Friday, August 27, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Amy Witherden.

Making headlines:

Key players in the wage dispute between the government and public sector trade unions are tight-lipped about rumours of secret talks with Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi.
Government spokesperson Themba Maseko said that he could not comment, as did South African Democratic Teachers Union deputy general secretary Nkosana Dolopi, while the chief negotiators for the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the Independent Labour Caucus were unavailable.
Business Day newspaper and SABC television news reported that talks were going on behind the scenes on Thursday evening between the Public Service and Administration Minister and the unions.
Maseko only said that "we are hoping that ... the union leadership and the government negotiators will come back to the table, sooner rather than later."

Crimes committed by Rwanda's army and Congolese rebels in the Congo during the 1990s could be classified as genocide, according to a leaked draft United Nations (UN) report. This charge will likely stir tensions between Kigali and the UN.
The report details crimes committed in the former Belgian colony between 1993 and 2003, a period that saw the fall of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and a five-year conflict involving six foreign armies, including Rwanda's Tutsi-led force. Millions of people died, most from hunger and disease rather than violence. Congo expert and report author Jason Stearns says that diplomats are wrangling over whether to include the highly sensitive genocide accusation in the final version of the document. A spokesperson for the UN's High Commission for Human Rights, which drafted the 545-page report, said, however, that the leaked document was a draft, and had some errors.
The report details some 600 serious crimes committed by various forces from a number of nations, but Stearns said that Rwanda comes off worst. "The allegation that the Rwandan army could be guilty of acts of genocide against Hutu refugees will greatly tarnish the reputation of a government that prides itself in having brought to an end the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda," he said.

After Cabinet, Parliament and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe have given their support to Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu's refusal to release an interim report on the state of the military.
Sisulu has for months been locked in a standoff with Members of Parliament after she declined to release working reports by the Interim National Defence Force Service Commission to Parliament's portfolio committee on defence.
Cabinet last week endorsed her position that she would only release the final report, expected in September, once the executive had viewed the document. On Thursday, National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu, the Minister's brother, issued a statement supporting this view.

Also making headlines:

South Africa's Constitutional Court debates whether children can be held liable for defamation for doing something that they thought was a joke.
South African President Jacob Zuma continues his push for South Africa's acceptance into the Brazil, Russia, India and China, or Bric, group of developing countries, saying that South Africa aims to up its growth rate by focusing on key sectors in its economy.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says that the South African Reserve Bank will have to consider recent data showing softer economic growth and lower inflation when making its next decision on the interest rate.
And, Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika threatens to chase aid donors away and close newspapers for reporting that more than one-million Malawians are in need of food aid after a failed crop.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.