Nov 25th - South Africa: President Zuma Will Serve as Zimbabwe’s Mediator

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: November 25, 2009

President Jacob Zuma has taken over as the regional mediator in Zimbabwe’s political crisis. His predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, was mistrusted by Zimbabwe’s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. Mr. Tsvangirai said he believed that Mr. Mbeki was biased in favor of President Robert Mugabe. According to a statement from Mr. Zuma’s office, he appointed a new Zimbabwe team: Charles Nquakula, his political adviser; Mac Maharaj, his special envoy; and Lindiwe Zulu, his international relations adviser. The team will visit Zimbabwe soon and report back to Mr. Zuma, above.

Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai have been in a power-sharing government since February, but Mr. Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, have sent state security forces to arrest and jail rival politicians, human rights lawyers and civic leaders.

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/world/africa/26briefs-mediator.html?scp=2&sq=South%20Africa&st=cse

Nov 24th - South Africa deports Israeli 'spy'

South Africa has deported an Israeli airline official following allegations that Israel's secret police, Shin Bet, have been operating in Johannesburg's international airport.

The official was employed by the Israeli embassy in South Africa and had a diplomatic passport, Israel's Ynet news reported on its website.

The deportation stemmed from an investigation by local television news show, Carte Blanche, into Jonathan Garb, a former El Al Israeli airline guard, who was aggrieved over the alleged non-payment of a bonus by his former employer.

After 19 years with the airline, Garb was fired, allegedly after he filed a complaint with the South African labour department, and decided to speak out to the media about his previous work.

'Secret police recruit'

Garb, a South African Jew, said he was recruited by Shin Bet, Israel's secret police.

"To members of the public they [El Al employees] will represent themselves as airport security ... But in fact we were working for the Israeli security agency, which is the internal security service of the government of Israel," Garb said.

In video

Watch the Carte Blanche report 'Take Off' with the 'confessions' of Jonathan Garb, above

"What we are trained [for] is to look for the immediate threat - the Muslim guy.

"You can think he is a suicide bomber, he is collecting information.

"The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically and even on religious grounds ... This is what we do."

Following up Garb's claims, the programme sent an investigator of Arab origin with a hidden camera to El Al's security area at the airport.

The report showed the man being stopped and questioned by a security guard.

When the reporter protested that he was not flying but waiting for a friend, a security manager from El Al arrived to further question him.

Embassy-registered weapons

Carte Blanche's report revealed that former staff had accused El Al of smuggling weapons licensed to the local Israeli embassy, into the airport for use by the guards.

People guards deemed as suspicious could be held in a room out of public view, where they were interrogated and subjected to strip searches while their luggage was taken apart, the report showed.

Clandestine searches of their belongings and laptops are also carried out to identify useful documents and information, Garb said.

These actions violate South African law, which only authorises the police, armed forces or personnel hired by the transport ministry to carry out searches.

South Africa has threatened to deport all of El Al's security staff, while the Israeli foreign ministry has purportedly sent a team to South Africa to try to answer the South African government's concerns.

Yossi Levy, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said "the ministry cannot comment on security matters", but flights from South Africa to Israel were not at risk of being cancelled as a result of the diplomatic crisis, Ynet news reported.

Garb said: "This here is a secret service operating above the law in South Africa.

"We pull the wool over everyone's eyes. We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing."

Source : http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/11/20091124125219472863.html

Nov 22nd - Mercenary: Govt knew of coup

Julian Rademeyer

Johannesburg - South Africa's intelligence agencies knew about the planned coup in Equatorial Guinea at least six months before it took place in March 2004. But they failed to do anything stop it and gave it their tacit approval, freed mercenary Niek du Toit says.

Du Toit, the plot's point-man, revealed in an exclusive interview with Rapport, that he had planned to “walk away” from the plot but was persuaded that South Africa wanted it to go ahead and would take no action against him and his co-conspirators.

The former Reconnaissance soldier and veteran of wars in Angola, Namibia (formerly South West Africa), Sierre Leone and Liberia said the plot was “compromised” from the start by government informers, spies and leaks.

“We were under the impression that if it did finally take place, we would have some support from the government... We were covered, we didn't have to worry very much.”

Both Simon Mann, the former British SAS officer who masterminded the coup attempt, and Du Toit's close friend and business partner Henri van der Westhuizen assured him that they had “inside information” that the South African government would not act against them.

