Tabla de contenidos para 2024-04-04 en Mercury

A community in Mariannhill will sleep easier tonight after a gang of nine, who were allegedly terrorising residents, were killed in a shoot-out with police yesterday. This is according to the Mariannhill community policing forum. Police said the nine suspects were part of a group of 11 who were all wanted for serious crimes. According to provincial police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda, the suspects had illegally occupied the property where they lived. Three firearms were found in their possession and it was alleged that they were plotting a hit on someone, Netshiunda said. “The suspects were also sought in connection with a case of rape, where they gang-raped a girl and made her mother watch the ordeal during a house robbery,” he said. He added that police were searching for…

Where has load shedding gone? Has it been shelved for good or temporarily? For several weeks now we haven’t had to scramble in the dark. It’s such a relief. We had to buy so many emergency gadgets to enable us to see in the dark when the power went off. Now we have no use for them. Don’t you miss load shedding? Blackouts were so much part of our lives in sunny South Africa. Eskom apparently burns R100 million a day to keep the lights on. Diesel, which has to be imported, is far more expensive than our local coal, which is so abundant in South Africa. But for various reasons Eskom cannot get sufficient coal to the power stations and has to rely on diesel to keep the power…

Naledi Pandor, the minister of International Relations and Co-operation, is certainly not endearing herself to the Western world. The US House of Representatives is reviewing the bill, “US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review”, in which it is reassessing the relationship between the two countries, and questioning South Africa’s foreign policy position “in siding with the US’s enemies and acting as a proxy for terrorist organisations”. The bill also accuses South Africa of making anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements following the October 7 attack. Goodbye, Agoa! Pandor has reacted to the bill with “shock”, and was “horrified”. Really Pandor? Pandor, hijab and all, addressed a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace meeting in Washington on March 19. When asked whether she knew that Iran is an authoritarian government, she replied with this absurd answer:…

South Africa has become the murder capital of the world. The statistics for the year 2023 shows that 27 368 people were murdered, which means on average 84 murders were committed a day. Even people from other countries who plan to murder someone, as in the case of Anni Dewani, whose new husband brought her here on the pretext that South Africa was an ideal destination for their honeymoon, knowing very well that all he wanted was to achieve a murder without consequences. His plan worked like a charm – even the murderer has long been released on parole. Those who are opposed to the death penalty on the grounds that it is not a deterrent know deep down in their hearts that there is no truth in that. Botswana…

The SANDF has dismissed allegations that two of their soldiers deployed as part of the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (SAMIDRC) have surrendered to the M23 rebels. In a statement released yesterday, the SANDF said it rejects with contempt the suggestion or inference made in some media reports, namely National Security News. The report by National Security News claimed that several South African soldiers deployed in the DRC had surrendered to the M23 rebels and were being held hostage. The SANDF said its members were accounted for in the DRC. “We want to state it categorically that all SANDF members deployed in the DRC have been accounted for. “The convoluted article published by the faceless Washington correspondent is dismissed with the contempt it deserves,” said SANDF…

A group of unemployed doctors, who have fulfilled their community service obligations and have been waiting for appointments, say they will continue with their peaceful sit-in at the KwaZulu- Natal Department of Health’s headquarters in Pietermaritzburg until they receive appointment letters. This comes after the doctors met with the head of department Dr Sandile Tshabalala yesterday morning. On Tuesday, the group marched to the headquarters and sat overnight in front of the building’s entrance after they were removed from inside the building by police. In February, The Mercury reported that more than 100 unemployed KZN doctors marched in Pietermaritzburg and handed over a memorandum with their grievances as well as their CVs. Dr Pamela Jali, who is a member of the group’s committee, said the 57 doctors will continue with…

