Eskom's Directors Paid R18.5 Million; Educ. Dept. Milk State for R50 Million

Eskom executive committee paid 109% more in 2011

Jun 27 2011 19:09
Moyagabo Maake, Mail and Guardian

State-owned power utility Eskom paid executive committee members 109% more than they were paid last year, according to its financial statements for the year ended March 31.

Eskom's directors' remuneration report reveals that R18.5-million was paid to executive committee members, compared to last year's R8.8-million. The biggest winner was human resources head Bhabhalazi Bulunga, who pocketed 507% more at R3-million, compared to last year's R501 000.

Of the two executive directors, chief executive Brian Dames was the highest paid at R5.7-million, a 0.9% increase. However, finance director Paul O'Flaherty took home 346% more at R4.9-million.

Releasing the group's financial results on Monday, Dames said his management had agreed not to take any bonuses if they could not keep the lights on or achieve targeted savings.

This was despite a public outcry over the pay and bonuses of state-owned enterprise executives, sparked by a high court claim filed by former Eskom chief executive Jacob Maroga for R85-million, which he said he would have earned had his contract not been terminated prematurely.

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Impossible for Dewani to get Fair Trial in Systemically Dysfunctional SA Justice System: Complaint to UK Min. of Justice

[4] If the Radical Honesty SA Application to proceed as an Amicus Curiae (Annex B) was approved; the Radical Honesty Amicus Curiae would prove beyond any reasonable doubt that:

1. It is legally impossible for the Plaintiffs to provide the Defendant with a free and fair trial; in South Africa
   

2. If the Systemic Intellectual, Moral and Legal Dysfunction of the SA Legal System as it exists today, was managed by White Afrikaner males; every single Anti-Apartheid ‘Human Rights’ Organisation in Europe would be screaming their lungs off, organising protests, filing Amicus Curiae objections, etc; arguing that Mr. Dewani was incapable of receiving a free and fair trial because the SA criminal justice system is a criminal injustice system; but when the current Systemic Dysfunction is far, far worse than under Apartheid (3,000 % worse in the case of farm murders; 25000% worse in the case of deaths in Police custody, etc, etc) and under the management of the corrupt, incompetent, unprofessional, ANC; the ‘Anti-Apartheid Human Rights (sic)’ organisations conduct is that of the 3 monkeys. It is submitted Mr. Dewani as an Indian would have stood a 3,000% better chance for a free and fair trial under a conservative White Afrikaner Apartheid Judge and Justice System.
   

3. Furthermore, on May 23, 2011, the US Supreme Court ruled that conditions in California's prisons violated the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" and affirmed a lower court's order that the state drastically reduce its inmate population. The photo’s attached to Brown v. Plata convinced the Justice’s. As a former political prisoner under the ANC government; I can unequivocally and categorically inform you that California (where my former African American husband is and has been a prisoner since 1982) and SA prison conditions can be described respectively as: California five star cleanliness and discipline v. SA hellhole of filth and anarchy. The space between beds in SA prisons is about 30 cm, if prisoners are lucky to have a bed. Blankets, sheets and pillows are a luxury. Discipline and any complaints procedure simply does not exist. In the US Supreme Court decision, writing on behalf of the court's five-vote majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that US Supreme Court’s unprecedented measure had become the only way to remedy the "serious" and "uncorrected" constitutional violations against inmates in the state's correctional facilities, particularly the sick and mentally ill.

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Zimbabwefication of SA: State Security's Strategic Collapse: Police Brutality & Corruption

Boer Volkstaat 10/31/16 Theses Briefing Paper:

Deaths in Police custody increase 25,725% in ANC’s ‘TRC Rainbow Democracy’

‘Crime Against Humanity’ Apartheid South Africa:

1963 – 1994: 75 Deaths in 31 Years = 2.4 Deaths per year

Throughout the entire apartheid-era up to 75 people died in police-custody throughout the period between 1963 and 1994.

The Anti-Apartheid organized worldwide protests against this ‘crime against humanity’!

‘Rainbow Democracy’ South Africa:

Jan – Nov 2010: 566 Deaths in 11 months = 617.4 Deaths per year

Political parties yesterday called for a swift investigation into the deaths of 566 people at the hands of police in the current year. The call comes after the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) revealed yesterday that out of this overall national figure, 16 of those killed by police were innocent people. Many of the policemen involved have not even been suspended, let alone charged!

