Global News Journal

from Africa News blog:

Was South Africa right to deny Dalai Lama a visa?

By Isaac Esipisu

Given that China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and given the close relationship between Beijing and the ruling African National Congress, it didn’t come as a huge surprise that South Africa was in no hurry to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama.

Tibet’s spiritual leader will end up missing the 80th birthday party of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a fellow Nobel peace prize winner. He said his application for a visa had not come through on time despite having been made to Pretoria several weeks earlier. (Although South Africa’s government said a visa hadn’t actually been denied, the Dalai Lama’s office said it appeared to find the prospect inconvenient). Desmond Tutu said the government’s action was a national disgrace and warned the President and ruling party that one day he will start praying for the defeat of the ANC government.

It’s the second time the Dalai Lama has been unable to honour an invitation to South Africa by Tutu after failing to make it to a meeting in 2010.

South Africa will certainly win more plaudits in Beijing, which last week agreed to $2.5 billion in investment projects with during a visit by South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

But pro-Tibet activists say South Africa is undermining its credentials as a country of freedom and democracy, established after the end of white minority rule a generation ago.

from Africa News blog:

South Africa’s unions flex their muscles

After South Africa’s unions came close to blocking the listing of mobile phone group Vodacom, new President Jacob Zuma may want to keep a closer eye on his left wing allies.

The attempt to sink the $10 billion bourse debut of Vodacom, which went ahead on Monday after an 11th-hour court ruling, hurt the rand currency and revived investor concerns over Zuma.

There was no doubt the bid had undermined Zuma's strenuous efforts before last month's election to assure business and investors that there would be no policy shift towards his left wing allies once he took office.

Lawyers for the government opposed union federation COSATU's attempt to stop the listing in court and made clear the Zuma administration stood by what had been agreed already.

But investors still want reassurance from Zuma that other deals would not face similar challenges by his allies.

COSATU, which has 1.8 million paid-up members in the country of nearly 50 million, said it was angry and disappointed at the court allowing the listing to go ahead and called on South Africans to boycott Vodacom.

But by taking a strong stance on the Vodacom listing, the labour federation may be positioning itself to play a bigger role and could intensify its protest action against other businesses.

from Africa News blog:

Can Zuma live up to unity pledge?

Pledging to work for national unity is pretty much a formality for any election winner, but in the case of South Africa’s Jacob Zuma it may be more than a platitude. It may need to be.

“The new President of the Republic will be a president for all, and he will work to unite the country around a programme of action that will see an improvement in the delivery of services,” Zuma said after the African National Congress won its sweeping victory.

“We may disagree on how to bring about a better life for all, but what unites us is the fact that this country belongs to all of us, black, white, coloured and Indian equally. We will need to work together on issues that are in the national interest, on which there is no need to compete or permanently bicker.”

Despite the strongest opposition challenge since the end of apartheid, the slick ANC campaign delivered the vote and persuaded a majority of South Africans that the party that has ruled since 1994 could also be the one to deliver change – more action against poverty, crime, AIDS and other concerns.

But unity is always going to be tough in a country with as many divisions as South Africa. The formerly monolithic ANC itself split last year after it ousted former President Thabo Mbeki.

The vote clearly showed up the racial divide 15 years after the end of rule by the white minority.

The vast majority of black Africans had clearly voted for the ANC, whose credentials are still strong for ending apartheid. The voters included those in KwaZulu Natal province, where the Inkatha Freedom Party used to be dominant. Zuma, a son of the soil, definitely helped the party win more votes there.

Vietnamese officers visit U.S. aircraft carrier as China celebrates navy anniversary

Vietnamese defence officials flew out to visit the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis near Con Dao island off the Mekong Delta coast on Wednesday, marking a small but meaningful milestone in Vietnam-U.S. relations. It was the first time Communist Vietnamese defence personnel had ever been on a U.S. carrier, according to Vietnamese media. They even got to witness an F/A-18F take off an land.

The visit was a sign of how much some things have changed with time – and how little others have.

