Inhoudsopgave van 2023-04-24 - Mercury

COPPER mining company Copper 360 Limited is the latest company to list on the Alternative Exchange (AltX Board), making it the second company to list on the JSE this year. It comes to the market at a time copper prices have risen by around 10% since the start of this year. Demand for copper is high, the market for renew- able energy expands amid the transition away from fossil fuels. The mining company was formed in November 2022, after a reverse take-over of copper producer Big Tree Copper, and copper mining company SHiP Copper. The company has a focus on producing premium copper that will yield a high cash margin. Copper 360 operations are based in the Northern Cape and its mining rights cover 19 000 hectares to the…

The family of a Bloemfontein man, who was reported missing last year, want answers after it was discovered that the 31-year-old was the person found dead in convicted killer Thabo Bester’s prison cell in May last year. It is alleged that Bester faked his death to escape from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein last May. A fire was started in his cell and prison officials then found a charred body, which was at the time believed to be Bester’s. However, DNA tests revealed that Bester was not the person in the cell and a manhunt was launched which resulted in his arrest and appearance in court earlier this month. Now the person who was found dead in his cell has been identified through DNA as Katlego Mpholo. Yesterday, Katlego’s…

The dismissal of the Nulane Investmeny case in Bloemfontein High Court by Acting Judge Nompumelelo Gusha because of the incompetency of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is a total disgrace. Was this case also not linked to the R280 million Estina Dairy project? Is this not a travesty of justice by these incompetent people of the NPA who are suppose to bring to book all those who have been fingered in all corruption matters linked to the Guptas and all the other ANC comrades, who have looted the SOEs and brought this country to a state of disaster? It is understood that the judge was quite scathing against the NPA. This just again highlights what many people currently, and have in the past, raised about the efficiencies of the NPA.…

THE inability of the State to successfully prosecute those responsible for state capture is increasingly clear, as the National Prosecuting Authority’s first such trial ended in dismal failure. The hollowing out of the NPA during the Zuma years is now on full display as the hopelessly inept handling of the Nulane case has revealed. Results from advocate Shamila Batohi’s assurances that the NPA is being recapacitated are yet to be seen. It was the State’s case that Nulane was appointed by the Free State Department of Agriculture to conduct a fraudulent R24.9m feasibility study for the Mohoma Mobung initiative, championed by then Free State premier Ace Magashule. Nulane subsequently subcontracted the study to Deloitte at a cost of R1.5 milliom and altered the findings of the produced report to…

CRASH! Another skittle goes in the Downing Street bowling alley. That makes it two prime ministers in recent times, one deputy prime minister and, at the last count, three cabinet ministers. Okay, it does seem there was some sort of personal animosity between Dominic Raab and his senior civil servants; issues of attitude and plain good or bad manners. But it’s nevertheless unprecedented and a serious jolt for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who considered Raab his right-hand man. It’s also somewhat unnerving at a time of war in Europe and all kinds of shenanigans going on in other parts of the world. Across the Atlantic, for the first time ever a former president is on trial, accused of misdeeds in the campaign that brought him to office – and other…

A WHEEL rim and tyre left lying in the emergency lane on the N1 Western Bypass during peak-hour traffic will cost the Road Accident Fund (RAF) dearly. The driver of a Harley Davidson motorcycle hit the objects and died. The man is only identified by his initials in the South Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, judgment because his wife and two children are claiming loss of support from the RAF. For the wife and children to succeed in their claim, they had to prove that the death of the man – the breadwinner – was due to the negligence or another unlawful act of the driver of an insured vehicle or its owner. The identity of the person who discarded the wheel and rim in the emergency lane, is unknown. But…

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is investigating alleged fraudulent withdrawals of allowances from students’ accounts. The move comes after reports of students’ financial frustrations after NSFAS piloted a direct payment system through a third party. A consortium of four service providers was appointed to disburse student allowances from 2023, breaking away from past systems of disbursing allowances via vouchers and institutions. NSFAS said the voucher system had shortfalls resulting in students being defrauded and also caused delayed payments. “The direct payment system was designed to eliminate the fraud risk, and to ensure beneficiaries receive their allowances on time,” said NSFAS spokesperson Slumezi Skosana. But the new payment system has also been criticised by students for numerous glitches, alleged hacking and fraudulent withdrawals from the e-accounts. “Imagine…

CRIME experts have identified organised hits, the proliferation of illegal guns, challenges of poverty and unemployment as being among the possible reasons for the increase in mass murders in KwaZulu-Natal. The observation follows the mass shooting of 10 family members, including a 13-year-old boy, in the early hours of Friday in Pietermaritzburg. The Police Ministry has confirmed that two suspects were arrested over the murders. One of the suspects is in hospital after being injured in a shoot-out with police. A third suspect was killed in the shoot-out while a fourth escaped. Four people were also shot dead in separate incidents on Thursday in KwaMashu, while another three were gunned down in separate incidents in Durban. Describing the Pietermaritzburg incident, KZN police spokesperson Brigadier Jay Naicker said that in the…

