Tuesday, October 5, 2010

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

Making headlines:

The African National Congress's (ANC's) national working committee (NWC) said on Monday that the party's national general council (NGC), held in Durban last month, was a "resounding success".
ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu stated that the NGC "fulfilled its intended outcomes of being a massive political school as it afforded branch delegates to be part of regional and provincial general councils."
On the economic front, the NGC had pressed the ANC to reduce high unemployment, deepening poverty and growing inequality. Mthembu said that the national working committee emphsised the NGC resolution that the role of the State in the economy is "fundamental and greater than the matter of the nationalisation of the mines." He added that the party would conduct an "in-depth study" on how the country's natural resources could best benefit all South Africans.

Protracted conflicts around the worl dare driving up refugee totals and creating new populations that need to be resettled in other countries, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres said on Monday.
In an address to the UNHCR's governing executive committee, he called on the international community to offer broader and better protection for the some 43-million people driven from their homes by local or crossborder warfare.
The year 2009, which saw a world total of 15-million refugees, was the worst ever in terms of the numbers who returned home voluntarily, mainly because conflicts were becoming more intractable and peace more difficult to achieve. Further, there are some 27-million people who have been forced to flee their homes but are still living inside their own countries. Those who have not crossed international borders are termed internally displaced, and are in principle supposed to be the responsibility of their national governments.
Guterres said that over one-half of the refugees for which the UNHCR is responsible - just over ten-million - were caught up in protracted conflicts, and most of them were living in developing countries which could least afford to support them.

No African leader qualified this year for an exceptional leadership award, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation said at the release of its annual governance report on Monday.
For the second consecutive year, the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership was not awarded. Foundation board director Mamphela Ramphele explained that the prize is for exceptional leadership, and would not be awarded to someone for just doing "a reasonable job".
Ramphele said that the foundation's prize committee decided that it would undermine its cause, which is to promote excellence, by handing out the award this year.
Previous laureates include former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, former Botswana President Festus Mogae and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Also making headlines:

The director of former Nigerian military ruler Ibrahim Babangida's Presidential election campaign has been detained by the secret service, among nine people detained in the wake of last Friday's bombing that killed 12 people.
In its 2009/10 annual report, the South African Presidency states that it has lost office furniture and computer equipment worth R5,8-million in seven years and incurred irregular expenditure of R939 000.
And, envoys from the United Nations Security Council head for Sudan to press Africa's largest country to avert a new civil war by ensuring that there is no delay on a January referendum on independence for its oil-producing south, in what could lead to a new civil war

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.