It says a lot about the character of Andrew Mlangeni that when he was released from prison in 1989 – for crimes he didn’t commit, by the way – he returned to his humble abode in Dube, in Soweto, near Johannesburg; the very family home where police burst into his bedroom in the middle of a cold winter’s night in 1963 to arrest him.



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This home was as humble and wholesome as the man’s approach to life. Sure, Mlangeni enjoyed a convivial party and the golf course, but not for him sipping Chivas Regal in a polo club, nor huge flashy houses, nor the latest luxury cars; never greed, nor vast wealth, for Andrew Mlangeni. For what? He would have said. During all those murky years of the President Jacob Zuma, when did anyone ever see the name of Mlangeni come up? Never.



“He was a principled man, of note,” says former finance minister and parliamentary colleague Nhlanlha Nene.



Principle that cost Mlangeni &nbsp;more than a quarter of his life behind bars for something he didn’t do. He told me that the police merely transferred the charges of sabotage levelled at his comrade, the late former defence minister Joe Modise, to him.



“I didn’t do anything!” Mlangeni told me half a century later. He pleaded guilty with Nelson Mandela &nbsp;and his comrades in a show of solidarity intended to put the apartheid government on trial. It worked and overnight the accused transcended criminal charges to be seen as the freedom fighting Benjamin Franklins of Africa.



Mlangeni grew up in Soweto as a towering man of principle, who never backed down. When he was arrested in 1963, police tortured him brutally with electrodes and their fists. In a chance meeting in 2010, ironically in the colonial splendour of the Rand Club in downtown Johannesburg, Mlangeni &nbsp;puffed on a Consulate cigarette, with a group of friends,as he told me of this torture 50 years before. The police tortured him with electrodes and dished out arguably the worst beating inflicted on any of the Rivonia trialists. He said at one point the police were waterboarding him; that is, holding a bag over his head while they poured water through.



“I felt my lungs fill up, I was drowning, I was gone…then one of the police hit me hard in the stomach and all of the water spurted out of me and I was OK!”



All of us listening, over post lunch drinks, laughed including the late veteran photographer, Alf Kumalo, who once had his skull cracked in police cells. If you have suffered through politics or journalism, as Alf had in both, you tend to see the funny side of the ugliest of moments.



Everyone has and Andrew Mlangeni story including Sello Hatang the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.



“He called me Murwa because I shared a first name with his son. He always made time for me, and always brought a smile to my face with his dry, self-deprecating sense of humour. When asked one day about his lifelong smoking habit, for instance, he responded: It has ruined my singing voice.’’ When asked on another occasion, late in life, if he was still playing golf, he said: ‘If not for my knee I would still be out on the tee,’” recalls Hatang.



It was fitting, in 2018, that Mlangeni was awarded the prestigious freedom of Johannesburg – the city where he was put in chains and incarcerated a lifetime ago. A precious gift of freedom to a man who knew how hard and painful it was to achieve. &nbsp;

Andrew Mlangeni

How a brutal torturer saved Andrew Mlangeni from death by drowning.

The last survivor of the courageous band of young men who faced unflinchingly the death penalty with Nelson Mandela has died aged 95.



The quiet and steely revolutionary Andrew Mlangeni was the last of the survivor of the Rivonia trial, ending in 1964, that saw Mandela and his comrades sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the underground movement that ran a sabotage campaign as part of the armed struggle against apartheid. Denis Goldberg, the other survivor, died in Cape Town in April.



Mlangeni served 27 years in prison, his release came only in 1989, on charges that he had nothing to do with. In later years he used to smile that he had served a life sentence for principle and nothing else. Like all the Rivonia trilaists he pleaded guilty to all the charges, in the hope of putting the government in the dock; it turned out to be so with the international press writing them up not as criminals, but as the Benjamin Franklins of Africa.



The last survivor of the courageous band of young men who faced unflinchingly the death penalty with Nelson Mandela has died aged 95.



The quiet and steely revolutionary Andrew Mlangeni was the last of the survivor of the Rivonia trial, ending in 1964, that saw Mandela and his comrades sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the underground movement that ran a sabotage campaign as part of the armed struggle against apartheid. Denis Goldberg, the other survivor, died in Cape Town in April.



Mlangeni served 27 years in prison, his release came only in 1989, on charges that he had nothing to do with. In later years he used to smile that he had served a life sentence for principle and nothing else. Like all the Rivonia trilaists he pleaded guilty to all the charges, in the hope of putting the government in the dock; it turned out to be so with the international press writing them up not as criminals, but as the Benjamin Franklins of Africa.



“All the things that were done by Modise (Joe Modise the late former defence minister) &nbsp;were put on me by the state witness. Everything; I didn’t do anything, I was out of the country. Even when they were concerning bombs etc. That was in 1961 and I was not here!” he told me in 2010 at his home in Dube, Soweto.



Mlangeni was under military training in China in 1961 where, along with Modise, he was to become one of the founder members of Umkhonto We Sizwe the military wing of the African National Congress. He even knew little of the underground’s sketchy plan –Operation Mayibuye- for the armed overthrow of South Africa. This half-baked plan imagined small armed groups of men landing on the beaches of South Africa and taking on one of Africa’s toughest defence forces. This was one of the main planks of the prosecution case at the Rivonia trial.



