Friday, October 15, 2010

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

Making headlines:

South Africa's most serious problem is how to create 500 000 jobs every year, said Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel on Thursday.
Speaking at a South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry gala dinner in Johannesburg, Patel said that it was important to "ensure that those jobs are decent job opportunities so that we address the related problems of inequality and poverty."
To achieve this aim, Patel explained that the country needs to redirect growth. "We need to make South Africa a destination of choice for new productive investment for both our companies and for foreign investors," he said, adding that this requires removing obstacles to growth, improving infrastructure and strengthening the country's skills base.

Information and communication technology (ICT) policies should be integrated into broader policies on poverty reduction, urged International Development Research Centre (IDRC) senior programme officer Khaled Fourati on Thursday.
Speaking at the launch of the ‘Information Economy Report 2010', compiled by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in collaboration with a number of other organisations, including the IDRC, he noted that there was a disconnect between these two policy areas. Further, in order for ICT to make an impact on poverty reduction across the world, greater collaboration between the private sector, government and civil society is needed.
The report highlights that, with government support, ICT, and especially mobile connectivity, could assist in the development of small-scale enterprises, particularly for those living in rural areas. However, many rural areas still lack the required ICT infrastructure and cellphone signals, especially in least developed countries.

While the South African government could send signals in the upcoming Medium Term Budget Policy Statement of possible new moves to weaken the rand, Minister in The Presidency Trevor Manuel has warned that the absence of sufficient reserves will be a material constraint to meaningful intervention.
Speaking at a governance conference at the University of the Witwatersrand on Thursday, Manuel said that South Africa's previous attempts at currency intervention had resulted in the creation of the costly $27-billion net open forward position, "because somebody in the Reserve Bank thought that you could peg the currency against the dollar." South Africa could only succeed, he said, if it had the "power of reserves", as is the position in China, which has reserves of some $2,45-billion.
Both Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and South African Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus have also expressed concern over the economic fallout arising from the resurgent currency, which is trading at better than R6,80/$1.

Also making headlines:

University of Johannesburg academic Eusebius McKaiser says that questioning whether African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema will be re-elected at the league's next elective conference, is a sign of an underlying anxiety in society.
United Nations special representative for sexual violence in armed conflict Margot Wallstrom urges the Security Council to consider sanctions against a Rwandan Hutu rebel leader over the rape of hundreds of villagers in eastern Congo.
Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi says that the apartheid of racial segregation is being replaced by the apartheid of economic segregation.
And, north Sudanese leaders say that a timeous referendum on the future of the country's disputed, oil-rich Abyei region is impossible, while southern officials say that it would be "unacceptable" to postpone the politically sensitive vote.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.