Tabla de contenidos para 2021-10-28 en Mercury

Lutho Pasiya lutho.pasiya@inl.co.za Halloween is approaching, so there’s a good chance you have a pumpkin or two around your house. They make great decorations, but once the carving and trick-or-treating are over, don’t toss them in the trash. There are many great ways to use pumpkins when cooking in the weeks ahead. You can still use the inside to create some delicious and healthy meals. Smoothies Pumpkin seeds make a perfect addition to most smoothies. Grind up your pumpkin seeds ahead of time with a food processor and add some of the ground powder to your blender when you’re making your morning smoothie. Make your own pumpkin spice latte Pumpkin spice lattes contain almost no pumpkin. At around R60 a cup, a month’s worth of pumpkin spice lattes would cost…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE head of eThekwini Municipality’s Durban Solid Waste (DSW) unit has revealed that the city would need close to R600 million to employ the thousands of workers currently contracted under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) who are demanding full-time employment. A few hundred of the 903 staff members contracted under the EPWP and seconded to the DSW unit marched to the Durban City Hall last week demanding permanent jobs. In a phone interview with The Mercury this week, DSW head Raymond Rampersad said DSW would need almost R120m each year to hire EPWP staff in his unit as permanent staff. This is based on the number of contract employees the unit has and on a full-time city employee on a similar level earning R11 000 a…

Aerial remote-sensing of a large region of Mexico has revealed hundreds of ancient Mesoamerican ceremonial centres, including a large one at an important site for the ancient Olmec culture that is known for its colossal stone heads. The remote-sensing method, called lidar, pinpointed 478 ceremonial centres in areas that were home to the ancient Olmec and Maya cultures dating to roughly 1 100-400 BC. The study was the largest such survey involving ancient Mesoamerica, covering all of the state of Tabasco, southern Veracruz and bits of Chiapas, Campeche and Oaxaca. Lidar, short for light detection and ranging, uses a pulsed laser and other data obtained while flying over a site to generate three-dimensional information about the shape of surface characteristics. It penetrates vegetation and pinpoints structures that otherwise might not…

T MARKANDAN | Kloof LIKE squirrels collecting acorns for the long winter ahead, ANC councillors and aspiring candidates for the local elections are scurrying around gathering votes. But once they have gathered enough votes to secure them a seat in the local council, they will, in all probability, forget about you and I and our problems and disappear into their plush uMhlanga mansions. They will only be seen at high-profile functions, flashing around in their luxury cars. Then they will be negotiating juicy, underhanded deals to fatten their purses. With so many candidates vying for your vote you may be bewildered, not knowing which candidate to choose. But it’s not so difficult. If you have been complaining about poor service delivery, mismanagement and corruption, then now is your…

Dr MAHMOUD YOUSSEF BAKER | Musgrave ADVERSITY is not our enemy in South Africa, our real enemies are complacency, mismanagement, corruption, lack of accountability. It is the illusion of those who believe that the same people in the ANC who have been the problem for many years, can now solve the problems they created. In economics, we have learnt that when we neglect to deal with a serious economic issue such as unemployment for a long time, the problem becomes a structural challenge and difficult to resolve. So, if somebody tells you that he can resolve the unemployment problem in South Africa next year or after a few years, please don’t believe him. The problem is complicated and requires massive resources and achieving a sustainable growth rate of…

Mercury Reporter With the local government elections just days away, citizen satisfaction and trust in local municipalities to deliver basic services has dropped to its lowest point in five years. This is according to Consulta’s 8th South African Citizen Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) released this week. The overall citizen satisfaction level, as an average across all metros, was at 51.1 – further declining from 55.7 in 2020 and reaching the lowest point in five years. Of the eight metropolitan municipalities – Buffalo City, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane – polled in the index in 2021, the results showed that they were falling far short of meeting citizens’ expectations. The index measures the citizen satisfaction and trust in service delivery in eight categories. The sample size…

