JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; The United States poultry industry will press its government to retaliate if South Africa suspends a quota that excludes some U.S. imports from an anti-dumping tariff, the head of a poultry trade group said.
The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) has filed a lawsuit seeking to force the government to suspend the quota in response to the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from South Africa.
“We will certainly be encouraging our government to take appropriate action,” James Sumner, president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, told Reuters late on Tuesday.
The looming row could put at risk duty-free access to the U.S. market for nearly $2 billion worth of South African exports, government officials and trade experts say.
South Africa levies a tariff on “bone-in” poultry that it says is exported by major world producers, including the United States, at prices below the cost of production.
The U.S. poultry industry believes the anti-dumping tariff is illegal.
Threatened with losing its benefits under AGOA &#8211; the United States’ flagship trade legislation for Africa &#8211; South Africa agreed to a quota in 2015 allowing some 65,000 tonnes of meat from U.S. producers to be imported tariff-free each year.
AGOA grants qualifying countries duty-free access to the U.S. market for thousands of goods. More than $1.8 billion in South African exports to the United States were covered by AGOA last year.
However, South Africa’s poultry association is arguing that tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports imposed by Washington earlier this year violate the quota agreement by curtailing AGOA benefits.
“We hope that the U.S. and South Africa will amicably resolve and differences they have over the (steel and aluminum) tariffs but it should not interfere with agreements already reached on poultry trade,” Sumner said.
Reporting by Joe Bavier; Editing by James Macharia and Richard Balmforth

South Africa’s poultry industry at odds with U.S, here’s why…

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s state-run power utility Eskom expects to have 7,000 less staff in five years from now, Marion Hughes a senior manager at the utility that is struggling to emerge from a financial crisis said on Thursday.
Eskom employs 47,000 people and has powerful labour unions, some allied with the ruling ANC and others more militant, that have said they will resist attempts to cut the workforce and fight moves to privatise the company.
Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by James Macharia

Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, plans to cut 7,000 jobs in five years

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Some Nike stores were closed in South Africa on Wednesday after public outcry over a racist comment by a man that local media said had links to the sportswear company.
Nike declined to comment on the store closures, but issued a statement reiterating its “long-standing commitment to diversity, inclusion and respect”, adding that the man seen in a video posted online was not a company employee.
In the video, taken at a beach resort, a white man with a South African accent says: “And not one kaffir in sight. Fucking heaven on earth.”
The “K word” as it is known in South Africa is apartheid-era slang for a black person and is regarded as a deeply offensive slur on a par with the “N word” in America.
Times Live online news service said the man in the video was married to a merchandising director at Nike. A Nike spokeswoman in London declined to comment and Reuters was unable to independently verify the person’s identity.
South African media reported Nike stores had closed their doors. Reuters witnesses confirmed that two were shut at a mall in the Sandton district of Johannesburg.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a party known for its hard-left and African nationalist positions, said it would file a criminal complaint against the man in the video.
In January, protesters led by the EFF trashed six H&amp;M stores over an ad by the retail chain which featured a black child modelling a sweatshirt with the slogan “coolest monkey in the jungle.”
South Africa remains deeply scarred by its apartheid and colonial past, with the racial reconciliation embraced by the late president Nelson Mandela frequently marred by racist incidents.
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Additional reporting by Patricia Aruo; Editing by James Macharia and Robin Pomeroy
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Here’s why Nike temporarily closed stores in South Africa

MBABANE (Reuters) &#8211; The Kingdom of eSwatini will not switch its allegiance from Taiwan to China, its foreign affairs minister said on Wednesday, after China said it expected Taiwan’s last diplomatic ally in Africa to switch allies soon.
“They must not play mind games because our relationship with Taiwan is over 50 years so we will not dump them,” Mgwagwa Gamedze told Reuters from Taiwan, where he was on a visit. “We have no desire to change camps since Taiwan has been good to us.”
eSwatini was formerly known as Swaziland.
El Salvador this week became the third country to switch allegiances to China from Taiwan this year.
Reporting by Lunga Masuku; Writing by James Macharia; editing by John Stonestreet

This country is Taiwan’s last remaining ally in Africa, says it won’t switch to China

