Indholdsfortegnelse for 2022-11-09 i Mercury

When the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal opens branch nomination boxes at its provincial offices tomorrow, it is confident that Zweli Mkhize will emerge as the preferred candidate for the position of president of the party. Provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo yesterday said this would be the culmination of the voting process in the province and boxes would be opened under the supervision of the party’s electoral commission, led by head of the commission, Kgalema Motlanthe. As early as September, the province said it would back Mkhize for president, ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile for deputy, Stanley Mathabatha for national chairperson, Phumulo Masualle for secretary-general and Nomvula Mokonyane for deputy secretary-general. Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma also announced she would run for president of the party. “Before the nomination we…

“My son is very abusive to me. He demands money for petrol and for phone airtime. When I refuse he blames me that he can’t get a job because he has no money for petrol to go to interviews or airtime to make appointments. This is a terrible place to be for me and for him. He is 42 and has a wife and children. I feel so bad saying no. I have ‘helped’ before. He has used the money on other things then he needs more.” If you keep feeding it (the need, the hole, the demand) it will probably grow and demand more and more and more from the hand which feeds it. Invasive behaviour – this is the behaviour you are describing – has no way to…

As Earth’s largest animals, blue whales are mighty big eaters, gulping tons of food each day. They also now are ingesting huge amounts of plastic, according to scientists, due to the alarming volume of tiny particles of pollution choking the oceans. Researchers presented an estimate of the amount of microplastics ingested by three species of baleen whales – blue, fin and humpback – off the US Pacific coast, detailing an issue posing uncertain health concerns for these marine mammals. Baleen whales are filter-feeders. They strain food – shrimp-like crustaceans called krill and other small prey – from the seawater using baleen plates in the mouth made of keratin, the substance found in people’s fingernails. Blue whales, according to the study, may swallow roughly 10 million microplastic pieces daily, or up…

It is unbelievable and disturbing to note that the collapse of infrastructure in Zimbabwe is comparable to that seen in war zones. Upon visiting Zimbabwe, some people might think that the country is in the middle of a war just like Ukraine. The hospital buildings are collapsing and the patients are sleeping on the floors as the beds are now wrecked. The bridges are collapsing and the potholes are so huge that rabbits can hide inside them. The railway lines are dysfunctional as if they have been bombed. The instability of cellphone networks appears as if the towers were destroyed. The once-tarred roads are now gravel, as if tanks were using them. Raw sewage dominates in some parts of towns and cities. There are mountains of garbage uncollected, as if…

A WOMAN who sued the police for millions of rand in damages after she was shot by her lover – a then constable stationed at Ga-Rankuwa Local Crime Record Centre – has lost her court bid on appeal. A judge of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, had initially ruled that the SAPS was liable for the damages suffered by Portia Mathibela, after she was shot by then constable Lawrence Seloana. According to evidence in the matter, he accused her of being unfaithful and shot at her six times, only to rush her to hospital for treatment. She survived, but claimed R4 million in damages from the minister of police, whom she argued was vicariously liable for Seloana’s unlawful action of shooting her with a police weapon which he had taken…

THE steep rates increase imposed on vacant land by the eThekwini Municipality could be reviewed in the next financial year after ratepayers complained that the increase was a financial burden. The municipality revealed that this charge would be reviewed in the next budget but said the outcome of the review may depend on the municipality’s overall financial performance. This comes as some Durban residents contemplate legal action against the municipality. One resident, Cynthia Sent, said she had met with her lawyers to instruct them to send a letter to the city over the rates charged on her vacant land that she found excessive. She said she had engaged the municipality to try to resolve the issue without any success which was forcing her to go the legal route. Earlier this…

The eThekwini Municipality has alerted areas in the western parts of the metro of a planned reduction to the flow of water effective from yesterday until November 11 due to the relocation of a pipeline. The city said for the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) to complete repairs to the N3 highway in the vicinity of Lynnfield Park near Pietermaritzburg, it must relocate pipeline 53. The official statement from the city stated that there will be a four-day “shutdown”; however, they clarified that there won’t be a complete water supply shutdown, but inflow would be reduced. “There will be reduced inflow, meaning there will be water in the reservoirs; however, residents have to reduce the amount of water they use. “In instances that some areas do not receive water,…

THE two-day second Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide came and passed. It was a high-charged session on day one when delegates representing various interest groups demanded answers from President Cyril Ramaphosa on what government was doing to end the scourge. Ramaphosa admitted the National Strategic Plan on gender-based violence and femicide was not being implemented effectively. Just before the event, the mortal remains of Bokgabo Poo, aged just 4, were found in various places in Ekurhuleni. The child, initially reported missing, was finally laid to rest on Monday. The family had held off the funeral for weeks hoping that police would find her missing body parts after her alleged killer refused to co-operate. In Pretoria, a man was arrested for allegedly raping his 2-year-old niece. The mother…