Samkelo Mtshali samkelo.thulasizwe@inl.co.za EFF leader Julius Malema has called for free education from Grade 1 to 12 and at tertiary level while also advocating for feeding schemes at tertiary institutions. He made the comments on Tuesday while on the campaign trail in the township of Madadeni in Newcastle, drawing a large crowd of red-clad EFF supporters and community members. Malema also received a rousing reception in Inanda in Durban with multitudes of supporters coming out to listen to his address. Speaking to the crowds, Malema said: “We want free education, from Grade 1 to Grade 12. We want proper feeding schemes, we want free education also at tertiary level, we don’t want registration fees, we don’t want our children to pay not even a cent. “We also want to introduce…

Nomonde Zondi nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za Glenwood High School matric pupils said they were pleasantly surprised by English Paper One which they wrote yesterday. The pupils, who spoke to The Mercury, said if the rest of their exams were as simple as the first paper, they were bound to do well. They said they were anxious before getting into the exam room because they thought the English exam was going to be difficult but they relaxed when they saw the questions. Daniel Ball, who looked happy, said the paper was short and easy. He said his matric year was not as hard as Grade 11 because he had adapted to the new way of learning. “I did not expect the English paper to be this short. Preparing to write the exams was stressful…

Sibusiso Mboto and Samkelo Mtshali A COMMUNITY prayer was held in Chesterville yesterday for peaceful elections. The prayer, which was attended about 200 people, comes after a third ward councillor candidate was killed earlier this week in the province. On Tuesday, the NFP said Dumisani Qwabe, its ward 17 councillor candidate in Nongoma was found murdered. In recent weeks the province has seen six other politically motivated killings, including three women who were shot dead in a drive-by shooting in Inanda, north of Durban, while attending an ANC meeting. Last week, EFF ward councillor candidate Thulani Shangase was gunned down in Pietermaritzburg, while Siyabonga Mkhize, an ANC councillor candidate for ward 101 in eThekwini, was shot dead while on the campaign trail in Cato Crest. Mthakathi Makhathini said no…

China has consistently worked with the UN to create a better future for all ON OCTOBER 25, 1971, the UN General Assembly at its 26th Session adopted Resolution 2758 with an overwhelming majority to restore all the rights of the People’s Republic of China and to recognise the representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China to the UN. That is the victory of diplomacy of the New China, the victory of world fairness and justice, and the victory of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. On October 25, 2021, China commemorated the 50th anniversary of this historic event grandly. At the ceremony, President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech, which expounded on the far-reaching significance of the restoration…

Tehran: Iran struggled yesterday to restart its petrol distribution system after it was hit by an unprecedented cyberattack which security officials said was launched from abroad. The unclaimed attack crippled the country’s system of government-issued electronic cards which motorists use to purchase heavily subsidised fuel. Long queues formed outside petrol stations, angering motorists in a country already suffering under tough economic sanctions over its nuclear dispute with major powers. Of Iran’s 4 300 petrol stations connected to the system, only 220 had been reconnected yesterday. | AFP…

A Cambridge University college and Paris museum were expected yesterday to hand back cultural artefacts that were looted from West Africa during the colonial era. Jesus College, Cambridge, will return a sculpture of a cockerel taken by British troops in 1897, one of hundreds of Benin Bronzes that were pillaged from the Kingdom of Benin, located in what is now Nigeria. After being looted, the cockerel was given to Jesus College in 1905 by the father of a student. About 90% of Africa’s cultural heritage is believed to be in Europe, French art historians estimate. The Quai Branly Museum in Paris holds about 70 000 African objects; London’s British Museum possesses tens of thousands more. The Quai Branly museum will hand over to the Republic of Benin 26 artefacts that…

State oil company workers and doctors in Sudan said yesterday they were joining protests against the military coup that has derailed the country’s planned transition to democracy. Thousands of people have taken to the streets since Monday’s takeover led by armed forces chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and several have been killed in clashes with security forces. A group of neighbourhood committees in the capital Khartoum has announced plans for further protests leading to what it said would be a “march of millions” on Saturday. In one Khartoum neighbourhood on Wednesday, a Reuters journalist saw soldiers and armed people in civilian clothes removing barricades erected by protesters. A few hundred metres away, youths came out to build barricades again minutes later. One of them said: “We want civilian rule. We…

