TheNewsGuru

Tag: South Africa

  • Buhari leaves France for South Africa today

    Buhari leaves France for South Africa today

    President Muhammadu Buhari is expected on Saturday (today)to leave Paris, France for Durban, South Africa.

    This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.

    President Buhari will join other African leaders at the official opening ceremony of the second Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) 2021 in South Africa.

    “President Muhammadu Buhari will, Saturday, leave Paris for Durban, South Africa, at a special invitation by President Cyril Ramaphosa, to join other African leaders at the Official Opening Ceremony of the 2nd Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) 2021 which takes place on Monday,” the statement read in part.

    The event is scheduled to hold from November 15 to November 21 and is being convened by the African Export-Import Bank (AFREXIM) in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat.

    The theme of the event – Fair, Building Bridges for a Successful AfCFTA – aims at boosting trade and investment across the African continent.

    “It also promises to create the enabling environment for businesses to thrive across the African continent; bring to fruition the lofty ideas behind the creation of the AfCFTA by providing the platform to further identify and proffer solutions to challenges militating against intra-African trade and; generate market information needed to connect buyers and sellers throughout the continent,” Adesina said in the statement.

    He added that global businesses including non-African international brands are expected to key into opportunities generated by the fair, thereby attracting for the continent trade and investment deals worth $40billion.

    The President will be accompanied on the trip by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo; Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar and the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Segun Awolowo.

    President Buhari is expected back in Nigeria on Tuesday, November 16.

     

  • Quick facts about F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president

    Quick facts about F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president

    South Africa’s last apartheid president, F. W. de Klerk, who oversaw the end of the country’s white minority rule is dead.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports a spokesman for the F.W. de Klerk Foundation confirmed the development on Thursday.

    He stated that de Klerk died aged 85 after a battle against cancer at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town.

    Below are some quick facts to know about F. W. de Klerk

    1. F. W. de Klerk, an apartheid-era South African leader, was born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family.
    2. De Klerk helped South Africa to bring about the end of white-minority rule
    3. He is the one who announced the release of Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years in a speech to South Africa’s parliament on Feb. 2, 1990.
    4. De Klerk helped orchestrate the release of Nelson Mandela, with whom he later shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
    5. However, for many South Africans he never did enough to fully atone for apartheid or for the human rights abuses carried out by the security forces when he was president.
    6. He studied law and worked as an attorney for several years until he was elected to parliament as a National Party candidate in 1972.
    7. He went on to hold several top ministerial posts before being elected president in 1989, a position he held until 1994.
    8. De Klerk left behind his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan, as well as his grandchildren.
  • Cocaine worth $13m stolen from South African police

    Cocaine worth $13m stolen from South African police

    Thieves have stolen 541 kilogrammes of cocaine worth around 13 million dollars from the police in South Africa.

    The drugs were held inside the office of the Hawks special unit in the town of Port Shepstone in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal at the weekend, the police announced on Tuesday.

    The thieves entered the building through a window and then managed to break into the reinforced cabinets where the seized drugs were being stored.

    South Africa plays an important role as a transit country for the illegal trade in Latin American cocaine, especially for onward transport towards Australia, Europe, and Hong Kong.

  • Aisha Buhari Cup: Sports minister urges Super Falcons to keep their heads up in defeat

    Aisha Buhari Cup: Sports minister urges Super Falcons to keep their heads up in defeat

    The Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Sunday Dare, on Tuesday urged the Super Falcons to raise their heads up in spite of the 2-4 defeat by the Banyana Banyana of South Africa at the just-concluded Aisha Buhari Cup.

    Dare stated this when he visited the subdued Randy Waldrum ladies in the dressing room after a disappointing result against their arch rival, the South African team.

    Banyana Bayana emerged the winners of the Aisha Buhari Cup after they clipped the Super Falcons wings.

    The highly entertaining match was played at the newly renovated Mobolaji Johnson Arena, formerly Onikan Stadium.

    Dare urged the Super Falcons to put their pieces together for the next challenge ahead of them.

    “You have the potentials, but there are some lessons to be learnt here and l’m sure it has been learnt.

    “l’m glad that you did not sustain any injury so that you can continue to play for your club and your country.

    “Raise your heads up, you have proven yourselves and you will have more opportunities and give yourself a challenge for the next matches,” he said.

     

  • South Africa defeat Nigeria to win 2021 Aisha Buhari Cup

    South Africa defeat Nigeria to win 2021 Aisha Buhari Cup

    Bayana Bayana of South Africa defeated Nigeria 4-2 to win 2021 Aisha Buhari Cup in Lagos.

    The final match was played at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, Onikan on Tuesday, TheNewsGuru reports.

