Indholdsfortegnelse for 2021-07-13 i Mercury

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE growth in South Africa’s industrial production has slowed as the restrictions associated with the latest wave of Covid-19 remain a risk to its third quarter performance. Data from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) showed that manufacturing production advanced 35.3 percent year-on-year in May following an upwardly revised 88.1 percent record jump in April. This was partly due to low base effects from last year when production plunged amid the initial effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. StatsSA said the main positive contributions came from the manufacture of motor vehicles, parts and accessories, and other transport equipment . Basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery; food and beverages; and wood and wood products, paper, publishing and printing also went up. Investec’s economist Lara Hodes…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za President Cyril Ramaphosa has taken a hard line against the ongoing unrest and rampant looting in South Africa, saying that the government will do everything in its power to restore law and order on the streets. Business activity ground to a halt yesterday as factories and stores closed for fear of falling victim to criminal elements after sporadic events of industrial-scale looting in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. South Africa has witnessed untold unrest that started with the torching of trucks after the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma at the Estcourt Correctional Centre for 15 months. He was found guilty of contempt of court. Addressing the nation last night, Ramaphosa said the government had mobilised all available resources and capabilities to restore order, protect property and safeguard social…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za PROSUS has released a prospectus that details the share swop transaction with its parent company Naspers, whereby Prosus will acquire no more than 197.41 million Naspers N ordinary shares. The group said the exchange offer was voluntary and was made on a pro rata basis in terms of which Naspers N shareholders were entitled to exchange their Naspers N ordinary shares for new Prosus N ordinary shares in accordance with the exchange ratio of 2.27443 new Prosus N ordinary shares for each Naspers N ordinary share tendered. The release of the prospectus follows after 90 percent of Prosus shareholders voted in favour of the deal last Friday. The intention is to reduce Naspers’s weighting on the JSE. Prosus has a 28.9 percent stake in Chinese…

Sibusiso Mboto and Karen Singh As looting continued across parts of the province yesterday, the capital city of Pietermaritzburg was particularly hard hit with malls and shops in the CBD looted and some set alight. Kantha Naidoo of Business Fighting Crime in Pietermaritzburg said the situation in the city was out of control. “Unfortunately we can only try as much as we can by appealing to companies to protect their stuff but there is only so much they can do,” she said. Naidoo said protesters were starting fires everywhere to distract people while they looted. “We are standing here trying to figure out how to put out the fires so that the houses don’t get burnt and we can’t go into town,” she said. She said the company that she…

| Edgar Bergen OH DEAR, my expectations that those of us who have had both Covid-19 jabs would be allowed access to pubs and bottle stores have come to nought. Uncle Cyril has pronounced otherwise. Another almost two weeks of Prohibition lie ahead. Sigh! How long does this continue? Will we end up reading Dancing Dan’s Christmas, Damon Runyon’s classic on Prohibition in America in the 1920s, as our own seasonal fare? Or will the authorities discover – as they discovered eventually that beaches are about the safest refuge from Covid-19 – that a couple of glasses of the fruit of the vine or the fruit of the grain while watching TV at home is no threat to the nation whatever? Can they learn in a fortnight? I hae…

NARENDH GANESH | Durban North I AM ashamed of being South African – yes, I am truly ashamed of being a South African citizen. I was almost a victim of the 1958 riots in Durban in which countrymen rose against countrymen – and today I see my beloved country being devoured by acts of absolute barbarism and despicable acts of anarchism. I cannot believe that South Africa had it in her to nurture citizens who could behave in the manner which we are witnessing. Mr President, you addressed the nation on the extended lockdown, but your country was burning, and all you could muster to tell the nation as the commander-in-chief of our armed forces is that people will be arrested if they break the law. What kind…

