Finland’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Dr Jaana Husu-Kallio expresses the hope that Water Affairs Minister Lindiwe Sisulu will go to Helsinki to ink the deal which has been delayed by the COVID lockdown.

Finland has launched a programme entitled WASH that involves governments, research organisations and civil society in ensuring access to clean water and sanitization -particularly for women and girls.

It is part of the Scandinavian country’s bid to win a three-year term on the United Nations Human Rights Council when elections are held in October

Ambassador Anne Lammila told the delegates participating in Pretoria and Helsinki that 2,2 billion people around the world lack access to safe drinking water and 4,2 billion lack safely managed sanitation services.

“The impact on child mortality rates is devastating with more than 297 000 under five whondhe annually from diarrhea diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene or unsafe drinking water,” she says.

Dr Dhesigen Naidoo of the Water Research Commission says loss of earning globally from woman and children being excluded from the economy for health reasons amounts to $100 billion a year.

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The Nobel Peace Prize laureate studied in the capital at the Tshwane University of Technology.

Abiy Ahmed could not have known as a student at the Tshwane University of Technology that one day he’s be welcomed back to Pretoria with a 21 gun salute as the premier of Ethiopia.

He and his host President Cyril Ramaphosa clearly enjoyed one-another’s company as they presided over a press conference after their talks and the signing of a number of bilateral agreements.

Ahmed strongly advocates building on trade tied with South Africa, which he knows from personal experience has a great deal of expertise to offer his country

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On his official visit to South Africa Nobel-Peace-Prize-laureate Ahmed will attend the ANC’s birthday celebration in Kimberley tomorrow and have substantial talks with Ramaphosa in Pretoria on Sunday.

Assuming the African Union  chair next month, President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be up to speed on the continent’s largest hydro project.

Talks in Addis Ababa broke up this week without agreement between Ethiopia, building the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile, and the countries downstream Sudan and Egypt.

Dependent on the Nile for 90% of its water needs, Egypt wants Ethiopia to take 12 to 21 years to fill the dam.

Ethiopia maintains this should take four to seven years. 

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They burned their camp to which the authorities were trying to force them to return.

It is reminiscent of what happened in Pretoria and Cape Town last year.

Thousands of refugees from the conflict in Sudan  and Libya have been accommodated in Niger. 

The camp is in Agadez which is a major hub for Africans headed for Europe..

They say conditions are poor and the UNHCR must relocate them. They staged a sit-in outside the offices of the world organisation.

When authorities beat some of them and forced them into a vehicles to return them to their camp, it was burned down. More than 300 arrests have been made

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The gathering comes weeks after refugees besieged the United Nations High Commission For Refugees offices in Cape Town and Pretoria demanding to be moved away from xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

The Global Refugee Forum in Geneva brings together governments, business and relief agencies.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi says the burden of housing refugees must be shared more fairly.

The number of refugees  driven out by war in Africa and the Middle East, violent drug lords in Colombia and repressive regimes in Asia are now four times more than the people displaced by the Second World War.

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Local residents are being asked to contribute to the legal costs.

Papers are expected to be served today on the mainly Congolese refugees engaged in the sit-in.

This will give them time to respond before the urgent action in the Pretoria High Court next week.

The refugees are demanding to be moved to safety away from the xenopbobic attacks  they have suffered in South Africa.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told a Parliamentary portfolio committee meeting this week that the sit-in outside the UNHCR offices in Cape Town and Pretoria are a matter for the South African Police Services.

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Her statement does not indicate how long their doors will be shut.

The security situation in Nigeria is somewhat unpredictable, says foreign minister Naledi Pandor because of youths attacking the diplomatic missions and South African businesses in retaliation for violence against Nigerians in South Africa.

She says she’ll speak to African ambassadors in Pretoria next week about the burning and looting of foreign-owned businesses in Pretoria and Johannesburg and attacks on foreigners that have left five dead.

She says South Africa has provided extra security for its diplomatic missions as has in the Nigerian authorities in keeping with customary diplomatic practice.  

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Lin Songtian says he’s encouraging Chinese companies to invest and manufacture in South Africa.

China’s chief envoy to South Africa has a ringing endorsement for President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“I strongly believe President Ramaphosa is the right person at the right time, the best choice of the people at this moment to lead this country in the right direction,” he says

Lin Songtian says South Africa has three unique strengths: its natural and human resources; its unique geographic location making it a gateway to Africa; and its development-ripe infrastructure.

Drawing on its development success over four decades, China is ready to join  hands and share experience in win win development cooperation.  

Lin says South Africa and China can learn from each other in implementing  national development programmes. 

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It offers students and other interested an opportunity got explore music and literature of the Spanish language and Mexican culture.

The  National Autonomous University of Mexico known as UNAM has bilateral agreements with two universities each in Johannesburg and Pretoria and another in Cape Town.

From its UNESCO heritage-site campus in Mexico City it  is the alma maters of Mexico’s three Nobel laureates. 

Chief representative in South Africa Arturo Mendoza says UNAM has links with seven other countries. 

“Particularly today what was important for us was to open the cultural corner from UNAM here at the Mexican Embassy in Pretoria,” he says.

The next UNAM cultural centre will opened at the University of the Witwatersrand where facilities have already been allocated.

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The chief representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the diamond-rich dirt poor nation calls on all actors, including the  government, to live up to the expectations of the people.

ICRC delegation head Valerie Petitpierre tells a seminar in Pretoria the CAR poses the third worst humanitarian crisis on the planet behind Yemen and Syria.

“Two point nine million people depend on humanitarian assistance.One our of four people are displaced. Forty percent of the population is food insecure,” she says, adding that less than half the people have access to drinking water and more than three-quarters live in poverty.

There is hope after the February peace deal but government and other role players must see that the end of conflict also means an end to violence against civilians.

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