Men’s Health had a great story this week about two South African surfers who happened to be in Sumatra when the big quake hit. It’s cool to see a magazine get a break on a big story like this and they played it perfectly: a first-person account of the disaster. It also produces the quote of the week, from one of the surfer bunnies, Andrew Brady, from Cape Town:

I locked eyes with Greame during the most violent part of the quake and the feeling of “oh f#ckness” was mutual as the buildings around us began to collapse!

Then off to disaster of another kind: when one man’s unbuntu get’s a kick in the teeth. The Daily Dispatch had a story about a man who help a house warming party in the burbs to get to know his neighbours and ended up being attacked in his bedroom by two goons. What is this world coming to? A very sad barometer of out violent times.

And then Carl Hiaasen, eat your heart out! The Jackie Selebi trial is turning out to be THE soap opera of the year. Everyday this week there have been new accusations of dodgy intentions, dirt and corruption. What amuses me is the image of Glenn Agliotti cruising Sandton for shoes for Selebi and Thabo Mbeki. What kind of a crook  is this, for heaven sake? Doesn’t he have a wife or a flusie of some kind to do the shopping of bribery wares for him? Click here to go to the M&G’s very nicely presented special report on the trial.

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Five things you need to know today about SA

1. News24 says that in court papers filed by former president Thabo Mbeki he admits he tried to delay the arrest of suspended police chief Jackie Selebi to give him time to prepare the country for the arrest. Read the story here.

2. Meanwhile The Times  reports that KZN politicos are abuzz with speculation that the natty ANC heavyweight Bheki Cele may soon be made the new national police commissioner. Read the story here.

3. Up for a stroll in quiet, landscaped gardens? The Dispatch has quite a story about holes in the perimiter wall of an East London medium security prison that allows memebrs of the public to slip through and wonder the prison grounds (and possibly inmates on gardening duty to escape).  Click here and have a look at the pics of people caught in the act!

4. The Human Rights Commission has said Enough already, children, after the political mud-slinging between DA leader Helen Zille and the ANC, saying: “The country does not need this right now.” Nuff said. Read the IOL story here.

5. The twit in space, Astro_Mike, passed by another satellite that allows him to send his once-a-day Twitter to earth. “Getting more accustomed to living in space today and getting ready for our big rendezvous with hubble,” says the astronaut. Not much of a sense of humour, this guy. What we want to hear is: “Having aliens for lunch.”

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Brett Kebble’s art collection of 133 works goes on auction tonight. It is estimated it will raise R100-million. Wowee! That’s a big number of an SA  art auction. But to put this in perspective, says Business Day, it won’t get anywhere near meeting the debts the late Mr Dodgy Dealer, who  illegally sold R2bn worth of assets belonging to companies he controlled and used the proceeds partly to curry favour with the ANC. SARS is  claiming R183m alone from his estate in unpaid taxes. Read the excellent Business Day story about one of kebble’s oddest legacies.

2. And also at Business Day, there is gloomy story saying that Absa figures show that the average price of homes has dropped the most in 23 years because of the sagging economy. Small houses faired the best, big houses the worst. Read the full story here.

3. Independent Newspaper got 150 SMS bids for the Julius Malema puppet that starred in the withdrawn Nando’s TV advert, says IOL. The two highest bids came from the Nando’s London office and a South African named Leo Chetty (they both bid R25 000), the latter in the hope that Malma will become president one day. Read the story here.

4. By all accounts our president in waiting, Jacob Zuma, was charming and pithy in Parliament yesterday and we hear that will have three first ladies at the plush inauguration in Pretoria on Saturday. Read the News24 story here. But I’m  bit confused here. Doesn’t he only have two wives? (And two girlfirends?) My liewe aarde! South Afirca is going to be an odd place with the Big Chief tearing up the rule book right from the beginning.   You got to hand it to him for goedspa though!

5. And those spy taps are still a hot item. IOL has a story saying that Zuma is not keen to release all of them to the public.  This a wee porblem as police bosses have promised suspended police commisioner Jackie Selebi all the tapes to use in his defence and the DA had applied for copies of all documents and evidence that the NPA had before him when he decided to drop the charges against Zuma as part of the party’s court challenge to the decision. Zuma’s lawyers, meanwhile,  have  demanded that the DA be ordered to hand over R1.2-million in security before it is allowed to legally challenge the NPA decision. This little boomerang is on the arc. Read the story here.

