Who is Kgalema Motlanthe?

South Africa's next president-in-waiting?

Kgalema Motlanthe is a prominent South African political personality and is currently the Deputy President of the African National Congress.

Motlanthe has been the only ANC leader who has risked his political reputation by publicly defending sacked Deputy President Jacob Zuma in the face of widespread allegations of corruption against Zuma.

Motlanthe is a former trade unionist who has support across the ANC-led tripartite alliance. Many in the ANC describe him as an independent thinker who is not afraid to speak his mind.

There is growing support for the idea that deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe must be sent to parliament immediately to take over as caretaker president while Zuma deals with the Mbeki-instigated NPA court case of humiliation.

Motlanthe who was born in 1949, grew up influenced by the revolutionary ideologies of the Black Consciousness Movement which was led by Steven Bantu Biko. He was detained by Apartheid Government in 1977 the year after the infamous 1976 Soweto student uprising at the age of 28. In 1976 he was detained for 11 months for pursuing the aims of the liberation movement African National Congress. He was later sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island. Shortly after his release he was elected Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). In 1997 when politician-businessman Cyril Ramaphosa retired from politics, Kgalema was elected Secretary-General of the ANC.

Dow Jones Industrial Index Chart

Asians stocks have closed sharply lower again today. The DJII should find support at about 11000 and strong support at 10500.

The Baltic Dry Index Drops

The Baltic Dry Index, is now down about 28% since its peak in October. This raises some important issues about global growth going forward.
The Baltic Dry Index is a number issued daily by the Baltic Exchange, a London-based organization whose members arrange for ocean transport of industrial bulk commodities from producers to end users.
Every day they survey brokers around the world to find out how much it costs to book cargoes of raw materials on a variety of shipping routes.
The answers are then reformulated as the Baltic Dry Index.
Now, why is the Baltic Dry Index considered important?
Well, first off, it's not a speculative index. In other words, no one is out there bidding up the Baltic Dry Index because they believe shipping costs will change in the future.
Instead, it tracks the actual cost of shipping raw materials by sea based on real cargo bookings and is therefore considered a pretty good indicator of global trade volumes.
For those without access to Bloomberg, the Web site Investment Tools.com has updated Baltic Dry Index data available.

Winnie Mandela tops ANC election list

Many law-abiding South Africans are concerned that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela won first place in the election of a new ANC National Executive Committee with 2845 votes - more than 500 votes more than Jacob Zuma garnered in his race against national President Thabo Mbeki.

Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela, resigned from parliament and the ANC in 2003 after she was convicted of fraud. She has not been a member of the ANC since then. In 1991 she was convicted of kidnapping a child activist, Stompie Seipei, who was later found murdered. Her prison sentence was reduced on appeal to a fine.

A few other convicted criminals, including Tony Yengeni, were also elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC. If these convicted criminals are allowed to govern after the next election, then South Africa will collapse.

Who really murdered Stompie Seipei?

I SWEAR...: Mandela United Football Club "coach" and convicted
killer Jerry Richardson takes the oath before testifying at the Truth and
Reconciliation hearing in Johannesburg. Richardson is serving a life sentence
for the murder of teenage activist Stompie Seipei. (AP)

'Coach was told to kill Seipei'

