a protracted energy crisis is doing further damage to an economy already hit by shocking levels of unemployment, inequality and corruption. now, if the anc is faltering, who is best placed to offer an alternative? well, my guest today isjulius malema, leader of the radical populist economic freedom fighters. if malema were to get even a share of power, what would that mean for south africa? julius malema, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much. it's a pleasure to talk to you, mr malema. we are speaking as south africa is in the middle

of an energy crisis. it seems set to get worse. what do you think it is doing to this country? well, its aim is to collapse this country and undermine the democratic project, because those in power have relegated their responsibilities, to who, we don't know. they have not maintained the power stations. they have not built the new ones that are functional. and as a result, we are where we are. the interim ceo of eskom, the state—owned energy company, said yesterday that over the coming months of winter they might get to a stage eight situation, which means there could be power cuts for pretty much 12 or more hours per day. but you have gone further. you have said that you think the grid will collapse. in fact, you said south africa is going to be plunged

into darkness within two weeks. why are you exaggerating? i'm not exaggerating. i said this before they told you there was a stage eight coming. the stage eight is to prepare you that the worst are coming. and i'm telling you the truth as is. what is it that can avoid the collapse of the grid, which they have done in between? which station have they built that is functional to its expectation? which station have they maintained? have they said, this one, we're closing it down? we are going to engage in major maintenance of this station. nothing major has been done. but your statements could spread panic. which station have they maintained? have they said, this one, we're closing it down? we are going to engage in major maintenance of this station. nothing major has been done. but your statements could spread panic. is that what you want? no, i'm not spreading panic. i'm telling the truth. stage eight. they are just being polite. they are going to go and you are talking hours.

we are going to go days without electricity. it's a reality that we need to deal with. even after announcing stage eight, the manner they did, which anc politician have you seen panicking? which president have you seen calling the nation into confidence about what is really happening? no. we hear from officials as if we don't have elected leadership of this country. on march 20th, you declared a national shutdown. you tried to shut down the entire economy in the midst of this power crisis. is that responsible? that is the most responsible thing to do. you want me to fold my hands? you want me to not do anything? what will history say about me? i'm going to be asked a question, not by you, by the future generation, as to what have you done when south africa was in a crisis? the most logical thing to do

is for the president to resign. was it in britain where we saw prime ministers in a short space of time resigning one after another because they realised they were not about to carry the national agenda? the president is not carrying the national agenda. we need a government of national unity constituted by all of us who are not driven by political party interest, but the interest of south africa to resolve this immediate crisis, which will affect all aspects of our lives. national unity, you say. you also said at the time of the national shutdown, this shutdown is the beginning of a revolution. no—one can stop it. no army can stop it. no police can stop it. some of your members put out videos threatening to beat up teachers and police if they went to work.

one even threatened to beat up pupils if they went to school. and you talk to me about national unity? but that video of a person who was threatening to beat up pupils if they go to schools, and all the video, i think hardtalk should have done its research to now realise that video has been resurfaced to support a certain narrative. there is no such a thing. i'm telling you, there's going to be a revolution. let the grid collapse and let's see what's going to happen... let the grid collapse. i'm saying to you... how do you think south africans are going to feel hearing you say that? people who are losing theirjobs, people who have no income, and you just say to me... you are misinterpreting me. i'm saying to you, let the grid collapse as it is going to happen and see what's going to happen in this country. i'm not wishing it. i'm saying it's going to happen. and you will see what's going to happen. do you think that once the grid collapse, people are going to exchange roses with government? people are going to rise.

and when they rise, there will not be any leader who will be leading them. they will be leaderless. there will be anarchy. there will be looting all over this country because nothing will be working. so if you think that i was bluffing on the 20th of march, i was just saying to this government and the people of south africa, something ought to be done to avoid what is possibly coming, which is going to be a leaderless revolution. that's very powerful rhetoric. but the truth is, on 20th of march, according to employers, 70% of workers across the country went to work. one political commentator said that actually the failure of the national shutdown was a, quote, humiliation for malema. from where we are sitting, the shutdown was successful. nothing was operating. the south african media was at the public transport,

at taxi ranks, at bus ranks. the taxi drivers themselves, the bus drivers themselves have said we showed up, but there are no people. so if you are going to listen to attacks, stop. most... possibly a racist analysis of wanting to undermine the narrative of the success of the shutdown, then that is your own baby to nest. but the reality is that nothing functioned on that day. you can go to the public broadcaster. you can go to independent media outlets in south africa to give you the footage of the day, every corner. and what even makes me happy is that even in the rural areas where normally the revolution never takes place, the people were out in their numbers saying enough is enough. let's think about the lessons to be drawn from the current crisis, because what we see is a state—operated energy giant which is failing to work.

