Indholdsfortegnelse for 2024-11-18 i Mercury

Retinol and tretinoin are some of the trending products in the beauty industry. Although they may sound similar, these products are different. Speaking to Dr Azza Halim, a skincare expert she explained in detail the difference between the two products and their benefits. “Retinol is a derivative from vitamin A, commonly used in skin care products for anti-ageing and skin-renewing properties. “The mechanism of action is through stimulating the production of new skin cells and promoting cell turnover for renewed collagen production. “It also regulates oil production, helps fade hyperpigmentation, tightens pores, and evens out skin texture,” explained Halim. Also derived from Vitamin A, tretinoin is much stronger than over-the-counter retinol. It speeds up the natural process of cell turnover to shed dead skin cells more quickly and replace them…

WHAT a match this was! All day I’d had the uneasy feeling that this time something could go wrong for the Boks. The damsels strumming at their knickers in the Pub With No Name somehow only increased the sense of foreboding. England had inexplicably blown their two previous encounters against Australia and New Zealand. Was this the night their fortunes would change? But how wrong I was! The damsels were right! That try by scrumhalf Grant Williams, simply outpacing the England defence. My word, the little blighter can move! Cheslin Kolbe’s two supersonic tries out of nowhere! Pieter-Steph du Toit’s bulldozing try! Hey, this was rugby par excellence! Yes, the damsels had got it right as they volunteered their knicker elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the time-honoured celebratory…

I commend both Kamini Prakash and Maheshwar Ramlagan for articulating the truth about the 1860 Cultural and Heritage Centre. And it should come as no surprise that they should invite a “historian” such as Vinay Lal, known for his whitewashing of the truth. The 1860CHC has some questionable individuals. One of them said on 6 December 2013, during the 7pm newscast of his particular group, that they did not pay tribute to others but had tributes paid to them. Anyone who knows history, let alone being a historian, will know the connotations, significance and implications of that — nothing to be proud of. Then there is an admirer of Osama bin Laden and Ahmed Deedat. Also one who claimed Babur was “secular”. Lal is right up their alley. Ironically, Lal…

An economic spend of R2.2 billion in KwaZulu-Natal and over one million visitors to eThekwini are expected during the December festive season holidays. This was revealed by the KZN MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (Edtea), Reverend Musa Zondi during the Summer season launch in Margate on the KZN South Coast on Saturday. The event was hosted by the Edtea entity KZN Tourism and Film Authority. Tourism bodies have welcomed the positive forecast for the Summer season and said they were looking forward to more international arrivals. Zondi said an estimated 1.3 million tourists and investors were forecast to visit Durban during the holiday season. “We believe improving street and community safety will give them much-needed assurance that they have made the right choice to spend their holiday…

RESCUE operations in Stilfontein, North West, where over 4 000 illegal miners are believed to be trapped underground, was temporarily halted yesterday as some of the miners have begun to return to the surface. This comes after a court order that was handed down by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ordering the unblocking of Shaft 11, where the miners have been hiding from police who wanted to arrest them upon resurfacing. The situation at the unused mine escalated in the past few weeks when police and the SANDF cut off routes that allowed miners to access food, water, and other necessities as part of their increased efforts to stop illegal mining, compelling miners to come to the surface. While 1 000 miners resurfaced from mines in the area after supply…

Rip currents wreaked havoc on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast this weekend, with a woman tragically losing her life and a man going missing at Margate Pier on Saturday, while another man drowned in a separate incident. The National Sea Rescue Institute of South Africa (NSRI) said their Shelly Beach duty crew was called into action just after 4pm on Saturday, after members of the public alerted them to a man and woman caught in rip currents. According to reports, a good Samaritan bystander entered the water and rescued the woman from the water, bringing her to the beach. NSRI crewmen, who were later joined by paramedics, attempted to resuscitate the woman but were unsuccessful and she was declared deceased. The good Samaritan attempted to rescue another male victim but had…