    The South Africans opened scoring on 6 minutes from an own goal by Alozie Michelle.

    The Bayana Bayana quickly added a second goal from the penalty spot through Motlhalo Linda.

    It got worse for the Super Falcons as South Africans added a third goal before the end of first half from a Salgado Gabriela’s header.

    The Super Falcons fought back in the second half and got an early goal from substitute Ikechukwu Vivian.

    Vivian then scored one of the best goal of the tournament to make it 3-2.

    The South Africans added a fourth goal from the penalty spot few minutes to the end of the match to make it 4-2.

    To reach the final encounter against the South Africans in Tuesday’s game, the Super Falcons defeated the Female Eagles of Mali 2-0.

    Also, Bayana Bayana came into the clash on the back of a 3-0 win over Ghana in their opening encounter.

  • Ex-South Africa President Jacob Zuma granted medical parole

    Ex-South Africa President Jacob Zuma granted medical parole

    South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, jailed for 15 months in July for contempt of court after snubbing graft investigators, was placed on medical parole Sunday just two months into his term, prison authorities announced.

    Zuma, 79, has been hospitalised since August 6 at a health facility outside the prison where he had been incarcerated for ignoring a court order to testify before a judicial panel probing corruption during his nine-year tenure, which lasted until 2018.

    The Department of Correctional Services said in a statement on Sunday that Zuma’s “medical parole” took effect on Sunday and he will serve the rest of the 15-month prison sentence outside jail.

    Zuma “will complete the remainder of the sentence in the system of community corrections, whereby he must comply with a specific set of conditions and will be subjected to supervision until his sentence expires,” the statement said.

    The decision was motivated “by a medical report” the department received, it said.

    Zuma was admitted to hospital for observation on August 6 for an undisclosed condition, and underwent a surgical procedure on August 14. He remains hospitalised.

  • 72 dead in South Africa’s Zuma riots, worst violence in decades

    72 dead in South Africa’s Zuma riots, worst violence in decades

    As many as 72 people have died in South Africa, following days of protest over the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma.

    The South African Police Service (SAPS) which gave the figure of casualties late Tuesday also 1,234 people have been arrested .

    Notably the protests have now turned into rampant looting and riots, to become the worst violence in the country since the end of apartheid in 1994.

    Crowds clashed with police and ransacked or set ablaze shopping malls in cities across South Africa on Tuesday, as anger over Zuma jailing boiled over.

    Security officials said the government was working to halt the spread of the violence and looting, which has spread from Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province to the country’s biggest city Johannesburg and surrounding Gauteng province, and to the Indian Ocean port city of Durban.

    There have been reports of sporadic violence in two others provinces as well and “law enforcement officers patrolling identified areas of threat in an effort to deter possible opportunistic criminality,” SAPS said.

    Soldiers have been sent onto the streets to try to contain the unrest.

    Zuma, 79, was sentenced last month for defying a constitutional court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018.

    He also faces trial in a separate case on charges including corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty in court in May.

    Zuma’s foundation said there would be no peace in South Africa until the former president was released from jail.

    “Peace and stability in South Africa is directly linked to the release of President Zuma with immediate effect,” it said in a Tweet.

    “The violence could have been avoided. It started with the decision of the constitutional court to detain president Zuma … This is what gave anger to the people,” a spokesman for the foundation, Mzwanele Manyi, told Reuters separately.

    Troops moved into flashpoints on Tuesday as outnumbered police seemed helpless to stop the unrest, with columns of armoured personnel carriers rolling down highways.

    The bodies of 10 people were found on Monday evening after a stampede at a Soweto shopping mall, Gauteng premier David Makhura said.

    Hundreds of looters raided warehouses and supermarkets in Durban, one of the busiest shipping terminals on the African continent and an import-export hub.

    Outside a Durban warehouse of retailer Game, looters stuffed cars with electronic goods and clothes, a Reuters witness said. Inside, the floor was a mess of discarded packaging as the crowd emptied the shelves.

  • Jacob Zuma: South Africa’s jailed leader loses bid to overturn arrest

    Jacob Zuma: South Africa’s jailed leader loses bid to overturn arrest

    Former South African president Jacob Zuma lost a court bid on Friday to overturn his arrest for contempt, days after turning himself in for a 15-month jail term.

    “The application is dismissed,” the presiding judge said.

    The constitutional court last week ordered Zuma jailed for refusing to give evidence at an inquiry into corruption during his nine years in office from 2009. Though he turned himself in on Wednesday, Zuma has challenged his sentence.

    The constitutional court would hear his challenge, which pivots partly on his allegedly frail state of health and risk of catching COVID-19, in a separate case on Monday, but Friday’s high court judgment means he must stay in jail until that hearing is concluded.

