Columnist/Fumbling podcaster iono.fm/c/5913 Fmr Editor, Business Day & Financial Mail, Joburg. Ex Madrid, Bonn Corr & UK News Editor @FT🇿🇦🇺🇦
Johannesburg, South Africa
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts — Bertrand Russell
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Well, Kevin, if we as young men had stood up to injustice like these guys we would not have become the country you had to leave... nitter.app/kp24/status/9188342920…
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My dad, Harold Bruce, passed away this morning. He was 93. The thing I most immediately missed was the phone call after the Springboks beat England. He would have been in tears with pride...
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I hope @CyrilRamaphosa gets well soon. We may criticize him but if he suddenly wasn't there the immediate alternatives are spine-chilling...
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Scary watching JZ enter the election centre a rock star. Given we don't know who financed MK, are we in fact watching a coup of sorts? He offers the ANC immediate rerstoration – just fire Cyril and hand him control. A lot of ministers would go for it, Gwede for one, I suspect...
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I'm told this is a bridge over the Crocodile River being swept away near Barberton. Can anyone confirm...?
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How can there be "no regrets" over a fuck up of this magnitude. It's not about him. It's about the country!!!
Expelled ambassador to US Ebrahim Rasool says he has no regrets buff.ly/yHh3QaI
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We're not as rich as the UK and we don't have an NHS but @CyrilRamaphosa made @BorisJohnson look like a beginner last night....
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It's really hard to believe a political party thought it had stopped a VAT increase, and then boasted about it, and then realized it hadn't stopped the VAT increase and then vanished. @Action4SA is very quiet this morning...,
Lies! Making a recommendation is not the same as making an amendment to the Fiscal Framework! ActionSA made a recommendation & then proceeded to vote in favor of the famework in the Finance Committee
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Can I just say to my SA friends on Twitter that you need to stock up on whatever your poison is very quickly when the alcohol and tobacco bans are lifted. The virus is a fiend and the bans will be back with no warning. Keep a three month supply of whatever you can't live without.
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Devastating... that's real courage and leadership...
Dear Mr President @CyrilRamaphosa
Here’s your reasons if any to fire the Minister of Police!!
Kante what country is this 😡
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How dumb do we get??
Yesterday, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, held talks with the Chief of the South African National Defense Force, General Rudzani Maphwanya, in Tehran, and announced the readiness to enhance military cooperation between the two countries.
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Not what I wanted hear but that was easily @CyrilRamaphosa 's best #PresidentialAddress yet. Now let's wait for the professional whingers. Or not. They're almost always wrong...
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If you were wondering how SA copes with 46% unemployment, no growth and no leadership, the answer is that our hidden economy is just massive and runs on cash alone. This is one store in a small Transkei village today and the manager says it been like this for weeks...
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This is just shocking behavior by @eNCA management. Your anchors are supposed to be strong characters and this was a good show. Profoundly depressing to see independent media acting as censors for the State at a time of national emergency...
Xoli Mngambi & Jane Dutton have been suspended by @eNCA. Staff were told of their suspensions today.
If not futher explained, this reduces eNCA to the same status as the SABC under Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
The only thing worse than poor commentary by your anchors is to censor them.
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How quickly Nomvula and others lecturing @Our_DA on the role of the President forget that had the DA not voted for his election two weeks ago he might not be making a Cabinet at all. DA support guaranteed him the job... Still does.
[WATCH] "No self-respecting organisation can agree with the demands the DA is making" - ANC first deputy secretary general Nomvula Mokonyane in conversation with @XoliMngambi .
#Newzroom405
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That just cannot be right. Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme was exposed in December 2008. He was charged in March 2009 and sentenced to 10 year in jail in June 2009. Six months. And he's still in prison.
NPA head Shamila Batohi says it takes between six and nine years to prosecute a big anti-corruption case and this is a global benchmark. No quick fix. #DMGathering2020
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Have to say it's good to see @CyrilRamaphosa still using the same aircraft Jacob Zuma was trying to dump for a more expensive one 12 years ago...
[ARRIVAL]: His Excellency President @CyrilRamaphosa arrives at the Beijing Capital Airport in the People’s Republic of China.
The President is invited by His Excellency President Xi Jinping for a State Visit to the People’s Republic of China and will also participate at the Forum on China – Africa Cooperation Summit.
#BetterAfricaBetterWorld 🌍
#SAinChina 🇿🇦🇨🇳
#FOCAC
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This just takes the fucken cake doesn't it....
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What a disgrace this woman is...