ENGLAND continued their march towards the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Cup with their second successive victory, an eight-wicket romp against Bangladesh in a Group I match in Abu Dhabi, yesterday. England spinner Moeen Ali (2/18) struck in the PowerPlay and Tymal Mills (3/27) dominated the death-overs to restrict Bangladesh to a below-par 124/9. Opener Jason Roy smashed 61 off 38 balls as England, bidding to become the first team to hold the 50-overs and 20-overs World Cups at the same time, chased down the target with 5.5 overs spare to to maintain their top spot in the six-team group. Earlier, Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat on what their skipper Mahmudullah described as a "belter" at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium. Mahmudullah was soon left to rue…

MAMELODI Sundowns and Cape Town City will be eager to win the first trophy of the season when they square off in the MTN8 final at the Moses Mabhida Stadium this weekend. Here we look at key players that will have to step up for their teams. DENIS ONYANGO – SUNDOWNS Onyango is the most consistent goalkeeper in the top-flight. He has been a pillar of strength for Sundowns and he’s yet to concede in six league matches this term. Onyango’s only blemishes have been in the Champions League and MTN8. Onyango is a great all-round keeper, he’s exceptional on one-on-one duels, dealing with aerial threats and making fine stops, from long and close range. He’s the captain of the team, leading on-and-off the pitch. His experience has…

The conductor he stood on the rostrum. The rostrum, Facing the orchestra pit Pit pit, They all thought he played great music, But meanwhile he only played… Shaving cream, always keep clean, Shave every morning and always keep clean … Oompapah Oompapah … Shave every morning and always keep clean … I ALWAYS thought that was only a rugby song. But now it seems it’s also an essential part of the curriculum at St Andrew’s College in Fife, Scotland. Sky News provided extensive footage this week of the students going crazy on “Raisin’ Monday”. All of them, boys and girls, were in fancy dress costumes and smeared from head to toe in shaving cream as they pranced about the place singing. Raisin’ Monday is apparently part of the university’s ancient…

TONY BALL | Gillitts I READ that households with an income of less than R3 500 will qualify for a free set top TV decoder but there is no mention of the fact that a TV licence must be produced. Second, the public are directed to post offices to complete the process. I trust they will speedily do that because post offices are fast closing – in many cases because of unpaid rent like my local Gillitts branch. I will refuse to renew my TV licence if decoder recipients are let off the hook as it smacks of discrimination of the highest order.…

KEN CRITCHLOW | Kloof FIRST of all, well done to the Proteas for coming back so well against the West Indies. The bowling performance was very good and the batting, with the exception of Temba Bavuma’s irresponsible run out, was flawless. Aiden Markram is becoming a real star performer. Bavuma, as the captain, must realise, as did Rassie van der Dussen, that it is more important to be in for as many overs as possible rather than try to take impossible runs so early in the innings and put your team in a difficult position. Quinton de Kock must be applauded for his beliefs and stance against Cricket South Africa. No other team have been issued with a directive that every player must take a knee; in all…

| Mercury Correspondent Three men have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of a 3-year-old boy in Bainsvlei, Free State police said yesterday. Police spokesperson Brigadier Motantsi Makhele said the police team consisting of Bainsvlei visible policing, detectives, the flying squad and the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit worked around the clock looking for the boy who was kidnapped on Monday. “The team effort paid dividends when they pounced on the first suspect in Khayelitsha outside Bloemfontein. “The arrest of the 32-year-old male was followed by another 24-year-old who was arrested while walking in the street in Khayelitsha on the evening of Tuesday at around 8.30pm. “Information led the search team to a house in Phomolong informal settlement where the 35-year-old male, who is also the…