“We were fresh from China and eager to fight, so things such as documents we said let them go to the intellectuals,” said Mlangeni &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Mlangeni , who grew up in Soweto just outside Johannesburg, was born to question the system that condemned thinking men, like he, into a life of poorly paid servitude. He became an activist at an early age, politicized by the injustices he saw in his first job in a factory. &nbsp;Later,he was to organize bus drivers in Johannesburg in going on strike.



On his emergence from prison, Mlangeni returned to the small house in Dube that he was arrested in during the winter of 1963. He became an ANC MP and in his mid 80s was very active and opened a constituency office in Dube to help serve the people. &nbsp;&nbsp;







Mlangeni was under military training in China in 1961 where, along with Modise, he was to become one of the founder members of Umkhonto We Sizwe the military wing of the African National Congress. He even knew little of the underground’s sketchy plan –Operation Mayibuye- for the armed overthrow of South Africa. This half-baked plan imagined small armed groups of men landing on the beaches of South Africa and taking on one of Africa’s toughest defence forces. This was one of the main planks of the prosecution case at the Rivonia trial.



“We were fresh from China and eager to fight, so things such as documents we said let them go to the intellectuals,” said Mlangeni &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Mlangeni , who grew up in Soweto just outside Johannesburg, was born to question the system that condemned thinking men, like he, into a life of poorly paid servitude. He became an activist at an early age, politicized by the injustices he saw in his first job in a factory. &nbsp;Later,he was to organize bus drivers in Johannesburg in going on strike.



On his emergence from prison, Mlangeni returned to the small house in Dube that he was arrested in during the winter of 1963. He became an ANC MP and in his mid 80s was very active and opened a constituency office in Dube to help serve the people. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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End of an era: firebrand Andrew Mlangeni  the last of Nelson Mandela’s band of brothers dies aged 95.

One of the unintended consequences of the misery of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it could boost Africa’s chances of attracting foreign investment from the northern hemisphere as central bankers slash interest rates..



This was the word from former British prime minister Tony Blair who spoke to CNBC Africa from London in an exclusive interview.



Blair said African nations should use this pandemic to reform their economies and build infrastructure to ripen them for foreign investors. He said African nations should look for foreign investors in sector where the continent to add value to its resources before export.



The economic woes, brought on by COVID-19, dragging down the wealthy economies of the northern hemisphere, could also benefit African nations.



“There is vast pool of capital in the west because interest rates are very low and they are looking for an outlet. You look at Japan alone, its pension fund has a trillion dollars in it,” says Blair.



“You will get that investment if you build infrastructure and make it the right environment for investors. My advice to African nations is get that investment in , in the value added sectors, &nbsp;to build their capacity, so you are in a position to start exporting your own intellectual capital.”

Tony Blair Gives Pro-Eu Keynote Speech

Tony Blair: How the misery of COVID-19 could mean more investment into Africa.

In the last days of President Robert Mugabe the political scene painted British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a pantomime villain. The late President Mugabe railed against Blair at political rallies, in the early years of this century, calling him “B-Liar” and saying famously at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002: “You can keep your England, I shall keep my Zimbabwe.” Blair is unfazed by the years of criticism, in his decade in power at Westminster, and says he is happy to speak to Mugabe’s successor President Emerson Mnangagwa.



More than a decade on Blair – who now runs an institute promoting good governance in Africa &#8211; was asked how acrimonious his not very special relationship with Zimbabwe was, in an exclusive interview with CNBC Africa from London.



“I think acrimonious was probably and understatement!” smiled Blair more than a decade on.



“I am happy to speak to Mnangagwa, but these things are best done in a private way. I was actually thinking about Zimbabwe the other day. I think, at certain points, there were misunderstandings, not genuine disagreements. If Zimbabwe were to get its act together it would be an exciting place to be.”



Blair went further to call for reform in Zimbabwe and was effusive in his praise of the country were the politicians once scorned him.



“Zimbabwe I hope the new leadership there will take the necessary measure and reforms because Zimbabwe is a very wealthy country and I meet Zimbabweans around the world and they are a very talented people. I want the government to succeed; it really is what has to be done. I do think it is what needs to happened there not just opening up political space, but also economic reforms to take the country to a boom. If the government there showed real commitment or reform, it would help in the future because we need Zimbabwe back as a player in the continent,” says Blair. &nbsp;



The former British Prime Minister’s encouraging words contrast the bitterness that the late President Mugabe felt for Blair in return. The ruling ZANU pf party called its 2005 election campaign the “Anti-Blair Vote.”



At the launch of that election campaign, in December 2004, Mugabe set the tone with the words: “Regime change, Mr Blair? Who are you? Who are you to talk of regime change in Zimbabwe? One of us, by what connection sir, do you hear me? Ancestral connection? And who were these ancestors, can we know? No, Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans. And only Zimbabweans can determine who shall rule them and who shall not. Whether there is a situation here of political order, of lawlessness, violation of the rule of law, violation of human rights, lack of democracy, our neighbours would know that better than the British government… It is our land, ancestral land, our sacred land, never an extension of Britain.&#8221;

Blair on Zimbabwe and Mugabe:  the former British Prime minister is far from bitter and ready to meet Mnangagwa.

