Friday May 27, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

Christine Lagarde, whose candidacy for the top International Monetary Fund job has been challenged by developing nations, said they would be fairly represented at senior positions in the organisation. "I would want to remedy the situation," Lagarde, who announced on Wednesday that she was officially in the running for the post, told the Financial Times in an interview. "We need appropriate representation of high-level staff based on merit from various nationalities and academic backgrounds.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) members want to leave aside for now the prickliest issues dogging the Doha trade talks to focus on easing market access for the poorest countries, WTO head Pascal Lamy said. The so-called Doha round of trade negotiations was launched in late 2001 in the Qatari capital, but has seen deadlines for progress come and go due to failure to bridge differences mainly between wealthy and developing countries. "Nobody wants to drop the round nor change the agenda," Lamy told journalists after informal talks in Paris with trade powers including the United States and Australia.

Tens of thousands of people fled Sudan's contested Abyei region as northern militias accused of helping seize the area over the weekend moved further south, the United Nations (UN) said. Armed groups, thought to be northern militias, also opened fire on four UN helicopters in Abyei, a UN spokesperson said. North Sudan sent tanks into Abyei, a central, oil-producing region claimed by both north and south Sudan, last weekend, sparking an international outcry. The move came at a highly sensitive time for Sudan, less than seven weeks before the country's south is expected to declare independence from the north, as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

Also making headlines:

Group of Eight leaders are to approve billions of dollars in aid today to new Arab democracies with a programme designed to foster change sweeping North Africa and the Middle East.

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi bombarded the rebel-held city of Misrata with mortars on Thursday, and a new ceasefire offer from Gaddafi's government was met with scepticism by nato and the rebels.

And, the United Nations defended itself against accusations that it failed to protect civilians during the Côte d’Ivoire post-election crisis, saying expectations of its forces were unrealistic.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.