Marseille: French prosecutors in Marseille said yesterday they had opened an inquiry into child abuse by a French cardinal after he confessed publicly to “reprehensible” acts against a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s. Jean-Pierre Ricard, a retired bishop of Bordeaux who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2016, was named among 11 senior clergymen who face sexual abuse allegations, according to an announcement by the French Catholic church on Monday. Ricard asked for forgiveness and said he would withdraw from his functions and be available for legal and church authorities. He was a bishop from 2001 to 2019. |…

Sweden’s new prime minister vowed yesterday on a firmer stance on fighting crime and terrorism during a visit to Türkiye where he will seek the approval of President Tayyip Erdoğan for his country’s bid to join Nato. Sweden and Finland applied to join Nato in May in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But Nato member Türkiye raised objections, citing security concerns related to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and other groups, and over the Nordic states’ ban on arms exports. The three countries signed a memorandum in June that lifted Türkiye’s veto while requiring Sweden and Finland to address remaining concerns. “The new government will have an even firmer approach in (relation to) the Nato application from Sweden,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters in Ankara. “One of…

IF ANC alliance partners have their way, President Cyril Ramaphosa will not be standing for a second term as party leader at the 55th party elective conference next month. This week, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) national task team said it preferred Dr Zweli Mkhize to become president of the party. The ANC Women’s League was supposed to hold a press conference to announce its preferred candidate yesterday, but cancelled at the last minute. But insiders said it preferred Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma for the top job. At the same time, tripartite alliance partner, the SACP is considering entering the 2024 general election, supported by Cosatu. The ANC Veterans League has also hinted that Ramaphosa was not its preferred candidate. In a statement issued by the ANCYL yesterday, it expressed…

A DURBAN businessman, whose business accounts were frozen early this year because of suspicions that he is associated with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), says he is not surprised that the US government has slapped him with further sanctions. Farhad Hoomer spoke to The Mercury yesterday, just a day after the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it was imposing further sanctions on him and others whom it said were suspected of providing financial, technical and material support to the terrorist group. Hoomer accused the American authorities of not knowing what they were doing and simply going after innocent individuals in an effort to be seen to be fighting terrorists. “Honestly I do not know what the American government wants from me. They…

The key to understanding the apocalyptic predictions of global incineration emanating from the UN meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh is found in the claim by UN global communications under-secretary Melissa Fleming: “We own the science.” The expression “he who pays the piper calls the tune” has never been more evident than now. As we have seen, and continue to see, medical science was corrupted to lend credibility to a false pandemic and then to a failed vaccine. Despite the indisputable records of history to the contrary, high-end funding to a coterie of scientists has enabled the globalist minority to propagate the lie that fossil fuels are killing the planet. Pursuing the money trail further, of the 100 so-called heads of state gathered at Sharm el-Sheikh, with few exceptions, the majority are…

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s asinine response to Freedom Front Plus leader Dr Pieter Groenewald’s question on affirmative action and BEE in the National Assembly recently is indicative of how he and other MPs have abstracted themselves from reality. For Ramaphosa to assert that “nearly every white person has inherited something from their parent”, which signals inequality and generational poverty (among black people) is a consequence of living in their make-believe world, a world in which they travel in chauffeur-driven German cars with tinted windows, hurtling at 160-plus km/h. Ramaphosa might have had in mind the Nicky Oppenheimers and Johann Ruperts, but this does not speak of the average white person, or Indian or coloured for that matter. Years before the official demise of apartheid, when whites were in power, I…

TAXPAYERS paid about R2 million to buy generators to keep the lights on during load shedding at ministers and their deputies’ state-owned houses. Making this information public in response to a written parliamentary question from IFP MP Themba Msimang, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille said: “I have been informed by the department that generators are supplied to ministers and deputy ministers in state-owned houses and not private houses. “The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure spent R1.3m before April 1 and a further R680 000 from April to June.” De Lille’s written response comes on the heels of an announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament last week that the process of reconciliation of all the amounts was under way on the costs that had to be…

The powerful January 15 underwater eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth’s atmosphere than any other on record – about 57km – as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers have said. The white-greyish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian archipelago became the first one documented to have penetrated a frigid layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, according to scientists who employed a novel technique using multiple satellite images to measure its height. The plume was composed primarily of water with some ash and sulphur dioxide mixed in, said atmospheric scientist Simon Proud, lead author of the research published in the journal Science. | Reuters…

