Durban

President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday that the key to fighting poverty and creating jobs was the participation of all South Africans in the process. Launching the election manifesto of the African National Congress (ANC) at Durban City Hall on Saturday night, Mbeki said the document was about attending to the unskilled workers.

Two men believed to be involved in an international human organ trafficking network were arrested in Durban on Wednesday. Spokesperson Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said the men, both of Israeli descent, were in custody following their arrest.

Battles in the African National Congress are typically fought underground. They smoulder along the seams of the party, occasionally showing above the surface in seemingly isolated outbursts from the party’s more incendiary factions, like the ANC Youth League or Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein dismissed on Friday a businessman’s attempt to evade debt repayment through claiming an illegal name change by his bank. The Appeal judge found the argument ‘superficially attractive’, but not surviving ‘the test of the facts or the law’.

The involvement of local communities in the management of protected areas has found expression on Wednesday in the ratification of the Durban Accord at the World Parks Congress — but a conservationist has said it is an example of ”false beliefs and common mistakes rife in conservation”.

The international community needs to provide financial and technical help for Africa’s protected areas, the World Parks Congress has recommended. It says one of the most important environmental challenges facing the continent is the need to reconcile development needs with management of its natural resources.

The failure of some governments to regulate the activities of their fishing fleets in international waters means new ways must be found to manage and protect the biological diversity of the high seas, a coalition of marine participants said on Tuesday at the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban.

An agreement aimed at strengthening the protection of the world’s thousands of migratory species has been signed by the World Conservation Union and the Convention on Migratory Species at the World Parks Congress in Durban. These species include South Africa’s elephant population.

The government is hoping the introduction of a ”tax break” into draft property-rating legislation will increase the area of land under conservation in South Africa, journalists at the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban heard on Tuesday.

Natural resources and biological diversity are a priceless heritage the world can ill afford to lose, President Thabo Mbeki said on Monday, speaking at the opening of the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban.

The skeletons of another four supposed victims of a Durban serial killer were found over the weekend, a police spokesperson reported on Sunday.

New evidence of interference in the selection process for South Africa’s controversial arms deal has emerged from documents recently obtained under access to information legislation.

The leadership of South Africa’s Catholic Church on Wednesday welcomed the government’s undertaking to mount an anti-retroviral HIV/Aids treatment programme, but warned that logistical problems should not slow down the programme’s roll-out.

The glaring absence of President Thabo Mbeki from the first South African Aids Conference, and the health minister’s ongoing sidelining of science in favour of politics, took much of the gloss off the conference’s undoubted achievements.

Confusion still reigns over the degree of government commitment to providing treatment for rape survivors. And where such treatment exists it remains difficult to access.