    “Mr Zuma’s concerns about his health are not supported by any evidence,” the Pietermaritzburg high court judge said.

    The ruling came less than an hour after the high court in Johannesburg dismissed an application by the secretary general of the African National Congress (ANC), Ace Magashule, to have his suspension over corruption charges in a separate case set aside.

    Both politicians’ proceedings are regarded as a test of South Africa’s ability to enforce the law fairly – even against powerful politicians 27 years after the ANC ousted South Africa’s white minority rulers to usher in democracy.

    For Zuma, the jail order has also been viewed as the most dramatic chapter yet in his journey from a respected anti-apartheid activist to a politician tainted by charges of sleaze and corruption, all of which he denies.

    As a member of the ANC when it was a liberation movement, Zuma was jailed by South Africa’s white minority rulers for his efforts to establish a state that would treat citizens equally.

  • Ex-South African President, Jacob Zuma surrenders, starts serving 15-month-jail term

    Ex-South African President, Jacob Zuma surrenders, starts serving 15-month-jail term

    Former president Jacob Zuma turned himself into prison early Thursday to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of the country’s highest court, officials said.

    Prison authorities confirmed that Zuma “has been admitted to start serving a 15 months sentence at Estcourt Correctional Centre” in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

    It is the first time a former president has been jailed in post-apartheid South Africa.

    His turning himself in after days of refusing to do so brought an end to an impasse that had gripped the country, which is also battling a brutal third wave of Covid-19.

    The sentence handed to Zuma by the Constitutional Court last week for snubbing anti-graft investigators also set a benchmark for the continent, by jailing a former head of state for refusing to respond to a corruption probe.

    Police had earlier on Wednesday warned they were prepared to arrest Zuma by a midnight deadline to enforce the ruling unless the top court instructed otherwise.

    But in the end, the former leader decided to make his own way to prison.

    Just minutes before the deadline expired, his foundation tweeted that Zuma had “decided to comply with the incarceration order” and hand himself to a correctional facility.

    A convoy of cars believed to be carrying Zuma drove out of his homestead at high speed about 40 minutes before the cut-off time.

    Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla tweeted that he was “still in high spirits” and that “he said that he hopes they still have his same overalls from Robben Island… We salute dad!”

  • Ex-leader Jacob Zuma compares S/African judges to apartheid rulers

    Ex-leader Jacob Zuma compares S/African judges to apartheid rulers

    South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma, on Sunday, lashed out at the judges who gave him a 15-month jail term for absconding from a corruption inquiry.

    Zuma compared them to the white minority apartheid rulers he once fought.

    He spoke at his home in Nklandla, in a rural part of Kwazulu Natal province, where hundreds of his supporters, some of them armed, were gathered to prevent his arrest.

    “The fact that I was lambasted with a punitive jail sentence without trial should engender shock in all those who believe in freedom and the rule of law,’’ Zuma told journalists.

    “South Africa is fast sliding back to apartheid rule.’’

    The constitutional court sentenced Zuma on Tuesday for contempt of court for failing to appear at a hearing in February of the inquiry led by Deputy Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo.

    On Saturday it agreed to hear his challenge to the jail term, suspending it until after a hearing on July 12.

    The sentence was seen as a sign of just how far Zuma, once revered as a veteran of the struggle against white minority rule, has fallen since embarking on a presidency beset by multiple sleaze and graft scandals between 2009 and 2018.

    Earlier on Sunday, gunshots rang out across Nklandla, as some of his supporters fired their weapons into the air, while others danced with spears and ox-hide shields – the traditional weapons of Zuma’s Zulu nation.

    “I fought and went to prison so there must be justice and the rule of law.

    “No honest person can accuse me of being against the rule of law,’’ Zuma told journalists.

    The former president’s legal woes have divided the ruling African National Congress between his camp and that of his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

    Zuma gave in to pressure to quit and yield to Ramaphosa in 2018.

    He has since faced inquiries into allegations of corruption, dating from his time as president and before.

    The Zondo Commission is examining allegations that he allowed three Indian-born businessmen, Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta, to plunder state resources and traffic influence over government policy.

    He and the Gupta brothers, who fled to Dubai after Zuma was ousted, deny any wrongdoing.

    Zuma also faces a separate court case relating to a $2 billion arms deal in 1999 when he was deputy president.

    He denies the charges.

    On Sunday, the former president reiterated his view that he is the victim of political witch hunt and that Zondo is partial.

    “Judge Zondo began to … treat me unfairly and with bias,’’ Zuma said.

    The 79-year-old has applied to the court for the sentence to be annulled on the grounds that it is excessive and could expose him to COVID-19, which “would put him at the highest risk of death’’.

    He told a news conference that he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19.