POLICE bungling will cost the taxpayer R2 million in damages. The compensation was awarded to an innocent man who was locked up in jail for more two years, under harrowing conditions. One day, he was simply told that he could go home. But as a result of the police’s actions, he also contracted HIV/Aids. The man, whose identity has not been revealed due to his health status, said that the police had ruined his life. Not only did he lose slightly more than two years of his life for no reason, but other inmates had tattooed a large part of his body by force. The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which ordered the police to pay the damages, was told that he contracted Aids from being tattooed. He had to…

THE ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has dismissed concerns that the coalition it leads in the eThekwini Municipality was on the verge of collapse. Addressing the media yesterday, ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo compared the coalition to a marriage, saying like all partnerships, there were challenges, but that did not mean that the coalition was on the brink of collapse. However, Mtolo’s words rang hollow with council insiders who have observed tension between mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and his deputy Philani Mavundla that has played out in public. Mavundla is the president of the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) and was given the position of deputy mayor and chairperson of the infrastructure and services portfolio committee in exchange for his party and other smaller parties’ support for the ANC-led coalition government of the…

At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held recently, General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that China has always been committed to its foreign policy goals of upholding world peace and promoting common development, and it is dedicated to promoting a human community with a shared future. This drew a grand blueprint for major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics along the new journey and showed the way forward for human development and progress. China has worked hard on several important fronts: • First, lead the way in injecting new momentum into peaceful development. China faithfully fulfils our obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We sent more than 50 000 people to participate in UN peacekeeping operations, and we have become the second largest…

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah says evidence suggests a prominent Pakistani journalist was the victim of a targeted killing in Kenya, not an accidental shooting, but he still needs more information. Kenyan police spokesperson Bruno Shioso declined to respond to the minister’s comments on the death of TV journalist Arshad Sharif, who was shot dead on October 23 outside Nairobi. Shioso said the case was being investigated by the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority. Pakistan’s government formed an investigation team to look into the matter, which caused uproar in the country. |…

Polls opened yesterday in crucial US midterm elections that could decide the political future of both President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump – who has all but announced he will seek the White House again in 2024. Biden’s Democrats are facing a gargantuan struggle to hang on to Congress, after a race the president has cast as a “defining” moment for US democracy – while Trump’s Republicans campaigned hard on kitchen- table issues like inflation and crime. Trump – who has been heavily hinting at a new run – grabbed the election eve spotlight to flag “a big announcement” on November 15, while Biden made a final appeal to Democrats to turn out en masse at the polls. “The power’s in your hands,” Biden told a rally near…

China showed off its first domestically produced large passenger jet after the aircraft was approved by regulators, unveiling the C919 at a major airshow yesterday. The sleek, narrow-body aircraft took to the runway at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, circling through cloudy skies over the southern city of Zhuhai before touching down in front of hundreds of onlookers. Chinese authorities hope the C919 – built by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) – will challenge foreign models like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320. Beijing also hopes its first homegrown jetliner with mass commercial potential will cut the country’s reliance on foreign technology as ties with Western countries deteriorate – although most of the plane’s parts are sourced from overseas. Chinese regulators approved the…

New Zealand, cricket’s quiet achievers, and Pakistan, the game’s most unpredictable side, clash in the opening T20 World Cup semi-final today after making their way to the knockout rounds by starkly contrasting paths. The Black Caps hammered hosts and champions Australia in their tournament opener, had a match washed out and lost a high-quality contest to England before reaching a fifth successive white-ball World Cup semi-final as group winners. Pakistan’s journey started with a remarkable loss to India in front of 92 000 fans at Melbourne Cricket Ground which was followed by an equally dramatic upset at the hands of Zimbabwe and a rain-disrupted win over the Proteas. They scraped into the last four by beating Bangladesh, but only after a stunning upset of South Africa by the Dutch in…

POLICE Unions have slammed Police Minister Bheki Cele’s statement that no police officers will be on leave during the festive season, describing the utterance as “an act of provocation”. Police unions said while they were in support of the police’s Safer Festive Season campaign, members who had applied for leave in advance for the festive season must be allowed to take their days off. The SA Policing Union (Sapu) national spokesperson, Lesiba Thobakgale, said the union was disturbed by the statement made by the minister. The union said that speaking at an event in Limpopo, Cele reportedly said that from December 15 to January 31, police officers would not be granted leave or holiday. “First, this is a clear act of provocation. Minister Cele has no role to play in…

WAS this Finland’s Partygate? Dozens of people complained when Prime Minister Sanna Marin – a very good-looking 36-year-old woman – was seen in a leaked video dancing with friends and celebrities and party- ing generally. It undermined Finland’s reputation and security, the complainants said, according to the BBC. An inquiry was appointed to investigate this outrage. But Chancellor of Justice Tuomas Poysti put the prudes in their place. There was “no reason to suspect the prime minister of unlawful conduct in the performance of her duties or of neglect of her official duties”, he said. Quite right. A gal must be allowed to unwind. It matters not whether she is prime minister. The party was with friends on private premises anyway. And asked about the video, she told reporters: “I…

