Innehållsförteckning för 2025-07-29 från Mercury

Beauty culture has, for years, dictated a singular message: fix it, hide it, smooth it out. The implied solution for a prominent nose, a soft chin, or a face that deviates from filtered online images, we are told, is simple: surgery. But a new wave is stirring on TikTok: young people (and older ones too) proudly declaring, “I’ve never had a nose job and I love my nose exactly as it is.” Under hashtags like #Nonosejob, users are posting side profiles, close-ups, and personal stories celebrating features that just a few years ago many felt pressured to “correct”. So, after decades of Vogue covers and celebrity red carpets shaping one narrow idea of what’s “beautiful”, can we really unlearn all of this? We cannot pretend we woke up worrying about…

Scroll through TikTok or YouTube long enough, and you’ll find them: raw, often tearful storytimes from people explaining why they’ve gone no contact or low contact with their parents. At first glance, it can sound shocking, even unthinkable. Aren’t parents supposed to be our safest place? Yet, behind every decision to step away lies something deeper, more painful and very real. Far from being impulsive or cruel, experts say estrangement is often the final act of self-preservation after years, sometimes decades, of trying to make it work. Beyond the stereotype Dr Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and the author of Rules of Estrangement, says, “Adult children rarely cut off contact without years of distress and failed attempts to repair the relationship.” Research reveals that around 1 in 10 parents in the…

IT’S A sad fact that we have one of the highest unemployment figures in the world. It must be soul destroying to wake up every day with a long day ahead of you with no prospects of a job. I see the men on the road waiting in all weather patiently with the hopes that someone will give them a day’s work. And hopefully not scam them or not pay them at the end of a day's labour. Women handing out neatly written details of their phone numbers and job descriptions at the robots. The sad fact as well is that even those who have a degree are not necessarily going to secure a job. The basic problem is worldwide there are too many of us all fighting for that…

WHEN 20 tons of rubber start burning, you get quite a blaze. It happened in West Bromwich, in England, according to Sky News, where homes in the vicinity had to be evacuated. The West Midlands Fire Service says four factory units holding 20 tons of rubber tyres were involved in the blaze, but there have been no injuries. The wire service says it was called to the single-storey factory around 10.40 am on Sunday morning. A huge black plume of smoke billowed from the site, with firefighters tackling the flames from aerial ladder platforms. Fifteen fire engines were sent to the scene, with a high-volume pump that used water from a nearby canal to put out the blaze. Several nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution. There is no word…

Former president Thabo Mbeki and former Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla say it is in the interest of justice that they be allowed to intervene in the R167 million constitutional damages case brought by families of victims of apartheid-era atrocities. The pair turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, yesterday to bring the intervening application. Their counsel, Advocate Ngwako Maenetje SC, argued that it does not matter whether the damages case by the victims and families is not aimed at them as the outcome will still have an impact on them. Maenetje told Judge Anthony Millar that the court, which ultimately has to decide on the damages issue, will have to make factual findings, which could negatively impact the reputations of Mbeki and Mabandla. He said they need to put their…

South Africa has seen a significant drop in HIV testing rates since the US withdrew foreign aid in January this year. The suspension, which notably affected the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has had immediate repercussions on global health initiatives. A few weeks after the announcement, a partial waiver was introduced, yet many HIV programmes remained unable to operate at full capacity, resulting in widespread disruptions across the nation. According to data from GlobalData, a leading analytics firm, South Africa has been hit particularly hard, exhibiting a staggering 21% decline in HIV viral load testing amongst key demographics, particularly pregnant women, between March and April 2025. The crisis was exacerbated by funding cuts that eliminated the salaries of 15 000 healthcare workers previously supported by PEPFAR, alongside…

More than three decades have passed since South Africa’s democratic transition, yet the wounds inflicted by apartheid’s brutal machinery remain open. Families of murdered activists still search for truth, justice, and, in some cases, even the remains of their loved ones. The recent legal bid by these families for constitutional damages highlights not only the failure of the state to prosecute apartheid-era crimes, but also its enduring resistance to reckoning definitively with the past. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), once a beacon of hope, was premised on the notion that amnesty would only be granted where full disclosure was made. For hundreds of cases where amnesty was denied or not applied for, the expectation was clear: prosecution would follow. Yet, successive governments, including under former president Thabo Mbeki and…

