Staff Reporter

The landslide victory for Festus Mogae in last Saturday’s general election hides a veritable cauldron of infighting in his ruling Botswana Democratic Party. On the face of it, Botswana has everything going for it: it is a homogenous country that has become the world’s richest source of uncut diamonds. The peaceful — not to say boring — nature of the elections underlines the country’s political stability.

A document outlining a loan agreement between Deputy President Jacob Zuma and fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik was presented to the Durban High Court on Thursday. The document apparently makes provision for a R2-million revolving loan from Shaik to Zuma over five years.

The deportation last week of a Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) delegation from Zimbabwe was unfortunate, but had happened because the visit was politically motivated, the South African Parliament’s foreign affairs portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=124895">Zim envoy speaks on food aid, Bennett</a>

Property services group JHI Real Estate and black economic empowerment (BEE) investors Mpande Holdings and Phatsima Industrial have signed a BEE deal that focuses strongly on participatory shareholdings in the booming property sector, the parties said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

This week the world finds out how seriously the United States neocons want to play, with election fraud and the removal of democracy in the US, and using the Orwellian-like "war on terror" excuse with the CIA-created "al-Qaeda" construct, en route to war in Iran, Africa, South America and ultimately China. (There you have the next decade in world politics, en route to World War III, mapped out in one sentence.)

The South African Police Service (SAPS) code of ethics assures the public: "We will, at all times, perform our duties to the best of our abilities. Our conduct and appearance will be proof of our commitment to service excellence." Police stations have been renamed "service centres" — apparently in an attempt to provide a more humane, friendly service to the public. But has anything at the SAPS stations changed apart from the name?

Recently, Professor Basil Moore pointed out the extraordinary economic and social punishment meted out by the Reserve Bank’s very high real interest rate policy, amid desperate unemployment. The current singular aim of inflation targeting is the mirror image of the International Monetary Fund’s narrow market fundamentalism. There is so much more the government could be doing than merely managing inflation.

On the island of Flores in the Malay Archipelago, scientists have found remains of a race of 1m-high humans who hunted pony-sized elephants and rats as big as dogs, and battled dragons with saliva laced with deadly bacteria. When it comes to the fantastic, you can never beat science. Now the hunt is on for living relatives of Flores’s little folk.

Iraq’s most feared militant group has stepped up its attempts to disrupt the country’s first democratic elections by sending letters to the authorities warning it will kill anyone involved in administering the January poll. The group has delivered the letters to the Mosul and Baghdad offices of the Independent Electoral Commission.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124614">Last chance for peace in Fallujah</a>

Iraq’s prime minister will send a team to rebel-held Fallujah to discuss clearing the city of insurgents and heavy weapons in a last-ditch bid to avert a full-scale military assault, officials said on Friday. The comments came as about 1&nbsp;000 United States and Iraqi troops, who have encircled the city, said they are prepared for action.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124567">Study: 100 000 Iraqi civilians dead</a>

The deadline for banks to verify the identity and details of clients in terms of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act 2001 is October 31. The Financial Intelligence Centre warned on Friday that after Sunday banks will be compelled to stop transactions on the accounts of clients who have failed to meet the deadline.

A dramatic series of reforms aimed at transforming the funding of the welfare system is being debated in the government, with Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel suggesting for the first time that a major new tier of mandatory private retirement and health benefits should be developed. "As formal employment grows, South Africa will need to strengthen its ‘second pillar’ of contributory social insurance arrangements."

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/140506/shaik_icon_new.gif" align=left>Secret documents seized by the Scorpions during their investigation of the arms deal — revealed for the first time at the Schabir Shaik trial — give a remarkable insight into the intense lobbying that went on to secure contracts. Newly evident is the role played by President Thabo Mbeki — then deputy president and chair of the Cabinet committee that oversaw the arms acquisition process.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124569">How Zuma ran up massive debts</a>