KZN police seek to resolve impasse between defiant March and March and eThekwini authorities
While the March and March movement has said its 30 June protest against migrants will go ahead despite the refusal of authorities in eThekwini, the province’s police management indicated it would engage directly with the city to resolve the dispute. KwaZulu-Natal South African Police Service spokesperson Robert Netshiunda said: “At the end of the day, these people will march; for us to manage them properly, we need to agree on routes. We’re not going to bend over to say, ‘OK, you want these routes, take them’. We are going to reason with the protesters and [with the city]. If the reasons from the city are not valid enough, the police will advocate for the city to reconsider, and we, as the police, will have to give the city assurance that we are going to manage those matters accordingly.” Police are on high alert around the country ahead of the Tuesday “deadline” arbitrarily set by anti-migrant activists for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country.
More than R290m allocated to helping Gauteng’s embattled local government
The biggest single portion of the R680.5m budget allocated to the Gauteng department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs is the R295.9m for fixing embattled local government. This emerged as auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke warned of the poor state of local government. She pointed out this week that audit outcomes showed none of the country’s eight metros received a clean audit for 2024/25, and that of Gauteng’s 11 municipalities, only the Midvaal and West Rand councils received clean audits.
Vance likens “deep state” responses to Trump’s first administration to Watergate
US Vice President J D Vance drew parallels between disgraced former President Richard Nixon and President Donald Trump, saying they were both targeted by “deep state” forces. He is quoted as saying: “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy. If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.” The Watergate Scandal refers to Nixon’s efforts to conceal his administration’s involvement in the activities of operatives associated with his 1972 re-election campaign who were caught after breaking into and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex. Nixon’s attempted cover-up led to an impeachment process and his resignation in August 1974.
US Supreme Court ruling strips protection from Haitian, Syrian immigrants
A US Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of a humanitarian status that protects them from deportation. In another boost to Washington’s hardline approach to immigration, the court also ruled that migrants arriving at the border are not entitled to apply for asylum until they set foot on US soil. The 6-3 ruling on Haitian and Syrian migrants overturned decisions by federal judges that had blocked the administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,100 from Syria. TPS is granted to individuals whose home countries are unable to accommodate them, due to war or natural disasters.
Public to be given “greatly” increased access to Buckingham Palace
King Charles and Queen Camilla will not move into Buckingham Palace when its more than £350m renovation is completed next year, but will remain at their London home, Clarence House, in part “to greatly increase opportunities for public access” to the royal building. The king and queen would have access to private rooms at the palace to retire to during the day and for occasional overnight stays, and Buckingham Palace would continue to be the ceremonial and operational centre of royal life. The announcement came as it was revealed that the king paid £12.9m in income and capital gains tax in 2024-25 on his personal income, known as the privy purse, making him among the country’s top 100 taxpayers. Prince William paid £7.76m for the same period.
Sources: Reuters, Business Day, Bloomberg, News24, BBC, Guardian