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Thursday, November 26, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon de Ryhove.

Making headlines today:

Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica says that dedicated courts to deal specifically with infringements against the South African environmental policies, are likely to become effective within the next six months.

She says that officials within the relevant departments are working on details and processes which will be submitted to the ministers for consideration. It is envisaged that the establishment of dedicated courts will have a profound impact on the fight against environmental crime.

Sonjica says that the biggest issues surrounding the re-establishment for the dedicated courts are funding arrangements and skills development. However, she says that the Department of Environmental Affairs has been hard at work developing the necessary skills.

State-owned enterprise Transnet and the French Development Agency, or AFD, have concluded a 2,2-billion-rand loan agreement to part-fund the freight logistic group's 4,6-billion-rand Cape Town Container Terminal expansion programme.

Transnet acting CEO Chris Wells said that the AFD loan was, by far, the biggest single funding initiative for one project.

The loan would be used to help fund the expansion of the port's container terminal capacity to 1,4-million TEUs a year by 2012, and formed part of Transnet's 80-billion-rand investment programme.

Also making headlines:

South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says that trade protectionism is a serious risk to global economic growth.
Government will soon discuss the future of the PBMR company and other local nuclear agencies.
Multinationals team up to explore the Karoo basin for shale gas.
And, a 25-million-rand Western Cape clean development mechanism project is officially launched.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.