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 21 (Reuters) &#8211; The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday it would begin talks with Angola over providing financial support after the oil producing country’s economic growth was weaker than expected this year.
Africa’s second-largest oil producer has been hit by lower oil prices, which have caused a dollar liquidity squeeze that has made it difficult for foreign companies to repatriate profits and discouraged many from investing.
Angola’s Finance Ministry said on Monday it had sought financial support from the IMF but did not provide further detail on how much money was involved.
“We expect to initiate programme discussions with the Angolan authorities as soon as feasible,” Deputy Managing Director of the IMF Tao Zhang said in a statement which confirmed the Fund had received a letter from the Angolan authorities to start talks.
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<div id="dpslot_canvas_6827759_AFL8N1VC4QA" class="DPSlot_ad-container" data-google-query-id="CPH07b6_gN0CFcKD7Qod-EIGHg">The request came after the IMF was invited to Luanda in October to negotiate the programme, which would last for two years and then be extendable for one more.</div>
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“The IMF stands ready to help the authorities address Angola’s economic challenges by supporting their economic policies and reforms based on the government’s macroeconomic stabilisation programme and in the national development plan for 2018–22,” Zhang said.
Angola’s economy has struggled due to lower oil prices, a situation made worse by declining production. Output is expected to fall to 1.5 million barrels per day in 2018, down from 1.6 million last year and 1.9 million a decade ago.
The IMF expects the country’s economy to grow 2.2 percent this year, well below an original government forecast of 4.9 percent.
President João Lourenço, who took over last September after 38 years of rule by José Eduardo dos Santos, has said he wants to bring about an economic miracle in Angola by opening up to foreign investment and diversifying away from oil. (Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Angola talks for IMF funding to begin

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s rand firmed more than one percent in early trade on Tuesday, matching gains by its emerging market peers as criticism of Federal Reserve rate hikes by U.S. President Donald Trump hurt the dollar and revived demand for some risk assets.
At 0630 GMT the rand was 1.1 percent firmer at 14.3700 per dollar, its firmest since Thursday, in what traders said was the beginning of a consolidation pattern with momentum indicators showing the unit was oversold.
The rand’s 3-day Relative Strength Index (RSI), used to identify oversold or overbought signals by comparing the current price to previous periods, dipped below the 70-mark overnight indicating a reversal of the recent bear trend.
The rand crashed to a two-year low last week as the financial crisis in Turkey rattled sentiment towards emerging markets broadly, adding to concerns about the impact of the U.S.-China trade spat on global economic growth.
But with Turkish markets closed for a religious holiday and anticipated talks between the United States and China seen lowering the temperature of the dispute, Trump’s central bank comments were the main catalyst.
In an interview with Reuters Trump said he was “not thrilled” with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates, causing the greenback to slide to its lowest level since Aug. 9.
Bonds also firmed, with the yield on the benchmark 2026 paper down 3.5 basis points to 9 percent.
Stocks were set to open a touch lower at 0700 GMT, with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s Top-40 futures index down 0.1 percent.
Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Ed Stoddard

South African rand firmer as Trump comments hurt dollar, what you need to know…

LUSAKA (Reuters) &#8211; Ethiopian Airlines has signed a shareholding agreement with Zambia’s main develoment agency to relaunch the southern African country’s flag carrier at an initial cost of $30 million.
The Ethiopian state-owned carrier has outpaced regional competitors Kenya Airways and South African Airways to become Africa’s largest airline by revenue and profit, and has been buying shares in other African airlines to gain a competitive advantage over rivals such as those in the Gulf.
Under the plan, Zambia Airways, being revived more than two decades after it was shut down, would operate 12 planes by 2028, Ethiopian Airlines said in a joint statement with Zambia’s state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).
Ethiopian Airlines will own 45 percent of the revamped Zambian airline, and Zambia 55 percent, the statement said.
“The initial investment as we start up the national carrier will be $30 million. Obviously, as we operate the airline, we will facilitate the financing necessary to support its growth,” it said.
Ethiopian Airlines said in January it had signed an agreement with the Zambian government to relaunch Zambia Airways.
Zambia Airways will launch local and regional routes this year while intercontinental routes, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia, will be added in the near future, it said.
State-owned Zambia Airways went into liquidation in 1994. The privately-owned Zambian Airways then emerged as the country’s main carrier with flights to other major hubs in southern Africa, but it suspended operations in 2009.
Ethiopian Airlines operates and manages Malawi Airlines through a deal signed in 2013.
In May, the airline said it was in talks with Chad, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea to set up carriers through joint ventures. It also aimed to create a new airline in Mozambique that it will fully own.
Ethiopia said in June it would open Ethiopian Airlines and its state-run telecoms monopoly to private domestic and foreign investment in a major policy shift that will loosen the state’s grip on the economy.
Reporting by Chris Mfula; Editing by James Macharia and Adrian Croft

