Innehållsförteckning för 2022-01-14 från Mercury

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za AS the race towards the ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference gains momentum, those close to the current treasurer, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, have disclosed that the former MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (Edtea) is vying for the position of provincial chairperson. They said Dube-Ncube had a wealth of experience, adding that her elevation to the top post would be a “game changer” for KZN politics. They described her as a steady hand that could arrest the party’s decline that it suffered during the recent local government elections. Attempts to get comment from Dube-Ncube yesterday were unsuccessful. A source who is aware of Dube-Ncube’s prospects said she had been approached by branches who believed she would make a good provincial chairperson, and by extension, premier of the province.…

DRAMA in Old Blighty. It seems the folk who work at No 10 Downing Street held a huge “bring your own booze” party on the back lawn over a year ago at a time the lockdown regulations were at their tightest and the police were arresting people for infringing them. There had been other allegations of other such parties and these are being investigated by a senior civil servant. But now an email has come to light, sent to 100 Downing Street staff, inviting them to “social distancing drinks” on the lawn at No 10 to enjoy the glorious May weather. Plus “bring your own booze”. About 40 people are said to have attended. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are also alleged to have been there. It…

FAROUK ARAIE | Johannesburg According to the recent edition of Newsweek Magazine, Russia has developed the capability to wreak havoc with undersea cables should war erupt with the West. During 2019, South Africans woke up to be informed that Twitter was blanked out, and that the internet was slowed down drastically, due to failed undersea cables. Many global citizens are unaware that in the event of a military conflict between Russia and the West, undersea cables would be a prime target to disrupt global communications. These cables form a global infrastructure system that transmits 99% of the international data sent over the internet. Russia’s Losharik submarine can dive thousands of metres, enabling it to target cables at depths that would be very difficult to repair. Its dive depth…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za THE council for quality assurance in education, Umalusi, has said it is in the process of finalising the standardisation process for the 2021 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results, which are expected to be announced on January 18. Umalusi spokesperson Lucky Ditaunyane said they were on schedule. “On Friday we have a private approval meeting between Umalusi and the DBE (Department of Basic Education), thus paving the way for the media announcement on January 18. “Umalusi uses the historical profile of each subject per qualification to make determinations about learner performance. “Depending on qualitative and quantitative data presented to Umalusi, learner marks may be adjusted downward, upward or left as they are (raw),” said Ditaunyane. At least 700 604 candidates wrote the exams. During the Umalusi Standardisation meeting…

BETTY MOLEYA betty.moleya@inl.co.za AS THE new academic year begins and prospective students rush to get places at higher education institutions, they often fall prey to unregistered private colleges. Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Blade Nzimande has warned students and parents to be on the lookout and not become victims of these illegal institutions. “These institutions lure and mislead future students into believing that they offer qualifications that are recognised by the South African Qualifications Authority,” said Nzimande. He said students often realised when it was too late that they had been scammed, more especially after they had paid registration and tuition fees, and even gone to other lengths like paying for accommodation and applying for jobs. Bogus colleges are not registered as institutions of learning with the correct…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za A NON-profit organisation for families of prisoners serving life sentences, who are eligible for parole but still imprisoned, has joined Struggle icon Chris Hani’s assassin Janusz Walus’s latest attempt to be freed after 29 years in jail. Families for Lifers has been admitted as an intervening party in the matter along with Tebogo Modise, who is the second intervening party, by the Constitutional Court. Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has given the non-profit organisation until today to make its written submission in Walus’s bid to overturn the June 2021 Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment which went against him. The SCA had turned down his application for leave to appeal an earlier North Gauteng High Court ruling denying him parole. Families for Lifers is a group of…

Political parties in the City of Joburg have condemned the callous murder of five security guards who were attacked by gunmen while working at the Goudkoppies landfill site on Tuesday. Yesterday, all councillors observed a moment of silence following the tragic deaths of the guards which happened at the landfill site, which belongs to the City of Joburg. City of Joburg MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Michael Sun said the attack happened when the guards had reported for night duty. “On-duty security personnel belonging to two private security companies, as well as in-house security guards, were approached by a gang of unknown gunmen, who subsequently opened fire.” Four security personnel were declared dead on the scene by paramedics from ER24 and Netcare 911. Another security guard died in hospital…

