JOHANNESBURG – Family and friends will bid farewell to government spokesperson and freedom fighter, Ronnie Mamoepa on Saturday.

Mamoepa, who died a week ago after spending several weeks in hospital following a stroke, will receive an official provincial funeral.

READ – Join us in prayer: Ronnie Mamoepa’s family

Both President Jacob Zuma and his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, will attend the funeral.

READ – Ronnie Mamoepa RIP: Presidency mourns passing

Mamoepa was Ramaphosa’s spokesperson at the time of his death, and Ramaphosa will be delivering the eulogy.

The service will be held at St Albans Cathedral in Pretoria and Mamoepa will be buried at the Zandfontein Cemetery in the capital.

eNCA

CHICAGO – A malfunction in an amusement ride at the Ohio State Fair sent riders catapulting through the air Wednesday, killing one and injuring seven, US media reported.

Ohio Governor John Kasich ordered all the fair rides shut down after the accident on the Fire Ball ride, a giant pendulum that swings riders in carts from side to side.

A spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio fire department told reporters an 18-year-old male was thrown 50 feet (15 meters) and killed on impact.

Three other people were reported in critical condition and four more were in stable condition.

Rhonda Burgess, who was at the fair with her three children, told CNN the accident involved carts carrying riders that were attached to the end of the pendulum.

A piece on one of the carts “snapped off and the riders came out of the cart,” she said.

“At least two (people) flew through the air at least 20 feet before landing on their backs on the concrete,” Burgess said.

David Evans, director of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center where some of the injured were taken, likened the accident to a high-speed car crash in which the occupants are ejected from the vehicle.

“This was a great force and a great mechanism,” he said.

The accident occurred on the opening day of the Ohio State Fair in Columbus.

The Columbus Dispatch said the ride, built by KMG, was billed as an “aggressive thrill.”

AFP

Johannesburg – Black First Land First (BLF) said it lodged complaints of assault and racism at the Hillbrow police station after a “white man” allegedly hit its leader Andile Mngxitama at an amaBhungane event on Thursday evening. 

Hillbrow police, however, said only a case of intimidation was opened.

Mngxitama and his supporters were asked to leave the amaBhungane gathering in Braamfontein after they started shouting at journalists. The event was aimed at discussing state capture and the Gupta leaks.

Speaking to News24 from the Hillbrow police station, BLF spokesperson Zanele Lwana said four BLF members were at the event to “engage” on the topic when a white man allegedly hit Mngxitama. 

She said a second group of black people singing at the entrance were not BLF “comrades”.

“Out of the blue a white man in a blue T-shirt went straight to Andile and punched him and told him to ‘stop his bullshit’,” Lwana said. 

“We then stood to break up the confrontation when another amaBhungane journalist pushed back at us.”

In a video clip, tweeted by former HuffPost SA editor Verashni Pillay, Mngxitama asks for an apology from event organisers.

“You all saw, I was sitting there and a white man comes to me threating tell me to stop my bullshit and you want to continue now here as if nothing has happened [sic].”

Pillay tweeted that BLF supporters pushed her off her chair. 

South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) chairperson, and News24 politics editor, Mahlatse Gallens, said the BLF’s actions were in violation of a recent high court interdict. 

On July 7, the High Court in Johannesburg granted Sanef an interdict to stop the BLF and Mngxitama from harassing, threatening, or intimidating journalists, or going to their homes.

“It is quite despicable that the BLF has no respect for the rule of law and our Constitution. They are now trying to shut down spaces for free expression,” Gallens said. 

“That is how desperate they are to shut down the exposure of the rot of state capture.

“If theirs is the truth, why do they need violence and intimidation to spread it? It is important that South Africa understands that we need to defend our hard-won Constitution.”

Once the BLF supporters had left the gathering, amaBhungane managing partner Sam Sole said it was an attack on the one institution “holding the line”.

“The Gupta leaks have been a game changer for the media, but also for our politics,” Sole said in amaBhungane’s live stream of the event. 

“We should not for one moment underestimate the Zupta faction. This is also a clear indication of desperation. The stuff we are publishing is having an impact.”

Zupta is a conflation of Zuma and Gupta.

Sole used developments at the South African Reserve Bank, the SABC, and Treasury as examples of recent “victories” in the public sector. 

The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism is a non-profit company founded to develop investigative journalism in the public interest.

Together with the Daily Maverick and News24, amaBhungane has led the investigation into the emails leaked from the Gupta family. These have exposed the extent of the family’s influence in the South African public sector. 

Cape Town –  Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on Wednesday denied claims that she approved the publication of a controversial book describing former president Nelson Mandela’s last days. 

Madela’s ex-wife said she’d merely signed the first copy of Mandela’s Last Years as a courtesy to its author, Lieutenant General Vejay Ramlakan. 

“He brought me the first copy and he said: ‘Mama can you sign the first copy?’ I am asked for my autograph often, and my autograph has never become an endorsement of anything.”

Publisher Penguin Random House South Africa on Monday said it had withdrawn the title from publication out of respect for Mandela’s family. 

Madikizela-Mandela said only Ramlakan could explain who gave him permission to write the book.

She was married to Mandela between 1958 and 1996. 

Graça Machel

On Friday, Mandela’s widow Graça Machel condemned the book “in the strongest terms”. She said its publication was a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“I am taking legal advice on whether to institute legal proceedings against the author and its publisher,” Machel said.

Ramlakan headed Mandela’s medical team until his death in December 2013. In extracts of the book released to News24, Ramlakan wrote about Mandela’s admission to Mediclinic Heart Hospital in a serious condition on June 8, 2013.

“On the previous night, we surmised, a sudden ulcer bleed and concomitant lung infection had probably caused an aspiration from blood that was being regurgitated,” he wrote.

Ramlakan retired from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in 2015.

The Defence Department on Saturday said the book did not represent the views of the department or the SA Military Health Service.

“The views and patient doctor engagements expressed in the book have not been sanctioned by the senior cadre of the department and the SANDF respectively,” spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini told News24.