Tabla de contenidos para 2024-01-26 en Mercury

Thousands of students who have just passed matric and are hoping to further their studies at institutions of higher learning could have their dreams shattered by the critical shortage of spaces at many institutions around the country. Sobering statistics show that less than half of those who qualify for entry at university are likely to be placed. The number of Grade 12 pupils who qualified for university entrance increased this year, with passes with distinction obtained by the class of 2023 being the highest in the history of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams. While delivering the NSC results last week, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said 282 894 candidates qualified for admission to Bachelor’s studies at universities, which represent 40.9% of the total number of candidates who wrote the…

IS IT SAFE to eat snow? A blizzard of controversy has arisen with the information that Hollywood’s A-lister and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon likes to eat snow. According to Sky News, earlier this month she shared a Tik-Tok video showing herself enjoying a “Chococinno” made of snow collected from outside her home, topped with cold brew coffee and chocolate and salted caramel syrups. Yum! The internet’s reaction has been mixed. We’ve all heard “don't eat yellow snow”, as one follower commented – obviously because somebody or something must have widdled there. But it seems innocent-looking white snow has its own hidden dangers. “No no no … snow is not made to eat,” one user commented. “You can get seriously sick.” “I love you Reese. Personal anecdote: As someone who grew…

AS DURBAN staggers into another year of water cuts business and residential sentiment appears to have taken a substantial dive, with informal research and engagement with local businesses and residents revealing an anticipated desire by many to uproot and leave the crippled ANC-run eThekwini. Manufacturing, health care, the food industry and small business have been hard hit by almost two years of intermittent water cuts and empty reservoirs. Several protests this week have also shown the sheer frustration of residents – some of whom have not had piped water for almost 100 days. Approximately one million Durban residents are affected by the crisis. Business districts in oThongathi, Verulam, uMhlanga, Phoenix and Durban North have not only borne the brunt of load shedding, but now have to contend with constant water…

WHILE welcoming the proposed amendments to the Marine Living Resources Act, the South African International Maritime Institute (Saimi) has cautioned against these measures being used as an increase in red tape. Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister, Barbara Creecy, on Friday published draft regulations relating to the entry of foreign fishing vessels into South African waters in terms of sections of the Marine Living Resources Act, for public comment. The changes touch on the permit process, compliance and sanctions, among other issues, emphasising that vessels may not enter a port without a permit issued by the minister. “The master or a representative of the owner of a vessel must, 10 days before entering a port, apply to the minister for a permit to enter port. The application must be…

Two foreign nationals have been arrested for robbery and kidnapping a shopkeeper in Mpumalanga. Knowledge Komichi, 24, and Chrispin Taona, 26, appeared in the Vaalbank Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday and were remanded in custody. The two allegedly abducted the shopkeeper after violently breaking into a tuck shop on January 14, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (also known as the Hawks) said. “They were arrested by the Hawks Middelburg-based serious organised crime investigation (unit) together with Mmametlhake crime investigation services, KwaMhlanga and Themba crime intelligence for house robbery and kidnapping which took place on January 14, at about 2am at Mmamethlake policing area,” said Hawks spokesperson, Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi. The shop owner Mahammed Mosharraf, tried to call the shopkeeper’s phone but got no response. He reported the matter to…

A woman who was shot outside a popular eatery in Pinetown yesterday died in hospital as a result of her injuries. ALS Paramedics spokesperson, Garrith Jamieson, said they were alerted to the incident just after 8am. He said paramedics were directed to a vehicle where a woman was found with gun shot wounds. “The woman, in her 20s, was found in a critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds to her body,” Jamieson said. “Advanced Life Support Paramedics worked to stabilise the woman on the scene before she was rushed through to a nearby Durban hospital for the urgent treatment that she required.” He added that the woman succumbed to her injuries in hospital. The motive for the shooting was unknown. Earlier this week, a security guard was shot dead and…

EThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda yesterday outlined the municipality’s plans to deal with water outages affecting parts of the city. Some of the outages are long-standing, with The Mercury reporting on Thursday that Trenance Park in Verulam had not had water for almost 100 days. Kaunda said water supply challenges were being experienced in areas of Durban South, including Chatsworth, Shallcross, St Wendolins, Nagina, Northdene, Queensburgh, Welbedacht, uMlazi, Folweni, Nsimbini and Golokodo, and in areas of north Durban, including Ntuzuma, Inanda, Lindelani and KwaMashu, Verulam, Phoenix, Waterloo, Ottawa, Parkgate and Redcliffe, and oThongathi. He said the water issues were due to, among other things, the damage caused by the recent floods, ageing infrastructure, and vandalism. Kaunda said in the south, work will be done to fix the 24km Southern Aqueduct which…