Liberal democracy needs a reset, an exorcism of the demons of self-enrichment and ego PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump is either a genius at electoral campaigning and connecting to the woes of ordinary folk. Or maybe it was the Democrats vacillating the departure of an increasingly incoherent President Biden only to be forced into an “undemocratic” eleventh-hour elevation of ineffectual Vice-President Kamala Harris as the unopposed nomination for the presidential election on November 5. Perhaps it’s a sober day for US democracy, warts and all and with all its faults, which sprung up a predictable landslide victory for Trump, as he is destined to be sworn in as the 47th president of the so-called “leader of the free world” on January 20. The truth probably lies in all three. But one thing…

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the US at the weekend not to cross a “red line” in support for Taiwan, but told his counterpart Joe Biden that Beijing was willing to work with the incoming administration of Donald Trump. Biden and Xi met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, two months before Trump takes office and amid concerns of new trade wars and diplomatic upheaval. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has refused to rule out using force to seize it, while the US is the self-ruled island’s main security backer even though it does not recognise Taipei diplomatically. Xi told Biden that the “Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, pathways and systems, and development interests are China’s four red lines that…

Super Typhoon Man-yi pummelled the Philippines’ most populous island yesterday, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185km/h, with gusts reaching 305km/h, after making its first landfall late Saturday on the lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi, including several thousand in the capital Manila, as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” impact from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone Bicol region. No deaths have been reported, but there was “extensive” damage to structures on Catanduanes,…

GUWAHATI: Police arrested 23 people yesterday in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur for ransacking and setting fire to the homes of MPs and ministers, while hundreds demonstrated against recent violent killings in defiance of a curfew. The violence, marking the second day of unrest in the area, has led to a tense stand-off in Imphal, the state capital. Since May 2023, inter-communal clashes between the Meitei and Kuki communities have resulted in at least 250 deaths and displaced 60 000 people. Manipur has become divided into two ethnic enclaves: the Meitei-controlled valley, and the Kuki-dominated hills. | Reuters…

Los Angeles: The US has confirmed its first case of clade I mpox, a more aggressive strain, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The person diagnosed in the state of California recently travelled from Eastern Africa and was treated after returning to the US at a local medical facility and released. The health agency said at the weekend that the new strain mpox’s risk to the general US public remained low, while the new case was related to an outbreak of clade I mpox in Central and Eastern Africa. The affected person has been isolated at home and is not on treatment specific for mpox, and symptoms were improving. | IANS…

The National Union of Mineworkers is dragging Seriti Resources to the Labour Court over the retrenchment of more than 1 000 workers from the company’s coal operations. NUM and Seriti have been embroiled in a bitter labour dispute over the past few months after the coal miner’s decision to retrench. Seriti argues that the employees being laid off are from operations that are no longer commercially sustainable due to Transnet under-performance and market volatility. The company has told Business Report that multi-product operations at Middelburg Mine Services (MMS) and at Klipspruit South-East pit together with related opencast activities require material restructuring to improve unit costs and enhance prospects of future sustainability. With successive engagements failing to yield a common breakthrough between labour and the company, the NUM said on Friday…

The shareholders of Clientèle Life, a company that provides affordable financial services products, will vote on the acquisition of fast-growing micro-insurer Emerald Life, which is valued at R600 million, at a meeting on December 13. Clientèle plans to acquire 100% of the shares in Emerald Life, which supplies affordable funeral insurance products to the lower- to middle-income market segments via a national advisor distribution channel. The price would be paid by the issue of preference shares. Emerald Life, with an embedded value of R600m, has over 18 branches nationwide and a head office in Bellville, Western Cape. It comprises a management team, 380 permanent employees, and about 3 500 independent sales advisers. Clientèle said its October 2023 acquisition of 1Life Insurance (RF) had further extended its expertise in the mass…

Z Khan of Durban appears to have a very problematic understanding of the world. As a start, she appears to believe that circumcision and castration are the same thing (which may explain the aggressive writing style). She then states that Israel, which apparently is interested in castrating the entire world, has “most of the world by the balls”. Again, it appears that she has a very loose understanding of the term castration. Khan has the absolute gall to suggest that Zionists are ”playing the vic tim” at football events and that they have turned playing the victim into an Olympic sport. Again, Khan uses the tired explanation that Arabs are also “semites”, which completely negates the entire history of the term antisemitism, designed by Jew-hating Germans to describe Jews as…

