Foreign News
The ex-president’s daughter who faces terror-related charges
A new chapter in South Africa’s long-running Zuma saga is set to begin with the 43-year-old daughter of the former president due to go on trial this week on terrorism-related charges.
In what is believed to be a first for the country, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla is being prosecuted over what she wrote on social media four years ago during deadly protests.
Jacob Zuma’s nine-year presidency, littered with controversies, came to a halt in 2018 amid extensive graft allegations – all denied.
Then in 2021 he was jailed for failing to show up at a corruption inquiry, triggering protests and the worst scenes of violence since before the start of the democratic era in 1994.
A week of anarchy in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, including looting and arson, left at least 300 people dead and caused an estimated $2.8bn (£2.2bn) damage.
Prosecutors allege Zuma-Sambudla played a central role in stoking this.
This unique trial will be a chance for the state’s legal team to prove its mettle in successfully prosecuting cases relating to the 2021 unrest, but the accused sees it as an attempt to settle political scores with her father.
He is now an opposition leader after leaving the African National Congress (ANC) and joining a rival party, Mkhonto weSizwe (MK).
In recent years Zuma-Sambudla has emerged as the former president’s most stalwart supporter regularly seen by his side. She has also become an MK member of parliament.
In 2021, she was outraged by his incarceration and posted images from the looting. The allegation is that these praised what was happening and incited her legion of social media followers, some 100,000 at the time, to press on with the mayhem.
Zuma-Sambudla is accused of the incitement to commit terrorism under the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Act. She is also accused of the incitement to commit public violence.
She has denied the charges, with her lawyer describing the state’s case as “weak”. She used a procedural hearing ahead of the trial to take shots at the prosecution, wearing a shirt ironically branded with the words “Modern Day Terrorist”.
Several dozen posts from July 2021 on what was then known as Twitter are at the heart of the state’s case against her.
In one tweet, she shared a film of a vehicle transporter ablaze and stacked with cars shot at Mooi Plaza, a tollgate near one of the towns in KwaZulu-Natal hardest hit by the violence. Along with the hashtag #FreeJacobZuma she wrote: “Mooi Plaza…We See You!!! Amandla”, along with three fist emojis.
“Amandla” means power in the Zulu language and was a well-known slogan in the resistance movement against white-minority apartheid rule.
In another tweet she shared a poster calling for the “shut down” of KwaZulu-Natal including “roads, factories, shops [and] government” until the former president was released.
She also included the Zulu word “azishe” which literally means “let it burn” but in slang can mean “let it start” or “let it proceed”.
The MP was born and raised in Mozambique, where her father was living in exile after spending a decade as a political prisoner in South Africa. She grew up with her twin brother Duduzane and was one of Zuma’s five children with his third wife Kate Mantsho – who took her own life in 2000.
Duduzile and Duduzane are arguably the most well-known of Zuma’s rumoured 20 children with several wives and former partners.
For several years, it was Duduzane who dominated headlines after his association with the controversial Gupta family came to light in the early 2010s.
That family was at the centre of the corruption allegations that plagued the Zuma presidency. The Guptas and Zuma have denied any wrongdoing.
Apart from her lavish wedding to businessman Lonwabo Sambudla in 2011, dubbed the wedding of the year at the time, Zuma-Sambudla kept out of the spotlight. She mostly focused on raising her two daughters and being a housewife, according to South Africa’s Daily Maverick news site.
She separated from her husband in 2017.
It was around that time that she was seen increasingly at her father’s side whenever he appeared in public, either in court or at political events – as a result the spotlight turned towards her.
Zuma-Sambudla backed her father when he joined the MK party. Despite being a political novice, she now has a seat in parliament, after last year’s general election, and is an influential figure in the party despite holding no official position.
She was also appointed to the African Union’s Pan-African Parliament.
Aside from her controversial 2021 tweets, Zuma-Sambudla has become adept at using her social media accounts to show off her regimented fitness routine, provide glimpses into her private life and throw the occasional barb at her political opponents.
Her higher public profile now makes the case against her “very highly politicised with a strong public interest”, Willem Els, from think-tank the Institute for Security Studies, told the BBC.
