I-EFF ifuna kubhekwe ukudla okudayiselwa abafundi ezikoleni ngenxa yeListeriosis

Johannesburg – I-Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) inxuse uMnyango weMfundo eyisiSekelo ukuba uqinisekise ukuthi ukudla okudayiselwa abafundi akunazo izithako ezifana nopholoni, ngemuva kokumenyezelwa kokuthi ungumsuka wesifo i-listeriosis.

UNgqongqoshe wezeMpilo uDkt Aaron Motsoaledi ngeSonto uthe kutholakale ukuthi lesi sifo sisuka efemeni yakwa-Enterprise esePolokwane, ekhiqiza imikhiqizo efana nopholoni.

"Sinxusa nokuba izigungu ezengamele izikole kanye namalungu emikhandlu emele abafundi ukuba bafake izindlela eziqinile zokulawula izinto ezidayiselwa abafundi emagcekeni esikole nasezitolo eziseduzane,” kusho okhulumela i-EFF uMbuyiseni Ndlozi.

OLUNYE UDABA: Usutholakele umsuka wesifo i-Listeriosis

UNdlozi uthe kumele kusolwe i-Enterprise Food neRainbow Chicken ngemuva kokuba uMotsoaledi ethe lesi sifo siqubuke kulezi zinkampani.

"Kuzomele baphendule ngokubhebhethekisa isifo nangokubulala abantu,” kusho uNdlozi.

Lesi sifo sesibulale abantu ababalelwa kwabangu-180 eNingizimu Afrika selokhu siqubuke ngonyaka ophelile.

DoJ, FBI open investigations into Charlottesville violence

 

   Militia members face off against counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday. Photo by      Virginia State Police

   

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI said they would launch investigations into the Charlottesville, Va., demonstrations during which one anti-racism protester, opposed to the white nationalist gatherings, was killed.

In the deadly incident amid larger protests, a car plowed into a crowd of protesters opposed to white nationalist rallies being held in the Va. city. Authorities identified the victim as 32-year-old Heather Heyer, a paralegal from Greene County.

"The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated. I have talked with FBI Director Chris Wray, FBI agents on the scene and law enforcement officials for the state of Virginia," Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote in a statement on Saturday. "The FBI has been supporting state and local authorities throughout the day. U.S. Attorney Rock Mountcastle has commenced a federal investigation and will have the full support of the Department of Justice. Justice will prevail."

Cellphone video of Saturday's attack showed the vehicle, a gray Dodge Challenger, driving at high speed into a narrow street crowded with protesters opposing the white nationalists who flooded Charlottesville for one of the movement's largest rallies in years.

After entering the crowd, the car reversed back down the street striking additional pedestrians, revealing severe front-end damage and a smashed windshield.
Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas called the incident "premeditated violence" and said it "is being treated as a criminal homicide investigation."

Thomas said the male driver was arrested shortly after the incident. The vehicle's license plate is visible in the video and The Washington Post reported it is registered to James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, near Toledo. Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer confirmed to the newspaper Fields was booked on several charges, including suspicion of second-degree murder. He is being held without bail.

"The Richmond FBI Field Office, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia have opened a civil rights investigation into the circumstances of the deadly vehicular incident that occurred earlier Saturday morning," the FBI said in a statement on Saturday. "The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and as this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time."

The University of Virginia Medical Center said 19 people were also injured in the car-ramming incident, while 15 others were wounded in events associated with the scheduled protest.

Two Virginia State Patrol troopers -- identified as pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates, who would have turned 41 on Sunday -- also died when a helicopter crashed near Charlottesville after monitoring the incidents on Saturday.

Iran's parliament votes to increase spending on missile program

Iran's parliament has voted to funnel more funds to the nation's ballistic missile program. During Sunday's voting session, 240 out of 244 legislators approved the missile spending bill.

This legislation was described as an effort to "counter America's terrorist and adventurist actions in the region" and heralded as a justified response to new sanctions adopted by the United States earlier this summer.

