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 @ISIDEWITHNewsSouth AfricacorruptionHigher educationCabinet ReshuffleCoalition Politics•••3 days ago

Ramaphosa Fires Scandal-Hit Education Minister to Save Budget and Coalition

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane following mounting allegations of corruption, fraud, and misleading Parliament over controversial appointments to the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas). The move came after intense pressure from the Democratic Alliance (DA), which threatened to withhold support for the crucial Appropriation Bill unless Nkabane was removed. Her ousting has cleared the way for the DA and other coalition partners to back the national budget, averting a potential government crisis. Buti Manamela has been appointed as the new Minister of Higher Education and Training, with the reshuffle widely seen as an attempt to restore public trust and address governance failures. The scandal has sparked broader calls for accountability and reform within the ANC-led government.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…8mos8MO

ICC Arrest Warrants Push Israel Into Unprecedented Global Backlash

Arrest warrants issued for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister over alleged war crimes threaten to deepen the global isolation of a country already under pressure around the world for its handling of the war in the Gaza Strip.Israeli officials are concerned the warrants and the still-secret details of the charges could imperil Israeli government and military officials who travel abroad and could be detained for alleged war crimes.The move by the International Criminal Court will complicate travel by Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who would risk arrest in any of the court’s 124 member countries, which technically are obliged to enforce the arrest warrants.The warrants will lead some governments to scale down contacts with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, according to legal experts and officials familiar with the situation. They could also spur efforts to bring new war-crimes cases against lower-ranking Israeli and Hamas officials in national courts in Europe and elsewhere. More subtly, they could also encourage an ad-hoc pattern of shunning Israeli academics, defense companies and officials that has taken root in countries and institutions angry at the toll of the war in Gaza.The ICC warrants are likely to have the greatest effect on Israel’s relations with countries in Europe, which have been broadly supportive of Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and the resulting war. All 27 members of the European Union, along with the U.K., are parties to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the court.European countries have been split in their reactions to the decision. Some, such as the Netherlands, say plainly they would enforce the arrest warrants. Hungary, led by right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, invited Netanyahu to visit on Friday in defiance of the ICC’s decision. Germany, caught between its support for the court and its history of the Holocaust, said it would carefully examine any steps it takes should Netanyahu or Gallant decide to visit.“Almost all of them would arrest Netanyahu if he were to visit, which means it’s pretty guaranteed that he won’t,” said Anthony Dworkin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “I’d be quite surprised even if he goes to Hungary.”

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…9mos9MO

Netanyahu's Aide Arrested: Did Leaked Intel Sabotage Hostage Rescue?

Israeli police have arrested a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and four others for allegedly leaking classified information to foreign media, court documents released on Sunday revealed. The intelligence allegedly claimed Hamas was planning to smuggle Israeli captives from Gaza to Egypt.Opposition leaders say the intelligence was leaked to take pressure off Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would bring home the roughly 100 Israeli captives still held by the Palestinian resistance movement. It is estimated that roughly 70 remain alive.Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged ceasefire talks with Hamas since the start of the war on October 7 last year, despite heavy pressure from the families of the captives to reach a deal.Court documents released on Sunday identified Eliezer Feldstein, an aide to Netanyahu, as one of several people being detained and interrogated over the leak of “classified and sensitive intelligence information.” The names of the other four detained persons have not been cleared for publication by Israel's military censors.The intelligence was leaked to two foreign media outlets, the Jewish Chronicle in the UK and Bild in Germany, both of which published stories about the leaked intelligence. The Jewish Chronicle later retracted its story.The court documents said that information taken from the Israeli military’s systems and “illegally issued” may have damaged Israel’s ability to free the captives held by Hamas in Gaza.Opposition leader Yair Lapid on Sunday accused the prime minister’s office of leaking “faked secret documents to torpedo the possibility of a hostage deal – to shape a public opinion influence operation against the hostages’ families.”By claiming that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning to flee to Egypt with the captives, the leaked documents appeared to promote Netanyahu’s claim in the minds of the Israeli public that any ceasefire deal must allow Israel to keep its forces on the Philadelphia Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border. Otherwise, the captives could end up in Egypt’s Sinai or “pop up in Iran or Yemen,” Netanyahu claimed.Netanyahu added the demand that Israel be allowed to continue occupying the Philadelphia Corridor in the 11th hour of negotiations for a ceasefire this summer. The demand torpedoed the talks, as Hamas has long insisted on a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any ceasefire deal.

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