Table of contents for 2021-12-20 in Mercury

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za RETAILERS may have grappled with tighter Covid-19 restrictions, and the spate of civil unrest in July but their e-commerce sales went through the roof as shopping patterns evolved. The upswing in online retail sales was a tailwind for retailers in 2021 with Statista market and consumer data projecting 31.6 million South Africans could be converted to online shopping by 2024. The upswing comes as the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way South Africans work, school and play with a growing number of consumers avoiding shopping malls and opting to make use of on-demand grocery apps on their smartphones. Big retailers have taken advantage of the growth in online shopping, including Pick n Pay, which rebranded its on-demand delivery app Bottles to Pick n Pay asap! in…

Karen Singh karen.singh@inl.co.za THE KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health said that while it was concerning that the province now had more new cases of Covid-19 than Gauteng, it was not surprising. South Africa’s most recent Covid-19 stats, reported yesterday, revealed that KZN had recorded 4 135 new cases, followed by Gauteng with 3 582 and the Western Cape with 2 849 cases. Provincial Health Department spokesperson Ntokozo Maphisa said the department was concerned about the development, “but this is not entirely surprising because ours is the second most populous province in the country after Gauteng”. KZN was also a popular tourist destination, said Maphisa, adding that the development came at a time when the province was at the peak of the festive holiday season. Maphisa said the current dominant strain…

IN DECADES of officiating at funerals, I have noticed a few trends: People who have lived long and lived well have noisy funerals. I have often had to get the crowd’s attention to begin the service. People are sad, yes, but they are full of stories of the deceased and tell and retell them, while waiting for the service to begin. Make sure you have a noisy funeral. People who have lived well have no shortage of people who want to speak at their funerals, pay tribute to them, reflect on the deceased’s life …of humour and generosity and the impact he or she had on the world. Make sure you have a noisy funeral. I recently buried a man who died before middle age. I glanced at his…

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff PROPAGATING red herrings is a form of subterfuge in which Patrick Pillay excels (The Mercury, December 15). His attempt to blame the DA for causing him to join a coalition with the ANC is as groundless as it is deceitful, because the DA neither sought the support of the EFF nor consorted with it in any way in the post-election council vote. The fact that the EFF had its reasons for opposing the ANC can in no way be seen as constituting a political nexus with the DA. Yet Pillay sanctimoniously attempts to proclaim that falsehood as the reason he and his single party cohorts had to side with the ANC, because the DA “sold Indian votes to the EFF”. Self-deception festers when…

MMABATHO TEMBE | DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development The DA is deeply saddened by reports of a newborn baby being found abandoned in a pit toilet in northern KwaZulu-Natal recently. Fortunately, the infant’s life was saved by members of the local municipality fire and rescue department. The idea that babies are being abandoned is extremely distressful. It speaks to a much broader social issue that needs to be addressed. It is also clear that there is a dire need for safe spaces for women who cannot, for various reasons, look after their newborn babies. The alternative is abandonment that can lead to death. This issue requires a far more aggressive approach, a task that must be taken up by the province’s Department of Social Development (DSD). The…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za IF THE Al Jama-ah party could have its way, the maintenance laws should be amended to provide on provisional maintenance orders before a court makes a final determination for maintenance for a complainant and the children. The party’s leader Ganief Hendricks intends to introduce to Parliament a private member’s bill that seeks to make this ideal a reality. This emerged in a notice, published by the National Legislature, inviting members of the public to make written comments on the proposed bill. A summary of the proposed legislation says the bill seeks to amend the Maintenance Act to provide for a process and criteria for provisional maintenance orders. “The duration of the provisional maintenance order (should) be until the final determination of the matter or a formal hearing…

A Northern Cape doctor escaped being blacklisted from trading with the state after pleading ignorance. This came after he was found to have been awarded a contract after submitting two bids for the same service. This emerged when Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu responded in writing to parliamentary questions from IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe. Van der Merwe enquired about specific projects of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) in which service providers submitted more than one bid. The question arose after last month’s portfolio committee report noted that some service providers submitted more than one bid for Sassa projects. Zulu said the matter related to the tender advertised by the Northern Cape Sassa offices, which called for health professionals and firms to tender for contracts to perform…