In July, Iran launched a satellite-capable rocket into space. The launch did not violate the terms of the 2015 nuclear treaty between the United States, Iran and Western nations, but the move was strongly criticized by the U.S. and other Western allies.

In response to the launch, President Trump signed a bill outlining new sanctions against several Iranian groups, freezing funds and outlawing U.S. citizens from doing businesses with the targets.

With the newly passed funding bill, Iran's parliament offered a rebuke of the U.S. sanctions.

"The Americans should know that this was our first action," speaker Ali Larijani said after announcing the voting results -- according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The bill still needs to pass a second vote before it is delivered to a clerical body for review and passage into law. The legislation would divide 20 trillion rials, or $609 million, between the missile program and the Quds Force, a special forces unit of the nation's Revolutionary Guards.

What’s happening inside the ANC, not parliament, is key to why Zuma prevails

What matters inside the African National Congress, the party that governs South Africa, is not necessarily what matters outside it. This obvious point is missed by much of the commentary on the latest unsuccessful motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma – and in much discussion of South African politics.

One result of ignoring this reality is the claim that the vote seriously weakened Zuma because several dozen ANC members of parliament supported the motion or abstained.

This was the first time some ANC MPs supported a motion of no confidence in an ANC president. But, while Zuma came within 21 votes of losing in parliament, he was probably backed by 80% or more of the ANC caucus. Most of the votes against him were cast by opposition MPs, who do not have a say in who is ANC president, not ANC members, who do.

Unless parliament passes a motion of no confidence in him, which is not on the cards any time soon, his future depends on whether he was weakened in the ANC, not parliament.

Within the ANC, Zuma’s future is not the absorbing fixation it is outside it.

Loyalty amid factionalism

For many outside the ANC, politicians are defined by whether they want Zuma to go. Inside it, the key reality is a battle between two factions: Zuma’s is accused by its opponents, whose likeliest presidential candidate is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, of using public office to advance private interests. While Zuma is supported by one and opposed by the other, both know he does not shape what the ANC and government do on his own – he acts as part of a faction. If he goes and the faction wins, nothing changes and so for both sides, winning the factional battle is far more important than Zuma’s fate.

The contest is centred on winning the leadership elections at the ANC’s December national elective conference. What both sides do, they do with that in mind – Zuma’s fate is a product of this battle.

Key figures in the factions also want to run an ANC in good shape to win the next election and so they worry about splitting or damaging the organisation. If doing what matters to people outside the ANC risks harming it, they will not do it.

There is no evidence yet that the vote weakened Zuma’s faction. Because the vote was secret, we don’t know which MPs voted for him to go. But common sense suggests that they are not pro-Zuma faction members who changed sides but staunch members of the group which wants him gone. So the anti-Zuma group has not grown because some of its members expressed themselves more forcefully.

Nor does it show that the tide within the ANC is moving against Zuma. What matters inside the ANC, but not outside it, is loyalty to the organisation. For many years it was banned and under constant attack – this produced a culture in which the default position is to close ranks in the face of what it sees as outside attack. This made the dissent by ANC MPs a huge step for them. But there is no reason why their view should be shared by others – given the premium on loyalty, their decision could help the pro-Zuma faction by discrediting its opposition.

This misfit between the logic of ANC politics and that outside it explains other aspects of the no confidence vote which have caused confusion. One is that figures such as secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and chief whip Jackson Mthembu worked to get ANC MPs to defeat the motion although they oppose Zuma’s faction; the SA Communist Party, which has called on Zuma to go, did not ask its members to support the motion.

They did this not because they have switched sides but because they believed Zuma’s defeat in a no confidence vote was unlikely – and would not help them if it happened. The opposing faction would still be there, as strong as before. They might be strong enough to replace Zuma with another member of the faction, changing nothing. Or, more likely, the deadlock between the factions would tear the ANC apart and might allow the opposition to elect a president by default. So they preferred to feign loyalty and to work to take over the ANC in December.

