The bitter power struggle between South African President Thabo Mbeki and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, for control of the ruling African National Congress intensified yesterday when a South African court opened the way for Zuma to be charged with corruption over a multibillion-dollar weapons deal.
The court of appeal's ruling that the police seizure of allegedly incriminating documents from Zuma's home and office was legal was expected to undermine his campaign as the favored candidate to unseat Mbeki as party leader at an ANC congress next month and so become the country's president in 2009.
The court also said investigators could have access to papers about a meeting between Zuma and a French arms company, Thint, at which the payment of a substantial bribe was allegedly discussed.
After yesterday's rulings, the former deputy president said he would seek leave to appeal to the supreme court. Prosecutors said the rulings would allow them to finalize the case against Zuma, which follows the conviction of his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, two years ago for bribing him on behalf of Thint. The court ruling comes six weeks before the ANC leadership election in which Zuma appears to be the only candidate capable of defeating Mbeki.
Mbeki is constitutionally barred from running again for president of the country in 18 months, but there is no legal obstacle to him remaining as the ANC's leader. If he were to win the party vote, he would probably be able to anoint his successor as South Africa's president.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS