Tuesday, April 20, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Brad Dubbelman.

Making headlines:

The South African Police Service takes an impartial approach to farm safety and will not be affected by politicians' attempts to polarise the issue, said Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa yesterday, after "fruitful" talks with newly appointed Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Steyn van Ronge in Pretoria.
The AWB asked for the meeting to voice its concern about farm murders and to find out how the government planned to deal with the matter, following the murder of AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche on his farm outside Ventersdorp earlier this month.
Mthethwa, who refused to comment on recent developments in the Terre'Blanche case, assured the AWB that rural safety is one of the government's top priorities, and indicated the need for more meetings with the AWB.

Israel may come under new pressure next month at a United Nations (UN) meeting on atomic weapons, as the US, Britain and France consider backing Egypt's call for a zone in the Middle East free of nuclear arms. The 189 signatories to the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty will meet at UN headquarters in New York next month, on the troubled pact, the credibility of which, analysts say, has been harmed by the atomic programmes of Iran and North Korea and the failure of the big nuclear powers to disarm.
Israel, like India and Pakistan, never signed the treaty and is not officially attending the conference. Egypt has submitted a working paper to fellow treaty members, saying that the conference should formally express regret that "no progress has taken place on the implementation of the (1995) resolution" and call for an international treaty conference by 2011. The point of such a conference would be "to launch negotiations, with the participation of all States of the Middle East, on an internationally and effectively verifiable treaty for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East".
Israel's UN mission had no official comment on the Egyptian proposal. But an Israeli diplomat said that the Jewish State would be ready to discuss issues like establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone once there is peace in the Middle East.

The South African government will endorse a new mining charter to bring greater black ownership to the sector next month, said Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu yesterday. She has not said what changes are planned under the review of the five-year-old charter, which calls on mining companies to employ more black managers, but which the government believes has not made enough progress.
Shabangu said that the changes to the charter have "not fundamentally shifted the goal posts, but aim to enhance compliance with black economic empowerment". She added that the Cabinet will endorse the changes next month, in order to "strengthen this tool of transformation".

Also making headlines:

State-owned power utility Eskom says that South Africa will face a power crunch between 2011 and 2013, as well as between 2018 and 2024.
The United Nations expresses concern that an early withdrawal of peacekeeping troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo could compromise the implementation of laws against sexual violence.
African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema is expected to escape discipline by the ruling party.
And, the opposition Sudan People's Liberation Movement accuses north Sudan of building up troops in the country's highly sensitive Blue Nile border state during the vote count of the troubled national elections.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.