The Anti-Apartheid movement celebrates ‘TRC Rainbow democracy’ and ‘freedom’.

• Police brutality in South Africa: When the sheep dogs turn on the sheep
  
• SA Police tells Afrikaners, "You should all Fuck-Off"
  
• No end to the shocking brutality of the ANC police against Afrikaners
  
• Paramedic's Christo Coetzee & Lukas Hattingh Attacked by Gauteng Flying Squad
  
• Boer Volkstaat Theses 10/31/16 Briefing Paper: [C] Rainbow Illusions: Truth & Reconciliation Fraud: [8] Zimbabwefication of South Africa: State’s Strategic Collapse

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Another Election 4 Sale: Who Funds Who? Money in ZA Election Politics || ANC's dodgy funders || China Fund ANC? || Party Funding & Election Campaign

What did they spend? Party Funding and Election Campaigns in SA …

May 12, 2009
Judith February, IDASA/Bus. Day

Election 2009: Map showing, for each municipality, the party with the largest number of votes in the National Assembly election. Lighter shades indicate a non-majority plurality. Green: ANC; Blue: DA; Red: IFP

With the elections over and the African National Congress celebrating its victory, it is clear that, along with the people, the money has also spoken.

Estimates put the ANC’s election spending at between R200 million and R400m. No one can be sure of the actual amount, given the lack of transparency in the funding of political parties.

All political parties seem to agree that transparency is a good thing but appear to lose their appetite when it comes to disclosing their own sources of funding. It has been a case of “show me yours and I’ll show you mine”.

For as much as the ANC has been coy about the sources of its donations, so has the opposition Democratic Alliance – which flooded the Western Cape with posters and, towards the end of its campaign, laid on a helicopter for Helen Zille – been reluctant to disclose its funding sources.

So, the question remains, who will lead the way in closing this gap in South Africa’s transparency regime? Logically, it would have to be the ruling party, with its overwhelming majority in Parliament.

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The Enemy Within the British Empire [01/02]: A Short History of the Bank of England

[Part 01] [Part 02]

The Enemy Within the Empire:

A Short History of the Bank of England

By Eric D. Butler.

INTRODUCTION

Most orthodox history that is crammed into the heads of our children is one long list of contradictions. There is no real background to our social development because the main underlying factors have been completely ignored. The part played
by the money system in the growth of society has been tremendous; yet how many of our historians mention it? We teach our children about the development of the British Commonwealth of Nations, although the real basis of this growth has been either neglected of distorted, while the development of that powerful, private and anti-social institution, the Bank of England, is very rarely mentioned.

If we are really desirous of preserving and developing British culture, it is essential that we attempt to gain at least an elementary knowledge of the attack which was launched against the British people at the time of Cromwell.

It is significant that the introduction of what has been termed a "spurious Whig culture," marked the origin of the present banking racket in Britain. This cultural and financial attack has been going ever since, although there is sound reason to believe that the enemy is at last being turned on both flanks However, as yet, there is no sign of a rout in the enemy's ranks. Even the London "Times," one of the chief mouthpieces of the financial oligarchy, offered the following criticism of "Whigism" in its issue of August 4, 1840:

"There is certainly in 'Whigism' an inherent propensity to tyranny; and of all the methods which tyranny ever invented for sucking out the essential vitality of free institutions, without appearing materially to touch their forms, this centralising system is the most plausible and the most pernicious. . . If it shall be fully carried out, British liberty ... will rest no longer on the possession of constitutional power by the people, but upon the sufferance of a majority of those who, for the time being, may call themselves the people's representatives."

The man who wrote the above lines, 100 years ago, had a deep insight into the principles of social organisation. Those who seek to re-write history find it a very formidable undertaking, because it has become a "vested interest" with the official historians. Any historian who refused to portray Cromwell as a saviour of the British people, pointed out that his real name was Williams, and that he belonged to a small group of men who had been enriching themselves at the expense of the Monarchy and the people, while bringing a group of foreigners from Holland to batten on the British people, would not find his books recommended for use in our schools or universities.

End the Fed; by Ron Paul [*Amazon*]

Our "Whig" historians tell us about the tyrannies of Charles I. and Charles II, and how they reigned without Parliament. The impression is given that Parliament in those days was similar to what we have to-day. Nothing is further from the truth. It was comprised of a group of wealthy men who were not very responsible to the British people.