Balance of power

This means that the overwhelming ANC caucus vote against the motion does not tell us that the faction to which Zuma belongs is winning and will control the ANC after December. Many MPs who voted against the anti-Zuma motion may be part of the faction which wants him gone: they may have voted as they did because the leaders of their faction told them that strategy made this necessary. So the balance of power in the ANC, which decided who will lead it next year, may not have been affected either way by the no confidence vote.

What is happening inside the ANC may not be morally uplifting. But nor is it about foolishness or hypocrisy. It stems from decisions which are entirely logical if what matters inside the ANC matters to you. If everyone outside the ANC wants to grasp what is happening and where it might lead, they need to understand what matters inside the ANC.

De Blasio wants richest New Yorkers to pay for subway repairs

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will propose a surcharge for the city's wealthiest residents to pay for improvements to the city's deteriorating subway system, officials said Sunday

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will propose a tax increase on the city's most wealthy residents to pay for repairs to the subway and bus systems.

The surcharge on the city's highest tax rate would increase the rate from 3.3 percent to 4.9 percent -- and would raise $695 million in 2018 and $820 million in 2019, the mayor's spokesman said Sunday.

The increase would affect about 32,000 New Yorkers, whom officials identified as the top 1 percent of all taxpayers in the city. That funding would be dedicated to repairing the city's deteriorating transit system, which has seen accidents and delays in recent months, as well as an increase in the cost of fares.

"Rather than sending the bill to working families and subway and bus riders already feeling the pressure of rising fares and bad service, we are asking the wealthiest in our city to chip in a little extra to help move our transit system into the 21st century," de Blasio said Sunday in a statement.

A tax increase will require approval of state legislators. With Republicans in control the New York Senate, the proposed surcharge could face opposition -- but the magnitude of the problem has captured the attention of both parties in Albany, The New York Times reported Monday.

The proposal comes as de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, publicly argue over who should pay for improvements to the city's aging transportation system. While the state controls the transportation authority, Cuomo has called on de Blasio to help find funding.

The worsening system is hurting Cuomo's approval ratings among New York City voters, and de Blasio is blamed for the problem by the city subway workers' union.

Pope Francis replaces powerful Cardinal Mueller

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller attends the Canonization Mass of six new Saints at Saint Peter's square in Vatican City on November 23, 2014. Pope Francis chose not to ask Mueller to serve a second five-year term in the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican announced Saturday. Photo by Fabio Frustaci/EPA

Pope Francis has replaced Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who was Vatican's doctrinal chief who handled sex abuse cases, with the cardinal's deputy.

On Saturday, Francis named Archbishop Luis Ladaria, 73, to succeed conservative Mueller as the Vatican's doctrine chief with Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

On Thursday, the pope granted another conservative, Cardinal George Pell, a leave of absence to return to his native Australia to face trial on sexual assault charges.
The Vatican statement said the pope thanked Mueller "at the end of his quinquennial mandate as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission."

Mueller and Pell were among the most powerful in the Vatican under the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI had named Mueller, a fellow German countryman, to lead the Doctrine of the Faith in 2012. Mueller previously served for 10 years as the bishop of the southeastern German diocese of Regensburg.

The five-year term of Mueller, who turned 70 in December, ends this weekend. The normal retirement age for bishops is 75.

During Mueller's tenure, the sex abuse caseload has piled up. Last year, Francis confirmed the backlog was 2,000 cases.

Mueller opposed Francis' 2016 document on family life, "The Joy of Love," in which he was open to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion.

Mueller didn't join a campaign by four conservative cardinals attacking the pope's document as vague and confusing and publicly requesting Francis clarify it. Mueller defended the document, saying it actually doesn't allows Communion for these Catholics because church tradition simply could not permit it.

But in an interview in May with EWTN when asked about the matter, the cardinal stated: "We don't accept polygamy."

Mueller also said that it is "not possible" for women to be ordained to the diaconate and that female deacons "will not come."

Ladaria, a Spanish Jesuit, was appointed to lead a commission to study whether women could be deacons in the church. Benedict named Ladaria as secretary in the congregation in 2008, the second-highest position in the congregation.