Friday, June 18, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Brad Dubbelman.

Making headlines:

While there have been doubts about whether the 2010 FIFA World Cup will benefit South Africa as much as had been expected, researchers from JPMorgan and Deloitte are positive that the tournament will be beneficial for the country.
JP Morgan says that the sporting event will add 0,4% to South Africa's gross domestic product, which will help to boost growth for 2010 to 3%, surpassing the South African Treasury's expectations of 1,5% growth for the year. JP Morgan also points out that there is historically a strong positive correlation between hosting a FIFA World Cup and the equity market performance of the host country, while the currencies of hosting countries also tend to appreciate in the six months leading up to a FIFA World Cup.
Deloitte says that the 2010 FIFA World Cup could be a turning point for South Africa, and that the country has already realised many of the hoped for benefits. The event has provided a boost to national infrastructure improvements, increased employment during hard times for the global economy, and provided a unifying rallying point for a still-developing nation, it stated.

The world's oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain, which, a new study says, are irreversible changes that have not occurred for several million years. The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people around the globe who rely on oceans for their livelihoods.
The Australia-US report published in Science magazine, studied ten years of marine research and found that climate change is causing major declines in marine ecosystems.
The report's lead author and director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg says that the earth is "entering a period in which the very ocean services upon which humanity depends, are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail."
The report's coauthor and marine scientist at the University of North Carolina John F Bruno says that they are "becoming increasingly certain that the world's marine ecosystems are approaching tipping points... where change accelerates and causes unrelated impacts on other systems."

South Africa's Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has launched an investigation into the potential conflict of interest arising from Jimmy Manyi's dual roles as director-general of the Labour Department and president of the Black Management Forum. There have been reports that the Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana asked Manyi to choose between his two jobs, but the Minister denied this.
The complaint against Manyi, who was provisionally suspended earlier this month as director-general, was brought by Paul Hoffman, a director of the Institute for Accountability.
Shortly before he was suspended, Manyi alleged that a KPMG report had revealed corruption by senior officials in the Department of Labour. Manyi said that Mdladlana knew about the report, but both Mdladlana and KPMG deny that it exists.

Also making headlines:

Rwanda frees US lawyer Peter Erlinder, who has been charged with genocide denial and threatening State security, on health grounds while investigations continue.
Trade union Solidarity says that a possible strike at Eskom has been temporarily averted after Eskom made a final offer of an 8% wage increase and a one-off bonus of 1% of their annual salary.
A Dutch court convicts five Somalis of piracy, sentencing them to five years in prison for trying to hijack a ship from the Dutch Antilles in 2009.
And, the World Bank reports that China's growth is likely to ease, but its gross domestic product is, nevertheless, expected to expand by 9,5% this year.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.