Sommaire pour 2022-05-31 de Cape Times

HUMAN Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said a total of R2.3 billion was allocated over the past 10 years to the City for the upgrade of informal settlements. Kubayi said the growth in the demand for housing in the metro outstripped the production of housing opportunities by the public and private sectors. She made the statement while responding in writing to parliamentary questions from ANC MP Faiez Jacobs, who asked about the total number of informal settlements in the metro, after recent fires at Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa which he said was an annual occurrence over the past 10 years. Jacobs also enquired about the steps her department had taken to upgrade informal settlements over the decade and whether her department allocated any monies for the upgrade of these…

THE General Fuel Tax pay holiday is over, which means already-stretched motorists and consumers are in for a record price increase, prompting calls for the government to soften the blow by means of another fuel relief measure. But Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe are yet to make an announcement on the new price set to come into effect tomorrow. In March they tabled the temporary reduction in the general fuel levy by R1.50 a litre from April 6 until today. Mantashe had also proposed additional measures to be introduced after the expiry of the temporary measures from June 1, including a reduction in the Basic Fuel Price of 3c/l, the termination of the Demand Side Management Levy of 10c/l on 95 unleaded petrol…

THE Western Cape Health Department says money that was supposed to improve service delivery, including the appointment of more staff members, was instead being diverted for safety and security measures at health facilities. Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said in the previous financial year, about R373 million had to go towards the security budget at health facilities to curb the number of violent incidents affecting health services. She said the department was reviewing and installing more CCTV cameras. Mbombo revealed this during last week’s Western Cape legislature sitting, where ACDP MPL Ferlon Christians questioned whether her department had plans to improve the security at health facilities. It also came after accused ex-cop Jean-Paul Malgas shot and killed two patients and police officer Constable Donay Phillips at New Somerset Hospital earlier this…

ACCUSED Parliament arsonist, Zandile Mafe, has once again been unsuccessful in his bid for bail. Mafe’s bail application appeal was dismissed in the Western Cape High Court yesterday. Judge James Lekhuleni and Judge Daniel Thulare previously heard marathon arguments in the bail application appeal and yesterday, judge Noluthando Nziweni, appointed as the third judge, heard final arguments. The bail application arguments had to be reheard in the high court after a split decision between Lekhuleni and Thulare earlier this month. Mafe, 39, who has now been in jail for five months, faces charges of housebreaking with intent to commit terrorism, arson, terrorism and theft. Prosecutor Mervyn Menigo said the State would present evidence showing Mafe captured on CCTV footage, going undetected inside Parliament’s building for more than 30 hours…

The recent devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have highlighted the dire need for all municipalities to build climate-resilient infrastructure and to focus on human settlements, especially for vulnerable communities. Climatologists have warned that climate change will result in an increase in the frequency of floods and their intensity on the eastern part of the country, while drought will impact the western part. The onus is on municipalities to start planning now for these future events, to mitigate the loss of life and the damage to vital infrastructure. They need to tap into national government infrastructure funds and make changes to how they view climate change and its impact, or this will be a vicious cycle that continues to repeat itself. The investment conferences that have been held…

RED light districts. No, not those sleazy areas, I mean those far more dangerous places: traffic lights. Some weeks ago, after narrowly avoiding a driver who had run a red light, I did an informal survey at various traffic lights around Cape Town. As expected, it depends on traffic density. When traffic is light, drivers are less im- patient, and the ratio seems to be about one red light runner per three cycles. Things are different during peak times. Then the number of drivers running a red light is almost 100%. We have generally blamed the minibus taxis for bad driving, and with good reason, but South Africans have slowly embraced the lower standard of driving on the principle of “if they can do it/get away with it, so can…

A small charity broke ground this year on a clinic in northern Burkina Faso to care for thousands of women and children who have fled Islamist insurgents wreaking havoc along the fringes of the Sahara. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, global supply chains buckled and the cost of building materials, fuel and food spiked in West Africa. The charity’s founder, Boukary Ouedraogo, was forced to make a tough decision: he halted construction of the clinic with only the foundations laid. Similar calls are being made across sub-Saharan Africa, where aid projects are threatened by the fallout from the war in Ukraine, potentially putting millions of lives at risk. Humanitarian agencies already struggling with widespread price increases under the pandemic say the crisis in Europe has made things worse.…

