Despite the massive growth in broadband connectivity, the number of South Africans with access to the internet will grow by little more than 3% in 2007. A report shows that 3,85-million people in South Africa — a mere 8% of the population — will have access to the internet by the end of 2007.
Residents and businesses in the Amathole district in the Eastern Cape will enjoy high-speed internet access as well as free voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone calls within the network by the middle of this year. This is thanks to a new project to roll out WiMAX broadband services in the district.
The United Nations world conference on small arms has collapsed without agreement — despite the majority of governments, including the European Union and many African and Latin American governments, backing tougher controls on the international trade in small arms and light weapons, Oxfam Great Britain said on Monday.
Iraqi assassins are being asked to take aim at hundreds of intellectuals whose names appear on a hit list circulating in the country by an unknown group, according to media reports. The list’s existence suggests that the ongoing assassination of Iraqi academics is more organised and systematic than previously thought.
The Kyoto Protocol will cut the developing world’s greenhouse-gas emissions — implicated in runaway global warming — by at least one billion tonnes by the end of 2012, according to the United Nations. Projects planned under the Clean Development Mechanism have reached the one-billion milestone.
A new JavaScript worm has been identified that exploits an unpatched vulnerability in Yahoo! web mail. The worm, JS.Yamanner@m, spreads from person to person when the user opens an e-mail that is originally sent by the worm. The worm then sends itself to the user’s contacts that also use Yahoo! Mail.
Medicines to treat common diseases in poorer countries tend to be old and are often ineffective. But the pharmaceutical industry has little incentive to research new drugs: patients in developing countries can’t afford them. All that may change, as ”needs-driven” research on diseases that afflict developing countries gathers momentum.