South Africa, World
While you were sleeping: 17 November 2017
#GuptaLeaks team takes top honours at Vodacom awards, Mugabe resists stepping down in tense meeting, and Japan suffers "tremendous" delay.
TGIF, 17 November 2017
“If some lives form a perfect circle, others take shape in ways we cannot predict or always understand.
Nicholas Sparks
STORY OF THE DAY
ANC Leadership Race: Desperate moves at branch level as clock ticks to December
By CARIEN DU PLESSIS
Less than a month stands between sometimes chaotic branch meetings, a rising number of disputes, a consultative gathering by angry party veterans, and the ANC’s much-anticipated elective conference that starts at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg on 16 December. Still, so tight is the race that no party insider in the know would dare to bet on a front-runner.
Daily Maverick takes top award at Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards
It was a good night for Daily Maverick at the 2017 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards in Midrand on Thursday night. The Daily Maverick reporting on #Guptaleaks, carried out in collaboration with amaBhungane and News24, won the national Financial/Economic category – and also took the coveted top prize of Overall Winner. A judges’ panel led by Ryland Fisher had glowing words for the #GuptaLeaks work, saying that the Daily Maverick-amaBhungane-News24 team was a shining example of collaborative work in a competitive environment.
AU to let SADC take the lead on Zimbabwe
As Robert Mugabe stalls for his future in Harare, the African Union has said that it will let the SADC bloc take the lead actor role. SADC has had issues in this role before, having yet to deploy a military force to Maseru months later. Nonetheless, with Mugabe stalling, and the Zimbabwean military still in power on Friday morning, SADC will certainly have its job cut out for it. Nobody in its Gaborone headquarters gets a weekend, in other words.
Massive defence budget increase for
The United States Congress has submitted a whopping $700-billion defence budget for President Donald Trump’s signature. The figure is $26-billion more than even Trump requested, and if signed it will signify a 15% increase in spending. The budget makes allowance for new F-35 fighter jets, new M1 Abrams tank variants, a military pay increase, and – one expects of this budget – a fully operational laser-eyed T-Rex.
Japan Railway apologises for ‘delay’
While Zimbabwean politics have embroiled Southern Africa in a crisis this week, Japan has been battling its own existential torment. Japan Railway deeply apologised for one train departing 20 seconds too early. The “tremendous nuisance” left rail chiefs in a flurry of
IN NUMBERS
10
The number of times more waste generated using coffee capsules instead of ordinary drip coffee.
FACTS OF THE DAY
Today is Cyril Ramaphosa’s birthday. No clues for what he’ll be wishing for when he blows out his candles.
Tea was used as a currency in Siberia up until the 1940s.
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