Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: SA embassy in Mali to reopen
The International Relations Department said it planned to reopen its embassy in Mali, as soon as the security situation has stabilised. The West African country’s borders were closed and airports shut down on Wednesday, after President Amadou Toumani Toure was ousted by the military in a coup. Embassy officials and other stranded South Africans were advised to stay indoors on Monday because the situation was still volatile. The department’s Clayson Monyela said it was unclear when communications will be restored. “As soon as the security situation improves we will reopen the embassy. At the moment the embassy is closed and all our officials are accounted for.”
http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/Story.aspx?Id=85338
Newsline: SA embassy officials ask to meet ‘drug-mules’
The South African embassy in Indonesia has asked the government there for access to two South Africans arrested with R7 million worth of crystal methamphetamine in their possession. Officials are still waiting for the request to be approved. Brett Savage, from Townsview in Joburg, was arrested on October 19 carrying just under 3kg of the drug known locally as tik. Four days later, Kedibone Sheila Motshweneng was arrested with just under 2.5kg of the same drug. But Albie Laubscher, acting chief director consular services within the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, said no formal communication of the arrests was received from the Indonesian government until November 4. The embassy became aware of the arrest through media reports in the local Indonesian newspapers. Laubscher said they still did not know what charges Savage and Motshweneng were facing. “Until the embassy has had an opportunity to visit the detainees and independently determine the circumstances, Dirco (the Department of International Relations and Co-operation) cannot comment,” he said. It is understood that both face a possible death sentence under Article 113 of Indonesia’s anti-narcotics laws. Savage and Motshweneng were among six drug mules caught as part of a Bali syndicate, according to media reports in the Jakarta Post newspaper.
Newsline: South African minister refused to have handbag scanned in Norway
The contents of International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane’s handbag are not up for discussion, her spokesman said. “I can’t believe you are asking that,” Clayson Monyela said when asked why she recently refused to have her handbag scanned at an airport inNorway. “It’s not an issue we want to debate… She was strong and defended her principle, and we have moved on from there.” Monyela said the Vienna Convention exempted diplomats from luggage searches at airports, and the minister – as the country’s top diplomat – was right to stand her ground. “At every airport, no diplomats are searched. This is why she refused.” The minister’s handbag drama inNorwaycost South African taxpayers more than R200,000. Nkoana-Mashabane, who was on a state visit to that country earlier this month, refused to have her bag passed through an X-ray scanner at an airport in Oslo. As a result, she missed her scheduled commercial flight to her next diplomatic engagement inBulgaria. A private-charter executive jet, which cost R235,343, was then hired to transport her. It was unclear what she was carrying in her handbag and why she was keen to avoid security screening.
Newsline: Indian Customs officer faces action for ‘tipping off’ SA consulate
A customs official may face action for sending a hoax terror alert to South African consulate during the FIFA World Cup 2010. He had warning the foreign authorities of explosives having landed in two containers shipped fromGujarat. Almost a year later investigators are now chasing the officer Yogesh Shah, then posted as customs and central excise superintendent at Surendranagar for jumping the gun and sending authorities into a tizzy, unnecessarily. He is being blamed of sending intelligence directly to a foreign agency without ascertaining its authenticity and causing embarrassment to the country internationally. On June 26, 2010m, Shah passed on intelligence to South Africa’s Consul General in India, Busi Kuzwayo, about two containers sent from Gujarat to SA being laden with explosives meant for terrorist activity during the World Cup matches. Shah gave numbers of the containers and asked the diplomat to have all the containers coming fromGujaratandMaharashtrachecked because, he said, “inIndiaonly 10 per cent of exported cargo is checked”. The mail was also marked to the German embassy. Things backfired for Shah, when after the championship, SA officials doubted the intelligence and contacted ministry of external affairs to check Shah’s credentials. Investigations have revealed that Shah supervised the sealing of the two containers in question stuffed with boxes of sanitary wares onJune 21, 2010. Investigators also found that though buyers of the containers were from the SA, the cargo was meant forDubai. Shah is now posted in Ahmedabad service tax department division-1 and is responsible for recovering tax arrears. During his tenure, Shah has seized more than Rs 1,800 crore worth of smuggled goods, which include foreign currency, gold, heroin and hashish. Yogesh Shah has filed an RTI application, datedOctober 25, 2010, with central excise department, Surendranagar, seeking details about the inquiry against him. Shah has said, “I wrote the email after receiving threat calls on my office number where someone said that the container sealed by me has suspicious goods meant to be delivered inSouth Africa, where the football World Cup is going on. The unknown caller said if anything happens inSouth Africa, I will be arrested and if I don’t inform the officials there then I will be killed.”