The real fight was between the Money Power and Monarchy, with the victory of the Money Power in 1688 when James II was driven off the throne by his son-in-law, William III., who was brought to Britain at the behest of the financial interests. The Bank of England was formed six years later - 1694 - and with it began the National Debt. The Bank was formed for the purpose of lending money to the crown and was modeled on the Bank of Amsterdam, founded in 1609, the first bank in Northern Europe. The part played by Jews in this formation of the modern banking system, together with the modern Stock Exchange, was considerable.

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The Enemy Within the British Empire [02/02]: A Short History of the Bank of England

[Part 01] [Part 02]

The Enemy Within the Empire:

A Short History of the Bank of England

By Eric D. Butler. (Part 02)

THE CZECHOSLOVAKIAN GOLD EPISODE

What is now known as the famous "Czech Gold Incident" further demonstrated the power of the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements. It also demonstrated the fact that the British Government had no control over the actions of the Bank of England. When the Nazi machine crashed into Czechoslovakia in September 1938, it took the assets of the Czechoslovakian National Bank. Approximately £5,000,000 worth of Czech gold held by the Bank of England was transferred to Germany, with the result that, when this fact became known, there was an uproar in the British House of Commons.

The following extracts from the Sydney Morning Herald of May 24, 1939, speak for themselves:

"The Secretary for Mines, Mr. Crookshank, said in the House of Commons that the Government had no power to restrain the movement of gold held in the Bank of International Settlements on behalf of the Czechoslovakian National Bank. . . . This means that more than £5,000,000 worth of Czech gold deposited in the Bank of England for the Bank of International Settlements will be transferred to Germany. . . .

The City Editor of the 'News-Chronicle' says:

'. . . It now turns out that more than £5,000,000 was, in fact, released, although not by agreement with the Treasury, BECAUSE THIS WAS NOT REQUIRED." (My emphasis.)

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Exponential Economic & Population Growth World Economy Runaway Train Ponzi Scheme; heading for Cliff of Finite Resources!

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: A Ponzi scheme is a financial scam that involves paying abnormally high returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. The entire financial system is equivalent to a gigantic Ponzi scheme; which include many interlinked subsiduary Ponzi schemes, such as the sub-prime crisis, the sovereign debt crisis, the derivatives crisis, etc.

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Zimbabwefication of SA: ANC Elections by Bribery, Coercion & Terror

Knives out in Cape ballot

Mandy Rossouw & Glynnis Underhill
Mail and Guardian
Feb 18 2011 07:50

Allegations of bribery, threats of violence and unconstitutional decisions by leaders about who can vote lie in the wake of the recent conference in which deputy minister of international relations Marius Fransman was chosen as African National Congress (ANC) chairperson in the Western Cape.

Two affidavits in the possession of the Mail & Guardian claim Fransman's supporters tried to bribe delegates to persuade them to vote for candidates who would support him at the regional conference or to vote for him at the provincial conference from February 11 to February 13 in Cape Town.

According to one affidavit, date-stamped February 8 by the South African Police Service, a delegate at the West Coast regional conference in Clanwilliam was asked to "make his price" for his vote.

ANC delegate and branch chairperson Johannes Snyders, who is a school janitor in Eendekuil outside Piketberg, says in his one-page affidavit that two delegates who supported Fransman offered him money for his vote.

"On Saturday, January 4 at about 18h00, I was in Clanwilliam. We were approached and told that we must say what amount of money we want in order for us to side with them."

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Destroying seeds of our future: SA's Welfare State of Moral Degeneration & Teenage Pregnancy & Educ. Mediocrity Tsunami

Destroying seeds of our future

We tolerate an education system that robs our children of opportunities, writes Mamphela Ramphele

Mar 5, 2011 11:42 PM
Mamphela Ramphele, Sunday Times

Successful societies focus on ensuring that future generations perform better than past and present ones. The crisis of underperformance of our education and training system lies at the heart of the growth of inequality, continuing poverty and dependence on welfare transfers.

We have descended into an unsustainable situation, with 15 million welfare grant recipients supported by six million taxpayers. The majority of these welfare transfers are child grants extended to those under the age of 18. Child grants amount to R35.6-billion - 16% of the social protection budget allocation, in 2011, of R146.9-billion.