Despite some bright spots, there is a sense that rural education needs to be re-imagined Each weekday, hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers in South Africa’s rural areas (which make up just over 31% of the country’s total area) make the journey to school. It’s often difficult. Poor road networks and a lack of easy access to transport make getting to and from school a challenge. Many rural schools are dilapidated and poorly equipped. It’s unusual for the schools to have libraries, computer rooms or science laboratories. There has been some improvement in matric (school-leaving) exam results in the largely rural provinces. In 2016, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo provinces, which are home to about 72% of rural children, were ranked last among all nine provinces. The most…

NATO foreign ministers yesterday debated the creation of a €100-billion (R2 trillion) five-year fund for Ukraine, as the alliance’s chief urged them to guarantee long-term arms supplies for Kyiv’s outgunned forces. “Ukraine has urgent needs,” Jens Stoltenberg said as the ministers met in Brussels. “Any delay in providing support has consequences on the battlefield as we speak. So we need to shift the dynamics of our support. “We must ensure reliable and predictable security assistance to Ukraine for the long haul so we rely less on the voluntary contributions and more on Nato commitments, less on short-term offers and more on multi-year pledges,” he said. Officials said Nato’s secretary general has proposed creating a €100-billion fund to help arm Ukraine in its fight with Russia over five years. That could…

WASHINGTON: Republican Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in six battleground states in the 2024 US presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday that cited concerns about the economy and Biden’s performance. Trump garnered a lead of between 2 and 8 percentage points among voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina on a ballot that included third-party and independent candidates, the Journal said. The results were similar in a one-on-one match-up with Biden, it said. In Wisconsin, a seventh state where the contest is expected to be close, Biden was ahead by 3 points on a multiple candidate ballot and tied in a head-to-head contest with Trump. | Reuters…

Washington: A scathing US government report found that a June 2023 intrusion into Microsoft servers by a Chinese hacking group, which breached the emails of multiple senior US officials, was due to a “cascade of avoidable errors” by the tech giant. The Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), led by the US Department of Homeland Security, conducted a seven-month investigation into the incident that involved the China-affiliated cyberespionage actor Storm-0558. Microsoft’s core business is to provide cloud computing services, such as Azure or Office360, that host sensitive data and power business and government operations across major sectors of the economy. | AFP…

The last time the Stormers faced La Rochelle, they needed a last-second conversion by Manie Libbok to clinch a 21-20 victory in December. That was a pool game, though, so they should expect La Rochelle to be much more ruthless in Saturday’s Champions Cup last-16 play-off at the Cape Town Stadium (4pm kick-off). The Stormers struggled to get going in last week’s 13-7 United Rugby Championship win over Ulster, who were able to maintain possession for long periods of time in the first half and force their opponents to make several tackles. Coach John Dobson said afterwards that his team “were so tired from defending” that they were unable to make good use of their possession when they were able to get a few turnovers themselves. They showed great character…

THE COMPANIES and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) said yesterday it was still resolving the challenges where some of its customers were unable to access its online portal and would introduce measures to minimise the impact in the next few weeks. Business Report has learnt that some CIPC customers were unable to access/log into the commission’s system to access its services online. Some said they have been experiencing this for about a month now. The issue arose after the CIPC’s database was hacked last month with sensitive data of at least three million entities and individuals compromised. At the time, as soon as the CIPC’s ICT technicians were alerted to a possible security compromise, certain CIPC systems were shut down immediately. Lungile Dukwana, the chief strategy executive at the commission, which…

THE DA says it has won its case at the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, with the court finding the ANC and its secretary-general Fikile Mbalula in contempt of court for not providing the party with unredacted cadre deployment records. The ANC complied with the Constitutional Court ruling in February and handed over cadre deployment records to the DA, accusing the opposition party of deliberate misrepresentation, threats and false expectations of what might be contained in the records. However, the DA last month approached the high court saying most of the cadre deployment records supplied by the ANC had been incomplete or redacted. The party wanted the court to find that Mbalula unlawfully redacted some of the documents and failed to submit records for the period during which President Cyril Ramaphosa…