GLEN CHRISTIE | Durban North Further to my recent letter regarding the cost of having Cubans in South Africa, it’s ironic that the minister of defence has suddenly revealed that the SANDF over the past seven years has spent R1 billion on Cubans working in the SANDF. Worse still, our minister plans to employ another 451 Cubans for the next three years. The cherry on the top of all this is they have paid out R2.6 million for the protection of these Cubans. Add all this to the bill of R161.5m that has been disclosed, and we have a frightening picture of expenditure unchecked and no doubt unbudgeted for. The country is in a financial crisis yet here we have a person in charge of a major…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za A SPERM donor who lost his court bid to have access to his son is not taking the verdict lightly. He believes the court did not take into account what was in the best interests of the child. The donor and his mother, who cannot be identified to safeguard the child, filed an application for leave to appeal in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria. Among other things, they argued that Judge Jody Kollapen should have asked the family advocate to investigate what was best for the child, now aged 5. Judge Kollapen remarked in his judgment that while he had sympathy for the anguish of the sperm donor, it was not in the child’s best interests that he have contact with the donor. The father and…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za REACTING to a further two-week ban on alcohol sales countrywide, the Beer Association of South Africa (Basa) will be submitting an urgent Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application to obtain data on how alcohol sales impacted the decision to extend the fourth alcohol ban. This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced lockdown level 4 restrictions would remain in place – which included a ban on alcohol sales – for another two weeks amid the rising numbers of Covid-19 infections in the country’s third wave. Basa said they would be submitting their urgent PAIA application to the National Covid Command Council (NCCC) to obtain the data. “The latest alcohol ban, which has been in place since June 28, has already served a devastating blow to the…

| African News Agency (ANA) The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has announced the suspension of cash payouts because of the unrest in the country. Sassa said in a statement the cash-in-transit industry had notified it that it would not provide any cash delivery services to Sassa pay points until further notice. It said the decision was made to protect not only its staff members but grant beneficiaries as well. Sassa has urged beneficiaries to remain calm and to look out for any information as to when pay points will resume with payouts. Sassa reminded beneficiaries that their Sassa cards can be used to make purchases. The cards can also be used to withdraw cash from ATMs.…

THE horrific scenes of violence, looting of private property and destruction of infrastructure, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, need decisive leadership from those entrusted with running the country. The riots following the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma to serve 15 months in jail for contempt of court, have been hijacked by criminal elements, with devastating consequences for the country. Supermarket chain stores, malls, hardware stores and trucks transporting much-needed goods to various parts of the country have fallen prey to the wave of looting in every region of KwaZulu-Natal. The violence has now also spread to parts of Gauteng, including Vosloorus, Alexandra and the Johannesburg CBD. If the country’s leadership, from local, provincial and national government, continues to fiddle while Rome burns, the fires of destruction will soon burn…

Chanting “freedom” and calling for President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down, thousands of Cubans joined street protests from Havana to Santiago on Sunday in the biggest anti-government demonstrations on the Communist-run island in decades. The protests erupted amid Cuba’s worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, its old ally, and a record surge in coronavirus infections, with people voicing anger over shortages of basic goods, curbs on civil liberties and authorities’ handling of the pandemic. Thousands took to the streets in various parts of Havana including the historic centre, their shouts of “Diaz-Canel step down” drowning out groups of government supporters waving the Cuban flag and chanting “Fidel.” Special forces Jeeps, with machine guns mounted on the back were seen throughout the capital. The police presence was…

The EU should consider imposing more sanctions on Belarus because Minsk was flying in migrants from abroad to send them illegally into the bloc, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said yesterday. His government accuses Belarus of sending hundreds of mainly Iraqi migrants across the border into Lithuania, an EU member state. Lithuania began building a 550km razor wire barrier on its frontier with Belarus. Landsbergis suggested the migrants were a means of pressure on the EU, which has imposed sanctions on Belarus since a disputed presidential election last year followed by a police crackdown on street protests. Lithuanian centre-right EU lawmaker Rasa Jukneviciene said Belarus and Russia were organising human smuggling networks with the help of Iran to fly people to the Lithuanian border, but did not provide evidence. Minsk…

WILMINGTON: Elon Musk took the stand yesterday to defend Tesla Inc’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity against a lawsuit by shareholders seeking to recoup the $2.6 billion the company paid for the ailing solar panel maker. The lawsuit by union pension funds and asset managers alleges the celebrity chief executive strong-armed Tesla’s board to buy SolarCity, just as it was about to run out of cash. Musk owned a 22% stake in SolarCity, founded by his cousins. Shareholders asked the court to order Musk, one of world’s richest people, to repay to Tesla what it spent on the deal, which would represent one of the largest judgments against an individual. Musk has argued the deal was fair and negotiated by the Tesla board free of his influence and approved by fully…

YANGON: Myanmar’s military authorities pledged yesterday to ramp up oxygen supplies to help treat Covid-19 patients amid a record-setting wave of infections. A doctor who gives phone consultations to Covid-19 patients said he knew of many cases of people dying across Myanmar because they couldn’t get oxygen in time. Army spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said military authorities were preparing 14 locations for Covid-19 treatment in military hospitals across Myanmar. He said oxygen plants would be operated at full capacity, and sales to the public by some private providers had been restricted. | Reuters…

