Table of contents for 2021-05-31 in Star

President calls different other vaccination suppliers after J&J delayed because of regulatory issues Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday that the government was in discussions with other Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers in a bid to boost the country’s slow inoculation roll-out. This comes as the scheduled delivery of 31 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines has been delayed due to regulatory issues related to lack of adherence to proper standards at a manufacturing plant in the US. Ramaphosa said that some of these manufacturers were in the process of seeking the necessary approvals from South Africa’s health products authority. The president, however, emphasised that the government had secured enough vaccines to reach all adults in the country, which is around 40 million people. “We are waiting for these issues…

Liam Karabo Joyce liam.joyce@inl.co.za Fitness fundi Letshego Zulu has warned South Africans against letting their guard down as the daily infection rate of Covid-19 positive cases increases. The widow of racing car driver Gugu Zulu took to Instagram this week where she posted a video of herself getting tested after she was exposed to the virus. “Truth is, many of us are exhausted and we drop our guard, especially around our loved ones and closest friends. “Those gatherings are the real ‘super-spreader’ events,” she said. “Friends, don’t drop your guard, no matter how Covid-19 exhausted you are. One death is one too many. SA is far from herd immunity. “Don’t feel guilty for complying when others aren’t. “We go to weddings and other events and 99% people aren’t wearing masks…

BONGANI NKOSI bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za IT’S BACK to square one for the Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill. President Cyril Ramaphosa raised reservations about the constitutionality of the bills last year and referred them back to the National Assembly. This was after he had considered them for 15 months, with the bills having been passed on December 5, 2018. The bills became the subject of a public tussle. Some groups celebrated Ramaphosa’s decision, while others accused him of bowing to external pressure. The US placed South Africa’s preferential access to its market under review due to the bills. This was after the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a US private sector coalition of companies that produce copyright-protected materials including films, music and books, complained to the US government about…

We all want to leave our mark on this world, to know that our life mattered. What does it mean to leave a legacy? It means putting a stamp on the future, and making a contribution to future generations. We want to leave a legacy because we want to feel that our life mattered. South Africa belongs to all its people and the future of our country is our collective future. Making it work is our collective responsibility. All South Africans seek a better future for themselves and their children. This year’s Africa Month is celebrated under the theme: “The year of Arts, Culture and Heritage: in the year of Charlotte Maxeke. Africa Day is intended to celebrate and acknowledge the successes of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, now…

SHARE not the truth and the famous become the allure! This fashionable credo proliferates Hollywood’s caricatures, but true uprightness rings as social and political ambiance. Nothing is more rewarding than an eye-to-eye synergy trade of honour, compassion, and most of all – integrity. The defining attributes of mankind’s scruples are not the open forum verbal decorum, but ethical decisiveness that’s evident in darkened corridors of personal and professional lifestyles. This is integrity’s defining depth and to bring relevance requires an impeccable amount of strength. The beauty of integrity is not just the spotless nature in its purpose and appealing fragrance to all, but the lacking of negativity as its residual connective continuity. These attributes seem sparse and perpetual toxic dialogue expressed in our political agendas! Society’s hopeful inspiration is the…

The bosses at Kaizer Chiefs had no other option than to give Gavin Hunt the boot late on Friday. Yes, there will be a degree of sympathy for Hunt, as he was not able to sign new players due to Fifa regulations. He can also point to the fact that he has guided Chiefs to the semi-finals of the African Champions League. But statistics are a cold and hard truth by which any coach is judged – and the overall Kaizer Chiefs statistics right now are damming, to put it mildly. Some of those statistics include: Chiefs are languishing in the bottom half of the standings and could end up on their lowest ever log position in the proud 51-year-old history of the club, they have scored only 30 goals…

Egypt’s work to broker and secure a truce in the Gaza Strip this month has thrust it into the diplomatic spotlight, prompting top-level re-engagement from Washington and overshadowing moves by several Arab states to normalise ties with Israel. The efforts have earned Cairo recognition at a time when it was struggling to strike a rapport with US President Joe Biden’s administration amid differences on human rights, and to make progress on its top foreign policy goal – a deal to regulate an Ethiopian dam that Egypt sees as a major threat to its supplies of Nile water. While Cairo has mediated during previous rounds of violence between Israel and the Palestinians through its ties with both sides, analysts and diplomats say its efforts have been more visible than in recent…

