Wednesday September 07, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

South Africa’s Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said that the development of sub-Saharan Africa’s housing market could help cushion the region against the impact of global economic uncertainties. Speaking at the opening of the African Union for Housing Finance’s yearly meeting, the Minister said that housing was an “economic dynamo” that stimulated other market sectors such as mining and construction. He said that the development of housing would assist sub-Saharan Africa in generating the economic growth that was needed to protect it from the devastating effects of a potential second global recession.

Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi deployed special squads which held suspected opponents in shipping containers, tortured them for information about insurgent networks and disposed of their bodies in unmarked graves in a campaign to smash the revolt against his rule. Evidence shows an organised system of repression with methods including delivering electric shocks to suspects' genitals, keeping them for weeks in baking heat with only a few sips of water a day, and whipping them with an electrical cable while their hands were bound with plastic ties. The brutality of Gaddafi's forces in the capital, Tripoli, in the final days before rebels overran the city has been well documented. Dozens of bodies were left lying in the streets, and witnesses described prisoners being massacred before their gaolers fled.

A recent Institute for Security Studies (ISS) report on police corruption is one-sided and misleading, the South African Police Service (SAPS) said.
Spokesperson McIntosh Polela said it failed to acknowledge achievements and "significant milestones" by the police under the leadership of National Commissioner Bheki Cele. In its report – distributed last week at the launch of an ISS campaign to encourage reporting corruption in the police and to praise professionalism – the institute said an independent specialised anti-corruption unit was needed to deal with graft in the police.

Also making headlines:
The ANC Youth League disciplinary hearing will be moved away from Luthuli House in the Johannesburg city centre the ANC said.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said he expected the full cooperation of foreign firms in a plan for local blacks to take controlling stakes in their business operations in the country.
And, President Jacob Zuma has called for an end to the squabbles that have led to noticeable divisions within the country’s business sector following a decision recently by the Black Management Forum to cut ties with Business Unity South Africa.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.