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Obama declares new US sanctions on Russia

President Barack Obama. 

Manila - US President Barack Obama announced new sanctions against some Russians on Monday in an attempt to stop President Vladimir Putin from fomenting the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, but held off from broad measures that would hit Russia's economy.

The new sanctions, to be outlined in detail later on Monday, will add more people and firms to a list announced last month of figures whose assets are frozen and who are denied visas to travel to the United States.

Some high tech exports will also be targeted, Obama said. But the measures do not yet include the wider sanctions, like curbs on the Russian financial and energy sectors, that would do the most serious damage to Russia's economy.

Obama said Washington and its allies were keeping the threat of such sectoral sanctions "in reserve" in case the situation should "escalate further". He conceded he did not know if the measures he has ordered so far will work.

US officials have said the new list will include Putin's "cronies" in the hope of changing his behaviour.

"The goal is not to go after Mr. Putin personally; the goal is to change his calculus, to encourage him to walk the walk, not just talk the talk" on diplomacy to resolve the crisis, Obama said in Manila during a trip to Asia.

Nevertheless, such measures have done nothing so far to deter Putin, who overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy last month to seize and annex Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and has since massed tens of thousands of troops on the frontier. He acted after Ukraine's pro-Russian president was ousted by protesters demanding closer links with Europe.

Moscow has in the past shrugged off targeted sanctions like those Obama announced on Monday as pointless.

Washington says armed rebels - who have captured towns and government buildings across eastern Ukraine and are holding seven European monitors and a number of Ukrainians hostage - are operating under the direction of Kremlin agents.

Russia denies it is involved and says the uprising is a spontaneous response to oppression of Russian speakers by Kiev.

Rebels take town

The rebels took another town on Monday morning, seizing the police headquarters and municipal administration building in Kostyantynivka, an industrial city in the eastern Donetsk region. Separatists in the province have proclaimed an independent "People's Republic of Donetsk".

A Reuters photographer at the scene saw about 20 gunmen controlling the administration building.

On Sunday the separatists paraded eight unarmed European military monitors before journalists, three days after capturing them. One, a Swede who is diabetic, was freed for medical reasons but the others are still being held, described by the rebel leader as "prisoners of war" and Nato spies.

Armed rebels also occupied Donetsk television on Sunday and ordered it to start broadcasting Russian state TV.

EU measures to follow

The European Union is expected to follow the United States by adding to its own list of targeted Russian people and firms, possibly later this week.

But Washington and Brussels have yet to reach agreement on wider measures to hurt the Russian economy more broadly. The EU does more than 10 times as much trade with Russia as the United States, and buys a quarter of its natural gas from Moscow. Most EU decisions require unanimity among 28 member states.

Western countries say the targeted sanctions are already having an effect on Russia by scaring investors into pulling out capital. The central bank has been forced to hike interest rates to prop up the rouble and Russian firms are finding it more difficult and costly to raise funds.

Russian shares dropped on anticipation of the impact of new sanctions. The rouble-denominated MICEX index was down 1.3% early on Monday. The cost of insuring Russia's debt against default rose to its highest level since November 2011.

Monday's sanctions build on those imposed over Crimea last month, which were deliberately designed to punish individuals close to Putin without having wider impact on Russia's economy or its trade with the West.

The new sanctions could still have a greater impact by widening the net to include personal transactions by the heads of big Russian companies, and the prospect of sectoral sanctions continues to hover over Russian business more generally.

"The heads of Rosneft and Gazprom are rumoured to be on the list of targets," Uralsib bank analysts wrote in a morning note, referring to Russia's two biggest firms, its state oil major and natural gas export monopoly.

"Entire sectors of the economy could be targeted as well. Further sanctions for the energy and banking sectors could continue to harm sentiment if announced this week," they wrote, while adding that it was impossible to assess the impact until measures were announced.

The pro-Russian rebels seized eight European monitors on Friday and have been holding them at their most heavily fortified redoubt in the town of Slaviansk. A separatist spokeswoman said there were no plans to free the others after the Swedish diabetic was released on Sunday.

