A 55-year-old driver died from injuries sustained when his truck was stopped and set alight on the N3 near Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg on Monday.

More than 30 trucks have been targeted and at least a dozen of them torched since the weekend.

The trucks are stopped by vehicles blocking the four-lane highway. They are then looted before being set alight.

Drivers say they fear for their lives.

The highway carries mostly local trucks.

However much of the copper and other heavy cargo coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi is also hauled along the N3.

Leader of the All Truck Drivers Forum of South Africa Mandla Mngomenzulu insists his members are not responsible.

He blames criminal elements taking advantage of the local truck drivers’ grievances.

Local driver says they have been betrayed by transport firms who employ foreigners and pay them less than unionised truckers.

The attacks have been made for at least a decade both along the N3 and on the N1 motorway between Johannesburg and Cape Town

Police have not been able control the situation.

Sometime the attacks happen as trucks wait to pass through tollgates along the motorways.

The Road Freight Association, which represents the employers, is calling for government intervention to stop what it calls a war on its trucks.

Technical operation manager of the RFA Gavin Kelly says: “Truck drivers fear for their lives. We have seen trucks being shot at as they drove past assailants waiting on the side of the road and they’re not being apprehended.

“The drivers are just having random shots fired at them. It’s not just foreign drivers being attacked, it’s also local drivers in the firing line. 

“Obviously, people don’t want to send out their drivers if there is a chance that they are going to be injured or killed,.”

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I rely on watching where people hang out as a barometer of what is happening.

Large numbers of young people lazing about during working hours shouts unemployment to me.

It tells me that countries of the Maghreb and the Middle East where I have observed this have grown up economic problems.

In those oil-rich countries of the Gulf I see men drinking coffee, smoking nargilla  and chatting in the cafes it tells me that their wives are keeping house and cooking the delicious but laborious meals that only oppressed women have the time to prepare.

The other large gatherings in these salubrious lands are outside the offices of the foreign exchange firms.

The people there are workers from Africa and other poor countries paying the premium and completing the tiresome paperwork to send money home to their families.

Remittances to Africa are a massive industry.

They amount to $48 trillion a year, according to the World Bank.

This money from more than ten million Africans working abroad eclipses both aid paid to and foreign direct investment in their countries.

Calling this a lifeline is a rank understatement.

The workers pay dearly to maintain this.

They work without protection from exploitation, social benefits and medical aid.

They pay nearly 9% commission, at least three points higher than counterparts sending money to other parts of the globe.

When the COVID 19 lockdown began this year, the World Bank was predicting a 24% reduction in remittance to Africa.

The prospect of fewer people being permitted to go abroad to earn money to send home was devastating.

The World Bank this week rather pulled its neck in.

Its latest migration and development brief  forecasts that remittances will be 9% lower this year and 6% down in 2021.

Economically painful, without doubt. But Africans, who have proven wrong the apocalyptic expert medical predictions of how damaging the corona virus would be to their countries with the poorest medical facilities on the planet, have confounded the economists too.

We learn from the central bank in Harare that diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe increased by 45 percent to $658 million during the first nine months of 2020.

Zimbabwe joins Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and the DRC.and top remittance earners south of the Sahara.

Remittances from the three million Zimbabweans living abroad are a key source of foreign currency

Last year Zimbabwe earned $635 million in remittances.

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On World Press Freedom day it is apposite that we show concern and solidarity with colleagues under the thumbs and worse of oppressive regimes.

On our continent, I think of those bravely trying to speak truth to power in Eritrea, Rwanda, Morocco and Zimbabwe among others.

We may justifiably take a modest bow when told that we are an integral part of democracy by giving  people the facts that enable them to make crucial decisions about their futures.

It is all very reminiscent of the apartheid days when South Africa’s independent media could explain their mission statement in a paragraph.

It was all about ending one of the greatest evils of the 20th century.

We used to hand off compliments about our courage by saying to our readers and listeners that it was in fact they who were being brave.

We had the information and were able to get it to them by driving a coach and horses through the oppressive machinery of the apartheid regime.

It was the people who had to act on that information.

So important as we liked to think we were, it was about them, not us.

Things have changed dramatically since then.

The democratic government in South Africa has lamentable failed to keep its promises as a liberation movement.

Corruption, greed and inefficiency have enriched a thin strata at the top of society and destined the majority who voted them into power to perpetual suffering.

The independent media, which always was a business operation, has been forced to make deeply compromising choices to secure their very survival.

The economic downturn has put them on the back foot.

The COVID 19 pandemic has already pushed some outlets over the edge and threatens to send others into the precipice.

This is reflected in the coverage of what is unquestionably the story of our generation.

Young and inexperienced journalists, who are the reporters that proprietors can afford, are doing their level best to keep their viewers, listeners and readers abreast of developments.

They cover virtual media briefing and try to make sense of the utterances of ministers who are often as much in the dark as they are.

The analysis, both positive and critical, is largely left to the small band of foreign correspondents.

Surely this is the job of the South African media.

Even with the relaxations that came last Friday, our lockdown is one of the most draconian on the planet.

We make the United Nations roll of shame for excessive action by security forces policing the enforced stay-at-home.

We are also in the top ranks of countries suffering gender-baed-violence during the enforced confinement .

What happened to the moral high ground of 25 years ago?

