Índice para 2025-05-16 em Cape Times

Had he not been a black person, the critically injured Inkosi Albert Luthuli would have been given better treatment and his life would possibly have been saved at the racially divided Stanger Provincial Hospital, Dr Sibusiso Johannes Nsele said yesterday. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s senior forensic pathologist continued to give evidence at the reopened inquest into the cause of Luthuli’s death held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court. He said that in the years of Luthuli’s life and after his death, the hospital, like all government institutions in the country, applied policies of racial segregation. Responding to a question from evidence leader Advocate Ncedile Dunywa from the NPA that Luthuli, who was partly unconscious on arrival at the hospital, should have been given better medical care than what he was…

Ingredients: 1 head garlic 10 (1.3 kg) medium-sized tomatoes, halved ½ medium onion, quartered ½ red pepper, roughly chopped 2 tsp Italian seasoning Salt, to taste Black pepper, to taste 3 tbsp oil (optional, for roasting) 1 ½-2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock ⅓ cup (80 ml) Nestlé Cremora Original SERVING SUGGESTION: Olive oil (optional) Fresh basil Cheese toastie Metod: 1. Preheat the oven to 230°C. Cut about 1 cm off the top of the garlic head to expose the cloves. Drizzle with oil, if using, wrap it in foil, and seal tightly. 2. Arrange the tomatoes, onion, and red pepper on a baking tray. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning, salt, and black pepper. Drizzle with oil if using, then toss to coat evenly. Place the wrapped garlic on the tray. *Chef’s…

As winter creeps in and temperatures begin to drop, U-turn Homeless Ministries is challenging South Africans to embrace discomfort for a night, so others don’t have to live in it daily. The organisation launched a national campaign, “A Night on the Streets,” aiming to raise R1 million in support of safe space accommodation and long-term solutions to homelessness. “A Night on the Streets is a chance for ordinary South Africans to do something extraordinary,” said U-turn CEO Jean-Ray Knighton Fitt. In partnership with BMW Constantia, a group of 30 individuals, comprising of BMW staff, clients, U-turn board members, and supporters, will spend a night on the pavement along Claremont Main Road to raise funds and awareness for people experiencing homelessness. The public is also invited to participate by sleeping outside…

Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer Leon Neyfakh Narrated by Leon Neyfakh Audible Original DISCOVER the untold story behind Jerry Springer’s rise from politician to cultural icon. Final Thoughts takes you on a gripping auditory journey through the complexities of fame, identity, and human ambition. Narrated by Leon Neyfakh and produced by Prologue Projects, this audiobook offers listeners a unique and insightful exploration of the life of Jerry Springer, the man behind one of America’s most controversial daytime talk shows. Released in early May, this audiobook spans just over five hours, weaving together intimate interviews and archival audio clips to create a documentary-style narrative that is both engaging and enlightening. Listeners may feel they know Springer – the infamous talk-show host known for outrageous confessions and explosive on-stage confrontations. However, Final Thoughts…

The Book of Records Madeleine Thien W. W. Norton & Company Madeleine Thien intricately blends historical and speculative fiction to tackle contemporary global issues. It explores migration, the refugee crisis, identity politics and cultural conflict. At the heart of the novel is Lina, a young girl who escapes her homeland with her ill father. She finds herself in a mysterious, shape-shifting place known only as “the Sea”. This ambiguous setting, likened to a temporary shelter or refugee camp, serves as a metaphor for statelessness, displacement and a loss of identity. The Sea’s geography is deliberately unclear – as is Lina’s origin, her homeland and the fate of the rest of her family. This emphasises the book’s themes of rootlessness and exile. Lina arrives in the Sea as a child and…

IN THE quiet corners of Texas, Montana, and Tennessee, a curious and pitiful phenomenon is taking shape, a self-imposed exile where a handful of Afrikaners have decided to flee democracy, diversity, and dignity to recreate an imagined utopia in the heart of conservative America. The so-called Afrikaner resettlement programme, a project promoted as a way to "preserve culture" in the face of alleged persecution, is not the act of a brave people reclaiming their identity. It is the final, embarrassing retreat of a failed nationalism, rootless, paranoid, and delusional. Let’s dispense with the myth from the outset: there is no “white genocide” in South Africa. No co-ordinated campaign. No war on Afrikaners. There is crime, yes, as there is across the country for everyone, but the narrative peddled by these…

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin sent aides and deputy ministers to hold peace talks with Ukraine in Turkiye yesterday, spurning Kyiv’s challenge to go there in person to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Putin at the weekend proposed direct negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul and Zelenskiy had said he would be waiting for the Kremlin leader. But after keeping the world guessing for days about Putin’s plans, the Kremlin this week named a delegation that did not include the president. Zelenskiy said he was not prepared to talk to anyone but Putin, and goaded the Russian leader by questioning if he was brave enough to show up. The Kremlin says Putin - who is also under threat of an additional tightening of European sanctions to “suffocate” Russia’s economy – does not…

MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities this week arrested a former senior judge in connection with the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students a decade ago. Lambertina Galeana, who faces charges of forced disappearance, is accused of helping to conceal videos that allegedly showed the tragedy unfolding, a statement said. The case, one of the violence-plagued country’s worst human rights atrocities, has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 120 000 people disappear. Galeana, now retired, was president of the Superior Court of Justice in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, where the students from a rural teacher training college disappeared in September 2014. So far, the remains of only three of the missing students have been found and identified, and relatives denounce impunity. |…

Industry leaders and government officials descended at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on Thursday as the World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM) Conference kicked off. The event highlighted Africa’s growing significance in the global fresh produce industry while addressing critical issues such as food security, climate change, and the modernisation of markets. The conference, themed “The African Edition: Shaping the Future of Fresh Produce through Sustainability, Innovation and Inclusivity,” was hosted by Joburg Market, the largest fresh produce market on the African continent. Joburg Market plays a central role in South Africa’s agricultural economy. In the 2023/24 financial year, it reported sales of R11.3 billion and processed 1.4 million tons of produce. The market holds a 46% share of the national market, surpassing competitors in Tshwane, Durban, and Cape…

Former Springbok captain Jean de Villiers has warmly summed up how his former teammate Cornal Hendricks should be remembered, by recalling the charismatic centre’s manner of celebrating a try. “Cornal would point a finger to the heavens and beam a smile that was just wonderful, and we joined the celebrations wholeheartedly. It was so infectious,” De Villiers said of the 37-year-old, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday night. Hendricks had, for some time, nursed a heart condition that temporarily suspended a playing career which included 15 Tests for South Africa and tenures with the Cheetahs and the Bulls. He halted his career for a period but made a successful comeback with the Bulls, and only recently stopped playing for Boland - the province of his roots. De Villiers…

IN THE anguish that categorised the July 2021 unrest, there were also voices of reflection. Many citizens recognised that the true divide fueling the unrest was not simply race, but the shared desperation of poverty. Black, Coloured, Indian and White small business owners alike, saw their shops ransacked, by people of all races, who had been pushed to the margins economically. Years of unaddressed inequality, unemployment above 30% and the pandemic’s hardships fed the explosion. South Africa learned that genuine reconciliation demands more than repealing racist laws, it requires uprooting the structural inequities those laws left behind, especially in housing and land. The promise of 1994 remains unfulfilled so long as a person’s prospects in life are dictated by whether they grow up in a leafy suburb or a corrugated-iron…

Secrets of Icewomen Isabelle Hofmann, and Laura Hof Loot.co.za (R527) Rider Sisters Isabelle and Laura Hof have been practising and teaching the Wim Hof Method for most of their lives. Science – backed and potentially life-changing, the method focuses on three pillars – breathing, cold therapy and mindset – which can result in increased energy, better sleep, a strengthened immune system and more. While the method works for everyone, it has unique physical and mental health benefits for women. Inspired by the potential of the method, Isabelle and Laura started the Icewomen community, devoted to unlocking the power of these practices. In this empowering book they invite all women to join the community, and share the groundbreaking research behind the benefits, from improving mental health, boosting confidence and balancing hormones…

The Nicotine Gospel Sven Axelrad Loot.co.za (R385) Umuzi The Nicotine Gospel is a darkly funny road trip novel that follows the lives of two brothers, Nate and Danny, as they navigate their complicated relationship and their father’s unusual beliefs. The story begins on New Year’s Eve in 1987 when lightning kills their mother. To cope with this loss and make sense of a world seemingly governed by chance, their distant and eccentric father creates the Nicotine Gospel. He believes that “an eight by five cardboard box containing somewhere near twenty machine-made cigarettes would tell you all you needed to know about a man.” As the brothers grow up, they dive into their father’s teachings. Nate excels in school and tries to escape their father’s neglect and their rundown home in…

Taiwan will turn off its last nuclear reactor tomorrow, fuelling concerns over the self-ruled island’s reliance on imported energy and vulnerability to a Chinese blockade. The island, which targets net-zero emissions by 2050, depends almost entirely on imported fossil fuel to power its homes, factories and critical semiconductor chip industry. President Lai Ching-te’s Democratic Progressive Party has long vowed to phase out nuclear power, while the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party says continued supply is needed for energy security. Ma’anshan Nuclear Power Plant in southern Pingtung county is being closed as China intensifies military activity around Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory and has vowed to bring under its control one day. During large-scale military drills around Taiwan in April, China simulated strikes on key ports and…

WELLINGTON: Indigenous Maori lawmakers have decried a push to temporarily banish them from New Zealand’s parliament, after disrupting the reading of a contentious race relations bill with a protest haka. Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, 22, derailed parliament in November when she ripped a copy of the proposed laws in half while performing a spirited traditional chant. She was joined by party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who strode on to the chamber floor chanting the Ka Mate haka famously performed by the country’s All Blacks rugby team. A parliamentary committee this week recommended suspending Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer for three weeks, and Maipi-Clarke for seven days. The Maori Party said it was one of the harshest punishments ever doled out in New Zealand’s parliament. | AFP…