As truths begin to manifest themselves in the wake of Trump’s triumph, one obvious observation that has been in plain sight but has been ignored is the result of the 2020 presidential election. That is evident from a survey of presidential election scores since 2008. Obama won with 69 million votes in 2008; four years’ later he won with 65 million. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received almost 66 million votes to Trump’s 63 million. In 2020, Joe Biden was credited with 81 million. Without any serious campaigning and in competition with Trump’s highly successful term as President, for Biden to have ‘achieved’ 81 million votes—15 million more than the darling of the mass media, Hillary Clinton, in 2016 — is simply not credible. Since 2020, dozens of forensic audits…

EThekwini Municipality has taken the first step towards boosting service delivery and eliminating water supply challenges in the municipality by transforming the City’s water unit into a business entity. The proposed change means the water unit will be in the position to be self-reliant and not be “slowed down” by other municipal units in the execution of its functions. This initiative is part of broader changes proposed to enhance the municipality’s operational structures. The idea of transforming the water unit into a business entity was first presented during an executive committee (exco) meeting and council meeting several days ago. However, councillors expressed concerns and called for more time to be briefed on the details of the proposal. Last week, councillors participated in a workshop focused on the proposed changes. The…

Police in North West have welcomed the arrest and subsequent court appearance of a SAPS administration clerk who is facing charges of fraud. North West provincial police spokesperson, Colonel Adéle Myburgh, said the accused appeared before the Potchefstroom Magistrates’ Court. “Naledi Millicent Mere, 30, an administration clerk at provincial facility management, appeared before the Potchefstroom Magistrates’ Court for fraud. She was released on R2 000 bail and the case was postponed to February 27, 2025,” said Myburgh. Mere allegedly reported sick between September 9 and 13, and she submitted a leave form, accompanied by two sick notes. “Initial investigations by the anti-corruption unit revealed that although the accused visited the doctor during that time, she was never booked off sick,” said Myburgh. “It was further established that the doctor’s signature…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has praised the progress that has been achieved since the establishment of the Presidential eThekwini Working Group (PeWG) in April to address critical service delivery issues in the City. The PeWG is a collaborative effort by government, private sector and labour to improve service delivery, infrastructure and socio-economic conditions in eThekwini to make it an attractive destination for investment and tourism. In a recent statement, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said some of the significant developments include the City’s water and sanitation turnaround plan and the finalisation of water supply agreements for the Mkhomazi Water Project, which is expected to increase water supply to more than 600 million cubic metres per annum when completed in 2032. Magwenya said crucial repairs to address water shortages had been accelerated, including…

DURING a taxi blockade in Durban, the no-nonsense KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi asked taxi bosses nonchalantly, kuyaliwa yini, yishoni uma kuliwa (have you declared war? Say so if that’s the case). His question was based on the fact that he knows that taxi bosses understand one language – violence. With that, they understood the might of his force. Their response was quick, “No!”. The whole country was pleased with what they saw on national television, taxi bosses collaborating with law enforcement, something very rare. The conflict between taxi associations, metered taxis and e-hailing drivers will result in a blood bath, especially in Gauteng. The MEC for Transport and their counterpart, the MEC for Public Safety, appear to be twiddling their thumbs. The same goes for their national colleagues. It…

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu met to renew what they called the “strategic partnership” between the giants of Asia and Africa yesterday. Nigeria’s capital Abuja was Modi’s first stop in a tour that will take the Indian premier on to the G20 summit in Brazil, and to Guyana. The visit was billed by New Delhi as a meeting of the largest democracy in the world and the largest in Africa, “natural partners” as both push for a more central role in world affairs. Modi was welcomed to the Nigerian presidency by a military pipe band and honour guard, before entering closed-door talks with Tinubu and senior officials at his Aso Rock residence. “Our co-operation is very strong and there are many new possibilities as well…

Tanzanian rescue workers dug through the ruins of a collapsed building for a second day yesterday, hoping to pull survivors from beneath the rubble. The four-storey block came down on Saturday in the east African country’s busy Kariakoo market, in the centre of Dar es Salaam. Five people have been confirmed dead from the disaster, the fire brigade said. At least 70 people had been retrieved alive from the site. Dar es Salaam officials yesterday said there were more people still trapped in the basement floor of the shattered building. The fire brigade said the search and rescue had been hampered by the many walls making up the structure of the building. Cranes and other heavy lifting equipment were brought in to help. It is not clear why the commercial…