International relations minister Naledi Pandor has slammed the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. timeslive.co.za/politics/202…
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What a disgrace @PresidencyZA
The Republic of South Africa congratulates the government and the people of The Republic of Zimbabwe for organizing and holding the harmonized elections to elect the President, National Assembly and Local government representatives. bit.ly/3OStVbN
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She doesn't understand the power of a free market...
Move away from the US dollar is about empowering other currencies - Pandor news24.com/news24/politics/p… via @news24
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This @DrZweliMkhize 'briefing' is quite easily the worst piece of official communication that I have ever seen in my life.. can't hear him, can't see his 'slides'. A complete fuckup...
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Excellent call
Absa Group has settled on a final position not to fund the controversial Karpowership projects in South Africa, it confirmed on Friday. | @News24_Business
news24.com/fin24/companies/w…
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I think we can also thank the UK High Commissioner for South Africa, @NigelCaseyHC and his office, for helping make this happen...
Covid-19: UK company makes about-turn and agrees to help SA with ventilators | @CowansView
ow.ly/7jOv50z59DX
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Absolute claptrap...
WATCH: President @CyrilRamaphosa says there was consultation on the tobacco ban. @News24 #Covid_19 #Level4Lockdown (@kaveels)
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That’s my country...
Guys, this is the REAL South Africa.
A white woman with a flat tyre in dire straights.
4 strange black men helping her.
I hope my grammar is correct @Arfness 😉
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Brilliant...
If you missed South Africa's 4x100 team win at the #WorldRelays, here it is.
Crazy fast last 100 by @AkaniSimbine ⚡⚡🔥🔥
Let's go #Tokyo2020 nitter.app/mjstainbank/status/138…
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Somehow I don't think "get a grip" is quite going to do the trick in Washington DC
Please get a grip! These are old videos,surely, you can verify them. Not a single white person has been killed by these individuals or because of their utterances. We have legal instruments to deal with incitement. You really need to familiarize yourself with our legal system.🙄
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Home Affairs in East London yesterday. These poor people.... at least the cops are keeping them off the beaches.
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South Africa's deputy President sat waiting in his vehicle while his security officers got out and did this.....
There was no questioning nor searching of the vehicle. And the occupants did not put up any fight.
They were pulled from the vehicle at gunpoint and beaten, where after the assailants fled.
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I think, on balance, that it started well for @CyrilRamaphosa then went haywire and then ended pretty well...
Weak, spineless, overwhelmed, struggling! I've seen enough, this entire trip was a geopolitical mistake. Make no mistake about it, President Cyril Ramaphosa and South Africa were humiliated today #SAinUSA
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I'm a big fan of @geordinhl and this is partly why....
WATCH: 🍿 The ANC in Cape Town tried to claim they represent the poor. 🙄 They got answered.
In Cape Town, we are doing everything in our power to protect residents from every failure they’ve inflicted on our country!
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The President fundamentally misunderstands what the lockdown is doing. He is not "saving lives". He is buying time and his chief medical advisor Abdool Karim says he's already bought enough. The virus will take whoever it wants...
We are at a point in our battle with the pandemic where complacency could prove disastrous. I call on each and every one to remain vigilant, to continue to abide by the regulations, and to keep safe and keep others safe. bit.ly/34POdLG #COVID19 #CoronaVirusSA #StayHome
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Well done @alechogg for staying with this story. It's is absolutely sickening what's being done to these two people!!!!
If you haven't followed the disgusting story about Fort Hare Uni's investigating attorneys who exposed massive corruption and E Cape Premier (and other politicians) fraudulently buying degrees, here's your chance. Sickening examples of abusing State power: biznews.com/interviews/2025/…
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What Afriforum won’t be telling the Americans.... nitter.app/elmienduplessis/status…
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This is the mostly mild Klein River where the Cape Epic entered Stanford earlier this year. Torrential rains overnight have turned it into a monster. Homes have been lost, cars swept away... it's really bad.
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I’m afraid you’re 100% correct. They haven’t got a clue. Totally wasted their years in exile...
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Disgraceful woman... normally her fingers are heavy with jewelry: interesting that she takes the rings off when it's time to pose as a revolutionary.
What are South Africans benefiting from this?
Maybe I am too slow & stupid to understand.
@CyrilRamaphosa @MbalulaFikile @nomvulamoko_ @MYANC @PresidencyZA
Wanna Help explain it to me like you would to a Z grade student who got 30%?
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Pictures to break your heart and to lift it at the same time.....,
Dear @Springboks
Please don't end the trophy tour in Polokwane this time around. Can you kindly reach us as well in Ṱhohoyanḓou. The love here is immense, please do reach with the trophy tour.