New York City is to build a homeless shelter in an expensive Manhattan area known as “Billionaire’s Row” following a lengthy legal battle. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s government said in 2018 that it planned to turn the former Park Savoy Hotel on West 58th Street into a shelter for 150 people. A coalition of residents sued to stop the move, but an appeals judge rejected their objections, paving the way for the proposal to proceed. “Billionaire’s Row” is a set of ultra-luxury residential skyscrapers off the southern end of Central Park that include some of the world’s most expensive homes. Lawyers for residents had argued that using the former hotel, built in 1910, as a shelter was a “safety hazard”.A lower court ruled that a hearing was required to determine…

MIAMI: Two people have died and more than 20 were injured in a shooting outside a billiards club in Hialeah, a town to the north of Miami in Florida, police said. A white Nissan Pathfinder pulled up to the location and three people got out with assault weapons and handguns and started firing into the crowd that was gathered for a concert at the venue. About 20 to 25 of those injured were taken to a number of nearby hospitals. At least one of those injured was listed in critical condition. The shooting is one of a number that have taken place in the past few weeks in the US. There were at least 200 mass shootings in the country in the first 132 days of this year, a report…

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey has weighed a possible run for public office, saying that the “whole embassy of politics has some redefining of its purpose”. “I’m not interested in going and putting a bunch of Band-Aids on that are going to be ripped off as soon as I’m out, I’m interested in building something that can last and I’m measuring what category that is; I don’t know if that’s politics,” he said. The Oscar-winning actor hasn’t ruled out that he might run to become governor of Texas, saying it was a “true consideration”. | Sputnik…

Mike Greenaway mike.greenaway@inl.co.za In bad news for the Sharks and the Springboks, Sikhumbuzo Notshe is out of rugby for the rest of this year following surgery to reattach a tendon to his knee cap. The 28-year-old suffered the injury during the Sharks’ defeat to the Bulls in Pretoria a few weeks ago, and while he was subsequently expected to miss the tour of the British & Irish Lions, it now appears that the balance of 2021 is also written off. That is a blow for the Boks considering they also have a very tough Rugby Championship ahead of them, followed by an end-of-year tour – Covid-19 permitting. “It is a big blow for the player, for us at the Sharks, and I reckon also for the Springboks,” said Sharks coach…

LIBERTY Two Degrees (L2D) said the relaxed pandemic restrictions had stimulated early signs of a retail recovery, and average footfall for the four months to April was 101 percent above that for the same month in 2019. Comparison with 2020 was avoided due to the lockdown, the group said in a pre-close statement on Friday. The average footcount at L2D’s retail malls such as Sandton City, Eastgate and Midlands Mall, was 82.4 percent in January 2021 compared with January 2019, 84.7 percent in February, and 79.5 percent in March. Improved customer counting software had been implemented from April 1, allowing the group to count customers and analyse shopping patterns within the shopping centres. Additional operational metrics tracked by the software in April 2021 included customer count zones, dwell times,…

Alyssia Birjalal alyssia.birjalal@inl.co.za South African international dancer, Oti Mabuse has spoken of her excitement on landing a new TV gig. She has been cast as one of four detectives on ITV’s The Masked Dancer UK – a spin off series from The Masked Singer UK. Mabuse described the opportunity as “the best call of her life” and will be sitting alongside comedians Jonathan Ross and Mo Gilligan and TV presenter Davina McCall as they try to guess who each dancer in crazy costumes are, with Joel Dommett as the show’s host. The two time Strictly Come Dancing winner also shared space on the cover of TV Times Magazine with McCall and took to Instagram to let her fans know how incredibly happy she is about it. She wrote: “I…

ITUMELENG MAFISA PUBLIC service unions (PSU) seem fragmented in the current wage talks with the government, with two unions linked to the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) and the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) declaring a dispute. The Star understands that the Public Service Association (PSA) was not even part of the facilitation process that some unions have been participating in over the past few weeks. The public service unions and the SA Police Union (Sapu) are due for conciliation and arbitration with the government this week, while the rest are expected to report back to the facilitators over the 1.5% wage offer from the government on June 4. The Star understands that Sapu cannot go on strike because the police are regarded as an essential service.…