U.S. carrier-based planes used to bomb Vietnam — including one piloted by John McCain, who is pictured at left visiting the prison in Hanoi where he was held from 1967-1973 after his plane was shot down. Now, almost 34 years to the day after the end of the war, Vietnamese officers are doing a carrier tour, chatting with U.S. sailors, and talking about “strengthening mutual understanding” and “cooperating for peace in the region and world”.

But it is noteworthy, and perhaps not coincidental, that the Stennis visit took place one day before China planned to celebrate with fanfare the 60th anniversary of the founding of its fast-growing navy. Despite talk of friendship, including between two of the countries’ leaders, Vietnam has been, and no doubt will continue to be, very wary of its giant neighbour. The history of relations between the two countries is riddled with conflict.

 Pick any Vietnamese town and half the streets will be named after generals, guerrillas or kings who repelled Chinese invasions through the centuries – Tran Hung Dao, Ly Thuong Kiet, Le Loi, Hai Ba Trung.

Beijing’s fleet modernisation, designed for power projection, is being watched closely and with some concern in Hanoi, which is locked in dispute with Beijing over ownership of the Paracel and Spratly island chains.

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman in Hanoi told me the Vietnamese had made the request to tour an aircraft carrier long ago, and such visits are planned months in advance. The visit took place in international waters, and she said the U.S. had not requested a full-fledged port call.

from Africa News blog:

Zuma sweeps in

It was South Africa’s most exciting election campaign for a long time, enlivened by the split in the African National Congress and the personality of Jacob Zuma, the man who is now pretty much assured of becoming president despite the best efforts of plenty of people within his party as well as the opposition.

So far, the results don’t look too different from the pre-poll forecasts. An ANC victory was never in doubt and the battle was as much as anything about whether the party could keep its two-thirds majority in parliament, which lets it change the constitution and further entrench its power. That was still in doubt after early figures.

There was not much good news for the Congress of the People (COPE), formed by loyalists of ousted former President Thabo Mbeki. With only about eight percent of the vote so far, the question may be as much whether it survives as whether it can supplant the Democratic Alliance as the main opposition.

The DA seemed to have done fairly well with its “Stop Zuma” campaign, at least in its Western Cape stronghold, but there was no sign of it making inroads among the black majority.

Whatever losses the ANC had made to COPE and the DA, it seemed to have made some of them up in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s Zulu heartland, where it battered the once locally dominant Inkatha Freedom Party.

It certainly looks as though Zuma’s support was not affected by the fact the corruption charges against him were dismissed on a technicality rather than after a trial.

How well placed will he now be to deliver the change that many South Africans say they want on fighting crime, poverty, corruption and AIDS? Will COPE survive or might its supporters start to drift back to the ANC? Will the opposition ever really be able to challenge the ANC?

from Africa News blog:

Will Mandela effect help ANC?

Nelson Mandela, a global symbol of reconciliation after the end of apartheid in 1994, appeared at the ruling ANC's last election rally before Wednesday's vote, delivering a last minute campaign boost for party leader Jacob Zuma.

Wearing a Zuma t-shirt, he sat beside the ANC leader, who has been fighting corruption allegations for eight years. The case was just dropped on a technicality and some South Africans still question his innocence.

It's the second time Mandela has appeared at an ANC rally in the run up to the election, seen as the ANC's toughest test since it came to power - it is still set to win by a big margin, but perhaps by not as big a margin as before.

After the first campaign appearance, some of the ANC's foes suggested Mandela had been unfairly exploited and even that his health had been put at risk. But he certainly looked happy enough on Sunday - if as frail as might be expected for a 90 year-old.

Was Mandela's appearance a desperate last attempt by the ANC to gather votes and divert attention from enduring troubles such as poverty, crime and AIDS?

Or was it just a sign of the faith that Mandela still has in Africa's oldest liberation movement?

Fifteen years after the end of apartheid, is South Africa still seen a model of democracy on a continent where freedom is lacking? Or is it headed in the wrong direction?

from Africa News blog:

Will South Africa’s poor always back ANC?

It’s one of the biggest ironies in South African politics -- the most loyal ANC voters are often those the party appears to have let down most bitterly.

For millions of poor, mostly black South Africans, life has barely changed since the African National Congress defeated apartheid under Nelson Mandela in 1994.

