Innehållsförteckning för 2024-02-29 från Cape Argus

The anticipation is mounting as Kyle Watson, known for his dynamic and revolutionary music, gears up to unleash some serious vibes at Ultra South Africa, Africa’s largest electronic music festival A stalwart of the nation’s music scene, Watson has etched his name onto the global stage with his unparalleled talent. In an exclusive tête-à-tête ahead of his performance, we got into Watson’s extraordinary journey in the music industry. Reflecting on the far-reaching impact of South African music, Watson said: “I’ve been touring overseas since 2016 or so, and, especially in the last few years, the influence that SA music has had on the global scene has been really big.” He sang the praises of genres like Afro house and amapiano, which have captivated audiences worldwide, reshaping the landscape of dance…

Independent crime and police analyst Dr Johan Burger highlighted the importance of acknowledging the efforts of the police, stating: “We should give some appreciation to the police as some people have given. For them to have persevered, they do deserve their credit.” He was referring to the arrest of seven suspects linked to the murders of iconic South African rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend, celebrity chef Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane. The duo were gunned down in Durban’s Florida Road on February 10 last year, outside Wish Restaurant. On Tuesday, KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi detailed how, when and why members of the SAPS rounded up the six murder suspects linked to the murder of rapper AKA. A seventh suspect was arrested yesterday. Burger said that while he did…

CHILDREN in the country aged 0 to 6 years old are victims of almost all crimes, especially housebreaking, according to Statistics SA’s (Stats SA’s) latest Crime against Children report. The Child Series Volume II: Crime against Children report, released by Stats SA on Tuesday, showed that households with children of 17 years and younger experienced high levels of crime. Some 71.3% of children have experienced a form of housebreaking or burglary and 40.2% witnessed home robberies. In Gauteng, in particular, 51.2% of children had experienced theft of motor vehicles. For areas such as the Western Cape, the most prominent crime experienced by 24.5% of children was assault. The biggest concern for stakeholders was that children coming from extended households were more likely to be crime victims compared with other…

LIVING with congenital scoliosis has not stopped Qaqamba Cuba, 24, from Khayelitsha setting out to make a difference in the lives of others. She is preparing to participate in this year’s Cape Town Cycle Tour with the help of a buggy to raise funds for struggling RX Radio at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. RX Radio is run by and for children, but continues to experience financial problems. Cuba serves as a board member at the station and, in collaboration with Warrior on Wheels, she will conquer the 109km race on March 10 in the hope of raising R10 000. “I am looking forward to the race. This one is different because I will be pulled by a cyclist, so I am eager to experience the different techniques,”…

Charles Darwin is regarded as the father of evolution. Darwin theorised that all species have evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years. Through evolutionary mechanisms of adaptation and specialisation, new species were formed. There are seven distinct stages observed during human evolution, ranging from Dryopithecus, which occurred approximately 12.5 million years ago to approximately 650 000 years ago when the first Homo sapiens arrived on the scene. Could one claim that humans have also evolved socially? Is proof of this the social skills we’ve developed and fine-tuned during the ages? Did this social evolution bring an end to a practice where a male could satisfy his own sexual desires by taking control of any woman? Were rules crafted to outlaw such uncivilised and seemingly barbaric behaviour?…

Since I moved to South Africa more than a decade ago, I have been making my yoghurt at home. This is because the plain yoghurts in shops don't provide the same taste that I used to enjoy in Turkiye. The term 'yoghurt' has its roots in various languages, reflecting the diverse cultural history of this dairy product. However, the word itself is derived from Turkish, where it is spelt as "yoğurt." The exact origin of the word in Turkic languages is recorded in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (1072 CE) and comes from the verb "yoğurmak," meaning to curdle or to thicken. This is a fitting description given the process of thickening milk through fermentation that leads to the creation of yoghurt. Milk carried in animal skins would naturally transform…