Mpiletso Motumi mpiletso.motumi@inl.co.za THE SA Music Awards (Samas) has for the first time invited the public to vote for the Artist of the Year, a new category introduced in Sama27. The Artist of the Year award honours the musician, group or band that has entertained the public in the past year, as voted for by the public. The voting lines open tomorrow. Any South African artist is eligible to be selected by the public, provided they released a new body of work between January 1 and December 31 last year. The voting will be managed by an independent company. There will be no short-list of nominees and the winner will be announced on the night of the awards, broadcast on SABC1. The Artist of the Year category joins the Record…

On December 9 last year, Independent Media published an article on the IOL website and in The Star which contained various false and defamatory statements concerning Ms Maria Ramos. These include that she is guilty of “fixing the rand”, that she engaged in conduct that amounts to, and justifies criminal charges for “treason or corruption”, and that she received improper quid pro quos. Independent Media unconditionally retracts these false and defamatory statements and apologises unreservedly for any harm caused to Ms Ramos.…

Black feminist authors in South Africa raise their voices in a new book IN the third decade of the new millennium, despite many publishers still seeing black women’s writing as having a limited market, readers have far more access than before to publications by writers from the global South. In particular, the perspectives of black women are certainly more visible in the public domain. Yet gaps and erasures – based on intellectual authority, financial resources and visibility in the knowledge commons – mean that it’s still easier for work by black, postcolonial and decolonial feminists from global centres to secure publication and wide distribution. As a result, the growing audience of radical young readers grappling with questions about race, gender, sexuality and freedom in global peripheries often have to turn…

Four civilians and a police officer were killed yesterday by suspected jihadists in southern Mali, a region that has previously been mostly spared from the country’s unrest, a security official said on condition of anonymity. The unidentified men attacked a checkpoint near the town of Bougouni, around 100km from Mali’s borders with Ivory Coast and Guinea, the official said. West African leaders were to meet in Ghana yesterday to discuss a response to Mali’s second coup in nine months, which has sparked warnings of fresh sanctions and deep concerns over stability in the volatile Sahel region. Mali’s new president, Colonel Assimi Goita, arrived in Accra on Saturday for preliminary talks ahead of the extraordinary summit of regional bloc the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). Presidents Muhammadu Buhari of…

KABUL: A mortar bomb fired by the Taliban struck a wedding ceremony in a province north of the Afghan capital, killing at least six people including women and children, officials said yesterday. The incident happened late on Saturday in Kapisa province when a shell aimed at an army checkpoint hit a house where a crowd had gathered for a wedding, officials said. The dead included women and children, said Kapisa governor’s spokesperson, who also blamed the Taliban for the attack. The insurgents denied they had fired the shell and blamed government forces. Yesterday, the interior ministry accused the Taliban of killing nearly 250 civilians and wounding more than 500 in roadside bomb blasts and other attacks over the past month. | AFP…

Seoul: World leaders yesterday called for more action and inclusion of all countries in the global drive towards a cleaner and greener planet at a climate summit hosted virtually by South Korea. The two-day summit is the second of its kind following the inaugural meeting held in Copenhagen in 2018 and is focused on public-private partnerships, especially in developing countries. Advanced nations have laid out ambitious emissions-cutting goals, as well as plans to go carbon neutral by 2050. The UN says that emissions must fall nearly 8% annually, equivalent to the emissions saved during the pandemic, every year to 2030. World leaders stressed the importance of making sure poorer countries are not left out. | AFP…

If Manchester City thought next season’s Premier League was going to be a repeat of the last two campaigns, fending off Liverpool and Manchester United again, then Saturday’s Uefa Champions League final defeat to Chelsea in Portugal will surely have made them think again. Liverpool should indeed be a bigger threat with a fully fit squad, including Virgil van Dijk and some new additions, and United are expected to invest heavily on key upgrades. But the Thomas Tuchel factor makes Chelsea genuine contenders. In just four months, the German manager has transformed Chelsea from a team struggling to qualify for next season’s Champions League into the new European champions. City manager Pep Guardiola will relish the challenge and believe that his own recruitment moves this off-season will give him everything…