COP27 is happening at the ultra-elite luxury island of Sharm-El Sheik, just 500km from the Great Pyramids and that massive lioness with the head of a Cleopatra. Nice. Now let’s move to what’s happening at the conference just across the peninsula and check out exactly what it is pursuing. Mother Earth used to have a great balance. It had a habit of cooling down during the night after an exhausting hot day and returning all that heat back to outer space. Everybody was very happy for billions of years, including penguins and polar bears. But man suddenly appeared and discovered oxygen, fire, motor cars, fridges and other appliances that emitted excessive amounts of the evil carbon dioxide. Up to now, no good wood is allowed to be imported from Mars.…

I refer to the excellent and very timely letter from Glen Christie published in your newspaper (November 8). Unfortunately, my first thought was, “Here we go again!” As long as 20 or so years ago I had a letter published in your sister newspaper, the Independent on Saturday, on the same subject. It was headed “Rein in the rogue road hauliers”. During the past 20 or so years, much has been published regarding unruly and dangerous road hauliers. In addition, a survey in which the Traffic Inspectorate was involved showed that up to 70% of heavy vehicles using our roads are unroadworthy. Despite all of this, the problem of dangerous heavy vehicles on our roads carries on unabated. All the drivers seem to be concerned about is the incidence of…

THE Presidency has refused to make public President Cyril Ramaphosa’s submission on the Phala Phala saga to an independent panel of experts, saying it wanted to respect the work of the panel that will determine whether he has a case to answer on the scandal. “At this stage we want to respect the process and wait for the panel to conclude its process before we consider making the submission public,” said spokesperson Vincent Magwenya. He made the remarks a day after Ramaphosa delivered his submission to the independent pane in line with Sunday’s deadline. “The president’s submission affirms his committed co-operation with due process. President Ramaphosa has always made certain that throughout his tenure as president, he abides by his oath of office and sets an example in his…

The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) said it has noted a video circulating on social media of an officer receiving about R1 800 from an unknown individual. In the video, the officer in JMPD uniform is seen receiving money while sitting in a parked car. The unidentified motorist narrates in the video that he was going to hand over R1 800 to the police officer. “I am going to enter his car now, and he is going to take the money,” the man says. As soon as he enters the police officer’s white vehicle, the officer asks him: “Why did you take so long?” JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla said it was not known under what circumstances the policeman received the money. “Currently, the JMPD has not received a formal complaint…

To make Grade R attendance compulsory, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) will require R14.7 billion to pay more teachers over the next three years. The amount excludes the R1.7bn to build additional classrooms at schools that currently do not offer Grade R. This was revealed by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga when she was responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Baxolile Nodada, who asked whether she had approached the National Treasury to assess the financial implications of the plan to make Grade R attendance compulsory. In 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the transfer of the early childhood development (ECD) centres from the Department of Social Development to DBE, saying there would be two years of compulsory early-childhood development for all children before they entered Grade 1. Motshekga said…

The choice of leadership will make or break the ANC leading up to and beyond its forthcoming national conference. The past few days have seen events that have profoundly impacted our country’s political landscape. It was unprecedented that three former presidents – Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe – openly expressed their displeasure, on the same day, but at different events, about the state of the ANC, its leadership and that of our country, and the direction that our country is taking. The public comments also covered the rising unemployment numbers, energy insecurity as rolling blackouts persist, ever-increasing cost of living and the cloud over the head of President Cyril Ramaphosa after the reported theft at his Phala Phala farm. The fact that the story has ignited a national…

LILONGWE: Malawi has received a consignment of 2.9 million doses of Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) for a single dose reactive campaign to the cholera outbreak, which has killed over 200 people since the country reported the first case in March. A joint statement released by the WHO, Unicef and Malawi government says the OCV consignment arrived “at a critical time as the country continues to respond to the ongoing cholera outbreak”. The outbreak has been reported in all the country’s 28 districts but, according to the statement, the OCV doses will prioritise the country’s 14 districts with high numbers of cholera cases. |…

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday urged the US to remain united, as questions hover over American support for his country following midterm elections to determine control of the US Congress. “I call on you to maintain unwavering unity, as it is now, until that very day when we all hear those important words we have been dreaming of ... Until we hear that peace has finally been restored. Democracies must not stop on their way to the victory,” he said in a recorded address, receiving the US Liberty Medal. The US Congress committed $40 billion for Ukraine in May with support across party lines and Ukraine’s defence minister thanked the US on Monday after Kyiv took receipt of more air defence systems. Meanwhile, Sputnik News reported yesterday that Zelensky…