KYIV: Russia unleashed its largest wave of air strikes on Ukraine in almost three months yesterday, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in a sweeping attack that killed at least seven people and caused “severe damage” to the power system, officials said. The strikes, which prompted emergency power cuts in numerous regions, came after this month’s US presidential election victory of Donald Trump, whose pledge to end the war has raised the prospect of a looming push to hold negotiations. Officials confirmed damage to “critical infrastructure” from Volyn, Rivne, Lviv in the west to the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. | Reuters…

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump was greeted by chanting fans as he attended the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight bout at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Several political allies of Trump were also in attendance for the mixed-martial arts fights, including entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been asked by Trump to lead efforts to cut government inefficiency. Robert F Kennedy Jr, who Trump has nominated to be health secretary, was also at the fight and a photo posted on X showed the pair flying to the event together on Trump’s private plane. Trump watched the fights alongside Musk from front-row seats next to the caged octagon. | AFP…

Tamaryn Green, the radiant former Miss South Africa of 2018 and now a practising doctor, has had quite the year. Since her breathtaking wedding to successful businessman Ze Nxumalo in 2022, she’s continued to capture the hearts of fans across South Africa. Her marriage to Nxumalo marked one of Mzansi’s most celebrated unions with their wedding making headlines for its elegance and star-studded guest list. In August, Green had more than one reason to celebrate, she rang in her 30th birthday and announced the exciting news that she and Nxumalo are expecting their first child. The announcement was subtle yet heartfelt. To add to the excitement Green recently shared the gender of their baby and shared a snapshot of herself dressed in a soft pink outfit, standing in a beautifully…

I had told my sons they would live in the same house until they graduated from high school. “Dad, I am not moving. You said…” was my younger son’s comment when I suggested a job-related move. Within a short time, he met a few young men in the new area where I was wanting to move. “Dad, can I shadow at the high school?” “Shadowing” a school, is visiting for the day. It’s following a schedule as if you were already a student at the school, a common feature of my son’s lower and middle private school experiences. He dropped the term with his new friends as if everyone knew its meaning. I called the high school principal and explained “shadowing” — he had never heard of such a thing…

In response to Ebrahim Essa’s letter in The Mercury titled ‘Netanyahu has made things worse for all Jews Worldwide’....let me be very clear! Israel was never going to continue to be a sitting duck, Essa. Would you sit around and wait while Hamas madmen enter your town or city, looking to rape, kill and kidnap every innocent civilian around you, including your own family members? Please be honest! Let’s get real here! But you see, folks like Essa and Z Khan love to pull wool over our eyes, somehow making us believe that Jews and ‘Zionists’ are the most terrible people on the planet...I may not be a Jew, Essa, but my common sense tells me that a man like Netanyahu means what he says and does as he had…

The DA in eThekwini has raised strong objections to the recent quarterly service delivery and budget implementation report for the period ending September 30, 2024. This quarterly audit, compiled by the municipality, is meant to provide key insights into the City’s performance in delivering essential services and meeting community needs. The report claims a 73.33% achievement of key performance indicators (KPIs), with particularly high scores in governance, responsive local government and fostering a vibrant city. How can the municipality claim full marks in governance and responsiveness when essential services are collapsing? If KPIs in good governance and city vibrancy are reported as highly successful, then these achievements should be evident in residents’ daily lives. Instead, the people of eThekwini are dealing with persistent water cuts, unreliable electricity and unmet…

WHILE efforts to regulate spaza shops have been welcomed, role players in the informal sector say the 21-day window for re-registration is insufficient and government should be partnering with them as stakeholders, given their extensive networks on the ground. President Cyril Ramaphosa at the weekend announced plans to address the recurring food-borne illnesses linked to pesticides that have claimed the lives of at least 22 children across the country. According to the president, there have been a total of 890 reported incidents of food-borne illnesses across all provinces since September. “As soon as the deaths occurred, multidisciplinary teams in government were activated to address these incidents. These teams included detectives from the South African Police Service, health officials, environmental inspectors, Department of Agriculture officials and officials from the National Consumer…

