Tuesday, July 20, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Amy Witherden.

Making headlines:

Greater policy effort to avoid currency overvaluation in South Africa "is warranted", a new Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report argues.
The inaugural ‘OECD Economic Survey of South Africa', released in Pretoria on Monday, stated that, despite the potential pitfalls associated with a more activist approach to currency management, there could be "net benefits from a range of actions designed to ease upward pressure on the real exchange rate". The survey quoted an estimate suggesting that the rand was about 15% overvalued in real effective terms in March 2010.
OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said that the two major challenges facing South Africa were to increase employment and improve export performance. Gurria even argued that an improved export performance would be key to increasing employment, as had been the case in a number of other developing countries.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan welcomed the report, saying that it would feed into government's thinking on how to forge a "new growth path", hinting that a new growth target of "7% a year, for 20 years" was being considered by government.

The United Nations (UN) on Monday accredited a major gay and lesbian organisation that some countries had tried to keep out as a group permitted to lobby at the world body.
The US-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission applied for "consultative status" at the UN Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) three years ago. Last month, a UN committee that accredits nongovernmental groups rejected the application after "no" votes from countries including Egypt, Russia and China. The US, Britain and other Western delegations urged the full 54-nation Ecosoc to vote on the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission's application, which it did on Monday. It was approved with 23 "yes" votes, 13 "no" votes and 13 abstentions. Among those who voted "no" were once again Egypt, China and Russia, along with Niger, Morocco, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Those voting in favour included the US, Britain, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Japan.
US President Barack Obama welcomed the move as a "step forward for human rights", while British Deputy Ambassador Philip Parham told Ecosoc that the group's presence at the world body would "add an important voice to discussions at the UN".

Sections of the South African government's proposed Protection of Information legislation are reminiscent of apartheid-era secrecy laws and display a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution, said Dr Laurie Nathan in a submission to Parliament's ad hoc committee on the Protection of Information Bill.
Nathan was a member of the Ministerial Review Commission on Intelligence, which ran from 2006 to 2008; the Parliamentary committee is holding public hearings this week on the bill.
Nathan said that while there are legitimate grounds for protecting certain information, this should be the exception and not the rule. "Some risk of harm has to be tolerated in a democracy because the dangers posed by secrecy - lack of accountability, abuse of power, infringements of human rights and a culture of impunity - can imperil the democratic order itself," he said.

Also making headlines:

South African residents attack migrants from African countries in a Johannesburg township, increasing concerns of a wave of xenophobia after the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo says that the government needs to tightly control journalists and politicians to prevent the ethnically divisive rhetoric that sparked the 1994 genocide.
The Public Service and Administration Department says that it will meet with unions this week in a bid to avert a potential strike after a deadlock in wage negotiations.
And, the Côte d'Ivoire's public prosecutor urges a jail sentence for three journalists arrested for publishing a confidential government inquiry into corruption in the cocoa sector.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.