Innehållsförteckning för 2022-10-24 från Cape Argus

The trial date for Mark Lifman, Jerome Booysen and their co-accused in the murder of “Steroid Kingpin” Brian Wainstein has been set provisionally for July next year after an addition to the list of accused and the killing of another. This comes after yet another accused, Anthony “Amier” van der Watt, was gunned down two weeks ago while driving along Prince George Drive. At the time, it was reported that Van der Watt, had been travelling from Pollsmoor Prison when the Mercedes- Benz in which he was travelling came under attack. Police said two gunmen fled the scene after firing more than 20 bullets at the vehicle. Van der Watt and Jovellen van Wyngaardt were killed, while a third occupant escaped unharmed. On Friday, the State withdrew charges…

Three women were among six suspects arrested by City law enforcement officers over the weekend for possession of illegal firearms in Gugulethu, Epping and Delft. On Friday at 2.20pm, metro police officers conducting crime prevention patrols in Epping were flagged down by a woman who complained that three men in a bakkie had tried to rob her. When officers spotted the vehicle and pulled the driver over, they searched it and recovered two 9mm pistols, one with the serial number filed off, and 23 rounds of ammunition. Three suspects, aged 34, 36 and 39, were arrested and detained at Elsies River police station for further investigation. On Saturday afternoon, Leap members on patrol in Delft arrested a woman after she was found in possession of a 9mm pistol along with…

For most of my life, I hated school. There were years I went from being in the top five of the class in performance, to barely making it in Standards 7 and 9. The same for my sporting career. I went from being a hopeless athlete to setting new records for the 100 and 200 metres at my high school, Belgravia High. As I lived with foster parents all my life, I often felt like an outsider to the traditional family stories told at school. My school letters were always signed by a guardian and not a parent. I never had a parent at a school meeting all of my school life. Most days I thought of quitting school. For two reasons: embarrassment and fear. I was embarrassed and fearful…

Air fryers have caused something of a revolution in the kitchen since their introduction a few years ago. No more oil odours, their versatility lends itself to cooking anything from chips to making a roast chicken or creating a homely bobotie, not to mention a tempting dessert. In her introduction, food consultant, recipe developer and food editor Louisa Holst tells us that when she first heard of this “amazing appliance”, she decided she had to have one and, while for a long time it was just used as a chip-making machine, she started experimenting and trying out different recipes. The result is this book. The benefits of having an air fryer, she says, are many: it is a time-saver, as things cook much quicker, and because it uses rapid air…

Twelve months after their last disappointment, the Proteas will yet again attempt to bring home a major ICC trophy. They are back in Australia where all the trauma began way back in 1992 at South Africa's first appearance in the 50-overs World Cup after returning from isolation. On this occasion it's the T20 World Cup and the Proteas believe they have gathered their strongest squad yet to finally break the curse. Nothing, however, is straightforward in SA cricket and this campaign is no different. They will be hoping that they are not engulfed by another drama like last year in the UAE when Cricket South Africa issued a directive midway through the tournament that the entire team needed to take a collective knee in a stand against racism in sport.…

MEXICO CITY: Emergency services have found the bodies of two people, including one child, during the search for the missing McFit CEO, Rainer Schaller, and his family after their private jet, flying from Mexico, disappeared off the coast of Costa Rica, national news website Observador reported, citing the public security ministry. Search teams have found plane wreckage and later discovered two bodies at the site, the ministry said, according to the news outlet. The identities of the victims have not been disclosed. German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that passengers included Schaller, his girlfriend and two children. | Sputnik…

MEXICO CITY: Roslyn, a powerful Category 3 hurricane, made landfall in Mexico’s Nayarit state on the Pacific coast yesterday, dumping a life-threatening storm surge with damaging winds, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Roslyn, downgraded from Category 4 since Saturday, hit land at 5.20am local time near Santa Cruz in northern Nayarit, the NHC said. It was packing maximum sustained winds near 120km/h, though rapid weakening was expected as it moved farther inland. A hurricane warning was in effect along the coast. Up to 254mm of rainfall was expected in areas. A video showed trees swaying in strong winds and gusts of rainfall. | Reuters…

Wynberg scored a comprehensive 88-run victory over the home side Bishops after winning the toss and batting first. It was a stellar performance by 15-year-old Paul James - Wynberg Boys’ opening batsman - which was the highlight of their game. He scored a 107 at almost a run a ball, and was largely responsible for Wynberg posting a formidable 293/9 in their allotted 50 overs. His innings, which included 11 fours and two sixes, was punctuated by fluent drives on either side of the wicket. Together with left-hander Kyle Williams (41), they put on 106 for the second wicket - which laid the foundation for their innings. Thomas Jacobs was the pick of the Bishops attack with 3/60. A worrying feature for the Bishops innings, however, was that the…

Mayor and Premier rock diplomatic boat MAYOR Geordin Hill-Lewis and Premier Alan Winde have called on Pretoria to deny entry to a sanctioned Russian billionaire’s yacht that is heading to Cape Town Harbour with the potential of plunging South Africa into diplomatic hot water. All eyes are on the luxury $500 million (about R9 billion) vessel belonging to oligarch Alexey Mordashov – an iron and steel mining magnate and known ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin – which is due to reach Cape Town in the coming days. Bloomberg recently reported that Mordashov’s 140m-long, multi-deck super-yacht, Nord, departed for Cape Town from Hong Kong last week. Pavel Isaev, listed online as Mordashov’s adviser, had not responded to emailed queries at the time of writing. Mordashov is among a…

As courts grapple with the consent question, the number of rape convictions has dipped sharply from 2018, figures presented by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola show. The minister was responding to FF+ MP Dr Pieter Groenewald, who asked him for the number of rape cases heard in courts from 2018, the number of crape cases prosecuted successfully and those in which the National Prosecuting Authority failed to secure a guilty verdict. There were 4 215 verdicts in 2018/19, 3 984 in 2019/20, only 617 in 2020/21 and 2 789 in 2021/22. The regional courts recorded 2 820 convictions (67% conviction rate) and 1 395 acquittals in 2018/19, 2 684 convictions (67% conviction rate) and 1 300 acquittals in 2019/20, 435 convictions…

The provincial legislature will co-host the 2022 Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) residency programme in Cape Town from today to Friday, October 28. The programme, which will be attended by 35 MPs, representing parliaments from across the Commonwealth, is intended to enhance the professional development skills of parliamentarians. Speaker Masizole Mnqasela said the delegates were from Belize, Gambia, Ghana, Jersey, Malawi, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, Zambia and South Africa This CPA programme is the second of two Parliamentary Academy residency programmes being held in 2022 and will examine how MPs can enhance their soft skills on topics ranging from leadership and strategic thinking to communication and team management. Mnqasela said that over five days, the delegates would develop universal skills that were applicable in parliaments and in many different spheres. The…

Springbok flyhalf Elton Jantjies is being treated for drug addiction in a Cape Town rehab facility, according to a Sunday newspaper, while his teammates prepare to go on tour to Europe. Last month, Jantjies was sent home from the Springbok base in Argentina to deal with a scandal that broke in Rapport, which claimed that Jantjies and Bok team dietician Zeeant Simjee were partying in a Nelspruit guest house, although Simjee has denied vehemently that she was Jantjies’ companion. Then on the day the Boks were to play the Pumas in Buenos Aires, speculation erupted in the media that Rapport was to publish a story about cocaine use by some of the Springboks. That story was never published, but now the newspaper has reported that a waiter at that guest…

Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s first book, Killing Caroline, revealed much of herself in the most honest, engaging way. It’s always risky being upfront and in your face, but SJ (as she is popularly known) has endeared herself to all of us as a top talk show host and, by telling her story, she opened channels for people to talk about their mental challenges. Mad Bad Love is the second part of her memoir and perhaps a tough read. But SJ has the ability to put into words what many of us are too scared to admit. Exploring why we follow patterns and repeat destructive behaviour requires the bravery of diving beneath our personal surface, often into the depths of pain to understand. Adoption, addiction, abandonment, motherhood and healing are the issues…

SCIENTIFIC breakthroughs can happen in the strangest ways and places. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin because of mould growing on a Petri dish left out while he was on holiday. Chinese monks in the 9th century wanted to make a potion for immortality: instead, they discovered gunpowder. Our own remarkable discovery happened on a rugged, remote stretch of coastline east of Still Bay on the south coast. It was low tide, and three members of our ichnology team (people who study tracks and traces) were in search of newly exposed Pleistocene vertebrate tracksites in aeolianites (cemented dunes). Ahead we saw a large rock that had tumbled down from the cliffs above. On its surface was a pattern of linear groove features in a large triangular shape, complete with an almost perfect…

Li Qiang, who oversaw Shanghai’s grinding two-month Covid-19 lockdown this year as party boss of China’s commercial hub, is on track to become China’s next premier after President Xi Jinping unveiled a new governing body packed with loyalists. Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as China’s leader yesterday and filled his inner circle with close allies, achieving after a decade in power complete dominance over the ruling Communist Party. Li, a close ally of the newly re-appointed Chinese leader, was elevated to the No 2 position on the seven-man Standing Committee yesterday, putting him on track to take over the economic management role. Current Premier Li Keqiang, a more reform-minded voice, will step down in March after the maximum two terms. “Honestly, I did not have him on my…