Nelson Mandela once said: “Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.” South Africa has always been a sport-loving nation, and in our darkest hours, sport has always been a source of unity and cohesion. As such, any and all South Africans should be eagerly awaiting the upcoming Beijing Olympics to be held from February 4 to 20, followed by the Paralympics to be held from March 4 to 13. The Olympic Games, especially during these difficult times of the pandemic, may not only serve as a temporary reprieve from the pandemic but also stimulate the kind of optimism necessary to drive a return to…

Russia will have to take measures if the US and Nato fail to provide a constructive response on Russian-requested security guarantees within a reasonable time, Russian permanent representative to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Alexander Lukashevich, said this week. “If we do not hear a constructive response to the proposals we made within reasonable time, and the aggressive policy towards Russia continues, (we) will have to draw corresponding conclusions and take all measures to maintain strategic balance of powers and prevent unacceptable threats to our national security,” Lukashevich said at the OSCE permanent council. Lukashevich added that any attempts to drag on the process of constructive talks on security guarantees in the framework of the Russia-US and Russia-Nato dialogues would result in the inevitable deterioration of…

January, for clubs affiliated to Port Natal Bowls, heralds novice month and presents the opportunity for those registered bowlers, whose registration date is post 8 January 2019, to put their skills and tactical play to the test in their efforts to win through the Port Natal Novice Singles knockout rounds and emerge victorious when the finals are played on 12 February at Durban Bowling Club. Included in the 42 competitors who earned places in the next round of the championship were Queensburgh Bowling Club’s Craig Burton and his 12-year old son Caleb. In 2020 Craig and Caleb participated in the club’s Friday evening social bowls event and, realizing that lawn bowls is a socially competitive activity offering families an outdoor opportunity in which age or gender does not…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE RAND strengthened to a two-month high yesterday amid positive investor sentiment following dovish comments from US Federal Reserve chairperson Jerome Powell. Powell on Wednesday said that it would take a few more meetings for the US central bank to further tighten its monetary policy. This disappointed market speculators who had expected the Fed would return to a more hawkish policy and begin hiking interest rates immediately as inflation in the US rose further to a 40-year high in December. As a result, the dollar lost some ground to other major currencies, including the rand. The rand was trading at R15.27 against the greenback in the early morning trade and by 5pm it was bid at R15.38, its highest since November 15th amid a subdued dollar and…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ULTIMATE Sports Nutrition (USN), a fast-growing locally developed global sports nutrition brand, is partnering with investment company Fledge Capital to drive its international expansion. Fledge Capital, previous investors in We Buy Cars and Dis-Chem, has acquired a 25 percent direct shareholding in USN which has turnover approaching R2 billion, a statement said yesterday. Founded by Albé Geldenhuys in 1999, USN is a 100- percent South African business launched from the entrepreneur’s Pretoria home and then outsourced to local pharmaceutical manufacturers in their aim to meet a gap in the market between superior but costly international sports nutrition products and cheaper but inferior local counter- parts, with reasonably priced quality products. Over two decades, USN claims to have become South Africa’s dominant market leader in sports…

Yogashen Pillay yogashen.pillay@inl.co.za Five foreign truck drivers who lacked the proper documentation were arrested yesterday in an operation led by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala. A multidisciplinary law-enforcement operation targeting the freight industry was held yesterday in Bayhead Road. The operation included SAPS, metro police, SANDF, the Road Traffic Inspectorate and officials from the departments of Home Affairs and Labour. Zikalala was joined by Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Peggy Nkonyeni and Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs MEC Ravi Pillay. The operation comes after an incident at the Old Durban Airport where a group were allegedly stopping and threatening foreign truck drivers on Wednesday. It was alleged that the group of protesters were from the All Truck Drivers Foundation (ATDF), but the foundation denied it was their members. There…

Mashudu Sadike and Chevon Booysen POLITICAL interference is suspected to be the reason behind the Hawks’ probe into alleged corruption against Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane dragging on, according to a legal expert. Mabuyane found himself under fire after Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane made damning findings against him, including that he irregularly benefited from a R1.1 million tender for the memorial service of Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Mkhwebane ordered the Hawks to investigate allegations that Mabuyane received up to R450 000 in relation to the tender. The money is alleged to have been used to renovate his house while he was MEC for economic development. Mkhwebane also found that Eastern Cape Public Works MEC Babalo Madikizela and the provincial ANC itself benefited to the tune of R350 000 and R280…

