October 25 2012
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

A lawyer for the Marikana miners alleges that businessman Cyril Ramaphosa urged a crackdown on 'criminal' strikes.

A report by the World Bank says lifting barriers could unlock Africa’s food trade.

And, France gives Burkina Faso planes to tackle the Islamist security threat in Mali.

According to emails revealed this week, South African millionaire businessperson and one-time anti-apartheid hero Cyril Ramaphosa urged ministers to crack down on the violent platinum miners' strike in August. This was a day before 34 miners were killed by police.

The emails, cited by a lawyer for miners arrested over the August 16 "Marikana Massacre" , are the latest evidence of a reversal of historical roles for the 59-year-old, who himself once led an historic miners' pay strike under apartheid in 1987.

An official enquiry into Marikana revealed that the emails sent by Ramaphosa a day before the shootings were calling for "concomitant action" to tackle the strike.

One email sent by Ramaphosa to Lonmin chief commercial officer Albert Jamieson said that the terrible events that have unfolded couldn’t be described as a labour dispute, and that they were plainly criminal and should be characterized as such. Ramaphosa's Shanduka Group, meanwhile, contributed R2-million for the funerals of the more than 40 people killed in the Marikana violence.

A World Bank report says that Africa can avoid food shortages if it reduces the tangled web of rules, fees and high costs strangling regional food trade as well as putting large swathes of uncultivated land to productive use. According to the report African farmers now provide only 5% of Africa’s cereal imports.

World Bank vice president for Africa Makhtar Diop said that, too often, borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat.

The bank estimated that 19-million people are in danger of hunger and malnutrition in West Africa's Sahel region. It suggests that removing cross-border restrictions could help avoid food crises if farmers were allowed to trade more easily with each other and get food to communities facing shortages.

Further, the World Bank estimated that fewer restrictions on food trade could generate an estimated $20-billion in annual earnings for African governments.

France has provided Burkina Faso with three light aircraft to help it monitor its northern border with Islamist-occupied northern Mali.

Islamist fighters, some with links to al Qaeda, seized the northern two-thirds of Mali earlier this year, raising fears that militant groups could spread their influence beyond the country's porous desert borders.

The head of the army, Brigadier General Nabere Honore Traore, told a state-owned newspaper that the three planes would allow the army to carry out aerial reconnaissance in the north. He also said that the security of the sub-region requires exactly these kinds of missions.

Also making headlines:

The Competition Commission seeks the maximum penalty as a probe unearths diesel price setting.

The African Union reinstates Mali ahead of military action.

And, Guinea-Bissau's caretaker government seeks to extradite former Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior from Portugal.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.