Briefly

KENYA

Finance minister resigns amid scandal

NAIROBI — Finance Minister David Mwiraria, 67, resigned yesterday, saying he had been wrongly linked to a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal that has rocked the government and infuriated Western donors.

The friend of President Mwai Kibaki — who has run East Africa’s largest economy for the past three years — is the first official to step down over revelations about the “Anglo Leasing” scam in which contracts went to a phantom firm.

“In order that my name be cleared and to protect the integrity of the president, the government and our country Kenya, I hereby voluntarily step aside,” Mr. Mwiraria said in a letter to Mr. Kibaki that he read to reporters. Mr. Mwiraria is one of four senior figures accused in recent days by Kenya’s former top corruption fighter, John Githongo.

Documents he released in Britain, where he lives after resigning and leaving Kenya last year, link the four and various junior officials to tenders worth about $200 million, Kenyan press reported. Mr. Mwiraria, who has been credited with overseeing a turnaround in the economy after decades of decline, was accused of knowing about some of the contracts and participating in a cover-up.

BOTSWANA

Rain patterns predict malaria

PARIS — Major outbreaks of malaria can be predicted months in advance by a look at the weather, said a study published in today’s edition of Nature, the British science weekly.

Forecasters built a computer model of Botswana’s rainfall patterns and factored in the life cycle of the mosquito, which carries the parasite that causes malaria. The model successfully predicted local epidemics of malaria from 1982 to 2002, with a lead time of up to five months.

Epidemics of malaria typically are triggered after heavy rainfall that creates puddles in which mosquitoes breed. These outbreaks account for a small percentage for the estimated 500 million malaria cases that occur each year. Endemic malaria — which occurs at a constant rate rather than a sudden surge of infections — accounts for the rest.

SOUTH AFRICA

Sex-ed teacher propositioned girls

JOHANNESBURG — A sex-education teacher has been sentenced to three years of probation after propositioning female students by asking to sign their bottoms, a newspaper reported yesterday.

The Port Elizabeth Herald said Mafa Chauke also was ordered to attend a rehabilitation program, but was acquitted of more serious charges that could have brought a prison sentence.

The Herald said Chauke, 34, started making indecent suggestions to female students ages 12 to 13 after starting work at a high school in 2002. Human-rights groups criticized what they called the leniency of the sentence. Sex abuse in schools is a frequently highlighted problem in South Africa.

Weekly notes …

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has postponed a trip to Africa because of the uproar over the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. He had been scheduled to leave Monday for a visit to Liberia, Ivory Coast and Mali, but the trip will take place at a later, unspecified, date, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. … Portugal and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates plan to set up a partnership to help former Portuguese colonies in Africa, Prime Minister Jose Socrates said in Lisbon yesterday. Portugal’s five former African colonies — Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and the archipelagos of Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe — are among the continent’s poorest.

From wire dispatches and staff reports