Table of contents for 2023-04-18 in Star

ALTRON group’s operations generated double digit turnover growth in the year to February 28, but headline earnings a share growth was expected to be slower due to once-off impairments. The share price slipped 4.89% to close at R8.75 on the JSE yesterday. The IT group said in an operational update yesterday – the results are expected to be released on May 15 – that the good results were achieved in spite of increasingly challenging trading conditions. Revenue was expected to be between 14% to 18% higher, while headline earnings per share was expected to be 8% to 28% higher at 81 cents to 96c per share. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) was expected to increase by 1 to 21% to between R1.21 billion and R1.45bn.…

South African-bred Zimbabwean artist FakeAno has returned to complete the African Boy Trilogy with the release of his long awaited EP, African Boy 3. His musical journey started in high school when FakeAno and his friends started a hip hop band who went on to perform in more than 200 live shows on some of the biggest stages across South Africa. FakeAno has since gone solo and is creating a name for himself, gaining popularity as an artist. Releasing a trilogy was something he planned from the get-go as a way to break out and stand out. “Choosing to do music full-time is probably one of the most challenging things. I had to sacrifice all the other stuff that I was pretty good at or that was really paying me.…

THE DA in Gauteng has warned that school drop-outs were due to the terrible condition of schools in the province, resulting in thousands of learners being lost in the system. Khume Ramulifho, DA education spokesperson, said many learners dropped out of school while others were moved to schools with better resources and thus delivered quality education. Out of 2 513 350 learners whom the department enrolled in 2021, only 2 252 291 Grades 1 to 12 returned to school in the 2022 academic year. There is an alarming number of 110 381 learners unaccounted for. The department is uncertain whether they moved to other provinces or countries or left the education system altogether. This information was revealed by the Gauteng MEC for Education, Matome Chiloane,…

A MOTHER is claiming more than R27 million in damages from the Gauteng Health Department, after her child was born nearly 13 years ago with permanent brain damage at a hospital in the province. The mother was first taken to the Lenasia Clinic in June 2011 after she started having labour contractions, from where she was taken to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital by ambulance. She told the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that the labour progress was slow at the clinic, and it was decided to have her transferred. There were unsuccessful attempts to deliver the baby through Ventouse or vacuum-assisted delivery. Several hours after the onset of her labour contractions, around midnight, she was transported to the operating room for an emergency Caesarean section. The baby…

Ingredients: For the fish cakes 1½ cups mashed potato, about 3 or 4 large potatoes 3 cans shredded tuna in brine, drained 60ml Thai red curry paste 1 egg 1 garlic clove, minced 10ml fish sauce Zest and juice of 1 lime Salt and pepper, to taste 15ml coriander, finely chopped 1 spring onion, thinly sliced 180ml breadcrumbs Oil for frying For the spicy sauce 250ml canola mayonnaise 30ml sriracha 10ml smoked paprika Zest and juice of 1 lime Salt and pepper, to taste To assemble: 6 burger rolls 60g rocket 2 tomatoes, thinly sliced 2 cups coleslaw mix ½ red onion, thinly sliced Method: For the fish cakes In a large mixing bowl, combine the mashed potato, tuna, Thai curry paste, egg, garlic, fish sauce, lime zest, lime juice…

The Thabo Bester mystery continues. Who is this thug and what is his exact identity as it is becoming suspicious he is not even “Thabo Bester” – all these years been told that is his identity. This is especially so, because according to some media reports, he has in the past used more than 10 aliases. It has surfaced he does not have an official South African ID. So the matter arises; how, when the police arrested him as the “Facebook rapist”, did they ascertain it was “Thabo Bester”? Theoretically, if the police arrest you and you claim you are a South African citizen, Home Affairs must be contacted to verify this. Which begs the question: when this man was arrested more than 10 year ago and claimed he was…

The troubled North West provincial government failed to utilise more than R1 billion in the 2021/22 financial year. The failure to use the money comes amid worsening levels of service delivery in the rural province. It is still not clear why the national government does not see a need to place the province into administration. To rub salt into the wound, all 23 North West municipalities have proven to be a failure for more than three decades where the people have been subjected to decay and disgrace. Of the R1bn, about R600 million was returned to the provincial government’s purse as a rollover while more than R400m was returned to the national Treasury because it could not be spent. This R1bn was part of conditional grant funding aimed at improving…

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa would have walked out of the 5th South Africa Investment Conference, held in Johannesburg last week, a happy but nervous man. He announced that the total value of investment commitments over its first five years amounted to over R1.5 trillion. This exceeded the target of R1.2 trillion set in 2018. There has been significant support for data and telecommunications infrastructure, as well as in the mining, manufacturing, energy, property, logistics and the food and beverage sectors. Commitments of R200 billion were made in South Africa’s telecommunications network by Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Rain and Liquid Telecom. International players including Amazon Web Services, Teraco and Dimension Data have made commitments of R21bn. Amazon planned to grow its investment with a further R30bn in the next six years. This influx…

