Thursday March 29, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Shannon de Ryhove

Making headlines:

South African people need to be more active in the country's politics than they were during the anti-Apartheid struggle, Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel said. "I talk about people who have voices. I am talking about communities who come together and say, this is our health facility”, he said. "That is the kind of active citizenship that tore down the wall of Apartheid. It was that that emboldened us to do what we had to do, and we need it now more than we ever needed it before 1994." Manuel, who also acts as the National Planning Commission chairperson, was speaking at a Centre for Small Business Development meeting at the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg.

The Brics group of emerging market nations will look at ways of pressuring the west to redress global economic imbalances amid growing frustration at the pace of change in institutions such as the IMF at a meeting in Delhi today. Brazil's Trade and Industry Minister Fernando Pimentel says that his country hopes for a summit communique denouncing what it sees as unfair monetary policies by Europe and the US. Other trade ministers from the Brics group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – struck a defiant tone, saying they are not bound by unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has pleaded with MPs to rethink key aspects of the Protection of State Information Bill, saying it would "severely" affect her work. Madonsela told them that the Bill, as it stood, would shrink her powers and bedevil investigations into State wrongdoing. It would reduce her to the status of an ordinary citizen because it would oblige her to hand classified information to the police like anyone else. Likewise, it would strip away the right she currently held to access classified information in the course of her duty, instead forcing her to go to court to obtain it like any other South African.

Also making headlines:

Former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo knows he faces a tough battle to head the World Bank but he hopes his bid will pave the way for developing countries to one day lead the global development institution.

And, Mali's coup leaders announced a new Constitution including a pledge to allow elections in which they would be barred from standing, even as several thousand supporters rallied in the streets of the capital Bamako.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.