Wynona Louw wynona.louw@inl.co.za South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus says he’s “begging” to have the SA ‘A’ side play another game against the British & Irish Lions on Saturday. Erasmus yesterday named their strongest-available side for the warm-up game against the Lions ahead of their three-Test Series, which kicks off on July 24. The Bok squad has settled in Cape Town ahead of tomorrow’s game between SA ‘A’ and the British & Irish Lions (kick-off 8pm). With head coach Jacques Nienaber in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, Erasmus has taken over the reins and faced the media during a virtual team announcement yesterday. During the briefing, Erasmus made it clear that he would much prefer the Lions to face the SA ‘A’ side in a rematch in their…

With a record-equalling 20th Grand Slam title secured, Novak Djokovic has time and winning momentum on his side in the race to be crowned the greatest player of all time. The world No 1 went level with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on 20 majors with a sixth Wimbledon title thanks to his four-set win over Italy's Matteo Berrettini on Sunday. The 34-year-old has won eight majors and appeared in nine Grand Slam finals since turning 30. Incredibly, when Federer secured his 20th at the 2018 Australian Open, Djokovic was still way back on 12. "He's amazing. He's like in the movies. You have to kill the guy 27 times and still he gets up and you have to kill him again and he gets up," said Goran Ivanisevic, one…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za THE South African business community is concerned about the economic losses amid the mayhem and unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng triggered when former president Jacob Zuma began serving his 15-month jail sentence. Business Unity South Africa (Busa) chief executive Cas Coovadia warned yesterday that the loss of jobs as a result of businesses not having the confidence to continue operating would exacerbate an already high unemployment rate. Coovadia said the protests would have a negative impact on efforts to put South Africa onto a sustainable inclusive growth path and hamper efforts to address the severe social and economic challenges faced by the country. “The impact on society of these acts of anarchy is also severe,” Coovadia said. Zuma’s supporters set trucks alight on Saturday in KwaZulu-Natal, severely…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za Renergen, the natural gas and helium producer, said yesterday that it had made another discovery of helium as high as 1.9 percent in the P12 well at its Virginia Gas Project in the Free State. The group said it was pleased to announce that the P12 well, which it previously advised would be plugged and abandoned on June 30, was observed to commence flowing gas, at low rates, in the days following rig release. “The flow rate has subsequently continued to increase with a current flow rate in excess of 30 000 standard cubic feet per day. Most significantly, the measured helium concentration in the gas stream is high at 1.9 percent,” the group said. Chief executive Stefano Marani said: “The significance of this discovery cannot be…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za SASOL South Africa said yesterday that it was selling its sodium cyanide business to a local subsidiary of Czech-based Draslovka for R1.46 billion as part of its asset divestment programme. Sasol, the JSE-listed petrochemical giant, embarked on an asset divestment programme a year ago to address its debt and mitigate against the impact of low oil prices as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. Sasol chief executive Fleet Grobler said Sasol had made progress in its review of the business so it could be more sustainable in a low oil price environment. “Consistent with this approach, the expanded asset disposal process has yielded good interest in relation to a number of assets, despite the macro environment uncertainty,” said Grobler. The transaction, which is subject to…

Mercury Reporters President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa will mobilise all available resources and capabilities to restore order. Speaking last night, Ramaphosa said the government would take action to protect every person against threats of violence, intimidation, theft and looting. “We will not hesitate to arrest and prosecute those who perpetrate these actions and we will ensure that they face the full might of our law,” he said. Ramaphosa said that in order to continue rebuilding the country, calm and order needed to be restored. “What we are witnessing now are opportunistic acts of criminality with groups of people instigating chaos merely as a cover for looting and theft,” Ramaphosa said. While Ramaphosa again did not mention that the violence appeared to have at least initially been triggered by the…

A SIGNIFICANT problem with disdain, contempt, rejection or downright hatred, is that they impact the source more than they (usually) do the victim. If you (or I, of course) harbour negative thoughts and feelings towards a former spouse, in-laws, parents or neighbours, or to anyone for that matter, we poison our own wells. We damage ourselves, and the self-damage usually outshines the impact on our victims. Hate (or contempt or disdain – people usually like to avoid the word hate with “softer” terms) even though that’s what it is: Poisons our view of the world and all other people, even those we love. Even beautiful things and beautiful experiences are contaminated if we harbour hate for even one person. Hate has trouble being contained and its power infects everything we…

