WEEKDAY TOP TEN
Dwarves decree that giant lacks stature

10. The op-ed article by Douglas Rogers in the New York Times on Zimbabwe's "accidental triumph":

Rogers writes that ever since Mugabe set out, in 2000, to annihilate the local white population, Westerner's have tended to accept the Zanu-PF narrative "of blacks and whites pitted against one another. But, in doing so, they have missed the inspiring story of what has actually been happening in Zimbabwe over the past decade. After years of mass unemployment, mutant inflation, chronic shortages and state violence, Zimbabweans simply don't care about skin color. In fact, Mr. Mugabe has managed to achieve the exact opposite of what he set out to do in 2000: the forging of a postracial state."

9. The Times editorial on how Jacob Zuma's authority is at stake in his showdown with Julius Malema:

The newspaper noted that since bursting onto the public scene Malema has enjoyed the protection of "senior leaders at Luthuli House who saw him as a useful weapon with which to bash their political opponents. But the tide is now turning against him, with President Jacob Zuma - a man who partly owes his position to Malema's success at intimidating those within the ANC who preferred a different presidential candidate - now agitating for disciplinary steps to be taken against the 29-year-old." The authority of Zuma within the ANC will be put to the test when the national working committee meets to discuss whether disciplinary action should be taken. "If the committee sides with Malema, as youth league insiders seem confident it will, Zuma's hand, at both party and government level, will be weakened. This would suggest that his word no longer carries much weight."

8. The South African Jewish Report article (PDF) breaking the story that Judge Richard Goldstone had been forcefully dissuaded from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah:

Moira Schneider wrote that Goldstone, who headed a hugely controversial commission into the Gaza conflict, "is effectively being barred from attending his grandson's barmitzvah, due to be held in Johannesburg early next month. Following negotiations between the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) and the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in Sandton, where the event is due to take place, an agreement has been reached with the family. As a result, Justice Goldstone will not be attending the synagogue service." By Friday the story had reached the New York Times. Barry Bearak reported that "For the past few days, many South African Jews have concerned themselves with a question perhaps better put to Talmudic scholars: Is it ever right for protesters to keep a grandfather from his grandson's bar mitzvah?"

7. Eusebius McKaiser's column in Business Day in which he gave the media a "Malema-like G" for its reporting on the Eugene Terre'Blanche condom claims:

McKaiser noted the police had immediately denied the claim that a used condom had been found at the murder scene. Nonetheless, "Hundreds of homophobic inferences and comments on social networking sites followed. This was topped up by the Sunday press running with the theme, captured in a particularly lurid header in one paper that asked, ‘Was ET gay and bonking darkies?' ... Yet, why does a used condom's presence imply that anyone in the room must have been gay? The presence of a condom is consistent with a number of possibilities, all of which the media ignored because doing so would get in the way of the wonderfully frivolous reduction of the murder story to a gay orgy gone wrong. Frivolity sells. Evidence-informed reasoning doesn't."

6. The Beeld article on how both lawyers for the defence in the Terre'Blanche murder case had now retracted earlier claims that the AWB leader's death had been triggered by sexual abuse of their clients:

Puna Moroko, the attorney of Chris Mahlangu, was quoted as saying it was a "man to man fight over money. Politics had nothing to do with it. The reports over the condom and sodomy also have nothing to do with our case. It was about two adults fighting over money." Zola Majavu, attorney for the 15 year old accused, told the newspaper: "I don't know what Mr Terre'Blanche's sexual preferences were, but I am unaware of a condom being found in the room. I will discuss the situation with my client but I am not aware of any relationship between him and the departed."

5. The Business Day report on the decision by the dwarves on the Judicial Service Commission that legal giant, Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC, lacked sufficient stature to be a Cape High Court judge:

Franny Rabkin wrote that before the JSC interviews lawyers had told Business Day that Gauntlett's appointment was a near certainty. "Even those who disliked him thought he would be appointed and deserved to be as he is considered to be one of the most experienced, senior and prolific silks in SA....Nevertheless, Gauntlett is understood to have got nine votes only, out of 25, in a secret ballot."

4. The Mail & Guardian Online report on former police chief Jackie Selebi's admission in court that he had blocked investigations into apartheid-era crimes:

Jackie Mapiloko and Adriaan Basson write that during his testimony in his corruption trial Selebi was asked by his counsel, Jaap Cilliers, about what caused the breakdown in the relationship between him and the Scorpions. During his reply, "Selebi told the court he was told by police officers who attended a meeting with senior NPA prosecutor Anton Ackerman that the NPA needed police detectives to help Ackerman investigate crimes committed under apartheid by the ANC and the South African security forces. Selebi refused to assist the NPA. ‘How am I expected to give police to Anton Ackerman to investigate me and possibly charge me for the fight against apartheid? That created a big problem in our relationship [with the Scorpions]'."

3. David Jones' interview in the Daily Mail (London) with former Sunday Times (Johannesburg) columnist Jani Allen:

The Daily Mail tracked Allen down to the little town of Lambertville, New Jersey, where "she works as a restaurant hostess." Explaining why she had fled into obscurity Allen told Jones: "How would you like it if your wife or mother was forever known as the tart who slept with a far-Right racist buffoon who fell off his horse? My life has been ruined. I've so much to say about the terrible things that are happening to white people in South Africa and I want to become a talking head. But no one takes me seriously any more - everything I say is devalued by what supposedly happened 20 years ago with Eugene Terre'Blanche".' Allen still denies having had an affair with the late AWB leader, a claim vehemently contested by her former friend Linda Shaw. Shaw states, however, that in one crucial respect Allen was telling the truth. "For she is also convinced the intelligence services used the affair story as part of a plot to discredit Terre'Blanche; but they had no need to invent it because it really happened."

2. The Star report on why it was that Terre'Blanche was unable to pay the two workers who allegedly killed him:

The newspaper reported that "A week before he was bludgeoned to death, Terre'Blanche's domestic worker of 20 years died and he paid a sum of R7 000 to a local funeral parlour towards the burial of Rose Matheu.... On the morning of Terre'Blanche's murder, his alleged killers had apparently gone to his Ventersdorp house demanding their wages. Another employee, Thozamile Lephonda, 17, said he also went to the house that morning. ‘I met the two (alleged killers) there, who were also complaining about their wages. Terre'Blanche's wife told us that they paid for the funeral costs (of Matheu) and she asked me to return the next day for my pay,' Thozamile said."

1. Karima Brown's analysis in Business Day on why the ANC leadership had finally lost patience with Julius Malema:

Brown notes "While the ANC is notorious for moving slowly when reprimanding one of its own, the party machinery gets decisive once it realises the risks of inaction." According to one insider, "If one becomes a permanent source of division in the ANC, as is the case with Julius, the ANC takes very strong exception to such individuals." According to Brown there is apparently a "growing consensus among the different factions in the ruling party that Malema has become too much of a political liability for the entire party. Even those who found Malema to be a ‘useful idiot' when they needed him in their battle against the party's leftist allies, are now keen to distance themselves from him. It is understood that pro-business leaders such as Tokyo Sexwale - apparently a youth league funder - and ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa are among those who are said to have grown weary of Malema's constant rabble-rousing."

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