it is not delivering power to the people. we have other major state—operated companies, for example, transnet in the transport and logistics sector, which are failing the people of south africa. we could look at the aviation sector, all sorts of sectors where the state has failed, and yet your message is you still want to confiscate all privately—owned land, essentially nationalise all privately owned land, you want to nationalise the mines, you want to nationalise the banking sector. and these are the key pillars of south africa's economy — you want them all in state hands. and you, julius malema, are saying to the south african people, elect me and i and my associates in the economic freedom fighters will run this economy. absolutely. you know, 95% of south africa is electrified. do you know that south africa gets water today?

africans, they are watching a public broadcaster? all these examples i've given you are state—owned. but do you know that we have seen this experiment played out in other countries? i'm thinking of zimbabwe, i'm thinking of venezuela. and the model does not look good to many south african people who see it. no, it looks good. we are using it now. we were better off now. owning this. it's not like i'm saying let's go and take eskom out of the hands of the private sector. we are owning it already. so... and then south africans have accepted and are happy with... you own it already and it's a complete mess. that's why south africans are saying let's get proper people to go and run these institutions. are you the proper person? i'm a proper guy. i mean, i don't want to go too far back into history, but at various times you've failed to actually file a tax return on time. you've been accused of different financial offences, you've never been convicted, but some of those charges

were never brought to court. but you tell south africans, despite your own history, you are the guy to run their economy. that's why that's a mind of a lazy person who doesn't do his work. you will have to refer back to 15 years. i've grown up over a period of time, built a solid political party. the only thing you can keep on referring to is what you interviewed me about it 12 years ago. get something new, my brother. show a skill of a hard—working presenter who does his research. you can't fault me since i've made my mistakes on tax when i was very young, when i was almost 27 years old, fixed that problem. today i'm a 42—year—old married man with children who has taken responsibility and built a solid party to be the third—largest party without the support of white monopoly capital and the owners of the south african economy. you keep on referring

to all them old things because you are now beginning to sound like a scratched cd. you have every right to tell me... tell me of me now. ..you have changed. tell me of me now. i've been in parliament for ten years. let's take one particular aspect of your policy positions. yes. do you think aligning yourself with vladimir putin is going to be good for south africa? but that's what it is now. south africa is in alliance with russia, with india, with brazil, with china. so why are you asking me as if it's some policy that is going to be implemented after i took over? south africa is in alliance with russia now. south africa right now calls itself non—aligned. in the context of the war. but these are two different things. south africa is an ally of russia. now, the second question is, where does south africa stand on the war? it says, "i'm non—aligned

in relation to war, but russia remains south africa's friend." so we cannot create confusion around there. don't create an impression that it is malema who is going to come and create an alliance with russia. but there are some very specific... actually... if i may say so. i will go beyond that, i will go beyond the friendship with russia and in the war i will align with russia and i will even supply the weapons to russia, because russia is in a war with imperialism, and any agenda that seeks to push back imperialist agendas, it's well within the policies of the eff. you say, quite clearly, "i would arm vladimir putin." yes. you know that the international criminal court wants vladimir putin to face war crimes charges. it must start with tony blair. it must start with george bush.

it must go to barack obama. then it can go to putin. so let's get this straight. you're saying to me, your policy, if you were in power in south africa, it's quite simple, that your enemy's enemy — and it seems you regard the us and its allies as the enemy — your enemy's enemy is yourfriend. never mind if he's a suspected war criminal. never mind if the un and the icc say they have compelling evidence of russian war crimes. you don't care. as far as you're concerned, "my enemy's enemy is my friend." you are exaggerating. but another point, which you don't want me to go there, is that tony blair accepted that they were wrong about saddam hussein, to an extent that he did an apology over that. right? you have never called for his arrest. a man admitting that "i was wrong" to how many people died there, killed by those people.