I commend the writer Maheshwar Ramlagan for his fact-based letter, “No community targeted by the Indian State” in The Mercury, dated April 2, 2024. Also, Mr Modi was not silent when the terror attack against Israel happened either. He strongly condemned that too. So what agenda drives Essa and others of his ilk? Could it be that India didn’t break diplomatic ties with Israel and give the Israeli ambassador his marching orders as the likes of Essa would prefer? Here are some simple facts for him to digest: Perhaps what Naledi Pandor said while addressing a Muslim gathering in Laudium is true: South Africa owes Palestine a debt of gratitude, because, she said, the Palestinians taught South Africa how to fight. But Essa should know that India does not owe…

A POLICE department in Southern California has been handcuffed by Lego, according to Associated Press. The toy company asked the cops to stop using Lego heads to cover the faces of suspects in images it shares on social media. The Murrieta police had been using Lego heads and emojis to cover wanted suspects’ faces – instead of simply blurring them – in posts on social media. But last week after the police posted a statement about its policy, it prompted several news reports and later, the request from Lego. “Why the covered faces?” the department wrote on March 18 in an Instagram post that featured five people in a line-up, their faces covered by Lego heads. The post referred to a California law that took effect from January 1,…

zelda.venter@inl.co.za A judge, in sentencing a killer to life imprisonment, noted that “it has been said that there is no such thing as a crime of passion, only a crime of possession”. Judge Robin Mossop, sitting in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, said that observation seemed to apply neatly to the facts of this matter, in which Sifiso Dlamini stabbed his girlfriend’s lover to death. “Some may construe it to be a crime of passion because it involved your former lover but it is, in truth, a crime of possession,” the judge told Dlamini. He told the killer that when his girlfriend was not prepared to continue in a romantic relationship with him, he did not accept her decision. “You wanted to continue to possess her and you reckoned that the…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed a proclamation authorising the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate allegations of maladministration and corruption in the affairs of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. The SIU will investigate allegations of corruption and maladministration in the construction of nine libraries and the supply of books. Bradley Singh, DA KZN spokesperson on Sports, Arts and Culture said the party had been calling for an investigation into the department since 2020. “This is a victory not only for the DA but also for the people of KZN. I have been raising this in the portfolio committee and have been calling on the MEC and the Premier to answer about funds used for the construction of the nine libraries but we have had no response. We…

Taiwan’s biggest earthquake in at least 25 years killed nine people yesterday and injured more than 1000, while 50 workers travelling in minibuses to a hotel in a national park were missing. Some buildings tilted at precarious angles in the mountainous, sparsely populated county of Hualien, near the epicentre of the 7.2 magnitude quake, which struck just offshore and triggered massive landslides. Linda Chen, 48, said her apartment in downtown Hualien city had been so badly damaged in an earlier earthquake in 2018 that they had to move house. But her new apartment block was damaged too in the latest earthquake. “We worry the house could collapse anytime. We thought we had already experienced it once in Hualien and it would not hit us again, because God has to be…

Zimbabwe declared the drought a national disaster yesterday, with President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying the country needed $2 billion (R37.5bn) in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry. A severe dry spell induced by the El Nino weather pattern is wreaking havoc across southern Africa. Due to poor rains, more than 2.7 million people will not have enough food to put on the table this year, he said. This season’s grain harvest was expected to bring in just over half of the cereals needed to feed the nation, he said. The El Nino climate pattern, which emerged in mid-2023, usually increases global temperatures for one year afterwards. It is currently fuelling fires and record heat across the world. In southern Africa, Zimbabwe is the third country to declare…

Helsinki: A 12-year old suspected of shooting and killing a classmate and wounding two girls at a school in Finland said he had been motivated by bullying, police said yesterday. Flags flew at half-mast as the country observed a day of mourning a day after the boy had opened fire in a classroom at his school in the Finnish city of Vantaa. Police said that the young suspect had been a pupil at the school since the beginning of the year. They said that he had threatened other pupils on their way to the school. Police said the suspect has been handed over to social services because of his age. The gun used in the shooting belonged to a close relative of the boy. | AFP…

