Her statement does not indicate how long their doors will be shut.

The security situation in Nigeria is somewhat unpredictable, says foreign minister Naledi Pandor because of youths attacking the diplomatic missions and South African businesses in retaliation for violence against Nigerians in South Africa.

She says she’ll speak to African ambassadors in Pretoria next week about the burning and looting of foreign-owned businesses in Pretoria and Johannesburg and attacks on foreigners that have left five dead.

She says South Africa has provided extra security for its diplomatic missions as has in the Nigerian authorities in keeping with customary diplomatic practice.  

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It offers students and other interested an opportunity got explore music and literature of the Spanish language and Mexican culture.

The  National Autonomous University of Mexico known as UNAM has bilateral agreements with two universities each in Johannesburg and Pretoria and another in Cape Town.

From its UNESCO heritage-site campus in Mexico City it  is the alma maters of Mexico’s three Nobel laureates. 

Chief representative in South Africa Arturo Mendoza says UNAM has links with seven other countries. 

“Particularly today what was important for us was to open the cultural corner from UNAM here at the Mexican Embassy in Pretoria,” he says.

The next UNAM cultural centre will opened at the University of the Witwatersrand where facilities have already been allocated.

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The Ethiopian Airlines plane is the second nearly new Boeing 737 Max to crash shortly after takeoff in less than five months.

Families of the 189 victims of the Lion Air crash at Jakarta airport blame Boeing and are suing the American plane maker.

The Boeing 737 Max crashed within minutes of taking off for Nairobi.

The cause is not known but the pilot reported problems before losing contact.

The victims come from more than 30 countries.

Many of them were heading for a United Nations conference opening in the Kenyan capital today.

The ill-fated plane, which was delivered last November,  had flown from Johannesburg earlier yesterday.

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The alleged crimes relate to an arms procurement deal in the 1990s before he became president.

The French arms company Thales has also filed papers  seeking to have dropped the  charges its is  facing for allegedly paying bribes to Zuma.

The National Prosecution authority’s confirmed that applications have been received from former President Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thales.

Zuma’s due to appear in the High Court in east coast city of Durban on November 30 for a hearing in this case.

He has maintained his innocence throughout.

The alleged offenses occurred while he was provincial economy minister in KwaZulu/Natal and later Deputy President

Thales submits that the decision in 2009 to drop the charges was neither set aside nor challenged by the State.

By reintroducing the charges now, the prosecution is not following its own protocols and the unreasonable delay in dealing with the matter makes a fair trial impossible.

A separate judicial inquiry into alleged state corruption while Zuma was president is currently hearing evidence in `Johannesburg

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Once in Pretoria she will have her work cut out smoothing relations with the country President Donald Trump has riled by making remarks described by host President Cyril Ramaphosa as untrue and designed to fuel racial tension.

Donald Trump has finally got agrément from South Africa for the woman he wants to represent his administration in Pretoria.

It remains to be seen how Lana Marks, who has absolutely no diplomatic experience, will be treated by the Senate

Trump, who’s taken nearly two years to make his pick, clearly believes he can rely on the Republican majority in the upper house to get her through

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This announcement from President Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the 400 delegates at a job summit says will boost growth and get many of the 5.6 million unemployed South Africans back to work.

On the first of the two-day job summit outside Johannesburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa says much needs to be done  to lift the country out of recession.

He’s been preparing the summit since announcing it to Parliament in March.

By invitation only it has 100 delegates each from government, the private sector, unions and community organizations.

Ramaphosa’s  at pains to show he is not trying to  repackage old ideas.

His Labour Minister Mildred Olifant has called this a moment of truth.

However the head of Business Unity South Africa Sipho  Pityane says the summit cannot possibly provide all the answers for reducing the country’s unemployment rate currently in excess of 27%.

At least one union umbrella, the South African Federation of Trade Unions is not attending, saying there is nothing new on offer.

Ramaphosa says he’s looking to create new jobs – starting with 100 000 this year – and to support existing ones.

He’s redirecting capital into labour intensive industries such as agriculture and infrastructure development 

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They say the measures the South African President  outlined to the media in Pretoria yesterday (Friday) contain no new injection of money into the economy that slipped into recession last month. At best it can be termed a recovery programme.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is adamant that South Africa economic salvation lies in attracting foreign investment.

His remarks to the media yesterday – presaged by his briefing to the diplomatic corps a week earlier – laid the foundation  for an investment summit in Johannesburg next month.

He has not put flesh on the bones of his promise to invest in infrastructure and ease the country’s tough visa regime that deters skilled foreign visitors and tourists.

He is redirecting nearly three billion euros, already in the Budget, to those areas of the economy that will most impact youth, women and small business.

Neither he nor his Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene would say which sectors will have to sacrifice their Budget allocation.

Ramaphoa will also redirect 15 billion euros to the infrastructure development  and the agriculture sector.

He says this is designed to respire the economy, attract investment and save jobs.

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Having infamously scrambled for the continent 120 years ago, Western leaders are today seeking to dance here.

British Premier Theresa May twice skipped the light fantastic during her three-nation safari.

She danced her robot mash with Cape Town schoolchildren and with boy scouts and girl guides in Nairobi.