Mihlali Baleka @Mihlalibaleka Here we go again. After parting ways with Gavin Hunt on Friday, Kaizer Chiefs are set to hire their fifth coach in six seasons. The new boss will have his job cut out for him as his four predecessors have failed to deliver a single trophy to Amakhosi’s cabinet. Here are five challenges the new commander in chief will face at the Soweto giants. Chiefs are run by the Motaungs. Their chairman and founder of the club is Kaizer Motaung. Their football manager and marketing director are Bobby and Jessica, the son and daughter of Kaizer. And those are the people that make the key decisions in the club. Chiefs’ decision to fire Hunt was not based on the fact that he’s not a good coach. In…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za NASPERS shareholders should be better compensated in the proposal by Amsterdam-based subsidiary Prosus to issue new shares as part of a capital raise, so that it could increase its shareholding in its parent, Old Mutual Investment Group portfolio manager Neelash Hansjee said on Friday. The complexity and reasons for the proposal, which Naspers management have said is aimed at reducing the discount at which Naspers trades, have generated much discussion and criticism among market analysts and commentators. This month, Prosus announced its intention to acquire 45.4 percent of the issued Naspers shares from Naspers shareholders by a voluntary share exchange offer of new Prosus shares for Naspers shares. For instance, according to a story in the Techcentral online site, Switzerland-based research and investment firm Alternative Investment…

SAMSUNG Electronics overtook Chinese brand Xiaomi to become the world’s second-largest vendor of wearable devices in the first quarter of the year, a report has shown, on the back of its wireless earbuds sales. The South Korean tech giant moved ahead of China’s Xiaomi for the first time to take the runner-up spot with a market share of 11.8 percent, which was up 0.6 percentage point from a year earlier, according to the latest report from market researcher International Data Corporation. At third place, Xiaomi was the only company among the top five brands to suffer an on-year decline in its wearable devices sales. Xiaomi's market share dropped to 9.7 percent from 13.3 percent from a year ago after its wearable shipments slipped 1.8 percent on-year…

Shaun Wilson talks strategy on ‘Survivor SA: Immunity Island’ Alyssia Birjalal alyssia.birjalal@inl.co.za Survivor SA: Immunity Island castaway Shaun Wilson is ready to outwit, outplay and outlast his fellow contestants in the new season. Sharing a clip on Twitter, the IT entrepreneur from Cape Town said that he has left his morals at home and is ready to be deceptive, naughty and backstabbing in the upcoming season. The 50-second clip revealed what Wilson is capable of when he shared his game tactics in the confessions. “Don’t put your morals on the island, leave them at home. We’re all here to play a game. “If you’ve ever played Apex or Fortnight, there are no friends, there’s only enemies. “Be deceptive, be naughty and if you’re pushing peoples’ buttons, then you’re outwitting, it’s…

Itumeleng Mafisa THE African People’s Convention (APC) is demanding that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) releases a list of all donations that have been made to the state organ in the last 10 years. APC leader Themba Godi said he was “shocked” by a statement at the weekend by an NPA leader who claimed that the NPA was still able to preserve its independence when donations made to the justice organs come from corporate entities such as Steinhoff. Godi and 100 members of his party marched to the NPA offices in Silverton, Pretoria, to hand over a memorandum of grievances about the conduct of the NPA. He questions the NPA’s strategies, making the Jacob Zuma trial a case in point. Godi questioned the amount of money and effort used to…

Two years ago President Cyril Ramaphosa talked about bullet trains and mega cities and pies in the sky. Now we have the court jester who announced he will make sure that he will turn Johannesburg/Ekurhuleni into another Dubai and so we can “shop till we drop” the same way here, without leaving our country. His comments indicate a profound naïveté and a lack of leadership. Has he taken a trip through central Joburg lately? If he did without an entourage of security personnel to protect him, he would have seen the following. Johannesburg has turned into a cesspool and not “an African world-class city” his ANC government keep on repeating. Criminals will rob you in a blink of an eye, and if you are unlucky they may knock you unconscious…

THIS year is a special one both in South Africa and in China. Contrary to what happened across the globe three decades ago with the decimation of the communist parties, the South African Communist Party and Communist Party of China both celebrate their centenary this year. Yet this year, Tibet also celebrates the 70th anniversary of its freedom. On May 23, 1951, the local government of Tibet signed an agreement with the central government of China leading to the autonomous status being declared by 1965 in Tibet. Despite this autonomy and often being in the news for controversial reasons, the people of Tibet have reason to celebrate today because of the vast development that has occurred in the last seven decades. Besides endless stories of the people of Tibet benefiting…