On Mandela Day 2020, I am reminded of my late friend and Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg who stood shoulder –to-shoulder with Nelson Mandela in the shadow of the death penalty back in 1964. Goldberg, who died on April 30, spent 22 years in prison for his part in the sabotage campaign against the apartheid regime was a warm man with a robust sense of humour. He was an engineer by trade and was given the job of making bombs that earned him the title of ‘Mr Technico’ among his comrades.



Goldberg spent his retirement years a spit from the crashing waves of Hout Bay near Cape Town. His home, with a balcony overlooking the sea and the mountain range that hems in the bay, was typical of the man.



Not for him the expensive, luxury, homes of Hout Bay; he built his own home amid the fishermans’ cottages on the less fashionable side of Hout Bay. Among the people, he once said to me. It was in this glorious setting high above the sparkling sea that Goldberg related many of the stories of the desperate days of the struggle and the dock at the Palace of Justice in Pretoria in 1964.



“Nelson loved a fight, we used to send him to wag his finger at them!” he said with his trademark smile.



Goldberg never forgot the first day of the trial in Pretoria when Mandela when prison officers shoved Mandela, shackled and in short trousers, next to him into the dock. Mandela was already serving a five year sentence for supporting strikes and leaving the country without a permit and was hauled from prison to face the death sentence.



“You were not supposed to humiliate a prisoner, before the judge, but they did,” Goldberg recalled. &nbsp;



“I stood next to him and had chocolate in my pocket. I nudged him and he looked down and nodded. I broke off a square of the chocolate and handed a bit to him. He wiped his hands over his face and the chocolate disappeared into his very, very thin cheek. Here we are, they are charging us with sabotage and here this little bit of chocolate melts away. He nodded again and I gave him some more; for me this was such a moment of humanity. You don’t get sweeteners in prison,” said Goldberg.



“But there he was standing there, his clothes were hanging off him because he had lost an awful lot of weight, demanding of the judge to look him in the eye.”



The two men survived the death penalty. More than 30 years later Goldberg asked Mandela why he thought they didn’t hang.



“Because I dared him too!” Mandela replied. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Yet Goldberg believed at one stage Mandela may have felt – as the leader of the accused – that he may face yet get the noose. He recalled how Mandela would lecture Goldberg in the holding cells, under the court, near the end of the long trial.



“He used to say: ‘Denis when you teach people about Marxism don’t talk about Europe and slavery and feudalism – our people don’t understand that. You have to go back to our own country and own experience’ I said to him: ‘Nel, why are you telling me this?’ He says: ‘I just think you should know’ I know he was thinking he was going to be hanged.”



In the end no one was hanged. When the life sentence was handed down the accused, sitting with Mandela and Goldberg all looked at each other and laughed in relief.



“Nelson said in his book A Long Walk to Freedom that I said to my wife, from the dock, when asked about the verdict: ‘Life, life to live’ I wouldn’t use such literary English and it wasn’t my wife , she was in England, I said it to my mother. I said: ‘Life, life is wonderful’ and I can tell you more than 30 years later life is wonderful,” recalled Goldberg.”



On Mandela Day 2020, I am reminded of my late friend and Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg who stood shoulder –to-shoulder with Nelson Mandela in the shadow of the death penalty back in 1964. Goldberg, who died on April 30, spent 22 years in prison for his part in the sabotage campaign against the apartheid regime was a warm man with a robust sense of humour. He was an engineer by trade and was given the job of making bombs that earned him the title of ‘Mr Technico’ among his comrades.



Goldberg spent his retirement years a spit from the crashing waves of Hout Bay near Cape Town. His home, with a balcony overlooking the sea and the mountain range that hems in the bay, was typical of the man.



Not for him the expensive, luxury, homes of Hout Bay; he built his own home amid the fishermans’ cottages on the less fashionable side of Hout Bay. Among the people, he once said to me. It was in this glorious setting high above the sparkling sea that Goldberg related many of the stories of the desperate days of the struggle and the dock at the Palace of Justice in Pretoria in 1964.



“Nelson loved a fight, we used to send him to wag his finger at them!” he said with his trademark smile.



Goldberg never forgot the first day of the trial in Pretoria when Mandela when prison officers shoved Mandela, shackled and in short trousers, next to him into the dock. Mandela was already serving a five year sentence for supporting strikes and leaving the country without a permit and was hauled from prison to face the death sentence.



“You were not supposed to humiliate a prisoner, before the judge, but they did,” Goldberg recalled. &nbsp;



“I stood next to him and had chocolate in my pocket. I nudged him and he looked down and nodded. I broke off a square of the chocolate and handed a bit to him. He wiped his hands over his face and the chocolate disappeared into his very, very thin cheek. Here we are, they are charging us with sabotage and here this little bit of chocolate melts away. He nodded again and I gave him some more; for me this was such a moment of humanity. You don’t get sweeteners in prison,” said Goldberg.



“But there he was standing there, his clothes were hanging off him because he had lost an awful lot of weight, demanding of the judge to look him in the eye.”



The two men survived the death penalty. More than 30 years later Goldberg asked Mandela why he thought they didn’t hang.



“Because I dared him too!” Mandela replied. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Yet Goldberg believed at one stage Mandela may have felt – as the leader of the accused – that he may face yet get the noose. He recalled how Mandela would lecture Goldberg in the holding cells, under the court, near the end of the long trial.



