Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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

Making headlines:

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its longtime labour partners may convene an alliance summit next month or in November, the party and unions said in a joint statement.
The ANC and its labour partners said last month that they were unable to convene a summit for fear of widening the rift between them at a time of major labour unrest. ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe now says that the parties had agreed that an alliance summit will be held as soon as possible, "as all the discussions had happened at leadership level, so that we provide the necessary leadership when the alliance summit takes place."
The decision on the summit was taken by the parties at a meeting late on Monday, aimed at repairing a governing alliance that has been described by union groups as "dysfunctional".

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) latest push for more spending on job creation and care for the poorest in society shows that it is more than just a tough-love provider of economic aid in return for austerity measures.
Since the onset of the global crisis, the fiscally strict IMF has become an advocate for government efforts to boost the economy, believing that job creation should take priority over the need to limit mounting debts.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Oslo jointly hosted by the International Labour Organisation, IMF MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that this view was "not a softer face, [but] a more realistic face." He added that "this is in line with [the IMF's] mandate ... to take care of jobs, growth and trade. This provides economic sustainability."
During the conference, Strauss-Kahn said that it was a "misleading caricature" to think that the IMF cared only about macroeconomic targets and that unemployment was "about far more than just a pay check".

Although South Africa's revised Mining Charter attempts to address a number of its predecessor's shortcomings, in some respects it may paradoxically add to regulatory uncertainty within the South African mining industry, regulatory lawyer and Webber Wentzel partner Peter Leon said shortly after Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu released the long-awaited document on Monday.
Leon said that the most far-reaching change was that noncompliance with the revised Mining Charter would amount to a breach of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002, resulting in the suspension or cancellation of licences granted under the Act.
On a positive note, the revised Mining Charter's 26% historically disadvantaged South African ownership requirements had not been altered. South Africa's Chamber of Mines president Sipho Nkosi commented that the incremental progress that government, labour and business were making did not mean that "we have reached finality or reached perfection. It's a process and the process continues".

Also making headlines:

The opposition Democratic Alliance argues in the Pretoria High Court that National Director of Public Prosecutions Menzi Simelane lacks integrity and that President Jacob Zuma was wrong to appoint him to this position.
Guinea's Prime Minister Jean Marie Dore says that maintaining public order is more important than holding a planned September 19 Presidential election on time, following violence between the backers of Presidential candidates.
New Gauteng police chief Lieutenant-General Mzwandile Petros says that beating crime in the province with the highest crime rate will go a long way to winning the fight against criminals countrywide.
And, the Democratic Republic of Congo will struggle to enforce a new ban on mining in its rebellious eastern areas as government troops are heavily involved in the "conflict minerals" trade.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.