Category: People

Ailing Zambian President Michael Sata has not been seen in public for more than two months, prompting a behind-the-scenes power struggle to succeed him.

Publicly at least, the government of this copper-rich nation maintains that 77-year-old Sata – once nicknamed “King Cobra” – is in sound health and is discharging his duties as normal.

But inside Lusaka’s State House and the headquarters of his ruling Patriotic Front (PF), such is the worry about Sata’s health that jockeying for position has already begun, according to analysts.

“There is a power struggle because those that are close to him know that he is not strong enough to live much longer, and they have advanced their preparations for elections,” political scientist Neo Simutanyi told AFP.

Sata has not been seen in public since June 19, when state television showed him meeting visiting Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao.

Since then he has been conspicuous by his absence from a top-level US-Africa summit in Washington, a meeting of southern African leaders just across the border in Zimbabwe and even the opening of a bridge named after him.

If the president dies in office or steps down for health reasons, the cabinet will name an acting president.

Vice-President Guy Scott, who is of Scottish descent, is not eligible to take over as his parents were not born in Zambia.

The next national election is not due until 2016, but in the event of Sata’s death a presidential vote would have to be held within 90 days.

NMG

{{At least 25 people died when a gold mine collapsed near the Central African Republic town of Bambari, a spokesman for the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels which run the mine said on Friday.}}

The mine at Ndassima is carved deep into a forested hilltop about 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Seleka’s military headquarters in Bambari.

It is owned by Canada’s Axmin but was overrun by rebels more than a year ago and now forms part of an illicit economy driving sectarian conflict in the country.

At least 27 artisanal miners were buried in the collapse of the mine on Thursday and 25 bodies have been retrieved, Ahmat Negat, the rebel group’s spokesman, said.

The mine collapse is the latest setback for the country, which has been beset by sectarian violence between the Seleka and Christian militia for over a year.

Newly installed interim Prime Minister Mahamat Kamoun named a government with five Seleka cabinet members on Friday in a bid to help stabilize the mineral-rich country.

A senior official at the Ministry of Mines confirmed the mine collapse and casualties. He said the mine did not follow regulations and miners were working in dangerous conditions.

“Nobody from our service is on the ground to regulate the miners so they dig without any rules. Lower than three metres it gets dangerous and with rain there can be collapses,” the official, Georges Yacinth-Oubaouba.

{{The remains of renowned anti-apartheid journalist Nat Nakasa have been returned to South Africa from the US.}}

He was awarded a year’s fellowship to study journalism at Harvard University in 1964 and took his own life a year later in New York at the age of 28.

The apartheid government had refused to give him a passport so he had left on an exit permit, which meant he was unable to go home.

“Nat would be very happy,” his sister Gladys Maphumulo said.

Hero’s welcome

She attended the memorial service for Nakasa on Saturday in New York, a day after his remains were exhumed.

Nakasa started his career in Durban, and later moved to Johannesburg where he worked for Drum magazine and other publications.

The late Nadine Gordimer knew Nakasa during his time in Johannesburg, and said he was a good talker and through his columns revealed a “a highly personal kind” of journalism which showed the daily reality of apartheid “for one man living through it”.

His writing reflected the “gaiety of a serious man”, said the Nobel Prize-winning author, who died in July.

“The truth is that he was a new kind of man in South Africa,” she wrote in an essay published in a collection of her writing, Telling Times.

“He accepted without question and with easy dignity and natural pride his Africanness, and he took equally for granted that his identity as a man among men, a human among fellow humans, could not be legislated out of existence.”

wirestory

{{A newspaper advert by an advertising company referring to murder accused Paralympian Oscar Pistorius being sent for psychiatric evaluation must be withdrawn, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled.}}

The advert, “Oscar’s Psychiatric Evaluation” by Toast Media was placed in The Times newspaper on 27 May.

“The process to withdraw the advertisement must be actioned with immediate effect on receipt of this ruling,” the ASA said in a recent ruling.

“The advertisement may not be used again in its current format and context. The complaint is upheld.”

Pistorius underwent a month-long psychiatric evaluation at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital, after which the court heard he did not suffer from general anxiety disorder.

On 20 May, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled three psychiatrists and one clinical psychologist would evaluate Pistorius to determine whether his general anxiety disorder and his disability had an effect on him when he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year.

A consumer complained about the advert which contained an image resembling a Rorschach ink-blot. Two handguns on either side as well as what appears to be a heart broken in two can be identified.

Underneath the image “… for alternative creative results” is written with Toast Media’s contact details.

‘Offensive and twisted’

A consumer complained that the advert was offensive and presented a twisted mental image of Pistorius and what the psychiatric evaluation would reveal.

The complainant said it was “insensitive and offensive” to Pistorius’s family and friends.

Toast Media replied and said the advert was not created to offend or depict vulgar views about the situation or subject.

“The advertising came about as a result of The Times newspaper’s challenge to creative houses, compelling them to look at current affairs in fresh and creative ways,” Toast Media said in its response.

“The Oscar Pistorius trial was of interest to the public, and the respondent deemed it appropriate to not only highlight the situation, but to do so in a creative way.”

The ASA said the “tragedy” surrounding Steenkamp’s death at the hands of Pistorius had grabbed international attention and because of his trial so did his referral for psychiatric evaluation.

ASA said it accepted Toast Media’s argument that the information in the advert was in the public domain, but it did not negate the fact that the advert was “capitalising on the tragedy for commercial gain”.

“It communicates as a matter of ‘fact’ that Oscar Pistorius is preoccupied with guns, which led to this tragedy, and in doing so is likely to be perceived as offensive against current public sensitivities.”

“The advertisement must be withdrawn,” ASA said in its ruling.

Final argument in Pistorius’s trial will be heard on Thursday.

He claims he shot Steenkamp by accident through the locked door of his toilet in his Pretoria home, thinking she was an intruder.

The State contends he killed her during an argument.

– SAPA