The captives, from Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and Sweden, were paraded before reporters on Sunday and said they were in good health.

"We have no indication when we will be sent home to our countries," the group's leader, German Colonel Axel Schneider, told reporters as armed men in camouflage fatigues and balaclavas looked on. "We wish from the bottom of our hearts to go back to our nations as soon and as quickly as possible."

Germany denounced the appearance and said Moscow must press their captors to free the prisoners.

"The public parading of the OSCE observers and Ukrainian security forces as prisoners is revolting and blatantly hurts the dignity of the victims," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.

"It is an infringement of every rule of behaviour and standards that are made for tense situations like this. Russia has a duty to influence the separatists so that the detained members of the OSCE mission are freed as soon as possible." 

Rand remains under pressure

Johannesburg - The rand extended losses against the dollar on Wednesday, keeping in step with its emerging market peers even as local inflation data suggested the central bank may hike interest rates next month.

Emerging markets, depressed by poor Chinese factory data and an escalating geo-political crisis in Ukraine, saw its currencies trade lower against the dollar in the session.

At 15:25 GMT, all but two emerging market currencies tracked by Reuters were weaker against the dollar, with the rand taking the second biggest loser spot after Indonesia's rupiah.

The local unit gave up nearly 1% to trade at a session low of R10.6265/$ to the dollar in the afternoon session.

The next support area for the currency should come in at the April 4 low around R10.6600/$, and R11 levels from earlier in the year are still on the cards.

The weak rand helped to push consumer prices in March to the top of the central bank's 3-6% target band on a year-on-year basis, with core inflation also rising after months of no change. The monthly increase in CPI was the largest in over 5 years, official data showed earlier.

"The effects of a weak rand and rising local food prices mean it is likely to accelerate further over the next six months or so. This should be enough to prompt the central bank into further tightening, and an interest rate hike seems likely at its next MPC meeting in May," said Shilan Shah of Capital Economics.

The rand has stabilised since hitting 5-year lows in January, but external risks to emerging markets could combine with domestic worries about mining strikes to take the rand back to those levels, analysts said.

South African platinum producers are in the second day of official talks aimed at ending a three-month strike at their mines, after making a new wage offer to the striking Amcu union.

Government bonds fell to the session's low after the higher-than-expected inflation data.

The yield on the benchmark 2026 issue climbed to 8.57%, while the 2015 note rose to 6.9%, levels last seen nearly a month ago.

Solidarity urges members to vote

Johannesburg - The Solidarity Movement urged its members and supporters on Wednesday to vote in the 7 May general election.

The call to participate in the election came after a meeting with the Freedom Front Plus, the movement's chairperson Flip Buys said in a statement.

"The discussion with the FF Plus forms part of a series of similar meetings with, among others, the DA and Agang SA.

"In the discussion with the FF Plus, the movement expressed concern, inter alia about the radicalisation of the ANC, the impact of affirmative action on South Africa, as well as the protection of minority rights in the country in general," he said.

The Solidarity Movement includes three member organisations. They are the trade union Solidarity, AfriForum and a community organisation Helping Hands.

Buys said that during meetings with political parties the movement conveyed its members' expectations.

Christian and family values, Afrikaners' right to lasting freedom, safety, prosperity and multilingualism, the Afrikaans language and cultural freedom were very important to the movement's members, he said.

"Our members also seek sound governance, a productive and well-paid workforce, true equality without race as the criterion, and a healthy working relationship with the government."

The Solidarity Movement called on all South Africans to remain constantly active in civil society and not only participate every five years in an election.

Over 1m 'born frees'(born 1994 and after Apartheid) not registered to vote

Johannesburg - More than a million "born-frees" have not registered to vote for the 7 May general election, The Star reported on Tuesday.

Only a third [33.6%] of those born after 1994 have registered to cast their votes. This meant that 646 313 out of a possible 1.9 million "born-frees" were ready to vote next month.

The figures were based on the Electoral Commission of SA's (IEC) comparison between the number of registered voters and Statistics SA's population estimates for the age group.

"Born-frees" make up 2.5% of the 25 million registered voters, the newspaper reported.

