It seems like there is no getting ANC President, Jacob Zuma out of the news headlines these days. This past weekend, cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro who publishes under the pen name Zapiro released a cartoon showing Zuma unzipping his trousers while his alliance partners hold down the Lady of Justice and egg him on suggesting that Zuma is about to “rape” justice. As most had expected when they saw this cartoon in the Sunday Times, Zuma was not going to take this cartoon lightly and it is suggested that he is going to sue Zapiro. Zuma would be suing Zapiro for defamation. This would not be the first time as in the past Zapiro published cartoons of Zuma after his acquital on charges of rape in 2006.
It looks like this latest tussle between Zuma and Zapiro is headed to the courts. Zapiro has since come out and said after the cartoon was published, “I stand by the cartoon and I won’t apologise. If he does decide to sue me, then I will fight it.”
If you have not seen the cartoon yet, click here to see it and let us know what you think. Is this cartoon wrong? Should Zapiro be sued for this? Is the ANC right to say this cartoon is wrong? Many questions are being thrown around. Let us hear from you.
Could this finally be it? I hope so! Talks in Zimbabwe last night between Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara seemed to be headed in the right direction due to the mediation efforts of Mbeki. President Mbeki flew out to Zimbabwe this week (It seems like he has been spending more time in Zimbabwe than in South Africa!) to get the political parties in Zimababwe to talk again and hopefully reach an agreement. It is believed that Mbeki went to Zimbabwe with a brand new deal for the parties to consider. And judging by the news coming out of Zimbabwe last night, this new deal maybe signed as early as today. Read the rest of this entry »
If they want to fire Springbok coach, Peter de Villiers, then they should just do so without having to find a non-rugby related incident to do so. The headline in yetserdays Sunday Times newspaper was about an alleged sex tape featuring de Villiers. It is undertstood that they are people within the rugby fraternity who now want to use this tape against de Villiers so they can get rid of the first black coach to coach the Springboks.
It is no secret that there were many people who did not want de Villiers to be appointed the Springbok coach after Jake White stepped down. There were varying reasons for the disapproval of de Viliers, ranging from his lack of experience at the high level to the simple fact that he is black. The later did not sit well with some and I assume those are the ones putting together the story of this alleged sex tape. It looks like this is a simple matter of blackmail: “We will not release the tape if you step down as coach.” Now firstly, does this tape even exist? Obviously de Villiers has come out and said it does not. In the coaches own words, “I knew there were still people who do not want a black coach; I just never knew the extent people would go to discredit me.”
I was in shock when I found out that Central bank governor Tito Mboweni received a 27.5% pay rise this year, above the country’s 3% to 6% inflation target. His annual pay, including fringe benefits, stood at R3.387m in 2007 and, with pension and medical contributions, the total package was R3.796m. The bank’s two deputy governors Xolile Guma and Renosi Mokate received increases of 66% and 72% respectively, taking their total pay to R2.774m and R2.839m. Some people live the good life!
Okay, it is not only these guys who are earning millions of rands every year as quite a number of top executives earn such large salaries. What is just funny to note is that the central bank gives these top guys such huge increases in their salaries when they themselves are he ones who tell us to ‘tighten our belts’ and not spend a lot of money. These are the same people who want to bring inflation down but on the one hand are having salaries increased at a much greater rate than inflation. Offcourse their salaries alone will not dent the inflation outlook of the whole country. It would be interesting to find out if all employees at the Reserve Bank got such huge salary increases.
Do you think Mboweni deserves such a salary?
