Tuesday, April 14, 2009
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shona Kohler.
Making headlines:
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma stated at a rally in KwaZulu-Natal this weekend, that people who do not vote for the ANC in the upcoming elections will be wasting their votes.
Zuma predicted that his party would win the elections overwhelmingly, but urged people to vote in their numbers, saying that it would be easy for the ANC to take decisions and deliver if it had a massive majority in government.
The Presidential frontrunner said that opposition parties had failed to produce manifestos that are any different from that of the ruling party. Zuma explained that opposition parties merely called for the votes of the electorate in order to reduce ANC power, without offering any alternatives.

In African news, following the dramatic rescue of an American hostage at the weekend, Somalia's fledgling government said that the rampant piracy off the country's coast, can only be stopped with stability and security onshore, not by international navies patrolling ever larger stretches of sea.
Somalia's Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Omaar said that the surge in recent attacks demonstrates clearly that the issue is based on land and has to be resolved on land.
Omaar said that the international community should focus its resources on helping build national security forces for the current Somali government that is the fifteenth attempt to restore central rule to Somalia since it slipped into anarchy in 1991.
The international community is as much in need of the rule of law in the Horn of Africa nation as the people of Somalia, Omaar said, as he noted the impact of piracy in the Gulf of Aden on global trade in strategic shipping lanes.

Back home, Fikile Mbalula, head of the African National Congress's election campaign, has launched a scathing attack on former President Thabo Mbeki, calling him a "conniving" person who betrayed the legacy of struggle icon Nelson Mandela.
Mbalula wrote, in an open letter to the ex-president of the ANC, that while Mbeki was intoxicated with power, he had neglected Mandela's counsel and allowed the ANC to "stumble on the edge of an abyss".
Mbalula said that Mbeki had "spawned" the breakaway party, the Congress of the People, after being defeated as ANC leader by Jacob Zuma at the Polokwane conference in December 2007.
Referring to the alleged political interference in the case against Zuma, Mbalula said that this was a result of Mbeki's actions of conniving, manipulating people and advancing the politics of patronage.

Also making headlines:
ANC president Jacob Zuma says that South Africa's democratic institutions have succeeded in checking abuses of power.
South African voters living abroad will vote on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe sets up a Parliamentary team to drive constitutional reforms.
And, opposition parties say that South Africa faces the risk of becoming a 'failed State' if the ANC wins the elections.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.