Wednesday August 17, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Megan Wait

Making headlines:

Striking South African municipal workers set fire to rubbish in Cape Town streets and looted roadside vendors yesterday, turning up the heat in labour disputes that have ripped through Africa's largest economy. More than 200 000 municipal workers, seeking 18% wage increases, walked out on Monday in an indefinite strike that is expected to hit services in urban areas. Workers wearing union T-shirts were seen in national TV broadcasts overturning waste baskets, setting fire to rubbish piled on streets and stealing items from stalls in the Cape Town city centre.

The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade – the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank's lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler said. Some 12.4-million people in the Horn of Africa – including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti – are affected by the worst drought in decades, according to the United Nations. Tens of thousands of people have already died. Fengler said the price of maize, or corn, was significantly higher in East Africa than in the rest of the world due to controls on local food markets.

The Department of Home Affairs’ issuing of works permits to Zimbabwean nationals, under its recent Zimbabwe Dispensation Project, has inflated the number of work permits issued by the department to foreigners, with over 65 000 issued in the first quarter of this fiscal year. Briefing a joint meeting for the National Assembly’s labour and home affairs portfolio committees, the Department of Home Affairs Deputy director-general of immigration, Jackie McKay, said 59 363 of the permits issued between April and June this year were part of the department’s Zimbabwe Dispensation Project, which came to an end last month. In the last financial year, 135 000 work permits were issued to foreign nationals.

Also making headlines:

Opposition parties appear unhappy with President Jacob Zuma's nomination of Constitutional Court Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng as Chief Justice, but it has received the ANC's support.

Rebels fighting to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader as their forces fought to secure gains and the US said Gaddafi's days were numbered.

And, a nationalisation policy would see a drop in private sector demand for funding to invest in South Africa, the International Finance Corporation said.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.