South Africa

You know one of the things I love about blogging in SA - you're never at a loss for material. Say I was cursed to live in a place like New Zealand where the headlines of the day included things like "US men's curlers defeat New Zealand" or "Bold NZ Wines take the world by storm" (yawn). Let's compare these tame offerings to our own news-on-steroids :

Durban - In a bizarre parallel, Jacob Zuma's "love child" Edward - the reason why Judge Jeremiah Shongwe, Edward's uncle, was unable to hear Zuma's rape trial this week - has also faced a rape charge. And the repercussions of those charges led to another probe into Zuma and his financial adviser Schabir Shaik's finances, after allegations that Shaik arranged payments to the alleged victim once she dropped the case. Shaik's regular payments of various expenses on Zuma's behalf, which the two men say were legitimate loans, were part of the corruption charges against Shaik.

 

Mziwoxolo Edward Zuma was arrested on October 22 2000 for allegedly raping a fellow student at the University of Zululand. The charges were withdrawn and, on October 27, Zuma's office issued a statement saying the two parties had discussed the matter and resolved it amicably. However, noseweek magazine later claimed there appeared to be a financial inducement attached to this decision, which emerged when the MD of one of Shaik's companies queried payments made to the girl from company accounts.

 

Now that's what I call news!!