Monday, April 26, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Amy Witherden.

Making headlines:

South African President Jacob Zuma, who has faced criticism that his love life is undermining safe sex campaigns, revealed test results yesterday showing that he is HIV negative.
Zuma, who has three wives, has generated controversy by fathering a child out of wedlock and admitting to having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman. Critics have accused Zuma of taking a cavalier attitude to safe sex that is damaging government health campaigns in a country with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/Aids.
Speaking at the launch of an HIV/Aids campaign at Natalspruit hospital yesterday, Zuma said that he had decided to share his test results with South Africans "after careful consideration" but added that he was not forcing anyone to go for an HIV test.

Sub-Saharan Africa is proving surprisingly resilient in emerging from the global financial crisis compared with previous downturns, said African Department Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Antoinette Sayeh.
Just a year ago, the IMF warned that Africa was to face major setbacks as the fallout spread from the global economic downturn. But the poorest countries of the region rebounded with greater strength and speed than predicted, some even avoiding contraction completely in 2009. Last year, IMF MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn described the region's economies as "an innocent victim of this global financial tsunami."
However, economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double this year and further accelerate in 2011 as long as the global economy continues to improve. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth could reach 5,75% next year if global conditions advance.

A group of developing countries, among the world's fastest growing carbon emitters, said yesterday that a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needs to be completed by 2011, at the latest.
Environment ministers of the so-called Basic bloc, consisting of Brazil, South Africa, India and China, met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track a globally binding agreement that will bind rich nations to cut emissions and reduce global warming.
More than 100 countries have backed the non binding Copenhagen accord to limit global warming to below 2 °C above pre industrial times, but did not spell out how this should be achieved. Industrialised nations have been unwilling to take on new commitments beyond 2012 unless major emerging nations, such as India and China, also sign up. India's Environment and Forestry Minister Jairam Ramesh says that "there is no breakthrough in sight".

Also making headlines:

Liberia is considering trying perpetrators of war crimes committed during its 1989 to 2003 civil war.
A poll shows that a majority of Kenyans would endorse a proposed new constitution in a referendum.
World Bank member countries reach a preliminary agreement on a 3,13% shift in voting power to give emerging and developing nations greater influence.
And, President Jacob Zuma has promised to let his Cabinet study a report by Public Protector Thulisile Madonsela, which found that he violated the executive code of ethics by failing to declare his interests in time.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.