June 12, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Gia Costella.

Making headlines:

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said on Monday that changing the Constitution wasn’t the answer to resolving South Africa's land problem.

He said there was much discussion about clause 25(3) of the Constitution and whether it facilitates or frustrates the settlement of the land question.

Section 25(3) of the Constitution refers to property rights and land expropriation with fair compensation.

Nkwinti said the debate about whether the willing buyer, willing seller concept worked was the wrong approach to the problem of land, as it was the incorrect paradigm.

A group of liberal and leftist political parties decided on Monday to forgo their seats in the assembly that will write Egypt's new constitution. This was in protest at what they called the over-representation of Islamists in the body.

Islamists hit back, saying the group had gone back on an agreement concluded last week. The row cast a new shadow over a process that has been held up since April by a tussle between the Islamist parties, which dominate parliament, and other groups.

Criticising the blueprint for the division of the seats in the 100-member body due to be picked on Tuesday, groups including the liberal Free Egyptians Party said they wouldn’t take part at all and instead would hand their seats to women, Christians, workers, peasants and others, which are sections of society they said had been denied representation.

Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel said yesterday that the process of adopting a youth wage subsidy is being accelerated.

Patel said moves were underway to accelerate discussions at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (or Nedlac). He was replying to a written parliamentary question from Democratic Alliance MP Kenneth Mubu,

Talks have consistently deadlocked at Nedlac, with the Congress of South African Trade Unions opposing the move.

Meanwhile, Parliament's finance committee has been told the design of the subsidy will be completed by the end of June.

Also making headlines:

Bureaucratic bottlenecks in Libya could derail the country’s first national election in a generation and push the country deeper into chaos.

The DA urges President Jacob Zuma to fire suspended police commissioner Bheki Cele rather than allow him to resign from his job.

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