Some analysts are warning that our society is being hit by a teenage pregnancy tsunami. The Times reported recently that, in Gauteng alone, 5000 schoolgirls are preparing to give birth in 2011. For every age cohort of 1.5 million starting school each year, just over 500000 end up sitting for final year examinations. Less than 70% of these candidates get a high school diploma - of which only 20% are good enough to give the pupil access to higher education.

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RSA v. Dewani: Complaint filed with Her Majesty's Courts Svc, alleging Due Process Court Irregularities & Bias by Magistrate

20 February 2011
Andrea Muhrrteyn
Why We Are White Refugees

On Monday, 14 February 2011, an Official Complaint was filed, in the matter of RSA v. Shrien Dewani, with Her Majesty's Courts Service: Customer Service Division.

The complaint was filed by South African citizen, Lara Johnstone, who had applied to the court to proceed as an Amicus Curiae, to oppose Dewani's extradition to South Africa; in that he would not receive a fair trial in SA; because South Africa is a "criminal mafia parasite state that breeds and feeds crime, for political and financial benefit of the TRC FRAUD elite". [Notice of Motion & Founding Affidavit (PDF)]

Johnstone's application was allegedly subsequently ruled to be 'inapropriate' by an anonymous Magistrate/Judge, who refuses to be named, or to provide Johnstone with a copy of his anonymously issued 'inapropriate' ruling.

Subsequent to filing her original Amicus application, the Clerk refused to provide any written status response thereto. Johnstone then filed a complaint to the UKIP, a libertarian party, who objected to Julian Assange’s extradition; who seek Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

On 25 January 2011, Nigel Farage, UKIP MEP in the European Parliament, for South East Region requested City of Westminster Magistrates Court to please provide the courts response to the Amicus Curiae Application filed by Lara Johnstone in RSA v. Shrien Dewani. The UK Westminster Clerk of Court ignored Mr. Farage's request.

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SA Legal System Incompetent: The Silence of the Lawyers

The Silence of the Lawyers

Jeremy Gauntlett questions the dangerous complacency of the legal profession

01 February 2011
Jeremy Gauntlett, Politicsweb

Legal Expert Kickstarts ‘SA Courts are Incompetent’ Debate

Speech by Adv Jeremy Gauntlett, SC, to the Conference of the Society of Law Teachers, Stellenbosch, January 17 2011

Thank you for the honour this invitation constitutes. It stirred many feelings in me. The first was doubt as to how your Society took that decision. I say this because I know the way my own profession takes decisions. This is best exemplified by the decision of the Johannesburg Bar Council some 40 years ago.

A well-regarded but cantankerous judge was hospitalised. A delegation was despatched by the Bar Council to his hospital bedside. The leader cleared his throat and told the judge that the Johannesburg Bar Council had mandated him to convey two messages. The first was that he was asked to wish the judge on behalf of the Johannesburg Bar a speedy recovery. The second was to tell the judge that this was on a vote of six to five.

My second feeling was one of nostalgia: nostalgia for those who taught me here, and who either as teachers or as fellow students became my friends for life; and those who taught me, or with whom I worked, in my own postgraduate life. Allow me to mention JC de Wet, Willem Joubert and Tony Honoré - now in his 62nd year of teaching at Oxford.

I and many of my colleagues in practice owe an inexpressible debt to you and to your predecessors. It concerns me that often law teachers seem to doubt the worth of what they do. Their task is ancient and vital. As CP Snow writes of Cambridge in his elegaic novel about university ambition, The Masters, it "[i]s hard not to think of other men walking as we did, of the chain of lives going back so long a time, of others walking those same narrow streets in the rain".

That is not to say that law teachers at times lack brutality. I remember Sir Rupert Cross, great writer and teacher on the law of evidence, handing back collections (essays) at Oxford and saying: "I know you can't help your laziness, but you should really try to do something about your stupidity".

When you invite a practitioner to speak, you should know that his own scholarship will not have been sustained by the bits of writing and lecturing which only earlier years at the Bar readily allowed. So I do not venture a scholarly theme.

On the other hand, if you expect me to speak about things that matter to the profession, I shall do so, but only in part. For what I want to talk about today is a common malaise: a lack of critical faculty not merely in the Faculty, but across the face of legal life in South Africa. My thesis is that, for all lawyers, there are disturbing developments about which we are insufficiently articulate and active.

