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Tuesday, November 25, 2008.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have decided not to attend a major UN development conference, a move some said would reduce its impact.

Publicly, UN officials said they accepted that World Bank President Robert Zoellick and IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn were prevented by their schedules from attending the conference in the Qatar capital, Doha.

But privately, some officials said the two men should be present. One diplomat involved in conference preparations suggested they needed to show they were not just interested in meeting "the big guys", such as the Group of 20 club of rich developed nations and key developing states.

The Doha conference will discuss ways of financing development in poor countries through investment, trade, aid and debt relief. UN officials hope it will harden up general commitments by donors at an earlier conference in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002. The Doha conference is unrelated to the Doha round of world trade talks.

On Monday, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that South Africa would make use of more instruments than just environmental-impact assessments. This is as it develops a new environmental-impact management system.

He said the EIM would still use an EIA where it is the most appropriate instrument, but that the new system would move away from its sole reliance on EIAs to a system based on "true integrated environmental management".

The EIM would also seek to make use of strategic spatial instruments, such as strategic environmental assessments, bioregional planning, spatial development frameworks and environmental management frameworks.


Also making headlines:

Mercedes-Benz says the US carmakers' failure could have a 'phenomenal' impact on the global industry.
Mozambique finds two new natural gas reserves.
JSE-listed automotive-components producer Dorbyl reports an interim loss and warns that some units may face closure.
And, Engen will restart production at its Durban refinery in January.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.