What you need to know about Ethiopian Airlines and Zambia’s $30 million agreement

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; The chairman of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress was quoted as saying the state should take without compensation land from those who own more than 12,000 hectares, comments that sent the rand weaker.
More than two decades after the end of apartheid, white people still own most of South Africa’s land.
Ownership patterns remain highly emotive as the government has been slow to transfer land to the black majority after centuries of colonial and racial oppression.
The ANC’s plans to amend the constitution to redistribute land have been interpreted negatively by some investors, who see them as undermining property rights.
The ruling party has sought to assuage those fears by saying that land reform will follow a parliamentary process. [nL5N1UR8OX]
“You shouldn’t own more than 12,000 hectares of land and therefore if you own more, it should be taken without compensation,” ANC Chairman Gwede Mantashe, who is also the country’s mines minister, told the News24 website in an interview published on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear whether Mantashe’s comments represented official ANC policy. Four key party officials did not answer their phones when called by Reuters for clarification.
Mantashe is one of the top six most powerful officials in the ruling party and a close ally of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The rand fell more than 3 percent against the dollar earlier, partly weakened by Mantashe’s comments, a report by Moody’s ratings agency on the struggling economy and a resurgent dollar, which struck a 13-month peak. [nL5N1V62YT]
The ANC is under pressure to make headway with land reform ahead of next year’s national election, where the ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters party has made faster land redistribution one of its main policies.
The 12,000 hectare land ownership limit was mooted in 2016, by then-rural development minister Gugile Nkwinti. But Nkwinti said the government would seek to buy, not expropriate without compensation, land from those owning more than 12,000 hectares.
AfriForum, an organisation that mostly represents white South Africans on issues such as affirmative action, has criticised the ANC’s decision to endorse constitutional changes to allow the state to seize land without compensation, saying the move would be “catastrophic”. [nL5N1US5TC]
Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by James Macharia and Alison Williams

Chairman of South Africa’s ruling party wants land expropriated without compensation from those with over 12,000 hectares

Transnet&#8217;s CEO Siyabonga Gama, Chief Advanced Manufacturing Officer Thamsanqa Jiyane and supply chain manager Lindiwe Mdletshe have been issued with suspension notices. This comes as South Africa’s National Treasury concluded its investigation of alleged corruption at state logistics firm Transnet last month.
The report covered allegations of misconduct concerning state logistics firm Transnet’s purchase of over 1,000 trains from China South Rail.
The report was given to the relevant parties for comment for which they were given two weeks to respond.
In May South Africa&#8217;s Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan appointed a new board at the logistics company with Popo Molefe as its chairperson.
Gordhan attributed the board changes to the &#8220;serious allegations of maladministration and corruption&#8221; Transnet faced.
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<li>With additional reporting from Reuters</li>
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Transnet CEO issued with suspension notice

