Thursday August 04, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Jessica Hannah

Making headlines:

Whites still occupy 73.1% of top management positions in the country, the Commission of Employment Equity (CEE) said yesterday. Black people made up 12.7% of top management, Indian people 6.8% and coloured people 4.6%, the CEE said in its 11th annual report released in Pretoria.
Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said she was disappointed at the slow pace of reform at top management. The CEE said its findings were based on 16 698 reports submitted by companies with 150 or more employees, and covered 5 280 037 employees.

Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak, accused of corruption and involvement in killing protesters, went on trial yesterday, delighting those who overthrew him and ringing an alarm bell for other autocrats around the Arab world. In a scene that Egyptians would have found unthinkable just eight months ago, the man who ruled them for 30 years was wheeled behind the bars of a courtroom cage in a hospital bed to hear charges that could carry the death penalty. Mubarak is the first Arab leader to stand trial in person since popular uprisings swept the Middle East this year.

South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced that the controversial suspension of Section 45 of South Africa’s tax laws, which had been used to facilitate a number black economic-empowerment deals and other leveraged transactions, had been lifted. The section had been suspended for 18 months on June 2, owing to concerns of possible “tax leakage” and a potential loss of R3-billion to 5-billion a year to the fiscus.
Speaking at a media briefing in Pretoria, the Minister said that the National Treasury had been concerned about the abuse of the tax-free mechanism to obtain interest deductions linked to excessive debt.

Also making headlines:
The ANC Youth League had undermined the leadership of the ANC with its comments on helping to bring about regime change in Botswana, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said.
South Africa approved a R2.4-billion loan to neighbouring Swaziland, but Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said that the loan was conditional on certain reforms.
And, a large rebel group in South Sudan has declared a ceasefire with the government of the new African nation, which is battling insurgent militias on several fronts.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.