French President Emmanuel Macron boogied with musician Femi Kuti at the New Africa Shrine in Lagos last July.

Neither posed any immediate threat to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

But it showed the lengths they were prepared to go to make friends in Africa.

May was in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. She sought to reassure the African heavy hitters that Brexit will not affect their economic ties with Britain.

Macron’s visit was billed as more culture than policy.

But his return to Lagos, where he spent six months as an intern in 2002, was obvious.  He wishes to keep the lines of communication in good order.

Angela Merkel was also in  Africa in the last week of August. She did not pack her dancing pumps for Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria.

Her preoccupation was securing deals with her hosts curbing the stream of irregular migrants from African into Europe.

All  these leaders mentioned Africa’s enviable economic growth and the market potential presented by its growing young population.

But they dared no raise hopes either at home or at their African destinations.

There is a new player in the modern scramble for Africa – and it is one that dwarfs them.

China’s dominance of the African market will be demonstrated at the Forum for China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Meeting in  Beijing, it is expected to feature a number of eye-watering offers from China to help Africa’s infrastructure deficit.

At the previous FOCAC in Johannesburg, this amounted to $60 billion.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has recently embarked on his own safari.

He stopped  Senegal and Rwanda before arriving in South Africa for the BRICS summit. Then he visited Mauritius on the way home.

China’s belt and road programme, designed to give Beijing better access to foreign markets, dominated.

Africa, providing strategic resources, played a major part in transforming China to the world’s second largest economy.

It does business differently from Africa’s traditional partners.

It does not impose values like observation of human rights and rule of law.

It provides credit freely. Approaching $100 billion dollars has been loaned by China for building African roads, railways, ports and major buildings.

Critics say Beijing’s constructing an elaborate death trap.

Beijing responds that the critics are none other than the former colonialists, who have an axe to grind.

Who can blame cash-strapped countries being attracted to China’s credit honey pot.

South Africa is among the latest, taking a $2,5 billion loan for ESCOM.

All above board and properly thought out, is the assurance from President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Question: could that loan have been secured safely and on better terms  from the more rhythmic recent visitors? 

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Police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters on the highway in the Meyerton area who made off with the beer on the truck.

Residents of the Sicelo informal settlement took their protest to the R59 highway which they blocked with burning tyres.

They then parked the hijacked truck across the road and made off with its contents and keys.

Police communications officer Mavela Masondo said they were doing everything possible to clear the highway which was closed during the morning rush hour.

The so-called service delivery protest is South African political parlance for demonstrations against government’s failure to distribute basic resources citizens depend on like water, electricity, sanitation infrastructure, land, and housing.

This has been a commitment  of successive African National Congress government since the onset of democracy 24 years ago.

The disruptive action flies in the face of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promise at  various international fora – most lately the G7 in Canada – that South Africa is an excellent investment destination.

Service delivery protests traditionally increase in number and intensity as the winter cold bites in unheated informal settlements.

With elections less than a year away, the ANC, is being careful to use minimum force to contain the demonstrations.

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Some years ago I had the pleasure of driving a minister of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and her ambassador from Durban to Johannesburg.

Several times along the N3, she said: “Look at this world class infrastructure. Do you know what you have? Do you appreciate it.”

I recall feeling rather proud and expressed the wish that one day the Saharawis too could  have a motorway across their desert land. 

What might the minister have said had we been traveling along the road on Sunday?

With the burning trucks, it might have reminded her of the war her people have fought to rid their country of Moroccan occupation.

Together with arterial roads closed by demonstrators in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town in recent days, they are certainly not showpieces for a developing country heading for prosperity.

How do we explain this motorway mayhem to potential investors or tourists?

The authorities warned motorists on Sunday not to use the N3 at night.

Their caution is laudable, even though it sends a dire message to potential investors in and visitors to South Africa.

Such caution is invariably expressed by countries concerned about the well-being of their citizens abroad.

It invariably attracts fury from the targets of their warnings because it tends to deter tourism.

We saw this last month when Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu  angrily responded to a travel advisory from Australia.

She says it casts a slur on the country. 

Sisulu appears to have been responding to media  reports rather than  facts.

The Australian travel advisory was first issued in the year 2000.

True, it advises travelers to South Africa  to exercise a high degree of  caution.

Actually, it places South Africa on the second lowest degree of danger – in the same category as  countries like Belgium and France.

In much the same way as an advisory would use a health ministry warning of cholera to urge travelers take health precautions, the Australian document uses material from SAPS annual reports  to advise of the potential of murder,  rape, mugging and robbery.

The advisory has been updated to include water shortages in the Western Cape – again using language  deployed by the local authority.

I remember after contracting malaria in Zimbabwe , I asked the South Africa health authorities in high dudgeon: why did no-one warm me?

True, there were posters at the border posts. Surely I have a right to expect more from a caring government?

If you are traveling to a country where protestors make nocturnal travel hazardous, would you not expect your own people to tell you so?

It is axiomatic that there are good things and bad things about any destination: from insect-born lurgies and pickpockets to dread diseases and flat out terrorists.

The simple answer to avoiding them is stay home.

If you can’t or won’t accept this option, arm yourself with the information you need for your security. Above all: don’t shoot the messenger.

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