Inhoudsopgave van NM-2021-04-07 - Mercury

DINEO FAKU dineo.faku@inl.co.za CANADIAN and JSE-listed Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) surged 11 percent on the JSE yesterday following news that it was expecting a fourfold production improvement and a boost to revenue when it completes the next phase of upgrades to its processing plant. The share rose 11.09 percent to close at R4.91 on the JSE yesterday. Vancouver-based Eastplats said in a statement yesterday that the next phase of Platinum Group Metals (PGM) main circuit work was scheduled to start in May, with commissioning ex- pected in October. “The company esti- mates this will add a further 800 tons of PGM concentrate per month to production, thereby increasing production fourfold and continuing to grow Eastplats’ revenue,” the company said. Eastplats reported a 43 percent growth in revenue…

SANDILE MCHUNU sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za VISUAL International Holdings said yesterday that it expects the suspension of its shares to be lifted by the JSE next week, after the release of its outstanding financial results for the six months to end August 2020, which will make it compliant with the JSE Listings Requirements. The property development company has been suspended by the bourse since the beginning of July 2019, partly due to the late presentation of its financial results. However, the group has made steady progress in getting its shares lifted after releasing its results for the six months to end August 2019 at the beginning of last month as well as its results for the year to end February 2020 on March 25. The group said in terms of para- graph 1.11(c)…

Mark van Dijk You’ve done it. We’ve all done it. Whether it’s pulling an all-nighter to meet an impossible deadline, staying up late to watch a midweek movie or taking the night shift to earn some extra cash, we’ve all deprived ourselves of a good night’s sleep. Those missed hours of rest could have a huge impact on your health and happiness. A good night’s sleep can reduce your stress levels, improve your health and change your life. So how can you get more shut-eye? A 2020 study by researchers at Sweden’s Uppsala University found that when young, healthy men were deprived of just one night of sleep, they had higher levels of tau (a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease) in their blood than when they had a full, uninterrupted night…

Dame Helen Mirren, 75, chased away a bear while quarantining in Nevada. The actress has been spending the Covid-19 pandemic in a remote home in the US state, and recently had a “bit of a meeting” with a wild bear who came too close to her property. Speaking at the Screen Actors Guild Awards where she was presenting an accolade, she explained: “I did have a bit of a meeting with a bear. I was so excited to see a bear, but then, of course, you can't allow bears to get too familiar with human beings because they are wild animals. So I chased him away.” Mirren revealed she was able to get rid of the fierce animal by telling him “he was a naughty bear” and “shooing” him away.…

KEVIN GOVENDER | Shallcross It has been proved globally that the rise of mass democratic movements are known to have brought some governments to their knees, although in some countries like Belarus, Hong Kong and now Myanmar, brutal military action and police intervention are quelling the tide of growing dissatisfaction with disregard for human life. In South Africa, we are fortunate that such movements gain momentum unhindered, become legitimate and are eventually heard and given a seat at the bargaining table, highlighting once again that constructive dialogue can bring about solutions. It is encouraging that some old Struggle stalwarts have come together with leaders of several religious organisations, business and labour and civil society to launch a campaign to Defend our Democracy. The key issues are Jacob Zuma’s…

I called Judy Blough from Methodist Hospital when my son was all of 18 hours old and I told her I had chosen to adopt a baby and that I would like her to be his chosen grandmother. She must have broken every speed limit because within minutes she arrived at the hospital and held Thulani and embraced and welcomed him. Judy then demanded our house keys and deployed troops of church women and the downstairs room at the home we fondly referred to as “215” was transformed into a nursery filled with baby stuff I never knew existed. Nana Judy, propelled by a new baby, could make stuff happen. I learned to get out of the way. In direct response to Judy buying toddler Thulani 12 shirts all the…