Sixty percent of South Africans in their twenties, and 90% of people older than 30 are also registered to vote.

Wrongfully imprisoned 'Hurricane' Carter dies

'Hurricane' Carter

Washington - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the boxer whose racially-tinged wrongful murder conviction made him a symbol of injustice, died on Sunday at the age of 76.

Carter, who was convicted twice and imprisoned for 19 years before he was exonerated in 1985, died on Sunday at his home in Toronto, the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) confirmed.

From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as the executive director of the Canadian organisation, which said it was "deeply saddened" by the death of "a truly courageous man who fought tirelessly to free others who had suffered the same fate".

US and Canadian media reported that Carter had been battling prostate cancer.

Carter was a middleweight contender before he was convicted in the 1966 murders of three people who were shot and killed at a tavern in Paterson, New Jersey.

A fearsome fighter, Carter scored his biggest win in 1963, when he stopped past and future world champion Emile Griffith in the very first round of a non-title clash.

He lost a 15-round unanimous decision to Joey Giardello in a middleweight world title fight in 1964 - his only world championship bout.

"He could have gone a long way," Griffith said. "I should know. He knocked me down and stopped me."

An 'appeal to racism' 

However, Carter's ring career was abruptly curtailed by his triple murder conviction in 1967.

He denied the crime, and his story caught the attention of boxing great Muhammad Ali and inspired Bob Dylan's 1975 song Hurricane.

Decades later, 1999 flick The Hurricane, earned Denzel Washington an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Carter, although some factual inaccuracies in the film provoked criticism.

Carter was convicted along with his friend John Artis, who was also black, by an all-white jury in the death of two white men and a white woman.

The convictions were gained in part with the testimony of two convicted felons who placed Carter and Artis at the scene, but later recanted.

Carter was given a second trial in 1976 and convicted yet again.

In 1985, however, Carter was exonerated by US district court judge, H Lee Sarokin, who said the conviction had been "based on an appeal to racism rather than reason".

After finally being released, Carter, a native of New Jersey, moved to Toronto.

Zille warns on equity regulations... new employment equity regulations will, if implemented

Helen Zille

Cape Town - New employment equity regulations will, if implemented, have a "profound" impact on jobs in the Western Cape, premier Helen Zille warned on Monday.

Tabling a R1.02bn budget for her department of the premier in the provincial legislature, she told members the region's demographics were "very different from the national figures".

The province was seeking legal opinion on whether certain sections of the Employment Equity Act and the draft regulations were lawful and constitutional.

"Speaker, as we should all be aware, [Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant] introduced draft regulations for the amended Employment Equity Act, which have raised serious concerns for us as the Western Cape government.

"The regulations specify how an employer's compliance with employment equity should be determined. If these draft regulations are implemented as they currently stand, they would have a profound impact on employment in the Western Cape..."

Once the legal opinion was received the province would announce further steps it planned to take.

"It goes without saying that we are committed to achieving equitable representation in the Western Cape government, and indeed are doing so in large part."

Zille said the premier department's budget for 2014/15 had increased by almost 14% over the previous year.

"The department's budget for the 2014/15 financial year is R1 027 754 000 - which is a 13.8% increase compared to the 2013/14 adjusted budget."

The increase would support "a much-needed capacity boost" to meet the expanded demand on the department's services.

ANC backtracks on employment equity clause... published the EE regulations for public comment

Cape Town - The ANC has made a submission to amend a controversial clause around demographics in draft employment equity (EE) regulations, the party's provincial leader Marius Fransman said on Thursday.

"We have actually made a submission not to spike hatred between communities. We've made a submission to correct that earlier clause, and that is what responsible leadership is," he told reporters in Cape Town.

"We've suggested that that clause can go nowhere because that clause will not stand the test of time. What we suggested is that it must be a balance between national and provincial [demographics]."

The draft clause proposes that companies who employ more than 150 people would have to use national demographics for top and senior management, and those who were professionally qualified.

New rules

The labour department published the EE regulations for public comment in February.

At the time, the department said the regulations provided practical guidelines on how to implement EE law in the workplace.