I have often thought that the trouble with political revolution, velvet or otherwise, is that it gives rise to the same illusions as university graduation. There is the sense of attainment and finality, of a status achieved and no more to be learnt or done. I believe the converse is true. It is just a beginning. That is true of the commencement of constitutionalism in 1994.

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Legal Expert Kickstarts ‘SA Courts are Incompetent’ Debate

Legal Experts Argue about SA Courts Incompetence

2011-02-14 22:58
Phillip de Bruin, Beeld

Two of the country's top experts on constitutional law are in disagreement the state of the justice system and especially the constitutional court.

Adv. Jeremy Gauntlett SC, who has been a judge in Cape Town, has kickstarted the debate with a speech (The Silence of the Lawyers) at a conference of the Association of Law Teachers in Stellenbosch.

Jeremy J Gauntlett SC

Jeremy was called to the Bar in 1974 (commencing practice in 1977) and took silk in 1989. He became a member of Group 621 in 1999.

Jeremy is also a member of Brick Court Chambers in London, a barrister of England and Wales, an advocate of the High Courts of Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and a Judge of Appeal of Lesotho.

He has contributed three titles to the Law of South Africa and has written a number of journal articles.

Jeremy was President of the Cape Bar in the years 1997 to 1999, and Chairman of the General Council of the Bar in the years 1999 to 2002. He is a member of the South African Law Commission and of the Council of the University of Cape Town.

Gauntlett did not walk on egg shells and said the time has come to put an end to the approach that aparthy is the appropriate response to analysis of court decisions and how courts operate.

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SA's Wild West Cops Factor in Mandelatopia's Criminal Mafia Parasite State, that breeds and feeds crime, for benefit of the TRC Fraud Elite

SA’s wild west cops

2011-02-13 10:00
Erna van Wyk
City Press

A new study has found that police involvement in serious and violent crime is not limited to “isolated incidents” but a general pattern of behaviour that is common across the country.

Researchers say the 100 cases they examined are just “the tip of the iceberg” and they highlight ­alleged police involvement in ­serious crimes such as ATM bombings and house robberies, among others.

The research was conducted last year by the Unit for Risk Analysis at the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) and is due for ­release tomorrow.

The researchers studied media ­reports and gathered information from the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). Within one week 100 cases of alleged police involvement in serious and ­violent crime were found.

The cases did not include petty crimes, poor service delivery or officials soliciting small bribes.

Three quarters of the cases studied took place between January 2009 and April last year.

They were not an indication of the total number of allegations against police officers or convictions of police officers for involvement in serious and violent crimes over the period.

“We have bumped into the tip of an iceberg of violent and criminal behaviour in the ranks of the police which needs to be aired in public,” says deputy chief executive at the SAIRR, Frans Cronjé.

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Q to Cape Law Soc: Which argument/s in Radical Honesty SA Amicus in RSA v. Dewani is/are ‘without substance or legal basis’?

02 February 2011

Ms. Nalini Gangen
Cape Law Society
ABSA Centre, 2 Riebeeck Street
Cape Town 8001
Tel: (021) 443 6700 | Fax: (021) 443 6751/2
Email: cls@capelawsoc.law.za

Dear Ms. Gangen,

RE: Law Societies statement that Radical Honesty SA Amicus Application in RSA v. Dewani is ‘without substance or legal basis’

I write regarding your statements in SA citizen challenges Dewani extradition, The South African, 01-02-2011, wherein Rob Boffard states the following:

Nalini Gangen, director of the Cape Law Society, says, however, that Ms Johnstone’s views are “without substance or legal basis”.

“There is no reason to doubt that Mr Dewani would receive a fair hearing. South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world and the Constitution provides for the instruments of democracy to be protected. The Constitution provides for the separation of powers and in particular the independence of the judiciary.

“South African legal processes are clearly defined and any accused would have the freedom of choice of legal representation.

“We have confidence in our judiciary,” she added.

I’d appreciate it if you could please clarify the following issues for me:

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Proudly SA Magistrates: Respect Their: Assassination HitLists, Pornography addictions, SMS sex-texting, 22 children, fraud, bribery, et al

Magistrate arrested over hit list

Isabel Venter, Zoutnet
Date: 21 January 2011

Controversial regional magistrate Ronnie Rambau was arrested yet again over the past weekend, this time on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

Rambau’s arrest follows the discovery of a hit list compiled in his own handwriting. The list was handed to members of the police’s Counter Intelligence Unit for investigation.

