DM Weekly Wrap - Male-mansion, new NPA, Johnny Clegg

[Click here for the web version of this email]( [Daily Maverick]( Sunday, 9 December 2018 Story of the Week [EFF behaviour is a blatant abuse of democracy]( By Mavuso Msimang On 29 November 2018 I gave a keynote address at the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards function. The title I chose for my speech was: Advances and Abuses of Democracy in South Africa. To my horror, the following day I learnt that Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) supporters, in an act of unbridled thuggery, had ransacked Vodacom shops in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Centurion and a number of other centres. This was purportedly to protest my use of a slide during the presentation that depicted EFF leader, Julius Malema and his deputy, Floyd Shivambu as abusers of democracy. [The Best Global Fund Over 1,2,3,4...5 YEARS]( [Shamila Batohi’s ascent to the top of NPA pyramid brings sense of hope and new, better beginning]( South Africa has a new National Director of Public Prosecutions. This is a statement that you will have read in the past, several times, in fact. And now Advocate Shamila Batohi is stepping into a position that has proved to be so poisoned by politics that none of its appointees has come even close to surviving the full ten-year term. There are challenges galore in store for her. But there is also a sense of optimism that perhaps, just perhaps, things may well be about to change at the NPA with Batohi at the helm. By Stephen Grootes [Johnny Clegg Education Fund and lasting legacy launched – and a spectacular anthem]( It has been a long time since anyone in South Africa, or the world for that matter, has been able to pull off a collective anthem that holds any real resonance or deep meaning. On Wednesday a group of 50 artists released a rousing and moving tribute to artist, musician, anthropologist, cultural icon and activist Johnny Clegg, who has been living with pancreatic cancer since 2015. By Marianne Thamm [‘I have been abandoned,’ says Trillian CEO Eric Wood]( As a cash-strapped Eskom battles to keep the lights on, Eric Wood, the former business partner of Gupta kingpin, Salim Essa, says he has been left to wage a R600-million State Capture battle against the power utility all on his own. By Jessica Bezuidenhout [Cape Town’s approach to sewage disposal causing ‘apocalyptic’ problems, researchers warn]( For years, scientists and Capetonians living near the Kuils River have expressed concern that the sewage flowing into the river from a nearby waste water treatment plant is both an environmental and health hazard. Researchers now say that the health consequences of the contamination are growing ever more severe: from people suffering E.coli poisoning of the intestine, to horses born without back legs. Rebecca Davis [Mi-Plan]( - South Africa's No.1 Global Multi-Asset Flexible Fund [Prasa spent millions on automated gates that don’t work]( Lucky Montana used the 2010 World Cup to justify a closed tender for the gates, but work on them only began months after the event finished, according to the Public Protector. By Steve Kretzmann [The 41st US President: A steady hand on foreign policy contrasted with a thousand points of light]( George Bush, 41st president of the United States, passed away on Friday evening at the age of 94. It is important to remember the man for his policies – but also for the way he comported himself in public office, and how he helped leave the world in a safer state than the way he had found it. By J Brooks Spector [Supreme Court of Appeal gets it spectacularly wrong in hate speech case]( South Africa’s Constitutional Court has not yet provided a definitive interpretation of the hate speech provisions in the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA). Hopefully a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), in which a Bench of five judges of the SCA got the law on hate speech completely wrong, will be appealed to the Constitutional Court, who will then have the chance to provide such a definitive interpretation of the hate speech provisions in PEPUDA. By Pierre De Vos [Mi-Plan]( - South Africa's No.1 Global Fund Over 1,2,3,4...5 YEARS [FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO A FRIEND]( Copyright © 2018 Daily Maverick, All rights reserved. You are receiving this mail because you are awesome and on the Daily Maverick First Thing subscriber list. [Getting too many emails from us? Manage your preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](