KAMAL PANDAY | Reservoir Hills I wish to comment on Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and his statement as circulated in national news. Buthelezi is unmatched. As a human being he is very honest and very trustworthy. Knowing him for almost 50 years, I have noticed how consistently he showed tremendous respect for all people irrespective of race or status. He is the architect of social cohesion. Unfortunately, not all leaders have sincerely supported his vision. Prince Buthelezi outlined historical events which should have served as a yardstick not to react from the heart, but use the head. Didn’t they learn lessons from what happened when some of the great leaders of this country were ill-treated viciously by the ruthless rulers of that time? King Cetshwayo was arrested and exiled.…

World hunger and malnutrition levels worsened dramatically last year, with most of the increase likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a multi-agency UN report published yesterday. After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the number of undernourished people rose to around 768 million last year – equivalent to 10% of the world’s population and an increase of around 118 million compared to 2019, the report said. The report is the first comprehensive assessment of food insecurity since the pandemic emerged. | Reuters…

Karen Singh karen.singh@inl.co.za Community policing forums (CPFs) and business against crime groups in Durban and Pietermaritzburg say their members and residents have started to band together to try to curb further looting and damage to property in their areas. Isipingo CPF chairperson Aiden David said the situation was dire as the size of the mobs had increased. “Mobs are becoming much bigger now, they have vans to load whatever they are stealing,” he said. David said the SAPS and private security companies were outnumbered. “We are like sitting ducks. The communities are now starting to group themselves together to start protecting their homes, because it’s just a matter of time before these looters start interfering with the private homes,” he said. He said Isipingo residents were concerned and “worried about…

Today marks the first anniversary since the untimely passing of ambassador, activist, poet and writer Zindziswa Nobutho Mandela. Zindzi came of age during the apartheid era. She was among the generation of 1976 who took a stand against the NP regime, reviving fierce open defiance after a decade of underground political activity. As part of honouring her remarkable life, her son Zondwa Mandela remembers what she stood for. The Mandela Legacy Foundation will also host and curate a series of events in celebration of her contribution to the liberation movement, to politics and to literature The irony and wonder that was my mother’s enchanted existence, extended itself in the identity and composition of her crew of friends. My mother’s friends call themselves Roshatu … this too, in recognition of…

A Jordanian court yesterday sentenced a former royal chief adviser, Bassem Awadallah, and a minor royal to 15 years in jail for their involvement in an alleged plot to bring a deposed crown prince to power instead of the king in a country seen as a pillar of stability in the region. The military court said it had confirmed evidence backing the charges against the pair and that they had both been determined to harm the monarchy by pushing former heir to the throne Prince Hamza as an alternative to King Abdullah. “The two defendants held views that are against the political system and the monarchy and sought to create chaos and sedition in Jordanian society,” said the judge. Awadallah, a former finance minister who was a driving force behind…

A group of philanthropists has announced a move to offset the fallout from the UK government’s decision to reduce this year’s spending on overseas aid from 0.7% of national income to 0.5%. An emergency funding bill to the tune of £93.5mln (R1.3 billion) will be footed by the group, which includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the ELMA Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, founded and chaired by billionaire investor George Soros, to cover some of the foreign aid cuts. The funds would help cover the costs of projects that tackle preventable diseases, preventing life-saving drugs from being wasted due to having passed their expiry date. Other projects target family planning and sexual health services. | Sputnik…

Rabat: Morocco was hit by a fiery weekend heatwave that saw temperatures reach nearly 50°C, the country’s weather service said yesterday. The General Directorate of Meteorology (GDM) said Saturday was “the hottest day, with exceptional temperatures never before recorded” in some regions. The highs exceeded average monthly temperatures for the time of year by between 5°C and 12°C. The GDM did predict a drop in the heat over the next two days in the north and east. Last year was the hottest recorded in Morocco, with an average national annual temperature 1.4°C higher than normal for the years 1981-2010. | AFP…