Joined Special Forces

Van der Westhuizen had previously worked for military intelligence in the 1980s before joining the Special Forces where he drew up “elimination” dossiers of ANC targets. He had maintained ties with intelligence agencies after 1994.

“In September or October 2003, Henri showed me an intelligence intercept he had got from his contacts which showed that the government was aware of what we were planning.”

“I gave it to Simon Mann and said the operation was compromised, we can't continue.”

Mann's response was that it “is all right, we are covered”.

“I asked Henry what he thought and he said, 'no, you must leave it, you are going to burn your fingers'."

Wanted to catch the financiers

“I was on the point of walking out when, three days before we were due to fly to Equatorial Guinea, Henry told me he had spoken to a woman called Ayanda who worked for the intelligence services”.

“She said we should go ahead because they want to catch the people financing the coup."

“Henry left me with the impression that while the government would not formally recognise the coup, we would get some sort of support...We were just the pawns, we would not pick up big problems.”

What Du Toit didn't know was that Van der Westhuizen had reportedly also met former National Prosecuting Authority boss Bulelani Ngcuka on February 17 or 18 2004 and told him about the plan. Ngcuka said little and Van der Westhuizen took it to mean they were not being warned off. He gave the Scorpions an affidavit saying he had tried to get Du Toit to walk away but that Mann had said the investors “spent too much money on the project and...would definitely kill them if they withdraw”.

Du Toit confirmed the threat to Rapport.

Threatened

“Simon told me: 'The people behind this are very influential. If we withdraw they can do a lot of damage to you and your family'. I took it as a veiled threat.

“I don't easily allow myself to be threatened and I'm not afraid of much. But when it comes to your family, you have to pay attention.”

He threw caution to the wind, ignored all the “flashing red lights” and boarded the plane.

But there were just too many leaks and informants.

James Kershaw, a young computer wizard, was one. He ran the plotter's administration, finances and communications. But Kershaw was also on the payroll of Nigel Morgan, a former military intelligence officer in the British Army's Irish Guards.

First and last coup attempt

Morgan works as a freelance intelligence operative, hawking information to the British and South African spies from his home in the mountains near Harrismith in the Free State.

Mann also had frequent contact with Morgan.

“Everyone knows Nigel Morgan works for the South African intelligence services. I was very worried about that,” Du Toit said.

“Kershaw was the centre-point around which everything Simon Mann did in South Africa revolved. He knew everything. Mann could just as well have gone to the government and said: 'Listen here, this is my plan.'”

Du Toit said he would never again contemplate something like the Equatorial Guinea coup plot.

“Of course, you learn your lesson. If you didn't learn from something like this, then you're stupid. It was my first and last coup attempt.”

He feels betrayed by his friends.

Documents were stolen out of his house and the conspirators “stabbed each other in the back”.

“If Henri hadn't told me I must go ahead because that is what the government wants, I would have dropped the whole thing.

“We were friends who had a close relationship of trust. But his actions showed that the friendship meant nothing to him.”

- Rapport

Source : http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/4b0e6b79626d409dbf7de2819631bfbb/22-11-2009-12-37/Mercenary_Govt_knew_of_coup#

Nov 21st - Migrant workers at risk in S Africa

Zimbabwean migrants in search of employment in South Africa are facing persecution at the hands of local people who are blaming them for taking their jobs.

The persecution, which forced about 2,000 migrants to seek refuge in a rugby stadium, began on Tuesday when the migrants' shacks in a farming community in De Doorns were levelled.

Local residents say they are tired of competing with Zimbabweans for space and jobs.

Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from De Doorns, said the residents want farmers to hire workers from neighbouring towns like Rainsburg a few kilometres away.

'Horrific attacks'

Many of those displaced came from a squatter camp and they left after they lost everything, our correspondent reported.

"Some of the attacks are just so horrific [that] whole houses have been razed to the ground," she said.

Last year violence unleashed on migrants on the outskirts of Johannesburg, the commercial centre, left at least 62 people dead, forcing the UN refugee agency to move many migrants into relief camps.

Aid groups have dubbed Tuesday's attacks xenophobia, but government officials say it is a labour matter that local farmers shouldn’t favour one nationality over another.

Manfred van Rooyen, a local official, said migrants from other countries had not been targeted.

"This is not per say xenophobia - we also have other people from Lesotho and other parts of Africa that live in De Doorns and they are not being affected," he said.

But Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, said: "This is the first xenophobic attack affecting refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa since the countrywide violence in May 2008."

No quick fix

Ntombi Mcoyi, of Africa Unite, an organisation that works with migrant communities in Cape Town, said the government was getting "resources of survival" to the people.

A spate of violence over jobs has displaced at least 2,000 Zimbabwean migrants

But she said "it is not a situation that can be resolved overnight or in a couple of months".

"What's happened is not just about foreign nationals moving to South Africa," Mcoyi told Al Jazeera.

"But it's also the need of South Africans that have not been met over the years."

She said South Africa is still going through a "lot of poverty, high unemployment in the communities".

"There's a lot of ill-feeling of South Africans in the local communities of their needs not being met ... That's being transferred as anger to foreign national communities," Mcoyi said.

"Alot of promises were made to South African people post-1994 [when South Africa held its first ever multi-racial elections].

"People expected to get a lot and gain a lot. This hasn't happened and now with the influx of foreign people."

Source : http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/11/2009112110571766836.html

Nov 21st - Govt must plan ahead - Zuma

Richards Bay - President Jacob Zuma on Saturday called for an urgent end to water contamination, saying that spillage of sewerage into South Africa's water supplies would lead to water being undrinkable.

"We must deal with the spillage of sewerage into our water supplies and other forms of contamination. If we don't deal with it urgently, our water will end up undrinkable because of the high levels of contamination," Zuma said.

He was speaking during the official launch of the upgrade of the Nsezi Water treatment plant in Richards Bay on Saturday afternoon.

He said challenges in the electricity sector which saw South Africa hit by major blackouts had taught government the importance of addressing future problems before they happened.

Infrastructure

"The challenge that we still need to address include an ability by some municipalities to roll out infrastructure, and to operate, maintain and rehabilitate water and sanitation infrastructure," he said.

There had been reports of spillage of sewerage into a number of rivers caused by ageing infrastructure. This did not only pose danger to people but also to nature as animals and fish died due to spillages.

It was important that the infrastructure was in place to provide clean water to meet the growing demand, because government's objective was for people to have access to water by 2014.

"Our country has a critical obligation to meet the Millennium Development Goals. One these goals is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation," Zuma said.

He described the Nsezi Water treatment plant upgrade as crucial, saying that there was a growing need adequately manage the "finite and diminishing resource".

"Umhlathuze and surrounding areas have seen considerable growth in water demand, both by households and industries. This is an industrial development zone and one of the critical nodes of our comprehensive rural development programme," he said.

Plan ahead

The upgrade of the Nsezi Water treatment plant reflected South Africa’s ability to plan ahead and anticipate the challenges of the future.

Zuma said South Africa’s growing industries, mines, urban and rural settlements, the agricultural sector and ever expanding tourism and manufacturing sectors were in constant need of water.

"Without water, we run the real risk of not meeting our objective of improving the quality of life of all South Africans, particularly the rural poor."

Zuma also commended Umhlathuze Water for implementing extensive water schemes in Shemula, Mandlakazi and Umkhanyakude in Northern KwaZulu-Natal.

Proper sanitation and clean water to brought dignity to people living in rural areas, he said.

"Having clean water and toilets bring dignity to people living in rural communities. People living in these communities will consider themselves as sub-human if this problem is not dealt with," said Zuma.

Cholera

He indicated that because of poor sanitation, South Africa faced a problem of cholera every year.

Cholera broke out in Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces early this year and claimed more than 10 lives.

Zuma also commended people who utilised government’s hotline, saying that it was only government officials who did not like.

"People are using it and happy how some of their problems have been handled,"

- SAPA

Source : http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/d6d2ee0ae1624694a9038ed22914f70b/21-11-2009-02-40/Govt_must_plan_ahead_-_Zuma

Nov 20th - S.Africa's rand falls on lower risk appetite, stocks slip

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand gave up some ground against the dollar on Friday, largely reflecting a dip in investors' appetite for risk, while stocks fell across the board, tracking lower world markets.

At 1600 GMT the rand was trading at 7.5995 against the dollar, down 0.79 percent from Thursday's close of 7.54.

"We've basically seen a small sell-off in rand on the back of a little bit of risk aversion that we've seen in the last 2 days of trading," said RMB trader Brigid Taylor.

"We've seen stocks come off and we've also seen the dollar strengthen across the board against the currencies.

