Millions missing in crazy scam involving scores of victims.

A woman from Edenvale claims to have permission from the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and “all those short alphabetical organisations” to launch her own country. The launch date is 1 June 2017.

If you are a South African, you are in luck, as she will be annexing parts of Johannesburg as their HQ.

And if you haven’t already begun to roll your eyes, we must tell you it is a scam – an elaborate one that has been duping South Africans for more than a decade.

Almost all the operations which feed into the grand scheme of the “country” idea start with the word “Maveric” – be it Maveric Sovereign State; Maveric Bank; Maveric Old Age Homes; Maveric Oil and Gas; and so on.

You’ve pored over the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and Der Spiegel online, now dip into the monthly ISIS publication on the dark web. 

What do you get when you stir Cosmopolitan, GQ, You, Joy Magazine and Popular Mechanics into a boiling vat of blood? Rumiyah, the monthly magazine put out by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The publication title is aspirational: it’s named after Rome, a city on the target bucket list of many ISIS supporters. As new editions of Rumiyah appear, they’re dredged up from the deep web and posted by the Clarion Project, a non-profit organisation focused on revealing the activities of radical Islamists.

Like its predecessor publication Dabiq, Rumiyah isn’t just an appalling read that leaves you feeling sullied and scared. It’s also enlightening.

You get straight-talk from the mujahideen, or at least from their marketing people. The central message is unequivocal – as one article sassily puts it, “The Kafir’s blood is Halal for you, so shed it”.

The fate of the gargantuan multi-million-rand luxury apartment block on Durban’s Berea that was ordered to be torn down by the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in June 2015 (nose190) still hangs in the balance. The demolition order for the part-built nine-storey structure has been taken on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal by the developer, Serengeti Rise Industries, supported by the eThekwini Metro Council which irregularly granted permission. The Council faces a huge damages claim  should the building have to be demolished.

The appeal was argued in the SCA on 10 May, with lawyers for the neighbouring residents opposing.

In nose211 it was reported that the DA-led City of Johannesburg appeared to have embraced a company they once labelled an ANC “crony” business by generously awarding them a R99-million contract just two months after taking office.

eValuations Enhanced Property Appraisals (noses202 & 203) won the tender contest to value the city’s 900,000- plus properties for the 2018 General Valuation Roll. These valuations are used to determine the monthly municipal rates payable by property owners.

Information on just how the contract came to be awarded is hard to come by. 

Rapacious, financially illiterate lawyers clean out Randgold’s war chest.

On numerous previous occasions Noseweek has reported on how Randgold & Exploration Company (Randgold), a simple investment holding company listed on the JSE and formerly on the Nasdaq in New York, was pillaged of billions of rands over 1999 to 2005 by JCI (Brett Kebble’s mothership), without detection by the then board of directors, who were wilfully blind to the destruction in value, and its careless independent auditors, who had easily been hoodwinked.

Once discovered, Randgold – had it been under independent control – would surely, as a matter of extreme urgency, have completed a forensic investigation and then immediately issued summons against the thief (JCI), the recipients of the proceeds of the thefts and other wrongdoers. If JCI was unable to pay the claims, it would have been liquidated and an inquiry in terms of Section 417 of the Companies Act would have ensued.

Victories are rolling in for the anti-fracking lobby in KwaZulu-Natal. State entities along with murky prospectors have attempted to bulldoze through exploration rights, deliberately breaking the law and making it difficult for the public to object.

Despite the revolving door access to the state mining authority enjoyed by corporate miners, they have repeatedly been defeated by activists and farmers who know their rights and in May won yet another round in the Western Cape High Court.

Judge DV Dlodlo was persuaded by Normandien Farms – which runs both timber operations and a R40-million water-bottling plant on its farm near Newcastle – to stop all exploration in an 800,000-hectare area, conducted by Cape-based Rhino Oil and Gas Exploration South Africa (Pty) Ltd.

Triumphant anti-nuclear campaigner believes courage works wonders.

Battle-weary South Africans had cause for a rare moment of national jubilation when on 26 April the Western Cape High Court made its momentous ruling, effectively halting the country’s ridiculous nuclear power expansion programme.

The ruling, on the eve of Freedom Day in South Africa, also coincided with the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. To top it all, it rained in drought-stressed Cape Town, and jubilant activists danced outside the court until they were drenched.

If upheld, the ruling will save the country trillions of rands. It represents arguably the biggest achievement by NGOs in decades. Two small NGOs, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (*SAFCEI), following two years of court preparation, finally managed to block the deal.

The unacknowledged sources of ANC leader’s Regeneration of Africa speech.

Early in 1906 newspapers across America reported that Columbia University’s prestigious Curtis gold medal for oratory had been awarded to “a full-blooded Zulu”, a man “of Royal Zulu blood”, a Zulu “Prince”.  In the 111 years intervening, that speech on “The Regeneration of Africa” has achieved iconic status. Colored American Magazine published it in 1906 and it has reappeared at intervals across the decades. Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana, read it at the first International Congress of Africanists in 1962. Scholars have discerned behind it “a man of vision” and “extraordinary eloquence”. It has been labelled “timeless”, “an important contribution to discourse on the notion of an African Renaissance”, carrying a message that has “inspired later generations of African nationalists”.

Update story of the day: down at the butcher’s, a woman in black running gear says: “Sorry, sorry, sorry, for being so particulah… that’s amazing, though, thanks, sorry, mah son just hates fat, isn’t that amazing? Oh and those sausages, they look amazing, do you put cheese in, parmesan? I’ll take two, will they keep? I just don’t feel like cooking today, I dunno whah...” Packing them up, the stony-faced but nice-enough butcher says “You won’t regret it, just fry them with a bit of butter”. “Oh no, mah son never wants butter, isn’t that amazing? Oh mah Gawd, they’re veal, I didn’ realise, I wanted chicken, I’ll leave it for now. I’ll come back, I promise, definitely. I come heah often… Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry for the trouble.”

Shongweni waste disposal plant plans to discharge dangerously contaminated water into sea.