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Multi-million-dollar loans are, it seems, just a mirage.

The three Verster brothers of Somerset West were delighted when a supposed global financial giant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) offered them a loan of US$14?million (R219m) to get their Western Cape start-up company off the ground.

Equally thrilled was budding Johannesburg entrepreneur Fidelis Phiri, to whom the Dubai-based Aras Group offered $7.4m (R115m) to fund his ambitious start-up.

In what appears to be an operation targeted at Africa, Noseweek has details of six more punters – in Botswana, Tanzania and Nigeria – who have received offers of loans from Aras totalling $1.2billion (R18bn).

DA initiates probe which reveals host of transgressions in Western Cape municipality – which NPA has ignored.

It reads like the plot of a crime novel; here we have a picturesque South African town nestling against the backdrop of a majestic mountain range, bordered by ancient yellowwood forests and endless white sandy beaches on the Indian Ocean. Yet this pleasant town conceals a dark underbelly of corruption, where the main accused is none other than the mayor – who denies any wrongdoing.
 
In true South African style, residents on both sides of the railway track (there really is one running through town) are incensed at the allegations, along with the thinly disguised racial friction, discrimination, BEE and its counterpart WMC.

Then the A-Team arrives in town and, without further ado, seizes the mayor’s phone and car tracking records.

Tannenbaum’s top agent, Dean Rees, tried unsuccessfully to block bank’s R34m in mortgage claims by accusing it of devious dealing.

In June 2009 Noseweek was the first to expose Barry Tannenbaum’s R3-billion cash pyramid or Ponzi scheme – an illegal form of gambling.

The scheme generated a turnover of over R3bn (some estimates put it at double that), capping Brett Kebble’s massive gold share frauds.And the two main perpetrators, Tannenbaum himself and top accomplice Dean Rees, remain safely ensconced abroad – in Australia and Switzerland respectively – out of reach of South African law enforcement agencies.

Fêted aerial and underwater photographer Jean Tresfon trains his focus on the City of Cape Town’s contamination of its coastal waters Flying over Cape Town in his light aircraft in 2014, marine conservation photographer Jean Tresfon noticed distinct “plumes” of strange-coloured water drifting off some of Cape Town’s favourite beaches. Long plumes of sewage stretched across the blue sea water, having entered the ocean off Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Green Point via underwater pipes called outfalls.

“I guess I’ve always known about the outfalls. I know we pump sewage into the sea,” Tresfon told Noseweek. “But, like everyone else, I always assumed it was treated first and that it was safe going into the sea.”

I have always wanted to be a science communicator, someone who helps other people understand complex or technical information about our world, before I even knew it was called “science communication” or understood it to be a viable career.

The President’s recent Sona  address was described as a “lame duck” and “a lead balloon”.  Same old, no action. There were also people who didn’t like the speech. Cyril Ramaphosa intended to inject some hope and realism into the nation with his oration but instead, it acted as a general anaesthetic. It needed some punch and vooma. What if history’s best scribes conspired to re-write the event?