DA removes Burke from finance committee “out of an abundance of caution”
The South African Reserve Bank’s investigation of a company of which he is a beneficiary has prompted DA MP Dr Mark Burke’s removal from parliament’s finance committee and the party’s finance cluster. Initially the party had said it would take no action in the absence of a finding of wrongdoing. Yesterday, however, DA parliamentary leader George Michalakis said Burke’s removal, made in consultation with the MP, was made “out of an abundance of caution” to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest.
Some US health funding restored to SA scientists
South African research into HIV and tuberculosis is to have some of its US funding restored, after US President Donald Trump’s executive order last year stopping all foreign aid and assistance to South Africa (citing concerns about the government’s “egregious actions” against white Afrikaner farmers and Israel). The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has changed course on funding South African research projects, opening the door for local scientists to apply for its grants once more. NIH director Jay Bhattacha said that “[b]ecause NIH grants are distinguished from ‘foreign aid or assistance … meritorious research projects located in South Africa are permitted to proceed …’” However, scientists from South Africa will no longer be eligible for research training and career development grants from the NIH’s Fogarty International Centre, with a memo saying this is because South Africa is an upper middle-income country and a member of the G20.
Ballooning US debt reaches milestone
National debt in the United States has ballooned to a milestone $40tn, having more than doubled in a decade. The latest Treasury figures have prompted fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is building, as rising costs for social safety-net programmes and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts. The rise reflects years of heavy spending under both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations, along with higher interest payments that have steadily added to the total. In 2016, the national debt stood at just under $20tn.
Fury over Israel’s decision not to criminally investigate Australian aid worker’s death in Gaza strike
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “outraged” over an Israeli military decision not to launch a criminal investigation into the death of aid worker Zomi Frankcom, killed in an air strike in Gaza in 2024. Wong said the decision “falls far short of the accountability we expect”. Frankcom was an Australian aid worker with World Central Kitchen (WCK) who was killed with six colleagues in an Israeli attack. After meeting Wong, Ambassador Hillel Newman defended the Israel Defense Forces and its investigation, saying “there was no criminal intention” and therefore “no criminal responsibility”. This is one of the results of a number of reviews of several high-profile “exceptional operational incidents” in Gaza since October 7, 2023. In another shocking case, the IDF said it would launch Military Police investigations into the killings of five-year-old Hind Rajab and 15 Palestinians in Tel al-Sultan. The killing of the Rajab family is perhaps the best-known such incident of the entire war. It drew widespread attention because of a lengthy recorded phone call between Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car with the bodies of members of her family, and the Palestinian Red Crescent, as well as her mother, who was elsewhere at the time. After an extended time, the call was cut off; only 10 days later were the bodies of Hind, her relatives, and the two paramedics found. At the time, the IDF said preliminary investigations showed its forces were not involved.
Former Archbishop Williams accuses Farage of misusing Christianity against Islam
Rowan Williams, a former archbishop of Canterbury, has accused Nigel Farage of misusing Christianity in Britain “to channel anti-Muslim feeling”. In an interview, Williams is quoted as saying: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.” Asked what he believed was driving Christian nationalism in the UK, Williams said: “There are lots of possible causes. Anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism. In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect. The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them.”
Sources: BBC, Haaretz, Business Day, The Guardian