Accra: A traditional Ghana priest has sparked a national outcry after marrying a 13-year-old girl, prompting calls for his arrest. The 63-year-old priest Nuumo Borketey Laweh Tsuru XXXIII, also known as Gborbu Wulomo, married the girl in a traditional ceremony recently near the capital Accra. Ghana’s attorney general opened an investigation. Under Ghanaian law, the legal minimum age for marriage is 18. Police say the girl is 13, but the traditional authorities say she is 16. The priest’s spokesperson said the marriage was not about sexual relations. He said the girl would not be expected to fulfil marital duties until she reached the legal age. | AFP…

For all the success the Blitzboks have enjoyed over the years, the Hong Kong Sevens is the one prize that has eluded them. The South Africans have won 40 tournaments around the globe, but have never won the biggest prize of all – the Hong Kong gold. And with the iconic tournament moving to a new venue next year, they have one last shot at it. One would expect some emotional baggage for this fairly experienced Blitzbok squad at the final event in the Son Ko Po suburb, but for the two youngest squad members, history counts for nothing. Katlego Letebele and Quewin Nortjé, who made their debuts for the team at the season opener in Dubai in December, enter the fray with nothing else on their minds but contributing…

Another fuel price hike this month has served to worsen the cost of living crisis in the country. April has brought higher fuel costs for motorists, no change to elevated interest rates, and to further compound pressures for South Africans, Eskom announced a more than 12% price increase on Tuesday. The South African Petroleum Retailers Association (Sapra) yesterday said the fuel price increases will impact households. Lebo Ramolahloane, the vice-chairperson of Sapra said: “Rising petrol prices have a ricochet effect on so many parts of the economy. They create additional strain on household budgets, reducing disposable income available for other expenses. “On the commercial side, increased fuel costs can also raise operational expenses for businesses, particularly those reliant on transportation and those trading in fuel, which will impact profit margins.…

EMBATTLED Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says her resignation as National Assembly Speaker and MP yesterday will give her time to focus on dealing with the allegations of corruption and money laundering for which the National Prosecuting Authority wants her to appear in court. Her decision came a day after the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, struck her urgent application to halt her arrest from the roll, paving the way for her arrest. It is possible that Mapisa-Nqakula will surrender herself to the Lyttelton police station in Pretoria, as this was the plan all along from her legal team’s side. The resignation also came on the eve of a motion of no confidence vote led by the DA. Mapisa-Nqakula was being investigated in connection with allegations that she solicited and received about R2.3 million…

There is another heavy casualty, apart from the horrendous loss of innocent lives in Gaza. Israel is clamping down on journalists. Israel has a major world news network, Al Jazeera, which is showing the world the massacre and destruction of property as they unfold. And Israel wants them labelled as “terrorists“, then accuses the news network of being complicit in the original October 7 attacks and, finally, bans them altogether from the stolen soil. Another ploy by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to make excuses when all this one-sided destruction is eventually over. “So sorry, my Lord. “They got killed because they were an intrinsic part of Hamas. They were using their cameras and press cards as inanimate inhuman shields. We had to kill them, so, unfortunately, their…

When push comes to shove, you and I have to decide: – What kind of people do we want to be? Our everyday responses to the most casual and humdrum interactions embody our answer to this question. How we treat those we serve and those who serve us is our character litmus test. No exceptions. – How will we manage our responses to tough, challenging situations? Our responses and reactions when things do not go our way reveal much more about us than how we respond and behave when matters move in our favour. How we lose is more revealing of our character than how we win. How will we allow immediate events and relationships to impact the future? Who we bond with, and who we sever from, over issues…