“He used to say: ‘Denis when you teach people about Marxism don’t talk about Europe and slavery and feudalism – our people don’t understand that. You have to go back to our own country and own experience’ I said to him: ‘Nel, why are you telling me this?’ He says: ‘I just think you should know’ I know he was thinking he was going to be hanged.”



In the end no one was hanged. When the life sentence was handed down the accused, sitting with Mandela and Goldberg all looked at each other and laughed in relief.



“Nelson said in his book A Long Walk to Freedom that I said to my wife, from the dock, when asked about the verdict: ‘Life, life to live’ I wouldn’t use such literary English and it wasn’t my wife , she was in England, I said it to my mother. I said: ‘Life, life is wonderful’ and I can tell you more than 30 years later life is wonderful,” recalled Goldberg.”



“Was it worth it? Every single day. I wouldn’t change it except, I wouldn’t want to get caught if I were to it again!”

DSC_1387

MANDELA DAY 2020: How Mandela ate chocolate in the shadow of death: Goldberg on Madiba

Nelson Mandela once said that he may have been in prison for 27 years but he was not confined for one day because he could read and that lent his spirit freedom.



It appears that hunger for literacy may have condemned Mandela and his comrades to a life behind bars. On the eve of Mandela Day, July 18 which would have been his 102nd birthday, it is interesting to speculate that this joy of reading may have set in motion of chain of events that led to a life behind bars for his comrades in the underground.



One crisp winter afternoon on July 11 1963 police scooped up almost the entire leadership of the underground as they met in a small cottage the back of Liliesleaf farm, in Rivonia, Johannesburg, in a Trojan horse-style raid, with dogs and officers concealed in a pharmacy van. They arrested a ‘who’s who of the struggle: Govan Mbeki; Ray Mahlaba; Denis Goldberg; Walter Sisulu; Ahmed Kathrada; and Andrew Mlangeni.



“Ons het de jackpot!” said the triumphant arresting officer, as he telephoned the police station to inform his colleagues of the raid. In English, we have hit the jackpot. The police couldn’t believe their luck as they chained who they saw and desperadoes in a circle, on the Liliesleaf lawn,and allowed their dogs to snap at them.



“It is high treason chaps,” said Mbeki as the van was driven away. The captured laughed but they all knew the charges they were to face meant the death sentence. The armed struggle and bombings they had been running for many months had destroyed many key installations.



How the raid on Rivonia, which lent its name to the trial in which all were sentenced to life, came about has been argued over for years. Theories abound from informants, to nosey neighbours, to foreign spies.



There could be another theory connected to Mandela’s love of reading. Mbeki et al used to pretend to be farm workers at Liliesleaf, as part of their cover. They were so good at this that they used to sell the vegetables they grew to the nearby Rivonia police! So the police put food on the table through the hard work of revolutionaries, yet never twigged who grew it.



What could have given the Liliesleaf crew away was their love of reading. Being intellectual revolutionaries they all devoured daily newspapers that aroused suspicion. Surviving fellow farm workers recalled in interviews, in 2012, that they told people they worked with “black men with newspapers” – a rarity in 1960s South Africa.



Another incident, depicted in the painting by Kevin Krapf at the top of this article, involving Nelson Mandela reading a newspaper, heightened that suspicion.



 A nearby farmer  by the name of Ernest Vickers called in to see Arthur Goldreich, an activist who lived in the farm as a front for the underground. Vickers was shocked to see a black man sitting in the lounge with his feet up on the coffee table reading a newspaper. The man was lawyer Mandela who was pretending to be a domestic worker at the farm and was to become his country’s first democratically elected president.



Unbelievably, in this day and age, Vickers reported what he had seen to the Rivonia police, maybe as it was taking another delivery of vegetables.  Years later, Vickers was convinced that it was this report that led to the raid and life imprisonment. He was also worried about the repercussion there could be for his own family.



Maybe ?&nbsp; Maybe not. It could be forever lost in the mist of times that shroud the rich Mandela story. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

20200717_093810

“It is high treason chaps!”-  How the joy of reading could have put Nelson Mandela and his struggle comrades behind bars.

Africa needs to spend 28.6 billion-a-year until 2030 to have any hope of to closing Africa’s yawning energy gap, but it is unclear where the money will come from.



Most Africans live without electricity as most nations struggle to generate the electricity the continent’s emerging economies need. South Africa’s national power generator Eskom – with a struggling national grid putting out 40,000 MW &#8211; generates half of the continent’s electricity. Even South Africa struggles to keep the lights on and countries with tiny electricity, like Malawi, struggle even more and find it an obstacle to growth. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Nigerian Damilola Ogunbiyi, the special representative for sustainable energy foraAll and Co-Chair of United Nations-Energy, confirmed that the energy gap in Africa was huge and would need at least $28.6 billion-a-year, until 2030, to close it. She told CNBC Africa that the question was how to gather the money.



“We need everything on the table. We need public sector support and also private money to come in. There can’t be one source of money. We need to convince private investors that putting power into Africa it is an investment,” says Ogunbiyi. &nbsp;



“I think what this pandemic has taught us is that if we don’t work together, then everyone is going to suffer. &nbsp;



Ogunbiyi was encouraged greatly by the electrification programme in the country of her birth. She said five million Nigerians, in rural areas, had been connected to solar power.



