Wednesday, February 18, 2009
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Fatima Gabru.
Making headlines:
The legal team of dismissed National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has served papers on the Pretoria State attorney in a last minute bid for Pikoli to be reinstated.
On Tuesday, Parliament ratified Vusi Pikoli's dismissal when the National Council of Provinces voted in favour of a special committee report approving President Kgalema Motlanthe's decision.
Pikoli responded immediately by moving to challenge the decision in court and asked that he be reinstated as head of the National Prosecuting Authority. His legal team says that they are petitioning the Pretoria High Court to set aside the dismissal on the grounds that it is not rational, and violates the Constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence and the principles of legality.

In other news, the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says that Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis is deepening, demonstrated by a growing cholera epidemic, and indicates that government restrictions are hampering aid efforts.
The organisation reports that health services have collapsed as there is no money to buy medicines or pay doctors and nurses, triggering a heavy exodus of medical workers to other countries.
Manuel Lopez, head of the aid group in Zimbabwe, says that this amounts to a massive medical emergency that is spiralling out of control.
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF government has in the past accused foreign aid agencies of working to further the political agenda of its opponents.

Back home, the South African Institute of Race Relations says that fraud and corruption in South Africa's ruling African National Congress, could compromise the rule of law, whereby no person is above the law.
In the latest corruption case to hit the party, the ANC'c official spokesperson Carl Niehaus admitted to using his political position for financial gain. ANC leader Jacob Zuma is also embroiled in a revived graft case.
The Institute of Race Relations says that the ANC's corruption appears to follow a now familiar pattern. The institute's deputy CEO Frans Cronje, comments that the party's response to such corruption is far from adequate. The party's policy of redeployment merely shifts the corrupt dealings around while doing insurmountable damage to the party, the government and the country. This, he adds, amounts in many cases to a disregard for the rule of law.

Also making headlines:
The World Bank proposes a $100-million crisis loan for the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A Zimbabwe court will today rule on Movement for Democratic Change heavyweight Roy Bennett's terrorism charges.
And, the African National Congress says that newly resigned spokesperson Carl Niehaus withheld facts from the party.

That's a roundup of news making headlines headlines today.