Western Cape premier Helen Zille made it clear earlier this month that her government would oppose the regulations because they amounted to "race-based social engineering" and would entrench racial divisions rather than help overcome apartheid's legacy.

Addressing staff in a internal letter, she said she had consulted her lawyer, and was of the opinion that the regulations and sections of the principal act were unconstitutional.

'Rational EE'

She said she had submitted her comments to Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant, making it clear the province was committed to "rational" EE for all those disadvantaged by apartheid.

"But [we] will not introduce quotas, nor accept the absurd and unconstitutional regulations as currently promulgated," she stated in the internal letter.

The province's top three levels of management and professionals would have a limit of nine percent of coloured people, even where they comprised almost 50 percent of people in the province, she said.

"This would mean we are not able to promote or appoint people in this "racial category" to senior management positions for at least 15 years."

Fire white senior staff

On Thursday, Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich was quoted as saying that he would ask the ANC to fire more than half of the white senior civil servants if the ANC won the province in May 7 general elections.

"Their employment would have to be terminated - and within a year," the Cape Argus quoted the Congress of SA Trade Unions official as saying.

"They'll have to go and start their own businesses. They are better placed to start their own businesses because they have both the networks and the historical infrastructure to do this."

In the report, he claimed senior management in the provincial government was made up of at least 57% white people, while they only made up 16% of the population.

'Wrong as usual'

In response, Zille said on Thursday that Ehrenreich's statistics were "entirely wrong, as usual".

"Currently, 62% of senior management in the Western Cape government is, in the terminology of the EE Act, coloured, African and Indian and comprises 75% individuals from all designated groups," she said.

"He will not succeed in his attempt to drive a wedge between white people on the one hand, and coloured, Indian and black people on the other."

Mildred Oliphant: Apartheid remnants still in South African workplace

Johannesburg - Twenty years since South Africa's first democratic election, remnants of apartheid remain in the workplace, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said on Wednesday.

"It may be nuanced differently than the crude characterisation at the height of apartheid.

"It may be expressed in clever words like lack of experience and other such terms, but in the end those at the coalface feel the racism and exclusion they thought the country got rid of when the new dispensation was agreed on."

She was addressing the second employment equity and transformation indaba.

News employment equity regulations

Earlier this year, the labour department published employment equity regulations for public comment.

The regulations give effect to the Employment Equity Amendment Act, providing practical guidelines on how to implement employment equity law in the workplace.

Oliphant said 20 years of freedom in South Africa had not been enough to fully address the legacy of apartheid.

"How is it possible that more than 300 years of discrimination can be reversed in such a short period," she said.

Slow pace of transformation

The pace of transformation in society and labour remained very slow. The recently published regulations sought to expedite this process.

The regulations highlighted the revised definition of designated groups, criteria and methodology for assessing work of equal value, guidelines for assessing compliance, and enforcement mechanisms.

Oliphant said the regulations in no way intended to disadvantage any of the designated groups, particularly Indians and coloureds.

Telling a 'blue lie'

"Anyone who says so is telling a blue lie and even in an election period, lies should not and cannot be acceptable."

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille branded the regulations "absurd" last Wednesday.

Zille said the department's approach amounted to "race-based social engineering" and would entrench racial divisions rather than help overcome apartheid's legacy.

Oliphant said South Africa's diversity had not been harnessed as a strategic business advantage.

"This has serious implications for the economic viability and efficiency of South Africa, which in turn undermines its development and sustained competitiveness in the global market."

Employment goals and targets

She also pointed out that designated employers were meant to consider both the national and regional demographics of the economically active population when setting employment equity and transformation numerical goals and targets.

"We will not be dissuaded when some among us are being discriminated [against] on the pretext of skills or experience. Experience is the result of being given a chance to prove yourself."

Oliphant said there were no immediate plans for a sunset clause on employment equity.

"We wish to put to those calling for a sunset clause, a lot of work still needs to be done.

"There is still a long road ahead in moving South Africa forward," Oliphant said.

"Let us join our hands together... to make sure South Africa is a non-racial, non-sexist country, a prosperous country."