JEAN MICHEL BOUVIER | Durban I READ that (President) Macron of France and (Chancellor) Merkel of Germany are negotiating with (President)Putin of Russia for the purchase of the Sputnik V vaccine as they believe that their stockpile of AstraZeneca vaccines is dangerous. This although the World Health Organization recommended its use, concluding it was safe, and so did the European Medicines Agency. What will happen to these unwanted, impounded, huge vaccine stockpiles? Will they donate them to some of the poor countries around the world?…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za The “voice of the unborn baby” has finally been heard. Parents opting to bury the remains of a dead foetus, even if the unborn child is less than 26 weeks old, may now do so. In the past, a foetus less than 26 weeks old was discarded as medical waste. While the judgment is considered a victory for prospective parents, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria excluded them the right to bury their unborn children in the case of medical terminations, including abortions. A group called the Voice of the Unborn Baby, as well as the Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, had challenged the constitutionality of some of the provisions of the Births and Deaths Registration Act (Badra) as it related to how the remains of a spontaneous pregnancy…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE Msunduzi Municipality has been urged to “off-load” its forestry because the timber is being looted and council is deriving no benefit. The municipality’s administrator, Scelo Duma, briefed councillors on the state of forestry recently. He said that it was a concern as the council was losing millions of rand in revenue that could boost its coffers because of the widespread theft of timber. At several council meetings, opposition party councillors have told how they had witnessed or received reports of municipal timber being hauled off by thieves in broad daylight. In the previous financial year, the municipality lost R15 million in potential revenue. At least one opposition party has called for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to look into the matter, saying some of the shenanigans…

IS THE ANC sliding towards extinction? For most of the country’s history since democracy began about 30 years ago, such a question verged on the preposterous. The ANC is on the verge of a cataclysmic split, that could change the face of our politics. Our politics today is dominated by leaders who are accomplished liars. How can lying demagogues find traction in a society with a proud history of democracy and empiricism? Are the masses in our corruption enmeshed country insensitive to falsehoods? The ruling party needs to cleanse it’s contaminated soul. Toxic leaders who cling to power to evade accountability, must be jettisoned into oblivion. These shameless populists, explicitly pit a mythical people against an equally mythical elite, blatant disregard for facts underscores their authenticity in the eyes of…

Singapore once again warned the public about the risks of trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, a market that while relatively small in the city-state, has surged in significance over the past year. “Cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile, as their value is typically not related to any economic fundamentals,” Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in response to a parliamentary question. “They are hence highly risky as investment products, and certainly not suitable for retail investors.” He said that cryptocurrency funds were not authorised for sale to retail investors. The MAS also has powers to impose additional measures on digital token service providers, under which exchanges offering the trading of cryptocurrencies are regulated, as needed. The total market value of cryptocurrencies pushed past $2 trillion for the…

WITH two years to go to the Netball World Cup 2023, Minister of Sport Nathi Mthethwa, confirmed the dates for the sport’s premier international championship yesterday. Mthethwa also revealed the Netball World Cup Board that will be responsible for organising the logistics of the event to be hosted at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town. The six person board announced by Mthethwa will consist of board chairperson Patience Shikwambana, COO of Sascoc; representative of the major of Cape Town, JP Smith; Dr Lyndon Bouah, director of sports and recreation of the Western Cape; Netball South Africa (NSA) president Cecilia Molokwane; COO of NSA Blanche de le Guerre; and deputy-director general of sport, Sumayya Khan. As explained by Mthethwa, the board will be responsible for “strategic overall guidance and compliance;…

Stronger-than-expected global economic rebound of 6% has changed the estimate Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised South Africa's growth prospects for 2021 upwards due to a stronger-than-expected global economic rebound of 6 percent. The IMF yesterday said South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) would now grow at 3.1 percent this year, up from a revised 2.8 percent forecast in January due to vaccines concerns. For 2022, the IMF in its World Economic Outlook said South Africa’s economy would advance by 2 percent, up from the previous estimate of 1.4 percent before moderating at 1.6 percent in 2026. The IMF’s outlook is slightly lower than the SA Reserve Bank and the National Treasury estimates, which expect the economy to rebound by 3.3…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za GROWTHPOINT Properties is selling its newly developed specialist surgical hospital in Pretoria, Cintocare Private Surgical Hospital, to its 61.8 percent held subsidiary Growthpoint Healthcare Property Holdings for R515.6 million cash. The 11 000m², seven-floor, specialised surgical hospital development by Growthpoint Properties and Cintocare is the first 5-star-rated green hospital in Africa, and only the fifth in the world with its specialised surgical mix and clinical business model. Growthpoint chief executive Estienne de Klerk said in a presentation yesterday that they had developed the hospital on budget for R470m, and the hospital had opened on December 1 after a delay of about two months in the opening due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He said the hospital was leased and operated by Cintocare Proprietary, a…