England football chiefs and police faced questions yesterday over the chaotic and violent scenes around Wembley Stadium for Sunday’s Euro 2020 final, with concerns it could affect the country’s 2030 World Cup bid. Police have launched an investigation to find the ticketless fans who stormed through security barriers and entered the stadium before the final, in which Italy beat England in a penalty shoot-out. Stewards and riot police chased dozens of fans, who kicked down the security barrier before stampeding into an entrance and barging their way past other supporters, leading to violent scenes as some fought back. Questions were raised about why so many fans without tickets had been allowed to congregate on the main thoroughfare to the famous ground, where the atmosphere became more hostile as kick-off approached.…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za The RAND retreated significantly yesterday, falling to a two-month low as violent protests and industrial-scale looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng dealt a severe blow to investor confidence. Industrial activity ground to a halt yesterday as stores closed, with many businesses fearing falling prey to criminal elements. The rand plunged more than 2 percent during intraday trade, touching R14.51 to the dollar, before closing 0.17 percent weaker at R14.41 by 5pm yesterday. Market analysts said the domestic currency was heavily affected by the outbreak of violence after former president Jacob Zuma was imprisoned for 15 months. Citadel Global’s Bianca Botes said Zuma’s arrest would not affect the rand, but the violence and looting that has followed would hit the economy. Botes said it might come as a…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za MORE THAN 55 percent of commercial property owner-occupiers are believed to be selling or relocating because of financial constraints, according to the second-quarter Property Broker Survey by First National Bank (FNB), which was released yesterday. The 55.37 percent of respondents who held this view was noticeably down from the 65.2 percent in the first quarter, but was still 12.3 percentage points higher than the 43.1 percent recorded in the second quarter of last year. The survey was taken from a sample of commercial property brokers in the six major metros: Joburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, eThekwini, Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay. FNB Commercial Property Finance property strategist John Loos said the survey showed that financial pressure was still the single-biggest driver of movement…

Vernon Mchunu vernon.mchunu@inl.co.za ETHEKWINI mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has defended his pro-Jacob Zuma social media post which came amid the riots in KwaZulu-Natal apparently triggered by sympathisers of the former president. This comes as the ANC in KZN has proposed that the national leadership intervene over the Zuma issue. The provincial executive committee (PEC) has resolved to submit “issues of concern” to the national executive committee (NEC), a move that follows after provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala tweeted that the national ANC leadership had been approached to address the issue of Zuma’s incarceration. Political analyst Sipho Seepe hailed Zikalala’s undertaking as being the action of a leader who was in touch with the feelings of the constituencies. While the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry said food producers had been forced to…

A 90-year-old Belgian woman who died from Covid-19 in March had contracted two variants of coronavirus at the same time, which is believed to be the first documented case of its kind, a scientific congress and Belgian media has said. The case, discussed at this year's European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), shows that it is possible to catch two Covid-19 variants simultaneously, the society that organised the congress said in a statement. The society said the woman became sick with Alpha and Beta types first identified in Britain and South Africa and her doctors said she could have contracted the infections from two different people. The woman, who was treated at a hospital in Aalst near Brussels, had not been vaccinated. Belgium, like much of the…

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN | Kloof English hearts are broken. They feel gutted. Never in their life did they feel so wretched, so miserable and so disappointed. All their hopes and dreams of honour and glory disappeared before their very eyes. Italy snatched the Euro 2020 trophy right from under their noses. All they could do was watch in shock and disbelief. England had choked again. For weeks they had been singing that “football is coming home”. They had a great team, a great manager and they had Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling, the deadly striking duo feared in Europe. Never in their life did they feel so hopeful and confident. After their win over Denmark, they were brimming with confidence. In fact, they were over-confident. They scored in…

ERROL HICKS | Hillcrest LAST week Jacob Zuma gave a media conference to the press which was recorded, but our biased SABC turned it into a 40-minute “address to the nation” by screening it live on television at prime time. So much for the broadcaster’s fictitious and deceitful slogan “Independent – Impartial”! I challenge the SABC to show me any similar licence given to a citizen. This ridiculous concession to a citizen who had been sentenced to jail for failure to abide by, or contempt of, a court ruling requiring him to present himself for questioning at the Commission on State Capture, gave Zuma the platform to tell a gullible public audience a whole string of untruths about his self-supposed innocence and declarations that he had not committed…

DESPITE the ban on plastic dumping at sea and South Africa’s ocean conservation efforts, a recent study has revealed that a large number of ships dump plastic bottles along the country’s coastline and that some of them drift across the Indian Ocean from as far afield as countries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. The study was conducted by the UCT’s FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology and Nelson Mandela University and published in the Environmental Pollution journal. The researchers included Peter Ryan, Eleanor Weideman, Vonica Perold, Greg Hofmeyr and Maelle Connan. Lead researcher Professor Ryan said they collected bottles and other single-use containers across 32 beaches along the South African coast to deduce their sources based on their age and country of manufacture. Ryan said the study showed that sources of…

