Innehållsförteckning för 2021-06-10 från Mercury

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za SANLAM, South Africa’s biggest insurance company, closed stronger on the JSE as the market cheered the group’s strong operational performance for the four months ended April compared to a year earlier. Among the highlights for the period was the 20 percent increase in new business volumes, up 81 percent in the Value of New Business, the more than doubling in net fund inflows, and the strong performance of the African General Insurance business. Sanlam said the current rate of new business growth had received a boost from improved savings due to the Covid-19 pandemic shifting spending patterns. “In due course we would expect this supportive situation to normalise and therefore expect the growth in new business volumes to moderate at some point,” Sanlam said. Net…

Sihle Mavuso sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za THE fight for the Zulu throne has taken another turn as a new royal faction is threatening to initiate a court action to compel the Zulu royal house and the Office of the Premier in KwaZulu-Natal to stop the ascension of King Misuzulu as the King of the Zulu nation, claiming that the throne does not belong to him. In the latest fight which is being waged by three royals – Princess Nomkhubulwane, Princess Nomvula O’Meara and Prince Mhlengi Zulu, a 19-year-old royal – the matter is no longer about the will of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini and the late Zulu Queen Regent, Mantfombi Dlamini-Zulu, but about how they were robbed of the throne over a century ago. In the first step of their fight for…

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN | Kloof WE all thought he was a good, caring doctor, going around the country ministering to the needs of the sick and the needy. Despite the challenges and difficulties faced with such an enormous undertaking and the problems faced with the vaccine’s availability, Dr Zweli Mkhize did a remarkable job, fighting the pandemic, and he impressed with the efficient and methodical vaccine roll-out programme. Wherever he went the cameramen were there, showing the public the great humanitarian work he was doing. But little did we know that under the guise of respectability and diligence, the good doctor had an ulterior motive. Dr Mkhize saw the opportunity that the coronavirus presented for his political ambitions. He could use the pandemic to rise rapidly up the ladder…

DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff FOCUS on the importance of a free press (The Mercury, June 7) needs to concern not only ownership and state legislation, but how the press exercises that freedom. Since the accession of US President Joe Biden to the White House, there has been a virtual blackout of reporting on political developments in the US. Whereas the Trump administration was the cynosure of malevolent media focus, irrespective of what it achieved, despite unprecedented actions by Biden which have exceeded his constitutional powers and violated his oath to defend the US; the mass media remains silent. While the same media behaved like sharks in a feeding frenzy about the baseless, vindictive, political attempts to impeach Trump, the question to be asked is: Why have the same media not…

THERE’S an old piano and they play it hot behind the Green Door, Don’t know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot behind the Green Door … WE TOOK a wonderful trip down Memory Lane at the St Clement’s arts soiree the other evening. Mais Que Nada!, that classy group of musicians of, er, mature vintage, usually specialise in Latino. But this time they mixed in a lot of lovely stuff from way back, including Green Door and Wimoweh, that powerful and hypnotically rhythmic number, later called The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Green Door, sung by Shakin’ Stevens, was a hit while I was still at school, not too long after the rinderpest. Wimoweh was even earlier. Them wuz the days. The Boks had drawn with the British Lions. Our…

Sakhiseni Nxumalo sakhiseni.nxumalo@inl.co.za A number of farmers in Fountain Head, an area just outside eMkhomazi, say they may be forced to relocate due to ongoing attacks on their properties. The small community said there had been several violent criminal incidents in the area, and that they were being ignored by law enforcement. According to them, livestock was stolen, crops were being destroyed and homes were being broken into. Speaking to The Mercury yesterday, one of the farmers, Ragi Govender, said she had been a victim of more than three incidents. She said her family had decided to move out of the area. “I had two break-ins in a short space of time. I moved out this weekend, and yesterday there was another break-in at my house. They stole some of…

Siphokazi Vuso siphokazi.vuso@inl.co.za Experts have warned that health departments across the country need to prepare for a rapid rise in the number of hospital admissions due to Covid-19 in the coming weeks. This comes after the SA Medical Association (Sama) warned that Covid-19 was spreading rapidly across the country, via people travelling and social gatherings. The director of the DSI-NRF Centre for Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis, Dr Juliet Pulliam, said that in addition to the Free State, Gauteng, and North West “which are officially experiencing third waves, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Western Cape are now seeing sustained increases in cases. The health system needs to prepare urgently for a corresponding increase in hospital admissions over the coming weeks.” UWC SA National Bioinformatics Institute researcher Peter van Heusden…

