South Africa

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa will act swiftly and "with no mercy" against criminals and terrorists who threaten the 2010 FIFA World Cup, warns Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa. The country has spent R665-million on special equipment, including state-of-the-art military technology, and will spend a further R640-million to deploy 41 000 police and security officials for the event, he says. "An amount of R665-million has been spent on procuring special equipment, including crowd-control equipment, crime scene trainers, helicopters, ten water cannons, 100 BMWs for highway patrol and up-to-date body armour. About 300 mobile cameras will also be used. There will be four mobile command centres at a cost of around R6-million each. These centres will feature high-tech monitoring equipment, which will be able to receive live footage from airplanes and other cameras."

JOHANNESBURG - Business must begin accepting that the milieu in which it operates has changed and that it is facing more than just an economic crisis, King Committee on Corporate Governance chairperson Professor Mervyn King says. Addressing delegates at a 2010 economic outlook conference, hosted by the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute for Business Science, he says that the world is facing financial, climate-change and ecosystem and biodiversity crises. While the world will emerge from the global economic crisis in the not-too-distant future, the climate-change and biodiversity threats will linger, King asserts, adding that while banks could be bailed out, no such remedy exists for ‘Mother Earth'. Therefore, sustainability is the social and economic imperative of the twenty-first century. There are more companies and corporations than governments in the world, making business the greatest potential agents of change. However, there has to be a mindset change to ensure that the world will do more while using fewer natural resources.

JOHANNESBURG - Government's promise to create 500 000 employment opportunities is faltering, Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says. "Much more needs to be done to make sure we achieve and preferably surpass this target," he says at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) labour sector school. "The fact that 73% of those currently unemployed are under [the age of] 35, and the recent entry of over one-million school leavers without any matric or other qualifications and virtually no possibility of a proper job, make it absolutely imperative that we take them off the streets and give them opportunities to work and train." Although there are reports that the country is coming out of a recession, workers are yet to see evidence of this, he says. South Africa came out of a recession during the third quarter of 2009, according to Statistics South Africa. "On the contrary, they are still stuck in a catastrophic recession, marked by rising unemployment, poverty and inequality. If there is any growth, it is certainly jobless growth."

Africa and the World

NEW DELHI - The environmental Ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China have reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring an agreed outcome at the global climate change conference scheduled for Mexico toward the end of 2010. These countries have also agreed to coordinate their positions closely as part of climate change discussions in other forums, and emphasise the importance of working with other members of the Group of 77 and China, in order to ensure an ambitious and equitable outcome in Mexico through a transparent process. The Ministers, who met in New Delhi, in India, call on Denmark (the current Conference of the Parties president) to convene a meeting in March of the ad hoc working group (AWG) for further commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and the AWG for long-term cooperative action under the convention. The Ministers further emphasise that Denmark should ensure that the AWGs meet at least five times before the conference in Mexico, and that funding, logistics and other procedural issues not be allowed to become a constraint in the convening of these meetings.