Monday April 11, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) annual report for 2010 showed that South Africa sold weapons to Libya worth about R70-million last year, the Sunday Independent reported. This included Category A weapons worth R1,9-million, Category B weapons worth R10,7-million and Category C weapons worth R56,2-million. NCACC chairperson and Justice Minister Jeff Radebe said South Africa exported arms worth R80,9-million to Libya between 2003 and 2009. He refused to say whether more weapons went to Libya last year ahead of that country's civil unrest.

A new World Bank report, challenging a view long embraced by leading global institutions, says high economic growth alone cannot reduce the poverty and unemployment that breed conflict and violence. The World Bank's 2011 World Development Report released shows instead that access to jobs, security and justice, not higher gross domestic product, are key to breaking repeated cycles of political and criminal violence. "High unemployment and inequality can combine with weakness in government capacity or problems of corruption, accountability and human rights abuses, to create risks of conflict and violence," said Sarah Cliffe, one of the lead authors of the report.

Nigeria's ruling party looked set to see its parliamentary majority weaken as results trickled in on Sunday from an election Africa's most populous nation hopes will be its first credible vote in almost two decades. Election officials and party agents tallied results from 120 000 polling units stretching from the oil-producing mangrove swamps and teeming cities near the southern coast to the dustblown fringes of the Sahara desert in the north. There were isolated reports of ballot box snatching, clashes between rival supporters in parts of the Niger Delta and two bombs in the remote northeast during the vote but observers said it appeared to have been a vast improvement on previous polls.

Also making headlines:
More than 1 000 protestors ignored an army order to leave Cairo's main square on Sunday, taking their calls for a quick move to civilian rule and a deeper purge of corrupt officials into a third day.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has accepted a roadmap for ending the conflict in Libya including an immediate ceasefire, the African Union said, but an opposition representative said it would only work if Gaddafi left power.
And, rich and poor nations overcame deep divisions by cutting a deal that maps out United Nations climate negotiations for 2011, building on last December's agreement in Mexico and hardening the focus on tougher issues.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.