so all i'm saying is we are with president putin because it's not "enemy of my enemy", it is an anti—imperialist agenda, that says the american dominance and its allies should be undermined at all costs. anti—imperialism, even though vladimir putin is quite explicit about his desire to revive a form of empire. he says countries like ukraine have no right to independent, sovereign existence. he appears to believe that the best thing would be to revive an empire, the soviet empire. but you're anti—imperialist? we are anti—imperialist. that's a debate for another day. in the war, it's not what he's talking... the war isn't about the expansion. and had there been a common ground found, this could have been avoided. we are not for imperialism, even if it were to come from russia. if he does that, we'll condemn it. but we know for a fact that

progressive forces such as china have also aligned themselves with putin to try and create an alternative from the imperialist domination of the world. and that's what the eff is about. you admire china. you admire, it seems, putin. what you seem to have as a vision for south africa's future is much more along those lines — authoritarianism, than democracy. no, socialism is not authoritarianism. so how can you describe china as progressive? no, it's very progressive. china subscribed to leninism and marxism, where the working class controlled the commanding heights of the economy. and that's what we subscribe for. we are of the means of production being owned and controlled by the state. we want south africa through the vision

and the image of china, where you grow the economy, where you reduce unemployment, where you reduce poverty, and you can't take that away from china, and the state plays the central role with regard to that. that kind of message and the messaging on russia has seen the rand plunge against the us dollar. he laughs. hang on. we see many corporations in south africa looking at establishing headquarters elsewhere. we see foreign direct investment flat—lining in this country. do you believe that the rhetoric you are using is good for the south african economy? i've been doing this from when you interviewed me 15 years ago, when i was young, and therefore you can't say the rand—to—dollar crisis today is created by this message that i've been spreading for so many years, from my early ages, and then this... but what i'm suggesting

is that the new tensions between washington and the government in south africa have definitely affected the financial markets. no. it was... the crisis, as we see today, as we have this conversation, me and you, it was worsened by the irresponsible utterances by the ambassador of the usa, who just recklessly, without following the diplomatic protocols, went out to make certain allegations about our country, damaging its good image and then undermining its sovereignty in terms of choosing who its friends are. and today we see the rand being weak because of such utterances. why would the rand be weakened by a political posture that says, "this is what we want to be when we take over government. we want a government that will be owned by the corrupt—free.

i admire china when it comes to how it deals with crime. to how it deals with infrastructural development. i admire china on how it has dealt with poverty and unemployment. " how would that weaken the rand? is that not what the investors want for all of us? the most likely way that you can get a grip on some power in this country is by forming a coalition with the anc after the next election. you could have a role if you were to do a deal with the anc. are you ready to do it? the reality is that the eff is the only organisation that is growing and that the da and the anc, the da which is the official opposition, anc, which is the ruling party, are both significantly declining to a point where the da called us the enemy number one. why did they do so? their own internal research tells them that "the eff has overtaken you". that's how much our policy position has attracted

the people of south africa. we are not going into coalition for positions. we are going to say anyone who wants to work with us, and we have said this before and that's why we are not working with anyone in the local government, if you want to work with us, you are going to expropriate land without compensation, you are going to nationalise the mines, you are going to establish a state—owned bank, you are going to make sure that we fight crime, fire by fire, to make this country a safer place. those are just but minimal, non—negotiable points that we'll engage with anyone who wants to work with us. non—negotiable. all of that non—negotiable? non—negotiable. on that basis, it's hard to imagine you can make a coalition with anyone. anc was more than willing. actually, anc was at the point of signing with us on expropriation of land without compensation. remember, we even put this in parliament. how did it pass to a point where parliament had to do investigation if the anc was not agreeing?

we were almost at the edge of getting a deal and some young anc clowns decided to vote against this. but we are not going to retreat in returning the land back into the hands of our people. and don't tell me about zimbabwe. this is going to be done through a democratic means, like we did in consultation with all south africans, black and white, on how best do we get the rest of our people owning the land and other strategic sectors of the economy? you know there are some south africans, and let us be blunt, many white south africans who fearjulius malema. they, some of them have said to me, "if malema gets to power or close to power, i will leave this country." do you welcome their fear or do you want to find ways to overcome theirfear? i don't welcome their fear. stephen, they said that about mandela. the most—celebrated mandela.