PESHAWAR: A Chinese worker was charged with blasphemy in northern Pakistan after workers surrounded his office accusing him of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, then stormed a police station to try to find him, officials said yesterday. Police moved in as crowds gathered at the Dasu hydropower project in Kohistan district on Sunday and officers took the man to a safer location. Hundreds gathered again yesterday and stormed the main district police station. The man was charged and had declined to give a statement, police said. Blasphemy is a crime that can be punishable with death. | Reuters…

SAINT PAUL: The Minnesota Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd during a 2020 arrest, rejecting Chauvin’s request for a new trial. The panel of three judges rejected Chauvin’s argument that the judge in his 2021 state trial abused his discretion in denying Chauvin’s request to move the trial outside of Minneapolis. Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd, who is black, by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes during the arrest, which sparked protests against police brutality and racism. | Reuters…

Under a fortnight ago, Chelsea owner Todd Boehly picked up the phone and called Blues great Frank Lampard to come back and try to steady the ship, with the team in shambles. In another world, it might have been Carlo Ancelotti on the line to the American. Instead, Ancelotti returns to the Stamford Bridge dug-out strictly as an opponent, representing Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final second leg clash tonight. It was Madrid president Florentino Perez who brought the Italian back for a second stint at the helm, after Zinedine Zidane walked away again in 2021. Ancelotti’s Real picked off Chelsea in the first game, carving out a 2-0 lead through Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio, and they could have added further goals as they controlled proceedings. At the…

RETIRED Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Willie Seriti and former Free State Judge President Hendrick Musi – who earlier presided over the arms deal inquiry – could face the music. A misconduct complaint was lodged against them after their constitutional challenge to the Judicial Service Commission Act was dismissed. The pair turned to a full Bench (three judges) sitting in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, in a bid to evade a misconduct complaint lodged against them by Open Secrets and Shadow World Investigations for the way they handled the Arms Deal Commission of Inquiry as commissioners. They challenged the law defining them as judicial officers even after their retirement. They argued that a person can only be a judge during the term of active service or term of…

Sonke Gender Justice has criticised the South African justice system after charges against the four men accused of killing Hillary Gardee were provisionally withdrawn due to the unavailability of state witnesses. It was revealed that the accused, Sipho Lawrence Mkhatshwa, Albert Mduduzi Gama, Philemon Lukhele and Rassie Hlabirwa Nkune, faced charges of murder, kidnapping, possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition and defeating the ends of justice. The organisation condemned what it called a “woeful” SA justice system. Gardee, daughter of former EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee, was found killed execution-style in Mbombela, Nelspruit, in April last year. Sonke believes this reflects badly on the system that assured the public that it had a strong case against the alleged perpetrators. Sonke’s co-executive director, and co-chairperson of the Global Men Engage Alliance, Bafana…

City Power is concerned about the current situation in Alexandra, where people are building or extending their houses on and under the electric network. According to City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena, this has been delaying their technicians in locating faults and carrying out repairs. He said this was the reason why Tsutsumane ext 7 and 8 residents were left in the dark for several days. “The outage was due to multiple cable faults, which were located under about three informal houses built on top of the cable servitude. “On Saturday, two of the houses were demolished by the authorities and the communities to enable City Power to access the cable fault and ensure cables are exposed for repairs. “This morning, a further fault was found under a third house, a…

The Top 16 Youth-Owned Brands Awards (Yobas) have announced Standard Bank as the headline partner for the second annual edition of the Top 16 Yobas. The coveted awards will be presented on June 14 and 15. The event will be preceded by a two-day festival that will showcase the most youth-owned brands. Through the partnership between Standard Bank and the Yobas, the platform hopes to shine a light on the strides the youth are making in South Africa. The partnership is focused on empowering and assisting South African youth in building their businesses because they play a significant role in economic growth and putting Africa on the global map. Pat Mahlangu, founder and CEO of Yobas, said: “The Top 16 Youth-Owned Brands Awards are an essential platform in today’s South…

In the mid-1980s, a cult classic action movie, The Terminator, came out, depicting a future where Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings mankind to the brink of destruction, but as with most cheesy Hollywood stories, the good guys (us the humans) manage to turn things around and defeat the bad guys (the robots). Unfortunately, life does not always play out like in the movies. Where yes, we are heading towards an AI era, much as depicted in The Terminator, but instead of a war on the battlefield, our war with AI appears to be looming in the job markets. In our case, we can’t expect a miraculous win to appear for us out of the blue, as though our narrative was written by a room of Hollywood writers. Instead, we need to…

Explosions rocked the Sudanese capital Khartoum yesterday as fighting between the army and paramilitary forces led by rival generals raged for a third day with the death toll surpassing 100. The violence erupted at the weekend after weeks of power struggles between the two generals who seized power in a 2021 coup, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict, which has seen air strikes, tanks on the streets, artillery fire and heavy gunfire in crowded suburbs both in Khartoum and other cities across Sudan, has triggered international demands for an immediate ceasefire. As the fighting showed no sign of abating, Daglo took to Twitter to call for the international community to intervene against Burhan,…