THE philosopher Enzo Traverso suggests that “in our days, politics no longer derives from ideology; instead, the latter is improvised, a posteriori, in search of legitimising a policy”. When one looks at the ideological inconsistency of the DA over the years, all in search of legitimacy in various constituencies, the party reaffirms Traverso’s observation. The DA has come a long way from its liberal conservatism under Tony Leon, moving towards the middle looking for Social Democrats and progressives. As the party moved from the centre right into the centre, flirting with centre left in order to make inroads in the black majority vote, some white conservatives found the shift unbearable and took their support and unearned enrichment into the FF+ which was now fashioning itself as the only party protecting…

Israel pressed its blistering assault on the Gazan city of Khan Yunis yesterday, with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas saying dozens were killed in heavy bombardment and urban combat. The Israeli army says it has “encircled” Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, accused of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks that sparked the war. An AFP journalist said the bombardment of Khan Yunis was relentless, with strikes hitting every few minutes. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, reported fierce clashes in the centre and west of the city, where fighting has been inching closer to hospitals sheltering thousands of displaced people. Its health ministry said at least 50 people were killed in Khan Yunis over the past 24 hours. The army said several…

At least 55 people have been killed in renewed violence in Nigeria’s north-central Plateau State, where clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farming communities have recently erupted, a community organisation and an aid group source said yesterday. Despite a 24-hour curfew imposed on Tuesday in Plateau’s Mangu local district, schools, places of worship and homes have been burned and ransacked in more attacks, community leaders said. The Mwaghavul Development Association, an organisation for ethnic Mwaghavul people who are mostly Christians, blamed Fulani Muslim herders for attacking Kwahaslalek village, killing around 55 people. That figure was confirmed by a local rescue official and a source at an aid group working on the ground. The aid source said more than 100 people had been wounded. Two camps for the displaced have been…

Beijing: The death toll from a landslide that struck in China’s rugged southwest rose to 43 yesterday, state media said, leaving just one victim still missing under the debris. The landslide, which occurred in Yunnan province’s Zhenxiong county before dawn on Monday, buried 18 homes and sparked the evacuation of more than 200 people. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported yesterday that nine more bodies were uncovered at the scene, raising the death toll from 34. Following the disaster, 200 rescue workers braved frigid temperatures and a layer of snow in a race against the clock to find victims with fire trucks and digging equipment. | AFP…

Bogotá: Colombia has declared a state of emergency in two regions as dozens of forest fires burned wide swathes of the country and left the capital choking on smoke during record temperatures linked with the El Nino weather phenomenon. Colombia has already extinguished hundreds of fires this month, but 25 continue to burn, according to data from the National Disaster Risk Management Unit. In the departments of Santander and Cundinamarca, where Bogota is, the fires have consumed about 600ha of forest and states of emergency were declared. In Bogota, a blaze has engulfed the mountains west of the city and wild animals have been sheltering in built-up areas. | AFP…

THE offshore scene has been very productive. There have been some brute bottom fish and plenty of game fish action. The North Coast has seen a lot of game fish in the form of dorado and couta. There have also been some good sailfish and small marlin caught in the past week. These majestic fish are extremely hard fighters and require some effort to put back properly. Spend an extra few minutes reviving the fish next to your ski and they can then swim off to be caught by another fortunate angler. The further north you go, the better your chances of getting good numbers. Live bait has been king, but those able to troll at faster speeds have seen very good results with the high-speed lipped lures. Purples and…

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has effectively closed the door on cutting interest rates any time soon, until the consumer headline inflation dips to the midpoint of the target range. The SARB’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), at its first meeting of 2024 yesterday, left interest rates unchanged, leaving the repurchase rate (repo rate) and prime lending rates at 8.25% and 11.75%, respectively. The decision was unanimous for a second meeting in a row, suggesting that all members were confident that interest rates were restrictive enough. The cost of borrowing in South Africa has been kept at elevated levels since the last interest rates cut in May 2023 as inflation remained stubbornly high for the remainder of last year. Annual consumer price inflation pulled back in December, easing to 5.1%…

