ICC President to visit Botswana

6 June, 2009 in Botswana

source: Mmegi
KEOBONYE MAJATSIE
Correspondent

International Criminal Court (ICC) president, Sang-Hyun Song is expected in the country tomorrow.

Responding to questions sent to him, the Secretary General of the African Press Organisation, Nicholas Miognard, said Song will meet with President Ian Khama, Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani and other senior officials. “On June 1, 2009 President Sang-Hyun Song of the International Criminal Court (ICC) started his first official visit to African States’ Parties since taking office in March this year and will be traveling to Tanzania, Lesotho and Botswana from June 1-6 to meet with senior representatives of each government,” he said.

Thirty African states make up the largest regional group of a total of 108 States Parties to the Rome Statute, the Court’s founding instrument. “It is important to the [continue reading]

Peace index: SA down 15 places

6 June, 2009 in South Africa

source: News24
2009-06-04

Johannesburg – South Africa’s 15-place drop down the 2009 Global Peace Index was a call to common action, said the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town on Thursday.

“As South Africans, we should regard the report and similar reflections of our international standing as a call to collective action,” the centre’s chief executive officer Nomfundo Walaza said in a statement.

“While we find it distressing that some of the ground gained by South Africa during its largely peaceful transition to democracy has been lost, it should spur disparate roleplayers to act on it.”

The country still had the potential to be a [continue reading]

`No fast price cuts with Seacom`

6 June, 2009 in South Africa, Technology

source: News24
2009-06-04

Cape Town – South African consumers and businesses should not expect broadband prices to fall by a dramatic amount overnight when the Seacom cable goes live in a few weeks from now.

That’s according to Steve Briggs, Head of Commercial at iBurst. He said that the 1.28 Tbps East African undersea fibre-optic cable system promises some relief from high international bandwidth prices over the medium-to-long term.

However, consumers will need to wait for more submarine cables like the West Africa Cable System (Wacs) and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) to go live before prices start to tumble dramatically.

The construction of the Seacom cable was recently completed and [continue reading]

British Embassy says sanctions do not target ordinary Zimbabweans

6 June, 2009 in Zimbabwe

source: SW Radio Africa
By Violet Gonda
4 June 2009

The British Embassy has responded to an article published on Tuesday by the state controlled Herald Newspaper, which claimed the UK government had to ‘airlift’ destitute British pensioners from Zimbabwe because western sanctions had destroyed the economy. The Embassy said it was disappointed that The Herald continues to ‘peddle gross distortions and misinformation’.

The newspaper article titled; Sanctions Hit Local British Pensioners, said: “The Western-imposed economic sanctions have hit pensioners hard, prompting the British government to airlift the first five of its 500 elderly citizens resident in Zimbabwe, whose pensions and investments were wiped out by the ravages of hyperinflation.”

The UK government denied this exercise was an ‘airlift’ and [continue reading]

US: Oil price soars above $70

6 June, 2009 in World

source: FIN24
Jun 05 2009

London – New York crude oil spiked above $70 on Friday, reaching the highest point in seven months on news that US job losses slowed dramatically in May, data that also weighed on the dollar.

New York crude spiked to $70.32 a barrel, the highest level since November 4.

The number of US job losses slowed to a better-than-expected 345 000 in May, while the unemployment rate surged to 9.4% in May, government data revealed.

“The sharper than expected moderation in the rate of net payroll job losses suggests that the US economy is perhaps closer to [continue reading]

Zimbabwe: US to Remove Sanctions

6 June, 2009 in Zimbabwe

source: Zimbabwe Independent
Thursday, 04 June 2009

THE United States Congress has started hearings on the removal of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe in 2001 over political repression and a series of policy disputes.

This comes as Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai prepares to visit Europe and the US to lobby for funding for economic recovery and lifting of the sanctions.

Tsvangirai, who has called for the removal of the “restrictive measures”, is expected to meet senior European Union (EU) leaders and US President Barack Obama during his visit this month. He is also expected to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Finance minister Tendai Biti this week called for the lifting of the sanctions by the West. Biti will next week address the World Economic Forum in Cape Town, focusing on Zimbabwe’s reconstruction.

After Biti’s recent return from Washington and London, he told cabinet that US officials had indicated that [continue reading]

South Africa: Public hearing on Eskom tariff hike

6 June, 2009 in South Africa

source: IOL
June 05 2009

Public hearings into Eskom’s 34 percent tariff hike application will be heard by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa on Monday.

Last month, it emerged that Eskom had applied for the increase for the current financial year and that it intended applying for another price rise later in the year to cover the balance of its three-year pricing model.

The application raised the ire of civil society and labour, with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) urging Nersa to reject the parastatal’s application.

The union federation said such a price hike would hit workers hard and “inflict misery” on poor households. It cautioned that small businesses, already buckling under [continue reading]