Pope Francis, 85, is set to make a gruelling trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan in July despite knee problems that have forced him to use a cane and wheelchair. There had been speculation the pope’s visit to Africa might be postponed, as was a trip to Lebanon scheduled for June. The trip’s pace suggests the Vatican expects the pope’s condition to improve in the next month, although officials say he likely will use a wheelchair. Francis will spend four days in the DRC, visiting the capital Kinshasa and Goma in the restive eastern region. The Italian ambassador, his bodyguard and driver were killed in an ambush north of Goma last year. The programme includes a meeting with victims of violence in the eastern area.…

TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards yesterday accused “Zionists” of assassinating a colonel in Tehran earlier this month, the Guards’ official website reported. Colonel Sayyad Khodai, 50, was fatally shot on May 22 outside his home in the east of the Iranian capital by assailants on motorcycles. He was hit with five bullets, according to official media. The colonel was killed “by the most vicious people, the Zionists, and God willing, we will avenge his death”, Major General Hossein Salami said. The general did not, however, use the term “Zionist regime”, routinely used by the Islamic republic as a direct reference to its enemy Israel. | AFP…

Dakar: Senegalese police have made their first arrests after a hospital fire in which 11 babies died, trade union sources said yesterday. The blaze broke out in a neonatal ward in the town of Tivaouane last week. President Macky Sall fired his health minister, Diouf Sarr, even before the 11 bodies were buried. And three people were arrested – a midwife, a nurse and the head of the hospital’s human resources department. They were being questioned over “endangering the lives of others”. The cause of the fire at the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh hospital has not been established although an electrical short-circuit has been cited as a possible source. | AFP…

THE financial troubles of former correctional services bosses Linda Mti and Patrick Gillingham have forced the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to postpone their fraud and corruption case to allow them to raise funds for their legal representation. Mti, former head of correctional services, and Gillingham, former correctional services chief financial officer, appeared in court along with former Bosasa employee Andries van Tonder yesterday. Former Bosasa chief operating officer (COO) Angelo Agrizzi – who is the fourth accused in the matter – was not in court. Mti and Gillingham, through their lawyers, requested a postponement to sort out their financial situation and to continue to pay their legal teams. The case against them was postponed to July 22. The court also heard that a pulmonologist appointed by the State had assessed…

POLICE officers from the provincial task team and Tzaneen tracking team have launched a manhunt for a group of criminals using social media to lure unsuspecting job seekers for non-existing employment and kidnapping them, robbing them and “humiliating them to extort more money from relatives”. Three victims were brought to the Tzaneen police station by a motorist on Sunday, after they allegedly suffered a life-threatening and humiliating ordeal at the hands of kidnappers. “The three victims, a male aged 27 and two women aged 21 and 33, allegedly responded to an advert on Facebook about employment in Tzaneen. “The unsuspecting victims boarded taxis from Jane Furse, Groblersdal and Thohoyandou, after they were individually directed by the suspects through WhatsApp to a certain spot in Tzaneen,” said police spokesperson Brigadier Motlafela…

Over 40% of the million pupils who start public school in the country each year drop out before reaching matric. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga faces criticism each year that the national matric results she announces hide the real performance of the public school system. The report that the department released last week denied that Motshekga hides the data illustrating the figure of pupils who do not reach matric. “It is sometimes claimed that the fact that almost half of youths do not obtain a qualification at the Grade 12 level is something that the government does not report on,” it said. “This is not the case. The annual reports on the National Senior Certificate (NSC) are very clear about these statistics, and moreover point out that South Africa’s statistics…

Rate at 66% is a ‘world record’, adding to national metric of shame SOUTH Africa’s 21 million or so youth (aged 15-34) have never had it so bad! They constitute a third of the national population of 59.3 million, projected to rise to 61.9 million this year, with the gender balance slightly in favour of men. Through no fault of their own, they have been persistently living with the blight of joblessness with its despair, sense of hopelessness and trapped in their very own “lost decade”, only to be clobbered, yet again, in the last two years by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and, since February, by the supply chain disruptions caused by the Ukraine conflict and its resultant inflationary pressures on energy and food prices, which have shocked…

