Another 90 minute extended Carte Blanche episode on M-Net on Sunday at 7pm looking at the Guptas, highway rock throwing and dictator Robert Mugabe's playboy sons.

There will be another 90 minute extended Carte Blanche episode on M-Net (DStv 101) on Sunday at 19:00 of the broadcaster's weekly investigative magazine show due to the higher than usual age restriction of the film following afterwards.

This week's Carte Blanche episode on M-Net has a fascinating look at the playboy sons of the Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe, and further explores the Eskom state capture saga involving the controversial Gupta family.

Carte Blanche also profiles the young train rescue heroes from Kroonstad, looks at the apparent disarray within South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) political party, investigates the shocking highway rock throwing crime, and why telemarketing in South Africa has become out of control.   

First Strike From The AFU

This week the Asset Forfeiture Unit launched their first strike against international consulting company McKinsey and the Gupta-linked company, Trillian. Their preservation order freezes R1.6 billion, but that is just the beginning, says the NPA. They hope to recover another R50- billion. In an exclusive interview, Carte Blanche sits down with Suzanne Daniels, the Eskom executive, who was the first to recommend these companies pay back the money, but was suspended shortly afterwards.

Producer: Joy Summers

Presenter: Devi Sankaree Govender

Researcher: Tony Beamish

                         

Young Heroes

At just 12 years old, their selfless efforts to assist victims of the Kroonstad train crash have earned them the admiration of the entire nation. After witnessing the incident, the two boys fearlessly rushed to the scene to help the injured, pulling babies and the elderly from the train. Carte Blanche meets young South African heroes Evert du Preez and Mokoni Chaka.

Producer: Mart-Marie Faure

Presenter: Macfarlane Moleli

DA Future

As the governing party, the ANC is experiencing resurgence under the new leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa, trouble is brewing in the opposition camps of the Democratic Alliance. From Cape Town, to Port Elizabeth, to Johannesburg, major internal power struggles plague the DA.  Can the official opposition survive the political fallout in the Western Cape and its key metropoles throughout the country?  Carte Blanche analyses a party, seemingly in disarray.

Producer: Liz Fish

Presenter: John Webb

Highway Rock Throwing

It’s a deadly practice, often with fatal consequences. Gauteng and KZN have seen a renewed spate of rock throwing from highway bridges, causing serious damage to vehicles, claiming lives and injuring several motorists. But are these just reckless pranks or part of a devious plan to rob injured motorists of their valuables?

Producer: Nicky Troll

Presenter: Claire Mawisa

Telemarketing: Your Rights

We all loath those persistent telemarketing calls offering anything form insurance policies to cellphone contracts. Locally, it’s big business and when it comes to marketing phone calls, South Africa now ranks among the top 5 most spammed countries in the world. But is it legal to offer unsolicited credit or to keep your private contact details on a database after you’ve asked for it to be removed? Carte Blanche finds out what your rights are as a consumer.

Producer: Sophia Phirippides

Presenter: Macfarlane Moleli

Mugabe Boys

Pouring expensive champagne over a luxury watch to prove it's real is the kind of excessive behaviour that enraged Zimbabweans, but it’s also how Robert Mugabe’s sons, earned themselves an international reputation for party excess and big spending.  After years of splurging on lavish hotel rooms and designer clothes in South Africa, will Mugabe's fall from power put an end to his sons' jet-setting lifestyles?

Producer: Journeyman Pictures

As Zimbabwe military coup topples dictator Robert Mugabe, CNN International excels with reporting and coverage as South African TV news sheepishly looks on.

CNN team in Harare says it’s tense, not yet clear why #Mugabe hasn’t made a promised TV announcement. @McKenzieCNN https://t.co/R2J5u9jrgF

— Robyn Curnow (@RobynCurnowCNN) November 15, 2017

CNN International (DStv 401) proved by far the best on Wednesday on the African continent as TV news scrambled to cover the breaking and evolving news story of the military coup in Zimbabwe of the decrepit dictator Robert Mugabe.

As South Africa's unprepared and inept TV news channels eNCA (DStv 403), SABC News (DStv 404) and ANN7 (DStv 405) lurched to try and put some semblance of Zimbabwe coverage on, CNN International, Al Jazeera (DStv 406 / StarSat 257) and Sky News News (DStv 402) ran circles around South African TV news channels who awkwardly proved incapable of measuring up. 

After years of budget cuts, closing news bureaux, cutting coverage and decimating its once capable African staff, eMedia Investment's eNCA came off as worst on Wednesday, putting up the thin semblance of that "trying to" coverage that is more expected of its lame duck counterparts SABC News and ANN7.

While Al Jazeera has a bureau in Zimbabwe, and with CNN International's David McKenzie reporting live from Harare and doing packages for various dayparts and shows across CNN International, it made the wanna-cover coverage on eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 seem utterly awful and embarrassing.

eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 reported from non-near Zimbabwe places that worsened the "look, we're not actually there" effect and kept reporting news that ordinary news consumers could find as fast and consume directly, as what the TV news channels did from the same online news reporting and publications.