Zulu king Misuzulu kaZwelithini and Traditional Prime Minister to the Zulu monarch and nation Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi are set to meet today to discuss issues related to the leadership of the Ingonyama Trust board (ITB). The meeting, which will take place at an undisclosed venue, comes after contrasting messages that have played out in the public domain recently regarding the chairperson of the ITB. It was suggested in reports that Jerome Ngwenya had been removed as ITB chairperson and replaced by Inkosi Mzimela. However Ngwenya, the long-serving board chairperson, last week issued an internal memo to ITB staff dismissing claims that he had been removed. This came after ITB CEO Vela Mngwengwe, in an internal memo which has been circulating on social media and dated April 19, told staff that…

Rabat: Moroccan police have seized 5.4 tons of cannabis resin stashed in a truck headed for Spain, as well as 60kg of cocaine packed in frozen tuna, security officials said. Security and customs officers seized the cannabis resin in the northern port of Tangier “on board an international freight truck”, the General Directorate of National Security said. The resin blocks were pressed into plates slotted into specially fitted cavities, including in the truck’s chassis. The Moroccan driver was arrested. In a separate operation, also in Tangier, 60kg of cocaine was seized inside a refrigerated container. The cocaine was packed in tuna marked as coming from Ecuador and destined for Spain. | AFP…

US troops swooped in on helicopters to evacuate embassy staff from Sudan’s battle-torn capital as other nations sought to help their citizens flee deadly fighting between rival generals. France and Türkiye yesterday also launched evacuation operations from the chaos-torn nation, where ongoing fighting has entered its second week. Ferocious battles between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group – which has seen fighting with tanks in densely populated Khartoum and air strikes launched by fighter jets – have killed more than 400 people and left thousands wounded. Just over 100 US special operations troops took part in the rescue to extract fewer than 100 people, which saw three Chinook helicopters fly from Djibouti, staying on the ground in Khartoum for less than an hour. France’s foreign ministry said yesterday a…

Ukraine yesterday condemned comments from China’s ambassador to France, who questioned the sovereignty of post-Soviet countries. Speaking on the LCI news channel, ambassador Lu Shaye suggested countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union “don’t have effective status under international law because there is not an international agreement confirming their status as sovereign nations”. The comments cast doubt not just on Ukraine, which Russia invaded last February, but all former Soviet republics which emerged as independent nations after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, including many members of the EU. Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak replied yesterday that the status of post-Soviet countries was “enshrined in international law”. “It is strange to hear an absurd version of the ‘history of Crimea’ from a representative of…

Bogotá: A Venezuelan opposition coalition has voiced its approval of an international summit in Colombia this week to discuss their deadlocked negotiations with President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Venezuela’s opposition, backed by many countries, including the US, did not recognise Maduro’s 2018 re-election in a vote widely dismissed as fraudulent. The next year, Washington ramped up sanctions against Caracas, first imposed in 2015 over the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Last month, a Venezuelan official said free presidential elections in 2024 were dependent on the lifting of sanctions. Representatives of the Unitary Platform coalition met with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who is acting as a mediator between Venezuela’s government and the opposition. Officials from about 20 countries, including the US, are expected to meet in Bogota tomorrow in an attempt to…

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) economists say the recent Durban Business Confidence Index – which was lower than 50 implying a lack of confidence in the local economy – should be a wake-up call to the province’s economic hub and the political and administrative leadership of the City. The report, published last Friday by UKZN’s School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, suggested that the low level of confidence could be due to the ongoing load shedding, which has affected sales and production in the manufacturing sector. Another factor was uncertainty induced by calls for a “national shutdown” in March. In the report, which covers the period January to March 2023, the index stood at 43.27. This was a slight drop from the 44.04 from the last quarter of 2022, which…

NASA wants citizen scientists to help listen in on the universe – specifically, on the sounds of low-frequency waves generated by solar particles colliding with “Earth’s magnetic environment”. The goal is for volunteers to assist the space agency’s scientists in identifying important features within the cacophony. Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas (Harp) is now open to citizen scientists. Harp uses data from five Nasa satellites that launched in 2007 to help study auroras, which occur when solar particles run into Earth’s bubble-like magnetic field, or magnetosphere. The name Harp riffs off what happens when solar particles collide with the magnetosphere – “the region of space surrounding Earth where the dominant magnetic field is the magnetic field of Earth,” according to Nasa. That region shields Earth’s surface from many types of…

IT IS high time that the relevant authorities stepped up efforts to investigate the spread of deadly weapons in KwaZulu-Natal. This comes after 10 people were shot dead in Pietermaritzburg, in Imbali Unit 14, in the early hours of Friday. On Thursday, a person believed to be a taxi boss in the Ndwedwe area was shot dead in the Ottawa area near Verulam, just outside Durban; and four other people were shot dead in KwaMashu, north of Durban. It is shocking that the killing of a taxi boss in Ottawa comes just weeks after taxi associations signed a peace agreement, which was facilitated by the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele. The high rate of crime in KZN is seriously concerning. Due to the high unemployment rate, the notion of paid…

