JOHANNESBURG: A South African Cabinet minister who is a senior member of the African National Congress was arrested and appeared in court on Wednesday over allegations of bribery, just as his party was meeting for talks to work out a way forward for the country after an election deadlock.
Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa faces charges of taking bribes of around $90,000, according to police. He appeared in a courtroom in Johannesburg alongside another suspect in the case. Kodwa said he intended to plead not guilty to the charges.
Kodwa, 54, is a member of the ANC’s internal National Working Committee, which met Tuesday as the party discusses how it might form a government after losing its 30-year majority in an election last week. The ANC has not given any indication of which other party or parties it might strike an agreement with to co-govern and talks are ongoing.
Kodwa was implicated in taking bribes from a businessman at a judicial inquiry in 2021 that looked into allegations of widespread government corruption involving ANC officials and others. The allegations relate to the time when Kodwa was the national spokesperson for the ANC and later the deputy minister of state security.
Police allege that Kodwa used some of the bribes to buy a “luxury” SUV vehicle.
Government corruption was seen as one of the issues that prompted a majority of South Africans to turn away from the ANC in the election. It received 40 percent of the vote to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time and now needs to form a coalition or agreement with others.
South Africa Cabinet minister arrested over bribery allegations
https://arab.news/y6vbv
South Africa Cabinet minister arrested over bribery allegations
- Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa faces charges of taking bribes of around $90,000
- Police allege that Kodwa used some of the bribes to buy a ‘luxury’ vehicle
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