Karooooo, which owns the vehicle tracking and fleet management solutions company Cartrack, has four difficult years behind it and is looking to the new financial year to build growth momentum, said the founder and CEO Zak Calisto. Interviewed on Thursday at the release of the fourth quarter results to February 28, Calisto, who has expanded the group into Asia, Europe and South Africa, said they scaled up in the last two quarters by nearly 1 000 additional staff, and the company had moved into a new head office in Johannesburg, this after a period where operations were impacted by the Covid pandemic for two years, and by the work-from-home trend. Karooooo’s operating profit increased by 30% to R385 million in the fourth quarter and earnings per share increased 19% to…

Israel’s siege on Gaza has forced NGO Islamic Relief to suspend food distributions. Over the past 19 months, Israel’s assault on Palestinian existence in Gaza has turned the region into the most difficult and dangerous place in the world to deliver humanitarian aid, the organisation said. “Despite the enormous challenges, Islamic Relief’s team and partners in Gaza have worked tirelessly to provide aid to over 600 000 people. “Together we have distributed more than 70 million hot meals, as well as food parcels, nutritional supplements, water supplies, hygiene kits, medical aid, latrines, and education and psychosocial support for children – all while our staff are themselves displaced, grieving and struggling to support their own families.” “Our team in Gaza continues to do everything we can to keep going, but Israel’s…

THE Employment Equity Act (EEA) was not introduced to create racial divides or quotas as alleged, and these narratives, which have been mainly driven by the DA, cannot go unchallenged, says Employment and Labour Deputy Minister Judith Nemadzinga-Tshabalala. Among the reasons government had to intervene was because of the slow pace of transformation, particularly in the private sector, which may be attributed to self-regulation by employers. “It is acknowledged that the slow pace of transformation is attributed to self-regulation of EE targets by the designated employers. As a result of self-regulation, the employers had all the powers in the 27 years of the EEA to set low meaningless EE targets, which they were able to recycle from one year to another or change at their discretion with no will and…

Death in Pretoria Peter Auf Der Heyde Loot.co.za (R325) Penguin Books Between 1960 and 1989 in South Africa, more than 130 people were executed for crimes that had a political motive. Who were they, what did they do, and why did they do it? While many people have heard of Solomon Mahlangu, John Harris or even Vuyisile Mini, the vast majority of executed activists remain very much unknown, even though they paid the ultimate price for their actions. This book tells their stories, drawing on the author’s interviews with fellow activists, the families left behind, lawyers on both sides, judges who passed sentence, warders on death row, and even functionaries tasked with informing the condemned of their impending fate. In the process, the book sheds light on forgotten aspects…

THE DA frames former party leader Tony Leon as a “skilled diplomat” fit to represent South Africa in Washington. But this glowing portrayal wilfully ignores Leon’s political history and its entanglement with apartheid’s legacy, neoliberal dogma, and racial hierarchies. Far from being a neutral statesman, Leon built his career as an opposition politician who courted white fears and capitalist interests. In the late 1990s, his DA (then Democratic Party) campaigned under the slogan “Fight Back”, a barely veiled dog-whistle widely heard as “fight black” – an appeal to those anxious about black majority rule​. Leon even struck alliances with remnants of the apartheid regime (merging with the National Party’s successors) in a quest for power​. Calling him meritorious glosses over how he leveraged racial anxieties and protected privilege. Leon’s track…

A mother watched in despair as an excavator demolished her Kinshasa home, part of a campaign to clamp down on unauthorised buildings after deadly floods. Flash flooding in the overcrowded megalopolis, which sits on the banks of the mighty Congo River, killed dozens of people early last month. Authorities have begun demolishing riverside constructions built without permits, where the death toll is often high with each deluge in the vast Democratic Republic of Congo. “Our homes destroyed, and our belongings stolen, where will we go?” asked Passy, in vain. “Authorities, have pity on us, why treat us like this?” Provincial urban development and public works minister Alain Tshilungu came to oversee the demolition in north-western Ngaliema district. Passy’s home was among 15 plots earmarked for demolition – a small fraction…

SYDNEY: An Australian aerospace firm said yesterday it had delayed a historic first attempt to launch a locally developed rocket into orbit, with a jar of Vegemite as its payload. Gilmour Space Technologies said a ground system glitch forced it to postpone the first test launch of its three-stage Eris rocket by a day. “The issue was with an external power system we use during system checks,” communications chief Michelle Gilmour said. “We’ve identified the fix but ran out of time to implement it and fuel the rocket within the launch window.” The rocket has a multi-day launch window to fly from a spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen, about 1 000km up from the Queensland capital Brisbane. If successful, it would be the first Australian-made rocket to…