Among the names on the hit list is that of district magistrate Chris Mthombeni, district magistrate Marie Viljoen, senior state prosecutor André Weideman, district prosecutor Reino Mostert, district prosecutor Hylke Janse van Rensburg, senior prosecutor Deon Laminga and three policemen, one a captain and two sergeants. All nine are involved in Rambau’s pending corruption case in Musina.

Two local witch doctors, who turned state witnesses, stated that they had already received payment from Rambau to murder the people on the list. The one told police that he had been paid R850 to kill all nine, while the other was paid R3 500.

The complainant in the case, whose identity is being withheld at this stage for her own safety, handed the list to the police, fearing the worst. In her police statement, she says Rambau repeatedly told her that his gun was not for shooting birds, but for shooting people who made him angry.

A warrant for Rambau’s arrest was issued on Friday (14th). Although he initially told police by telephone that he would hand himself over, police waited in vain outside his Louis Trichardt home. Rambau eluded police for several hours, but eventually surrendered himself at around 01:30 on Saturday.

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Amicus Applic. to Dewani’s Judge: SA is a criminal mafia parasite state: Descartian Jurisprudence does not exist in ‘Rainbow Hypocrisy SA’

Andrea Muhrrteyn
Why We Are White Refugees

London, UK (19-Jan-2011): An Application was filed with the City of Westminster Magistrates Court late yesterday, by a South African citizen in support of Dewani's case to oppose his extradition to South Africa. The Amicus Application accuses the South African Government of being a "criminal mafia parasite state that breeds and feeds crime, for political and financial benefit of the TRC FRAUD elite".

Shrien Dewani, 31 from Bristol is accused by the South African government of being the mastermind behind the murder of his wife, Anni Dewani (Hindocha), 28, when they were hijacked in Gugulethu, a township near Capetown on November 13, 2010.

The murder made world headlines, and four South Africans have been arrested, one (the taxidriver) sentenced to 18 years in prison. Dewani was allowed to return to Britain, but the SA Police subsequently charged him with being the mastermind. He says he is being used as a scapegoat to protect South Africa's tourism industry.

The Amicus supports a private prosecution of Mr. Dewani in UK Courts, with Impartial, Competent EU Judge and Jury, as the only means Hindocha & Dewani families will receive a free and fair trial, to determine Mr. Dewani’s guilt or innocence based on Descartian worldview concepts of evidence.

The Amicus Application states that the citizen's experience of going through multiple trials in South Africa, for the past nine years, where she has "never received anything remotely resembling a Descartian Heuristic / Western Civilization concept of a free and fair trial".

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The few who Benefit from ANC's 'Liberation Struggle' to Loot, Rape, Deceive & Pillage...

Wanted man's R500m ANC deal

Nov 14, 2010 12:00 AM
By Subashni Naidoo & Suthetira Govender
TimesLive

Nelson Mandela's fugitive son-in-law has landed a R500-million coalmining deal with the ANC's investment front, Chancellor House - which already benefits from Eskom's massive R385-billion expansion programme.

Isaac Kwame Amuah, who is wanted on rape and assault charges in Hartford, Connecticut, has evaded US law enforcement authorities for 17 years.

This week the Sunday Times can reveal that one of his companies, ORS Holdings, is central in a consortium that bought a coal mine in Swaziland from mining giant Xstrata Alloys, in a R500-million deal.

Chancellor House is also a member of the consortium, which plans to supply coal to several power plants - placing the ANC as a major player in Eskom's R485-billion expansion programme to meet rising demand for electricity.

In a previous, controversial deal, Chancellor House invested in Hitachi Power Africa, which won a R38.5-billion contract to supply boilers for Eskom's two new coal-fired power stations.

Opposition parties this week said Amuah's political connections and business dealings with the ANC had managed to keep him from being arrested and extradited to the US.

US authorities have issued an extradition request through the country' s embassy in Pretoria. The SA Police Service is aware of the warrant.

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Fugard betrayed by lying, greedy corrupt intentions of ANC elite?

Playwright Athol Fugard lambasts modern South Africa

Veteran South African playwright Athol Fugard has issued a stark warning about the direction his country is going in - and has urged younger playwrights to tackle the widespread injustices he sees as undermining the post-Apartheid settlement.