The US and the EU clinched a trade agreement at the weekend that will see EU exports taxed at 15%, in a bid to resolve a transatlantic tariff stand-off that threatened to explode into a full-blown trade war. US President Donald Trump emerged from a high-stakes meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his golf resort in Scotland, describing the deal as the “biggest-ever”. The deal, which the leaders reached after an hour of talks, came as the clock ticked down on an August 1 deadline to avoid an across-the-board US levy of 30% on European goods. “We’ve reached a deal. It’s a good deal for everybody. This is probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity,” said Trump. Trump said a baseline tariff of 15%…

Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe was to learn his fate yesterday in a witness tampering case that saw him become the South American country’s first-ever former head of state to be put on trial. The 73-year-old, who was president from 2002 to 2010, is charged with “bribery of witnesses” in a separate investigation against him, and risks a 12-year prison sentence in the highly politicised case. The matter dates to 2012, when Uribe accused leftist senator Ivan Cepeda before the Supreme Court of hatching a plot to falsely link him to right-wing paramilitary groups involved in Colombia’s long-standing armed conflict. The court decided against prosecuting Cepeda and turned its sights on his claims against Uribe instead. Paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s in Colombia to fight Marxist guerrillas that had taken…

lilongwe: Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera has ordered the country’s recently dissolved Parliament to reconvene on August 5 to amend the voting law to ensure that all eligible citizens, including those assigned to duty on election day, can cast their votes. Malawi’s 2019-2025 Parliament was dissolved last week by National Assembly Speaker Catherine Gotani Hara, in line with constitutional provisions for an election year. However, the Constitution empowers the president to recall Parliament before an election if a constitutional crisis is deemed to have arisen. A supplement to the government Gazette dated last week and signed by Chakwera confirmed the decision to reconvene Parliament to consider amending the Presidential, Parliamentary, and Local Government Elections Act. A follow-up statement from the State House at the weekend provided further clarification. |…

It’s saddening. Seventeen people lost their lives in a horrifying accident on the morning of July 22, 2025, not because they died on impact, but because help never came in time. A heavily loaded truck lost control and overturned into oncoming traffic on Seke Road in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, crushing a small passenger minibus underneath. Eyewitnesses say they could hear faint, terrified cries for help coming from under the wreckage for hours. People were alive. People were pleading. But no help arrived. Firefighters arrived but with no equipment strong enough to lift the truck. No crane. No hydraulic tools. Just uniforms and good intentions. Government emergency services were present but unprepared, under-equipped and ultimately helpless. In the end, it wasn’t the government that responded; it was a private citizen. A well-wisher…

Apartheid urban special planning has left an indelible mark on the majority of the workers in South Africa. Invariably, when speaking to employees coming from the Cape Flats and the various townships, they explain to me that anything up to half their salary is spent on transport. Furthermore, people get up at ungodly hours, depriving them of essential rest. Invariably as well, people have to leave in the dark and come home in the dark. All this leaves the workers completely exposed to health and safety problems. Obviously, this will impact productivity and often lead to job losses. This vicious cycle means that people can’t amass wealth and can’t better themselves at the workplace. It is at this stage that the government starts realising the necessity to step in to…

I am thoroughly convinced that there are always good reasons to have hope. No matter how dire or conflicted the circumstance, no matter how bleak the prognosis, while there is life, and even beyond it, there remain reasons to be hopeful. I’ve seen hope in action. I’ve seen painful family scenarios, the most estranged of siblings and the most obstinate of personalities can turn, finding previously unimagined degrees of humility and moving in healthier directions. But evil abounds. It tries to rob us of hope. Of course, men and women are capable of inflicting much hurt and destruction, but I believe that the good in this world far outweighs the evil. There is goodness, kindness, and benevolence latent in every man, woman, and child, and I believe it far exceeds…

A Palestinian leader has called on the ANC and South Africa to continue supporting the fight for the cause of Palestinians. Speaking in Durban after meeting with the ANC provincial leadership, Fatah Secretary-General Jibril Rajoub thanked the ANC and South Africa for supporting their cause and asked the party to continue the support until the people of Palestine are free. The meeting took place as US President Donald Trump warned yesterday that the people of Gaza are facing "real starvation". Rajoub said: “I know you have always been with us. Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat were always together in this course. We urge the people of South Africa to continue supporting us.” In response, the ANC’s international relations head, Dr Sbu Ndebele, assured the Palestinian leader of the party’s support,…

Let’s hope that his aspirations for Palestine are not mere pious platitudes THE world is currently polarised along a troika of depressing and disruptive issues which many would agree ought to affect any member of the human race with a conscience and a moral compass. Alas, the three defining foreign policy issues of our time – Palestinian statehood, the concentration camp called Gaza which doubles up as the asylum for the emaciated and the starving, and the neo-colonialist US policy of lawfare by extraterritoriality which targets sanctions against foreign politicians deemed “corrupt or extremist” – in other words inimical to the interests of the incumbent administration of the day and of course their ideological allies. The troika of issues have global implications which although steeped in history for at least…