“In a large scale oil energy producing nation, that is not bad,” she says

Damilola Ogunbiyi_Headshot

How we can  close the 28 billion dollar-a-year energy gap in Africa

Zindzi Mandela &#8211; the daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela &#8211; died in the early hours of July 13 in a Johannesburg hospital. She was South Africa&#8217;s ambassador to Denmark and a spokesman for DIRCO said she was the second to die in the pandemic. 



Zindzi grew up with her father in prison for most of her life and was a staunch activist. In 1985 she famously told the world that her father had rejected PW Botha&#8217;s offer of freedom. 



Zindzi Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela, has died &#8211; ANC spokesman &#8211; Reuters



“This is untimely. She still had a role to play in the transformation of our own society and a bigger role to play even in the African National Congress,” said ANC spokesman Pule Mabe.



South Africa&#8217;s foreign minister Naledi Pandor said that Zindzi was not just the child of two hallowed struggle activists &#8211; she was a struggle heroine herself.

Picture taken for the December 2014 cover of FORBES WOMAN AFRICA by Jay Caboz1

Zindzi Mandela dies aged 59

Booze manufacturers are likely to be fuming as President Cyril Ramaphosa shut down South Africa&#8217;s lucrative alcohol sales for the second time this year.



President Ramaphosa is under pressure to take decisive action as the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to kill up to 50,000 South Africans and ismonths away from its peak. Already it has seen 276,242 cases &#8211; with more than 100,000 in Gauteng alone and 80,000 in the Eastern Cape &#8211; with 4079 people losing their lives.



In his address to the nation from the Union Buildings in Pretoria, President Ramaphosa said many of the cases that came into hospitals were related to the consumption of alchohol that justified a ban on sales forthwith. He said this would also be strengthened by a curfew between 9 PM and 4 AM daily. as the state of national disaster was extended to August 15.



&#8220;We have to make sure there are sufficient beds in hospital and they are not occupied by people who are there because of alcohol,&#8221;says Ramaphosa. 



It is only a matter of weeks that the ban on the sale of alcohol was lifted after the national lockdown of the entire economy in March.



The ban not only gave rise to a thriving black market, but also cost the drinks companies billions that it was starting to recoup with the resumption of sales. 



Distell, the maker of the Savanna, Hunter’s Dry and Nederburg brands, says it saw a spike in demand as restrictions on selling of alcohol have eased. Even then volumes were down a bout a quarter year on year.



From July 1 2019 to the end of June 2020, its South African revenue was down by 18.3% and volumes by 25.6%, the liquor group said in a trading statement.



Many more losses are likely for the drinks companies in the months ahead as South Africa battles with a pandemic that looks far from over.

gettyimages-1006175054-594×594

COVID-19: No more booze for now says Ramaphosa

Between 40,000 to 50,000 South Africans could die this year as the pandemic heads towards its peak. 



This was the word from President Cyril Ramaphosa as he said the wearing of cloth masks was going to be enforced. He also extended the national state of disaster to August 15. 



&#8220;Änyone going into any building for work or whatever must be wearing a cloth mask,&#8221;says President Ramaphosa. He said taxis taking long trips were going to be forced to travel at only 70 per cent capacity and ensure all passengers wear masks.



President Ramaphosa also said that the sale of alcohol was going to be suspended with immediate effect. He also said a curfew would be put in place between 9 PM and 4 AM from July 13. 



&#8220;These measures put unwelcome restrictions on people&#8217;s lives and movements but they are necessary to see us through this pandemic,&#8221;says Ramaphosa. 



President Ramaphosa also admitted that there was a shortfall of 12000 healthcare workers. Despite this there were 28000 hospital beds as well as 37000 private quarantine beds for those unable to isolate at home, along with 1700 ventilators.



The president also warned that the peak of infections was far awsy with 276,242 recorded cases resulting in 4079 deaths.He said there were nearly 100,000 cases in Gauteng alone with the peak of infections expected before the end of September. He also said that three premiers, including Gauteng Premier David Makhura, had been diagnosed with COVID-19. 



More than two million South Africans had been tested for the disease, he said.

gettyimages-1152457961-594×594

Up to 50,000 South Africans could die this year of COVID-19

KHARTOUM (Reuters) &#8211; Sudan will permit non-Muslims to consume alcohol and strengthen women’s rights, including banning female genital mutilation (FGM), its justice minister said late on Saturday, in a reversal of almost four decades of hardline Islamist policies



About 3% of Sudan’s population is non-Muslim, according to the United Nations.



Alcoholic drinks have been banned since former President Jaafar Nimeiri introduced Islamic law in 1983, throwing bottles of whisky into the Nile in the capital Khartoum.



The transition government which took over after autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled last year has vowed to lead Sudan to democracy, end discrimination and make peace with rebels.



Non-Muslims will no longer be criminalised for drinking alcohol in private, Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari told state television. For Muslims, the ban will remain. Offenders are typically flogged under Islamic law.



Sudan will also decriminalise apostasy and ban FGM, a practice which typically involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia of girls and women, he said.



Women will also no longer need a permit from male members of their families to travel with their children.



Bashir extended Islamic law after he took power in 1989.



Sudanese Christians live mainly in Khartoum and in the Nuba mountains near the South Sudan border. Some Sudanese also follow traditional African beliefs.



The transition government led by Abdalla Hamdok runs the country in an uneasy coalition with the military which helped remove Bashir after months of mass protests.

shutterstock_70658272

Sudan’s 37 dry years are over for its non-Muslims

One of the most influential fathers of electricity generation in Africa has died in early hours of July 12 aged 90.