Sihle Mavuso sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za THE ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) has deferred the urgent request by the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal to join the Jacob Zuma medical parole court case to the party’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa and his top six which meets every Monday. The top six – currently only five due to the suspension of Secretary-General Ace Magashule – Ramaphosa, David Mabuza, Paul Mashatile, Jessie Duarte and Gwede Mantashe, were requested to look at the request and make the final decision on whether the governing party should join the fray or leave it to the Department of Correctional Services and Zuma to try to rescind the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ruling. However, a decision will need to be made swiftly as the leave to appeal application is set to be heard…

WITH fewer than 50 days till the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the world’s attention is increasingly focused on Beijing, which will be the host of this great gathering of humankind. Under the five Olympic rings, the universal sports language and spirit will bring together peace, solidarity, hope and courage to light the way for humankind to join hands in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and provide a stage for building a community with a shared future for humankind. The Beijing Winter Olympic Games is about solidarity and friendship. The Olympic Charter states that the Olympic spirit requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The Olympic Games, upholding this spirit, symbolise solidarity and friendship, and have long served as a useful platform…

Pakistan warned yesterday of “grave consequences” for the international community if Afghanistan’s economic meltdown continued, urging world leaders to find ways to engage with the country’s Taliban leaders to help prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Speaking at a special meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation in Islamabad, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the deepening crisis could bring mass hunger, a flood of refugees and a rise in extremism. “We cannot ignore the danger of complete economic meltdown,” he told the gathering, which included the Taliban foreign minister and delegates from the US, China, Russia, the EU and UN. The meeting is the biggest conference on Afghanistan since the US-backed government fell in August and the Taliban returned to power. Since then, billions of dollars in aid and…

LONDON: Gugu Mbatha-Raw has never been motivated by fame. The 38-year-old star thinks it’s wrong to suggest that actors and actresses are simply driven by a need for attention, and she has instead insisted that her career is the best way for her to “express” herself. She said: “I think it’s a misconception that people do it because they want attention. I always did it to express myself. “I had all this energy and it was a place to put it, and it was fun. I’m sure part of me enjoyed the attention, but that wasn’t really my motivation.” Although Gugu thought about the TV and film industries during her younger years, her efforts were always focused on musicals and theatre. The Morning Show star told the Guardian newspaper: “There’s…

Tokyo: A Japanese cabinet official said yesterday that victims of a fire in a clinic that claimed 24 lives last week were blocked from the only escape route, prompting an emergency inspection of similar buildings. In an act of suspected arson, a man entered a fourth-floor clinic in the western city of Osaka carrying a bag of liquid that caught fire after he set it near a heater and kicked it, according to police. “Based on the damage, it is thought that the fire broke out near the stairs, which was the only escape route,” Internal Affairs Minister Yasushi Kaneko said. Fire departments have been directed to inspect 30 000 buildings with only one staircase.…

WHILE it’s too early for consolidated statistics on merger activity for all of 2021, available data on the first half suggests an exceptional year globally, for Africa and particularly for South Africa. A round-up of deals announced in the second half suggests even greater activity. This all points to a rising trend which augurs well for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2022. For instance, Refinitiv data shows Africa’s M&A activity rose sharply in the first six months of 2021, with deals recorded worth more than $57.7 billion (R916.36bn), up an astounding 576 percent from $8.5bn year-on-year. And more than half of this activity was recorded in South Africa, where 169 deals worth $52bn were concluded. There were actually slightly fewer transactions, but deal value skyrocketed. Deals which…

Sacha van Niekerk sacha.vanniekerk@inl.co.za THIS year, we’ve seen some interesting beauty trends emerge – some positive and others rather questionable. Here are some of the trends that were created or resurrected by the influential group that is Gen Z: Cupid’s bows Bee-stung, overlined, matte, juicy and glossed – it’s undeniable that, as a society, we are obsessed with lips. Although they’ve always been regarded as a significant element of beauty, the way in which they are addressed in our make-up routines has varied throughout the eras. From the days of brown lip liner paired with a nude lip that dominated in the 1990s and early 2000s to Kylie Jenner’s lip fillers that gripped the beauty world since 2015, it seems we’re moving into a new era of lip…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za THE emergence of new ANC regional leaders in the Moses Mabhida and General Gizenga Mpanza regions has put into sharp focus the divisions that still exist in the party in KwaZulu-Natal. This is the view of political economist Professor Irrshad Kaseeram after the two regional conferences held in KZN at the weekend produced leaders that exposed the factions in the party. Kaseeram was reacting to the emergence of a pro-Cyril Ramaphosa slate in the Moses Mabhida region, where Msunduzi mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla was elected as the regional chairperson. In the General Gizenga Mpanza region, Vusi “Mavayi” Mthethwa emerged as the chairperson, with an executive committee that is seen as being sympathetic to former president Jacob Zuma. “The problem in South Africa is that the opposition is weak…