Glen Mashinini The 2021 municipal elections are taking place in the most unprecedented and abnormal circumstances in our history as our country faces the onslaught of a third wave of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. Over the past 18 months, this pandemic has devastated the world and our country, infecting over 170 million people globally and more than 1.7 million South Africans to date. The death toll globally is approaching 4 million. This includes 57 000 of our countrymen and women. As well as the loss of life and illness, the pandemic has ravaged our economy, leading to the loss of millions of jobs, and thrown our social norms, customs, traditions and religious and cultural practices into disarray. Notwithstanding this, we cannot allow the pandemic to change our values, our…

A cemetery in southern Tunisia for migrants who drowned crossing the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life in Europe is already half full – even before it is formally opened. Jardin d’Afrique, French for Garden of Africa, is for those who were “the wretched of the sea”, said Rachid Koraichi, the Algerian artist and Sufi Muslim who built the cemetery. The migrants, many of whom drowned after boarding flimsy and overloaded boats while facing extortion from “gangsters and terrorists”, deserve a dignified resting place, he said. “I wanted to give them a first taste of paradise,” Koraichi, 74, added. His art includes sculptures and ceramics embellished with calligraphy, and has been exhibited from Venice to New York. In 2018, he bought a plot of land to host the…

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said yesterday that he regretted having to take all the flak for holding the Summer Olympics during a pandemic as his government was reported to favour allowing domestic spectators into stadiums to watch. Tokyo 2020, already postponed by a year, has faced strong opposition from the public, medical experts and some former athletes amid a fourth wave of infections. And Suga’s comments appeared to illustrate tensions bubbling to the surface as the government bolsters its assurances to the world that the games will be safe when they start on July 23. He was speaking in response to comments at a parliamentary session from an opposition lawmaker, who said the prime minister had been coming under attack over holding the Games during the Covid-19 pandemic when…

Madrid: Celebrated French writer Emmanuel Carrere was awarded Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias prize for literature yesterday, one of the most important awards in the Spanish-speaking world. Carrere, a leading exponent of “autofiction” where writers fictionalise their own lives, is known for a string of books including L’adversaire (The Adversary, 2000), Un Roman Russe (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2007) and his new hit memoir Yoga. The jury hailed the 63-year-old Parisian screenwriter and director for his “highly personal work that opens up a new space for expression that blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction”. Over 40 years, Carrere has built up a body of work based on self-exploration, which often recounts the lives of others. Such was the case with L’adversaire, which was based on the…

MOSCOW: Russia believes the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals’ (IRMCT) conviction of Ratko Mladic is hypocritical amid acquittal of other participants of Yugoslav wars, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said yesterday. On Tuesday, judges of the Appeals Chamber of the IRMCT affirmed the life imprisonment sentence of the former commander of Bosnian Serbs Mladic. “The conviction looks hypocritical amid the acquittal of other participants in the conflict of those years, such as Croatian General A (Ante) Gotovina, Kosovar R (Ramush) Haradinaj and field commander N (Naser) Oric.”…

Eshin Vedan eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za DESPITE being a loved sport in South Africa, professional boxing has undergone a big decline in the country since the mid-2000s. Gone are the days when South Africans could tune into their own such as the late Baby Jake Matlala, Phillip Ndou and Corrie Sanders taking on the very best in the game. Even though it has vast potential to produce world-class boxers, South African boxing has underachieved and desperately needs a kick-start. Could celebrity boxing be what’s needed to reignite the passion for the sweet science? It certainly seems to be taking off among social media personalities, so much so that the leading YouTube personalities such as KSI and brothers Logan and Jake Paul actually do attract more viewers to their bouts than many of the…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za African Equity Empowerment Investments (AEEI), the diversified majority black-owned investment group, yesterday denied that a call option claimed by investee partner company BT Communications Services South Africa was capable of being exercised. AEEI, which is controlled by Sekunjalo Investment Holdings, is an indirect shareholder in BT Communications Services South Africa (BTSA) through its 100 percent shareholding in Kilomix Investments, which owns 30 percent of BTSA. AEEI’s denial of the call option comes after BTSA said it wished to terminate its relationship with Seku- njalo through the call-option, after an alleged misrepresentation to Parliament’s standing committee on finance. In terms of the shareholders agreement entered into between BT Limited (BT) (formerly British Telecom), BTSA, Kilomix Investments and AEEI on November 4, 2008, BT had a call…