THE Cancer Alliance, represented by Section27, has been admitted by the Competition Tribunal as an intervening party in the excessive pricing case of medicine used for the treatment of breast cancer. The complaint was initiated by the Competition Commission and is lodged against Switzerland-based multinational healthcare company Roche Holdings AG and its subsidiaries. The Competition Commission lodged a complaint with the Competition Tribunal alleging that Roche violated the Competition Act by charging excessive pricing for Trastuzumab. This is a life-saving treatment for an aggressive type of breast cancer called Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 Positive breast cancer (HER2+). The Commission also alleges that the limitations to accessing Trastuzumab imposed on South African breast cancer patients, as a result of the excessively high prices charged by Roche for its products…

THE Transport Department says it’s in the process of reviewing its National Road Safety Strategy to further reduce road-related fatalities as nearly 12 000 people died on South Africa’s roads last year. A total of 11 883 people were killed on the roads in 2023, compared to 12 436 people who died in 2022. This was revealed by Transport Deputy Minister Mkhuleko Hlengwa yesterday as the United Nations World Remembrance Day of Road Accident Victims was observed. The department, together with the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), marked the day at the Boekenhoutkloof Traffic College in Tshwane with a wreath-laying ceremony in honour of fallen traffic officers. According to Hlengwa, 69 traffic officers have died in the line of duty since 2019 and the majority of these officers, 28, were…

MINISTER in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has been rightly condemned for her reckless and inhumane remarks bordering on breaching the Constitution. Her comments regarding the illegal miners, believed to be in their thousands, in Stilfontein North West, explain why this government is not the right vehicle to remove the label that South Africa is the most unequal society in the world. Asked if the government would intervene in the crisis that is unfolding in Stilfontein, Ntshavheni, chuckling before answering stated: “We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped. Criminals are to be persecuted. We didn’t send them there, and they didn’t go down there for the good benefit or for the good intentions…

AN ISRAELI strike on a building in a densely populated district of Beirut yesterday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources said, although there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. The Israeli military declined to comment. There was no evacuation order for the area published on the Israeli military spokesperson’s account on social media platform X before the strike. The strike hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighbourhood where many people displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs by the Israeli bombardment had been seeking refuge. The security sources said it struck a building where the offices of the Ba’ath Party are located, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif was in the building. The broadcaster later also said Afif had…

RIO DE JANEIRO: Diplomatic tensions over global warming will take centre-stage at the G20 summit in Brazil this week, as negotiators at UN talks in Baku, Azerbaijan hit an impasse on climate finance that they hope leaders of the world’s 20 major economies can break. Heads of state arriving in Rio de Janeiro yesterday for the G20 summit will spend today and tomorrow addressing issues from poverty and hunger to the reform of global institutions. Wealthy countries have been saying that an ambitious goal can only be agreed if they expand the base of contributors to include some of the richer developing nations, such as China and major Middle Eastern oil producers. | Reuters…

Sydney: Dozens of bushfires were burning across Australia’s Victoria state yesterday, authorities said, forcing the evacuation of residents and destroying at least one home. Strong winds and high temperatures sparked 80 fires on Saturday, which hundreds of firefighters are battling. Victorian emergency management said that the two fires had burnt more than 1 900 hectares and were not yet under control. At least one home has been destroyed in the western part of the state, but there are fears more homes were lost. Strong winds were expected to sweep the state before a cold front moves in. | AFP…

Faye Tunnicliffe is old enough to know a time when women cricketers represented their country purely for national pride. But she’s also young enough to have seen how the game has transformed from a leisurely pastime to being fully professional. Tunnicliffe, who debuted for the Proteas whilst still a teenager is 25 now, certainly feels she is much better prepared for her second crack at international cricket after being recalled to the national team for the upcoming England series after a three-year absence. “I think I've learnt a lot about myself, particularly off the field,” Tunnicliffe exclusively told Independent Media at the Wanderers. “I’ve learnt not to put too much pressure on myself, because sometimes nerves can spoil it for you. “Obviously playing back in the day it was not…