Summit
At UN food summit, Ban Ki-Moon warns of rise in child hunger deaths
IPN News coverage
Julian Morris critiques the World Food Security Summit being held in Rome this week
After Johannesburg: U.S.-EU Disputes Remain to be Resolved
IPN Opinion article
When the World Summit on Sustainable Development opened in Johannesburg in August, not much was expected to emerge from it. President George W. Bush\'s decision not to attend the meeting was seen by many as undermining its importance, and participants were despondent that few new agreements were under discussion.
Yet the summit was far from a failure: for the first time aspiring nations asserted their concerns at an international meeting and the summit was marked by the emergence of a new group of pro-trade non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - most NGOs that attend such gatherings tend to be anti-capitalist and anti-trade.
Slowing birth of AIDS drug
IPN Opinion article
AT THE WORLD Summit on Sustainable Development, in September, Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS, told delegates he was upset that AIDS discussions were not more prominent on the summit agenda.
He will be even more upset when he learns of the latest data to come out concerning AIDS research: There are between 5 percent and 30 percent fewer anti-AIDS drugs in development than there were a few years ago.
Heated debate over GM food at Summit
IPN Opinion article
Though 14 million people face starvation in southern Africa, the controversy over genetically modified seed loomed Wednesday at the Johannesburg summit on sustainable development. In an increasingly vitriolic debate, GM critics argue that it is not an unacceptable solution, and supporters hail it as the answer to Africa's number one problem.
Traders, farmers unite at summit protest
IPN Opinion article
Under a banner calling for \"Freedom to Trade,\" an array of several hundred local street traders, rural farmers and the unemployed marched in the streets of Johannesburg Wednesday to present petitions to the city council and World Summit organizers.
Leon Louw, the march coordinator for the Informal Business Forum (known locally as the street traders or hawkers), explained that Johannesburg city leaders decided to oust the street traders from Sandton prior to the beginning of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, explaining they might constitute a security risk to the attendees. But for Louw it\'s a clear example of \"the white elite opposed to African-style trading,\" he told United Press International.
Shattering the myths of the Earth Summit
IPN Opinion article
The great Earth Summit is about to roll into town: 65,000 government heads and bag carriers, media folk and glad handers, lobbyists and freeloaders. The restaurants and the massage parlours and the peddlars of ethnic bangles and elephant bookends can't believe their luck. Ten thousand officials from 174 countries, 6,000 journalists and talking heads of every shape, size and description have hustled air fares, hotel rooms and expenses from taxpayers around the world for the greatest hot air convention of the decade: the Sustainable Development Show.
Calls for accountability from S Africa
IPN Opinion article
The nine-day summit is not even over but one influential environmental group has already produced a report card on the failure of the conference to deliver what they consider essential.