Decuplets father overwhelmed by the support his family has received assures the babies exist Devereaux Morkel Devereaux.Morkel@africannewsagency.com Decuplets dad Tebogo Tsotetsi said yesterday he was overwhelmed by the support the family had received and assured South Africans that his 10 babies did exist. “I feel blessed and I am happy for the support I am getting,” he said in Cape Town yesterday, and spoke about the overwhelming support they had received since the news broke of the Guinness World Record birth. On Monday, Tsotetsi’s wife Gosiame Thamara Sithole, 37, gave birth to seven boys and three girls – two more than the eight children doctors had earlier detected during the medical scans – at a Pretoria hospital. The father of 16 said the journey had not been easy and that…

TYNA CHARTER Cowies Hill THE eThekwini Municipality is incapable of looking after its people, buildings, roads, water pipes, parks and beaches. How did we ever expect that they would look after our public art and monuments? Andries Botha’s elephant sculpture installation at the Warwick Triangle intersection belongs to the ratepayers of Durban and was entrusted to the custodianship of our municipality. In a poignant gesture of mourning and homage, concerned citizens from Durban’s artist community placed flowers on the mutilated elephants at the Warwick Triangle. Somehow these flowers have now been removed – probably by the municipality in a further act of violation. The vandalised, ravaged and broken elephant is now a perfect metaphor for our plundered, broken city and indeed our ransacked and broken country.…

A microscopic organism has wriggled back to life and reproduced asexually after lying frozen in the vast permafrost of Siberia for 24 000 years. Russian scientists found the tiny and ancient animal called the bdelloid rotifer, in soil from the river Alazeya in Russia's far north Yakutia region. The bdelloid rotifer, a multicellular organism found in freshwater habitats across the world, is known to be able to withstand extreme cold. This new case, detailed in a study in the journal Current Biology, is by far the creature's longest recorded survival period in a frozen state. The organism was recovered from samples taken 3.5m below ground. The material was dated from between 23 960 and 24 485 years ago, the study said. Land encased in permafrost – where the ground is…

Siyabonga Mkhwanazi siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za Police Minister Bheki Cele says they have lost more than 600 officers due to Covid-19. Cele, who was delivering his budget vote speech in the National Council of Provinces yesterday, said they would continue to intensify crime fighting in hot-spot areas, but the impact of Covid-19 has been felt in the police, with many officers losing their lives. “We have painfully lost hundreds of our employees, both uniformed members and support personnel, across departments and entities. To date 636 police members have died of Covid-19 related complications. Many could not get their well-deserved dignified send-off because we had to observe Covid-19 regulations. Policing under the Covid-19 pandemic has left the sector with numerous lessons and unmatched levels of experience of policing against all odds,” said Cele. Last…

Karen Singh karen.singh@inl.co.za NEWLY appointed Catholic archbishop of Durban, Bishop Siegfried Mandla Jwara, has been warmly welcomed. Jwara was appointed by head of the Catholic church, Pope Francis, as the new archbishop of the archdiocese of Durban yesterday. Cardinal Wilfred Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, made the announcement yesterday afternoon. This follows the death of Archbishop Abel Gabuza, who died after contracting Covid-19, on January 17, just months before he was to take over as the new archbishop of Durban. Speaking after the announcement, Raymond Perrier, the director of the Denis Hurley Centre, said the centre joined the Catholic community of Durban in welcoming Bishop Jwara as the new archbishop. “In following in the footsteps of Archbishop Hurley and Cardinal Napier, he inherits not only a huge diocese,…

A Cape Town lawyer has been convicted on 15 counts of theft by the specialised commercial crime court in Bellville. Wharren Jacobus Fortuin, 40, was convicted of embezzling over R1 million from his clients, Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) spokesperson Zinzi Hani said. She said the Law Society had immediately struck Fortuin from the roll of attorneys when allegations of criminal activity against him surfaced. Fortuin had represented several of his clients on civil matters and payments were made into a bank account, under his control, on their behalf. He however used the money for personal gain, leading to the Hawks’ serious commercial crime unit sum moning him to appear in court in January 2019. Sentencing for Fortuin is expected on July 23. In another case, 39-year-old Xolile…

