Tuesday September 06, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Jessica Hannah

Making headlines:

The Protection of Information Bill came a step closer to becoming law yesterday as MPs adopted a final draft, despite opposition objections and threats of a legal challenge. The ANC prevailed in the final vote on the contentious state secrecy bill with a comfortable majority, as it had on Friday in clause by clause deliberations. After the vote, Steve Swart, from the ACDP, reiterated that it will petition President Jacob Zuma to refer the bill for constitutional review. Swart says this is because, despite endless petitioning, the final draft lacks a public interest defence to protect people who publish classified information to expose state wrongdoing.
The ACDP may be able to find support from the Democratic Alliance.

The leaders of the Somali regions of Puntland and Galmudug have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and are committed to a peaceful end to a dispute that has killed at least 27 people in the past week. Heavy fighting near the border between the two regions erupted last week, days before a political conference to hammer out a road map towards elections in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation. The UN Political Office for Somalia said in a statement that Puntland's President Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud and Galmudug's President Mohamed Ahmed Alin met on the sidelines of the conference in Mogadishu yesterday and agreed to the truce.

Analyst Moeletsi Mbeki said that big companies taking capital out of South Africa is a bigger threat to economic freedom than ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema. He said at a DA conference in Johannesburg that capital flight means there is no capital for entrepreneurs in South Africa. Turning to a policy of nationalisation, driven by Malema, Mbeki said this shouldn’t be completely excluded as a route to this economic freedom. This didn’t however apply to mines, as they are the largest earners of foreign exchange in the country, enabling entrepreneurs to import needed equipment.

Also making headlines:

Sudanese government troops and groups allied to South Sudan have continued to skirmish along their joint border, but life has returned to normal in some border areas.

Scores of Libyan army vehicles have crossed the desert frontier into Niger in what may be a dramatic, secretly negotiated bid by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to seek refuge in a friendly African State.

And, Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said yesterday that South Africa is failing to deliver services to the poor despite its substantial fiscus.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.