THE DEVELOPERS of the business aircraft Pegasus Vertical Business Jet, which is South African built, are raising funds with an offer of profit sharing for investors. The investors will be participating in a seven-year note. In a statement, the developers said the minimum investment was R10 000. Reza Mia, who conceptualised the aircraft, said the current fund-raising is the third of its kind. “While there is a total of R261 million worth of shares available, the immediate target is R30m to R40m. We have more than delivered on the promises made at our previous fund-raising. It is a big responsibility to work with other people’s money, and we make sure we stretch each rand as far as possible,” he said. Mia said the aircraft was entering its next…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za The judiciary had requested salary increases despite the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office-Bearers’ recommendation that judicial officers like politicians and traditional leaders should receive no pay hikes. The commission, chaired by North West Judge President Monica Leeuw, last week recommended that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his executive, premiers, MECs, MPs, MPLs, judges, magistrates and traditional leaders not get pay hikes for the 2020/21 financial year due to Covid-19. Judges earn between R1.9 million and R2.9m a year, while magistrates get paid between R970 000 and more than R1.4m annually. According to the commission, the ministers of finance, co-operative governance and traditional affairs, communications and digital technologies and home affairs backed its recommendations, but not the Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and the judges’…

Covid fears as crowd packs sports centre for 2021 enrolments Sakhiseni Nxumalo and Nonhlanhla Hlatshwayo THOUSANDS of desperate walk-in applicants descended on the Durban University Technology (DUT) yesterday hoping to be accepted as students for the 2021 academic year. This led to fears that the packing of prospective students into the university’s Sports Centre building, with no social distancing and some not wearing masks, could lead to the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. According to students, messages were circulated on social media platforms stating that DUT would be accepting walk-ins for a whole week, starting from yesterday. The university’s Student Representative Council president, Zabelo Ntuli, said they also saw the messages, however, they did not receive any official communication from the university management. “We also saw messages. We also…

EBRAHIM “EBKOYBIE” ESSA | Durban AS USUAL, again, another organism that is more concerned with its own existence instead of troubling itself with seeking ways to look after its own immediate environment, which would automatically look after the organism without the creature, taking pains to do that. I obviously refer to the ANC’s recent indaba to save itself from cracking up. “We must not act against one another. “We must be united. “We cannot allow the party to fall into fragments. “All in-fighting must stop, already or we heading for oblivion. The spirit of our founders would be badly damaged.” Instead of: “Forget our own woes. We have collectively brought this beautiful diamond of Africa into total insolvency. “We stole and stole until the bottom of the cookie…

MOHAMED SAEED | Pietermaritzburg The violence in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado and the attack on Palma once again brings the terms “Islamist extremists” or “Islamic radicalism” to the fore. Adding the word “Islamic” to such devious groups such as Islamic State (Isis) or al-Shabaab is not only offensive to practising Muslims, it is also disingenuous. Islam as a way of life is against all forms of violence. Muslims are taught to promote spirituality, compassion and empathy, universal and human values and avoid sin. Indeed, extremist philosophies and behaviour must be effectively addressed. The reasons for fascist ideas which multiplies among individuals or groups should be tackled and not loosely latched on to people, communities or nations. Terrorist activities must be investigated, named and labelled correctly. Even…

