🇲🇺 98 medicines out of stock as pharmacy prices climb again

98 medicines out of stock as pharmacy prices climb again

Sharon watched one of her regular medicines, a Pelargonium sidoides remedy, climb from Rs 242 to Rs 314 in just two months. She is not the only one, the ministry's own price surveys show the same march across the shelves: Telma 40MG went from Rs 108.20 in June to Rs 170.28 in August, while Candesan 16MG rose from Rs 641.97 to Rs 696.09 over the same stretch.

The shelves tell another story too. Around 98 medicines are out of stock right now. Importers and pharmacists blame freight that now costs roughly twice what it did, a rupee that keeps sliding against the dollar and the euro, and a shortage of hard currency to pay overseas suppliers on time.

For patients that means two errands where there used to be one: track down the pill, then find the money for it. Import rules sit on top of all that, so the real fix is not a shipping schedule, it is who gets scarce foreign currency first.

Residents fume as the Flic-en-Flac bypass changes course

A Cabinet communiqué dated 11 September quietly shifted a 3.1 km link road from Avenue du Radar to Avenue Crécerelle, and homeowners along Crécerelle, Dahlia and Canaris streets say they learned of it only once diggers were nearly finished. Part of a nature reserve has already been cleared.

Officials say the new alignment keeps the accessibility gains without the old route's headaches. Residents call that fallacious, pointing to the timing and to the pull of a few connected locals. Too late, they say.

Use the land or lose it, Boolell tells beneficiaries

Farmland comes with strings, Minister Arvin Boolell reminded beneficiaries this week. His ministry has handed out close to 675 arpents with financing and technical help attached, yet officers who visited one plot found it still untouched more than a year after the handover.

Boolell gave that holder six months, and warned the State will reclaim the land if the plot stays idle for two more months. The rule applies to everyone on the list. Use it or lose it.

FCC digs in to keep its laundering charge on Luchoo

The Financial Crimes Commission (FCC) is fighting a bid to throw out a provisional charge of money laundering against Avinash Luchoo. To press its case, the FCC points to Rs 967,000 that moved through an account in a single day, deposited by a figure it calls Poum.

Tighter checks are coming for your daily bread

How safe is the loaf on your table? After the consumer group ACIM flagged the quality of regulated bread, the Commerce ministry says it will step up inspections at bakeries and points of sale. Bread is price-controlled here, so quality is the one thing shoppers cannot vote on with their feet.

Shorts

Fuel's first India cargo lands Wednesday – The first Indian Oil cargo docks Wednesday as the pricing committee weighs a 10% pump hike.

Direct Uzbekistan flights start in December – Tashkent and Port Louis are opening a direct air link in December to lift trade and tourism.

Curumthaullee takes the Autonexx rally – Bin Ali Curumthaullee won the Autonexx Trophy across two legs from Chamarel to Pavé Citron.

Port goes digital with a single window – Mauritius's ports authority has launched a Maritime Single Window to speed cargo clearances.

Apple TV and Arcade join iCloud+ here – iCloud+ users in Mauritius now get Apple TV and Apple Arcade at no extra cost.

Rs 3 billion

Poultry firm Avipro turned 60 and unveiled an investment programme of that scale to expand local production.

3,699

That is the death toll so far in DR Congo's Ebola outbreak, now past 7,600 cases across 63 health zones, with a fatality rate near 48%.

$2.5 million

The United States is returning that sum to The Gambia, money from the sale of a mansion once owned by former president Yahya Jammeh.

Seychelles orders an inquiry after two coast guards vanish

President Herminie has ordered a commission of inquiry into the sea operation last week that left two Seychelles coast guards missing off Mahé, an incident that drew support from Mauritius when the men first disappeared.

Search teams have not found them. What the probe says about safety at sea will matter well beyond Seychelles.

UK charges a first suspect over the Rwanda genocide

A British man appeared in a London court on the UK's first charges tied to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, the 100-day killing of some 800,000 people.

DR Congo to probe a protester's death at a rally

DR Congo says it will investigate a protester's death at a march against a possible third term for President Tshisekedi.

Trump tells the UN: a deal with Iran or 'annihilate' it

In a combative address to the United Nations, US President Donald Trump said he must soon choose between striking a deal with Iran or moving to annihilate it.

President Trump also turned his fire on the International Criminal Court (ICC), the tribunal that prosecutes war crimes. Applause, then unease.

For oil importers like Mauritius, the threat alone is enough to keep fuel bills jumpy.

Oil slips below $100 as supply fears ease

Oil fell below $100 a barrel, a two-week low, after Saudi Arabia moved to restart a pipeline and hopes grew for Iran diplomacy.

Eighteen face a US court over Moïse's killing

Eighteen men now in United States custody appeared in court over the 2021 assassination of Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse.

Millions of slavery records, Mauritius included, go online

Nearly four million records of people enslaved across 20 former British colonies are now searchable online for the first time. Mauritius is on that list, beside Jamaica, Barbados and the Cape.

The 300,000 pages come from registers kept between 1813 and 1840, digitised by Ancestry and a University College London centre. For many descendants, a name and an age is where a family story starts.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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