Adrian Martin | Glasgow A POLITICAL dispute at municipal level in Brazil was settled by a cage-fight. Simao Peixitoto, mayor of Borba, took on Erineu da Silva in a three-round mixed-martial arts encounter in the early hours to settle criticism of the mayor’s management of a local tourism resort. The contest began with the mayor making a throat-slitting gesture towards his opponent, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Da Silva took the mayor down twice – once with a right jab and then with a leg sweep – but the judges declared the mayor the winner. The fight was watched by an enthusiastic crowd who egged on both combatants and thoroughly enjoyed the scrap. Hmmm … right jabs … leg sweeps … political cage-fighting? Could this be the answer…

GABI MARAIS | Winston Park I AM a bit confused. Hlaudi Motsoeneng has seven days to pay back the over R11 million that was awarded to him and if he does not, the SABC pension fund needs to pay the money to the SABC. Did he donate that money to the pension fund? What incentive is there for him to pay it back if the pension fund becomes responsible should he not follow through? He was the big shot and whatever decisions the board made were at his orders. Why should the pension fund suffer the consequences of his actions? Are the employees going to be left with a deficit in their pensions? Surely it would make more sense to freeze and seize his assets? How will he…

SABER AHMED JAZBHAY | Newlands West AS I reflect on the Day of Goodwill, previously known as the Day of the Vow and way back in time celebrated as Dingaan’s Day, December 16 evokes a kaleidoscope of memories. I recall on this day when the ANC announced the launch of its MK wing with bombs exploding in Durban. In the bask of our glorious past, I am reading a barrage of anticipatory articles unleashed by the booze industrial complex. I wish to say that it’s all about booze and profits. Nothing in the anticipatory rhetoric is said about the scourge of the virus and its devastation of our collective economy. Nothing is said about in what way the booze industrial complex will assist the government in…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za A TUSSLE over “who brought the most assets into the marriage” played out in a recent case in the Limpopo High Court, sitting in Polokwane. The man complained that he had to share his hard-earned assets with his now former wife, while she provided only a car and furniture when they were married. But the court pointed out, the couple had been married in community of property and assets should be divided equally. The court said that although in March 2016, they concluded an ante-nuptial contract in terms of which the accrual system was excluded, their marital regime was never changed and it remained a marriage in community of property. The couple, who cannot be identified as the application forms part of divorce proceedings, were married for…

With some of the world’s most progressive LGBTQI+ laws, South Africa attracts queer migrants from the continent and beyond escaping prosecution and homophobia. In 1996 it was the first to constitutionally ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. In 2006, it became the only nation to legalise same-sex marriage in Africa, where social codes are often conservative and many countries consider homosexuality a crime. Yet gay rights are often only protected on paper. Many queer migrants say South Africa is more close-minded than they expected. As foreigners, they are also victims of widespread xenophobic sentiment. “I have been harassed so many times walking with my transgender friends, people who are who they are,” said Kenyan asylum seeker Pallo Mandela. “We get judged, robbed, insulted and death threats are made,”…

Diego Maradona’s fans had a chance to snap up memorabilia from the soccer star in an auction yesterday, just over a year after his death. The items up for sale included his iconic cigars, a pair of BMW cars and a luxury villa that Maradona bought his parents. The “10 auction”, a reference to his jersey number with Argentina, which he led to a World Cup triumph in 1986, is being held by his family to raise funds while legal questions over the distribution of the player’s assets are resolved. “The five children (recognised children of Maradona) through their lawyers agreed it was possible to carry out this event in order to raise money. This is only to pay expenses,” the auction house said. Among the most expensive goods to…

BETTY MOLEYA betty.moleya@inl.co.za IT WILL be business as usual for all branches of the South African Post Office, which will remain open on weekdays and Saturday mornings throughout the festive season. They will remain open mainly because of the payment of the R350 South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) social relief of distress grants, but other services will be offered as well. Post Office spokesperson Johan Kruger said their branches would only be closed on the public holidays. “In previous years the post offices did close earlier, but this year we are staying open to help the R350 grant customers. “We also find huge numbers of customers buy their car licences this time of the year when they can take time off work and we want to help them too.”…