you're talking about me. they said, "if mandela, a prisoner, becomes the president, we are leaving this country." and they left. i was in the vaal river the other day looking at some of the houses that whites abandoned in 1994 when mandela became president. they are not scared ofjulius malema. they are scared of an independent black man who is not controlled by any white person, who is not controlled by london. last year you said this. it was after you'd questioned whether a particular white person, why they hadn't been located and — quote — "taken to an isolated space where our supporters could attend to the guy properly". and you went on to say, "you must never be scared to kill, a revolution demands that at some point there must be killing, because killing is part of the revolutionary act." absolutely. this was last year. absolutely. you can't say you are a revolutionary and then be scared to kill. but once you go killing people

around, you are a terrorist. when you've got the support of the majority of your people to engage in war and the majority of the people are with you, that is the revolution, it's not terrorism. and therefore, i'm not a terrorist. that's what i'm saying, at least for now. the conditions have not dictated that there should be anyone who shall go to the bush and engage in war to kill. but if those conditions necessitate, we'll without hesitation do that, the same way the generations before us, when conditions necessitated, they were not scared to take up guns and shoot to kill. so i'm not saying anyone must be killed. all i'm saying is let everybody come to the party. let's build this one country and give away our privilege, for the privilege of all. final question. your vision of south africa's future, will it come through the ballot box or will it come through

what you call a revolution? it will come through the ballot box. a ballot box that produces a revolutionary party will unleash the revolution. and the revolution, when it is unleashed through democratically elected government, is the changing of the system, where you radically defeat capitalism and introduce a socialist state. we still believe in the eff, fundamentally so, that the power to the people must be ushered in through the ballot and nothing else must be looked at except the ballot. however, when the need arise to defend ourselves through whatever means necessary, we'll do so without hesitation. julius malema, sadly, we're out of time, but i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you.

hello there. 25.1 celsius was the high — porthmadog in north—west wales on tuesday, making it the warmest day of the year so far across the country. and for the rest of the week it does stay mainly dry thanks to high pressure, with always the warmest in the sunny side of the weather towards western parts of the uk, always a bit cooler and cloudier further east. now this is the blocking area of high pressure which will continue to bring this mainly dry weather, but if you cast your eyes down towards southern europe, it's a different story. here we've got daytime showers and thunderstorms breaking out for the rest of the week. so rainfall totals will continue to mount here. could even see some localised

flooding in places but further north, thanks that area of high pressure, it's going to stay almost bone dry, but we could see some drizzle at times across eastern england under the thickest of the cloud. as we start early wednesday. and under that cloud blanket, which will spread across much of england and wales. temperatures won't fall much below 7 to 10 degrees, but chilly under the clear skies in the north—west and a little bit of mist and fog, but it's here where you'll see the sunshine from the word go for wednesday morning. the clouds tending to thin and break and burn back to the coast could linger across parts of the midlands, eastern england once again. and it'll be chilly along north sea coast and the northern isles down to the south—east, mid—teens there, but up to the mid 20s, central belt of scotland, low 20s for northern ireland and parts of wales. wednesday night the low cloud rolls back into eastern scotland, much of central, southern eastern england and also parts of wales. and again, those temperatures ranging from around 6 to 9 degrees, but a few chillier spots under the clear skies in the north—west. we do it all again for thursday.

best of the sunshine again across northern and western areas, eastern scotland, eastern england will see that cloud burn back to the coast. but again, with the onshore breeze, which will be quite fresh across the east, in the south east, it'll feel cooler here as opposed to western areas which will see temperatures again into the low 20 celsius. similar picture on friday, most of the cloud across northern and eastern areas. again, more of a breeze in across the south—east. that'll temper the temperatures somewhat so. i think temperatures are a little bit lower across the board. we're in the low 20s out west and the sunshine as opposed to the mid 20s, but into the weekend it stays largely fine, dry, plenty of sunshine again. best of the sunshine out west, always a bit cloudier and cooler along north sea coast.

welcome to newsday, reporting welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, live from singapore, i'm monica miller. i'm monica miller. the headlines. the headlines. south korea reports south korea reports on a north korean launch, on a north korean launch, putting the capital, putting the capital, russia. seoul, on edge. seoul, on edge. vladimir putin blames a drone vladimir putin blames a drone strike on moscow on ukraine... strike on moscow on ukraine... and says it will reinforce and says it will reinforce its air defence. its air defence. kyiv denies being behind kyiv denies being behind the attack, but prepares the attack, but prepares for strikes in retaliation from for strikes in retaliation from russia.