Ian McRae, a consummate public servant was born in Germiston, Johannesburg, on September 24 1929 . He joined Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator and the biggest generator of electricity in Africa, as an apprentice fitter and turner in 1947.



McRae qualified with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked his way up to the top of the company in nearly half a century of service laying down the bedrock of the power supply that South African business took for granted for decades. He oversaw the construction of the country’s big six coal-fired power stations, in the 1970s: Kriel, Matla, Duvha, Tutuka, Lethabo, Mathimba, Kendal and Majuba; as well as the country’s three hydro-electric stations: Gariep, Vanderkloof and Cahora Bassa, plus South Africa’s nuclear plant at Koeberg, near Cape Town. McRae was head of operations from 1977 to 1980, head of engineering from 1980 to 1984 and chief executive from 1985 until his retirement in 1994.



Sadly, McRae, a gregarious man-of-the-people, spent his last four months isolated in a home in Edenvale in Johannesburg because of the COVID-19 lockdown.



 McRae’s remarkable courage came through in his meetings with the ANC in 1988, his promotion of equal opportunity during the height of the apartheid era, and his legendary “electricity-for-all” electrification campaign. These initiatives helped Eskom pre-empt and adapt to the social changes of the 1990s and on retirement McRae left the power generator in good order producing a plentiful supply of some of the cheapest electricity in the world; power that gave birth to a large smelting industry in South Africa. He was also an energetic member of the World Energy Council and the World Association of Nuclear Operators.



“There is no doubt that his integrity, credibility, drive, inherent humility and care for people, also profoundly helped to motivate Eskom staff during many difficult times. In addition, his tenacity of purpose and commitment as a team player enabled Eskom to achieve its strategic goals in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and to survive unscathed through the political transition period of South Africa,” says writer Peter Adams, a former Eskom spokesman, who ghost wrote a biography of the man.



“A key theme of the book is leadership, and in particular the kind of leadership Dr. McRae practiced at Eskom during its phases of both growth and then downsizing. This was essentially one of empowering people within a framework of a clear and inspiring vision. The book is also about McRae the man – his strength and weaknesses, his sense of serving others and Eskom. This is thus the story of a person who has served his fellow man, his company and his country with distinction and humility, using his God-given skills of leadership. In several places in the book, Dr. McRae mentions how being a good mentor is one of the attributes of the outstanding leader. Having benefited himself from good mentorship, Dr. McRae helped to establish the strong culture of mentorship that exists in Eskom today.”



McRae’s wife Jess predeceased him last year, his daughter Heather, died in 2018. His son, Donald, who has written books on boxing and South African rugby, survives him and is a journalist living in London.

Ian McRae

One of the influential fathers of power in Africa dies aged 90

Veteran Zimbabwe farmer Ben Freeth poured cold water on a plan that’ll see trainers from the former Soviet republic of Belarus train a thousand farmers to till the soil in the former breadbasket of Africa.



This month a huge load of farm machinery is on its way across the Indian Ocean, in the bowels of a transport ship, on its way to Zimbabwe. A $58 million deal six grain harvesters, 100 tractors, 16 seed drills, five fifth wheel trucks, five semi-trailers are on their way from Belarus to the ports of Beira in Mozambique and Durban in South Africa. The shipment is expected by the end of July. Fourteen grain harvesters and 36 units of seed drills are already in Harare. Ships will bring another 20 grain harvester, 340 tractors and 138 seed drills to Zimbabwe by December 2020.



“Belarus is not known for its agricultural productivity.&nbsp; Their climate, soils, crops, pests and diseases and systems of production are different to ours.&nbsp; It’s difficult to believe how effective they will be in teaching us to farm,” says Freeth, &nbsp;the &nbsp;executive director of the Mike Campbell Foundation and a former regional executive officer of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, in Zimbabwe.



“Belarus tractors have never been known for their quality or power.&nbsp; They were never bought by Zimbabwe farmers in the past. Training up 1000 Zimbabwe farmers isn’t the answer.&nbsp;&nbsp; There are thousands of brilliant Zimbabwe farmers already.&nbsp; What we need is property rights and the rule of law.&nbsp; Sadly this Belarus scheme will fail the same as every other scheme has failed because property rights and the rule of law are so insecure and tenuous.”&nbsp;



The idea has been nurtured by the consul general for Zimbabwe in Belarus &#8211; Alexander Zingman. He is the head of AFTRADE DMCC and spends much time travelling between Zimbabwe and the country of his birth. The project is being financed through the Development Bank of Belarus supported by The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank. The export credit facility has been provided on a long-term basis with competitive interest rates.



&#8220;The aim is to totally mechanize agriculture in Zimbabwe using a comprehensive set of machinery &#8211; tractors, planters, harvesters and trucks &#8211; to cultivate and harvest maize and wheat. This will prevent the harvest losses that Zimbabwe normally faces. It will boost Zimbabwe&#8217;s food security and save the country valuable foreign currency. We will train each farmer who uses this modern equipment. More than 1,000 farmers will get special training courses in Zimbabwe. 10 specialists from Zimbabwe will also be sent to Belarus for two months for training at our manufacturing plants, “he says.