Volcanic ash left over from a huge ancient eruption has helped scientists determine that important early Homo sapiens fossils found in Ethiopia in 1967 are older than previously believed, providing fresh insight into the dawn of our species. Researchers said they used the geochemical fingerprints of a thick layer of ash found above the sediments containing the fossils to ascertain that it resulted from an eruption that spewed volcanic fallout over a wide swathe of Ethiopia roughly 233 000 years ago. Because the fossils were located beneath this ash, they predated the eruption, the researchers said, although by how many years remains unclear. It previously was believed the fossils were no more than about 200 000 years old. The fossils, called Omo I, were discovered in southwestern Ethiopia in a…

SABER AHMED JAZBHAY | Newlands West Lindiwe Sisulu’s attack on the judiciary needs to be calmly debated and contextualised. So, let’s stay calm and debate how to stop the pyroclastic flow following Madame Lindiwe Sisulu’s article attacking the judiciary, among others. Inelegantly and crudely, Lindiwe Sisulu, a senior cabinet member, I submit, made a telling point when she lamented that the Constitution and current laws actually did little to economically uplift the black majority who had been victims of apartheid and colonialism. That, among other comments, raised temperature gauges throughout South Africa. This is my take on what her comment actually means. Those who interpret the Constitution and the laws, ie, members of the judiciary, are the gatekeepers who determine who the beneficiaries or recipients are of the fruits of…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za A motorist who knocked down a pedestrian three years ago while he was fleeing from the traffic police was this week sentenced to an effective five years’ imprisonment on a charge of culpable homicide. Lizel Visagie died a hero in 2019, when she pushed her minor daughter out of the way of Khumbulani Malinga’s speeding BMW. Her leg was severed during the incident, and she died on the way to the hospital. Malinga was effectively sentenced to five years’ imprisonment over Visagie’s death in the Middelburg Regional Court this week. Magistrate Andreas Masteroudes sentenced him to eight years, but three years were suspended for four years on condition that Malinga does not commit a similar crime during this time. Malinga’s driving licence was also suspended for 12…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za The sitting of Parliament where President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver his State of the Nation Address (Sona) will only be attended by 300 MPs and 70 guests to comply with Covid-19 protocols. Briefing the joint programme committee yesterday, National Assembly Secretary Masibulele Xaso told the MPs from both Houses that the Sona would be held on February 10 in the Cape Town City Hall. He said up to 300 members from the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces would be in attendance physically. “The rest of the members will join virtually.” Xaso said guests invited to attend physically were members of the judiciary, premiers and speakers of provincial legislatures, former presidents, heads of Chapter Nine institutions, and members of the diplomatic corps. National Assembly…

| African News Agency (ANA) Free State police yesterday arrested a 34-year-old serial rapist who had been on the run for 13 years, after he was linked to the crimes through DNA. During his crime spree, which took place in the Bloemspruit area between 2009 and 2013, the man raped 13 women between the ages of 23 and 24, except for one victim who was aged 43. The police said the suspect would surprise his victims by sneaking up behind them, grabbing them by the neck, threatening to stab them, and then dragging them either to an open space or an empty house where he would rape them. He will appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court next Monday on charges of rape and attempted murder. In Limpopo, police arrested…

Mercury Reporter The eThekwini Municipality said yesterday that it had reopened the beaches that were closed due to high E coli levels. The municipality announced last Friday that some beaches along the Durban beachfront – South Beach, North Beach, Bay of Plenty Beach, Suncoast Beach, Country Club Beach and uMgeni beaches – were closed due to “unacceptable levels of E coli”. Yesterday, the city said following the latest test results carried out at the beaches affected by high levels of E coli, it had taken a decision to open them for bathing and other sporting activities, with immediate effect. It said the decision excluded the Blue Lagoon/uMgeni Beach, where E coli levels were still too high for it to be opened to the public. “In all other beaches, tests results…

ONE of the problems that has plagued the Premier Soccer League (PSL) for years is the accusation that the professional league body of football in the country is overly biased towards the well-resourced Gauteng clubs, particularly Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. When Chiefs failed to honour two league fixtures last month, many expected that the Amakhosi would not face any penalties. The manner in which the matter was dealt with was quite frankly embarrassing. It epitomised the reason that South African football has not made its desired mark outside the country. Due to its resources, South African football has the potential to be a respected top 20 league in world football, easily gaining a large following within Africa and perhaps even infiltrating other continents. Time will tell whether…