LAGOS: Nigerian aviation employees yesterday blocked roads to the domestic terminal of Lagos airport, slowing traffic and threatening to delay flights as they began a two-day strike in protest over working conditions and wages. The strike is likely to add to problems in a sector that regularly faces jet fuel shortages which ground local flights. In the commercial capital, Lagos, chanting workers blocked roads to the domestic terminal, forcing passengers to finish their journey on foot. International flights were not affected. The workers threatened to strike indefinitely. | Reuters…

Dr Nandipha Magudumana’s father, Zolile Sekeleni, spent his night at home with his family yesterday after being granted R10 000 bail. Sekeleni, 65, will return to court on May 16, together with convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester. Bester appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Friday. His case was postponed to next month. He is currently housed at Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Tshwane. But Sekeleni’s daughter, Magudumana, who is Bester’s girlfriend, and two other accused, former G4S employee Senohe Matsoara and CCTV technician Tebogo Lipholo, will remain in custody until they can apply for bail on May 3 and 4 at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court. The four are facing various charges in relation to Bester’s escape. When they entered the dock, Magudumana was covering her face with…

FORMER President Jacob Zuma has filed a new application to arms deal trial Judge Nkosinathi Chili, asking for State prosecutor Billy Downer to be removed from the trial when the matter is heard in August. Zuma’s new application is based primarily on the fact that the former president was seeking to privately prosecute Downer for breaching the NPA Act by sanctioning the leaking of confidential medical information in 2021 to News 24 journalist Karyn Maughan. His original basis for Downer’s removal was based on a special plea application. Downer, yesterday, told the court that they had received a full application affidavit from Zuma’s legal team on Sunday and that the State and both Zuma’s and Thales’ legal representatives agreed that the State needs time to properly deal with the new…

APRIL 27 marks Freedom Day. This historic day evokes memories of 1994. The majority of people of this country cast their votes for the first time on this day. Twenty-nine years later, I ask: are we free? Do we have reason to celebrate Freedom Day? Is our democracy enhanced and thriving? Have we arrived at the promised land? As things stand, the poor are poorer. The quality of life’s gone down. Unemployment is at a high. And the economy is down. Nothing suggests things will improve any time soon. Freedom without economic power is useless. Blacks are politically free but economically oppressed. The economy is in the hands of white people. And there is no concerted effort to de-racialise the economy. Also, freedom without land is not true freedom. Blacks…

On March, 23, 2020, the national lockdown that would begin on March 27 was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The last lockdown was lifted on April 5, 2022; 2020 to 2022 was a horrible time, defined by many excruciating, sudden, frightening, multiple deaths of family members; there was no freedom of movement; no natural free breathing – masks became mandatory for everyone moving around in public spaces. Schooling was affected, businesses affected, all kinds of work, just everything changed, nothing was normal. There was constant cloud of death that was always hanging over everyone; it had seemed like life would never be normal again. A disease targeting the respiratory system, highly infectious, leading to massive economic ruin as billions of rand was spent on protective clothing, sanitisers, respirators and…

Wine was first produced in South Africa as far back as the mid-1600s by Dutch colonisers who sold it to passing ships. The industry developed further during the colonial and apartheid eras and wine became an important part of the South African economy. A recent study reports that the industry now employs close to 300 000 people. A 2021 report indicates that it generates R10 billion (more than $550 million) in export value annually. While wine does not rank as one of South Africa’s biggest industries, it contributes 1.1% to South Africa’s GDP and 1.6% of the country’s total employment, making it significant to the economy. During the colonial and apartheid eras, the country’s wine industry was characterised by the use of enslaved workers and…

MADRID: A Spanish hospital carried out a lung transplant using a pioneering technique with a robot and a new access route that no longer requires separating the ribs and opening up the chest, experts said yesterday. Surgeons at Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona used a four-arm robot dubbed “Da Vinci” to cut a small section of the patient’s skin, fat and muscle to remove the damaged lung and insert a new one through an 8cm incision in the lower part of the sternum, above the diaphragm. The new procedure is less painful for the patient, they said, as the wound closes easily, and was safer than the traditional method which requires a 30cm incision. | Reuters…

Dehradun: Hundreds of villagers in northern India were under orders not to leave their homes after dark yesterday after two people were killed in tiger attacks, officials said. Last week India said its wild tiger population had risen above 3 000 but habitat loss and urban expansion are leading to more attacks. The curfew issued on Sunday banned people in two districts of Uttarakhand from going out between 7pm and 6am. Schools had also been closed for two days. India is home to 75% of the global tiger population. The tiger has lost more than 93% of its range globally over the past 100 years. | AFP…