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/ 20 November 2006
Africa will never climb out of poverty unless devastating health challenges such as a ”silent epidemic” of maternal and child death are tackled, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a report released on Monday. Some of the biggest health problems Africans face are worsening despite attempts to reverse them, the African Regional Health report said.
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/ 7 November 2006
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Tuesday formally approved communist Vietnam’s membership of the global free-trade system, opening up a new era of international commerce and investment for one of East Asia’s fastest-growing economies. The decision brought 12 years of negotiations to a successful conclusion.
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/ 25 October 2006
Fifa president Sepp Blatter praised the performance of officials at this year’s World Cup despite some contentious decisions and a referee showing a player three yellow cards. ”I am very satisfied with the referees’ performances at the 2006 World Cup. They achieved more than their counterparts in Korea/Japan in 2002,” Blatter said.
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/ 11 October 2006
About 153-million poor people with vision problems have no access to basic eye care, causing missed educational and work opportunities, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday. The United Nations agency said a sight test and glasses or contact lenses could improve children’s prospects at school and their parents’ job successes across the developing world.
The United Nations human rights chief said on Monday ”several hundred” civilians — far more than first thought — may have died in late August attacks by militias in the south of Sudan’s violent Darfur region. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Louise Arbour, said the attacks appeared to have been carried out with the ”knowledge and material support” of the government.
More than 2 000 Somalis have fled across the border to Kenya over the last two days amid reports of advances by Islamist forces on several Juba Valley towns, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. About 30 000 people from Somalia have sought refuge in Kenya since the beginning of this year.
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/ 29 September 2006
A deadly epidemic feared to be pneumonic plague has broken out in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. There are dozens of suspect cases and up to 20 deaths in the outbreak, which a WHO team is investigating along with health ministry officials, WHO plague expert Eric Bertherat said.
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/ 16 September 2006
Fifa president Sepp Blatter said Friday that he will visit South Africa shortly to urge lawmakers to speed-up building work for the 2010 World Cup, amid growing concern about delays. Blatter said he would meet South African President Thabo Mbeki and make an appeal to the country’s Parliament ”to explain the value of the World Cup and to fire up the organising committee”.
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/ 13 September 2006
Fifa vice-president Jack Warner and his son face a day of destiny on Friday as global football’s governing body investigates corruption and embezzlement accusations against the pair. They are both accused of making money through the illegal sale of World Cup tickets and Fifa is due to examine a report into the affair.
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/ 8 September 2006
Sudan’s conflict-ridden Darfur region faces a humanitarian ”catastrophe” without rapid action to improve security and let aid flow to those in need, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. The warning by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres followed a similar cry of alarm by top UN humanitarian official Jan Egeland last month.
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/ 5 September 2006
A diarrhoea outbreak in Ethiopia has infected at least 15 000 people and killed 148, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that aid workers fear the epidemic, which has been stoked by heavy flooding, could spread even further.
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/ 5 September 2006
A leak of honey at a Swiss transport company drew a swarm of hungry bees and forced the emergency services to step in, police said on Tuesday. Hundreds of litres of honey flooded out of a damaged barrel, which was part of a shipment from Mexico, and thousands of bees spread the word that the feast was on, said Basel police spokesperson Klaus Mannhart.
The Phonak cycling team will disband at the end of the year, team owner Andy Rihs announced Tuesday, ten days after team leader Floyd Landis was sacked because of the Tour de France doping scandal. Rihs said the Landis affair had been the deciding factor. ”As a passionate cyclist, I am bitterly disappointed that the sport of cycling apparently has become a synonym for doping,” he said.
A peace deal signed three months ago between Sudan’s government and the main rebel group in Darfur has failed to halt violence in the region, the United Nations said on Wednesday, citing an increase in rape and continued attacks by militias and rebel factions.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged half a billion dollars to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, the fund announced on Wednesday. The promise came in the run-up to the 16th International Aids Conference, opening in the Canadian city of Toronto on Sunday.
The BMW Sauber Formula One team on Monday announced they had released former world champion Canadian Jacques Villeneuve from his contract. Villeneuve did not take part in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix after informing the team that he had not fully recovered from an accident in Germany the previous weekend.
