Thursday January 13, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Shannon de Ryhove

Making headlines:

The director of the Zimbabwe Documentation Project, Jacob Mamabolo says that he is confident that the Home Affairs department will achieve the June 30 deadline set for the documentation of Zimbabweans living in South Africa.

He said that the department held regular meetings with some 19 Zimbabwean stakeholders including that country's government, and that they had played an important role in the documentation project as they highlighted issues that the department was not aware of.

Mamabolo stated that deportations would start once the project was completed.

The home affairs department received 275 762 applications from Zimbabweans who wanted to legalise their stay in the country.

On Thursday, forces loyal to Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo said they had encircled the scene of clashes between them and supporters of his rival in Abidjan and blocked entry to UN peacekeepers.

Six policemen were killed in the Abidjan suburb of Abobo on Wednesday in a second day of fighting between security forces loyal to Gbagbo and supporters of rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara. The fighting had claimed at least five lives on Tuesday.

The West African nation has been in crisis since a November 28 presidential election that both Ouattara and Gbagbo claim to have won. Ouattara was proclaimed winner by the country's electoral commission and is widely regarded by foreign governments as having legitimately won the UN-certified poll. However, Gbagbo has refused to step down.

The United Nations (or UN) World Food Programme (or WFP) said on Wednesday that, with investment and security, south Sudan could become a food exporter and end its chronic food dependency within a decade.

WFP Sudan Regional Director Amer Daoudi said the UN agency was working with south Sudan to build strategic grain reserves and a road network to link rural farmers to urban markets. South Sudan is currently voting to become an independent nation in 2011.

However, Daoudi said that all other areas of south Sudan's economy must be developed in tandem to allow agriculture to progress. He said that, with the support of the Government of Southern Sudan, the WFP would be building feeder roads to help the farmers and villagers to get their produce to the local roads as well as linking them to the trunk roads.

Also making headlines:

Nigeria's ruling party will decide on Thursday whether to back President Goodluck Jonathan as its candidate in April elections, in one of the tightest races since the end of military rule more than a decade ago.

South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission is aiming to register 1,5-million voters before the local government elections take place, the date of which is yet to be announced.

And, public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba urges South Africans to continue to use electricity more efficiently.

That’s a round up of news making headlines today.