Wednesday February 16, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Mary-Anne O’Donnell

Making headlines:

African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe reiterated that job creation should be the government's main aim while letting the quest for decent work conditions continue alongside it. "We must put the focus on what the actual challenge of society is – more work," he said in the first of a series of dialogues entitled Building Democratic Societies hosted by Idasa. Mantashe said that there was "no clarity on what decent jobs means" and it must be accepted that not all work created in South Africa would be of an equal nature. "Societies do not work on formulas that are mathematical, it is sociological... the nature of jobs will not be the same in different sectors."

The European Union (EU) has extended sanctions on Zimbabwe for a year and expressed deep concern about political violence, but removed 35 people from a list of those affected by asset freezes and visa bans. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that an EU review noted significant progress in addressing Zimbabwe's economic crisis and in delivery of basic social services. "However, economic and social developments have not been matched by equivalent progress on the political front," she said in a statement. Ashton said that further reforms were essential in terms of respect for rule of law, human rights and democracy to create an environment conducive to the holding of credible elections. Her statement expressed "deep concerns at the upsurge in political violence seen in recent weeks".

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said that Eskom has spent over R75,5-billion on the capital investment programme since 2005, and delivered 5 031 MW of new electricity generating capacity into the system.
Briefing the media in his capacity as Chairperson of the Infrastructure Development Cluster of Ministries, he said that the State-owned power utility had also delivered 3 051 km of high-voltage transmission lines to transport electricity across the country. Eskom's approved build programme, which included completion of the Kusile power station in 2017, would spend another R549-billion. "The timely completion of Eskom's build programme up to 2017, is critical in ensuring South Africa's security of electricity supply," Ndebele said.

Also making headlines:
Egypt's new military rulers said that they hoped to hand power over to an elected civilian leadership within six months.
Access to education has improved over the past 17 years, Education Minister Blade Nzimande said.
And, the government of the Côte d’Ivoire’s incumbent Laurent Gbagbo has threatened legal action against the local units of French bank BNP Paribas and America's Citibank for shutting down operations in the crisis-torn State.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today