Sakhiseni Nxumalo sakhiseni.nxumalo@inl.co.za While it was announced that the SANDF would be deployed to KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, security experts said it remained to be seen what role the soldiers would play in quelling the violence and looting in both provinces. The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NatJoints) said 489 people had been arrested by midday yesterday, with 166 from KZN and 323 from Gauteng. SANDF spokesperson Brigadier-General Mafi Mgobhozi said the duration and number of soldiers who would be deployed would be determined based on an assessment of the situation on the ground, by the relevant law-enforcement agencies. Mgobhozi emphasised that their deployment objective was to provide safety and a safe working environment for members of the SAPS and other law-enforcement agencies, while they carried out their constitutionally mandated…

A FEW days ago, I carried out a small experiment. I sent almost identical questions to five friends and relatives in different parts of KwaZulu-Natal. I asked them whether their households hold strategic liquor reserves in the wake of the continuing Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. Yes: our household keeps stocks equivalent to 90 days of net purchases. I also asked them whether they hold strategic food reserves in the wake of the unfolding unrest in which more than 25 trucks are reported to have been set alight in the province as protesters calling for the release of the jailed former president Jacob Zuma ramped up their campaign last weekend. No: they aren’t necessary, because “our area has a highly resilient food supply chain”. Since the introduction of the Covid-19…

Zwelabo Mandela Almost a year has passed as I still struggle to fathom our huge loss. Time has ticked, seasons have blossomed as much as they’ve wilted and our scabs have yet to congeal. Faith has been tested, fate has been questioned, and yet here we are still without a definitive answer as to why her departure was so sudden. My siblings and many other loved ones are now left with her spirit fragmented among ourselves, becoming crutches for pain, gathering as a whole because that’s simply how she made us feel. Zindziswa Nobutho Mandela, born on December 23, 1960, was a South African freedom fighter, diplomat, author, artist and amazing mother. As the daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, one would be right to acknowledge her troubled upbringing…

Jamaica plans to ask Britain for compensation for the Atlantic slave trade in the former British colony, a senior government official said, under a petition that could seek billions of pounds in reparations. Jamaica was a centre of the slave trade, with the Spanish, then the British, forcibly transporting Africans to work on plantations of sugar cane, bananas and other crops that created fortunes for many of their owners. “We are hoping for reparatory justice in all forms that one would expect if they are to really ensure that we get justice from injustices to repair the damages that our ancestors experienced,” said Olivia Grange, Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture. An estimated 600 000 Africans were shipped to toil in Jamaica, according to the National Library of Jamaica. Seized…

Cannes: Hollywood star Jodie Turner-Smith has fallen victim to the curse of Cannes – the jewellery thieves who regularly haunt the world’s biggest film festival. The British-born actress wore Gucci gold and diamond jewellery to the red carpet premiere of her latest film After Yang last week. Her suite at the Marriott Hotel was broken into while she was having breakfast with her 1-year-old daughter. Police said yesterday it was unclear whether the jewellery was loaned for the premiere, or the actress’s own. Turner-Smith tweeted: “I didn’t think I would be spending 2.5 hours in the police station on my final day in Cannes, but here we are.” | AFP…

MIAMI: Confirmed deaths in the partial collapse of a condominium near Miami rose by four to 94 yesterday as identifying remains became progressively difficult with the recovery effort in its 19th day, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Due to the passage of time, recovery workers are leaning more heavily on the medical examiner’s office to identify recovered bodies, an undertaking that is “very methodical” and takes time, she said. The number of people still unaccounted for dropped to 22 yesterday from 31, and may include some of the victims who have yet to be identified in the rubble of the 12-storey building that partially collapsed on June 24. | Reuters…

Mike Greenaway mike.greenaway@inl.co.za IN a day of revelations for the British & Irish Lions camp, there was the word from Cardiff that original tour captain Alun Wyn Jones could make the party after all, while the SA ’A’ team announced to play the Lions tomorrow had captain Conor Murray describing the match as a “fourth Test.” Coach Warren Gatland said he had received news from Wales that Wyn Jones has made a miraculous recovery from a shoulder injury sustained during the Lions’ warm-up match against Japan in Edinburgh. “Alun has been back fully training with Wales and on Tuesday he is doing a double session with them and we will just see what the outcome is,” Gatland said after naming a strong team for the SA ’A’ game. “A few…