One of the major problems facing South Africa is anti-immigrant violence. The seriousness of this problem was highlighted in a recent <a href="http://hcwg.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Report-Hate-Bias-Crimes-Monitoring-Form-Project-SCREEN.pdf">report on hate crime</a> in the country.
These kinds of hate crime discourage long-term integration of international migrants. It also hampers the country’s ability to attract migrants with the skills it needs to drive development and economic growth.
Anti-immigrant violence also sours the country’s relationship with the rest of the continent. For example, relations between South Africa and Nigeria, one of the region’s largest economies, have deteriorated because of recent <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/ramaphosa-tries-to-fix-sa-nigeria-relations-as-xenophobia-claims-emerge-15973772">attacks on Nigerians</a>.
Since the early 1990s, state officials, legislators and policymakers in South Africa have debated the <a href="http://samponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Acrobat66.pdf">causes of anti-immigrant violence</a>. There are many different opinions on what causes such hostility. Some politicians, including former president Jacob Zuma, even suggested that the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/28/south-africa-is-not-a-xenophobic-nation-a-letter-from-jacob-zuma">problem doesn’t exist</a>.
A new <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/media-briefs/general/attacking-foreigners-in-sa">study</a> by the Human Sciences Research Council canvased the views of ordinary South Africans on what lies behind anti-immigrant sentiments, including violence. Knowing how the public views this important question is vital to understanding which mechanisms would be most acceptable to prevent xenophobic violence.
Overall, 71% of the respondents said that the threat posed by immigrants from outside South Africa was the main reason for the violence. A third of people in the survey attributed violence against immigrants to the fact that foreigners would take jobs away from South Africans and that they were involved in unfair business practices attributed.
Only a small minority (5%) described violence against foreigners as irrational, illogical or unknowable. An even smaller portion (2%) rejected the premise of the question and said that attacks against foreigners were “just the work of criminals”.
<h2>The survey and findings</h2>
Using public opinion data, the study looked at which explanations for anti-immigrant violence are most popular among the country’s adults.
Public opinion data from the <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/departments/sasas">South African Social Attitudes Survey 2017</a> was used for the study. The repeated cross-sectional survey series is specially designed to be nationally representative of all persons aged 16 years and older in the country. Survey teams visited households in all nine provinces and the sample size was 3,098.
Respondents were asked: “There are many opinions about why people take violent action against foreigners living in South Africa. Please tell me the main reason why you think this happens”. This open-ended question allowed people to answer in their own words, thus encouraging them to give an unbiased answer.
Almost every respondent was able to offer an explanation for why people attack foreigners. About a third (30%) of the general public said that the violence was caused by foreigners stealing jobs from hardworking South Africans. Other economic causes cited were the alleged unfair business practices of foreign-owned small businesses and that immigrants used up resources (such as housing).
<figure class="align-center "><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230759/original/file-20180806-191035-11rrgvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure>
The criminal threat posed by international immigrants was the second most frequently mentioned cause of anti-immigrant violence. Almost a third (30%) said that communities were responding to the criminal activities of the migrants. Many people attributed the violence to foreigners’ involvement in drug trafficking.
About 5% of the respondents identified other threats they claimed foreigners posed as the main reason for the attacks. These included the sexual exploitation of women as well as a general sense that immigrants wanted to “take over the country”.
Looking at the minority that named a non-threat explanation for attacks on foreigners living in South Africa, the study found that few identified individual prejudice or misinformation about international migrants as primary reasons for the violence.
Remarkably, the most frequently mentioned non-threat explanation for violence was jealousy. About 10% of the respondents said that envy of the success or ingenuity of foreigners was the main driver of this kind of hate crime. People who responded in this way tended to tell fieldworkers that South Africans were lazy when compared to migrants.
<h2>Combating xenophobic violence</h2>
From the responses, it’s apparent that most of the reasons provided by the general population are about the alleged harmful conduct of international migrants. There is, however, no evidence to support the belief that South Africa’s migrant community is a major cause of crime or <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-south-africa-what-data-tell-us/">unemployment</a> in the country. Indeed, as former president Zuma has <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN1630JW">acknowledged</a>,
<blockquote>(many in the migrant community) contribute to the economy of the country positively.</blockquote>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101053/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Government and anti-xenophobia activists need to encourage ordinary people to think like this, and to view hate crimes against foreigners differently. Public support will help anti-xenophobia advocates end these kinds of hate crime. Only when South Africans are able to understand the root causes of anti-immigrant violence can the problem be overcome.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-gordon-360887">Steven Gordon</a>, ‎Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/human-sciences-research-council-2144">Human Sciences Research Council</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fears-about-jobs-drive-anti-migrant-sentiment-in-south-africa-101053">original article</a>.

