JOHANNESBURG: In his workshop stocked with piles of fabric and sewing machines, Sonwabile Ndamase is proud that the Madiba shirts he designed for Nelson Mandela 30 years ago endure as a legacy of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader.
Worn untucked and without a jacket, the loose Madiba shirts remain a favorite among South African politicians, making a statement 10 years after Mandela’s death.
Madiba is the clan name by which Mandela is known in South Africa.
Ndamase’s clients include South Africa’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as his predecessors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. The country’s political and business elite — including ministers, government spokesmen and local politicians — regularly place orders.
Even former US president Bill Clinton and boxing great Mike Tyson have a Madiba shirt.
“Anybody who wants to live a Mandela legacy or who wants to live Mandela ethos in life, guess what they are doing? They will go and pick up Madiba shirts,” Ndamase told AFP.
The jovial 64-year-old designer recalls when he was contacted by Winnie Mandela soon after the apartheid government released her husband from prison in 1990.
Having spent 27 years in jail, the hero of the fight against white-minority rule and South Africa’s soon-to-be president needed new clothes.
Ndamase met Mandela in his home Johannesburg’s Soweto. “He started to tell me that he wanted something that could look conservative enough for him to go and address the captains of industry and... then also to address the masses without having to change,” he said.
Mandela wanted a style that would make him stand out among other statesmen and did not require a tie.
The self-taught designer came up with the loose-fitting, casual-but-smart silk shirts with bold patterns that are associated with Mandela even after his death in 2013 at the age of 95.
The shirts often feature oriental-style patterns. Some boast deep colors such as burgundy, dark grey and royal blue, with playful designs; others are of cooler, tan hues, depicting elements from nature like leaves or twigs.
All are recognizable as the signature Mandela look. It is a style that Ndamase, who suffered a mild stroke in March 2024, is passing on to a new generation of garment-makers.
The jocular designer — whose perfect impersonation of Mandela is a testament to their time spent together — is taking his know-how to New York in September when he will host a masterclass for young designers.
On the same trip, he will showcase his Vukani brand’s new collection at an event for celebrity and elite buyers that will pay tribute to the 30 years of democracy since South Africa’s first all-race election in 1994.
The collection takes on a more casual, loungewear aesthetic, a breakaway from his usual style, Ndamase said. The occasion will feature in a documentary by a US-based filmmaker about his career.
Sporting a grey goatee, Ndamase laughs off the many other designers who claim to have pioneered the Madiba shirt or sell versions resembling his own, which today cost around 1,800 rand ($90) apiece.
Once described by the late Winnie Mandela as “part of the furniture,” he says never wanted to use the Mandela name commercial purposes. “I dressed one generation to another,” he said. “The relationship I had was a family relationship.”
Born in the Mdantsane township on the southeastern coast, Ndamase still spends time behind the sewing machine in his Johannesburg workshop.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said, squinting at shirt he is working on. “It’s a legacy collection,” he said, pointing to a T-shirt from the new range that is emblazoned “BE THE LEGACY” and features a famous silhouette of Nelson and Winnie Mandela walking free in 1990.
In South Africa, Madiba shirts keep Mandela’s legacy alive
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In South Africa, Madiba shirts keep Mandela’s legacy alive
- Sonwabile Ndamas proud that the Madiba shirts he designed for Nelson Mandela 30 years ago endure as a legacy of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader
Indian politicians demand action against Israeli envoy after attack on Priyanka Gandhi
- Israeli ambassador posted disparaging remarks against Gandhi after her comments on Gaza
- Congress party demands official apology for his ‘public attempt to intimidate’ the MP
NEW DELHI: Indian politicians are demanding action against the Israeli ambassador in Delhi following his verbal attack on Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi.
Gandhi, a lawmaker from the opposition Congress party, who is the daughter of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and sister of Rahul Gandhi — leader of the opposition — wrote on social media on Tuesday that “the Israeli state is committing genocide” in Gaza.
“It has murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children. It has starved hundreds to death including many children and is threatening to starve millions,” she said, calling out the Indian government over its inaction.
“Enabling these crimes by silence and inaction is a crime in itself. It is shameful that the Indian Government stands silent as Israel unleashes this devastation on the people of Palestine.”
The post was almost immediately responded to by Reuven Azar, Israel’s ambassador to India, who told Gandhi: “What is shameful is your deceit.”
The post triggered outrage among Congress members, with the party’s spokesperson Supriya Shrinate demanding that the Indian government act over the envoy’s “casting aspersions” on Gandhi.
“He should be officially made to apologize. She is a member of parliament, she is an elected representative, and how dare the Israeli ambassador talk to her in that tone. The government should take this up in no uncertain terms,” Shrinate told Arab News.