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Uh-oh. That dreaded “deflation” word. Business Day reports that house prices have fallen back to levels last seen in December 2006, according to First National Bank’s house price index. Prices reached double-digit deflation last month, a drop of 10.2%. Read the full story here.

2. IOL reports that the police have promised suspended top cop Jackie Selebi copies of the spy recordings that got ANC president Jacob Zuma off the hook but the prosecution team has cried foul over this decision, saying that they have not heard the recordings. Read the full story here.

3. Cope has told Mosiuoa Lekota that he can’t go to Parliament, says The Times, so it looks like there’s a battle for power between the former defence minister and party head Mvume Dandala and its deputy, Mbhazima Shilowa. Click here to read the story.

4. You’ve got to hand it to Nando’s for genius marketing. A Julius Malema puppet, the star of a withdrawn Nando’s TV advert, is up for auction that the fast food franchise believes  will fetch “at least R5-million”. Says the company’s marketing head:

We do expect him to fetch a good price — he has become a celebrity overnight. And his whole wardrobe comes out of the Woolworths children’s section. He’s completely on trend.

Read the full story here at The Times.

5. And it’s off to the Dispatch for tales from the Far Side. A gang of hapless burglars were found skunk drunk in an Mthatha bottlestore after breaking into it and then parking off and laying into the beer. One beer was found wearing a balaclava.  Read the full story here.

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1. The NPA is saying it’s no biggie that its acting director Mokotedi Mpshe plagiarised parts of his historic decision to drop the charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma from a six-year-old ruling by a Hong Kong judge. Everyone’s got the story but here’s what the NPA sposkesman told The Star:

We are recognising that what we said was based on that judgment and we are in no way attempting to pass that ruling off as our own. We regret the oversight, but it in no way detracts from the decision that advocate Mpshe reached.

Well, that’s alright then Hacks, hack away! A sordid end to a scandalous saga. Read the original story by James Myburgh at Politics.web here. The comments are very entertaining.

2. Business Day reports that the ANC’s Fikile Mbalula is accusing former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils as one of the key plotters in a political conspiracy against Zuma. This after he took a few pot shots at former president Thabo Mbeki. What’s up, Fikile? You’re after Julius’s job? Read the story here.

3. Curiouser and curiouser. Business Day also has a story saying that a ministerial review commission report shows that Kasrils sought more oversight over intrusive methods of intelligence gathering in 2006. Which means he might have known about the spy tapes of telephone recordings between Bulelani Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy (that led to the dropping of the charges against Zuma). The thot plickens. Read the story here.

4. The Times says that the SABC canned a Special Assignment show on political satire hours before it was due to be aired that was to feature interviews with cartoonist Zapiro.
Read the story here.

5. And suspended national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, who faces charges of corruption and defeating the ends of justice, has had his trial postponed to May 4 at the request of the state, which wants more time to prepare. Get to it, manne. You’re being paid with taxpayers’ money.

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1. Suspended police commissioner Jackie Selebi is appearing in court today for his corruption case. But Business Day reports that the state wishes to postpone the trial. Read the story here.

2. Now that everyone’s been to Easter church to atone for their sins, the ANC is back in fine form and its head of organising and campaigns, Fikile Mbalula, has written an open letter to former president, Thabo Mbeki, accusing of leaving the “state apparatus in absolute disarray” and the “state machinery completely paralysed”. Read the letter at The Times here.

3. Aonther one bites the dust. SA’s largest clothing and textile manufacturer, Seardel, has announced the closure of Frame Textiles. Read the Business Day story here.

4. Telkom’s full mobile offering is expected to get off the ground in the last quarter of this year, says MoneyWeb, and its rates look quite competitive. Read the story here.

5. And in case you missed it over the long weekend, the Sunday Times obituary of communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri is something to behold. I’ve never read such a scathing obit. Check out this excerpt:

Under her leadership, national broadcaster, the SABC, which she chaired in the mid 1990s, went from bad to worse — to chaotic.

