Monday, September 6, 2010

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

Making headlines:

Salary increases for Ministers and top government officials should be frozen in order to reduce the income gap between executives and ordinary workers, the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal said on Sunday.
The call is contained in the declaration of the two-day KwaZulu-Natal ANC provincial general council. Delegates believe that introducing a dispensation in which salary increases for directors in middle and top management are frozen, would help the country reduce the wage gap. The dispensation would affect directors-general, senior executives in parastatals and government Ministers. Delegates felt that the widening income gap between the low income categories and the top executives was unsustainable and that it contributed to inequality.
ANC provincial chairperson Dr Zweli Mkhize warned that hefty rises in salaries would push the country into a debt trap. This, he said, would put the country in danger of losing its sovereignty through forced borrowings and structural adjustments to repay the loan. "That way, we may end up with forced salary cuts anyway, as it happened in Malaysia in the past and in Greece recently," said Mkhize.

Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, say water analysts, arguing for greater investment in water storage.
In a report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), experts said that Africa and Asia are likely to be hardest hit by unpredictable rainfall, and urged policymakers and farmers to try to find ways of diversifying sources of water. The IWMI research estimates that up to 499-million people in Africa and India could benefit from improved agricultural water management.
IWMI hydrologist Matthew McCartney says that "smallholder farmers need a wide array of 'water accounts' to provide a buffer against climate change impacts." The report says, that despite a great expansion in irrigation in recent decades in Asia, around 66% of agriculture is still dependent on rainfall. In sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion is even greater at 94%. These are the regions where water storage infrastructure is least developed.
The report cautioned against over reliance on single solutions such as big dams, and said that an integrated approach combining large- and small-scale storage was a better strategy. It suggests the use of water from natural wetlands, water stored in the soil, ground water and water collected in ponds, tanks and reservoirs.

Group of 20 (G20) delegates agreed on Saturday that the global economic recovery would endure although the speed of expansion may slow.
South Korean central bank deputy governor Kim Jae-chun, who co chaired the meeting of G20 finance and central bank deputies in South Korea's south-western city of Gwangju, also said that he thought market reaction to concerns about economic slowdown was overblown. "There was an agreement that the (global) recovery will continue even though the speed may slow from the level we thought of two to three months ago," Kim said.
At this meeting, there was also discussion about the issue of readjusting representation on the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) executive board. The G20 members have pledged to reach an agreement on the issue by the time of the leaders' summit in Seoul in November but Europe has been reluctant to accept the proposals as it would diminish its voting rights on the board.

Also making headlines:

Unions representing South African State workers are expected to announce today whether they will accept a government wage offer they previously rejected and end a strike by 1,3-million employees.
Angola says that it plans to overhaul its dams and power grids and end all power cuts by 2016.
The Democratic Alliance reports that 19 out of the 34 Ministers in President Jacob Zuma's Cabinet, have failed to appear before Parliament for oral questioning, with no explanation for their absence.
And, the second round of direct peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians will take place in Egypt on September 14 and September 15, with the likes of US mediator George Mitchell, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expected to attend.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.