North Korea has no interest in pursuing dialogue with the South, leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister said yesterday, dismissing a new president in Seoul who has vowed to mend ties. Since his election in June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has broken with his predecessor’s hawkish tone on the North and halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border – begun in response to a barrage of trash-filled North Korean balloons. North Korea has ended its own propaganda broadcasts, which had boomed strange and eerie noises into the South. But such gestures do not mean Seoul should expect a thawing of icy ties, Kim Yo Jong said in an English dispatch carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Monday. “If the ROK... expected that it could…

SHANGHAI: A landslide unleashed by unusually heavy rain killed four people and left eight others missing in northern China’s Hebei province, state media reported yesterday, as downpours force thousands to evacuate. The landslide in Chengde City was “due to heavy rainfall”, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The national emergency management department said it dispatched a team to inspect the “severe” flooding in Hebei, which encircles the capital Beijing. Swathes of northern China have been inundated in recent days, with record rain in Hebei killing two people at the weekend, state media said. In Fuping County, over 4 600 people were evacuated, it said. And in neighbouring Shanxi province, one person was rescued and 13 are missing after a bus accident, CCTV reported. | Xinhua…

KINSHASA: At least 43 civilians were killed overnight at the weekend in an attack attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), local sources said. According to local media reports, ADF fighters stormed a Catholic church early at the weekend in the town of Komanda, Ituri Province. A local civil society leader in Komanda said most of the victims, primarily Catholic worshippers, were preparing for Sunday celebrations when the attack took place. Witnesses said the assailants also looted a local bank and other community properties before retreating into the nearby forest. The ADF rebels have stepped up assaults in Ituri since early July. In a statement issued last week, the UN Organization Stabilisation Mission in the DRC condemned the recent ADF attacks,…

Bulls captain Nama Xaba has warned that the Currie Cup competition is still warming up and will only improve, despite their 48-23 demolition of Western Province last weekend in Cape Town. The Bulls celebrated Xaba’s birthday and his return to his former home town with a first-half blitz that produced five tries and forced Province to concede four yellow cards. The home team fought back in the second half, and allowing Province back into the game is an area Xaba says his team is working on ahead of entertaining the Sharks this weekend in round two. “There’s still so much we need to improve on from that game,” said Xaba, at a press conference on Monday. “I think we started well, but in the back 40, we gave them chances…

Germany has finalised a €500 million (around R10.4 billion) loan aimed at supporting South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) through the KFW Development Bank (KFW). The National Treasury on Monday said this KFW loan, which forms part of the country's third Development Policy Operation, signified a continued commitment to structural reforms crucial for enhancing the efficiency, resilience, and sustainability of the country's infrastructure, particularly within the energy sector. The loan agreement, signed in the presence of prominent stakeholders including the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the OPEC Fund, builds on two previous policy loans concluded in 2022 and 2023. Altogether, these initiatives represent Germany's pledge made at the COP26 summit to aid South Africa's Just Energy Transition Partnership, which is designed to combat…

IN A political environment often plagued by endless consultations and strategic fence-sitting, President Cyril Ramaphosa has done the unthinkable: he fired someone. And not just anyone. The now former Minister of Higher Education, Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, was given the boot just days before a critical budget vote. The timing? Impeccable. The message? Crystal clear: not even a cabinet chair comes with a lifetime guarantee. Dr Nkabane’s dismissal followed serious allegations that she misled Parliament and tampered with the appointment of SETA board members, allegedly playing a game of political musical chairs in favour of ANC aligned allies. The DA may have done the public the favour of shouting the loudest, but Ramaphosa’s swift action shows he wasn't deaf to the growing chorus of concern. And let's be honest: we’ve all…

ONCE again, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has exposed the depths of its inhumanity by intercepting and seizing the recent flotillas—including the Handala Freedom Flotilla—that attempted to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. These ships carried no weapons, no threat, only food, medicine, and hope. Their mission? To feed starving babies, children, women, and men who are being choked by a man-made famine created by a merciless blockade. Instead of allowing this lifeline through, the IDF descended on these peaceful vessels like a military force confronting an enemy, not a humanitarian mission. The flotilla’s international volunteers were kidnapped in international waters and detained—some even reportedly assaulted. Israel has not only shown contempt for international law, but it has also brazenly defied basic morality and decency.…

