Skip to main content

African press review 14 May 2014

SA’s next government will face economic challenges. Jonathan extends emergency rule in three Nigerian states as parents identify some of the kidnapped schoolgirls. Egyptian secular parties discuss alliance to end military rule.

Advertising

 South Africa's incoming government must implement policies to encourage economic growth and create jobs if the country’s sovereign credit ratings are to be upgraded, says the main story on the front page of this morning's BusinessDay. It is based on warnings from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch and Moody’s, the world’s top three rating agencies.

The ratings play a key role in determining how much South Africa pays to borrow money from investors.

S&P gives South Africa a triple-B rating with a negative outlook. Fitch gives South Africa’s foreign currency sovereign rating the same triple-B with a stable outlook and Moody’s has the country’s sovereign credit rating at Baa1 with a negative outlook. Negative outlooks imply further downgrades are possible.

All three identified strikes, weak economic growth, and South Africa's large current account and budget deficits among their reasons.

According to the Lagos-based Nigerian Guardian, President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday extended the emergency rule provisions in the three north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

He asked the National Assembly to approve the extension in the best interest of peace and security in the affected states.

What I haven't been able to discover is just what emergency rule means in practical terms. A statement from, of all places, the Nigerian embassy in Berlin, says emergency rule means “measures to ensure the rule of law, public order, respect for human rights and dignity, protection of life and property and the maintenance of the sovereignty, popular as well as territorial, of the country. The State of Emergency would serve to curtail criminality, brigandage, and restore law and order to the affected areas”, which sounds, more or less, like what the forces of law and order do on a day-to-day basis anyway.

The Bloomberg news agency says that, under emergency rule, troops have authority to arrest and detain suspects, take over buildings and search areas suspected to be used for terrorist activity.

Some sources say emergency rule allows the army to take "all necessary action" to fight the threat of terrorism, a form of words which is likely to worry the lads at Human Rights Watch.

Another Nigerian daily paper, Punch, reports that no fewer than 54 of the girls shown in the video released on Monday by Boko Haram have been identified by their parents.

The video was shown to the parents, pupils and teachers of the Government Secondary School, Chibok, security chiefs and some officials of the Borno state government in Government House, Maiduguri, yesterday.

The identification exercise continues.

According to the Cairo-based Egypt Independent, Ayman Nour, a member of the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, said yesterday that the alliance is negotiating with former vice-president Mohamed ElBaradei, former presidential candidate Khaled Ali and Strong Egypt Party founder Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh to join it and topple “military rule”.

Nour said the alliance has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.