Political science academic Prof Bheki Mngomezulu believes the case is politically motivated and a “way of fighting her father”.
“If she wasn’t the daughter of the former president, chances are these charges would have been dropped a long time ago,” he argued.
Both experts also questioned the delay in charging her.
The police’s elite corruption-busting agency, the Hawks, confirmed her arrest in January this year – nearly four years after the deadly protests.
“The fact that so few unrest-related cases have reached conviction also raises eyebrows around whether the prosecution is selective,” Mr Els said.
There have only been a handful of other cases relating to the violence in 2021 that have reached court.
The South African Human Rights Commission, in a statement released earlier this year, indicated that 66 possible cases were currently with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) but it faced challenges due to a “general lack of evidence… and hesitations by witnesses to co-operate or testify due to fears of reprisal and victimisation”.
In the Zuma-Sambudla case, the “high evidentiary bar” will be a big challenge for the prosecutors to show that it was not “just commentary or protest”.
“Prosecutors need to prove intent and causation that a post directly incited terrorism.”
He added that there were “few successful prosecutions” under the relevant legislation and that it was the first time in South Africa’s “legal history that someone has been charged specifically with incitement of terrorism via social media”.
NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga acknowledged in January that the case was “complex in nature” and prosecutors had to bring in external “experts on social media because [the police don’t] have an expert on social media”.
The NPA, however, would not have taken it this far if it was not confident with the case it had built, Mr Els added.
The MK has slammed the case against Zuma-Sambudla as a “social injustice”, while spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela dismissed the “trumped up charges” as a “political ploy” and persecution.
Regardless of whether the prosecution is successful or not the party could make hay from the case and present her as a martyr.
Meanwhile, it is likely to generate massive interest from the public and become part of the country’s continuing Zuma drama.
[BBC]
A long lost painting by Rembrandt has been rediscovered and authenticated by experts, after its whereabouts were unknown for decades.
Rembrandt’s Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, from 1633, was excluded from a list of the Dutch master’s works in 1960, and disappeared after being sold to a private collector the following year.
But it resurfaced when its owners presented it for tests at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which undertook a two-year examination.
“When I saw it in our studio when it was restored, I was immediately struck by the incredible power it has,” Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits said.
The Rijksmuseum receives many emails from people asking for information about paintings they have inherited or bought, Dibbits said. In this case, they knew it could be something special.
“It came to us via email and one of our curators thought, this is really an interesting image, we’ve known about the painting for over 100 years but we’ve never seen it.”
The museum confirmed the authenticity after studying the paints, which fit with those used by Rembrandt during that period, and the painting technique and build-up of layers, which are also comparable with his other early works.
The signature is original and the wooden panel dates from the correct period, the researchers said.
“Materials analysis, stylistic and thematic similarities, alterations made by Rembrandt, and the overall quality of the painting all support the conclusion that this painting is a genuine work,” the gallery said.
The painting has all the hallmarks of Rembrandt at the “peak” of the early part of his career, Dibbits said.
“It’s very high quality. Sometimes with Rembrandt’s portraits you feel that he’s producing in quantity, but with this painting you really feel that he dedicated his soul to it.”
The museum will put the painting on public view from Wednesday.
Its value is not known, but the world record auction price for a Rembrandt painting is £20m, set in 2009.
Other Rembrandt paintings to be sold in recent years include one for £8.6m in 2019, a self-portrait for £12.6m in 2020, and another once-lost Rembrandt work for £11m in 2023.
In 2015, a Rembrandt painting was given a price tag of £35m by the UK government after being sold privately.
Last month, a drawing of a lion by the artist sold for $18m (£13m).
[BBC]
Rembrandt was 27 when he created the painting, which depicts the Biblical scene when priest Zacharias is told by the Archangel Gabriel that despite their age, he and his wife will have a son, John the Baptist.
The museum said Rembrandt had given the Biblical story an innovative twist. Instead of depicting the Archangel Gabriel visibly, he only suggested his presence. In doing so, he departed from established visual traditions and introduced a new way of representing this subject.
