October 07, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Anine Vermeulen.
Making headlines:

South Africa braces for the 'mother of all stay-aways'. 

A Burkina Faso court charges its general and ex-foreign minister over coup. 

And, the ruling party is 'deepening community participation' ahead of local government elections.

 

Cosatu will embark on the "mother of all stay-aways" today when it stages marches in all nine provinces to protest against higher taxes, e-tolls and job losses and other things burdening the working class.

The demonstrations coincide with the World Day for Decent Work.

Cosatu said its members will march and demonstrate in city centres all over the country against issues such as the deadlock on its demand to scrap e-tolls. The union federation is also calling for a better transport system and is demanding an immediate halt to pending retrenchments.

Amongst other demands the union federation wants Treasury to reject the proposals to increase VAT, Eskom to be held accountable for the delays in the building of the new power stations and the release of the white paper on the National Health Insurance.

In what it called an unemployment crisis, Cosatu expressed concern about the large number of young people who are jobless. Cosatu is also calling for a minimum wage.

 

A court in Burkina Faso charged a general and a former foreign minister with crimes including threatening state security and murder in the wake of a short-lived coup last month.

General Gilbert Diendere led a putsch by elite presidential guard soldiers that saw them take the country's president Michel Kafando, prime minister and members of the transitional government hostage less than a month before elections.

Previous foreign minister Djibril Bassole, was also arrested in connection with the coup.

The two men, who are close allies of deposed longtime leader Blaise Compaore, were each charged with 11 offences.

Other charges included colluding with foreign forces to destabilise interior security, voluntary assault, and willful destruction of property.

At least 11 people were killed and 271 injured as the presidential guard crushed protests against their actions.

 

The African National Congress (or ANC) is trying to deepen community participation in its candidate selection processes ahead of next year's local government elections.

This is part of the ANC’s new guidelines for the selection process.

The party's head of elections Nomvula Mokonyane told an online news agency that grievances from communities and from within the ANC, informed the selection process to ensure accountability and community participation in identifying who was finally going to be their leader.

She said the ANC was to deepen public participation and strengthen accountability prior to and post the election of the candidate to [the position of] a ward councillor.

 

Also making headlines:

The International Monetary Fund trimmed South Africa’s growth outlook again ahead of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s mini-Budget. 

South Africa and the US were inching towards a resolution of their protracted trade dispute over US meat imports which was threatening South Africa’s access to the US market.  

Economist warned that the implementation of the Private Security Industry Regulations Amendment Act could lead to a 10% decline in South African exports to the US and European Union.

And, Zimbabwe to hike empowerment levy on foreign firms.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today