Ri ḓo livhuwa nga maanḓa 🙏🏾
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I drove today from Umngazi (Port St Johns) to Stanford (Hermanus). Good weather most of the way. Didn't pass a restaurant I could see that wasn't stuffed with people inside. I think @CyrilRamaphosa got it mostly right tonight... we must save the hospitals.
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Absolutely. This is a disgrace...
These L4 regs are outrageous, arbitrary and capricious. They have little to do with health and a great deal to do with prejudice, arrogance and ideology. @CyrilRamaphosa has squandered great goodwill and citizens now need to challenge government
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Fantastic news. Let's get it here quick. I'd pay for my own and 30 other people who might not have the money and I doubt I'd be alone....
• And the Oxford vaccine is very, very cheap.
(Given how valuable they are all vaccines are very cheap, but $3-$4 is incredibly cheap really.)
[source vox.com/21590994/oxford-vacc…]
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If I were @CyrilRamaphosa I’d give land reform over to @AgriSA — give them a series of targets and let them get on with it. They know what they’re doing and they’d be great partners for new farmers...
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In other words, not a shred of proof....
ANALYSIS: Govt has cited the science behind SA’s cigarette ban – but it doesn’t add up | @BISouthAfrica
ow.ly/H6qw50zS5o3
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For the record, National Assembly rules require MPs to supply "prima facie evidence" of wrongdoing when they seek an inquiry. The same rules require the advisory panel to find "sufficient evidence" which they clearly didn't do in the Phala Phala case. wouldn't stand much scrutiny
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😂😂😂... but according to ICC prosecutors Vladimir Putin is abducting children from Ukraine and deporting them to Russia. That would be a crime anywhere, even in SA. And anyone can make a citizen's arrest here and Putin is a dangerous psychopath. We'll ALL arrest him...
Allan Winde doesn't have powers to stop anyone coming to this country western cape is a province not a country under a unitary state.
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Laugh or cry? This is an actual finance minister...
THREE URGENT TASKS FOR THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA!
1) The State must own 40% of all mining companies.This is easy to do. 2)The State Must create a Sovereign Wealth Fund for future generations from mining dividends. 3)A State Bank must be created URGENTLY.
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Just found this forgotten old baby in a box upstairs. Opened it and left it to breathe for 30 mins. It's fantastic...
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But @MmusiMaimane the Finance Minister says he can only reverse the tax increases if the parties supporting him find the revenue to replace the R28bn they are designed to raise. What alternative revenue sources do you guys have in mind?
“I see much confusion and misinformation about the national budget
Let me clarify again: BOSA's support is ON CONDITION the VAT increases is REVERSED, along with other spending cuts.
If it is not reversed, we pull the plug on our support of the budget.” - @MmusiMaimane
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In other news, the normally placid Klein River burst into the sea through the lagoon at Grotto Beach in Hermanus this morning for the first time in five years. Great to be there even if Holly the Ridgie nearly gave me a heart attack...
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Shame, this Steenbras didn't get the warning from @Shell that it's sound blasting out wild coast for the next five months. Let's hope @Richard_Spoor can stop them...
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This after being asked by government not to proceed with court action pending new announcements by the state. From now on corporate SA you're on your own. I'd take the lockdown regs to court and test each one for its efficacy in stopping the actual spread of the virus...
Retailers in the liquor industry and tavern owners have been dealt yet another a blow as the government emphasised that the ban on the transportation of alcohol during the duration of the lockdown remains until April 30. #day21oflockdown iol.co.za/news/politics/alco…
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Why would the Ministe of Police have to be forced to remove land invaders @CyrilRamaphosa ? You’ve told the world you were going to prevent grabs and do this by the book?
Court orders Minister of Police to help remove trespassers from Pretoria farm via @News24 news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/…
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Totally nailed.... @CyrilRamaphosa needs to formally remove his spokesman from office this afternoon. Let her sue,.....
“THE Gauteng Department of Health has paid Royal Bhaca Projects at least R80 million for its personal protective equipment (PEE) services over the past week alone through a front company known as Ledla Structural Development, Independent Media can reveal.”
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This is easily the most macabre thing I have ever read. Why would @TreasuryRSA do this?
The Government Notice (issued on Friday) from National Treasury is found below.
The DA would have challenged this if this nonsense was not done under André de Ruyter.
They will leave it because it paints "their own" in a good light
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My endless point entirely for the @Our_DA leadership and membership. If you don't change the way you behave and what you say you're just wasting all of our time...
Umngeni Mayor Chris Pappas says the DA will need to reconsider its messaging going into the 2026 municipal elections and beyond if it wants to grow "from a 20% party to a 30% party". | @soyiso_maliti
brnw.ch/21wMpYM
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I'm sorry Palesa but real damage was done to @CyrilRamaphosa 's authority and credibility tonight...