Year after year, they wait for the new house, the job, the running water and electricity, the decent education for their children that the ANC has promised. For many, that never comes. Yet most will still vote for ANC and its leader Jacob Zuma in an election next week.

The poorest residents of Munsieville, a township on the edge of Johannesburg, illustrate the contradiction.

Unemployed and tired of living crammed into one-room shacks with no running water or electricity, they are quick to list the ways their government has failed them.

Hundreds share one water tap, which sits next to a stinking mound of rubbish where dirt-smudged children play and stray dogs scavenge for food. They dig pits for toilets.

Many say they have languished for years at the bottom of waiting lists for decent housing. They were left behind while others enjoyed a decade of continuous economic growth that created a burgeoning black middle class.

from Africa News blog:

Did Dalai Lama ban make sense?

Organisers have postponed a conference of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa after the government denied a visa to Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who won the prize in 1989 - five years after South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu won his and four years before Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk won theirs for their roles in ending the racist apartheid regime.

Although local media said the visa ban followed pressure from China, an increasingly important investor and trade partner, the government said it had not been influenced by Beijing and that the Dalai Lama's presence was just not in South Africa's best interest at the moment.

The conference, ahead of the 2010 World Cup, had been due to discuss how to use soccer to fight xenophobia and racism.

"We stand by our decision. Nothing is going to change. The Dalai Lama will not be invited to South Africa. We will not give him a visa between now and the World Cup," said government spokesman Thabo Masebe.

Whatever the reasoning, it angered the Nobel laureates in a country which has prided itself as a model of democracy and human rights since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, one of the conference organisers said the rejection was tainting South Africa’s democratic credentials.

"The government needs to review its decision and come to the party," said Mandela, set to become a parliamentarian with the ruling African National Congress after the election in April.

from Africa News blog:

Time to drop Zuma charges?

South African prosecutors are considering a legal request by ruling ANC leader Jacob Zuma to drop the graft charges against the man who is expected to be the next president after the elections in April. Zuma has always denied any wrongdoing and his followers say the charges were politically motivated.

A decision to drop the charges would give the African National Congress a big boost ahead of what is expected to be the most closely-contested poll since apartheid ended in 1994. It would also remove a major distraction for Zuma in office and the prospect of court appearances that could tarnish South Africa’s standing abroad.

In the short term, investors might also welcome such a step that removes a source of uncertainty and eases political risk.

Long-term, however, dropping the charges could damage South Africa's image.

South Africa often boasts about its constitution, but faces rising disquiet about the independence of its judiciary.

A victory for Zuma could add to that sentiment, eroding confidence in the rule of law and stoking fears South Africa is sliding away from the democratic ideals it sought to promote after the end of apartheid. Some foreign investors even worry it could give the impression South Africa is heading in the direction of neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Opposition party COPE said dropping the charges would add weight to perceptions that South Africa is becoming a "banana republic".

from Africa News blog:

What next for Jacob Zuma?

A court ruling that effectively reinstates corruption charges against African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma could hardly have come at a worse moment for him and the party that has dominated South Africa since the end of apartheid.

There appears little doubt that Zuma will be the party's presidential candidate ahead of elections expected around April, but the ANC now faces its toughest electoral test yet with hefty graft charges hanging over its man.

Prosecutors say the ruling means Zuma remains charged with corruption, fraud and money laundering. This might severely hurt his image, internationally and at home, during a battle to fend off a challenge from the new party of ANC dissidents called COPE. The ANC is still expected to win, but maybe without such a sweeping parliamentary majority to be able to shape laws as it wishes.

The news brought renewed concerns of political instability and the rand fell to a one-month low.

Zuma's lawyers may appeal to the Constitutional Court, the highest in the country, which will drag out the case further. Zuma has said before he will only step down as president if found guilty of the corruption and fraud charges.

Prosecutors and Zuma may try to secure a deal that will end the long-running saga over charges that Zuma’s supporters see as politically motivated.

A settlement may suit Zuma if it looks as though he will face new charges and a trial that will either coincide with the election, or punctuate the first years of his presidency.