JOHANNESBURG -- Stompie Seipei was killed on Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's
instructions to prevent the Mandela "crisis committee" discovering how
badly the Mandela United Football Club had assaulted four youths they had
abducted from the Soweto Methodist manse, the commission heard yesterday. Former
club "coach" Jerry Richardson testified that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela
decided to kill Stompie to cover up what had happened. The Mandela crisis
committee, made up of church, community and ANC leaders, was formed to secure
the release of four boys, including Stompie, who were abducted from Methodist
minister Paul Verryn's manse in late December 1988. "I slaughtered him (Stompie)
like a goat," Richardson said, as Stompie's mother, Joyce, left the hall in
tears. Richardson said he abducted Stompie on Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's
instructions after Mr Verryn was falsely accused of sodomising the boys.
Richardson said: "I killed Stompie under instructions of Mami (Mrs
Madikizela-Mandela)." He said he and another football club member,
"Slash", went to look for a place where they could kill Stompie. They
decided on a rocky patch of ground near a railway line in Noordgesig, Soweto.
Richardson said the plan to kill Stompie, several days after the abduction and
assault, had to be postponed because a lot of visitors, including the crisis
committee, kept coming to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house. Richardson said the
visitors included former South African Council of Churches' secretary-general
Frank Chikane. Richardson said Mrs Madikizela-Mandela hid him (Richardson) so
the visitors could not speak to him. "Mami was concerned the crisis
committee would discover the presence of the youth in her yard." He said
Stompie was more severely beaten than the other three youths because Mrs
Madikizela-Mandela accused him of being an impimpi (police informer). He said
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela had participated in the beating, punching the youths with
her fist. Richardson said the football club had tortured youths in
"horrible, brutal ways ... in the manner used to torture freedom fighters
(by the police)". A few days later, Richardson and Slash took Stompie to
the site in Noordgesig they had chosen. Richardson said he had to help Stompie
walk because "he was very sick and very weak". When they reached the
site, Richardson said he made Stompie lie on his back and separated a pair of
garden shears. He said he stabbed Stompie in the neck. Senior state pathologist
Dr Patricia Klepp said that during her autopsy of Stompie's body, she found two
stab marks behind his right ear and a larger stab mark on the left side of his
neck. -- DDC

The following article was published in the Daily Dispatch on Thursday,
December 4, 1997, about the Soweto slaughters which were ordered by Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela in 1989.

JOHANNESBURG -- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ordered the killing of young
activists Lolo Sono and Tony Tshabalala who were "slaughtered like
goats" and whose bodies were buried near a mine dump in Soweto in December
1988, former Mandela United Football Club "coach" Jerry Richardson
testified yesterday. Richardson was giving evidence on the eighth day of the
hearing into the alleged reign of terror conducted by President Nelson Mandela's
former wife, Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and the now disbanded Mandela United
Football Club in Soweto during the late 1980s. Describing events leading up to
the death of the two activists, Richardson, who was convicted for the 1989
killing of teenager Stompie Seipei, said he "worked with the police".
His handler, the hearing heard, was a Sergeant Stefanus Pretorius. Sgt Pretorius
was killed along with two MK soldiers in a shootout at Richardson's home which
the MK members were using as refuge on November 9 1988. Richardson said that
after this incident he came under suspicion from other Mandela United Football
Club members of being a police spy. As a consequence he feared for his life.
However, suspicion then focused on Sono and Tshabalala who visited Richardson's
home just before the shootout, said Richardson. The two youths were apprehended
several days later and taken to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's Diepkloof, Soweto,
home. Here they were severely beaten, with Richardson taking part. Richardson
said a decision was taken to kill the youths and dump their bodies near
Mzimhlope in Soweto. He said the young men were driven to the mine dump.
Football club members Guyboy Kubheke and another called Ninja took the youths,
who were bound by their hands and feet, into the veld. Richardson said he and
Shakes Tau followed with spades and shovels. "When we got there Guyboy was
busy killing them, slaughtering them like a goat," said Richardson.
"As soon as we finished slaughtering them, we went to Madikizela-Mandela's
house to give a report back." Richardson also claimed that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela
ordered that a young woman, Ms Kuki Zwane, should be killed for disobedience. Ms
Zwane apparently had been ordered to terminate her relationship with football
club member Sizwe Sithole, otherwise known as Butile, who was the boyfriend of
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's daughter, Zinzi. Richardson described how he killed Ms
Zwane and dumped her body near the Orlando railway station. "I stabbed her,
slit her throat and dumped her body," he said. -- Sapa