Five cities in South Africa have been listed in the top 20 crime-ridden places in the world, according to the crime index by city 2024. Earlier this year, Police Minister Bheki Cele released crime statistics for the third quarter of the financial year 2023/24, showing that communities across South Africa are under siege from violent criminals in major cities. Cele announced that there were 8000 murders in those three months alone. Now the crime index by city 2024 has revealed that South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria, is the second most dangerous city in the world. Durban and Johannesburg follow at number three and four respectively. Gqeberha is at number eight, with Cape Town ranking at number 18, meaning South Africa has the highest number of most dangerous cities in the…

CIVIL society organisations and opposition political parties have questioned the constitutionality of the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill (Emab), especially the way state funds will be allocated to parties. On Tuesday, 10 political parties in Parliament petitioned President Cyril Ramaphosa over the bill which was passed by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) last week. Parties said they would consider litigation if Ramaphosa did not consider the reservations that had been raised. The bill will give Ramaphosa the power to determine a new threshold for declaring donations and set the limit for such donations. Parties say the Emab was intended to make it mandatory for independent candidates to also declare their funding, but it also reverted to the funding formula used before the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA) came into being,…

By threatening the parliamentary portfolio committee on public enterprises with legal action, soon-to-retire Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan once again demonstrates his lack of appetite for accountability. It’s an open secret that Gordhan did everything in his power to disempower the committee, including by not showing up to scheduled meetings to a point that MPs turned to legal means to get him to provide documents about the now-failed SAA-Takatso deal. What’s been rather surprising is that he and the public enterprises department have now made it their business to single out committee chairperson Khaya Magaxa in their attacks. Had Gordhan disclosed the details of the SAA deal with the same vigour and enthusiasm, perhaps there would be little suspicion about the deal. Instead, he chose not to. What’s there to…

The bodies of six foreign aid workers killed in a Gaza strike were expected to be transported out of the war-torn Palestinian territory yesterday as Israel faced a chorus of outrage over their deaths. Israeli bombardment killed seven staff of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen on Monday in an attack that UN chief Antonio Guterres labelled “unconscionable” and “an inevitable result of the way the war is being conducted”. The remains of the six international staff, who were killed alongside one Palestinian colleague, were set to be taken out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, said Marwan al-Hams, director of the city’s Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital. Israel’s armed forces chief Herzi Halevi called the attack a “grave mistake”, which he blamed on night-time “misidentification”, adding in…

Uganda’s constitutional court yesterday refused to annul or suspend an anti-LGBTQ law that includes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, but found some of its provisions inconsistent with certain fundamental human rights. The legislation, adopted in May last year, is among the world’s harshest anti-gay laws. Activists say the law has unleashed a torrent of abuse against LGBTQ people, including torture, rape, arrest and eviction. The court said the section of the legislation requiring the mandatory reporting to authorities of people suspected of having committed homosexual offences violated individual rights. The act imposes penalties of up to life imprisonment for consensual same-sex relations and contains provisions that make “aggravated homosexuality” an offence punishable by death. Petitioners against the law can appeal to the Supreme Court. | Reuters…

Hong Kong: Hong Kong activists and lawyers slammed a new policy governing the changing of gender on ID cards yesterday, saying the rule shift, which follows a court decision, still requires invasive surgery. The city’s top court decided in 2023 that it was unconstitutional for the government to require a person to complete full gender reassignment surgery before the “sex entry” on their ID card could be changed. But new rules revealed by authorities yesterday keep most of the existing surgical requirements. The Immigration Department said it would contact the relevant applicants for follow-up. | AFP…

LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is set to slide to a heavy defeat at a national election expected this year, according to a opinion poll published yesterday which showed the opposition Labour Party winning more than 400 seats. The YouGov model, which predicts results, projected that Sunak’s Conservatives would win just 155 seats and Labour would win 403 seats. Britain’s parliament has 650 seats. Polls have consistently given Labour a double digit lead over the Conservatives, ahead of an election which Sunak has said he expects to call in the second half of the year. | Reuters…