WINDHOEK: Namibia needs to promote an export-led economic development, given the size of the country’s economy.

This was the view of President Hifikepunye Pohamba during the launch of National Development Plan Four (NDP4) in the capital yesterday.

He said the country can only achieve success in becoming an exporting economy if it is able to compete with other economies, hence it is important to continue addressing the issue of the country’s economic competitiveness.

According to the president, one of the most important factors to economic competitiveness is to ensure that the country has the necessary skills, noting that there are studies that suggest that the nation does not have adequate skills that can help it to be competitive.

Pohamba stated that the government has put in motion a process to improve the quality of the education system, and there are good signs that it is on the right track.

He thus encouraged the Ministry of Education to continue with its efforts to reform the education system, noting that the private sector also has to play a meaningful role in skills development.

2 (SOUTH AFRICA) – The Vaal River system is at ‘significant risk’ due to unlawful water use, acid mine drainage and municipal water losses, Business Day newspaper reported today.

The river supplies water to 60 percent of the country’s economy and 45 percent of the population.

Water Affairs spokeswoman Linda Page said unlawful water use last year was estimated at 244 million cubic metres, adding that they ‘know that the biggest culprits are farmers in this area.’

Non-revenue water (water not billed for by municipalities through loss and errors) comprised about 36 percent of total water use.

To sustain water, South Africa needed to eradicate unlawful irrigation by next year and implement the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water project, the newspaper reported.

3 (ZANZIBAR) – Tanzanian officials have given up hope of rescuing more than 80 people still missing after a ferry sank off the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar, with the death toll of 62 set to rise.

The vessel, which was officially carrying 291 passengers and crew, including more than 30 children, went down in choppy waters off Zanzibar on Wednesday after leaving Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Search operations continue but it is now almost impossible survivors will be found, Zanzibar police spokesman Mohamed Mhina told reporters, raising the prospect that some 145 may have died.

There were 290 people on board, he said

Officials said emergency workers had rescued 146 people and recovered 62 bodies.

4 (WASHINGTON) – Some 25,000 people, including celebrities, scientists and HIV sufferers are expected in the US capital Sunday to call for a jumpstart in the global response to the three-decade AIDS epidemic.

Held every two years, the International AIDS Conference returns to the United States for the first time since 1990, after being kept away by laws that barred people with HIV from traveling to the country.

The US ban was formally lifted in 2009, and researchers have described fresh optimism in the fight against AIDS on several fronts ahead of the six-day conference that starts Sunday and runs through July 27.

Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.

However this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, suggesting much more remains to be done.

More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.

5 (SEATTLE) – The number of U.S. whooping cough cases has risen to around 18,000 in an outbreak that is on track to become the most severe in over a half century and could in part stem from possible waning vaccine protection, health officials said yesterday.

Washington state, which declared an epidemic in April, and Wisconsin were particularly hard hit, with each reporting more than 3,000 cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, causes severe, almost uncontrollable coughing.

A spike in whooping cough cases among 10-year-olds and adolescents who are 13 and 14 was a concern, perhaps an indicator that the pertussis vaccine may be wearing off earlier than anticipated, Washington Health Secretary Mary Selecky said.

CDC officials will begin an investigation in Washington state later this month ‘to analyze data for cases among 13- to 14-year-olds to see what can be learned about disease rates and vaccination status.’

(edited)HERE IS TODAY’S BULLETIN FOR 08H00 FRIDAY, 20 JULY 2012 NAMIBIA PRESS AGENCY

1 (WINDHOEK) – Namibia needs to promote an export-led economic development, given the size of the country’s economy.

This was the view of President Hifikepunye Pohamba during the launch of National Development Plan Four (NDP4) in the capital yesterday.

He said the country can only achieve success in becoming an exporting economy if it is able to compete with other economies, hence it is important to continue addressing the issue of the country’s economic competitiveness.

According to the president, one of the most important factors to economic competitiveness is to ensure that the country has the necessary skills, noting that there are studies that suggest that the nation does not have adequate skills that can help it to be competitive.

Pohamba stated that the government has put in motion a process to improve the quality of the education system, and there are good signs that it is on the right track.

He thus encouraged the Ministry of Education to continue with its efforts to reform the education system, noting that the private sector also has to play a meaningful role in skills development.
2 (SOUTH AFRICA) – The Vaal River system is at ‘significant risk’ due to unlawful water use, acid mine drainage and municipal water losses, Business Day newspaper reported today.

The river supplies water to 60 percent of the country’s economy and 45 percent of the population.

Water Affairs spokeswoman Linda Page said unlawful water use last year was estimated at 244 million cubic metres, adding that they ‘know that the biggest culprits are farmers in this area.’

Non-revenue water (water not billed for by municipalities through loss and errors) comprised about 36 percent of total water use.

To sustain water, South Africa needed to eradicate unlawful irrigation by next year and implement the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water project, the newspaper reported.

3 (ZANZIBAR) – Tanzanian officials have given up hope of rescuing more than 80 people still missing after a ferry sank off the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar, with the death toll of 62 set to rise.

The vessel, which was officially carrying 291 passengers and crew, including more than 30 children, went down in choppy waters off Zanzibar on Wednesday after leaving Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Search operations continue but it is now almost impossible survivors will be found, Zanzibar police spokesman Mohamed Mhina told reporters, raising the prospect that some 145 may have died.

There were 290 people on board, he said

Officials said emergency workers had rescued 146 people and recovered 62 bodies.

4 (WASHINGTON) – Some 25,000 people, including celebrities, scientists and HIV sufferers are expected in the US capital Sunday to call for a jumpstart in the global response to the three-decade AIDS epidemic.

Held every two years, the International AIDS Conference returns to the United States for the first time since 1990, after being kept away by laws that barred people with HIV from traveling to the country.

The US ban was formally lifted in 2009, and researchers have described fresh optimism in the fight against AIDS on several fronts ahead of the six-day conference that starts Sunday and runs through July 27.

Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.

However this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, suggesting much more remains to be done.

More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.

5 (SEATTLE) – The number of U.S. whooping cough cases has risen to around 18,000 in an outbreak that is on track to become the most severe in over a half century and could in part stem from possible waning vaccine protection, health officials said yesterday.

Washington state, which declared an epidemic in April, and Wisconsin were particularly hard hit, with each reporting more than 3,000 cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, causes severe, almost uncontrollable coughing.

A spike in whooping cough cases among 10-year-olds and adolescents who are 13 and 14 was a concern, perhaps an indicator that the pertussis vaccine may be wearing off earlier than anticipated, Washington Health Secretary Mary Selecky said.

CDC officials will begin an investigation in Washington state later this month ‘to analyze data for cases among 13- to 14-year-olds to see what can be learned about disease rates and vaccination status.’