Thabo Mbeki’s intellectual biographer clearly sees it as his job to justify the president’s ways to South Africa. He does this not just by parroting his subject and muse but also by sallying forth to yap, Maltese poodle-style, at the president’s adversary of the moment.
Veteran journalist and former head of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news Pippa Green has turned a harsh spotlight on the SABC’s editorial culture, noting that it sometimes degenerates into "a political grazing ground for the ruling-party faithful". Green’s comments follow a series of controversies at the SABC.
Since hippies first beat the overland travel trail to Nepal in the 1960s, thousands of foreigners have flocked to monasteries to study Buddhism. Today, despite political upheaval and a decade-long Maoist insurgency, they continue to come and there are more schools than ever, many of which are now home to Westerners who donned Buddhist robes and never left.
Connie Molusi, the CEO of Johncom, has been suspended with immediate effect on full pay, pending the outcome of a hearing to consider his performance, to be convened in due course, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. "The executive directors … and divisional CEOs … are managing the affairs of the group," the statement added.
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Gauteng minister of finance Paul Mashatile has declared — but now disowns — what amounts to a cool R50-million stake in a top IT company. If Mashatile’s shareholding were confirmed, he would be saddled with a serious conflict of interests: The company, Business Connexion, has contracts with a government agency, the Gauteng Shared Service Centre, which answers to Mashatile.
The White House on Monday dismissed North Korea’s threat of a nuclear strike in the event of United States attack as ”deeply hypothetical” and urged Pyongyang to rejoin nuclear negotiations. North Korea vowed on Monday to counter any strike by the US with its ”mighty nuclear deterrent”, accusing Washington of raising tension on the Korean peninsula.
United Nations officials travelled to Mogadishu on Monday for their first talks with Somali Islamists, who wrested control of the Somali capital last month. The UN team flew into Mogadishu from Kenya under heavy security and inspected several areas of city, which has been under Islamist control since June 5 when they routed the warlords after four months of bloody clashes.
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Delaying Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial is ”not fair,” Schabir Shaik said on Monday. Shaik, the man described by Judge Hilary Squires last July as having had a ”generally corrupt relationship” with Zuma, said: ”I read it in the weekend papers. I don’t think it’s fair, but it really is up to Zuma and his team to make that call.”
The controversy surrounding South Africa’s biggest arms-acquisition deal has resurfaced. That prosecutors in Düsseldorf at the weekend confirmed a probe into allegations that a German ship-building consortium supplying four Corvettes to the South African navy, handed over bribes, proves rather embarrassing and comes at a bad time for the two nations.