Thursday, October 21, 2010

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

Making headlines:

A long-awaited Parliamentary meeting on the latest crisis at the SABC came to nought on Wednesday when SABC board chairperson Ben Ngubane told Members of Parliament (MPs) that the embattled board had failed to produce a performance review of its first six months in charge.
The meeting was postponed and the Parliamentary portfolio committee on communication issued a withering statement in which it said that the board had failed to do its job. "The committee believes that there is not much room for optimism about the affairs of the corporation," it said.
Committee chairperson Ismail Vadi signalled his dismay with the board's failure to prepare and said that it was hampering the committee's oversight work.

The US wants Group of 20 (G20) finance chiefs to commit to allowing market forces to set currency values and will discuss using targets for trade to measure progress, a senior US Treasury Department official said on Wednesday.
Ahead of weekend G20 meetings in South Korea, the US official made it clear that Washington wants currency levels to be a focal point of the meetings and sees current account surpluses and deficits as a vital part of the discussion.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is on his way to the gathering of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, where global currency tensions are expected to get a thorough airing as many countries take steps to keep their currencies from rising.
The official's comments imply that Geithner will try to rally support within the G20 for more unity around the necessity for letting currencies appreciate, though it remains unclear whether any specific agreement will be possible.

The link between South Africa's October 2011 national census and service delivery is fundamentally important for development, said Minister in the Presidency responsible for planning Trevor Manuel on Wednesday, citing education and health facilities as examples.
Speaking at a briefing on World Statistics Day, Manuel said that "the idea of the national statistical system is something we have to work at consistently. It's not going to be delivered by decree. There needs to be a change of attitude across the board for greater space created for people to be able to provide the information and for better collection of what we have."
Statistician-general Pali Lehohla, said that people, including foreigners within South Africa, need have no fear about the census. Census 2011 project director Calvin Molongoana said that the Statistics Act clearly stated that the data collected by Statistics South Africa had to be treated as confidential.

Also making headlines:

Guinea's two rival Presidential candidates say that they are now ready to take part in a delayed election runoff after authorities named a new national election chief.
The US supports proposals to raise more African Union troops for peacekeeping in anarchic Somalia.
Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane reports that the province received eleven unqualified audits, two clean, one qualified and a disclaimer audit for 2009/10 financial year.
And, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs finds that a dramatic fall in life expectancy in Southern Africa caused by HIV/Aids in the 1990s, appears to have bottomed out.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.