The team of scientists and engineers behind Nasa’s Curiosity rover has named a hill along the rover’s path on Mars in honour of recently deceased mission scientist Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez. A craggy hump that stretches 120m high, “Rafael Navarro Mountain” is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater, Nasa said. Navarro-Gonzalez died on January 28 from complications related to Covid-19. A leading astrobiologist in Mexico, he was a co-investigator on the Sample Analysis at Mars (Sam), a portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity that has been sniffing out the chemical makeup of Martian soil, rocks, and air. As such, he helped lead the team that identified ancient organic compounds on Mars; his many accomplishments also included identifying the role of volcanic lightning in the origin of life on Earth. Navarro-Gonzalez was…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za Former crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli yesterday failed in his bid to have Gauteng High Court, Pretoria judge Bert Bam recused from presiding over any matter relating to his criminal trial. His advocate, Ike Motloung, argued that both he and Mdluli were of the opinion that judge Bam was biased and that Mdluli would not get a fair hearing. While it is unlikely that Judge Bam will preside over Mdluli’s fraud and corruption trial, he is due to hear a preliminary application by the State to bar Mdluli from creating further delays in the matter and to ensure that he joined his co-accused for the matter to be heard later this year. Judge Bam is retiring and not likely to deal with the main trial, but Motloung…

Almost a quarter of online users always give apps and services permission to access their microphone or webcam, according to a global study of 15 000 people. However, webcam security awareness is high, with nearly 60% worried that someone could be watching them through their webcam without their knowledge, the study conducted by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky found. The results come amid the pandemic, when there is higher usage of video conferencing platforms. Understandably, with these technologies and apps helping people to navigate the events of the past year across work, social and entertainment needs, users have expressed a willingness to allow app access to their microphone and camera. These tools have served to facilitate everyone’s sudden digital transitions, leading to 27% of users aged 25-34 always granting access, according to…

Nonhlanhla Hlatshwayo FEAR is rife among the LGBTQ+ community following the brutal murder of Sphamandla Khoza, who was allegedly bullied over his sexuality prior to his death. Khoza, 35, was laid to rest on Sunday at Ntuzuma. Police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said a case of murder was being investigated by Ntuzuma SAPS. She said a 25-year-old had been arrested and charged with the murder. He appeared in court last week. Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi, Khoza’s cousin, said the family was going through a difficult process trying to come to terms with the death of his cousin. Ngidi said Khoza’s body was found in a ditch not far from his home. “His body was discovered by a driver who saw a trail of fresh blood. He followed the trail to…

DA leaders who say they are offended by Tony Leon’s diatribe against former party leader Mmusi Maimane should leave the party if they really mean what they say – unless the official opposition publicly sanctions Leon. Leon, who led the DA before being succeeded by federal chairperson Helen Zille, was quoted in the media as having said that Maimane’s ascendancy to the party’s top job was “an experiment gone wrong”. Leon’s statement echoed Zille’s sentiment in May 2019 that one of her failures as a party leader was her inability to stop the DA from degenerating into the “ANC/EFF’s race narrative arena”. For his part, Maimane said Leon’s statement was not only offensive, but dehumanising as well. Expectedly, the majority of the current and former black DA leaders are angry…

Rescuers searched for dozens missing in the remote islands of southeast Indonesia yesterday, as reinforcements arrived to help in the aftermath of a tropical cyclone that killed at least 119 people. Helicopters were deployed to aid the search. Ships carrying food, water, blankets and medicine reached ports previously blocked by high waves whipped up by tropical cyclone Seroja, which brought heavy rain, triggering deadly floods and landslides on Sunday. Indonesia’s disaster agency BNPB revised upwards the death toll from the cyclone in the East Nusa Tenggara islands, after earlier saying 86 had died. Seventy-six people were still missing. “The rescue team is moving on the ground. The weather is good,” BNPB spokesperson Raditya Jati said. Search and rescue personnel, however, had trouble transporting heavy equipment for use in the search.…

