The United Nations copyright agency saw a 15% increase in ”cybersquatting” complaints last year. The World Intellectual Property Organisation, which handles arbitration for more than half of the world’s cybersquatting disputes each year, registered 1 823 complaints in 2006.
A United Nations human rights mission on Monday accused Sudan’s government of orchestrating and taking part in war crimes in Darfur and called for urgent international action. The UN mission, led by Nobel peace prize laureate Jody Williams, was dispatched by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate charges of widespread abuse in Sudan’s vast western region.
The United Nations Human Rights Council will open a three-week session on Monday with member states and top officials smarting from Sudan’s rebuffing a mission to assess the situation in strife-torn Darfur. The fledgling and divided assembly, which replaced the largely discredited commission in 2006, is struggling to build up its monitoring rules by a mid-year deadline.
The flowing, elegant lines and even the name of the Russo-Baltique Impression appearing at the Geneva Motor Show on Thursday for the first time marked a distinct shift in gear for Russia’s ramshackle old motor industry. The grandiose new coupé unashamedly harks back to the elitist luxury of the tsars.
A motorist’s trip to the filling station is likely to be a complex business soon if the green marketing promises at the Geneva Motor Show, which opens on Thursday, are anything to go by. Petrol, diesel and its bio versions; ethanol, either pure or in differing blends with petrol; possibly liquid hydrogen; and an electric socket are all candidate fuel sources.
No image available
/ 27 February 2007
Some people will do anything to get in the papers, but few have the audacity of a man in Switzerland, who conned one of the country’s biggest media companies into publishing a two-page advertisement he created of himself posing semi-naked beside a bottle of Gucci perfume.
No image available
/ 19 February 2007
Globalisation has left world employment mostly intact, despite gloomy economic forecasts predicting hefty job losses, according to a study published on Monday. The study challenges the ”race-to-the-bottom view” that growing world trade would bring in terms of wages and the quality of employment.
No image available
/ 14 February 2007
United Nations human rights investigators on Wednesday called off a visit to Darfur after Sudanese officials demanded the removal of the UN’s former top rights official from the group. The six-member team, set up last December by the UN Human Rights Council, said it would pursue its work without entering the country.
No image available
/ 9 February 2007
A United Nations mission to investigate human rights abuse in Sudan’s Darfur region, which hopes to head for the region on Saturday, is still negotiating entry visas, mission head Jody Williams said on Friday. The Nobel peace laureate would not comment on reports that Sudan objects to some members of the team.
No image available
/ 5 February 2007
Television images beamed around the globe from the World Economic Forum in late January showed Davos covered by a blanket of snow that also shrouded growing concern in this and other Swiss mountain resorts. The much-wanted powder came suddenly, in the space of a couple of days, ending an extremely mild first half of winter.
No image available
/ 29 January 2007
This week, the skiers move out of Davos, leaving the top hotels to the rich and famous invited to the annual bash organised by the World Economic Forum. Davos is synonymous with globalisation and has security to keep out those who believe that the setting 1Â 500m up in the Swiss Alps is perfect for the conclave of Dr Evils intent on dominating the world.
No image available
/ 27 January 2007
Governments in rich countries that promise to help Africa fight poverty and disease should come good on their offers of cash, rock star and activist Bono said. Bono is a regular on the world business and aid circuit, campaigning for richer countries to forgive African nations’ debt and help fund their future.
No image available
/ 26 January 2007
It is hard not to be a bit jolly when you are surrounded by peers in a Swiss ski resort, but the world’s business leaders have been remarkably optimistic at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. The problems of the future are taken seriously, but there is little in the way of hand-wringing. This may be because the global economy appears relatively robust.
No image available
/ 26 January 2007
Davos moves into the development arena on Friday, as the annual gathering of global leaders turns its energies to the issue of poverty alleviation, with a special focus on Africa. South African President Thabo Mbeki will participate in the discussion, which also seeks to question whether African nations are doing enough to create the conditions for sustainable growth.
No image available
/ 25 January 2007
Developing countries stand to suffer the worst effects of global warming, and should not have to pay for a problem created mainly by the rich, executives and experts said on Thursday. At a gathering of 2Â 400 of the world’s most powerful people at Davos, leaders from emerging nations said they wanted the United States, European Union and others in the West to be more accountable.
No image available
/ 25 January 2007
Strong global economic growth is failing to reduce unemployment worldwide and has done little to cut the number of ”working poor” who earn less than a day, the International Labour Organisation said on Thursday. Even though more people were employed than ever before, the number of new jobs created failed to match the rise in global population.
