South Africa

It is “simply wrong” to be spending billions of rands on a brand new presidential jet when so many people in our country are poor and battle each day just to survive, says Democratic Alliance defence spokesman, David Maynier. He was reacting to the confirmation by defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula that funding had been approved to buy a new jet for President Jacob Zuma. Maynier said the existing plane, Inkwazi, was “perfectly serviceable”. The main reason given for spending “a fortune” on a jet was to have one with greater range. Maynier added the acquisition of a new presidential jet was “also likely to be at the cost of other more urgent defence capital acquisition projects such as transport aircraft”.

A former national police commissioner says what happened at Marikana, where 34 miners died at the hands of the police, stems from disgraced commissioner Jackie Selebi’s decision to dismantle public order policing units. George Fivas, who was appointed by president Nelson Mandela, told City Press a major problem at Marikana was that specialist units “were decentralised to stations all over the country”. Fivas said that during Mandela’s term as president, Gauteng had public order policing units “second to none”, who had undergone psychometric testing, and were properly trained and equipped. “How on earth can you have a country where you have so many marches per month without a special unit dealing with public order?” Fivas asked.

Oscar Pistorius has been audited by the South African Revenue Services (Sars) and found to have undeclared taxes, for which the tax authority has fined him “less than R1 million”, according to City Press. The paralympian, accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentines Day, had to declare his assets at his bail hearing which led to the audit by Sars. Police say the investigation into Steenkamp’s murder will be completed in August, but Pistorius is due to appear in court on 4 June. The National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement it is “content with the progress thus far" of the investigation. Pistorius is currently out on R1 million bail.

A Kruger National Park ranger has been shot during a joint operation between SANParks and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in which they encountered armed poachers. SANParks spokesman Reynold Thakhuli said ranger Andrew Desmet was shot in the stomach and airlifted to a medical facility in Mbombela where he underwent an operation. He is now in a stable condition. “While this incident was unfolding, another group of rangers made contact with a second group of armed poachers approximately two kilometres away where a shoot-out ensued,” Thakhuli said. The poachers escaped and no arrests were made. SANParks CEO David Mabunda said the ranger corps was facing “a war out there”.

The Cape Town jogger arrested for showing a rude hand sign to a convoy carrying President Jacob Zuma had a rifle bag placed over his head, the High Court has heard. The Sunday Times reported that papers filed by police minister Nathi Mthethwa said the rifle bag was placed on [Maxwele's] head so as to eliminate the possibility of him seeing the route that the president uses to get to his residence”. Chumani Maxwele, a political science student, is suing the state for R1.4 million for wrongful arrest. Lawyers for Mthethwa also said Maxwele's hands were cable-tied behind his back for "his own safety" as police escorting him had equipment and firearms in their possession and which were in close proximity to him”.

Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says President Jacob Zuma is responsible for clearing whether President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will receive the freedom of Cape Town, an honour they have already accepted. De Lille said Zuma’s office is responsible for the Obama’s itinerary during their upcoming visit to South Africa. "So we've been in contact all the time with the president's office. It is up to the president's office to work with [Obama's] office to make the Indoor Positioning System," she told the Sunday Times. The ANC has accused the DA-run Cape Town city council of “political expediency” in granting the award. Obama has requested meeting Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu during his visit.

The agriculture department must come clean on why meat products – including water buffalo, donkey and horsemeat – from Brazil and India, despite it posing “significant” risks. The Democratic Alliance agriculture spokeswoman, Annette Steyn said a reply to a parliamentary question from agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson failed to give reasons why the meat was considered to pose “significant risk” nor who was responsible for importing them. Steyn said the party would submit an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to the department of agriculture to determine exactly why this meat is considered hazardous, and who the responsible parties are. “The public deserves to know,” said Steyn.

Letlapa Mphahlele, president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), has been expelled from the party, Sapa reported. The party’s disciplinary committee said Mphahlele had been charged with failing to account for parliamentary and Independent Electoral Commission funds, not respecting national executive committee (NEC) decisions, and appointing a chief administrator even though the position was not catered for in the PAC constitution. It also accused him of promoting factionalism in the ranks. The committee said neither Mphahlele nor his legal representative attended the meeting.

 We will say no more about this except to ask – what is so irresistible about being modern that we should wish it on Jane Austen? What does Persuasion lose, what does Pride and Prejudice lose, by having been written 200 years ago? (I don't need to tell you that the second of those extracts was from Persuasion. The first was from The Temptation by K.M. Golland.

Is Anne Elliot's agitation, on being helped into the carriage by Captain Wentworth, any less materially present to us, is her disarrangement any less sensually felt, because there's no mention of where Wentworth puts his hands in relation to her bra strap? Isn't the fact that he puts his hands on her at all, that “he had placed her there” – sufficiently electrifying to explain Anne Elliot's perturbation? Don't be misled by the decorousness of the language. If the spirit is perturbed, so is the flesh. “His will and his hands had done it”: an act of unlooked-for consideration, but also of confident authority – thrilling, if you like your sea captains masterful – performed by a man Anne regrets having long ago rejected, and whose feelings for her now she can only guess at. “Yes, he had done it.” The shock, the sense of fait accompli, Anne's total capitulation to Wentworth's decisiveness, are all the proof that the thing done is no small matter to her. Just because Anne Elliot's skin is not described as “buzzing with excitement”, doesn't mean it isn't.