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US sanctions ‘Russian agent’ in Ukraine who worked with Rudy Giuliani

Washington — The Treasury department sanctioned Andrii Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament who met with Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, in 2019, alleging he is a Russian agent trying to influence the 2020 US presidential election. Between May and July of 2020, Derkach released edited audio…

10 Sep 2020 4PM 5 min

SHIRLEY DE VILLIERS: Will we really have a vaccine by November?

US President Donald Trump has never been one to let the truth get in the way of his personal ambition. So, faced with the very real risk of being a one-term president, it’s unsurprising that he’d try pin his political salvation on a coronavirus vaccine — or, at least, on…

10 Sep 2020 4PM 6 min

Lockdown day 168: Pictures of the day

A round-up of the best pictures from day 168 of the national lockdown

10 Sep 2020 4PM 1 min

George Bizos made heroic choices every day for 64 years

I first met George Bizos in 2004 as a candidate attorney at the Legal Resources Centre (LRC). He generously gave of his time to me and the many other candidate attorneys that passed through the doors of the organisation over the years. He would happily spend time discussing matters we…

10 Sep 2020 4PM 3 min

R18m exit package given to three Eskom executives was no big deal, says Venete Klein

Former Eskom board member Venete Klein has implied that the cash-strapped power utility paying R18m to three executives, who were sent packing having done nothing wrong, was not a big deal. Klein was giving evidence at the commission of inquiry into state capture on Thursday. Her evidence was centred on…

10 Sep 2020 3PM 2 min

EDITORIAL: Carry on like this, and Ramaphosa will be no hero history

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s question-and-answer session with journalists on Wednesday evening was a valuable exercise for the media and the public and hopefully also for the president. While Ramaphosa does a large number of public events and answers questions in parliament with regularity, taking questions from the press is an important…

10 Sep 2020 1PM 3 min

Taiwan lambastes China after military drills enter its defence zone

Taipei — Taiwan denounced China on Thursday over large-scale air and naval drills off its southwestern coast which it called a serious provocation and a threat to international air traffic. It urged Beijing to rein in its armed forces. China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own, has stepped up…

10 Sep 2020 1PM 2 min

Blaze at Beirut port mostly contained but alarms residents

Beirut — A large fire erupted at the Port of Beirut on Thursday, engulfing parts of the Lebanese capital in a pall of smoke weeks after a massive blast devastated the port and surrounding residential area. The blaze began in the shattered duty free zone of the port, prompting some…

10 Sep 2020 12PM 2 min

BEE is a form of race discrimination, but can the DA do better?

It has taken decades for political parties opposing the ANC to come up with a defensible alternative policy that meets the challenges of our times. The past weekend saw the DA offer its considered counter to the ANC, but the policy’s birth has not been without considerable controversy. It followed…

10 Sep 2020 12PM 7 min

Christine Lagarde not anxious to shift European monetary policy

Brussels — European Central Bank (ECB) president Christine Lagarde said the surging euro must be monitored for its effect on prices, but she did not signal any pressing need to adjust monetary policy. The currency jumped to the highest in more than a week. Speaking after the ECB kept its…

10 Sep 2020 12PM 3 min

UN needs $35bn more for WHO Covid-19 ACT programme

Zürich — UN secretary-general António Guterres has called for $35bn more, including $15bn in the next three months, for the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator programme to back vaccines, treatments and diagnostics against Covid-19. Some $3bn has been contributed so far, Guterres told an online…

10 Sep 2020 12PM 2 min

Samwu president John Dlamini dies

SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) president John Dlamini died on Thursday morning after a short illness. The union said 53-year-old Dlamini, a police officer by training and service, was elected councillor at the borough of Howick municipality, which is now the Umgeni local municipality, in the early 1990s. Dlamini had…

10 Sep 2020 11AM 1 min

Scandals taint Angela Merkel’s possible successor in Germany

Frankfurt/Berlin — Germany’s vice-chancellor has come under renewed pressure from lawmakers over his handling of two financial scandals, hurting his chances of reviving his Social Democrats in the race to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2021. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor, gambled with the party’s centre-left identity…

10 Sep 2020 11AM 2 min

George Bizos, to the end a warrior for justice and the constitution

I got to know George Bizos while working at the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) for almost a decade from 2008 to 2016. George himself had joined the LRC in 1991, spending almost three decades at the organisation. I joined the Constitutional Litigation Unit (CLU), where he was also based, as…

10 Sep 2020 11AM 6 min

Israel-UAE trade will overtake deals with Egypt

The agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalise their relations, described by some as a “peace” deal, seems to have hit a snag over weapons purchases. The UAE is keen to join the exclusive club of nations allowed to buy F-35 fighter jets; in exchange for allowing…

10 Sep 2020 11AM 5 min

Stubbornly high US job losses signal struggle with Covid-19 cases

Washington — Applications for US state unemployment benefits held steady last week, in a sign that extensive job losses are persisting as the US struggles to control the coronavirus. Initial jobless claims in regular state programmes were unchanged at 884,000 in the week ended September 5, labour department data showed…

10 Sep 2020 11AM 4 min

LETTER: DA needs pragmatic policies the majority of South Africans can relate to

David Wolpert perhaps does not understand that the first objective of a political party should be to obtain power in parliament (“Why the anti-DA rhetoric? (", September 8). The second objective is to stay there. To obtain and keep power the party must craft a policy structure that appeals to…

10 Sep 2020 10AM 2 min

EU legislators shun Myanmar’s Suu Kyi

Brussels — Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will no longer be invited to events of the European Parliament’s human rights prize, which she won in 1990, EU legislators said on Thursday, a protest over accusations of genocide in her country. Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner of Myanmar’s then…

10 Sep 2020 10AM 1 min

This is how KwaZulu-Natal spent R2.1bn on Covid-19

Almost 40% of the R2.1bn spent by the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government on procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) and other goods and services as part of the response to Covid-19 was spent on African-owned companies. Premier Sihle Zikalala made these statistics available when he released a report on owners and directors…