On Monday I wrote about the swine flu and how it could affect markets. I also wrote about it for Taipan Insider that was released to subscribers yesterday.

But I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this BBC News article, “Egypt slaughters pigs to stop flu.”

Egypt has between 250,000 and 400,000 pigs, and the mass slaughter are eliminating them by the thousand.

There has been 159 deaths associated with swine flue but all of them have been in Mexico, with the first U.S. death coming today with a child in Texas.

There have been two confirmed cases of Swine flu in Israel, but there has been not confirmed connection to pigs in Egypt. The country has a right to be cautious. Twenty-two people died in a bird flu outbreak in the country between 2004 and 2008.

But slaughtering all the pigs is quite over-the-top. There have been no cases of swine flu found in anyone in Egypt.

Can you imagine how much money would be lost if all economic activity was halted in Mexico City?

Mexico City is home to some 20 million people, and right now, it’s the epicenter of a swine flu outbreak that has countries all over the world ready to cut off access to the country and its pork industry.

At least 1,614 people in Mexico have been infected by the virus, and an estimated 103 have died, though at last count only 20 of them have been confirmed swine-flu deaths. But the Mexican government is taking no chances, and schools are closed until May 6, and even the bars and night clubs in the popular resort town of Puerto Vallarta have been ordered to close.

Mexico City might even halt all economic activity of the outbreak is not contained.

The airline and pork industries have been hit pretty hard, too, so traders and investors alike might want to keep an eye on these two industries as this story develops.

This is no surprise to anyone… Not even the other parties who were really fighting for second place.

Jacob Zuma, the scandalized president of the African National Congress, will be the next president of South Africa. The ANC itself has won its two-thirds majority, and the count keeps rising. Zuma predicts the party will win 70% of the seats in Parliament.

That’s more than enough to be able to change the constitution.

The ANC is ahead in eight of the nine provinces. It might lose the Western Cape, were Cape Town is located, and is the stronghold of the Democratic Alliance party that won about 16% of the vote.

COPE, the ANC branch-off party that split over the treatment of Thabo Mbeki, won just under 8% of the vote.

Now the ANC is celebrating, dancing on stages and waiting for May when the new Parliament and president take power.

Then it’ll be on to the real task of governing and fulfilling of campaign promises. There’s a lot of work to do… The country’s still staring at soaring poverty and unemployment levels, and the poor are counting on Zuma to make good on his promises.

I just spoke to Gareth Stokes, editor with MoneyWeek SA, who I interviewed for my latest investment report and video. It’s election day in South Africa, and I wanted an on-the-ground report about how things were going. Here’s Gareth’s take on the day so far…

It’s 18:15 and the voting is well underway. Voting stations opened at 07:00 and will close at 21:00 so there’s still quite a way to go. I drove by some of the local stations and the queues are long; but everything is proceeding peacefully. Took me two hours from beginning to end to cast my votes. Counting begins after 9pm and we will probably have a good indication of the final results within 48 hours. Pre-election polls (not as accurate as those used in the US) forecast 67% for the ruling party (African National Congress) and around 13% for the next biggest party, the Democratic Alliance. Incidentally there are 26 parties on the national ballot - of which eight are expected to secure 99% of the vote (meaning the other 18 share 1% and are pretty much non-entities).
 
Electoral officials expect more than 80% of the 23m registered voters to make their mark.
 
What else can I say - it’s been a very quiet and uneventful day. There was a crime related shooting at a rural voting station early this morning (one of the electoral officers was wounded in an attempted robbery) and there have been one or two claims of ballot fixing (involving 100 ballot papers)…

I’ll post again tomorrow if there are any results… And I have more to share in Taipan Insider tomorrow.