Matikweni Khoza THE month of June starts tomorrow and, like all previous years, we will once again commemorate and pay homage to the youth of 1976. However, unlike the celebrations we have had in the previous years, before the Covid-19 pandemic, we will reflect on the past year since the outbreak of the virus, and recall the many lives that have been lost. This, however, does not have to be the only object for South Africans to reflect on. Since the beginning of phase 1 of the Sisonke vaccination roll-out in February, more health-care workers have become open to the procedure of getting vaccinated. They are, after all, the front liners, who have been labouring tirelessly to save lives during this devastating pandemic. With the current death rate standing…

Three men who were arrested for the Italian cable car crash that killed 14 people recently were released from jail overnight, after a judge found a “total lack of evidence” against two of them, officials said yesterday. Service manager Gabriele Tadini was put under house arrest, while technical director Enrico Perocchio and the head of the cable car operating company, Luigi Nerini, were released. All three remain under investigation for the tragedy. The three men were detained last week after Tadini admitted to investigators that he had deactivated an emergency brake system that could have prevented the crash. He said he did it because the system was malfunctioning and had halted service several times, and said he acted in agreement with the two other suspects. But the judge found a…

ABUJA: Nigerian police have confirmed the release of 14 university students and staff kidnapped last month by gunmen in the northwestern state of Kaduna. About 20 people, including students and two staff of the private Greenfield University in Kaduna, were kidnapped by gunmen in the Chikun local government area of the state in April. Police said that the students were found along the Kaduna-Abuja expressway. The two university staffers were among those released. Police said the gunmen abducted the students and two staff, while killing one member of staff. The gunmen killed three students in captivity. Two students were killed on April 26. One abducted studentwas freed by the gunmen after his parents paid an undisclosed ransom. | Xinhua…

MOUNT EVEREST: A 46-year-old Chinese man, Zhang Hong, has scaled the tallest peak in the world from the Nepal side, becoming the first blind man in Asia and the third in the world to climb Mount Everest. “As long as you have a strong mind, you can always complete a thing that other people say you can’t,” Zhang said. He completed the 8 849m-high Himalayan feat with three guides last week. He lost his sight at the age of 21 due to glaucoma. He was inspired by Erik Weihenmayer, a blind US mountaineer who scaled Everest in 2001, and began training under his mountain guide, Qiang Zi. | Reuters…

Ashfak Mohamed ashfak.mohamed@inl.co.za HE was denied by strong tail-winds previously, but now South African Shaun Maswanganyi can finally pack his bags for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The 20-year-old from Soweto, who is based at the University of Houston (UH) in Texas, qualified for Japan on Saturday in the 100 and 200m events. Racing for the UH Cougars at the NCAA Preliminary West Round in Texas, Maswanganyi set new personal bests of 10.04 and 20.19 seconds in the 100 and 200m respectively, beating his previous marks of 10.06 and 20.31. The Olympic qualifying times are 10.05 and 20.24sec, and while Maswanganyi had beaten both times before, the wind readings were illegal. The former St Alban’s College, Pretoria, schoolboy had run 9.87 and 19.93sec recently, but needed the races to be run…

HERMAN GIBBS Eastern Cape boxer Azinga Fuzile has earned a world title shot after a spectacular seventh-round TKO upset win over Brit Martin Ward in Las Vegas on Saturday night. The scheduled 12-rounder was a title eliminator for the vacant IBF junior lightweight title. The fifth-ranked southpaw Fuzile was the underdog against the fourth-ranked Ward. The bout was the main supporting act on the Barry Hearn Matchroom Promotions bill, and it marked the USA debuts for both fighters. The result was a glorious comeback for Fuzile after he suffered his first career loss in September 2019 at the hands of Russian southpaw Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov in East London. Ward entered the ring on the back of five straight wins, and with this kind of form under his belt, his promoter…

Naomi Osaka was fined $15 000 by tennis’ grand slam organisers yesterday, and warned of possible ejection from the French Open and suspension from future majors after the world number two skipped a news conference after her opening win at Roland Garros. The 23-year-old, a four-time grand slam winner, cited the impact on players' mental well-being for her decision ahead of the claycourt major not to hold news conferences, saying the nature of questions from journalists is like "kicking a person when they are down". Osaka started her French Open campaign with a win over Romanian Patricia Maria Tig 6-4 7-6(4) and then boycotted the post-match news conference, although she did hold a court-side interview immediately after the game. The board of the four grand slams said in a statement…