Ministers have allowed their personal ambition and prejudices to impact on their decisions.

A perfect example is continuing on plainly spurious grounds to deny the sale of tobacco products. This was clearly designed, among other things,  to embarrass President Cyril Ramaphosa who now has to countermand the inveterately anti-smoking Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, whom he has put in charge of this process, if he wants to keep the word he gave last week.

As to the continued alcohol ban, we can be assured of heavy-handed enforcement under Police Minister Bheki Cele.

On World Press Freedom Day surely we should be doing our job by shining  the light on these inequities.

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The announcement comes as President Mokgweetsi Masisi announces a national lockdown and declares a state of emergency.

There are three confirmed cases of COVID 19 in Botswana and the patients have been quarantined.

A further 14 people are in isolation awaiting the result of tests.

President Mogsweetsi Masisi has not said how long the emergency regulations will remain in force.

He says, taking account of conditions in neighboring countries, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, a 21-day lockdown might not be enough to curb the spread of COVID19.

He’s concerned about the low rate of testing and the cumbersome health protocols.

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Pompeo was speaking to reporters at the end of a three-nation African safari designed to counter China’s growing influence in Africa.

The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the South African Government plan to expropriate land without compensation is an example of centralized planning that has failed in other African countries like Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

He says it will be a disaster for the economy and most importantly for the South African people.

Pompeo says African countries need strong rule of law, respect for property rights and regulation that encourages investment for inclusive and sustainable growth.

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Q: What sparked the conflict between the taxi drivers and the foreigners in Pretoria?

A: Locals claim the taxi drivers were  confronting foreign drug dealers selling nyoapi – a particuarly dangerous form of crack cocaine-  to local youths.The drug dealers – many of them believed to be Nigerian – struck back. One taxi driver was shot dead.The streets are quiet in the capital today but there is a heavy police presence 

Q: How much damage was done and how has the South African  government explained it?

A: Seventeen arrests were made after  several foreign owned shops were torched and there was widespread looting.   A  task team has been set up to find the root cause of the violence.Police say they will control the criminal element that was the cause of the taxi drivers’ anger.

Q: It seems President Cyril Ramaphosa and his host at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development are singing off the same song sheet on the question of agriculture. Could this really provide  the economic boost so badly required South Africa and the rest of the continent?

A: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says they will double Africa’s rice output by 2030 to 50 million tonnes a year. This will be using technology and innovation – the key to agriculture. He urges farmers to move from growing crops to eat to cultivating crops to sell. When agriculture grows more profitable the youth will find it an attractive career path. He’s convinced young people can transform agriculture.

This is music to the ears of Cyril Ramaphosa who is faced a faltering economy and massive  youth unemployment. 

His finance minister Tito Mbooweni in a strategy paper released yesterday says agriculture and tourism are two pillars on which South Africa can  hang economic recovery.

The paper has raised the ire of the trade union arm of the ruling triple alliance.

COSATU is angry Mboweni did  to consult them before issuing the strategy which they want him to withdraw.

The minister’s strategy  does not mention expropriation of farmland without compensation which is a cornerstone of policy for the ruling ANC but which is credited with destroying the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe under ousted President Robert Mugabe.

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The United States joined Zimbabwe, the world’s largest exporter of elephants,

in voting against the measure that will severely restrict trade in this endangered species.

Conservationists are disappointed that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES, has left a loophole for the sale of baby elephants by Zimbabwe and Botswana to approved destinations but only with international approval.

Zimbabwe’s sold more than 100 elephant calves in the past seven years mostly to Chinese zoos.

In the fierce debate lasting several days, Zimbabwean delegates unsuccessfully argued that the healthy state of their elephant population made any restrictions on their selling the animals unnecessary.

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U.S.Under Secretary of State for Africa Tibor Nagy (pronounced like “garage) says he was briefed by South African officials closely involved in the expropriation of land.

Under Secretary of State for Africa Tibor Nagy says he’s convinced that South Africa’s  land redistribution is totally different from that in Zimbabwe which was outside the scope of jurisprudence and legal process.

His boss Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been instructed by President Donald Trump to monitor the situation.

“That could be a loaded issue  that US investors would take a very close look at when making a decision on whether or not to invest in South Africa.”he says

Nagy says they will follow the process through the stages of constitution and parliament and see where it comes out.   

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She’ll be accompanied to Beira and Chimanini by mining magnate and humanitarian POatrice Motsepe.

ends intro

Foreign minister  Lindiwe Sisulu will visit South African and United Nations rescue teams working to help those displaced by the flooding two weeks ago.

She’s carrying food, clothes, water and blankets collected from South African businesses and individuals.

The death toll from the cyclone in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa is approaching 700, although the final number might never be be known.

Sisulu will visit South African National Defense Force rescuers and compatriots who have volunteered  to do para-medical and rescue work for NGOs 

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In Mozambique, which was hit twice by the wind and water, people are still being plucked from trees or rescued from roofs.

Hundreds have died and the toll could exceed 1000.

The worst weather disaster to strike the southern hemisphere has changed forever the lives of millions who have lost family members, homes and livelihoods.

Pope Francis, speaking in the Vatican yesterday, appealed for international help.

The governments of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi acknowledge that the disaster is too big for them to handle unassisted.

Food and clean water is an immediate need in affected areas.

Unless immediately addressed, disease and even more deaths are inevitable.

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