Kristin Engel kristin.engel@inl.co.za On the back of the ongoing protest action across the country against Shell’s seismic blasting along the Wild Coast, a second urgent interdict to stop the blasting was heard at the Grahamstown High Court on Friday by Judge Gerald Bloem, for seven hours. The application was brought by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and Richard Spoor Attorneys on behalf of small-scale fishing and coastal communities in Amadiba, Dwesa-Cwebe, Port St Johns and Kei Mouth after the previous urgent interdict was denied. The seismic blasting began earlier this month and on Friday the judge said he would be reserving his judgment until further notice. This was despite Advocate Adrian Friedman, for Shell, arguing that the matter needed to be concluded swiftly to avoid further litigation. Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi…

AS the country holds its breath over fears that there will be violence should former president Jacob Zuma lose his appeal to overturn the North Gauteng (Pretoria) High Court ruling that effectively nullified his medical parole, we appeal for cool heads on all sides. South Africa, and more specifically KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, cannot afford to see a repeat of the violence, deaths, looting and racial tensions of July this year. The gaping wounds are still fresh and bleeding, and the racial tensions in our communities still linger. In that regard, it would be helpful for Zuma’s supporters and other stakeholders to maintain cool heads, refrain from irresponsible public utterances, and of course not stoke violence. This would go a long way towards ensuring that the country is politically and socially…

THE UK’s Brexit minister, David Frost, has resigned. It is due to disagreements with Downing Street on a number of issues, including Covid-19 measures, Frost said in his resignation letter handed to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “…we agreed earlier this month that I would move on in January and hand over the baton to others to manage our future relationship with the EU. It is disappointing that this plan has become public this evening and in the circumstances I think it is right for me to write to step down with immediate effect,” Frost said in his letter, published by Downing Street. Earlier, The Mail yesterday reported that Frost handed in his letter of resignation to Johnson a week ago, but was persuaded to stay in his post until…

As some nations reimpose tough measures, including lockdowns, to curb infections spurred by the highly transmissible new Omicron coronavirus variant, others are loosening up even as case numbers spike. The Netherlands imposed a snap lockdown starting yesterday. France banned New Year’s Eve fireworks. Officials in Ireland imposed a nightly curfew from today, requiring pubs, restaurants, theatres and cinemas to close by 8pm. Several European countries including France and Germany imposed new travel restrictions. Meanwhile, in Australia – once dubbed the “Hermit Kingdom” for the way it sealed its international borders against the virus – officials in the country’s most populous areas have loosened nearly all restrictions in recent days, despite case numbers soaring to fresh records. New Zealand, too, has been loosening restrictions aimed at tackling an outbreak of the…

SYDNEY: The government of Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state has announced that a large wetland area in the state’s north-west would be listed as an internationally important wetland. The proposed listing of Caryapundy Swamp is Australia’s latest addition to the global 1971 Ramsar Convention agreement, and would add about 700km² of protected wetlands in NSW, bringing Australia’s total listed area to over 8.37 million hectares. Australia’s Environment Minister Sussan Ley said the site would play “a critical role for species like the Australasian Shoveler, Grey Teal and Red-necked Avocet which use the site as a drought refuge”.…

Covid-hit Chelsea were held to a goalless draw by Wolverhampton Wanderers yesterday after the Premier League rejected their request to postpone the game as Manchester City put struggling Newcastle United to the sword. Just four games were left on the schedule this weekend out of the original 10 as Britain’s worsening Covid-19 crisis took its toll on the Premier League. Clubs will meet today to discuss what action to take, with growing questions over the integrity of the competition as the busy festive period looms. Stumbling Chelsea, who have struggled with illness and injuries in recent weeks, were only able to name four outfield players on the bench for their match at Molineux. The visitors, who have now won just two of their past six league games, enjoyed the bulk…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE continued spending on the construction of the Go!Durban route has faced criticism following revelations that an additional R205 million is needed to finance work that was delayed due to “unforeseen circumstances”. A report was tabled at an eThekwini Municipality council meeting last week for the council to approve a contract extension with an additional cost of R205m to be spent on the project. The contract extension was approved. The money is for work being done between the Inanda arterial road and Marbleray Drive. The original contract for this leg of construction was pegged at R460m. The extra funds were needed to offset challenges brought on by work stoppages and new work that had to be done because the scope of the project kept changing, said…