ACTIVISTS from #NotInMyName yesterday held a protest outside the eSwatini High Commission in Pretoria, adding their voices to the mounting calls for King Mswati III to usher in democracy in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The activists, led by #NotInMyName president Siyabulela Jentile, called on the South African government to close the eSwatini High Commission to send a message to King Mswati III. “It cannot be business as usual here while people are being killed by Mswati’s regime ... The time is right for the people of eSwatini to enjoy democracy. We are calling for that democracy now,” said Jentile. SAPS members and Tshwane metro police were guarding the main entrance. #NotInMyName secretary-general Themba Masango said the time had come for Africans to stand up against despots. “ESwatini is bleeding today…

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has maintained that he is not party to the salary dispute between the SA Revenue Service (Sars), its commissioner Edward Kieswetter and the Public Servants Association (PSA). In an answering affidavit filed by National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane on Godongwana’s behalf at the North Gauteng High Court, the minister said neither he nor Treasury are parties to the wage agreement. “Consequently, the minister cannot be in breach of such agreement. Furthermore, the implementation and enforcement of the agreement falls on the national forums as stipulated in clause 3.6 of the wage agreement and not the minister. The minister is not a party to the forum,” reads the affidavit. According to Mogajane, the PSA does not plead a legal basis on which it contends that Godongwana has…

THERE was a cloud of emptiness yesterday when friends, family and activists commemorated the death of Struggle icon Ahmed Timol. When he died in September, apartheid-era police officer Joao Rodrigues, one of the last people to see Timol alive, took with him to the grave the “50 years of cover-ups, lies and secrets”. Rodrigues was due to go on trial in connection with what is now Timol’s murder, and not suicide as previously recorded. However, he tried to wriggle his way out of the courtroom for several months, claiming he was too ill and old to stand trial. His application for a permanent stay of prosecution failed, and the writing was on the wall for the former policeman, then in his 80s. Rodrigues is believed to have been in the…

London: The UK government largely wasted a mammoth £37 billion (R761bn) on a test and trace programme that failed to control the spread of Covid-19 last year, a report by lawmakers said yesterday. The government and its inexperienced head for the programme, Dido Harding, displayed “gung-ho confidence”, the chair of the House of Commons public accounts committee said. “But in the end it massively over-promised for what it delivered and it was eye-watering sums of money,” Meg Hillier, of the opposition Labour party, told BBC radio. | AFP…

Israel moved forward yesterday with plans to build about 3 000 homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, projects that have drawn strong criticism from its US ally. An Israeli defence official said a planning forum of Israel’s liaison office with the Palestinians gave preliminary approval for plans to build 1 344 housing units and its final go-ahead for projects to construct 1 800 homes. The US had already voiced strong opposition to the plans to advance the settlement units in the West Bank, saying such moves would damage prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before the planning committee’s meeting, Israel on Sunday published tenders for about 1 300 new settlement homes in the West Bank, where about 440 000…

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel yesterday admitted he should have acted “differently” after plagiarism accusations. Local outlet reporter.lu claimed Bettel lifted “three quarters” of his 1999 thesis at France’s University of Nancy. Bettel, 48, said that the thesis was done “over 20 years ago”. He insisted he “wrote this work with a clear conscience”. “Today, I recognise that I could have – yes, perhaps I should have – done it differently,” Bettel admitted. He said it was up to the university to determine if the work met its standards and that he would “naturally accept its decision”. | Reuters…

RBPlat’s market capitalisation has grown by more than 200% up to June Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za Shares in Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat), the mid-tier platinum group metals (PGM) producer sky rocketed by nearly 24 percent on the JSE yesterday following Impala Platinum’s (Implats) proposed buyout of the company's issued entire share capital. Should the transaction receive the green light from regulatory bodies, and shareholders it will create a significant PGM producer in South Africa and will see the delisting of RBPlat, which is valued at R27 billion and led by chief executive Steve Phiri. RBPlat’s market capitalisation grew by more than 200 percent in the period ended June 2021 due to the high metal prices, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers Mine Report. In a joint statement the companies…