A cardiologist at Life Westville Hospital in Durban has described allegations that he subjected patients to unnecessary medical procedures as a smear campaign meant to tarnish his name and strip him of his medical licence. Dr Ntando Duze spoke to The Mercury yesterday as he fights to save his professional reputation. This week, he was the subject of an exposé by a TV news programme, with patients accusing him of subjecting them to unnecessary procedures. He stated that the accusations were motivated by professional jealousy and racism. The allegations are being probed by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). The Mercury is in possession of text messages and an affidavit which indicate that a doctor at the hospital had attempted to solicit a complaint from a patient of…

The family of the assassinated former ANC youth secretary Sindiso Magaqa has welcomed the arrest of a former Umzimkhulu municipal manager. The manager was arrested by the Political Killings Task Team yesterday and will appear in the Umzimkhulu Magistrate’s Court today. National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the 55-year-old suspect was arrested yesterday in Malvern, Durban. The manager was named by the convicted hitman, Sbusiso Ncengwa, alongside the late provincial legislature deputy speaker, Mluleki Ndobe, as the ones who masterminded Magaqa’s murder. Reacting to the news, Magaqa's brother Dr Lwazi Magaqa said the family was happy that the real mastermind behind his brother’s murder has been finally arrested, adding that the family will give a comprehensive comment after his appearance in court today. Ncengwa was recently sentenced following his confession…

SOUTH Africa’s promising coalition government, still learning to share power, was shaken on June 26 when President Cyril Ramaphosa fired Deputy Trade Minister Andrew Whitfield, a member of the DA. The dismissal, rooted in Whitfield’s decision to travel to Washington without the president’s written approval, triggered a high‑stakes stand‑off after the DA issued a 48‑hour ultimatum demanding the removal of three ANC ministers facing corruption allegations. The episode reveals deeper questions about accountability, coalition discipline, and political optics. The Ministerial Handbook, the code that governs ministerial conduct, requires ministers and their deputies to obtain the president’s written approval at least two weeks before any foreign travel. According to the DA, Whitfield did submit a request on February 12, but when no response came, he boarded a flight to Washington in…

France and Saudi Arabia led the charge yesterday to revive the moribund push for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians at a UN conference in New York. Days before the July 28-30 conference, to be co-chaired by Riyadh and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would formally recognise the State of Palestine in September. Paris’s decision “will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. “Macron’s announcement changes the game. Other participants will be scrabbling to decide if they should also declare an intent to recognise Palestine.” In an interview with French weekly La Tribune Dimanche, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that other European countries will confirm “their intention to recognise the…

BEIJING: The head of the Chinese temple known as the birthplace of kung fu will be disrobed for “extremely” bad behaviour, Beijing’s top Buddhist authority said yesterday, after allegations of embezzlement saw him placed under investigation. The Shaolin Temple said that Abbot Shi Yongxin, known as the “CEO monk” for establishing dozens of companies abroad, was suspected of “embezzling project funds and temple assets”. The monastery said Shi had “seriously violated Buddhist precepts”, including by allegedly engaging in “improper relationships” with multiple women. “Multiple departments” were conducting a joint investigation, it said in a statement on WeChat. In response, the Buddhist Association of China, overseen by the ruling Communist Party, said yesterday it would cancel Shi’s certificate of ordination. | Xinhua…

Since the day Duane Vermeulen took off the Springbok No 8 jersey after the World Cup final in 2023, there has been a constant struggle to find someone to fill it consistently. Coach Rassie Erasmus would be forgiven for considering the position cursed, and Jasper Wiese, the man long tipped to be Vermeulen’s successor, will testify that it is. Earlier this year, the Springboks indirectly suffered a blow when two exceptional Bulls No 8s – Cameron Hanekom and Elrigh Louw – suffered season-ending injuries in the United Rugby Championship. Whenever it looks like Wiese is building up a head of steam at No 8, injury or suspension strikes to remove him from the Bok fold for long periods. It is currently another suspension – for a “head-butt” that was more…

The Cricket South Africa Awards are is set to be a grand affair at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg on Thursday evening. The attention will undoubtedly be on the Proteas Men’s Test side after their marvellous achievement in winning the World Test Championship final at Lord’s last month, and in the process breaking South Africa’s 27-year drought without a major ICC trophy. The WTC Final heroes will no doubt be lauded and afforded the much-deserved plaudits. However, it is fast forgotten that the Proteas Women’s team had come perilously close to winning an ICC tournament themselves, after reaching a successive ICC Women’s T20 World Cup final towards the end of last year. While Laura Wolvaardt’s team were just not able to get over the line against New Zealand in the UAE,…