Migrant smuggling in Libya a booming trade
Cairo – Libya’s chaos has turned it into a lucrative magnet attracting migrants desperate to make the dangerous sea voyage to Europe. With no central authority to stop it, business is booming, with smugglers charging ever more as demand goes up, then using the profits to buy larger boats and heavier weapons to ensure no […]
NUM to demand gold wage hikes of 75%
Johannesburg – The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is planning to submit demands to the gold sector next week calling for a 75% hike in the basic pay for entry-level workers, according to union sources familiar with the matter. “For the basic wage at the entry level, we are planning to demand a raise to […]
SA businesses in Africa could feel ‘heat’ of xenophobic attacks
Many around Africa have expressed outrage at the xenophobia in SA, while SA businesses operating in the rest of Africa begin to feel pressured. South Africa’s cabinet warned on Friday that companies operating in the rest of Africa may be targeted, just as Johannesburg-based Sasol Ltd. announced it was repatriating South African employees working on […]
SA mercenaries are ‘giving Boko Haram a hiding’
By David Smith — The vexed leftovers of the apartheid military are reportedly turning the tide in Nigeria. Leon Lotz was once a member of Koevoet – “crowbar” in Afrikaans – a paramilitary police unit created by South Africa’s apartheid regime to root out guerrillas in what is now Namibia. Thirty years later, something persuaded him […]
Clean sweep of the poor is not constitutional
By Dennis Webster — In its bid to rid the city’s intersections of beggars and traders, Jo’burg is criminalising the poor. Since early February, the City of Johannesburg has been clearing intersections in the city of beggars, window washers, street traders and pamphleteers. The project, called Operation Ke Molao (It’s The Law), follows the rationale that […]
Cosatu boss accused of inciting violence
By Theto Mahlakoana and Shanti Aboobaker Johannesburg – The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has accused Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini of inciting violence amid high tension in the labour movement. The union said it was shocked by Dlamini’s comments last week when he said: “Call it a ‘United Front’ – I call it […]
Zim MPs deliver anti-xenophobia petition to SA embassy
Harare – A group of Zimbabwean lawmakers on Wednesday delivered a petition to the South African embassy in Harare, asking for action to be taken against the wave of recent xenophobic attacks. Jessie Majome from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who led the delegation of six MPs from across Zimbabwe’s political divide, said South […]
Zuma was subject of smear campaign: court papers
By Charl du Plessis, Pretoria – President Jacob Zuma was the subject of a smear campaign in the media because he had become the “unacceptable face of Africa” and it is a “myth” for the DA to claim that Zuma desperately wanted a day in court. This is according to an explosive affidavit filed by […]
Can a black leader change an ‘institutionally white’ DA?
By Kwanele Sosibo — Analysts speculate that Mmusi Maimane could be the next DA leader, but there is doubt about whether this change would make a difference in the party. With the decision by Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille not to stand for re-election in the party’s next conference coming as a surprise to many, commentators feel that the […]
Rwanda: Raised in the shadow of death
By Ryan Lenora Brown — Twenty-one years after the genocide, Rwanda is rapidly rebuilding its national identity – but ethnicity is still a factor. In a narrow, dark vault beneath the small Catholic Church in Nyamata, 42km from the Rwandan capital, Kigali, lie the skeletons of the country’s past. And make no mistake, they are actual […]