JUDGMENT and sentencing for the man who confessed to killing 34-year-old Cleo Diko from Mandalay is expected on March 18. Sandile Jegwa yesterday pleaded guilty in the Mitchell’s Plain Magistrate’s Court, where he described how he murdered the mother of three. Jegwa was accused of hiding Diko’s decomposed body under cement and tiles beneath his bed. A rope was found tied around her neck, and a DNA test had to be conducted to identify her. A woman led police to Jegwa after she told them about blood-stained blankets and pillows she discovered while cleaning the separate entrance where he lived. He described in court yesterday how he murdered Diko in 2022. According to Kaylynn Palm, Western Cape Action Centre co-ordinator at Action Society, the confessed killer said they were alone…

TEARS flowed in the Western Cape High Court yesterday as Derick Kalmeyer was found guilty of the murders of slain siblings Faith and Conray Adams. The 28s gang member from Vredenburg, known as “Slang”, now faces life imprisonment after Judge Pam Andrews rejected his version that someone else could have killed the children. Kalmeyer went on trial last year for the murder of the siblings who were stabbed to death on May 1, 2019. The State’s case was that the 54-year-old man was in a relationship with the children’s mother, Frizaan, and allegedly got into a heated argument with her and a friend on the night of the murders. The two women allegedly fled out of fear, leaving the siblings behind. During the trial, it was revealed that 3-year-old Faith…

A NEW transport infrastructure project linking Franschhoek with Paarl has been touted as an economic booster for local businesses. The road project, which started in June 2022, was on track to be completed in the second quarter of the 2024/25 financial year. “Main Road 201 (known as the R301) is an important Class 2 rural road that forms part of the provincial road network, linking Franschhoek with Paarl. “This section of Main Road 201 consists of a single carriageway with two surfaced lanes and surfaced shoulders. Under this contract, 3.9 km of Main Road 201 between the N1 (km 58.70) and Kliprug Road (km 62.60) will be upgraded to a dual carriageway,” the provincial department of infrastructure said. Acting department head, Chantal Smith, said the success of the road network…

THE Good Party has reacted to a response from Police Minister Bheki Cele concerning the behaviour of SAPS members outside Newlands cricket ground during the South Africa versus India test match last month, saying it welcomed a probe into the officers’ conduct. Social media posts on the day showed members of the police preventing a peaceful protest calling for justice in Palestine, and allegedly stopping a would-be fan wearing a T-shirt expressing support for Palestinians from entering the stadium. Good Party secretary-general and MP, Brett Herron, said he wrote to Cele to ask why police intervened in the protest; what laws they were enforcing; how their actions aligned with the constitutional right to protest; who instructed them to stop the protest; and whether he believed their actions could be termed…

The most important event of the past week for the African continent was the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) summit in Abuja. The main goal of the summit was to call on the governments of Niger, Mali, Burkina-Faso and Guinea to reconsider their decisions to withdraw from Ecowas. The lifting of sanctions imposed on the above-mentioned countries after the military coups was also discussed during the meeting. Though Ecowas decided to lift restrictions on “humanitarian grounds” and due to the upcoming holy month of Ramadaan, some political and personal sanctions remained in place. It’s noteworthy, that the “great and powerful” West has a lot to learn from its African colleagues. First, the Ecowas countries, unlike Europe, didn’t lose their minds in “sanctions frenzy” and managed to timely notice…

At the dawn of democracy, during the first administration, a shocking remark was made that anybody from the street could be hired as a nurse. When some of the nursing training colleges were closed, it was easy to associate their closure with the assumption that training nurses was not important. Some hospitals were also closed, without studying the health needs of our communities or gathering any information regarding the running of the healthcare system. That was the beginning of the downward spiral of our health system. What was to be a great loss to South Africa was a welcome boost to foreign countries who happened to be aware of the many multiskilled South African nurses trained to carry out their functions competently. Those who were trained in midwifery and advanced…

For over a year, South Africans have waited with bated breath for the murderers of iconic South African rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend, celebrity chef Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane, to be brought to book, but there had only been silence, until Tuesday night. Police Minister Bheki Cele and KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi revealed, during a media briefing that was held on Tuesday at KZN SAPS headquarters, that six people have been arrested, including the “mastermind” who co-ordinated and paid everyone. They explained that police had constructed a strong case and seized, among other evidence, four vehicles, a gun and cartridges, which reportedly linked the group to the crime. Supa Mega, as he was known to his fans, was gunned down in Durban’s Florida Road on February 10,…