Newsline: ‘Ambassador hijackers’ in SA court
Two men who allegedly hijackedBotswana’s ambassador to the US in the North Westappear in court on Monday, the SABC reported. Tebelelo Seretse was hijacked in September 2009 on the N4 between Rustenburg and Swartruggens, allegedly by two men, aged 24 and 31, calling themselves Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe. The men were driving in vehicles with blue lights and wearing camouflage uniforms. They held Seretse at gunpoint and the car. Police arrested them near Lenasia South, in Gauteng. They are expected to appear before the Rustenburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday
http://m.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/Ambassador-hijackers-in-court-20110612
Newsline: SA murder suspect in US refuses embassy help
South Africa”s deputy ambassador to the United States, Johnny Moloto, said that the SA embassy in Washington DC had been formally informed of Madondo”s arrest last week and had extended “normal consular assistance to him”. “We sent him consular forms to complete so we could help him get in touch with his family, but he has declared that he does not want us to communicate on his behalf. Therefore, we cannot contact his family or comment on his arrest as long as he doesn”t give us the go-ahead because that would violate his privacy,” Moloto said. Madondo, 33, entered theUSon a student visa in 2008 to study theology. He is alleged to have shot dead FirstMerit Bank vice-president Jacquelyn Hilder, 60, in Akron, Ohio, on February 17; Maritzburg College old boy Zenzele Mdadane in Dayton, Ohio, on February 19; and a father and son, Bobby Gonzalez, 57, and Gabriel Baca, 37, at a motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Hilder was shot in the abdomen and chest after a failed robbery attempt. Mdadane died from multiple gunshot wounds. Madondo is said to have killed him to avenge a 2008 disagreement. Madondo was arrested inHouston,Texas, on March 28. Madondo, a former electrical engineering student who was expelled from theUniversityofDurban-Westvillein 2003 after being found guilty of corruption while he was SRC president, is being represented by a public defender.
http://m.timeslive.co.za/?i=3692/0/0&artId=4148002&showonly=1
Newsline: SA embassy staff being evacuated from Abidjan
The country’s ambassador and embassy staff were in the process of being evacuated from the Ivory Coast’s capital city of Abidjan, the department of international relations and co-operation said on Tuesday. “We just want to clarify that there is an evacuation operation underway…they should be out of the country in no time,” spokesman Clayson Monyela told Sapa. “They are not trapped but rather together and safe at the embassy. We have contact with them on an hourly basis,” he said. The Pretoria News reported on Tuesday that ambassador Zodwa Lallie and her staff and their families were trapped in the divided country. Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane earlier said all South Africans had been evacuated from the country. Monyela added later on Tuesday: “It is a process…we are hoping they will be out within the next 24 to 72 hours.”
http://www.thenewage.mobi/Detail.aspx?NewsID=14577&CatID=1007
Newsline: Ivory Coast general flees South African embassy
Forces backing internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara entered Ivory Coast’s largest city Monday in a final offensive to try to take the country’s economic capital more than four months after the election. Residents in two different districts in northern Abidjan reported seeing truckloads of soldiers advance into the city. International observers and governments around the world backed the results issued by Ivory Coast’s electoral commission that showed Ouattara had won the November presidential election, but entrenched leader Laurent Gbagbo has refused to give up power after a decade in office. Earlier Monday, the army chief for Ivory Coast’s strongman rejoined the military days after deserting and seeking refuge at a foreign diplomat’s residence, officials said. Gen. Phillippe Mangou, his wife and five children left the South African ambassador’s residence in Abidjan after fleeing there last week, said Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for South Africa’s foreign affairs ministry. Mangou’s departure had been seen as a major blow to Gbagbo. One of the army chief’s aides said Mangou is still supporting Gbagbo despite having fled to the South African ambassador’s residence. United Nations employees were ordered to take refuge inside the basement of their main building starting at 7 a.m. Monday. The top UN diplomat in Ivory Coast estimates that as many as 50,000 members of Gbagbo’s security force deserted or defected in the hours after the pro-Ouattara forces descended on Abidjan late Wednesday. Leaders around the world from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated calls for Gbagbo to step down over the weekend.