Makhotso Sotyu THE science is clear that action to address the causes and impacts of climate change by a single country or small group of countries will not be successful. Climate change is a global problem as the world shares one atmosphere, therefore we will have to solve this problem together through the concerted and co-operative efforts of all countries. This is a global problem requiring a global solution. The debate on whether climate change is real is long over. Scientists are in consensus that humankind is the cause. The biggest question we should be asking is how much of the impacts will take place and how do we adapt. Climate change is a measurable reality and along with other developing countries, South Africa is extremely vulnerable to the…

The Colombian government should tackle “egregious” police abuse of protesters and embark on a law enforcement reform, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. Since late April, the Latin American country has been gripped by protests against tax hikes, which continue despite the authorities abandoning the initiative. Originally declared peaceful, the demonstrations have led to an increase in violence in the country. President Ivan Duque has since ordered army units to assist the police. Even though he has said his government would take steps to transform the police, changes have not occurred. Human Rights Watch claims that police abuse of authority and lack of respect for human rights have become commonplace in Colombia. It said it could confirm 34 deaths that occurred during protests. The Ministry of Defense says that over 1…

THE world was shocked recently by the discovery of the grave of 215 children in the grounds of a former school run by the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. But the deaths are just the tip of the iceberg, according to a lawyer who is suing the church. Pope Francis said this week he felt “pain” after the remains of the 215 children, some as young as three, were found in a mass grave at the school. The children who died at the school in Kamloops, British Columbia, were all from indigenous tribes. The school was operated by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government from 1890 to 1969 and was the largest of 139 boarding schools set up all over Canada. Around 150 000 indigenous children were…

MOSCOW – Three people were killed yesterday in a blaze that broke out at a Russian hospital treating patients with Covid-19, the authorities said, with one official suggesting a faulty ventilator was to blame. Since the start of the pandemic, Russia has reported several fires at intensive care units that doctors said were caused by malfunctioning ventilators. The city of Ryazan’s governor, Nikolai Lyubimov, told state television that a ventilator in the ward had overheated and caught fire, the Interfax news agency reported. Nurses attempted to extinguish the blaze, but were unsuccessful, with some of them sustaining severe burns, the governor said.…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za MOTUS Holdings said yesterday that it expects headline earnings per share to be more than 1 000 cents for the year to June 30, compared with 296 cents last year when it traded through the pandemic. Earnings per share for South Africa’s biggest distributor of vehicles was expected to be more than 1 000 cents versus 165 cents in the 2020 financial year. The share price was up 2.27 percent to R95.35 yesterday afternoon, with the price well up from R33.23 at the same date a year before. “The new vehicle markets in the geographies in which we operate continue to be affected by weak macroeconomic environments. Vehicle sales are under pressure as consumers postpone purchases and, in South Africa specifically, trade down to…

PRO VERITAS Durban SOUTH Africa needs and should seriously consider the formation of a government of national unity. The ANC alone is incapable of holding things together and there is a rapid degeneration of governance issues as well as a degradation of services and everyday civilian-related issues. This can’t go on. A government of national unity is the best way to go with the Constitution forming the basis, so that consensus can be reached as to the national emergency situation we find ourselves in. I address this to all South Africans to seriously consider this as no one party is capable of resolving these endemic issues.…

FAROUK ARAIE Johannesburg RUSSIA has left the Open Skies treaty, an indication that relations with the US are going back to the days of the Cold War. A report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons reveals that the nine nuclear weapons powers spent $72 billion (about R975bn) last year upgrading and increasing their nuclear arsenals, which is equivalent to spending $137 000 every minute last year. Among the signs of conspicuous intensification of the arms race, three are grave; the seismic shift from a race in quantity to a race in quality, growing nuclear proliferation and an escalation in the arms trade. All three phenomena combine to reinforce the dynamics of the arms race to make it a global occurrence. Nuclear armaments have evolved into an all-out open-ended…

“We are planning to move to the US. Do you have any guidance or suggestions? “We are a family of four. Our children are both under 12. My husband has a job and our visas are being processed. My husband has been to the US for work many times. I have not visited. We will be moving to the Midwest once the travel ban is lifted and we have our visas.” (Letter edited) This move will reveal a lot about you and your family as you get closer to the deadlines and departure dates. All moves and changes are stressful. This one will test everything about your marriage and your parenting. Nonetheless, it’s a fabulous adventure. I’d suggest you research the town or city where you are planning to…