Ten trainers from Belarus are also in Harare, with five more on the way, in a year of training of farmers in Zimbabwe that is hoped will kick start a struggling industry that was once the pride of Africa.



The irony is that 30 years ago such a programme would have been looked upon as an agricultural equivalent of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. In the 1980s and for most of the 90s Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa with a small, efficient, band of mostly white farmers who fed Southern African and exported food to Europe. It couldn’t last amid the lack of a clear plan for organised land reform and growing political pressure.&nbsp; &nbsp;



When the farm invasions were unleashed by the people in power in 2000, it led to bloodshed and random confiscation that reaped a bitter harvest of lost production and exports that persists until this day. That year, with all of its fumbling fury, fuelled with the idea that to get rich you merely had to own a farm, is always seen as a turning point for the industry. It created a large slice of the country’s GDP and as it fell, so did the fortunes of Zimbabwe.



The World Bank Zimbabwe production figures for maize – that used to feed the region – tell the story. In 1996 Zimbabwe was growing more than 2.5 million mt of maize; by 2016 that figure had dropped to a mere 500,000 mt of maize. A further sign of lean times, according the World Bank, is that the fertilizer industry was at 75% capacity before 2000 and as low as 30% now. In the halcyon days of 1996, many Zimbabweans would have been incredulous at the idea of trainers and combine harvesters making their way half round the world to teach them farming. In difficult times for the Zimbabwe and its economy almost anything is worth a try.

Belarus equipment reaches Zimbabwe 1

Veteran Zimbabwe farmer pours cold water on $58 million mission from Belarus with love.

LORUGUM, Kenya (Reuters) &#8211; Lorugum village in northwest Kenya is under siege. Hundreds of thousands of young desert locusts perch on trees, shrubs, and in the grass.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/106400431-1582206401665gettyimages-1201617017-150x150.jpeg" alt="" width="318" height="318"/></figure>





In the coming days or weeks, their bodies will turn from pink to yellow, their wings will harden and, if nothing is done to stop them, they will begin to swarm, with disastrous consequences for agricultural production and the environment.



Using his smartphone camera, Christopher Achilo takes photos and videos of a tree trunk in the village that is crawling with the pink insects, and uploads the images onto an app.



“One locust eats food equal to his weight (every day), so imagine having millions of locusts, if you cannot even see over the trees,” he said.



“Within some time, all the trees are just naked. Even they go inside the farms, they strip the farms, so it is a very big impact on the food security.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Achilo is one of a team of locust scouts trained by local aid group ACTED, with the help of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Turkana County regional government, to spot and report sightings using a new application, E-Locust.



The information he and the others collect is sent in real-time to a database in Lodwar, Turkana’s main town, which is then used by another team deployed to spray the insects with pesticides to prevent swarm formation.Slideshow&nbsp;(5 Images)



Locust numbers, the worst in three generations, surged in East Africa and the Red Sea region in late 2019 and early this year, encouraged by unseasonably wet weather and dispersed by a record number of cyclones.



The pests could cost East Africa and Yemen $8.5 billion this year, the World Bank has said.



Swarms can fly up to 150 km (93 miles) a day with the wind, and a single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people. Desert locusts feed on nearly all green vegetation and crops, including leaves, flowers, bark, fruit, millet and rice.



In a bulletin from July 3, the FAO said it expected swarm formation in Kenya to continue until mid-July. It said that in June, control operations treated around 30,830 hectares against locusts, around 8,500 hectares by air

A local resident tries to swot away a swarm of desert locusts in Mathiakani, Kitui County, Kenya, on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020. The number of locusts in East Africa could expand 500 times by June, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization said last month.

106400431-1582206401665gettyimages-1201617017

Kenya uses app in battle against desert locusts

On the day Kenya Airways announced it was to shed staff, the skies darkened further with the findings of a gloomy International Air Transport Association report on the on the state of aviation in Africa.



The report laid bare the business case for running an airline in Africa painting it as a loss maker as COVID-19 has closed borders and discouraged travellers. There are quarantine restrictions in 36 countries across Africa and the Middle East. The numbers are depressing. The IATA report says &nbsp;East Africa has lost 56% of its revenue and 53% of its passengers; West Africa 60% and 58%; North Africa 58% and 56% and Southern Africa 60% and 58%.



IATA says it is so bad that African airlines actually pay $42 to transport every passenger they carry in 2020. CNBC Africa asked the man behind the report how long can African airlines last in the face of these losses.



“Not long, not long. Our estimates have already shown that airlines have already burned through their cash reserves. We don’t expect any airlines in Africa to survive these kind of losses,” says&nbsp;&nbsp; Muhammed Albakri, the regional vice-president for Africa and the Middle East for IATA, told CNBC Africa.&nbsp;



“The impact of COVID-19 has been devastating all over the world but particularly for the African continent where the demand from passengers has fallen by 58% in 2020 compared to 2019. Airlines are supposed to post a loss of $2 billion that is because the decrease in the passenger numbers and $6 billion from passenger revenues that is something that has not been seen before.”



Albakri believes the only hope for survival for African airlines is for governments to give bail out packages and to open up borders to help kick start the travel industry.



Airlines should play a key role in the revival of African economies in the post-COVID-19 world by providing cheap and abundant air travel in aid of growth. Sadly, many of them are tottering amid falling revenue and grounded planes.



