By Jackie Cameron
- South Africa will use a meeting in the United Arab Emirates this week to ramp up pressure on the country to sign an extradition agreement that could be used to extradite members of the Gupta family to face corruption-related allegations in Johannesburg. “We have to establish through the meetings why the U.A.E has not signed the extradition treaty,” South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters in Pretoria on Monday. Authorities in South Africa signed their side of the agreement last year and now need their counterparts in the Middle East to do the same, he said.
- Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has been accused of misconduct by a whistleblower who filed an affidavit to the president’s office on Friday, says Bloomberg. It quotes the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism. According to the statement, a report published by Mkhwebane in 2017 calling for a constitutional amendment was ordered by the state security agency, her former employer. The proposed amendment would have ultimately led to the nationalisation of South Africa’s central bank. “These are baseless claims and ramblings of disgruntled current and former employees, some of whom are or were facing disciplinary action,” Mkhwebane’s spokesman Oupa Segalwe said by text message. The whistleblower also alleged that Mkhwebane instructed investigators not to publish information about two politicians in a 2018 investigation into the Gupta money-laundering scheme, says Bloomberg.
- The Economic Freedom Fighters, a significant opposition force in Parliament, has re-elected founder Julius Malema and deputy Floyd Shivambu to head the party at its conference in Johannesburg over the weekend. Bloomberg says the leadership structure of six people, which is similar to that of the ruling African National Congress, did see changes in the other four positions, according to a party Tweet. Chairman Dali Mpofu was replaced by Veronica Mente, who started her career as bodyguard to the mayor of Cape Town.
- The wife of Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who was arrested during the weekend over alleged fraud and money laundering, now faces an additional charge of attempted murder, says Bloomberg. Prosecutors accused Mary Mubaiwa of deliberately denying the vice president medical attention at the height of his illness and unlawfully interfering with medical procedures when he finally got to a hospital, says the news agency. “On 23 June 2019, the accused kept on denying the complainant access to medical treatment and the security team had to force their way to take the complainant to Netcare Hospital,” according to charges read out by Prosecutor Michael Reza in the capital, Harare. Chiwenga, a possible challenger to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, returned to Harare in November after spending months in South Africa, China and India seeking treatment for an undisclosed illness, reports the international news wire service. The retired general orchestrated the army intervention that toppled former President Robert Mugabe and brought Mnangagwa to power, adds Bloomberg.
- The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives could vote as soon as Wednesday to formally charge President Donald Trump, a Republican, with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” making him only the third US president in history to be impeached, says Reuters. Democrats charge that Trump abused his power as president by pressuring a foreign government, Ukraine’s, to help him win re-election. They accuse the president of endangering the U.S. Constitution, jeopardising national security and undermining the integrity of the 2020 election. “At the heart of their impeachment case is testimony by current and former officials alleging an extraordinary effort that went outside official channels to pressure Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation into former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, a potential political rival in 2020,” says the news agency.
- The UK Labour Party is looking for a new leader after its heavy defeat in last week’s general election and Jeremy Corbyn announced his plans to resign. Bloomberg says the process is expected to begin in January, with his successor tasked with trying to unite a party that has become bitterly divided over Corbyn’s socialist policies and accusations of antisemitism. “Despite Corbyn’s failure to win at a national level, his popularity within Labour will be tough to follow,” say Bloomberg journalists.
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