ABOUT 1.3 million children in the country aged 3 to 5 years are not attending any form of early learning while only 45% of those who do are developmentally on track. The portfolio committee on basic education heard this yesterday during a briefing on the migration of early childhood development (ECD) from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The migration process was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his 2019 State of the Nation Address, in which he said: “Over the next five years, we will focus our attention on expanding access to early childhood development and improving early-grade reading, where we are already beginning to see progress.” The committee was not happy with the progress update, as it raised questions about whether it…

POLICE have taken more people in for questioning concerning the disappearance of 6-year-old Joshlin Smith of Middelpos, Diazville, Saldanha. The girl’s mother, Kelly, and her boyfriend Jacquin Appollis yesterday underwent a polygraph test facilitated by Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie. “The mom and boyfriend passed the lie detector test,” McKenzie said. He spent yesterday trying to find those implicated in Joshlin’s disappearance. She had been in the care of Appollis when she went missing on Monday, February 19. Kelly told McKenzie that she returned home that afternoon and her boyfriend was with Steveno van Rhyn. “I told him to get the gas can and then I noticed Joshlin wasn’t at home. When I asked, he said she was around the area, playing.” She initially told the police that when she…

I THINK there is a lot that many people don’t understand about the Struggle for liberation from apartheid oppression. A lot of people seem to think that only those who went into exile were in the Struggle, which was definitely not the case. While most of us have no experience of what kind of life those in exile were subjected to, many who remained in the country kept the liberation Struggle alive, forever being harassed by the “Special Branch”, who hired your closest friends to spy on you, monitored your every movement, even the books you read. This included occasional visits, where you would be rudely woken up by the torches of the Special Branch and taken to a police station for questioning at ungodly hours of the night. Children…

Most of us know that in South Africa today, we have too few doctors. In fact, the Department of Health is, to a large degree, under-resourced. Unlike any other professions, it appears that the employment of medical professionals in South Africa is the problem and not the supply of medical professionals. The reality is many thousands of our nurses, nurse aids, doctors and health practitioners leave the country annually to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Most of the professionals have been trained at enormous expense in South Africa. Our universities and training colleges are world-class but are being denuded by the fiscus and the inability of our government to sustain institutions of excellence. The sad state of our training institutions and universities has been highlighted for the past 10 years,…

South Africans are questioning the intent and primary objectives of the Basic Education Laws Amendment. Some of the amendments include that parents could be criminalised for not ensuring their children are enrolled at a school; Grade R would be the compulsory school year; parents would have to adhere to new homeschooling provisions; the language policy of the school would need to be approved by the Education Department; schools should become sensitive to the religious beliefs of their learners; and alcohol could be sold on school premises for private events. The intended purpose of the amendments is to benefit South Africans. Some of the amendments proposed have not been rigorously assessed and evaluated about how effectively the regulations would be managed by the provincial and national Departments of Education. The amendments…

Banyana hardly had time to savour their 1-0 win over Tanzania, thanks to Thembi Kgatlana’s 58th-minute goal, in Tuesday night’s third round, second leg qualifying tie at Mbombela Stadium – which saw them advance 4-0 on aggregate – when national team coach Desiree Ellis dealt with the cloud of expectation hanging over the camp. During their qualifying campaign in the past few days, Banyana were continually reminded that the team failed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which took place in 2021 due to Covid-19. Many of the players in that squad are members of the current national team, and the reminders do not sit well with the players. Ellis said the technical team will meet in the next day or two to decide on training initiatives and preparations…

Having played 104 matches for the Stormers, you would never think that Andries Bekker would cross the great divide and be part of the Bulls. But that became a reality for the former Springbok lock, who won 29 Test caps, this season when he finally left Japan’s Kobe Steelers to become the Bulls’ forwards coach. Now, the 40-year-old giant is staring down his former team in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash at Loftus Versfeld (5.05pm kick-off). “We were away for 10 years, so it was long and good for us. But it’s good to be back in the country and being able to work with our own people,” Bekker said. “To be honest, I never thought that one day I would be anywhere else but WP. But it has been…