An easy route to the Nobel Peace Prize but would he dare to take it?

It’s an easy route to much-coveted prize

Once again, Donald Trump works at complete cross-purposes with logic, reality, and practicability.

He has failed to obtain a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia – and is most unlikely to do so in the future. Now, to save face, he boasts that he does not believe in ceasefires at all. Even arthritic armchair amateurs like me can predict this futile war will not end any time soon.

Here’s the crux of Trump’s posturing: He’s striving for the Nobel Peace Prize. And oddly enough, he’s closer to it than he realises. Not by fiddling around at the cold borders of Alaska and Russia, but by addressing a far more urgent conflict.

Journalists have asked repeatedly why Europe, the US, the UK, and the so-called “Free World” are terrified of communism when true democracy barely exists anywhere anymore.

Freedom of speech is all but extinct. It certainly isn’t fear of religion – churches, mosques, and synagogues are freely found in that “communist” country.

Here then lies a golden opportunity for an American president: Simply turn off the armaments valve to Israel and say two little words – “Tero! Buss!” (Hindi for “Stop! Enough!”).

That alone would qualify for an instant Nobel Prize, delivered straight to the wobbly floor of the Oval Office by courier – no delivery charge. | Ebrahim Essa Durban

ANC’s fate mirrored in that of the NP

In that history has a habit of repeating itself, there is a significant correlation concerning internal and external circumstances which determined the destiny of the National Party and those which currently beset the ANC.

Despite efforts to bottle up black people in economically unviable, spatially inadequate and geographically scattered ethnic homelands, socio-­economic realities compelled the National Party to embark on political reforms which led to a half-baked form of power sharing.

But that flawed dispensation served only to ignite massive black unrest, which coupled with international sanctions and disinvestment, led to the capitulation of the National Party and the accession of the ANC to power.

In 2003 BEE was consolidated into Broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE). Next month the third wave of B-BBEE is scheduled to commence with new sector specific targets. Despite its title, its application has neither alleviated black unemployment nor benefited the general black population. Instead, B-BBEE has entrenched and enriched an elite, promoted institutional decay and discouraged foreign investment.After 30 years the National Party had the sense to realise that its Bantustan policy was costly and unworkable.

Since 2003 B-BBEE has been in operation without any tangible evidence that it is the solution to reducing unemployment and accelerating economic growth and investment. Yet the ANC is determined not only to persist with it but to further tighten its application.

xpecting a virtuous outcome by repeating a failed policy, especially in an intensified form, is not only stupid but politically very risky. Yet that is exactly the position in which the ANC finds itself in 2025. At the same time, it is beset by the economically crippling prospect of American trade tariffs having been denied the continued tariff-free benefit of participation in Agoa (African Growth and Opportunity Act).Internal political strife coupled with severe international economic pressure on account of an established, well-orchestrated anti-apartheid campaign left the National party government with neither time nor credibility to attempt a survival trajectory.

In place of its boast to deliver “a better life for all,’ the ANC’s socialism has delivered unprecedented squalor, impoverishment, crime, corruption and dysfunctionalism. As a result, history indicates that its political fate is mirrored in that of its predecessor.

However, the difference is the NP’s loss of power did not leave South Africa in a state of ruin. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff

One can’t but outsource to the best

Once again we see a communist viewpoint creeping into Cosatu’s advice.

Cosatu does not seem to understand how complex society is and even more so how complex it is to run a successful government. One can only ask in trying to understand the reasoning when it calls for the end of outsourcing.

Not only is government the biggest employer in South Africa, but they provide funding for some of the most complex services. These structures should be very carefully outsourced to ensure that service remains functional for the whole of society.

Complexities in service abound. For instance, when the government has to litigate cases which could cost them millions of rand it would be wise to outsource those legal services to the best legal brains they can find.

To try and insource that would be folly. | MICHAEL BAGRAIM Cape Town

Minister’s tardy visit prolongs suffering

The DA notes yesterday’s visit to KwaZulu-­Natal by the national minister of human settlements, Thembi Simelane – a shocking three years after the 2022 floods – to engage with flood victims, introduce a contractor and hand over housing units.

While the DA welcomes these long-overdue interventions, the response by the national human settlements minister has been unacceptably delayed. For her to only come to KZN now – to “introduce a contractor” and hand over a small number of houses – is a failure of leadership and governance.

The delays have not only prolonged the suffering of countless families, they have also deeply impaired their dignity, with many forced to endure years of uncertainty and instability in transitional emergency accommodation.

It is unconscionable that disaster relief has been handled with such lethargy, leaving communities vulnerable and unsupported for so long.

As climate change continues to bring unpredictable and extreme weather, climate-resilient infrastructure is essential and educating communities on disaster preparedness must take place. KZN cannot afford a repeat of this failure and our people deserve responsiveness when disasters strike, not three-year delays. | Hannah Lidgett, MPL DA spokesperson on Human Settlements

Netanyahu: The assassin of peace

How does Israel explain the piles of dead children pulled from rubble – were they all “Hamas shields,” or just collateral damage in an intentional genocide?

How does Israel’s military rationalise shooting helpless and harmless protesters, medics, and press, then cal them “terrorists”? How does Israel justify the arrest and torture of children?These are not rats to be poisoned or insects to be crushed underfoot. These are human beings, who have names, who have stories, dreams and families.

Yet Israel treats their deaths as nothing more than statistics in a military report.

Stop this madness: Stop packaging ethnic cleansing as “public safety.”What kind of nation bombs babies in incubators before spinning it as victory?

Only a nation that has lost all sanity. What kind of army destroys ambulances carrying the wounded and then poses for cameras? Only an army that has traded morality for tactical sadism. What kind of leaders watch mothers scream over the bodies of their children, yet still insist it is “defence”?

Only baby-killers wearing prime ministerial sashes.

Israel has descended so far into its obsession with domination that it cannot even see the difference between resistance and survival, between a fighter with a weapon and a child holding bread in his hand. The bombs aren’t targeting troops – they’re massacring ordinary people: Grandparents, fathers, surgeons, and schoolchildren.

Yet Israel repeats its lie: “We are targeting terrorists.”

But who is the terrorist here? The starving child searching for food, or the pilot pressing a button to erase an entire neighbourhood?

Who is the terrorist? The prisoner in a cage, or the jailer who sets that cage on fire? The answer is in the doctors’ coats, white at dawn, brown by noon, black by night, crusted with blood that never scrubs clean.

Netanyahu has dragged Israel into a meat grinder of vengeance that its name is now synonymous with cruelty. He has turned the so-called “right to self-defence” into a license for extermination. And while he face global condemnation, he doubles down – bombing harder, starving more, erasing faster.

Stop this insanity! | Yumna Zahid Ali Karachi, Pakistan

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