The constantly trying to play catch-up coverage on eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 was cringe-worthy to behold.

Wednesday's fail leading to fail Zimbabwe coverage from South African TV news channels underscored exactly just how much they're not prepared, not budgeted and are not geared towards even remotely being able to cover big political and other breaking news in other Southern African countries bordering South Africa.

Even the struggle to find analysts and commentators revealed how awful South Africa's TV news channels actually are when it comes to big, international breaking news with a Southern African angle.

Once again CNN International, Sky News and other channels ran circles around eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 as influential and big names were quickly booked, linked up and appeared - some from inside Zimbabwe - on international TV news channels.

It all helped to worsen the "kindergarden" effect of eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 rummaging around for some semblance of Zimbabwe coverage relevance.

This is what you get after years of reducing instead of growing, cutting back instead of expanding, cocooning instead of reaching out and networking, and isolating yourself instead of setting up bureaus when you're a TV news channel but doesn't want to do what the mere existence as a TV news channel requires.

eNCA, SABC News and laughably bad ANN7 are not going to catch up tomorrow, the weekend or next week on Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe news and coverage. And that's sad.

Like the Southern Cape fire devastation earlier this year where eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 also looked shameful in its terribly bad and non-existent coverage, they can't simply flip a switch on Thursday and have their Zimbabwe coverage go from the flimsy superficial and reading wire services alerts on television to in-dept, on the ground and incisive reporting.

They've done little to improve and build newsroom systems that's responsive, able to act and mobilise any time of the day and to get reporters and camera crews to breaking news flash points in South Africa and Southern Africa.

They're likely going to continue to be shamed and embarrassed for doing "radio on television" when these big events occur because it's the most they've ever been able to be, and what they've been reduced to.

Both CNN International and Sky News in just 2017 have done more reports from inside Zimbabwe and from the South African side of the Zimbabwe border with David McKenzie and Alex Crawford than eNCA, SABC News and ANN7 combined.

That is absolutely great for CNN International and Sky News and prop up their credibility and viewers' belief that these are TV news channels they can instantly tune to when news happens there.

The terrible opposite holds true for eNCA, SABC News and ANN7, shining in mediocrity reading news reports under the safe and warm glow of comfy Johannesburg studios lights.

Congratulations to CNN International for fast mobilisation, having built networks and contacts, having gone and having kept going and being able to instantly depend on handlers and others to gain access and to report.

It's sad that in 2017 South Africa has three local TV news channels who would say they want to be and are news channels, but are not actually willing to put money, resources and on the ground original reporting behind what is core to what makes a real TV news channel be one.

Racist Robert Mugabe refuses to talk to journalists, tells SABC News 'I don't want to see a white face'.

A racist Robert Mugabe ignited a firestorm of controversy when the Zimbabwean president, on his visit to South Africa, refused to talk to South Africa's press because he didn't "want to see a white face" in the phalanx of journalists who waited to interview him.

SABC News (DStv 404) captured and showed the footage where Robert Mugabe exits the Hector Pietersen Memorial museum in Soweto.

The SABC News reporter asks Robert Mugabe a question and whether the visit evoked emotion, but when he sees a white reporter, he shoves her microphone away, and dismisses the SABC News reporter as well as the entire press corps by saying "I don't want to see a white face".

BREAKING. Dali dining with a despot: Dali Thambo jets to Zimbabwe for a feast with Robert Mugabe in his famine ravaged country.

Now this is a TV dinner in very bad taste: The SABC will show South African viewers how Dali Tambo dines with Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe in utter opulence for People of the South - this while ordinary Zimbabwean citizens still starve and live on less than a dollar a day in in that poverty stricken Southern African nation.

Dali Tambo and a 14 person crew jetted into Zimbabwe as he interviewed and ate with Robert Mugabe during 19 and 21 December.

The opulent episode will be shown on SABC3 early in 2013 in Dali Tambo's interview show People of the South.

The Zimbabwean president is described by critics of conducting a "reign of terror" and being "an extremely poor role model" for the continent of Africa.

Whilst feasting in the country ravaged by famine for a "celebratory dinner", Dali Tambo and his entourage were also given access to State House, the majestic official presidential residence of Robert Mugabe for the episode.

The local talker and profile show was resusitated by the SABC in 2012 for a new run on public television in South Africa, the second season of which will be shown on SABC3 during the first half of 2013.

In the new incantation of People of the South which was made possible with assistance from South Africa's department of communications, Dali Tambo interviews personalities and their family members around family feast tables laden with a massive amount of food which 90% of ordinary Africans, in all likelihood, will never be able to afford nor taste in their lifetimes.

The People of the South episode shot in Zimbabwe will also include Dali Tambo interviewing Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace Mugabe, as well as the Mugabe offspring, Bona Mugabe and Chatunga Mugabe.