Tuesday, April 7, 2009
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Amy Witherden.
Making headlines:
The National Prosecuting Authority announced yesterday that it can not continue with the prosecution against African National Congress president Jacob Zuma, because spy tapes suggesting political meddling had marred the processes involved.
Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe said that "it would be unfair as well as unjust to continue with the prosecution."
Political and legal commentators have said, however, that the decision to drop the case against Zuma has failed to clear the name of the country's likely next President.
Political analyst Steven Friedman says that the question of whether Zuma is guilty or not, is as unsettled as before.
Constitutional law expert Shadrack Gutto agrees, saying that since the NPA stated clearly that it has been given no reason to change its mind about the merit of its corruption case against Zuma, the suspicions surrounding him remain.

In world news, a policy document for an upcoming Group of 8 meeting on agriculture, shows that global food production needs to double by 2050 in order to avert the risk of scarcity and high prices affecting international stability.
The G8 document predicted that the food crisis will become structural in only a few decades time if immediate interventions in agriculture and agri-marketing systems are not undertaken.
A further food crisis will have "serious consequences not merely on business relations, but equally on social and international relations", which in turn, will impact directly on the security and stability of world politics.
The report adds that the issue of price volatility remains a crucial element for world food security.

Reporting back on his experience at last week's Group of 20 meeting in London, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told a gathering at the Gordon Institute of Business Science that the global economic crisis may give way to a more robust and enduring era of economic development in Africa and the developing world than has been contemplated before.
Manuel explained that the dynamics of economic growth in developing countries such as China and India, the decline in the number of people living in poverty worldwide, and the sustained rise in commodity prices, reflect a more broad-based industrialisation and modernisation.
Although growth may be interrupted for a period, these are powerful dynamics that are not going to be reversed, Manuel said.
In some respects, the structural imbalances that underlie the present crisis were constraints to broader development, and so the resolution of these imbalances is a condition for more sustainable growth and prosperity.

Also making headlines:
South Africa's Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has died after a long illness.
Financiers pledge $1-billion for African infrastructure development.
And, the National Prosecuting Authority is left red-faced over the abandonment of the charges against Jacob Zuma, after previously denying any political interference in the case.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.