http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/news/story/2011/04/04/ivory-coast-abidjan-embassy.html
Newsline: South Africa hosted ‘wanted’ diplomat
An Iranian deputy foreign minister who has been visiting South Africa was listed by Interpol as being wanted in connection with a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people. Dr Hadi Soleimanpour is still wanted in Argentina, said Sergio Widder, Argentinian representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights organisation. Department spokesman Clayson Monyela said he was not personally aware that Argentina had a warrant out for Soleimanpour”s arrest. Soleimanpour, 55, whose name was also spelt Solaimanpour, was Iran”s ambassador to Argentina when a bomb ripped through a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires on July 18 1994. A total of 85 people were killed and more than 300 injured. Nobody has ever been arrested in connection with the blast that flattened the seven-storey building, but Soleimanpour was among those wanted for questioning by Argentinian authorities. A list of questions submitted to Argentinian embassy officials in Pretoria went unanswered. Argentine Judge Juan José Galeano issued warrants for Soleimanpour”s arrest and on August 21 2003 he was seized by British authorities as Argentina attempted to have him extradited. The Telegraph newspaper reported at the time that he had been studying eco-tourism at the University of Durham when he was seized. The extradition request was rejected by British authorities in November 2003 because there was insufficient evidence to proceed with extradition, according to BBC News. In October 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out. The BBC reported at the time that they called for the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others. Their names were sent to Interpol and Interpol red notices were issued. On March 15 2007 Interpol issued a statement saying the red notices for Rafsanjani, former Iranian foreign affairs minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Soleimanpour had been withdrawn.
http://m.timeslive.co.za/?i=3692/0/0&artId=4143149&showonly=1
Commentary: Troubled SA diplomacy could doom climate talks
November 16, 2011 at 4:40 pm · Filed under Commentaries, South Africa
A United Nations climate change summit, which already promises only modest steps for cutting greenhouse gas pollution, could be in more trouble unless host South Africas harpens up its international image. The 190-nation gathering inDurbanat the end of this month follows years of fraught attempts to win agreement on strong emission curbs from big polluting nations. Expectations of success are already low for the talks, where parties are trying to find a way of saving the landmark Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which expires at the end of 2012. Analysts expect all the same that the talks will produce a face-saving measure to prevent the Kyoto deal from dying in Durban. But the cloud has deepened after a series of diplomatic gaffes by the host country that have eroded confidence in its ability to take a grip on the debate and help shape the summit’s outcome. Furthermore, South Africa has strained relations with major Western powers which are normally major fund sources of global policies but are increasingly reluctant to allocate money due to debt worries in the eurozone and US. South Africa has found itself on the wrong side of the mainstream argument over Libya and Ivory Coast. Western powers also raised their eyebrows when Pretoria blocked a visit by the Dalai Lama to please China, its biggest trading partner. Analysts recall the Copenhagen climate talks of 2009 which were roundly regarded as a failure, in part because the host country could not do the heavy lifting to broker the deals required. The talks in 2010 in Cancun were regarded as a relative success, with many negotiators crediting Mexican envoys for pushing the process forward. South Africa’s environment minister is Edna Molewa, a highly regarded domestic political operative with almost no experience in global negotiations. Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has more international experience, serving as an ambassador, but has not been seen as a force in regional or global diplomacy. It was Mashabane’s diplomacy that came in for Western criticism when Pretoria supported entrenched and autocratic leaders in Libya, Syria and Ivory Coast. Its stance strained ties with the European Union and Washington. The refusal to allow the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace prize laureate seen as a dangerous separatist by Beijing, to attend the 80th birthday of South Africa’s national hero Desmond Tutu, also provoked an outcry. Foreign Policy magazine dubbed South Africa a “cowardly lion”. Critics said the ANC has compromised ideals it embraced when it fought to end apartheid. “Principles have fallen to such an extent that nobody expects them to do the right thing,” said a diplomat in Pretoria.
http://m.timeslive.co.za/?i=3692/0/0&artId=4169350&showonly=1
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