World News Summary - 110310

Last Updated on Thursday, 11 March 2010 19:45 Thursday, 11 March 2010 15:21

S Africa: protests over housing

More than 1,000 people blocked roads in the South African township of Soweto on Wednesday to demonstrate against poor living conditions. The unrest near Johannesburg was the latest in a series of protests over housing that has erupted across the country ahead of the football World Cup in June.

The demonstrators used large rocks to block roads close to the venue that will host the opening of the tournament as well as the final match. This week's wave of unrest also reached the capital Pretoria, where Mamelodi residents protested against poor delivery of services such as water, sanitation and housing. The Mamelodi demonstration reportedly turned violent when angry protesters started pelting riot police with stones.

Corruption diverts Afghan aid

Up to 80 per cent of aid money sent to Afghanistan through international organisations never reaches the Afghan people as a result of corruption, bad management or donors withholding the money, an organised crime expert has claimed. Pino Arlacchi, an Italian Liberal member of the European Parliament and former senior United Nations official, said most of the 34 billion US dollars in aid channelled to Afghanistan through international organisations in the past eight years had been taken back by donor countries or lost in waste and corruption. Arlacchi was speaking at a news briefing at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday. Meanwhile, rights group Human Rights Watch has criticised President Hamid Karzai for passing an amnesty law that it claims protects perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses from prosecution.

DRC army "extorting miners"

Civilian miners in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo are suffering from extortion by ex-rebels who have been integrated into the army, a campaign group said on Thursday. Global Witness accused the DRC government and the international community of failing to demilitarise the country's mines, which are some of the richest in the world. The campaign group claims that the integration of rebels from the CNDP group into the army last year has provided them with greater control of the mines than they had as insurgents. Instead of protecting civilian miners, the former rebels are abusing them and extorting illegal taxes, Global Witness said. Access to mineral wealth in Eastern Congo has fuelled a ten-year long conflict involving DRC and neighbouring Rwanda.

Sri Lankan amputees to get artificial limbs from India

An Indian charity is providing northern Sri Lankan amputees with 1,000 artificial limbs specially designed for use in developing countries. The BMVSS charity said its team would arrive in the Sri Lankan city of Vavuniya on Thursday. The charity is based in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It has become known for making the "Jaipur foot", considered to be the most inexpensive and cost effective artificial limb in the world. The prosthesis is made of rubber, which makes it suitable for rough ground and allows the user to sit or squat cross-legged. Thousands of Sri Lankans lost limbs to mines and other explosions during the country's civil war. A further 500 artificial limbs were also requested by Senegal, said BMVSS.

Rich countries' emissions outsourced to developing world

Over one third of carbon emissions linked to the consumption of imported goods in many developed countries is actually released in the developing world, researchers claim. A study by scientists at the US-based Carnegie Institution for Science published on Monday revealed that over 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are released every year in developing countries such as India and China during the manufacture of products bound for consumers in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. Emission targets under the Kyoto protocol apply to the country where emissions are produced, leading to a deadlock over the responsibility for the carbon footprint of imported goods. China has refused to take on binding targets that include emissions associated with goods produced for export.

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