August 30, 2012
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

The African National Congress eases up on the Protection of State information Bill.

Drug resistant tuberculosis is found across the world.

And, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe says poverty and consumption causes revolution.

The ANC has announced further concessions on the Protection of State Information Bill after two years of public protest over the draft classification law.

ANC MP Sam Mozisiwe confirmed that his party stood by the removal of a line that would have sought to make the bill trump the Promotion of Access to Information Act. This sub-clause has been widely branded as unconstitutional.

The ANC agreed to strike clause 49 from the bill. This section sought to ban the release of information relating to any state security matter. It also agreed to opposition calls to remove a provision that would have given municipalities the power to classify information.

The proposed amendments were welcomed by activists and the opposition parties. However, both camps called still, for more changes.

Scientists have found alarming levels of the lung disease tuberculosis in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America that are resistant to up to four powerful antibiotic drugs.

In a study published in the Lancet medical journal, researchers found rates of both multi drug-resistant TB (or MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (or XDR-TB) were higher than previously thought. These levels are and were threatening global efforts to curb the spread of the disease.

TB is already a worldwide pandemic that infected 8.8-million people and killed 1.4-million of them in 2010.

Treating even normal TB is a long process, with patients needing to take a cocktail of powerful antibiotics for six months. Many patients fail to correctly complete treatment, a factor that has fuelled a rise in the drug-resistant forms.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe says that conspicuous consumption coupled with poverty are the key ingredients for a revolution.

Addressing a roundtable discussion in Cape Town, he drew a link between social unrest and consumption by companies and mine bosses, in the wake of the Marikana protests and killings.

Motlanthe said once the have not’s get to a point where, as Martin Luther King put it, they continue to fight against the degenerating feeling of nobodiness, it is only matter of time before this resonates into a strong feeling of ridding themselves of abject poverty and deprivation.

He said the unrest in many communities, where service delivery protests were rife, was concerning but was a "necessary volatility".

Also making headlines:

United Nations officials say rival armed groups in Congo have massacred many civilians.

South Africa seeks mine peace amidst the elusive wage talks.

And, the microdotting of motor vehicles will be compulsory from September 1.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.