decades because the country’s swimming in debt

The nation faces its biggest budget deficit since the ANC came to power.

As its contribution, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene says government will cut the spending ceiling by one point five billion euros.

He predicts GDP growth over the next year will be only two percent – less than a third of what the country needs to create jobs and grow the economy.

South Africans had braced for higher taxes. The increase of one percent across all brackets was less than many had expected.

Nevertheless economist Okkie Kellerman says the impact will be on those who can least afford it.

The crisis in electricty supply is really hurting the economy.

Nene says some of the tariff increases are only temporary

Education, health, crime fighting and social grants get the biggest slice of the Budget in a country where 16 million people depend on government handouts for survival.

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