Dressed in a Santa costume in his garden, British strongman John Evans balances a large chimney on his head. Having previously tackled bricks, milk crates and even cars, the 74-year-old is on a mission: to secure 100 world records for his head balancing feats by his next birthday in March. “I have only one eye, I’m a diabetic, I have asthma and angina but I’ve got 98 world records,” Evans said. “The chimney ... will be hopefully my 99th world record and then coming up to my 75th birthday, I’m having a big 1.52m x 1.52m crown made. I’m going to balance that on my head – it will be my 100th world record.” Evans discovered his talent as a teenager working on building sites. “I was about 17, 18.…

GLEN CHRISTIE | Durban North THE latest court ruling that Jacob Zuma must go back to prison is long overdue, but time will tell how long it takes to get him to serve his sentence. Please do not tell anyone that he is terminally ill because that is like committing perjury, there is nothing wrong with this man. What concerns most of us, is Zuma’s continuous stay of every court appearance and his attorney who has made numerous appeals to get him to stay out of prison. The man is so tainted with corruption yet pleading poverty so that he resorts to publishing a book with his tell-tale stories. Just Google him and one will soon see what wealth he has accumulated for himself and his family overseas.…

MOHAMED SAEED | Pietermaritzburg I AM humbly writing and appealing to supermarkets and retailers to please consider the harm of alcohol and not to advertise in the mass media and on other social media platforms. Supermarkets and retailers selling alcohol should ponder and keep in mind the social ills and harms associated with liquor and stop the marketing and promotion of alcohol. People are not only losing loved ones, their wealth, dignity and self-respect; children, women and extended families are also suffering immensely from alcohol addiction. An effective measure to prevent alcohol abuse is not to advertise alcohol in the mass media and other social media platforms. According to studies, constant exposure to alcohol on media and commercial communications is associated with the likelihood that teenagers will start…

BEVERLEY TSITSI MATANDIRO | UK It is disappointing that the Zimbabwean government is ignoring the rampant corruption within its ranks by senior officials and ministers. The Beitbridge border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is dominated by bribery, which is causing many Zimbabweans to enter South Africa illegally. This unprecedented level of corruption is hampering economic development, creating extreme poverty and causing many Zimbabweans to enter South Africa by paying bribes of R100. Corruption in Zimbabwe is now regarded as normal. To obtain a birth certificate or passport, you have to bribe someone. To get a place at a boarding school, you have to bribe the head teacher. To pass through a roadblock, you have to bribe the police traffic controllers. Corruption is now scattered everywhere in Zimbabwe. The…

Tracy-Lynn Ruiters tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za FRUSTRATED traveller Bianca Lutz-Kokuner has described her seven-day quarantine at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel, Stansted, London as “a waste of money, time and energy”. Lutz-Kokuner is one of the many South African travellers who were forced to spend close to R50 000 to be accommodated in a mandatory 10-day quarantine hotel in the UK after the country implemented strict bans on South African travellers due to the discovery of the Omicron variant. This was the second time the UK placed South Africa on the red list in recent months. The UK removed South Africa from the red list on December 15, but tourism bodies said a lot of a damage had already been done. Rosemary Anderson, national chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association…

STUDENTS have been left high and dry after not receiving their National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) allowances in the last quarter of the academic year. NSFAS closed its offices for the holiday break on Wednesday, leaving many students with debts to settle and uncertainty about further funding. A third-year journalism student at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) said she waited for more than three months for the disbursement of her allowance and, despite promises that it was being attended to, she has yet to receive it. “Some students, including myself, took out loans to buy books and to cover transport costs, hoping that we would settle those when we received the allowances. Now we are saddled with debt,” she said. “We were told that there was a…

Yogashen Pillay yogashen.pillay@inl.co.za TONGAAT Hulett in partnership with the Department of Health and the South African Farmers Development Association (Safda) held a successful Covid-19 vaccination drive last month, which saw 84 farmworkers and farm management being vaccinated in Mthonjaneni Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal. Tongaat Hulett’s socio-economic development manager Nkonzo Mhlongo said that the company took issues of health, safety and environment seriously, as they were fundamental to the company’s sustainability and growth. “The company continues to invest in ensuring that potential risks associated with the Covid-19 pandemic are identified, reduced or eliminated.” Mhlongo said the company launched their #Ihavebeenvaccinatedhaveyou campaign, which is aimed at enhancing employee confidence in the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines while also managing employee expectations. “In addition to its partnership with Safda, the company is…