IN A world ravaged by mindless and horrific violence, it is a remarkable fact that a possibly similar scenario has been quietly developing in the precinct of Kenilworth railway station. For several years following the removal of the metal booms guarding the level crossing, their ineffectually fore-shortened replacements have threatened the lives of all users, pedestrian or vehicular, of the roadway. With minimum effort even the widest of vehicles can navigate the opening between these new booms, pedestrians cross without hindrance and the new red warning lights flash or remain unlit, apparently unconnected with any approaching rail traffic. To introduce a note of tragi-comedy, an un-uniformed individual, presumably in the service of the South African railways, occasionally appears, waving a cloth to motorists inviting them to run the gauntlet, which…

Nepal: Authorities yesterday recovered or located the bodies of all but one of 22 people who were on board a plane that crashed into a Himalayan mountainside on Sunday, officials said, and the government has formed a panel to investigate the incident. Two Germans, four Indians and 16 Nepalis were on the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft which crashed 15 minutes after taking off from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125km west of Kathmandu on Sunday morning. “There is very little chance to find survivors,” said Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal. Nepali soldiers and rescue workers had retrieved 20 bodies from the wreckage, strewn across a steep slope at an altitude of about 4 400 metres. They were trying to…

LONDON: Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have renewed their lease on Frogmore Cottage in a bid to spend more time in England. The Duke and Duchess, who live in California, are set to stay at the Windsor residence with their children, Archie, three, and Lilibet, 11 months, during Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations this weekend to celebrate the 96-year-old monarch’s 70-year reign. Frogmore has been occupied by Princess Eugenie, her husband Jack Brooksbank and their son, August. However, they are spending time in Portugal, so Harry and Meghan are able to stay there.…

Bangkok: A record one billion methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, the UN said yesterday, as crime gangs exploited the Covid-19 pandemic and instability in coup-hit Myanmar to boost their activities. Southeast Asia’s so-called Golden Triangle has long been an infamous hotspot for drug trafficking, with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand’s porous borders and lax local policing allowing illegal substances to slip across. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said law enforcement netted nearly 172 tonnes of methamphetamine – about seven times more than a decade ago. | AFP…

Paris: A 36-year-old man has been arrested and placed in psychiatric care after he smeared a glass screen encasing the Mona Lisa with cake, prosecutors said yesterday, in a purported protest against artists not focusing enough on “the planet”. Officials at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where the enigmatic portrait holds pride of place, declined to comment on the bizarre incident on Sunday, which was captured on several phones and circulated widely on social media. The treasured work by Leonardo da Vinci, which has been the target of vandalism attempts in the past, was unharmed thanks to its bulletproof glass case. | AFP…

LOCAL Government MEC Anton Bredell says he will not endorse the recent appointment of an Acting-Director of Financial Services in the Beaufort West Municipality, charging that doing so would be a ratification of an unlawful process. Council had resolved to temporarily appoint Nthokozizi Paul Mabena in the position during a special council meeting recently. This follows the suspension of the previous Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nomfundo Ntsangani, together with Director of Infrastructure Denwin van Turha and Municipal Manager, Jackson Penxa over allegations of misconduct. However the decision by council to appoint Mabhena was adopted without any proper consultation, as required by the recently approved Financial Recovery Plan (FRP), according to Bredell. The FRP was approved in March to assist the municipality to address its financial crisis, and to improve good…

THE ongoing labour action at Unisa's Muckleneuk campus since March this year, has been condemned by the university Senate for damaging the institution’s reputation. Spearheaded by Nehawu-affiliated workers, the action was intensified after five union members were fired for disrupting a graduation ceremony. The Senate - the university’s supreme academic body - outlined its position on the labour action following its meeting last week. It bemoaned the fact that industrial action had “become violent at times and accompanied by criminality and a lack of respect for academic activities”. “While the University respects the rights of colleagues to engage in industrial action and to protest, Senate has thought it prudent to express views that promote the spirit of elevating the importance of brand reputation, academic integrity and institutional culture, even in…

