The lack of progress in the Doha trade talks is a serious indictment of attempts by the developed world to increase market access for poor nations, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Friday. The World Trade Organisation negotiations stumbled in 2006 on demands for rich nations to cut farm subsidies.
Meningitis has killed about 1 670 people this year in a string of African countries despite an extensive vaccination campaign, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. The deaths amount to more than a tenth of the 15 595 cases reported in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda.
Spectators at this year’s Melbourne Grand Prix will have a new insight into Formula One race teams’ tyre strategy thanks to new rules for the 2007 season — if they can see it on a spinning tyre. Under new regulations, Bridgestone, F1’s sole tyre supplier, must provide two specifications of dry weather tyres at each round.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete on Friday said his talks with Zimbabwe’s embattled leader Robert Mugabe on Thursday were a ”great success”. Kikwete flew into Harare to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition following international outcry over the arrest and beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
President Thabo Mbeki’s ”dithering, inaction and often tacit support” are largely to blame for the current bloody shambles in Zimbabwe, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. ”Let me put this bluntly: much of the blame for the present lamentable condition of Zimbabwe must be laid at President Mbeki’s door,” he said in his weekly newsletter on Friday.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has warned the public not to eat any shellfish or lobster liver found on the West Coast, following reports of three people becoming ill after eating shellfish collected in Lamberts Bay. The problem may be a result of a toxic red tide, said the department in a statement on Friday.
The Cuban president, Fidel Castro, will be in ”perfect shape” to stand for parliament again in a year’s time, the head of the country’s national assembly has said. ”I would nominate him,” said Ricardo Alarcon told reporters on Thursday. ”I’m sure he will be in perfect shape to continue handling his responsibilities.”
Disintegrating boxes of medical waste left out in the rain and rotting waste from abattoirs dumped in ditches in the veld were among the environmental hazards discovered by the ”Green Scorpions” during a nation-wide blitz this week. Inspectors from the environmental police force this week carried out a series of countrywide enforcement inspections.
A family of four were washed away during a rain storm at the Bhambayi informal settlement in Inanda, north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), police said on Friday. Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said nobody knew exactly when the incident happened but it was during Thursday night.
Environment ministers from 13 nations responsible for most of the world’s greenhouse-gas pollution began a two-day meeting near Berlin on Friday, seeking a way forward in the global-warming crisis. The meeting at the Cecilienhof chateau gathers the Group of Eight countries and five major developing nations: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.