There can be no greater indictment of the utter failure of the ANC to deliver a “better life for all” than The Mercury’s January 25 front page report on the suffering of Trenance Park residents in Verulam after being without water for nearly 100 days. Significantly, alongside that report is a scathing indictment by business leaders concerning Durban’s deteriorating infrastructure. Almost 30 years of ANC cadre deployment, racist B-BBEE, looting and gross incompetence is laid bare for all to see. The plight of those Verulam residents should be a sobering lesson to those of us who complain when pipe ruptures deprive us of water for only a day or two. Yet Verulam’s waterless plight is a sorry reflection of the disaster of ANC governance. It underlines the veracity of…

The United States, China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and all the countries of the battle-devastated Middle East are a hair’s breadth away from full-out war and obliteration. Global events are grabbing the news headlines as man rushes headlong into an epic confrontation that will reduce our planet to radioactive rubble. Powerful nations are assembling and deploying weaponry that boggles the human mind. The instruments of destruction will result in omnicide – the total destruction of the human species. The Asian subcontinent is on alert as nuclear missiles on the launch pads await orders. The Korean peninsula is bristling with weaponry that could be fired in minutes. The South China Sea is awash with warships that could send the area into a fireball of catastrophic proportions. The Persian Gulf is seething…

PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has asked Parliament to table the electricity tariff increase schedule for municipal customers for the 2024-25 financial year. He said: “I request the annual average price increase and ‘the schedule of standard prices for Eskom tariffs for municipalities’ be tabled in Parliament on or before March 15, 2024, as contemplated in the Municipal Finance Management Act, to allow for the implementation from July 1, 2024.” This emerged in letters he wrote to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Council of Provinces chairperson Amos Masondo. The increase is a sequel to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) decision on Eskom’s multi-year price determination revenue application for the 2024 and 2025 financial years. Nersa’s correspondence reads: “The Nersa decision on the average price increase…

The Association of Southern African Travel Agents has urged travellers to check that the travel agency they intend to use is a registered-Asata member. This can be done by checking for the Asata logo and asking the agency to see their membership certificate. Travellers can also look up the agency on the Asata website directory before booking to avoid potential fraud. The warning comes after recent media reports of travellers being defrauded of their hard-earned cash after booking holidays with bogus travel agencies. In a recent incident, musician Bobby Blanco alleged he was scammed of R200 000 after booking a trip with a Ballito-based “travel agency”. “It is with great disappointment and frustration that I, Bobby Blanco, address the public regarding a distressing incident involving... a travel…

Wildlife non-profit organisation Saving the Wild, which monitors and exposes wildlife crime, specifically poaching, was yesterday granted access to the disciplinary hearing of suspended KwaZulu-Natal regional court president Eric Nzimande. The hearing, being held by the Magistrates’ Commission, is dealing with allegations of improper conduct that have been made against Nzimande. Nzimande, who has denied any wrongdoing, has entered a plea of not guilty to the 162 charges he faces. He has been charged with receiving money from attorneys who were acting as regional magistrates in the regional division, unlawfully and wrongfully victimising or sexually harassing an acting magistrate, requesting a loan from an attorney for his daughter’s university studies, and contacting an accused in a human trafficking case. Saving the Wild, represented by advocate Samantha Martin, brought an application…

WE had spent two blistering hot days, including Christmas, in the majestic desolation of the Tankwa Karoo but the time had come to load up our Ford Ranger Wildtrak X again and head to the more temperate climate of the Cederberg mountains. We had set the GPS to our final destination at Balie’s Gat and turned onto the R355 again. It’s the longest gravel road in South Africa and has a reputation for being a bit of a tyre shredder. I’ve driven the road a couple of times on various car launches and every time we’ve had a puncture in the convoy. Sure enough, a couple of kilometres further we encountered a family that had suffered a sidewall blowout that had completely destroyed the tyre. They were slightly shaken but…

Independent states are subjected to pressure and forced to economically self-isolate In December 2023, the EU started to design the 13th and the 14th packages of sanctions against Russia. With almost 19 000 separate sanction measures by the collective West in place against it, Russia has become the world’s most sanctioned country. We treat sanctions as a sort of “levy”, the price our country has to pay to remain sovereign in today’s Western-dominated world (as the true multipolarity is yet to come into being). Russia has repeatedly pointed out that actions by the US and its allies to impose unilateral illegal sanctions bypassing the UN Security Council intended to persecute and suppress undesirable governments across the world are openly neo-colonial. Western dominance is coming to an end. BRICS (excluding the…

