Geneva

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany met the top Iranian negotiator in Geneva on Wednesday in a final bid to stop Iran pressing ahead with plans to resume its uranium-conversion activities. Iranian negotiators warned that the meeting was heading for deadlock amid plans to reopen a nuclear plant in central Iran.

The number of people killed by the rare Marburg virus in Angola has passed 300, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said. By May 17, the total number of cases — mainly in the northern province of Uige — had climbed to 337, the United Nations health agency said on its website. Of these, 311 died.

Adidas and other sports manufacturers will have to scale down their logos for the 2006 Winter Olympics in order to conform with International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules. The IOC regulations ban brand logos larger than 20 square centimetres on uniforms starting at next year’s Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Human rights activists on Friday pressed members of the United Nations Human Rights Commission to back a resolution condemning widespread abuses in Nepal.
If the 53-nation body fails to do so, it risks discrediting itself further as a group committed to stopping human rights abuses, said Loubna Freih, spokesperson for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan sought to drum up support for his reforms of the world body on Thursday, by warning member states that human rights have entered a ”new era” focusing on their actions to respect fundamental freedoms. ”Nobody has a monopoly on human rights virtue,” Annan said.

Governments should pass laws on the responsible use of sun beds and ban their use by people under the age of 18, the United Nations health agency said on Thursday. The increased popularity of artificial tanning machines is a key reason for the rapid increase in skin cancer, the World Health Organisation said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday it is rushing an emergency team to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to tackle an outbreak of highly fatal pneumonic plague that is thought to have killed dozens of people. The outbreak occurred in an unidentified northern mining town riven by conflict and cut off from humanitarian aid.

After the revelation of a grilled-cheese sandwich allegedly bearing an image of the Virgin Mary in Florida last year, a bar manager in Switzerland said on Thursday he is ready to sell a Christ-like oyster shell. Matteo Brandi, who runs a bar in the western Swiss village of Roche, came across the shell while he was opening a batch of oysters.

The United Nations said on Friday it recently found a bugging device at its European headquarters in Geneva, while a UN source hinted that similar devices may have been discovered in the past. A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is the first time the world body has acknowledged such a discovery.

A 77-year-old woman in the Swiss city of Lausanne who illegally fed pigeons starved by Switzerland’s legendary cleanliness has been fined 8 000 Swiss francs (about R42 000), a local newspaper reported on Wednesday. ”The street sweepers do their job so well that the birds can’t find anything to eat,” she told a magistrate’s court.

Worldwide sales of industrial robots surged to record levels in the first half of 2004 after equipment prices fell while labour costs grew, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said on Wednesday. In an annual survey, the UNECE said the number of robots in operation in industry exceeded the 800 000 mark for the first time at the end of 2003.

A Swiss engineer suspected of selling nuclear equipment to Libya has been arrested in South Africa, the Swiss authorities said on Sunday, confirming a media report. The German newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported earlier that the man, who was not named, has been accused of importing and exporting equipment for enriching uranium, a stage in the development of nuclear weapons.

The lives of up to half a million people living with Aids in Africa can be saved each year if they are also treated for turberculosis, two United Nations agencies said on Tuesday. They said about eight million of about 25-million Africans who live with HIV — the virus that causes Aids — also carry the germs that cause TB.

The United Nations said on Wednesday it is still lacking two-thirds of the money it needs to meet emergency aid needs in Sudan for the rest of the year, particularly in the war-torn western Darfur region. Families who were forced to flee their homes and abandon their fields have completely missed this year’s planting season.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=121075">After exodus, refugees dig in</a>

Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) early on Sunday resuscitated talks that collapsed nearly a year ago when they agreed on an outline for a pact on some of the major disagreements, including ending farm subsidies. The WTO’s 140 member nations approved the framework by consensus after gruelling talks in Geneva.

European Union ministers on Friday gave the green light to negotiate a global-trade liberalisation treaty based on a revised text produced on Friday morning, which will force the bloc to abandon all export subsidies on farm goods. The group gave EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy a mandate to thrash out a deal.

Some members of the World Trade Organisation are outraged at secret debates among five key players on how to salvage global trade talks, with one delegate warning on Thursday that a price will be paid. Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India and the United States wrapped up two days of closed door talks at midnight on Wednesday.

Farmers’ groups from the European Union, Japan and Canada said on Monday they are very worried about the direction in which talks on bringing down global trade barriers are heading. Representatives of a coalition of farmers’ federations said their concerns focus on the drive for market access by bringing down tariffs.

The United Nations food agency is flying urgent aid to tens of thousands of Congolese who have been expelled from Angola amid reports of executions, rapes and forced separations of families. The Angolan government is expelling Congolese who have been working illegally in diamond mines, along with their families.

A ”horrible tragedy” is unfolding in North Korea where up to 7% of the population has reportedly died from a lack of food over the past decade, a United Nations expert on the right to food said on Wednesday. Millions more will stay hungry unless the international community makes urgent donations to the World Food Programme.

The United Nations is preparing an inquiry into grave human rights abuses in Côte d’Ivoire during an anti-government protest a week ago, a spokesperson said on Friday. ”The allegations speak of summary and extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and detention,” he said.

Sir Peter Ustinov, the Oscar-winning actor who later earned a reputation for his humanitarian work with the United Nations, has died. He was 82. In a movie career lasting about 60 years, Ustinov appeared in roles ranging from Emperor Nero to Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.