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize, said yesterday that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the honour in 2019, bore special responsibility for ending the bloodshed in Tigray. “As Prime Minister and winner of the Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed has a special responsibility to end the conflict and contribute to peace,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairperson of the committee. Northern Ethiopia has been beset by conflict since November 2020 when Ahmed sent troops into Tigray after accusing the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of attacks on federal army camps. The fighting between forces loyal to Abiy and the TPLF and their allies has killed thousands of people and forced several million from their homes. Tigray is under what the UN calls a…

THE 2007/8 CRISIS, whose negative persistent effects on output, productivity, employment etc lingered in South Africa until met by the 2020 coronavirus economic crisis, was as much a financial crisis as a crisis of macroeconomics. The crisis not only shook the consensus on macroeconomic policy, but exposed the severe limitations of monetary policy, especially the key tenets of its intellectual foundations. As a consequence, in Europe, Japan, the US and in developing countries like China, Bangladesh, Brazil and many others, the crisis caused swift changes in the operational conduct of macroeconomic policy, especially monetary policy. In South Africa, it was, sadly, business as usual, despite critical plodding from careful economists. It had to take one-and-a-half decades of suffering for the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to recognise that the conduct…

BONGANI NKOSI bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za THE Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (Aarto), a piece of legislation that was in the pipeline since 1998 until its passing recently, encroached on the powers of the provincial and municipal authorities and was therefore unconstitutional. This was the ruling of Judge Annali Basson yesterday at the North Gauteng High Court. She declared Aarto, which was billed to usher in a points demerit system for traffic offences, unconstitutional in its entirety. The judge delivered a scathing judgment against the government in the litigation brought by Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), a non-profit organisation. Outa mounted a constitutional challenge against the Aarto Act and the accompanying Amendment Act on grounds that they usurped the executive legislative authorities of the provincial and local governments to regulate road…

I KNOW you have met or read about people who are “larger than life”. Perhaps you had a teacher or two who you may now describe as such. I was posed the question: “What makes somebody larger than life?” I’d like to hear your ideas and I am pleased to share mine with you. The men and women I have met who are so described have all, without fail: Been committed to purposes larger than themselves and from a long, long time before that commitment made them appear larger than life. They never set out to become larger than life but they wanted without fail to make life larger for others, even others whom they would never know or meet. They embraced their own failings and shortcomings and decided these…

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff THE Australian government’s high-handed treatment of Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic because of his refusal to have the Covid-19 vaccination highlights not only the weakness of the case for the jab. It also suggests that Djokovic’s state of health is not the real reason for threatening to deport him (The Mercury, January 12). By its insistence that everyone entering Australia has to have been Covid-19 vaccinated, the Australian government, like others, prioritises fiction over science. There are three incontrovertible reasons to reject the jab: (1) none of the vaccines is FDA approved so none is certified to produce Covid-19 immunity; (2) all of the manufacturers are indemnified against adverse effects; (3) almost all the fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 are among the previously…

EBRAHIM ESSA | Durban WOW, the vaccine is actually working! All the allegations that Bill Gates and them want to establish a new world order are turning out to be true! Nobody utters a whisper against the state. Any state! Any more! A few grim, most smiling and accepting the new status of the status quo is the new order of the day. Telkom continues to give consumers the runaround with simple enquiries. Try 10213 or 102 … anything! Eskom prepares for more gargantuan increases and even more Hillary-Tenzing types of heights of load shedding, till 2099. All those vaccinated now stay at home. School stationery? An A4 exercise book ranges from R2 to R10. And we are all as quiet as foolscap sheets. Nobody’s fault. The…

| IANS Cyber-security researchers have unearthed that hackers are spreading a powerful malware via news around the new Omicron strain, stealing information and credentials from Windows users in at least 12 countries. Researchers from cyber-security firm FortiGuard said that hackers are infecting devices with RedLine malware sent via emails, that steals all of the user names and passwords it finds throughout an infected system. “FortiGuard Labs recently came across a curiously named file, Omicron Stats.exe which turned out to be a variant of RedLine Stealer malware. While we have not been able to identify the infection vector for this particular variant, we believe that it is being distributed via email,” the company said in a statement. “This indicates that this is a broad-brush attack and that the threat actors did…

