Monday, September 20, 2010

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

Making headlines:

South African President Jacob Zuma faces a major battle to shore up his authority this week, as the ruling African National Congress (ANC) meets to shape policies, including strategies on the strong rand and left-wing calls for mine nationalisation. Zuma faces leaving the National General Council in a weakened position if he fails to hold onto old allies, which want left-leaning economic policies, or to win over some new ones, possibly jeopardising the rest of his term.
Pretoria University's Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs analyst Roland Henwood says that "the difficulty for ... Zuma, is that he has to appease so many different challenges and demands. And being someone who is a consensus-seeking leader, [he] will always look weak in the process."
Zuma also has the interests of business in mind, as, speaking at a gala dinner ahead of the summit on Sunday night, he said that there is nothing wrong with businesses investing in political parties. He stated that business funding for political parties should not be viewed with suspicion, adding that "wise business sense tells you that investing in the ANC, which is supported by more than 65% of the population, is good value for your money."

Budget-strapped rich donors will call for a rethink of strategies to make sure that their aid funds are not wasted when world leaders meet this week to discuss United Nations goals to tackle global poverty.
A three-day summit of 140 leaders starting on Monday, will appeal for stepped-up efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. While countries agree with the goals for slashing global poverty, rich nations struggling with high unemployment and rising debt, want the debate to focus on getting the best development results from antipoverty programmes.
US aid chief Rajiv Shah says that it is time to rethink strategies for tackling poverty to focus on economic growth, accountability and fighting corruption. He explained that US President Barack Obama's administration, which remains committed to boosting the US aid budget to $52-billion from about $25-billion, is pushing for a new approach to making aid more effective.
He called for more rigorous accountability standards, programmes that emphasise local economic development over hand-outs and a more aggressive effort to bring new scientific and technological innovations into development work.

Sixty-four per cent of complaints against the print media have been upheld so far this year, said press ombudsman Joe Thloloe on Sunday.
Reporting back on statistics regarding complaints of inaccuracies against newspapers, Thloloe said that the statistics reveal that "so far this year, the office [of the ombudsman] has given 44 rulings." Of these, 16 complaints, or 36%, were dismissed entirely, in other words, in favour of the newspapers. "Twenty-eight were either partially or fully upheld... this represents 64% of all the findings," Thloloe said.
"This is far, far from bias in favour of newspapers, as alleged by the African National Congress (ANC)."
The ANC national general council meets from Monday in Durban and will discuss the proposed establishment of a media appeals tribunal.

Also making headlines:

A Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids report finds that African nations whose populations have been devastated by HIV/Aids, have made big strides in fighting HIV, with new infections down 25% since 2001.
South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says that the country has lost billions of rand through corruption.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir says that Sudan risks "violence on a massive scale" if there is any delay to a planned January referendum that will likely split the oil-rich nation in two.
And, the Global Campaign for Education says that the financial crisis has halted improvements in education for children in impoverished countries.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.