South African President, Jacob Zuma, commenced the African Mining Exploration and Finance Company (AMEFC), which is a subsidiary of the Central Energy Fund on Saturday. The company will also act as the center of the state owned mining company in Ogies, Mpumalanga.                                                           


However, there's one group that is claiming they weren't invited to the event. 


To see video of the launch, click here


The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) say they didn't get an invitation to the launch and it has some members wondering why.

"The NUM is seriously concerned that as an organisation that represents the majority of mineworkers in South Africa, thus a serious stakeholder, has neither been invited nor notified,” spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said in a statement.

Seshoka  also said that the NUM wonders if the company is going to be run by "goats or donkeys."


Zuma said government policy on minerals and mining did not make provision for the nationalization of mining assets, but that also did not prevent the state from participating in mining and competing with other companies.


He also remains completely optimistic of the project in spite of what the NUM has said, and says that “This means we should balance the opportunities for growth and development with ensuring that the social, environmental and economic impacts of mining, both positive and negative, are managed in an open and accountable way."

Unemployment in South Africa gets some relief

While our country's unemployment rate continues to be at a staggering high, it's interesting to know that across the north Atlantic Sea,  South Africa is struggling with the same problem. However it seems like their government is about to take drastic measures to improve the problem.

South African President Jacob Zuma, said the government is going to strongly implement a 39 billion dollar job creation drive to lower the devastatingly high unemployment rate, which stands at 22 percent.

A 9 billion dollar rand fund will finance job creation initiatives for the next three years. The Industrial Development  Corporation is planning to invest 10 billion dollars over the next five years by focusing on labor-intensive projects.

More then a million workers have been fired by South African companies since the global economic crises began.

Last year, the jobless rate peaked at 25.3 percent before slightly declining to 24 percent in the last three years.

Media History and Background

With an estimated population of 49,991,300, South Africa is one of Africa's major media creators as it publishes/distributes newspapers, magazines, books, and broadcasts television and radio. An estimated 1.3 million newspapers are sold daily and there's 280 locally published magazine titles currently available with an annual turnover of $800 million dollars. Book publishing is rather small and brings in a moderate profit with just over 3,000 total employees in the book publishing industry.

However, the media in South Africa has had major issues in the past with freedom of the press. During the apartheid of the early 1990's, South African media were hampered by government censorship for it's criticism of the apartheid system and the National Party Government. Up until 1994, Alternative Press thrived greatly through distribution of community broadsheets, bilingual weeklies, and student "zines" and samizdats.

The end of the Apartheid in 1994 brought and end to censorship and a new constitution was created which has a bill of rights allows every citizen the right to freedom of expression. There's also little evidence of repressive measures against journalists.

But some questions have been raised regarding bias's in the media. Almost all large daily newspapers are owned by four large media firms (Avusa Publishing, Naspers, Independent News and Media and CTP/Caxton) which may lead to pro-corporate bias.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is considered to carry a strong pro-ruling party bias (African National Congress- ANC). This could also be due to the fact that majority of SABC's management/executive staff are either ANC members or ANC aligned.

Some media reports concluded that the SABC has blacklisted certain commentators and analysts which may be critical of the government.