Namibia should convene a national conference to find practical solutions how to combat AIDS, Namibian business tycoon Harald Pupkewitz demanded this week. Speaking at the launch of the National Code on HIV/AIDS and Employment at the ministry of labour in Windhoek, Pupkewitz said the Code dealt with the management of already infected people at work, but lacked initiatives to address prevention of HIV infection. The only preventative measure was "abstinence from sex before entering a faithful marriage", 89-year old Pupkewitz said. He wanted to see much more State support for programmes reaching pupils at schools to enter their work places healthy and not already infected when leaving school. Eradicating AIDS needed a much moire serious holistic approach, Pupkewitz said. " We cannot fail our future generations. Let us call a conference of all leaders to decide on a course of action to deal with the situation and create a real sense of the impending catastrophe", Pupkewitz warned.

On Thursday afternoon the official launch of EU trade negotiations with SADC countries and those of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific took place in Windhoek. The Agricultural Trade Forum (ATF) in Namibia and the Namibia Manufacturers’ Association briefed media before the event and placed advertisements in newspapers this week, raising concerns about certain issues regarding future trade with Europe. The EU should immediately introduce full duty free access for all Botswana, Namibian and Swaziland export originating from those countries to the European Union, Namibia’s ATF demanded. Access for exports from Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Lesotho are already covered by the EU’s "Everything But Arms" (EBA) initiative, which applies to all least developed countries and which allows for complete duty free access for all originating products. For Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland, there is no clear basis for their future access to the EU market, said Mr Roger Paskin, chairman of the Namibian ATF this week. In October 2003, the European Commission proposed to the EU’s key trade committee that once the economic partnership agreement enters into force, the ACP states involved should be granted access to the EU market equivalent to that applied under the EBA. Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland are full members of the ACP group and are already de facto part of an economic partnership agreement with the EU, Paskin said. "We ask the EU to broaden duty-free access to all EPA members for all products, with immediate effect," he said at a press conference. "We call on the EU to adopt a set of reasonable, science-based standards and stick to them; and further to accord developing countries all reasonable assistance in meeting these standards."

A third point was the import of sometimes heavily subsidised European goods into the SADC region, which could seriously disrupt local markets and adversely affect development." We call for the provision of adequate safeguards in any agreement with the EU," Paskin demanded.

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