By Dominic Cavendish, Telegraph.UK
Published: 10:52AM GMT 05 Nov 2010

Veteran South African playwright Athol Fugard has issued a stark warning about the direction his country is going in - and has urged younger playwrights to tackle the widespread injustices he sees as undermining the post-Apartheid settlement.

Currently rehearsing his latest play The Train Driver, at Hampstead Theatre, Fugard, 78, has spoken out about his growing sense of disillusion. Having written, and co-authored, a number of seminal anti-Apartheid plays in his time - including The Island (1972) and Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) - he revealed this week that the need to address South Africa’s ongoing ills is so urgent that he has no plans to retire.

“The truth is that the new South Africa needs committed playwrights who are prepared to bear witness to what is going on every bit as urgently as the old ones did,” he declares in an in-depth interview with the theatre podcast website www.theatrevoice.com. “The essential responsibility lies with young playwrights and I’m not sure I can see them rising to that challenge - that’s what disturbs me.”

He delivers a furious attack on the government of President Jacob Zuma. “I have to live with an appalling sense of betrayal in terms of the present government in South Africa. When I think of the moment when Nelson Mandela came out of jail, and when I think of that day I stood in a queue a mile long under a blazing sun to cast my vote in our first free general election… when I think of that day and the euphoria that swept through the country that we were going to really get it right and turn our back on the appalling past and be a truly open democratic society with compassion and a sense of justice - that’s not the case.”

“In a sense we have got to start again,” he continues. “It’s a very fluid - and a very volatile situation in South Africa. On my side there’s a sense of betrayal. I hate to name names but men who I thought would stand up and speak out against the degree of corruption and everything that’s going wrong in our country simply concern themselves with getting richer. Look at the degree of corruption in high places in South Africa. Desmond Tutu has gone on record time and time again and said to us fellow south Africans that we have lost our way. He is absolutely right.”

The Train Driver is based on the true story of Pumla Lolwana, who in 2000, stepped in front of an oncoming train with her three young children on the Cape Flats. Fugard has described it as “perhaps the most important play I’ve written... It’s the emotional journey I’ve travelled in dealing with my inherited legacy of South African prejudice and what you do with that blinkered vision of reality”.

» » » » [Telegraph.UK]

Fugard feels betrayed by his country

November 7 2010 at 11:32am
By Melanie Peters, Weekend Argus

Veteran playwright Athol Fugard, 78, has lashed out at President Jacob Zuma’s government for the high level of corruption and has said he feels “betrayed” and disillusioned by the direction his native country is heading.

He expressed his strong views in a frank interview – which has made headlines in British newspapers – with a podcast website www.theatrevoice.com.

He was talking before the UK premiere of his latest play, The Train Driver, at Hampstead Theatre.

Fugard, born in Middelburg in the Eastern Cape, was a key figure in the cultural struggle against apartheid and has often been referred to “the conscience of his country”.

In the interview he said: “In a sense we have got to start again. It’s a very fluid – and a very volatile situation in South Africa. On my side there’s a sense of betrayal. Men who I thought would stand up and speak out against the degree of corruption and everything that’s going wrong… simply concern themselves with getting richer.”

Fugard said: “When I think of the moment when Nelson Mandela came out of jail, and when I think of that day I stood in a queue a mile long under a blazing sun to cast my vote in our first free general election… when I think of that day and the euphoria that swept through the country that we were going to really get it right and turn our back on the appalling past and be a truly open democratic society with compassion and a sense of justice – that’s not the case.”


Veteran playwright and theatre director Nicholas Ellenbogen described Fugard’s comments as “naive”.

He said Fugard, who is now based in California although he still has a house in the Eastern Cape, had been out of the country was not fully aware of what was going on.


Author Zakes Mda said there was nothing new or even specific in Fugard’s “lambast”. He was not pointing out any specific problem.

“Playwrights, young and old, cannot be prescribed to by Mr Fugard about what to write or not to write.” - Weekend Argus

» » » » [IOL: Weekend Argus]

Fugard feels 'betrayed'

Saterdag, 01 September 2007 10:29 BBC
PRAAG

Victory, which premiered in the UK city of Bath, paints a bleak picture of modern South Africa. It centres on a violent burglary of an elderly white widower committed by two black teenagers, Freddie and Victoria.

