An increasing number of developing countries are introducing universal healthcare coverage - and creating new models to do it - according to research published in The Lancet journal. Lessons learned from countries like Ghana, India and Rwanda are already shaping the way countries like South Africa are beginning to pilot their own bids for universal coverage. In the early 20th century, two models of universal healthcare coverage emerged in the United Kingdom and Germany. The UK uses general taxes to fund publicly provided healthcare in its one risk pool model, while Germany’s multiple risk pool model relies on household premiums and payroll taxes, and relies on private healthcare providers. Industrialised countries like Japan, Canada and France have all implemented variations of these two models. But countries from the global South (developing) are creating their own models, according to research by the Results for Development Institute and others, published in The Lancet as part of its universal healthcare coverage series.

South Africa is the 9th largest producer of GMOs globally and has cultivated, imported and exported GMOs since 1998. About 72 per cent of maize production is genetically modified and over 90 per cent of soya production is modified. The South African government granted approximately 1200 permits for GMO maize, just in the last three years. Up until 2010 South Africa was a major importer of GM maize, importing over two million tons from Argentina in 2007 alone. However, in that year South Africa produced an enormous four million ton surplus and has subsequently exported nearly 6 million tons of GM maize. Since the introduction of GM crops in South Africa, some fourteen years ago, labelling has been a contentious issue.

Ethiopian authorities blocked the publication of a prominent independent newspaper over the weekend in connection with its stories on the health of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, according to local journalists. The state-run printing company Barhanena Selam told the weekly Feteh early Sunday morning that the government had ordered that week’s edition of the paper, about 30,000 copies, to be blocked on grounds of inciting national insecurity and endangering the government and the public, local journalists said.