The chairman of the broadcaster said that when they met to brief her on the deteriorating situation, Matsepe-Casaburri frequently nodded off.

But it goes a long way to explaining why SA is so far behind the rest of the world in telecommunications and television. Read the full Chris Barron’s obit here.

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1. Packing for Perth or just another day in South Africa? Today it’s all about analysing the NPA’s decision to drop the charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma. One of the best comes Tim Cohen who wrote in the Daily Dispatch that the NPA decision shows us that the dream of South Africa having a special claim to the moral highground is dead.

We can claim no special place, no special rights, no special privileges. We are no longer miracle workers, just another grubby participant in the carnival of global politics, subject to base desires, enduring of haughty leaders, ever hopeful of finding just one decent person to carry our banner. Never before has the true nature of the South African State been so obvious, so plainly laid open to public view and so revealing for what it is. Much as we pretend otherwise, the hard truth is we live in a quasi-totalitarian State. And the rules that apply to single-party dominant States apply to us, too, though we pretend they don’t.

Read the full piece here.

2. Veteran investigative hack Sam Sole at the Mail & Guardian has an excellent, insightful piece on the tangled web around the arms deal involving Schabir Shaik and Zuma’s alleged role in it. Was Zuma Shaik’s puppet or a mercenary trying to squeeze as much money as he could out his old struggle buddy? It is well worth a read. Click here.

3. Senior Counsel Paul Hoffman says that the acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe’s concession that the prosecution team, led by Billy Downer, remains of the view that any decision in the matter ought to go court has laid the door wide open to civil litigation — including an urgent application for an order interdicting Zuma from accepting nomination for the presidency.

The fundamental error in his reasoning is that he is unable to point to any prejudice in the legal (as against political) sense that Zuma can possibly claim to have suffered as a consequence of being charged after the ANC’s Polokwane conference rather than before it. The subsidiary decision to withdraw charges against Thint (the arms dealer in question) highlights the fallacy in the reasoning of the NPA. Thint was obviously not a candidate at Polokwane and the two-week difference in timing of the arraignment of both accused is therefore neither here nor there .

Read the full piece here.

4. DA leader Helen Zille says on her Facebook page that party “is now finalising its plan to take the matter further through the legal system“.

5. A senior NPA official told The Times’s that the NPA is, in fact, going to prosecute former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka for violating sections of the NPA Act — rather than recommending an inquiry as indicated by Mpshe. Read the story here. And to throw my two cents in here, suspended police commissioner Jackie Selebi could now escape trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice on the same basis as Zuma (because there was a political conspiracy against him) after being referred to in the transcripts of tapped phone conversation between Ngcuka and McCarthy. If you’ve forgotten what that’s about, click here to read the charge sheet at Financial Mail’s website.

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1. The thot plickens! Bulelani Ngcuka, the former National Prosecuting Authority head, is now accused of calling the shots — with businessmen Saki Macozoma — at the Congress of the People, leading to the “imposition” of Bishop Mvume Dandala as Cope’s presidential candidate, says a Cope member who has defected back to the ANC.

This comes after revelations that ANC President Jacob Zuma’s legal team have phone recordings of Ngcuka, Macozoma and former president Thabo Mbeki that they have presented to the National Prosecuting Authority. Read the full story at The Times.

2. Meanwhile, Business Day reports that Mbeki denies he meddled in the investigation into Zuma. Read the full story here.

3. And the Mail & Guardian is reporting that the NPA’s leaders are divided on whether the corruption and racketeering charges against Zuma should be dropped. An announcement is due early next week.

4. The M&G is also reporting that Cope is accusing Mlungisi Hlongwane, the defector responsible for the allegation that Ngcuka and Macozoma are Cope’s puppet masters, was an ANC mole all along and blames him for the party’s late start to their election campaign. Read the story here.

5. Back at The Times, suspended police chief Jackie Selebi is denying knowledge of the tapped phone calls of Ngcuka, Mbeki, Macozoma and former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy. This after, says the paper, it has established that SAPS members were involved in the eavesdropping operation. Read the story here.

Shjoe! The war is getting dirty. They say a week in politics is a long time and next week’s going to be a cooker!

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