Wednesday January 25, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

Climate finance practitioners and regulators have urged South African developers of Clean Development Mechanism projects to finalise their applications for registration of such projects with the UN during the first quarter of 2012, or face being excluded from the key European market. Addressing potential developers and consultants at a Green Power Conferences event in Johannesburg, Carbon Check CEO Adam Simcock cautioned that, unless projects were submitted by May, prospects were slim for beating a December 31 cut-off for access to the EU’s emissions trading scheme. Despite an agreement in Durban last month to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, the procedures and modalities for this second commitment period were yet to be developed and it was also uncertain whether the new period would run until 2017, or 2020.

The eurozone debt crisis is escalating and dragging down the world economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday, as it sharply cut its outlook for global growth and called for policies to restore confidence. The IMF chopped its 2012 forecast for global growth to 3.3% from 4% just three months ago, saying the outlook had deteriorated in most regions. It projected world growth would strengthen to 3.9% in 2013. The Washington-based lender said economic activity was decelerating but not collapsing. However, it warned that global growth would come in about 2 percentage points below its already soft forecast if European leaders allowed the crisis to fester.

The head of Egypt's ruling military council said that he had decided to lift a state of emergency from today except in certain cases, a move one lawmaker said did not amount to a full cancellation of laws in place since 1981. "I have taken a decision to end the state of emergency," Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi said in a televised address, adding that it would still apply in dealing with cases of "thuggery". He did not spell out what that meant. "This is not a real cancellation of the state of emergency," said Essam Sultan, a newly elected member of Parliament from the Wasat Party, a moderate Islamist group.

Also making headlines:

Algeria's government yesterday authorised the creation of the first new political parties in more than a decade, four months before a Parliamentary election when the authorities will be under pressure to allow more democracy.

And, the migration from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television which was scheduled to start in April, has been delayed until the third quarter of 2012, Communications Minister Dina Pule said.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.