One of President Jacob Zuma’s many sons, Edward, is being sued for R1,5 million by Functions for Africa CC. The company says Edward still owes them the shortfall from his lavish wedding that cost R2,5 million at Tala Game Reserve in KwaZulu Natal last year.
47 Ethiopian men were rescued on the weekend from being sold into slavery by a human-trafficking syndicate in Limpopo. Snatched for ransom, those whose families can’t pay, have their relatives unwillingly sold into slavery in SA. The United Nations now estimates that there are more than 27 million slaves in the world.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, along with three other Frenchmen, have been accused of gang rape. Judges in charge of the investigation into a prostitution ring involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn now face two options: dismiss the new allegations, or bring charges of gang rape against them. It’s likely that the charges will stick.
On World Press Freedom Day, the highly acclaimed writer, and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Nadine Gordimer, called for the Protection of Information Bill to be “rejected in its entirety.” She launched the scathing rebuttal in an article entitled, “South Africa: The New Threat to Freedom”, on the New York Review of Books website.
South Africa’s next poaching epidemic could emanate out of the trade in lion body parts. Lion bones are being used as a replacement for tiger bones to concoct traditional Asian medicines like tiger brew wine because of the demise of the region’s tiger populations. Lion are already being poached in the northern section of the Kruger National Park.
It’s been the rhetorical question on everyone’s lips for quite some time: will Cricket South Africa ever get the unlawful bonus money back from those who received it? There seems to be a chance that they will. CSA is attempting to recover R3,3 million from suspended chief executive, Gerald Majola and former chief operating officer, Don McIntosh.
The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has approved contentious new legislation that eases rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forest. Environmentalists are up in arms, and say the new forest legislation will be a disaster, and lead to further destruction of the Amazon.
Judge Bill Prinsloo has granted the anti-e-Tolls lobby group, OUTA, an urgent hearing to argue for an interdict against the implementation of SANRAL’s controversial e-Tolls programme, which drew the ire of motorists and labour unions across the country in recent weeks.
We all knew that they were going to be bad, but to be told that one in four of Jozi’s drivers were asked for a bribe in 2010 is quite something. 154 440 motorists were asked to pay a bribe, but only 184 cases of corruption were reported.
James Murdoch has defended his actions in the News International scandal, blaming subordinates for feeding him wrong information around just how illegally the company’s flagship newspaper, News of the World, had been conducting its journalism. This emerged today during the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, which we reported on earlier.
Both James and Rupert Murdoch are due to give new evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, starting today. James will appear first, followed by his father, tomorrow. The inquiry will now focus on the relationship between the press and politicians.
Acting national police commissioner, General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, hinted on Thursday to MP’s that police had been instructed on which cases were “off limits” to them. He said this was something that was happening a lot “of late”, and that the instructions came from “powers beyond us”.
The driver of the blue light vehicle which knocked Thomas Ferreira off his motorcycle last year will be criminally prosecuted. The case will be of particular interest to Ferreira’s family, who nursed Thomas through a coma of several weeks and a slow and costly rehabilitation following the accident.
But the miners he left jobless at Aurora mines will not get a cent from him. The embarrassment for the Zuma and Mandela family names continues as Zondwa Mandela’s assets are expected to be attached next. Mandela has been charged with fraud, too.
“People power has brought down governments in North Africa; it can surely stop this assault on our living standards.” Cosatu has shown it doesn’t mess around when it comes to voicing its opinion. But will the “mother of all protests” against e-tolls actually make any difference?
Further concerns over the potentially large number of jobs that could be lost as a result of government’s proposed booze advertising ban, have been aired. Government is still mulling over its draft bill – which has been labelled draconian – but either way, the health department is determined to clamp down on the industry.
Unfortunately we don’t speak enough Vietnamese around the 2oceansVibe Compound to know exactly what Lieutenant Nguyen Manh Phan was saying, but we understand that the Vietnamese policeman is very passionate about his job. He made the bus stop.
The art of indulging in “num-num”, or free sex with a prostitute, may be news to you and I. But it isn’t to two members of Durban’s SAPS’s Port Security Services unit, commonly known as the harbour police. After a high-speed chase, gunshots, and a bite from a police dog, the two officers and their “partners”, were eventually apprehended.
Many of us are still really, really naughty about making phone calls and texting while driving. This despite the obviously dangerous distraction of cellphone usage behind the wheel. New reports show there has been a spike in the number of cellphone-related road accidents in South Africa recently – surprising, given how vigorously authorities are trying to clamp down on dangerous driving.
A dramatic shoot-out and escape occurred at the Lansdowne police station in Cape Town’s southern suburbs, early on Sunday morning. Five suspects attempted to make a getaway before one of the men was shot dead, three were rearrested, and the fifth – one of the Cape’s most wanted criminals – got away. Thankfully, Igshaan Dyers, is now back behind bars.
A consul-general’s job, amongst other things, is to facilitate trade and friendship between citizens of two countries. Marie-May Kolsch, the Seychelles consul-general, may have taken that mandate a little too far, judging from some rather salacious communication between herself and a former director of the failed Pinnacle Point property group. An eyebrow-raising email exchange, after the jump.
Greg has done it. He is now earning more than he would have been earning if he hadn’t exposed the rotten core of ethical detachment at Goldman Sachs. There was a bidding war for the rights to publish Greg’s memoir, and a division of the Hachette Book Group, Grand Central, outbid Penguin to get them.
Well, this doesn’t look good: Turkcell is suing MTN for $4,2 billion. Turkcell has decided to act on its claims that MTN bribed officials, arranged meetings between Iranian and South African leaders, and promised Iran weapons as well as UN votes, all in exchange for a licence to offer cellphone services in Iran.
While the public protector, Thuli Madonsela, wouldn’t outwardly say that the current tabulation of the Protection of Information Bill was unconstitutional, she did say MP’s could be spared the embarrassment of having it declared invalid by the courts if they rethought certain aspects of the bill.
Greg Smith, the South African-born ex-Goldman Sachs executive who resigned this month, and went on to launch a scathing attack on Goldman’s culture in the New York Times, is seeking a deal to write a book about his experiences there.
Rael Levitt is apparently readying himself to expose widespread corruption across the auctioneering industry in an attempt to save himself, but there’s still little word on exactly where he is. All the while, other skeletons seem to be freely emerging from the cupboard too.
After South African-born Greg Smith sent a scornful resignation op-ed to the New York Times last week, Goldman Sachs will now undertake a company-wide email review. They’ll be searching for terms like “muppet”, and other things that may help to reveal disgruntled employees.
Minister of Transport, S’bu Ndebele, watched his 24-year-old son tragically slip from a coma into death following a road accident during the treacherous Easter driving period. That was 18 years ago, but Ndebele still feels the pain of losing his son, Nhlakanipho. He is now calling for those who cause death on the roads to face murder charges.
This really is quite something. One might even say a “trend” is occurring. Following the publication of a whistleblowing letter by an ex-Goldman Sachs employee in the New York Times, a second honest banker has emerged. He works at JPMorgan Chase, and wrote his letter to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Norman Mokau, the victim of a brutal attack at the hands of a Vaalwater police officer in Limpopo last year, says he is still in pain after the incident. Mokau was beaten up by a police officer in November last year and the officer has only just been suspended.