How job uncertainty in South Africa is driving anti-migrant attitudes

London, 15 August 2018 &#8212; The pace of South Africa&#8217;s fiscal consolidation will be slower than government forecasts as weaker than expected economic growth and a rising public sector wage bill act as fiscal headwinds, Moody&#8217;s Investors Service said a report today. Despite the slower pace of fiscal consolidation, medium-term deficit targets remain within reach and, if met, will support a stabilization of debt levels and reinforce Moody&#8217;s assessment of the sovereign&#8217;s fiscal and institutional strengths.
The report, &#8220;Government of South Africa: Fiscal slippages likely this year, but medium-term targets remain within reach&#8221;, is now available on www.moodys.com. Moody&#8217;s subscribers can access this report via the link at the end of this press release. The research is an update to the markets and does not constitute a rating action.
&#8220;We expect a slower pace fiscal consolidation than the Government of South Africa is forecasting,&#8221; said Lucie Villa, a Moody&#8217;s Vice President &#8212; Senior Credit Officer and co-author of the report. &#8220;Growth this year is expected to be lower than the government&#8217;s own estimates, weighing on tax revenues, while the public sector wage agreement in June also brings extra, unbudgeted costs.&#8221;
Moody&#8217;s expects a fiscal deficit of around 4.0% of GDP in 2018-19, implying a 0.4 percentage point of GDP shortfall from government targets. However, Moody&#8217;s expects the government to hit its 3.5% fiscal deficit target by 2020-21, with debt likely to stabilize at around 56% of GDP.
Moody&#8217;s expects that near-term fiscal adjustments will be made on the spending side based on the government&#8217;s record of operating within spending ceilings and undershooting revenue targets.
Improved tax collection led by the South African Revenue Service will allow revenue to take more prominence in the longer term fiscal consolidation path.
Rising interest costs in the context of investors taking a more risk averse stance towards emerging markets are a main risk to Moody&#8217;s fiscal forecasts, together with potential support to state-owned-enterprises.

South African rand dives as Moody’s warns on fiscal deficit, what you need to know…

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s economic growth this year will be “much lower” than initial expectations, the central bank said in a presentation to parliament on Wednesday, calling any recovery “weak and choppy”.
The South African Reserve Bank added that fixed investment was not expected to pick up meaningfully this year, while inflation risks remained on the upside.
Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Joe Brock

Central bank expects South Africa’s 2018 growth to be “much lower” than initial forecasts, here’s why

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s Gold Fields said on Tuesday it plans to slash costs at its struggling South Deep mine, including cutting 1,100 jobs, or around 30 percent of its workforce.
South Deep, the company’s last South African asset, has faced operational obstacles in a tough geological setting 3 km (2 miles) below the surface. The mine made a loss of 337.6 million rand ($27 million) in 2017.
Gold Fields shares opened 3 percent lower at 47 rand per share.
The bullion producer, which has invested 32 billion rand in the operation since acquiring it in 2006, said it could no longer sustain losses at the mine, which has missed several production targets despite significant modernisation.
“The key challenge has been the difficulty in transitioning the mine from one run with a conventional mining mindset and practices to mining with a modern, bulk, mechanised mining approach,” Gold Fields said in a trading update.
The firm also said it expects headline earnings per share for the six months ended 30 June 2018 to be unchanged at $0.08 per share compared with the previous reporting period.
Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by Joe Brock

What you need to know about South Africa’s Gold Fields’ plan to cut over 1,100 jobs at South Deep mine