Fellow South Africans, just today the US has 60k people who have died from the Coronavirus. Some of our cabinet ministers are clueless and annoying, but things could get really really bad. Enjoy your runs, walks. You will soon get to buy booze and smokes.But really, get a grip!
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The human cost is surely bigger than the economic one. A lockdown for a month would at least enable you to identify and isolate the sick once and for all. The economic benefits of knowing have to be beyond measure...
Do you shutdown South Africa, knowing it could destroy an economy already on the edge of collapse?
Or do you risk collapsing the health system, and causing thousands of deaths, by not doing enough to stop the spread of #Covid19?
There are no easy answers.
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I am so sorry for @mgigaba . No-one deserves this shit. The Guptas tried to embarrass me last year and failed. The same will happen here. South Africans are fundamentally good about this stuff...
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The BIG question is how @PresidencyZA crafted a whole R500bn recovery plan without including the cost of a vaccine for 50m people in it.... and how none of the "experts" said a single thing about it.
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No-one has been a better and more honorable voice for @CyrilRamaphosa than @goolammv on this platform. Now he's letting go too....
I am sick and tired of your rambling statements. You are the president of South Africa. Summon the minister of police and other security cluster ministers. Take action against ministers, police chief etc. Do something for once. Enough with your statements.
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Ah Iran, our friend and ally..... @PresidencyZA
This is the brutal reality of life for women under the Islamic Republic in Iran. A woman in Tehran sent me this photo of her scarred back, flogged for the “crime” of showing her hair. Yet, she refuses to be silenced.
Holding a Woman, Life, Freedom slogan, she took this photo as a powerful act of defiance, declaring:
“The morality police arrested me for resisting their van. My ‘crime’ was unveiling. After months of court hearings, I was sentenced to 74 lashes. The cleric overseeing the punishment stood there to ensure it was carried out. I won’t give up my fight against this brutal regime, but we are fed up with living as prisoners in our own homeland.”
Her scars tell the story of oppression, but her courage speaks of a revolution.
This is a barbaric law, this is terrorism. How is this different from ISIS?
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To think @PresJGZuma wanted to get rid of this plane for a much bigger and more expensive one... Now that he’s gone the old bird seems to have found a new lease on life. Joburg, Biarritz and now Tokyo...??
President @CyrilRamaphosa arrives at the Tokyo International Airport in #Japan🇯🇵 for the second leg of his working visit. The President is attending the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development taking place in Yokohama. #TICAD7 #BetterAfricaBetterWorld
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Well sir the only thing that's going to drive your "inclusive growth" is actual growth. What are you going to do about it?
Our ultimate goal is to secure favourable trade terms that advance our national interest, drive inclusive growth and create jobs for the South African people.
🔗 tinyurl.com/5xxsca4d
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Too late... you got caught by @PLMyburgh
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It's all PR. Absolutely nothing will come of any of this....
Ramaphosa is grilling ministers for hours - and is now demanding answers from DGs and premiers too news24.com/news24/politics/g…
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Can their rooms not be made available to quarantine positive Covid-19 people? @DrZweliMkhize
Tsogo Sun Hotels are temporarily closing 36 hotel properties around SA, in the wake of the worsening economic fallout from the #Covid19 outbreak. bit.ly/2whZNTf
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Something's happened to @DrZweliMkhize 's evening virus tweets. As the Western Cape drops down the percentage table we no longer publish a percentage table????
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One for you @CyrilRamaphosa
At Consol Glass the alcohol ban is threatening to bring the company to its knees. It lost R3.5bn in sales and production during the first alcohol ban. It is losing R8 million/day. Government’s de-industrialization plan is working a treat. ✊🏽 news24.com/fin24/companies/a…
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Someday offer @GwedeMantashe1 a stake in the solar business and it’ll be done by noon...
It's already built. Just sitting there waiting to feed into the grid. All it takes is political will.
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Thanks @rinmor my 87 year young and very thin mother-in-law Judy Chalmers just came out of 14 days with Covid-19 intact in PE. Hope for us yet...
With the same resilience that saw her through her many years as an anti-apartheid activist and later an ANC MP, Judy Chalmers faced her Covid-19 diagnosis with courage — and now looks well on her way to good health.
heraldlive.co.za/news/2020-0…
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I’d love to read an executive summary of the business case for something quite this stupid...
Government aims to create a national shipping carrier
businesslive.co.za/bd/nation…
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What an absolutely shocking and disgusting story... @MYANC fungus spreads.
A politically connected developer is building another shopping mall in Marite near Bushbuckridge. She needs to move a whole bunch of people who have lived there forever to clear the land she needs. She hired the local chief to do the removals.
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