THE announcement of the dates for the Fifa World Cup qualifiers last week would normally bring about great excitement for any football fan, but it had the opposite effect on me. As a proud South African, I will never forget the 2010 tournament in this country. I can still hear the slogan ‘Feel it, it is here!’, and how the crowds streamed through the Fan Walks to the Cape Town Stadium. And of course, Siphiwe Tshabalala’s thunderbolt against Mexico … But here we sit, Mzansi, in ‘sak en as’ (sackcloth and ashes) as they say, after Bafana Bafana failed to even qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon. So, to even contemplate another qualifying campaign is tough for a South African fan. Bafana have now missed out on…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za A SERIES decider is a heck of time to be experimenting with your back-up bowlers, but South Africa have been forced into exactly that scenario for today’s third ODI against Pakistan at SuperSport Park. Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje all touched down in Mumbai yesterday morning to go into quarantine ahead of the IPL which starts on Friday. They’re joined by David Miller and Quinton de Kock, who played an influential role in getting South Africa back into the series at the Wanderers on Sunday. That’s half the team that played in the first two matches absent for the last match of the series, with Janneman Malan likely to open the batting alongside Aiden Markram in De Kock’s spot, while Kyle Verreynne will probably slot…

ZAAHIER ADAMS Kaizer Chiefs 2 (Castro 77, Ngcobo 85) Stellenbosch FC 2 (Sinkala 72, Nange 80) STELLENBOSCH FC’s inexperience at the highest level continued to haunt them yesterday in their DStv Premiership clash against Kaizer Chiefs at the FNB Stadium. Not for the first time this season Stellenbosch held the advantage against a much-more fancied outfit only to surrender the lead in the dying stages yet again. The visitors were ahead on two occasions in the final 20 minutes, but allowed Chiefs to comeback twice to steal a share of the points in the 2-2 draw. “It is an area that we have identified and we are not managing the last 10 minutes better. If we can improve that area it will be crucial because we have shown…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za A NEW study released yesterday showed that South Africa grew its exports of pulp and cereals by more than double during the first half of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The global study, Trade in Transition, showed that South Africa’s exports of pulp – the raw material for toilet paper – and cereal increased by 163 percent and 113 percent year-on- year, respectively, in the first half of 2020. These export increases by South African companies were part of nearly 32 percent of firms that expanded international sales in the first half of 2020, according to multinational logistics firm DP World. The study was commissioned by DP World and conducted by the Econo- mist Intelligence Unit among 3 800 senior…

Vernon Mchunu vernon.mchunu@inl.co.za THE government’s failure to pay service providers on time was crippling the domestic economy and posed a major threat to the multibillion-rand investment in local manufacturing. So said KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube yesterday, who also called for sweeping changes in the public service, to sustain small contractors and improve domestic manufacturing and production. Unveiling a R3.3 billion budget to support local manufacturing, Dube-Ncube also announced a further R48.2bn for capital projects for infrastructure development. She was speaking during a multi-stakeholder discussion, organised by Proudly SA, as part of a “buy local campaign” aimed at enhancing and sustaining local production. Many emerging contractors, who should be major players in the production of goods locally, were forced out of business due to the failure by the public sector…

Calling yourself “The Dying Town” may not sound like the best way of attracting visitors, but Civita has learned to make a living out of dying. And it has resisted definitive death for so long that Italy has nominated it and the surrounding area of stark cliffs and valleys known as “badlands” to be a Unesco World Heritage Site. Centuries ago, the town was much larger and connected by road to other settlements. But landslides, earthquakes, cracks and erosion have reduced its size dramatically and left it sitting spectacularly alone at the top of a spur. Civita’s past, present and future are the stuff of a geologist’s dream, with a major landslide that occurred in 1114 still under study today. The Civita that remains is mostly from the medieval period…

François de La Rochefoucauld IRISH pubs could become remote working hubs under a post-pandemic plan to give rural villages a new lease of life. The government scheme is part of a five-year rural development policy. A fifth of public servants would shift to remote or home working by the end of the year – an invitation to remote workers to live in rural Ireland, according to the BBC. The Irish government proposes a national network of 400 remote working hubs, including those specifically for the public sector. Ireland is the first European country to come up with such a plan. Rural and Community Development Minister Heather Humphreys describes it as "the most ambitious and transformational policy for rural Ireland in decades". “As we emerge from Covid-19, the new policy is…

