Thursday, July 16, 2009
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Amy Witherden.
Making headlines:
South Africa needs to accelerate infrastructure development to minimise the impact of the global financial crisis, says the World Bank's chief economist and senior vice-president Justin Yifu Lin.
Developing countries will bear the brunt of the financial crisis, he said during a public lecture at the University of South Africa. Poverty and unemployment will increase, he said, while "financial stability will be hard to maintain."
Lin said that South Africa had been doing "very well" financially before the crisis, owing to political stability and its sound and sustainable macroeconomic environment. This record is now under the "inevitable long shadow" of the global crisis, said Lin. In order to minimise the impact of the downturn, government will need to dig deep and invest heavily and wisely in infrastructure development to stimulate its embattled economy.

The world's financial architecture must change to ensure that developing countries are represented, said President Jacob Zuma at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit of Heads of State in Egypt.
The inability of financial institutions to respond to the economic crisis and prevent a global recession, is proof enough of the need for change and renewal, he said. These structures should change from self-regulatory and unrepresentative institutions, to institutions that reflect the changing economic realities of the globe, which provide a voice and representation to developing countries.
Zuma said that it is necessary to continue to push for transformation and renewal in relations with the North, to make sure that commitments made by the developed world were kept. He added that South-South cooperation is more important now than ever, in aiding emerging economies in their response to the crisis.

Affirmative action is working against South Africa, Trevor Tutu told a Solidarity conference on affirmative action in Pretoria yesterday. Tutu, the son of Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said that affirmative action makes young South Africans bitter, often forcing them to leave the country, taking their skills with them.
Professor Marinus Wiechers explained that the apartheid system was based on an extensive system of racial classification, and that affirmative action has imported a new form of racial designation, which has become the foremost breeding ground for racism and racist sentiments in the new South Africa.
Professor Terence Gomez from the University of Malaya said that the lesson Malaysia learnt from affirmative action, was that it is a sound policy to rectify historical social injustices, but after the short term, the policy must expand the range of targeted groups and individuals based on class position.
Former State President FW de Klerk reiterated his stance at the conference, that affirmative action is unfair. It should promote equality, he said, and black economic empowerment should create opportunities for all and not for a selected elite.

Also making headlines:
The Police Department says that the new Hawks crime-fighting unit could take time to reach its full complement.
Energy Minister Dipuo Peters says that Southern African Development Community countries lack cooperation on power projects.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says that Africa has taken a severe knock from the economic crisis.
And, piracy attacks worldwide have doubled in the first half of 2009, driven by a rise in the trend off the coast of lawless Somalia.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.