Kyiv’s energy operator yesterday said scheduled “stabilisation” power cuts have been introduced in the Ukrainian capital after repeated Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. “On October 23, stabilisation shutdowns were introduced in Kyiv by national energy operator Ukrenergo to avoid accidents,” energy company DTEK said in a statement on its website. The blackouts started at 11.13am with consumers in Kyiv divided into three groups that will be “disconnected for a certain period of time”, DTEK said. The blackouts should last “no more than four hours”. | AFP…

IN RESPONSE to the State Capture commission’s recommendations, President Cyril Ramaphosa last night announced a raft of reforms, including tweaks on procurement processes, lifestyle audits of himself and his Cabinet, and two more commissions. Ramaphosa on Saturday submitted to Parliament a 76-page response to the Zondo commission recommendations. “The submission of this response is a firm and clear indication of the primacy of the rule of law and a demonstration of our democratic system at work,” Ramaphosa said. He announced the establishment of another commission for Prasa and a permanent anti-corruption commission. On reforms to prevent a repeat of state capture, Ramaphosa said: “Because state capture consisted of the simultaneous compromising of several entities across government, and because this weakened and undermined critical components of the systems of administrative accountability,…

Stellenbosch with its elite, wine farms and wealthy entrepreneurs provides an endless source of inspiration for writers like Eva Mazza, whose characters are fictional but imbued with the Stellenbosch feel. Sex, Lies & Alibis is the third and final instalment in Mazza’s trilogy (the former two being Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch and its sequel, Sex, Lies, Declassified). Somehow Mazza lost the momentum of writing the third in the series when the second, Sex, Lies, Declassified, took off slowly. Covid was a depressing time, and only in January this year did Mazza “come out of the fog”. “The readers who I thought had forgotten egged me on,” she says, in a discussion about the characters with her. Jen, the protagonist, 55, runs away from confronting problems head on. Still, a…

In 2009 a once quiet local Salafi group called Boko Haram became increasingly violent in north-east Nigeria and the border communities of Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Its quest to forbid Western education in the heavily Islamic region has led to the kidnapping of many schoolchildren, the slaughter of an estimated 2 200 teachers and the burning down of 1 400 schools. But the terrorist group was largely unknown on the world stage until the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, used in international calls for the girls to be rescued, garnered over 3.3 million tweets in less than a month. It became Twitter’s most used hashtag at the time, reaching 6.1 million tweets in 2016. It inspired protests around the…

A failure to secure meaningful progress on debt relief for the world’s poorest nations at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meeting in Washington has left policymakers, campaigners and investors frustrated. Two years ago the Group of 20 launched the Common Framework – to provide a swift and comprehensive debt overhaul to nations buckling under debt burdens after Covid-19 shock that would reach beyond temporary debt payment moratoriums. But results have proven elusive, hampered by lack of progress in bringing key creditors around the table and committing to joint action, and establishing debt parameters that form the basis of talks as well as political upheaval in some of the countries. The world’s poorest countries face $35 billion (R633bn) in debt-service payments to official and private-sector creditors in 2022;…

KAMPALA: Uganda’s Health Ministry has urged the public to remain vigilant as Ebola cases in the capital city Kampala continue to rise. Health Minister Ruth Aceng tweeted that two more contacts of people under quarantine at the Mulago National Referral Hospital tested positive. Aceng said all the cases in Kampala were contacts to a confirmed case that had earlier died in hospital. More than 50 people are still under quarantine at the hospital. The rare Sudan strain of Ebola broke out in Uganda on September 20. The country has so far registered 65 positive cases and 27 deaths Xinhua…

Premier League leaders Arsenal dropped points for just the second time this season in a frustrating 1-1 draw at Southampton, while Newcastle climbed to fourth place after punishing Hugo Lloris' mistakes in a 2-1 win at Tottenham yesterday. Arsenal looked set to move four points clear at the top of the table when Granit Xhaka continued his fine form by smashing home the opening goal at St Mary's after just 11 minutes. Mikel Arteta’s side dominated the first half, but failed to add to their advantage with Gabriel Jesus guilty of missing big chances either side of the break. Arsenal were punished when Stuart Armstrong produced a composed finish to level 25 minutes from time. Martin Odegaard smashed home as the league leaders pushed for a winner, but the goal…

Red Bull's talks with Formula One’s governing body over breaching last year's budget cap have been put on hold after the death of the team's owner Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull said yesterday. The governing FIA announced on October 10 that Red Bull had committed a ‘minor overspend’ of the $145 million (about R2.6 billion) cap in 2021. Team boss Christian Horner told reporters at the US Grand Prix in Austin on Saturday that an Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA) had been proposed and he hoped the situation could be resolved over the weekend. Some teams have called for a strict punishment to send a strong message. | Reuters…