WIFE killer and former property magnate, Jason Rohde’s last-ditch attempt at freedom failed in the Constitutional Court as it dismissed his application for leave to appeal against his conviction and sentencing. Rohde has started serving his reduced 15-year jail sentence at the Drakenstein Correctional Centre, his attorney, Daniel Witz, confirmed. “There will be no further steps as the Constitutional Court is the final court such an application can go to,” he said. Rohde, whose interim bail application had also been dismissed, started serving his jail sentence last month while awaiting the Constitutional Court’s ruling after his appeal against conviction and sentencing had also failed at the Supreme Court of Appeal. Convicted of murder and defeating the ends of justice, Rohde was released on R200 000 bail as he continued…

WRITERS and analysts like Peter Bruce, among others, have argued recently that African countries are hesitant to vaccinate and that there is no shortage of vaccines, but a shortage of arms, or what I would term “arm poverty”. Ramaphosa, and thus South Africa, is the loudest voice in Africa confronting vaccine apartheid. Ramaphosa has been unambiguous in highlighting what is essentially vaccine colonialism. The analysts and writers and Ramaphosa are correct. There certainly is vaccine apartheid and colonialism, but then there is also arm poverty and infrastructure poverty. For now, allow me to focus on South Africa. Much debate followed on social media, and in the national conversation generally, around a video showing President Ramaphosa dancing at a party in West Africa during a recent visit. Worryingly, the president was…

Manila: More than 90 people have been killed in the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, official tallies showed yesterday, as efforts to deliver water and food to devastated islands ramped up. More than 300 000 people fled their homes and beachfront resorts as Typhoon Rai ravaged the southern and central regions of the archipelago. The storm knocked out communications and electricity in many areas, ripped off roofs, damaged hospitals, toppled concrete power poles and flooded villages. Arthur Yap, governor of the popular tourist destination Bohol, said on his official Facebook page that mayors on the island had so far reported 63 deaths in their towns. Ten people also died on the Dinagat Islands, provincial information officer Jeffrey Crisostomo told AFP. That took the overall number of…

WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump claims that CNN’s new owners (Discovery, which is expected to take over WarnerMedia) appear to want to change the network’s leadership. “Word is that CNN and its new owners want Jeff Zucker, pictured out, not only because of the turmoil of Fredo Cuomo, the Don Lemon (‘the dumbest man on television’) escapades, and so much else, but primarily because his ratings have gone to an all-time low, and the so-called ‘network’ is rudderless. That’s great news for America,” Trump said at the weekend.…

The presence of “significant amounts” of water has been discovered beneath the soil of Mars in a system of canyons known as Valles Marineris, or the Mariner Valley, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced. In a statement posted on the space agency’s official website, it said the discovery was made via the ESA-Roscos- mos’ Trace Gas Orbiter’s (TGO) Fine- Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (Frend) instrument that can detect hydrogen “in the uppermost metre of the planet’s soil”. “With TGO we can look down to one metre below this dusty layer and see what’s really going on below Mars’ surface – and, crucially, locate water-rich ‘oases’ that couldn’t be detected with previous instruments,” said Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia,…

PARIS: France will make it easier for citizens to take their mother’s name once they are adults, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said yesterday. He said the government would support a bill proposed by ruling LREM party lawmaker Patrick Vignal to allow children, when they turn 18, to easily change their family name through a simple procedure at the local town hall. French citizens will be free to keep their father’s family name, take their mother’s family name or take both in whichever order they wish. It is possible for the French to change their family name, but it is a difficult procedure that requires a legitimate reason for doing so.…

Eshlin Vedan eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za Orlando Pirates will have a chance to redeem themselves following their 4-1 mauling against Mamelodi Sundowns on Friday when they face a rejuvenated Marumo Gallants at Orlando Stadium today (5.30pm kickoff). The defeat against Sundowns was Pirates’ third of the season. It proved that Sea Robbers co-coach Mandla Ncikazi exaggerated when he recently claimed that “Pirates are on par with Sundowns”. After maintaining a 0-0 score at halftime, Pirates wilted in the second half as Sundowns outsmarted them tactically and slotted in four goals in that time. Nevertheless, Pirates midfielder Ben Motshwari believes that his team must implement the lessons learned from the embarrassing loss going forward. “We have to forget about the Sundowns game. We can take the positives from the first half going into our…