South Africa must embrace private sector involvement in the electricity sector if it wants to solve a power crisis that threatens to derail its growing economy, a business group said on Tuesday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government is using food as a weapon ahead of Zimbabwe’s June 27 presidential run-off election, United States-based group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
Jimmy Malish huddles under a blanket, looks at the darkening sky and prays that it doesn’t rain again on him and the hundreds of other African migrants camped in the courtyard of a Johannesburg police station. Although President Thabo Mbeki has condemned the violence, on the ground there are few signs the government has stepped in with significant aid for victims.
President Thabo Mbeki faces an uphill battle to remain politically relevant in his last year in office after his failure to contain an eruption of violence that has killed dozens of foreign workers in South Africa. Mbeki was already under fire for failing to prevent a crippling power shortage when mobs went on the rampage this month.
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Lawyers for African National Congress president Jacob Zuma will meet prosecutors on Thursday to decide whether his corruption case should begin on August 4, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. ”It is only after the meeting today that we’ll know if the date we have proposed is confirmed,” NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said.
Mining operations at Gold Fields’ South Deep mine will resume on Monday, the company said on Saturday, two days after nine workers were killed in an accident. Gold Fields said no mining would take place at South Deep until after a meeting Monday morning between management, unions and a provincial mining inspector.
The South African Football Association held talks with national team coach Carlos Alberto Parreira on Friday amid reports the Brazilian was about to quit and return home. Safa and 2010 World Cup organising officials said a meeting with Parreira was under way but gave no details of its content.
A new Zimbabwean government should be able to stabilise the ruined economy quickly, but would face a much bigger task in returning it to sustained prosperity, analysts say. With President Robert Mugabe in the worst trouble of his 28-year rule, attention is turning to how quickly the economy could be restored.
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/ 25 February 2008
Zimbabwean presidential hopeful Simba Makoni said on Monday he would not form a coalition with the main opposition party because it would alienate dissenters in President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. ”There are a large number of people in Zanu-PF who share my proper vision,” Makoni said in an interview.
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/ 15 February 2008
South Africa’s left is riding high as the government prepares to unveil a budget that is expected to raise spending on social programmes and shift policy more towards fighting unemployment and poverty. Powerful trade unions and the South African Communist Party have recently seen their influence within the ruling African National Congress rise.