Jonisayi Maromo jonisayi.maromo@africannewsagency.com R32 MILLION was spent on 28 Cuban doctors who were attached to the Gauteng Department of Health to assist in the fight against Covid-19. “The total cost incurred by the Department of Health during the deployment period was R32m – which was inclusive of remuneration, accommodation and transport. “The team of 28 was contracted for a year (from May 15, 2020 – May 30, 2021),” said Gauteng Health Department spokesperson Kwara Kekana. She said the department was grateful for the work done by the members of the Cuban Medical Brigade. “The Gauteng Department of Health wishes to thank the Cuban Medical Brigade that was deployed to Gauteng as part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Kekana said. The 28 Cuban doctors formed “part of the government-to-government…

YESTERDAY morning, I woke up nauseous. Even threw up a bit. Fatigued. Bloated and generally pregnant with disgust at the latest South African media tomfoolery. At some point, we must hit pause and sigh collectively at our dishevelled quest to be credible sources of news in this country. A women gives birth to 10 babies. One newspaper scoops this and plays its cards close to its chest until the day of publication. Today, that is. An entire head of government communications, possibly gunning for a leader’s photo-op with babies, then casts aspersions on the credibility of the story by stating: “We have spent a better part of today tracing the story of @IOL of a woman having given birth to 10 babies! @IOL can you please help the public where…

SOUTH Africans and the world have every reason to celebrate the birth of 10 babies by Gosiame Thamara Sithole, who also broke a Guinness World Record. At a time when Covid-19 has claimed so many lives and livelihoods, the birth of these decuplets has brought so much joy not only to the Sithole family, but to the country and afar. South Africans have started to open their hearts and pockets donating the little they have as the children’s parents are unemployed. Survé Philanthropies has committed at least R1 million to the family, to be paid over a period of four years. Speaking to the Pretoria News, the 37-year-old Sithole told editor Piet Rampedi that she and her husband Tebogo Tsotetsi cannot afford the financial and emotional demands. In a true…

At least eight members of Syrian government forces and their allied militiamen were killed after Israeli airstrikes on central and southern Syria, a monitoring group said yesterday. The Britain-Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said those killed included members of the “National Defence” forces. The Israeli strikes hit posts east of the village of Khirbet al-Tin in the countryside of Homs. An ammunition depot thought to belong to the Lebanese Shia movement, Hezbollah, was also hit in the same area. Explosions occurred near the Dabaa Military Airport.The official Syrian news agency Sana had first reported that Israeli fighter jets hit targets in Syria late on Tuesday night. It said the rocket attacks hit central and southern areas of the country. According to a Lebanese security source, the Israeli planes…

LONDON: British actress Kate Winslet has joined L’Oréal Paris as a global ambassador. The Mare of Easttown star has vowed to empower women with her campaign with the beauty brand. She said: “It’s taken work to get to a place where I make no apology for who I am, where I accept my flaws. I’m delighted to join the L’Oréal Paris sisterhood to say: it takes courage and strength to believe that you are worth it … sometimes, you may not feel worth it at all.” Winslet, 45, joins the likes of Viola Davis and Dame Helen Mirren in the role.…

Brussels: Greece’s minister for migration and asylum yesterday defended his country’s use of “sound cannons” to deter migrant crossings, as a senior EU official called their use “strange” and legally questionable. “I will not talk about operational issues that affect the Hellenic (Greek) police,” Notis Mitarachi said in Brussels after a meeting with the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. “What the police does they have to do it in their own way.” Brussels, though, is uneasy with Athens’ plan to deploy two truck-mounted Long Range Acoustic Devices to blast high-decibel sound waves at migrants at its Evros border post to prevent river crossings there from neighbouring Turkey.…

MIHLALI BALEKA KAIZER Chiefs management did not need a public relations expert to announce Stuart Baxter as the new man in charge at Naturena. The coach has delivered trophies at the club before and he sure can deliver on the marketing front as well. Baxter spoke of Chiefs’ need to rediscover their identity and he is aware of the expectations that come with the job. The team has been in decline since he left but he vowed to work hard and ensure they return among the best in the elite division. In his first stint at the club between 2012 and 2015, Baxter won four trophies, including two league titles. Since his departure Chiefs endured a six-year domestic trophy drought. Four coaches were hired and fired during this time.…