SA’s municipal water services in “vicious downward spiral” – DG
The Director General of the Department of Water and Sanitation, Sean Phillips, says increasing private-sector participation, ensuring water services are financially self-sustaining, and amending the Water Services Act are among possible solutions to deteriorating municipal water services, problems he characterised as a “vicious downward cycle”. One example was Johannesburg not being able to afford to send contractors to repair identified leaks. In his keynote address at a Smart Water Action Network workshop in Cape Town this week, he said: “There wouldn’t be a shortage of water in Gauteng or eThekwini if there weren’t so many leaks … In eThekwini, the leaks are about 50% [of the water supplied], in Johannesburg, the leaks are about 35%.”
Russian tactics detected in Iran’s drone attacks, says UK defence secretary
UK defence secretary John Healey has said senior British officers have told him that drone pilots from Iran and Iranian proxies are increasingly adopting tactics “from the Russians”. Iran has already fired more than 2,000 Shahed drones – long-range weapons heavily used by Russia against Ukraine – across the Middle East in response to the US-Israeli attack launched on 28 February. Healey said: “I think no one will be surprised to believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially, potentially some of their capabilities as well.”
Mbalula, Kriel clash over US ambassador’s 1980s sentiments about ANC
AfriForum executive director Kallie Kriel has slammed ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula for attempting to make political capital out of a letter US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III wrote in 1987 as president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, referring to “ANC terrorism”, and expressing qualms about a proposed meeting between Oliver Thambo, then ANC leader, and US Secretary of State George Shultz. While Mbalula said the letter showed Bozell “is an unrepentant racist and a pathological hater of Black liberation”, Kriel said the incident only demonstrated that Mbalula was willing to promote his own, and his party’s, interests at the expense of South Africans. “He’ll be eating caviar while the poor suffer because of his stupidity,” Kriel posted on X.
Cuba take-over speculation fuelled by Trump’s, senator’s comments
Speculation swirling in Washington about a possible overthrow of Cuba’s Communist regime have been fuelled in part by the comments of Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Fox News this week that “Iran is going down, and Cuba is next.” Last week, US President Donald Trump told CNN: “Cuba is going to fall pretty soon. Cuba’s ready – after 50 years.” Trump has said that Cuba is “in its last moments of life as it was” and that the focus is on a negotiated transition in government rather than a military strike.
Rapper-politician Balendra Shah set to lead Nepal
Balendra Shah’s only political experience has been as mayor of Kathmandu, but the landslide performance of his Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) in Nepal’s first election since last year’s youth-led protests toppled the then government, puts the rapper-turned-politician on track to become prime minister. The RSP, which Shah joined only recently, received 182seats in the final tally, falling short of a two-thirds supermajority in the parliament’s lower house by two seats, but it is the biggest win for a single party in Nepal in decades.
Sources: Netwerk24, BBC, The Guardian, Bloomberg, News24