President Emmanuel Macron was given a red carpet welcome and an elephant honour guard yesterday as he started a two-day visit to India, with France eyeing lucrative deals with the world’s fifth-largest economy. Landing in Jaipur, state capital of Rajasthan, Macron will be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a banquet in a 19th-century maharaja’s palace. Today, he will be the chief guest in New Delhi at a colourful military march-past with massed ranks of tanks, dancing troupes, camel cavalry and a fighter jet fly-past. India’s foreign ministry says New Delhi and Paris are “strategic partners”, while the French presidency says the trip will “consolidate and deepen diplomatic and economic relations”. Despite concerns over human rights, differences over the war in Ukraine and Delhi’s close ties with Moscow…

Spain’s leftist government began negotiations yesterday to reduce the legal work week from 40 to 37.5 hours, sparking resistance from business groups. The measure would concern about 12 million people, and was part of the agreement Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reached to bring far-left Movimiento Sumar party into his coalition that took office late last year. “Cutting working hours not only means working less, but working better,” labour minister and Sumar head Yolanda Diaz said as talks got under way with labour unions and business associations. Diaz said the work week was unchanged in 40 years despite major gains in productivity. The government is proposing a two-step reduction, going down to 38.5 hours in 2024 and 37.5 hours in 2025, without loss of salary. Business leaders say it would endanger…

Nairobi: A Kenyan court yesterday charged the leader of a starvation cult with child torture and cruelty over the deaths of more than 400 of his followers. Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 38 other suspects pleaded not guilty to charges including beating and deliberately starving children, according to court documents. Mackenzie, who has already been charged with terrorism and manslaughter, is alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to “meet Jesus”. A court in the coastal city of Malindi is scheduled to rule on February 6 if the self-proclaimed pastor is mentally fit to face additional charges of murder. | AFP…

London: Britons travelling to France were warned yesterday that they could face 14-hour delays at a port under a computerised border scheme proposed by the EU after Britain left the union. All visitors entering the EU, with visas or visa waivers, will soon find themselves having to go through the automated EU Entry/Exit System. It will record a non-EU national’s details and biometric data along with their date of entry and exit. The UK parliament was told the scheme could cause lengthy queues at Dover, a key ferry route to northern France. The delays could cause queues on motorways and block access to traffic heading to the Eurotunnel in Folkestone. | AFP…

ALL of the issues around identifying who should be the king of the Zulu nation and the processes followed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to recognise amaZulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini are set to be ventilated before the Supreme Court of Appeal. This comes as the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, yesterday granted Ramaphosa leave to appeal the court’s judgment which had found that the president’s recognition of Misuzulu was invalid. The matter the court was dealing with was an application brought by Prince Mbonisi Bekithemba KaBhekuzulu and others and Prince Simakade KaZwelithini Zulu, who had sought to overturn the president’s certification of Misuzulu as the Zulu king. In addition to granting leave to appeal, the court also granted cross appeals brought by Prince Mbonisi and Prince Simakade. In his ruling last December,…

Find the loneliness within yourself. Name it. Tag it. Describe it. It’s impossible to deal with something you resist exploring. “Reduce” your emotions to a few sentences – or more if necessary. “I am lonely – afraid, vulnerable – because my life has changed so much.” “I am sad because my adult children seldom contact me.” “I feel cut off because I have not seen trusted friends for a long time.” “My divorce has hit me hard even though I wanted it.” Write it down, whatever it is, so you know what you are working with. Writing it will help you get your “head around it”. Use your pen, pencil or computer to understand what you are feeling by expanding on what you have written. “This makes sense. My…

How could they do it? Call a student on to the stage for his award and then, in front of all the guests, give it to another student? No apology. No comment. No explanation. We’ll just do as we please. We are the bosses, we are the rulers. How autocratic and how racist can a public institution in a democratic country be? Jaskaran Rajarutham from Westville Boys’ High who came second in the province and third in the country in the 2023 matric exams was invited to the awards ceremony at the ICC to receive his prize. The MC announced that the top two best achievers in the province would each receive a R50 000 bursary from Sasol. But when the pupil and his father walked up the stage to…

THE eThekwini Municipality has a deadline to be the most caring and liveable city in Africa by the year 2030. Sadly, deadlines don’t seem to matter in our city. Firstly, the problem with the Mobeni Heights Crematorium has been going on for more than 20 years, and nothing has been done to correct their mistakes. The problem has been persistent and despite numerous complaints by undertakers, sadly nothing has changed. Here, again, the municipality offers nothing more than promises. Whatever our beliefs, there’s a common thread that binds all people. That is the inevitability of death. What has become a matter of great concern within the funeral industry has been the evidence of an apparent lack of respect by the municipality for the rights and feelings of people mourning the…