Philippa Larkin philippa.larkin@inl.co.za IRONGATE Group, formerly Investec Australia Property Fund (IAP), yesterday rejected an A$1.1 billion (R12.18bn) takeover offer from fund manager 360 Capital Group, saying the offer did not “reflect the underlying value of IAP having regard to its high-quality office and industrial real estate portfolio”. On October 16, the group had received a “highly conditional” and “unsolicited” offer, which IAP’s board previously warned might make a pre- datory offer. The offer was for all shares in Irongate that 360 Capital did not already own for A$1.6047 cash per security, which was made up of a headline price of A$1.65 less the anticipated distribution of A$0.0453 per IAP security for the half-year to September 30. The proposal was conditional on ESR Real Estate (Australia) entering into an…

mercury Reporters ONGOING protests by truck drivers have resulted in disruption to supply chains and freight logistics across the SADC region. Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula recently met with truck operators who had blockaded the N9 and the N10 highways outside Middleburg in the Eastern Cape. The N3, near Montrose, in the Free State was closed on Tuesday to traffic, due to the second mass truck protest in a matter of days. The protests were due to the long-standing issue of foreign nationals being employed in the trucking industry. When the issues first came up, two years ago, several trucks were torched in attacks, especially in KZN but drivers’ organisations denied involvement in the violence. After the matters arose, President Cyril Ramaphosa mandated an Inter-Ministerial Committee, led by Employment and Labour…

Distinctness/Uniqueness: Try not to lose that which distinguishes you from others, and resist the gradual erosion as this affords you your unique beauty. There is a grinding pressure to conform and, if you acquiesce, your uniqueness may be impossible to reclaim. Voice/Life Message: Try not to lose your voice. Express your unique take on the world, let others know what you think. Keep on saying what you see. If you stop using your voice, others will write their script for you and insert it into the vacuum created by your avoidance or silence. You were meant to speak for you. Offer that privilege to no one. Humour: Hold on to your sense of humour, the invaluable asset to laugh at the world around you and at yourself. Healthy humour spreads…

JUSTIN MOODLEY | Phoenix A FEW days ago, in The Mercury, I was critical about the Protea’s shocking defeat by Australia in the opening Cricket World Cup T20 match in Dubai on Saturday. The South Africans’ below-par performance was shocking, to say the least, after they were bundled out for 118. But, during their performance against the West Indies, they upped their game winning by eight wickets. Well done, Proteas. You have done your fans and country proud. Aiden Markram was again on the mark, hitting a terrific 51 runs to lead the charge for victory. Even Rassie van der Dussen, who had a poor outing in the first game, was a shining star, hitting 43 runs. Well done, Rassie. Reeza Hendricks, who replaced the protesting Quinton de…

DUNCAN DU BOIS, MOSA ward 66 candidate | Bluff POLITICAL scientist Steven Friedman’s recent criticism of the DA’s posters for lauding Phoenix residents as “heroes” fails to recognise the trend and fault line that has developed within our political landscape, namely, the increasing significance of minorities and the challenge they pose. Territorial possession, preservation and identity are the roots that drive the quest for minority recognition. The DA’s Phoenix poster rightly recognised those in the context of the residents’ stance against looting and arson. But the DA’s quandary is that it finds itself politically compromised with its policy of “one South Africa for all”. By overtly supporting a minority group in a particular instance, it finds itself branded as racist and, absurdly, according to Friedman, as “right…

The Bhisho High Court has suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report into allegations of corruption by Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane and Public Works MEC Babalo Madikizela. This after the legal teams of Mabuyane and Madikizela argued before Judge Rossan Kruger that the failure to grant interim relief, pending the final review of the report, would prejudice the political careers of their clients. Mkhwebane had found Mabuyane and Madikizela to have “improperly” benefited from R450 000 and R350 000 respectively to ferry mourners to a memorial service of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in Mbizana in 2018. Mkhwebane said Mabuyane used the money to renovate his home in East London. But Mabuyane has argued that he borrowed the money from Madikizela and had repaid it by the time Mkhwebane was to start an…