Rembrandt deliberately chose the decisive moment, just before Gabriel reveals his true identity.
It is one of the few history paintings Rembrandt created during this period. At the time, he was primarily producing portraits, which were highly lucrative.
[BBC]
Tributes have been paid to the war photographer Paul Conroy who has died at the age of 61.
He covered conflicts around the world and was wounded in the Syrian army’s bombardment of Homs, which killed his Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin in 2012.
Their fateful assignment was depicted in the 2018 movie A Private War, with the actor Jamie Dornan playing Conroy.
The Liverpool-born photographer died from a heart attack on Saturday in Devon, where he had lived, his brother Alan told the BBC.
“He did all his life what he wanted to do to make a difference – he found great pleasure in exposing wrongs,” Alan added.
BBC newsreader Clive Myrie posted that he was “utterly devastated” by the news, describing Conroy as “a wonderful photojournalist and a wonderful human being”.
“I counted him as a friend and a decent, principled and kind man. My brutha you will be sorely missed. RIP”
Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4, added: “All of us who knew and loved him are devastated.”
Conroy also spent seven years with the Royal Artillery as a soldier before becoming a professional photographer and was a trustee of the Frontline Club for media professionals, diplomats and aid workers.
Its founder Vaughan Smith, who was also in the Army, said: “He was one of the characters – those people who stand out because everybody adores them and they make you feel better.”
The 2018 documentary Under the Wire was made about Conroy’s escape from the 2012 bombardment of a makeshift media centre in Homs, where his colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were killed.
Referring to the Syrians who were killed in the area, he said: “These beautiful people who were being slaughtered, I wanted to tell their story.”
He only realised how badly injured he was when he returned to the UK.
“Obviously I knew I had a huge hole in the back of my leg,” he said.
“But in London I found out I also had a great big piece of shrapnel wedged under my kidneys. I had 23 operations on my leg and others on my abdomen and back. I was in hospital for five months.”
Conroy worked in Libya and Ukraine and had recently returned from an assignment in Cuba.
He also took photos for the British singer Joss Stone and wrote music with her.
She said she was “so grateful to have known him and honoured to call him my friend”.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Paul. Paul Conroy was a legend. A wonderful person through and through. Always standing up for what was right. Always there for those in need.”
He leaves behind a wife, three sons and grandchildren.
[BBC]
Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.
Top security officials were also killed in Saturday’s strikes, along with Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as “a great crime”, according to a statement from his office. He also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said people were pouring into the streets of the capital following the news of Khamenei’s killing.
“There will be expected ceremonies,” he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.
Protests denouncing Khamenei’s killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.
Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.
The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning. In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.
Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed demonstrators waving flags and shouting slogans, with witnesses saying some were attempting to mobilise towards the US Embassy. Footage also showed protesters blocking vehicles at a roundabout near one of the entrances to the area.
There was also a protest in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed people setting fire to and smashing the windows of the US consulate.
However, there have also been reports of celebrations in Iran, with the Reuters news agency quoting witnesses as saying some people had taken to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan.
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country’s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country. The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.
While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran’s military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.
[Aljazeera]
Six US soldiers killed in Iranian strike on Kuwait base
Israel attacks presidential office in Tehran as reported death toll in Iran rises to 787
Attorney At Law S K Sangakkara pasess away
SriLankan Airlines Update on Middle East Operations
Trump says Iran war projected to last 4 to 5 weeks, could go ‘far longer’
Qatar downs two Iranian fighter jets as conflict widens
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
Opinion5 days agoJamming and re-setting the world: What is the role of Donald Trump?
-
Features5 days agoAn innocent bystander or a passive onlooker?
-
Features6 days agoRatmalana Airport: The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth
-
Business7 days agoDialog partners with Xiaomi to introduce Redmi Note 15 5G Series in Sri Lanka
-
Features7 days agoBuilding on Sand: The Indian market trap
-
Opinion7 days agoFuture must be won
-
Features2 days agoBrilliant Navy officer no more
-
Opinion2 days agoSri Lanka – world’s worst facilities for cricket fans