No image available
/ 16 January 2007
Millions of children remain at risk from HIV/Aids and the world’s response to their plight remains ”tragically insufficient”, a United Nations report said on Tuesday. The report by UNAids, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organisation was released on the first anniversary of the ”Unite for Children, Unite against Aids” programme.
Chinese bird flu expert Margaret Chan took over as head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday, promising to put Africa and women at the top of her agenda. Chan, the first Chinese to head a United Nations’ agency, was chosen as director general of the 192-state world health body last November in an election prompted by the death in office of her predecessor.
No image available
/ 19 December 2006
Fabio Cannavaro received recognition for his outstanding performance in leading Italy to World Cup glory on Monday when he was handed the Fifa World Player of the Year award to add to his European Footballer of the Year honour. The imperious Italy captain was a rock at the heart of a defence that leaked just two goals in seven matches.
No image available
/ 13 December 2006
The United Nations new human rights watchdog agreed on Wednesday to send a high-level mission to Sudan’s Darfur to probe allegations of worsening abuses against the civilian population. The 47-state Human Rights Council approved a consensus proposal leaving the naming of the five ”highly qualified” team members up to the council chairperson.
No image available
/ 12 December 2006
The United Nations Human Rights Council must "lose no time" in sending a team of investigators to Sudan’s Darfur region, UN chief Kofi Annan urged an emergency meeting of the global rights body on Tuesday. "It is urgent that we take action to prevent further violations, including by bringing to account those responsible," Annan said.
No image available
/ 12 December 2006
South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Monday sharply criticised Israel’s failure to cooperate with a United Nations human rights fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Tutu confirmed that Israeli authorities had effectively thwarted the mission by failing to grant travel visas in time.
No image available
/ 11 December 2006
Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu said on Monday that he ”would never be able to gloat” over the death of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died on Sunday without ever facing justice for the torture and killings that took place during his 1973 to 1990 regime. Tutu, who was speaking to reporters in Geneva, said he ”would want to send condolences to the family of General Pinochet”.
No image available
/ 11 December 2006
A United Nations mission to be led by South Africa’s Desmond Tutu to probe last month’s deaths of 19 civilians in Gaza under Israeli shelling has been called off because Israel did not authorise the trip, a spokesperson said on Monday. The Nobel Peace laureate had other engagements and could not wait any longer for Israeli permission, she added.
No image available
/ 9 December 2006
A United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip that was to be led by Desmond Tutu is in doubt because Israel has yet to give the Nobel laureate permission to enter the territory. Tutu was to begin leading a six-member team this weekend in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun to investigate the killings of 19 civilians in an Israeli artillery barrage last month.
No image available
/ 7 December 2006
Fifa president Sepp Blatter said he was confident that South Africa would be ready to stage the World Cup in 2010 despite concerns over delays in the building of new stadiums. ”We need to bring a little bit of fire [to the organisers],” Blatter told a news conference following a two-day meeting of Fifa’s executive committee.
No image available
/ 6 December 2006
World soccer governing body Fifa announced on Wednesday that the next World Cup will take place between June 11 and July 11 2010, and granted South Africa an automatic berth as host nation. Fifa’s executive committee decided to maintain the qualifying set-up used at this year’s World Cup in Germany.
No image available
/ 5 December 2006
The United Nation’s top human rights forum will hold a special session on violations in Sudan’s strife-torn region of Darfur on December 12, the world body announced on Tuesday. European and African states in the UN Human Rights Council last week joined forces to call the urgent session, but a date for the session had yet to be set.
No image available
/ 29 November 2006
Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has been named to head a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, where 19 civilians were killed by an Israeli artillery barrage earlier this month, UN officials said on Wednesday. Tutu will travel to Gaza to ”assess the situation of victims”, according to the president of the UN Human Rights Council, Luis Alfonso de Alba.
No image available
/ 29 November 2006
The international community has failed Darfur, allowing the situation to deteriorate into ”a really dangerous regional crisis”, Jan Egeland, the United Nations coordinator for humanitarian affairs, said on Wednesday. At his final press conference before leaving office, he said: ”We all failed to help when there was still time in 2004. The world woke up too late.”
No image available
/ 28 November 2006
Tobacco-related diseases including cancers and heart disease will kill 6,4-million people a year by 2015, 50% more than than HIV/Aids, a study said on Tuesday. But the HIV/Aids epidemic will be the leading cause of illness and disability in low- and middle-income countries by then and take an increasing number of lives worldwide, it said.
No image available
/ 21 November 2006
HIV infection is rising in every region of the world and most worryingly in countries such as Uganda and Thailand, which had been heralded as success stories in the fight against Aids, the United Nations said on Tuesday while praising South Africa’s recent pledge to do better against the disease.