Trading had recently been marked by healthy risk appetite at the start of the week, which tended to taper off towards the end, Taylor said.

"I think as we start heading into the end of the year, we're going to see this kind of pattern become much more prominent as guys start to take back profits, especially with the significant (rand) rally we've seen this year," she added.

The central bank, finance ministry and trade unions have all warned the rand's gains of more than 20 percent against the dollar this year could hurt the economy, but the government has stressed it will stick to a free floating exchange rate.

The Johannesburg Top-40 index lost 0.47 percent to 24,338.36 points, while the broader All-Share index slipped 0.48 percent to 26,929.25 points.

"We are following world markets. I think we are also seeing some profit taking," Tubby Goodwin, a trader at Investec Securities said.

The Dow Jones Industrial was down 0.32 percent, while the FTSE 100 index was 0.12 percent lower, shortly after the Johanesburg bourse's close.

Africa's second-biggest grocery chain Pick 'N Pay was the biggest loser, shedding 2.74 percent to 39.81 rand, followed by insurer Sanlam, which slipped 2.48 percent to 21.59 rand.

Media company Avusa Ltd. dropped 7.51 percent to 16.01 rand, after posting a 60 percent fall in first-half profit.

But gold stocks bucked the downward trend on the market, with the JSE gold index up 1.5 percent.

Gold Fields gained 2.29 percent to 109.40 rand, while Anglo Gold and Harmony Gold rose 1.23 percent to 329 rand and 0.57 percent to 79 rand, respectively.

Traders said the weaker rand helped push resources higher.

African Bank was the top gainer, rising 2.48 percent to 29.35 rand, ahead of its full-year results on Monday. The bank has forecast a 10-12 percent slide in headline earnings per share.

Government bonds weakened on Friday, nudging yields higher.

The yield on the 2015 bond went up 6 basis points to 8.355 percent and that for the 2036 bond was up 11.5 basis points at 8.78 percent.

Source : http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE5AJ0NY20091120?sp=true

Nov 20th - South Africa creates special 'World Cup courts'

By Alexandra Lesieur (AFP) – Nov 20, 2009

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa plans to create special courts dedicated to handling crimes committed during the World Cup, aiming to speed up the judicial process, especially for cases involving foreigners.

Government hopes the promise of swift justice will help stamp out crime during the event and ease worries of fans visiting one of the world's most violent countries.

"The courts are here to speed the process. There is not going to be any leniency," said justice department spokesman Tlali Tlali.

"We're going to deal with all cases that have to do with the tournament," he said.

An average of 50 people die violently every day in South Africa, while 250,000 homes are burgled every year. The justice ministry is concerned that the influx of 450,000 tourists will bring with it a surge in crime.

"The experience from previous host countries has shown that the influx of foreign nationals in World Cups also potentially increases criminal activities," the justice ministry said in a statement.

"Therefore, special measures do need to be put in place in order to process any criminal matters that may arise from big events such as the FIFA World Cup."

If any foreigners are involved in crimes -- either as victims or perpetrators -- their cases will receive priority at the special courts.

"The scheme obviously hopes to see justice done to foreigners who are the victims of crime, whilst the foreigners are available in South Africa to give evidence," said lawyer Peter Jordi, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

"This will also act as a disincentive to commit crimes against foreigners," he added.

The scheme will cost about one million rands (135,000 dollars, 90,000 euros), for 54 courts to operate in all nine host cities, 15 hours a day from May 28 to July 25.

Judges, lawyers, prosecutors and interpreters, as well as volunteers to help with administrative issues, will also receive special training for the World Cup courts.

South Africa has already used a similar system during school holidays to allow traffic offenders to settle their cases in just one day.

"The South African authorities are obviously aware the crime may be an issue for foreign visitors," Jordi said. "This scheme is another indication that the authorities will be harsh on those who commit crimes during the World Cup."

Since President Jacob Zuma took office in May, the government has stepped up efforts to fight crime, with the deputy police minister last week telling police to "shoot the bastards" when dealing with violent criminals.

The so-called "shoot to kill" policy has sparked intense public debate following the shooting deaths of bystanders, including a three-year-old boy last week.

Jordi said the speed of the special courts could also limit the ability to follow up on any such cases of abuse.

"Speedy justice can be problematic because accused persons are not given an adequate opportunity to consider how best to defend themselves," he said.

Source : http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQaoUmDy9Slq2BHaxau2rV1YJ2uQ