“We seek an unconditional apology for the use of tone and words that the Israeli ambassador has used, and the reality is that the world is watching what Israel is doing in Gaza.”
Priyanka Chaturvedi, an MP and spokesperson of the Shiv Sena (UBT) party, said inaction from the Ministry of External Affairs would only embolden foreign diplomats “to speak to Indian parliamentarians in this tone and tenor in their own country.
“This is unacceptable,” she wrote on X. “Hope Ministry of External Affairs reprimands this Hon. Ambassador.”
For Gaurav Gogoi, a Congress lawmaker from Assam, “the disparaging comments made by a foreign Ambassador against a Member of Parliament of India is a serious breach of privilege,” he said in an X post, urging Parliament to take action if the government does not respond.
The government in New Delhi has largely remained quiet since Israel launched its deadly assault on Gaza in October 2023.
But India’s civil society and the opposition are increasingly speaking up against Israeli war crimes.
Pawan Khera, chairman of the Congress party’s publicity department, called on External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to address the Israeli ambassador’s “public attempt to intimidate” Gandhi.
“That the ambassador of a state accused of genocide worldwide would target a sitting Member of the Indian Parliament is both unprecedented and intolerable. It is a direct affront to the dignity of Indian democracy,” he wrote on X.
Khera also addressed the envoy directly: “No amount of deflection or whitewashing can obscure the facts. The international community is witnessing, in real time, the killing of civilians in Gaza — including those queuing for aid. The world sees the heartbreaking images emerging from Gaza every day. It will neither forget nor forgive.”
Senior figures in UK’s ruling party sound alarm over Palestine Action ban
- Ex-minister: ‘You devalue the charge of terrorism by equating it with the protests we have seen’
- Civil liberties campaigner: ‘Spraying paint on airplanes is not the same as being the IRA or Al-Qaeda’
LONDON: Senior figures in the UK’s ruling Labour Party are sounding the alarm over the government’s banning of the group Palestine Action.
It comes after hundreds of people were arrested in London last weekend under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act.
The protesters had held signs demonstrating support for Palestine Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organization in July.
Former Minister Peter Hain said the issue “will end in tears for the government,” The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
The former anti-apartheid activist added: “We are seeing retired magistrates, retired and serving doctors and all sorts of people being arrested and now effectively being equated with terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, which is absolutely wrong.”
If the ban is contested through a legal challenge and overturned, it “would be a mercy to all concerned, including the government,” he said.
Hain was one of three Labour peers in the House of Lords who voted against the ban last month.
“It’s going to get worse (for the government) because I don’t see people from that ‘middle Britain’ background who have joined these protests in such large numbers to suddenly decide that all is OK,” he said.
“In fact, I think more are going to come out and face arrest because the approach to Palestine Action is contrary to every form of peaceful protest in British history, whether that’s the chartists and suffragettes, or anti-apartheid and anti-fascist protesters.”
The government has faced mounting pressure over the ban after it emerged that of the 532 arrested under the Terrorism Act on the weekend, half were aged 60 or older.
Hain served as secretary of state for Northern Ireland, a role that gave him great insight into the realities of terrorism.
“There is a battery of other crimes that could be applied to Palestine Action but terrorism is not one of them, while you also devalue the charge of terrorism by equating it with the protests we have seen,” he said.
“I … worked with the intelligence services and others to stop dissident IRA (Irish Republican Army) groups from killing. I have signed warrants to stop other real terrorists, Islamist terrorists, bombing London. So, I am not soft on terrorism. But I am a strong believer that you have to know what it looks like.”
Many Labour MPs and peers are now doubting the decision to ban Palestine Action, Hain added.
The government has justified the proscription by describing the group as a “violent organization” that was planning to carry out extensive attacks.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said court restrictions have prevented the British public from discovering the “full nature of this organization.”
However, Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti warned that the ban could result in an “I am Spartacus” moment, The Independent reported on Wednesday.
She was referring to the 1960 film “Spartacus,” and a situation in which a group of people claim to be one person in an act of solidarity against an authority.
The civil liberties campaigner urged the government to “think again” over the ban, saying her worries are “greater now even than they were before” after last weekend’s mass arrests.
Chakrabarti told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: “There are blurred lines now … some people are, as always, protesting about the horrific events they’re watching unfold in Gaza, but others think they’re standing up for civil liberties because this ban was disproportionate.”
She added that a distinction must be made between criminal damage and terrorism, and that “spraying paint on airplanes,” as Palestine Action members did, “is not the same as being the IRA or Al-Qaeda.”
Saturday’s mass arrest of protesters is believed to be the largest of its kind by London’s Metropolitan Police since the poll tax riot of 1990.
