Energy targets are the only outstanding area of disagreement among negotiators at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, a source told Sapa on Monday.
All other sticking points — including sanitation targets, the Rio principles, governance issues, and trade and finance — had been agreed to, the source said.
Negotiations were set to resume at 11am.
”It went well,” the source said.
No other details were immediately available.
Meanwhile, world leaders arrived at the Sandton Convention Centre on Monday for the final three day session.
They were met by South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, and his wife Zanele, alongside United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his wife Nane, and a wall of photographers.
Outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson was one of the first dignatories to arrive, and soon the VIPs began the procession in a steady stream on a bright red carpet laid out through the foyer of the building.
Among those to arrive by soon after 8am included the prime minister of Iceland, David Oddsson, Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi and Prince Albert of Monaco.
The heads of state and government section of the World Summit on Sustainable Development was scheduled to begin at 9am, with speeches by Mbeki, Annan, and Han Seung-Soo, president of the 56th session of the UN General Assembly, followed by short statements from other countries.
The president of Indonesia, Megawati Soekarnoputri, was to speak first, followed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Denmark’s prime minister and current European Union president, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, the United Kingdom’s Tony Blair and French president Jacques Chirac would address the assembly later in the morning, but all eyes will be on Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe when he gets his five minute slot between 4pm and 5pm.
The southern African country has captured headlines and evoked the wrath of Western leaders for Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme that has seen scores of white farmers evicted from farms to make way for black settlers. – Sapa