Friday March 4, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), which espoused non-racialism in its fight against apartheid, now finds itself divided over a racism row that has laid bare a generational rift in the party. Political analysts say that there appears to be an increasing divide in the ANC between the veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle and those looking to extract maximum benefit from programmes aimed at giving blacks a bigger slice of the economic pie, which the party implemented when it came into power. The row started on Wednesday when Economic Planning Minister Trevor Manuel, said in a letter to the new government spokesperson, Jimmy Manyi, that he had brought shame to Mandela's dreams by making disparaging remarks about a mixed-race group of people classified as "coloureds".

Libyan rebels prepared for further attacks by forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi as both sides struggled for control of a strategic coastal road and oil industry facilities. Rebels holding the port city of Zawiyah, 50 km west of the capital, Tripoli, said that they had been launching counter-attacks against Gaddafi's forces massing in the area, and warned that supplies were running low. In eastern Libya, witnesses said that a warplane bombed Brega, an oil terminal town 800 km east of Tripoli. Warplanes also launched two raids against the nearby rebel-held town of Ajbadiya, witnesses said.

The US has warned Zimbabwe that it was monitoring a string of recent politically motivated arrests in the country and demanded that Harare hold accountable anyone found to have tortured detainees. "The United States is concerned about recent arrests in Zimbabwe targeting political and civil society activists," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said. Crowley cited the February 19 arrest of 46 political activists accused of plotting anti-government protests similar to those that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as other recent arrests.

Also making headlines:
Tunisia will hold an election on July 24 to choose a "constituent council" that will rewrite the constitution and chart the country's transition after the ousting of its veteran leader, the interim President said.
Three people were killed and 21 injured by an explosive device thrown from a car at an election rally near Nigeria's capital Abuja on Thursday.
And, for the first time in the history of South Africa’s local government elections, visually impaired voters will have a new way of casting their votes in the 2011 municipal elections.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.