One of the joint business rescue practitioners dealing with the South African Post Office (Sapo) has denied claims of fraud and abuse of employees which were made by the the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) this week. Anoosh Rooplal was speaking for Sapo and the Ministry of Communications and Digital Technology. Sapo is in the process of retrenching about 6 000 of its 11 083 employees. The trade union federation earlier this week condemned what it labelled the “abuse” of workers, citing 40% salary cuts as a major concern. Cosatu said: “The pending retrenchments of 6 000 postal workers comes on the back of management failing to pay workers their backpay and denying access to their medical aid services by fraudulently failing to transfer their contributions to their scheme…

Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor is leading a South African delegation to The Hague ahead of the landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today in the case the country has brought against Israel over alleged genocide in Gaza. The ICJ could potentially order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7. South Africa has hauled Israel before the court, alleging it stands in breach of the UN’s Genocide Convention, signed in 1948 as the world’s response to the Holocaust. It wants the ICJ to issue provisional measures, emergency orders to protect Palestinians in Gaza from potential breaches of the convention. Orders from the ICJ, which rules in disputes between countries, are legally binding and cannot be appealed.…

The elation Mzansi felt after Bafana Bafana qualified for the playoffs of the Africa Cup of Nations on Wednesday night knew no bounds. Despite “only” drawing 0-0 with Tunisia, South Africa finished second in Group E and made it through to the round of 16, where they will face Morocco on Tuesday in the Ivory Coast. But that didn’t stop Bafana fans from hailing their team as world-beaters. “We want Argentina now!” was the cry from many supporters on social media as they wanted to see their team take on Lionel Messi and company. It just shows the kind of joy sporting success can bring to the nation, as experienced with the hype around mixed martial arts fighter Dricus du Plessis this week. Even though MMA is a bit of…

Japan, one of the few developed countries to still impose capital punishment, yesterday sentenced to death a man found guilty of carrying out an arson attack that killed 36 people at an anime studio in 2019. The sentence comes as a convicted murderer in the US is scheduled to be executed this week using nitrogen gas, a method likened by the UN to “torture”. While the number of known executions rose sharply in 2022, the last year for which global statistics are available, the number of countries that put people to death continues to fall. In 2022, the number of known executions jumped by 53%, rising to 883 from 579 in 2021, according to a report from Amnesty International in May 2023. The figure was the highest recorded globally since…

London: A US professor’s suggestion that salt and warm milk should be added to tea caused a shriek of horror in Britain yesterday. Michelle Francl, who teaches chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, says in her new book Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea that salt can rescue an overbrewed cup as it can “moderate your perception of bitterness”. She said that warmed milk and preheating a teapot were key to increasing release of caffeine. The US embassy in London said that the idea of adding salt was “unthinkable” and that the embassy would continue to make tea in the proper way – by microwaving it. But Britain’s Cabinet Office said that tea could only be made using a kettle. | AFP…

Bangkok: Fighters from a Myanmar ethnic minority armed group have seized control of a port town after more than two months of intense clashes with junta troops, they said. The Arakan Army (AA) said it “completely controlled” Pauktaw, a town of 20 000 people close to a crucial deepwater port in the capital of western Rakhine state, which is partly financed by India. AA fighters briefly seized Pauktaw in November, shattering a fragile ceasefire that had largely held since the military’s coup in 2021. The junta has used artillery and naval ships to bombard the town almost daily since. Around 18 000 people had been displaced from the area due to fighting, the UN has said. | AFP…

Bafana Bafana, with kingpin Themba Zwane at the forefront, eliminated Africa’s third highest-ranked side Tunisia at the Africa Cup of Nations on Wednesday night to progress to the round of 16. The eventual goalless draw against Tunisia allowed South Africa to finish their Group E campaign with a runner-up berth. Here is how we rated Bafana... Ronwen Williams: 7/10 Goalkeeper Williams made sure Bafana Bafana kept a clean sheet against Tunisia’s Carthage Eagles. His supporting defence was shaky at the start after conceding three corners in the opening 11 minutes of play, but he stood firm. He was at his best late in the match after Tunisia waged a last-gasp effort to save the match, but Williams made one brilliant reflex save. Khuliso Mudau: 6 Endured a torrid time after…