Tuesday October 18, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Jessica Hannah

Making headlines:

A UN intergovernmental body on food security has failed to adopt international guidelines on land governance, delaying efforts to regulate so-called land-grabbing as investors race to snap up agricultural land. A voluntary code of conduct has been in the works since 2008, driven by concerns that countries such as China and Arab Gulf States are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people. Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, said three quarters of the guidelines had been agreed upon in a meeting last week but that rules on large-scale investment in farmland remained a sticking point.

Fighters with Libya's interim government have captured the town of Bani Walid, firing their guns into the air and hoisting the country's new flag over the centre of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists. "Bani Walid is completely free. It is liberated, 100%," said Mohammed Shakonah, a military commander with the National Transitional Council. The apparent capture of Bani Walid brought Libya's new rulers a step closer to being in full control of the vast, oil-producing North African country almost two months after rebels entered Tripoli and ended 42 years of one-man rule by Gaddafi.

Accountability and transparency should be part of all institutions in South Africa, says Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma. Speaking at the second annual Public Protector Good Governance Conference yesterday, the minister said that accountability, transparency, consistency and good leadership were some of the essential elements required for good governance. On the issue of accountability, Dlamini Zuma said public representatives and government were accountable to the electorate to ensure that the electoral mandates were delivered on.

Also making headlines:
Madagascar's interim government has resigned, a move required under the terms of a political road map signed by the Indian Ocean island's main political parties last month that paved the way for elections within a year.
Seven opposition candidates who took part in Cameroon's presidential election asked the Supreme Court yesterday to annul the October 9 vote and call a fresh one within six months.
And, Zimbabwe's local ownership rules for foreign mining companies are too stringent, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.