Kenya Airways is the next to take the pain. It has announced job losses will be made – even though the airline is not saying how many – will happened to keep the airline afloat. The airline has 4,000 workers and operates a fleet 36 planes flying to 54 global destinations.



Prior to the pandemic, the airline faced financial difficulties in its operations, owing to losses and debt.&nbsp; In December 2019, the airline issued a profit warning, signalling that its losses widened to $129.7 million from $75.8 million in 2018.

Rolling out, AMS.

Loss making in COVID-19 -Why it costs African airlines $42 every time you fly

REPETITION – HIGHER RESOLUTIONSouth Afr

WEEKEND READ: Alas 2010, I knew it well – what has happened to the world since that night of tears, joy and skullduggery?

As I write this a huge load of farm machinery is lurching across the Indian Ocean in the bowels of a transport ship bringing with it a supreme irony.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="972" height="647" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-375515" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1.png 972w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1-768x511.png 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1-696x463.png 696w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Belarus-equipment-reaches-Zimbabwe-1-600x399.png 600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 972px) 100vw, 972px" /><figcaption>Farming equipment from Belarus arrives in Zimbabwe</figcaption></figure>



The shipment is part of a plan by a far off country, on the road to Russia, bent on teaching Zimbabwe – a country that could once teach the world – how to farm. In a $58 million deal six grain harvesters, 100 tractors, 16 seed drills, five fifth wheel trucks, five semi-trailers are on their way from the former Soviet state of Belarus to the ports of Beira in Mozambique and Durban in South Africa. The shipment is expected by the end of July. Fourteen grain harvesters and 36 units of seed drills are already in Harare. Ships will bring another 20 grain harvester, 340 tractors and 138 seed drills to Zimbabwe by December 2020.



The idea is being nurtured by the consul general for Zimbabwe in Belarus Alexander Zingman. He is the head of AFTRADE DMCC and spends much time travelling between Zimbabwe and the country of his birth. The project is being financed through the Development Bank of Belarus supported by The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank. The export credit facility has been provided on a long-term basis with competitive interest rates.



&#8220;The aim is to totally mechanize agriculture in Zimbabwe using a comprehensive set of machinery &#8211; tractors, planters, harvesters and trucks &#8211; to cultivate and harvest maize and wheat. This will prevent the harvest losses that Zimbabwe normally faces. It will boost Zimbabwe&#8217;s food security and save the country valuable foreign currency. We will train each farmer who uses this modern equipment. More than 1,000 farmers will get special training courses in Zimbabwe. 10 specialists from Zimbabwe will also be sent to Belarus for two months for training at our manufacturing plants, “he says.



Ten trainers from Belarus are also in Harare, with five more on the way, in a year of training of farmers in Zimbabwe that is hoped will kick start a struggling industry that was once the pride of Africa.



The irony is that 30 years ago such a programme would have been looked upon as an agricultural equivalent of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. In the 1980s and for most of the 90s Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa with a small, efficient, band of mostly white farmers who fed Southern African and exported food to Europe. It couldn’t last amid the lack of a clear plan for organised land reform and growing political pressure. &nbsp;&nbsp;



When the farm invasions were unleashed by the people in power in 2000, it led to bloodshed and random confiscation that reaped a bitter harvest of lost production and exports that persists until this day. That year with all of its fumbling fury fuelled with the idea that to get rich you merely had to own a farm, is always seen as a turning point for the industry. It created a large slice of the country’s GDP and as it fell, so did the fortunes of Zimbabwe.



The World Bank Zimbabwe production figures for maize – that used to feed the region – tell the story. In 1996 Zimbabwe was growing more than 2.5 million mt of maize; by 2016 that figure had dropped to a mere 500,000 mt of maize. A further sign of lean times, according the World Bank, is that the fertilizer industry was at 75% capacity before 2000 and as low as 30% now. In the halcyon days of 1996, many Zimbabweans would have been incredulous at the idea of trainers and combine harvesters making their way half round the world to teach them farming. In difficult times for the Zimbabwe and its economy almost anything is worth a try.

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Chris Bishop

How a brutal torturer saved Andrew Mlangeni from death by drowning.

End of an era: firebrand Andrew Mlangeni the last of Nelson Mandela’s band of brothers dies aged 95.

Tony Blair: How the misery of COVID-19 could mean more investment into Africa.

Blair on Zimbabwe and Mugabe: the former British Prime minister is far from bitter and ready to meet Mnangagwa.

MANDELA DAY 2020: How Mandela ate chocolate in the shadow of death: Goldberg on Madiba

“It is high treason chaps!”- How the joy of reading could have put Nelson Mandela and his struggle comrades behind bars.

How we can close the 28 billion dollar-a-year energy gap in Africa

Zindzi Mandela dies aged 59

COVID-19: No more booze for now says Ramaphosa

Up to 50,000 South Africans could die this year of COVID-19

Sudan’s 37 dry years are over for its non-Muslims

One of the influential fathers of power in Africa dies aged 90

Veteran Zimbabwe farmer pours cold water on $58 million mission from Belarus with love.

Kenya uses app in battle against desert locusts

Loss making in COVID-19 -Why it costs African airlines $42 every time you fly

WEEKEND READ: Alas 2010, I knew it well – what has happened to the world since that night of tears, joy and skullduggery?

How Zimbabwe farmers will be trained how to farm with a scheme from Belarus with love

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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