Rights groups including Amnesty International and Liberty warned that the arrests were “disproportionate to the point of absurdity,” and that the Terrorism Act is threatening freedom of expression.
Chakrabarti said: “And so we've got more people taking to the streets, a bigger headache for the police. Frankly, I’m very sympathetic to the police on this issue. I think it may be time to think again.”
Bangladeshi officials testify against former British minister Siddiq in corruption trial
DHAKA: Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials testified in court on Wednesday against former British anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, accusing of using a family connection to deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to obtain state-owned land in the South Asian country.
Siddiq, who is Hasina’s niece, resigned from her post in Prime Minister Keir Starmer ‘s government in January following reports that she lived in London properties linked to her aunt and was named in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.
She is being tried together with her mother, Sheikh Rehana, brother Radwan Mujib and sister Azmina. Siddiq has been charged with facilitating their receipt of state land in a township project near the capital, Dhaka. They are out of the country and being tried in absentia.
Siddiq’s lawyers have called the charges baseless and politically motivated.
Muhammad Tariqul Islam, a public prosecutor, disputed a claim by Siddiq that she is not Bangladeshi, saying the anti-corruption watchdog through investigations found that she is a citizen.
The prosecutor said if Siddiq is convicted she could be sentenced to three to 10 years in prison.
Siddiq in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian recently referred to Bangladesh as “a foreign country” and called the charges against her “completely absurd.”
She asserted to The Guardian she was “collateral damage” in the longstanding feud between her aunt and Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus. Hasina had a frosty relation with Yunus, and during her rule Yunus faced a number of cases including for graft allegations. Courts overturned those charges before he took over as interim leader days after Hasina’s ouster last year in a student-led uprising.
Separately, the anti-corruption investigation has alleged that Siddiq’s family was involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of money were said to have been embezzled.
Musk’s bid to dismiss OpenAI’s harassment claims denied in court
A federal judge on Tuesday denied Elon Musk’s bid to dismiss OpenAI’s claims of a “years-long harassment campaign” by the Tesla CEO against the company he co-founded in 2015 and later abandoned before ChatGPT became a global phenomenon.
In the latest turn in a court battle that kicked off last year, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk must face OpenAI’s claims that the billionaire, through press statements, social media posts, legal claims and “a sham bid for OpenAI’s assets” had attempted to harm the AI startup.
Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman last year over the company’s transition to a for-profit model, accusing the company of straying from its founding mission of developing AI for the good of humanity, not profit.
OpenAI countersued Musk in April, accusing the billionaire of engaging in fraudulent business practices under California law. Musk then asked for OpenAI’s counterclaims to be dismissed or delayed until a later stage in the case.
OpenAI argued in May its countersuit should not be put on hold, and the judge on Tuesday concluded that the company’s allegations were legally sufficient to proceed.
A jury trial has been scheduled for spring 2026.
Young women in UK face more strangulation and violent threats, says charity
- Refuge, one of the largest specialist domestic abuse organizations in Britain, said 525 young women and girls receiving long-term support from the charity reported experiencing physical violence between April 2024 and March 2025
LONDON: Britain is seeing more violent threats to kill or harm young women and girls aged 16-25, with incidents of strangulation and suffocation also increasing, leading domestic abuse charity Refuge said on Wednesday.
Refuge, one of the largest specialist domestic abuse organizations in Britain, said 525 young women and girls receiving long-term support from the charity reported experiencing physical violence between April 2024 and March 2025. Around half of them were subjected to strangulation or suffocation — a 9 percent rise from a year earlier.
Nearly half of those reporting psychological abuse — about 615 individuals — said their perpetrator had threatened to harm them, marking a 4 percent increase. Additionally, 35 percent said they had been threatened with death.
“Domestic abuse often goes unnoticed, yet these new figures reveal the harrowing reality: many young lives are being devastated by this horrific crime,” said Refuge CEO Gemma Sherrington.
“To actively tackle domestic abuse, there must be a major societal shift toward improved education that shines a light on the many red flags of abuse.”
Refuge said many young victims were experiencing coercive control, a pattern of behavior designed to isolate, manipulate, and intimidate.
Survivors quoted in Refuge’s report described how abuse often began with subtle controlling behaviors and escalated over time. Such behaviors can often be overlooked by authorities as markers of domestic abuse.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Britain would reassess a tool widely used by the police and domestic abuse specialist services to gauge the level of risk faced by victims following criticism that, among other issues, it downplays patterns of coercive and controlling behavior.
Refuge has called for domestic abuse education to be more deeply embedded in schools and for the government’s upcoming strategy on violence against women and girls to strengthen support for young people.