Fugard told BBC World Service's The Ticket programme that he took the theme after his own home was burgled on four occasions in the last two years - the last of which involved someone he trusted.

"It gave a focus to a sense of betrayal I've had growing in me with time, as I looked at what South Africa was becoming and the direction it was heading in," he said.

"I compared it with what I had felt 12 years ago when, together with millions of South Africans of all races and creeds, we stood in long queues to cast our votes in the first ever democratic election.

"That was a moment of incredible euphoria, of hope, that South Africa would in fact - as it did - turn its back on the violence of its past and try to forge a new identity."

Fugard, who initially became famous through his works about South Africa under apartheid, has set a number of his recent plays in the same village as he reflects on how the country has changed since those first democratic elections in 1994.

He said that it showed how burglary, violent crime, drug abuse "and all the attendant horrors of what the world is made up of now" have reached even this remote place in the Karoo desert.

He added, however, there is a "slender note of affirmation" in the fate of the young woman, Victoria, at the centre of the play.

Fugard established his reputation when he worked extensively with two of South Africa's greatest actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona.

Together they wrote three groundbreaking plays, including The Island and Sizwe Banzi is Dead - performed and workshopped in black townships.

He said that taking these plays into the townships, and talking loudly on stage "about things that were only whispered about" was, for him, "an absolutely defining experience of the potency of theatre."

And he said that, though he is now 75 years old, he still writes "with the same joy and the same sense of celebration.

"Underlying even the bleak in my opus is celebration - the celebration of theatre," he added.

"I was talking to the director of the Bath production of Victory this morning - and I just felt so proud to be a member of the theatre community.

"This community stretches all the way back to Shakespeare, and even earlier. Ours is a very noble profession, even though in many cases we've been the outcasts of society."

» » » » [PRAAG, via BBC]

UK Audit firm launches new arms deal probe - TimesLive

UK Audit firm launches new arms deal probe

Politicians, business leaders set to be named


Nov 7, 2010 12:00 AM, TimesLive
Subashni Naidoo & Monica Laganparsad

South African politicians and businessmen who pocketed R1-billion from the arms deal are set to be named in a new investigation by Britain's auditing watchdog.

The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB) is to investigate KPMG, which advised BAE Systems on offshore companies that were used to pay "commissions" to influence the awarding of lucrative contracts in South Africa's R47.4-billion defence procurement package.

Controversial businessman Fana Hlongwane, who was an adviser to then-defence minister Joe Modise when the arms deal was initiated, will be a key figure in the latest probe.

It follows an investigation in the UK and Liechtenstein into alleged payments of more than R200-million by BAE to him.

The company, which has also been under investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) since 2007 for issuing bribes in South Africa, recently "settled" a £286-million fine for failing to comply with global anti-bribery rules.

The boardhas initiated the latest probe after corruption cases related to the arms deal were mysteriously dropped by South Africa's Hawks unit in September.

The audit, which will involve scrutiny of KPMG's confidential records, is set to reveal substantial financial evidence - and disclose the names of influential individuals - who, in exchange for cash, helped BAE supply Hawk trainer aircraft and Gripen fighter jets to South Africa for $2.1-billion.

Read more »

Judge Censors Newspaper from Printing Story about Crooks in SAPS Crime Intelligence

South African court tries to mum Sunday Independent newspaper

Tamas S. Kiss, Budapest Report
Saturday, October 30th, 2010

The minister of police, national commissioner and divisional commissioner of crime intelligence of the Republic of South Africa have reportedly convinced the nation’s high court late Friday (29 Oct 2010) to stop the Sunday Independent newspaper from publishing information about dodgy appointments within the crime intelligence division, the periodical announced in a statement late Saturday (30 Oct 2010).

They added that it allegedly took the alleged biased Judge Ephriaim Makgoba “minutes” to rule on the application in the absence of the publication’s legal advisers. Under the censorship ruling the Sunday Independent has been gagged from publishing a follow-up story of alleged nepotism among top South African policemen, under the direct influence of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Reportedly the publication was ordered to submit all documents concerning the investigated police discrepancies and pay for the legal costs incurred. Ironically the South African Parliament has not yet passed its planned Protection of Information Bill or Media Censorship Bill, which is currently under discussion by a committee there. However it seems that the committee has not yet defined what “classified information” implies.

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