More than a million people in southern Madagascar are struggling to get enough to eat, due to what could become the first famine caused by climate change, according to the World Food Programme. The region has been hit hard by years of severe drought, forcing rural families to resort to desperate measures to survive. Madagascar has a unique ecosystem which includes animals and plants found nowhere else on the planet. The country experiences a dry season usually from May to October and a rainy season that starts in November. Climate change has disrupted the cycle. | African News Agency…

Bamako: Malian authorities have arrested a vice-president of the country’s interim parliament for making “subversive remarks” on social media, two legal sources said. Issa Kaou N’Djim, an influential figure in the conflict-ridden Sahel state, was arrested in the capital Bamako on Tuesday, according to a court official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said that the lawmaker was arrested over “subversive remarks”. N’Djim is a supporter of Mali’s army strongman Assimi Goita, but is known for his sharp criticism of Interim Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga. Kassoum Tapo, N’Djim’s lawyer, said that his client’s detention was illegal because he has parliamentary immunity. | AFP…

LONDON: The US yesterday appealed against a British judge’s decision to block the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face charges that could jail the Australian for life. At the start of a two-day hearing in London, the US government asked Britain’s High Court to overturn a ruling in January that Assange is a serious suicide threat if sent across the Atlantic. “We maintain that the district judge was wrong to come to the conclusion she did,” said James Lewis, lawyer for the US government. The two senior judges sitting at the High Court will deliver their own ruling at a later date, but the issue is likely to drag on for longer still. Outside the court in central London, Assange’s partner Stella Moris – with whom he has…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he expects to meet his US counterpart Joe Biden on the margins of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Turkish media reported yesterday. Erdogan’s comments to reporters on board his return flight from a trip to Azerbaijan came after the White House released Biden’s schedule at this weekend’s G20 summit in Rome that included no meeting with the Turkish leader. “The agenda for Rome and Glasgow appears to have changed,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “We are likely to meet in Glasgow instead of Rome.” The COP26 UN climate conference opens in the Scottish city on Sunday and runs to November 12. The meeting, which would be the two leaders’ second since Biden was elected president, comes with Turkey seeking compensation after Washington kicked…

KASHIWAZAKI: Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s push to restart Japanese nuclear power plants idled after the Fukushima disaster faces stiff opposition ahead of a general election on Sunday. A decade after triple meltdowns at Fukushima forced mass evacuations and a shutdown of the nuclear industry, Japan has restarted only a third of its 33 operable reactors. Debate over whether to fire more of them back up is highly charged, with 40% of the population opposing the move.It matters most in rural cities hosting the idled plants,which had relied on them for economic activity, such as Kashiwazaki, 265km north-west of Tokyo . “The reason why we feel so strongly about this is because we feel the danger of the nuclear power plant – it hangs over our heads every day,” said Mie…

CHERYL WATERMAN HERITAGE Day celebrations are a tradition in all walks of life in South Africa and take different forms involving a variety of activities. To the members of Wentworth Bowling Club, it is a day of fun on which the community is invited to dress according to their heritage and participate in a game that can be played and enjoyed by any gender, regardless of age or physical ability. The club’s Heritage Day festivities of 2017 presented a scenario that has emerged as a family success story. Club member, the late Joseph MacNamara, invited his grandsons Troy Garland and Bradley Claassens to enjoy the entertainment and try their hand at beating the bias. Both boys took to the game like ducks to water and their achievements read like a…

Eshlin Vedan eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za Ten-man Sekhukhune United were simply the better side from start to finish as they recorded a well-earned 2-0 win over AmaZulu at the Ellis Park Stadium yesterday. The result might be surprising on paper but based on the flow of the game in Johannesburg, the home side fully deserved the win as they were the better side in terms of the structure of their play. Sekhukhune took the lead early in the second half following a quality cross from Tlotlo Lepile before Pogiso Mahlangu got a flick on it. That flick allowed Willard Katsande to tap the ball into the net as the veteran defender recorded his first goal in Sekhukhune colours. Sekhukhune doubled their lead in the 50th minute through Chibuike Ohizu, who produced a calm…