AC Milan will play in the Champions League this season. The six-time European champions, who had been barred from Europe’s top club competition by an Italian sports tribunal investigating the country’s match-fixing scandal, will face either Ireland’s Cork City or Serbia’s Red Star Belgrade on August 8 or 9 in the third qualifying round.
European football governing body Uefa on Monday announced a range of tougher sanctions for European football, including a five-match ban for racist or insulting conduct and a two-match ban for players who simulate being fouled. European football’s new disciplinary regulations for the coming season also include ”improper conduct of a team” .
A United Nations human rights body told Washington on Friday that any ”secret detention” centres for terrorism suspects it operates abroad violates international law and should be shut immediately. The UN Human Rights Committee said the United States appears to have been detaining people ”secretly for months and years”.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) nations on Thursday endorsed suspension of free-trade negotiations after they collapsed on Monday, diplomats and trade officials said. Several countries attacked the so-called Group of Six of leading trading powers for refusing concessions to open the way for a treaty.
Drug-tainted German cyclist Jan Ullrich has vowed to win the Tour de France before he retires, despite being barred from this year’s race after being implicated in a doping scandal. Ullrich, who was subsequently sacked by T-Mobile after being prevented from taking part in this year’s Tour, said he wants to add another title to set alongside his 1997 triumph in the world-famous race.
The director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, said on Monday that he was recommending an indefinite suspension of the troubled five-year round of global trade talks. "The only course of action I can recommend is to suspend the negotiations across the round as a whole," Lamy told journalists, without setting a date for restarting the talks.
Last ditch talks to keep hopes alive of a global free deal faced a deepening crisis on Monday after trading powers failed to achieve a breakthrough at a marathon first session, diplomats said. The so-called G6 — Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the European Union and the United States — must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods.
Former France captain Zinedine Zidane and Italy defender Marco Materazzi were both fined and banned by Fifa on Thursday after the headbutting incident that marred the World Cup final on July 9. Zidane, who has retired as a player, was fined  014 and handed a three-match ban by Fifa’s five-man disciplinary committee following his red card for headbutting Materazzi.
Former France captain Zinedine Zidane will appear before Fifa’s disciplinary committee in Zurich on Thursday to give his account of the incident in which he headbutted an opponent in the World Cup final. The 34 year old was sent off in the closing stages of the final match of his illustrious career after butting his head into the chest of Italian defender Marco Materazzi.
World soccer governing body Fifa said on Thursday they have opened a disciplinary inquiry into the behaviour of Italy World Cup winning defender Marco Materazzi. In a statement, Fifa said: ”The decision was taken following claims made by French player Zinedine Zidane, who attacked Materazzi with a headbutt during the final of the Fifa World Cup in Berlin on July 9.”
Bluefin tuna stocks in the Mediterranean Sea and East Atlantic Ocean are on the brink of extinction because of rampant illicit fishing, the environmental group WWF said on Wednesday. A report by the WWF said that bluefin tuna catches are at least 40% higher than an internationally-approved quota of 32 000 tonnes, and are deliberately under-reported at official level.
Trading nations are now in a race to another last-ditch deadline 28 days away to overcome weekend failure in Doha Round negotiations to free up trade, but prospects for a deal and ending the ”crisis” for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) appear slim.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) members on Friday began another bruising attempt to revive the Doha Round talks on tearing down barriers to global commerce, as doubts rose about what they would be able to achieve. "We’re going to try," Canadian Ambassador Don Stephenson told journalists.
Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur needs a United Nations peacekeeping force, despite President Omar al-Beshir’s repeated opposition to deployment of Western forces, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday. Annan said that such a force would be essential to uphold the "tenuous and incomplete" peace accord between Khartoum and rebel groups.
About 100 people are believed to have died in a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague in the strife-torn north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in Geneva on Wednesday. The WHO said that suspected bases of bubonic plague have also been reported.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that 100 people have died of suspected pneumonic plague in eastern Congo. Preliminary results from diagnostic tests have confirmed pneumonic plague, WHO said in a statement. Suspected cases of bubonic plague have also been reported, but the total number is not yet known, WHO said.