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff It has become synonymous with opponents of Trump to claim that any defence of him is propaganda, as Clinton Fenner asserts (The Mercury, March 31). Ironically, it never seems to occur to such critics the extent to which they themselves may be the victims of propaganda. In our world of media overload, it is necessary to be aware of media control. In the US, the mainstream media is owned by an oligarchy which determines the parameters of the “conversation” and the “narrative”. Amazon owns The Washington Post, Warner Bros own CNN, NBC owns MSNBC, Viacom owns CBS and Disney owns ABC. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, The New York Times, all hew to the same narrative. The “coalition of interests”, as Microsoft and Time…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za CHIEF Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has filed an appeal against retired Judge Phineas Mojapelo’s ruling, describing his decision as “flawed and disturbingly superficial”. Judge Mojapelo had found the chief justice in contravention of the Code of Judicial Conduct, among other contraventions, for his involvement in “extra-judicial activities which were found incompatible with the confidence in and the impartiality of judges”. Justice Mogoeng was ordered to issue an apology and retract his pro-Israel comments made during a webinar. Justice Mogoeng in his 39-page appeal said he was found guilty on the basis of a policy “that does not even exist”. “Does the policy on the basis of which I was found guilty of five complaints even exist? The answer is the learned judge was unable to point to any…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE eThekwini Municipality has reiterated that it intends to go after affluent residents who live on Ingonyama Trust land and should be paying the city for services. The matter was mentioned in a report tabled before a full council meeting last week. Over the past few years there has been a shift in property ownership in which many people who had been living in city suburbs have settled in rural areas. The Ingonyama Trust holds 2.8 million hectares of land under its control in KwaZulu-Natal. It owes the municipality millions of rand for services. It is not the first time the city has set its sights on the matter. In November last year, the city said it was in “talks” with the Ingonyama Trust to find…

Changes to Basic Law have come at the right time and were ‘a step in the right direction’ THIS year marks the 24th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China. At the end of the First Opium War in 1842, the Qing Dynasty ceded Hong Kong to the British who were able to expand the territory considerably until 1898. In that year, Britain obtained a 99-year lease before Hong Kong and surrounding territories were eventually returned to China in 1997. Under China’s “one country, two systems” policy, Hong Kong, together with a number of other regions, have been able to maintain relative autonomy. Hong Kong’s Basic Law was introduced as a constitution of the territory though still subject to the supreme law which is the Constitution of…

There is a link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and very rare blood clots in the brain but the possible causes are still unknown, a senior official for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said yesterday, “In my opinion we can now say it, it is clear that there is an association with the vaccine. However, we still do not know what causes this reaction,” Marco Cavaleri, chairperson of the vaccine evaluation team at the EMA, told Italian daily Il Messaggero when asked about a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and cases of brain blood clots. Cavaleri added that the EMA would say there is a link although the regulator would not likely be in a position this week to give an indication regarding the age of individuals to whom the…

DODOMA: UN teams have received “worrying” reports that Tanzania has rejected over 1 000 people seeking refuge from insurgent attacks on a town in northern Mozambique, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday. The March 24 attack on the town of Palma, adjacent to gas developments worth $60 billion (R871bn), sent the town’s residents fleeing. Some headed north towards Tanzania, aid workers said. The UNHCR earlier said it did not have access to the border or affected areas. Last week a boat with 45 fleeing Mozambicans docked in Tanzania, and were given food and shelter. The UNHCR said the attack on Palma had forced at least 11 000 people out of the area, with thousands more still trapped there. Civilians have been arriving in areas of relative safety further south…

WALLABIES backs James O'Connor and Matt Toomua have welcomed the imminent opening of a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand that has cleared the way for a Trans-Tasman Super Rugby competition in May and June. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday that the country would allow quarantine-free visits by Australians from April 19, raising the likelihood that the six-week competition will go ahead. The five Super Rugby teams from each country have been restricted to domestic competitions since the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the 25th season of the inter-continental version last March. O'Connor, whose Queensland Reds are flying high at the top of Super Rugby AU standings, said his team were desperate to test their mettle against the Super Rugby Aotearoa teams in a competition scheduled to…