Bongani Nkosi bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za RONALD Lamola, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, has blamed the terrorism-accused Thulsie twins for the extensive delays in their case. Exactly five years and six months after their arrests during raids in Newclare and Azaadville, west of Joburg, Tony-Lee and Brandon-Lee Thulsie are yet to stand trial. The State accused them of collaborating with the jihadist group Islamic State to target Jewish, US and other institutions in bomb attacks. The allegedly targeted institutions included the US embassy, the UK High Commission, the South Africa Zionist Federation, King David High School in Linksfield, Joburg and arms manufacturer, Denel. Police nabbed the pair after Tony-Lee allegedly discussed terrorist plans with an undercover US Federal Bureau of Investigation agent between May and June 2016. The discussion allegedly happened…

Goitsemang Tlhabye goitsemang.tlhabye@inl.co.za Matriculants looking for job opportunities in the new year have been urged to make use of the deadline extension of Statistics South Africa’s 2022 Census Recruitment Drive. With less than a month before South Africa is set to participate in the fourth population and housing census taking place on February 2, Stats SA has urged matriculants due to get their final exam results next week to make use of the deadline extension for available work opportunities. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced earlier this week that the matric class of 2021 would receive their results on January 21. Meanwhile, Stats SA said that although the initial recruitment drive began on October 25 and ended on December 31, it had taken the decision to extend the deadline to…

WEF risks perception survey predicts countries like SA face greater social erosion As we start the new year, it is worth looking at the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Perception Survey for 2022, but the outlook is not one that bodes well for the developing world – it forecasts consistent volatility. According to global experts and world leaders, what we can expect in the next three years is a world that more sharply defines the winners and losers as a result of the lingering global pandemic. The global income gap between the developed and developing world is growing ever wider. In the next two years developing economies will have fallen 5.5% below pre-pandemic expected GDP growth, while advanced economies will have surpassed it by 0.9%. The widening disparities between…

BERLIN: A German court convicted a former Syrian regime intelligence officer for crimes against humanity yesterday, part of the first trial in the world related to state-sponsored torture under President Bashar Assad, according to German media. He was sentenced to life in prison. Anwar Raslan, 58, was charged with crimes including 58 counts of murder, rape and torture in connection to his work as head of investigations at a branch of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate during the country’s civil war. The proceedings against Raslan began with a chance encounter at an asylum centre in Berlin seven years ago, when Anwar al-Bunni, a prominent Syrian human rights lawyer, recognized Raslan as the man who had detained him in Damascus. The trial marked the first time Syrian victims had the chance to…

JAKARTA: Indonesian investigators will need another year to determine the cause of last year’s crash of a Sriwijaya Air jet that killed all 62 people on board, according to an interim report released yesterday. A final report would have normally been issued within a year of the January 9, 2021 crash, but Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said the pandemic had made it harder for its team to travel. “Because data has just been gathered, we’re compiling a final report, including an analysis and a conclusion,” it said. The Sriwijaya accident was Indonesia’s third major airline crash in just over six years and shone a spotlight on the country’s poor air safety record. The plane had an imbalance in engine thrust that led it into a sharp roll and then…

THE weather has not been playing the game but the fishing has still been on top form. From the bass to the billfish, there is something for everyone to catch. Billfish and dorado, these are two of the most prized offshore targets along the KZN coast. Dorado are easier to target most of the time but the billfish can be targeted doing much the same. Trolling skirted lures along the deeper drop offs and the colour lines is a great way to target both. Look at using medium to large skirted lures with a good smoke trail and or good movement. Colour is often a personal choice when it comes to lures but a combination of colours in your spread will quickly reveal the flavour of the day. Live…

TS Galaxy goalkeeper Marlon Heugh is enthusiastic after his side was drawn to play against Kaizer Chiefs in the Nedbank Cup round of 32 following the draw on Wednesday. Galaxy’s draw against Chiefs means that fans will witness a repeat of the 2019 Nedbank Cup final which produced one of the biggest upsets in South African football history as the Rockets, who were then playing in the GladAfrica Championship, took down Amakhosi. “I know we played against Chiefs in the cup final a few years ago. You have to play against the best in the cup to win. It’s good to have a good opponent early on in order to push yourself. You have to beat the best in order to win the cup,” said Heugh. Heugh reiterated…