<h1></h1>
<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230006/original/file-20180731-136661-xiq3dy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=1%2C133%2C664%2C674&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180731 136661 xiq3dy.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>This sign could be interpreted literally. 
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gregory-breetzke-523227">Gregory Breetzke</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-pretoria-1645">University of Pretoria</a>
Over the past few decades there has been a growing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237950620_Homicide_in_Sao_Paulo_Brazil_Assessing_spatial-temporal_and_weather_variations">worldwide interest</a> in examining the relationship <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916510397758">between weather and various types of crime</a>. Most research in this area has however produced inconsistent and often paradoxical results. For example, some studies have found <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/44/2/276/562930">no seasonal fluctuations</a> in crime. Others have however found <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916510397758">an increase in crimes</a> during either the colder winter months or warmer summer months.
Very little is known, however, about how the magnitude and spatial distribution of criminal activity in South Africa is affected by climatic conditions. So we set out <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03736245.2018.1498384">to determine</a> whether there is an association between criminal activity and climate in the country’s capital city, Tshwane.
We were specifically interested in whether the magnitude of crime changes depending on extreme weather conditions, notably temperature and rainfall. In other words: do extremely hot days or high-rainfall days experience higher or lower rates of violent, property or sexual crime?
We also wanted to know whether the spatial distribution of violent, property or sexual crime changes depending on the type of extreme weather event. Simply put, does crime occur in different places on extremely cold days than it does on really hot ones?
<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03736245.2018.1498384">Our results</a> indicate a strong association between temperature and criminal activity. That is, as the temperature goes up, so too, does crime. There’s a less significant association between rainfall and crime. The spatial distributions of all types of crime are found to differ significantly depending on the type of weather extreme observed.
The results could help law enforcement agencies better understand how weather affects crime patterns in South Africa’s urban areas and develop and implement appropriate crime prevention measures.
<h2>Diving into data</h2>
The notion that there’s a relationship between criminal activity and climate is nothing new. Over a century ago Belgian sociologist and scholar Adolphe Quételet <a href="https://archive.org/details/treatiseonmandev00quet">observed</a> that crimes against people reach a maximum during the warmer summer months, while crimes against property reached a peak during winter.
He <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0130.xml">later developed</a> the temperature-aggression theory, which provides a psychological explanation for the increase in crime during warmer months. It suggests that warmer temperatures will lead to an increase in an individual’s frustration and discomfort levels and so increase the likelihood of aggression. This could in turn result in interpersonal crimes such as assault.
We used data and statistical analysis to find an association – if any – between extreme weather conditions and crime in the nation’s capital, Tshwane. We obtained climate data for the city from the South African Weather Service for a 5-year period from September 2001 to the end of August 2006.
Next, we calculated daily average temperatures before extracting the ten hottest for each year of the five years. That gave us a dataset of 50 days. The process was repeated for low-temperature days, high-rainfall days, no-rainfall days and random-rainfall days.
Then came crime data for the same period. We obtained this from the South African Police Services’ Crime and Information Analysis Centre. The data included the geographical location of each crime; the date and time of day that each crime was committed; and the specific type of crime committed. A total of 1,361,220 crimes were reported in the five-year period across 32 different categories. All crime was then categorised into either violent, sexual or property crimes before we calculated a count of crime per type per day.
Next, we used a recently developed <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143622809000046">spatial point pattern test</a> to determine whether the spatial distribution of crime on the three types of days – very hot, very cold and rainy – changes. That is, does the spatial patterning of crime in Tshwane change depending on certain rainfall and temperature conditions?
<h2>What we found</h2>
Our findings demonstrate that the amount of violent, sexual and property crime in the city of Tshwane is significantly affected by temperature and, to a lesser extent, rainfall.
The magnitude of violent, sexual and property crime was higher on hot days compared to cold or random temperature days. Violent crimes increased by 50% on hot days compared to very cold days. Sexual crimes increased by 41% and property crime by 12%. Violent and sexual crimes in Tshwane also decreased on high-rainfall days. Surprisingly, property crime was found to increase slightly on heavy rainfall days, though only by 2%.
Second, the spatial distribution of violent and property crime was found to differ on days by temperature and rainfall. There is a considerable change in the way that particularly violent and property crime is spatially distributed in Tshwane depending on the weather conditions. We also found that the distribution of sexual crime did not seem to differ significantly by temperature or rainfall.
More research is needed to confirm these findings and to determine if the results can be generalised to other urban areas in South Africa.
<h2>Applications</h2>
The results of this research have the potential to inform how law enforcement agencies and other relevant stakeholders tackle crime in South Africa.
Our findings can be used to identify communities that are more prone to crime under certain meteorological conditions and allow stakeholders to target these neighbourhoods and plan interventions. It also allows stakeholders to adequately develop and implement suitable intervention practices in similar at-risk neighbourhoods.
For the police and others responsible for specifically addressing long-term solutions to crime, crime pattern analysis can utilise the understanding of how weather events influence crime patterning and provide measures to take appropriate action.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gregory-breetzke-523227">Gregory Breetzke</a>, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-pretoria-1645">University of Pretoria</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-temperatures-rise-so-do-crime-rates-evidence-from-south-africa-100850">original article</a>.