FED-up small-scale fishers have started a petition calling for the complete setting aside of the 2020/21 Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP). In April, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) Minister Barbra Creecy announced that they had extended the closing date for submission of appeals for the 2021/22 Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP2022) to May 29. FRAP is the allocation of commercial fishing rights in South Africa. For FRAP 2021/22, there are nine commercial fishing sectors that are due for re-allocation. Out of the nine there are three sectors identified as eligible small-scale species. These are traditional line-fish, south coast rock lobster and squid. These species have been largely allocated to the commercial sector, leaving very little for the small-scale fishing sector to work from. Civic organisation, Masufindise…

EMOTIONS continue to run high at Heathfield High School, as the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has now requested parents to assist in stabilising matters. Teaching and learning were disrupted by a group of pupils and community members yesterday following the arrival of two new caretaker principals at the school. In video footage, a group of pupils is seen outside the principal’s office door chanting that they want their former principal Wesley Neumann to be reinstated. Neumann’s dismissal came into effect on May 20 after he announced his decision to decline the WCED’s demotion offer. This, after a disciplinary committee in October last year found the principal guilty of six charges of misconduct emanating from his refusal to reopen the school in June 2020, during the Covid-19 peak. In a…

As we commemorate National Child Protection Week from May 29 to June 5, we should also create awareness about the continued vulnerability of South Africa’s children as incidents of child abuse increase alarmingly. Why are we failing so miserably? The answer may lie in an overemphasis on dealing with abuse after it has occurred, with a focus on remedial services, and not prevention. Service providers such as social workers often indicate that their caseloads are too high. Although our government acknowledges the shortage of social workers, it still blames them for failing at their duties, especially those related to child protection. Considering the lack of resources in social welfare, it seems evident that a change of focus is needed in how social ills such as child abuse are…

EU countries failed to agree on a Russian oil import ban despite last-minute haggling before a summit got under way in Brussels yesterday, exposing a struggle to widen sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine as the economic risk for Europe grows. The leaders of the 27 EU countries will agree in principle to an oil embargo, a draft of their summit conclusions showed, but they will leave the practical details and hard decisions until later. The EU has rolled out five packages of sanctions against Russia since the conflict began more than three months ago, demonstrating uncharacteristic speed and unity given the complexity of the measures. But an agreement on oil sanctions has proved elusive for weeks because so many countries depend on Russian crude. “There is no…

A Beijing man has landed thousands of his neighbours in quarantine after he ignored an order to stay at home and later tested positive for Covid-19, prompting a police investigation. The Chinese capital has ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to stay home over the last five weeks to curb its largest coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic. Officials said a man in his 40s surnamed Sun had failed to follow a requirement to isolate that he was given after he visited a shopping centre considered high risk. “During the home isolation period he ... went out many times and walked in the neighbourhood,” said Beijing public security official Pan Xuhong. Sun and his wife later tested positive, prompting authorities to lock down 5 000 of their neighbours…

Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping met Hong Kong’s next leader in Beijing, telling John Lee (pictured) he has the full trust of the central government, state media said yesterday. Lee travelled to Beijing to receive the central government’s blessing as he prepares to take office in a month’s time. The 64-year-old former security chief, who oversaw the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy movement, was chosen as the next chief executive by a small committee of Beijing loyalists early this month. “I believe that the administration of the new government will bring forth a new atmosphere, and compose a new chapter in Hong Kong’s development,” Xi said. Lee will assume office on July 1, which coincides with the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s transfer from British to Chinese rule. Xi said…

LONDON: Britain will offer work visas to graduates from the world’s best universities in an expansion of its post-Brexit immigration system that is designed to attract the “best and brightest” workers. Since leaving the European Union, Britain has ended the priority given to EU citizens and introduced a points-based immigration system that ranks applicants on everything from their qualifications and language skills to the type of job offered to them. But the country has faced a tight labour market for several years, and companies in manufacturing, logistics and the food sector have urged the government to loosen the rules for entry-level jobs. | Reuters…