Here’s how weather conditions impact crime rates in South Africa

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe police on Wednesday arrested former finance minister and opposition politician Tendai Biti as he tried to cross the border and seek asylum in neighbouring Zambia, his lawyer said.
Biti, whose party formed an election alliance with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s main rival Nelson Chamisa, is the first senior opposition politician to be arrested in the aftermath of last week’s disputed presidential election won by Mnangagwa.
Lawyer Nqobizitha Mlilo said Biti was arrested after presenting himself to Zambian immigration officials at Chirundu border post, north of the capital Harare and police had not yet informed him of the charges.
Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia

MDC politician #TendaiBiti arrested in Zimbabwe as he tries to cross border

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African lender Nedbank reported a 26 percent jump in half-year profit on Tuesday, helped by a recovery in its west African associate, Ecobank.
Nedbank owns about 16 percent of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), which is a recovering from weak investment and consumer spending in the commodity-rich west African region.
Diluted headline EPS, the primary measure of profit in South Africa that excludes certain one-off items, came in at 1,387 cents in the six months through the end of June compared with 1,098 cents a year earlier.
“While risks remain, it is expected that the actions taken to improve ETI’s financial position and governance, along with an improving macroeconomic environment, will continue to drive an improved financial performance in 2018,” Nedbank said in a results filing.
Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Ed Stoddard

South Africa's Quantum Foods warns of 38% drop in first-half profit

South Africa’s Quantum Foods warns of 38% drop in first-half profit. budget_shutterstock_249974521

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HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Twenty-seven members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) appeared in a Zimbabwe court facing public violence charges on Saturday after six people were killed in post-election protests that were met by a military crackdown.
Soldiers and tanks rolled into the capital Harare on Wednesday after protests erupted against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling ZANU-PF party’s landslide win in the House of Assembly vote.
The army’s clampdown on civilians and the opposition’s allegations that the vote was rigged revealed the deep fissures in Zimbabwean society that developed during the four-decade rule of Robert Mugabe, when the security forces became a byword for heavy-handedness.
The 27 MDC members were arrested on Thursday at the party’s headquarters. Their lawyers said the MDC members were innocent and were delivering election results from provinces when arrested.
Prosecutors said the accused were positively identified by police and that witnesses would testify against them.
The MDC members were not formally charged by Harare Magistrate Francis Vhitorini and will be held in custody in prison until they return to court on Monday.
If found guilty, they face up to 10 years in jail.
Water cannon and more than a dozen anti-riot police were stationed outside the perimeter of the court house while others remained camped outside the MDC headquarters.
Three of the victims from Wednesday’s clashes were buried on Saturday, the MDC said.
Mnangagwa on Friday urged Zimbabweans to unite after he was declared the first elected head of state since Mugabe’s removal from power. MDC leader Nelson Chamisa insisted he had won and pledged to challenge the result.
On Saturday, Chamisa said he was aware of his supporters’ anxieties and that he carried their hopes and aspirations.
“You voted but they cheated. Over 2.5 million votes can’t be ignored. We’re doing all to secure your vote (and) defend your WILL. Change is coming,” he wrote on Twitter.
The first post-Mugabe election had been cast as a watershed moment that would rid the former British colony of its global pariah status and begin a recovery in its failed economy.
But Mnangagwa’s bid to repair the image of a nation known for repression and economic collapse was further hurt by a police raid on the MDC headquarters and the dispersal of journalists before Chamisa’s news conference on Friday.
International election observers have cited several problems, including media bias and mistrust in the electoral commission.
On Saturday, the British government said it was deeply concerned by the post-election violence and the “disproportionate response from the security forces.”
Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Janet Lawrence

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