The electricity crisis in South Africa is nothing new. The country has been grappling with power outages since 2008. However, what is particularly worrying is the handling of this crisis by the government. It is clear that President Ramaphosa has not taken decisive action to solve the crisis. This is evidenced by his appointment of a minister of electricity without consulting his Cabinet. It is difficult to imagine how such an appointment could be made without proper consultation. This not only shows a lack of leadership, but also highlights the fact that the government is not taking the crisis seriously. Furthermore, the appointment of a powerless electricity minister is a clear indication that the government is not willing to take bold steps to solve the crisis. It is absurd to…

Dozens of bawling Japanese babies faced off on Saturday in a traditional “crying sumo” ritual believed to bring the infants good health, which returned for the first time in four years after the pandemic. Pairs of toddlers wearing ceremonial sumo aprons were held up by their parents and faced each other in the sumo ring at Sensoji Temple in Tokyo. Staff wearing “oni” demon masks tried to make the babies cry, with the first to bawl declared the winner by a sumo referee in an elaborate traditional uniform holding a wooden fan used to signal victory. “We can tell a baby’s health condition by listening to the way they cry. Today she may get nervous and not cry so much, but I want to hear her healthy crying,” Hisae Watanabe,…

The killer of Bond University student Leigh Matthews, Donovan Moodley, has again turned to the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, to be freed on parole. In court papers Moodley said he was a “lay litigant” and called on the Justice and Correctional Services minister Ronald Lamola, Correctional Services and the parole board to show him “ubuntu”. Moodley said in a short affidavit attached to his application that he needed assistance regarding his legal bid. “They (the minister and the other respondents) are pleaded (sic) to show ubuntu to me and only oppose (the) facts and not legal technicalities,” Moodley said. Aggrieved that the parole board, at the end of March, did not recommend him to be released on parole, Moodley is now asking the court to review and set aside…

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has launched an investigation into the national school nutrition programme (NSNP) tender in KwaZulu Natal after reports emerged that feeding in some schools was not taking place and where it took place, inadequate food was supplied. This comes after the food supplier failed to deliver food on the first day of school in the second term. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga wrote a letter to KZN Education MEC Mbali Frazer on Friday, demanding answers on all documents related to the tender. “The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has a mandate to manage and implement the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), in co-operation with the Provincial Education Departments. “The NSNP Conditional Grant Framework stipulates stringent feeding requirements to ensure that the beneficiaries, i.e., learners, are…

ZUBIN POTOK: Serbs in northern Kosovo boycotted local elections yesterday in protest that their demands for more autonomy have not been met, in another sign that a peace deal signed between Kosovo and Serbia last month is not working. The main political party in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, Serbian List, on Friday called on the Serb community not to vote yesterday. Serbia and Kosovo Serbs are demanding an association of Kosovo Serb municipalities, in line with a decade-old EU-brokered deal with the Kosovo government in Pristina, before voting. Fearing possible violence, Nato troops from Latvia and Italy, part of a 3 000 strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo, patrolled voting areas. | reuters…

Singapore: The family of a Singaporean man due to be hanged next week for being in possession of over 1kg of cannabis yesterday pleaded for clemency from the authorities. Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was sentenced to death in 2018 for conspiring to smuggle the drugs, and the Court of Appeal has upheld his sentence, scheduled to be carried out on Wednesday. “We don’t think my brother’s had a fair trial,” his sister Leelavathy Suppiah said. It will be Singapore’s first execution in six months. Tangaraju was convicted in 2017 of “engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” 1 017.9g of cannabis, twice the minimum amount that merits the death sentence under the city-state’s tough drug laws. | AFP…

A top Mexican immigration official has been charged over the deaths of 40 migrants in a fire at a detention centre last month. Salvador Gonzalez Guerrero, head of the National Institute of Migration (INM) in the northern state of Chihuahua, was charged with homicide, injury and unlawful exercise of public service, the federal judiciary council said. The magistrate ordered that Gonzalez Guerrero be remanded in custody. According to Mexican authorities, the fire in Ciudad Juarez, on the border with the US city of El Paso, started when a migrant set fire to the mattress in his cell. He was being held with 67 other men, and torched the matress to protest against his possible deportation. Security camera footage showed that once the fire broke out, neither immigration nor security personnel…

Indian police yesterday arrested a firebrand Sikh separatist after a month-long manhunt that sparked protests and vandalism among the diaspora in Britain, Canada and the US. Amritpal Singh rose to fame in the northern state of Punjab calling for a separate Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, the struggle for which sparked deadly violence in India in the 1980s and 1990s. Police said they arrested Singh at about 6.45am local time, having surrounded a village following intelligence that he was there in a gurdwara, or Sikh temple. “Once he got the message that he had no escape route and was surrounded, he was arrested,” senior police official Sukhchain Singh Gill said. Singh, 30, styles himself on Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a figurehead of the Khalistan movement who was killed when the Indian…

OPPOSITION parties and an energy expert have raised concerns about the non-alignment of the interests of the country’s three ministers dealing with the power crisis, saying this creates confusion over the strategy to deal with rampant load shedding. Reports have emerged from the ANC’s National Executive Committee meeting this weekend that there is tension between Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. The three ministers are expected to meet this week in an attempt to resolve the significant hurdles. President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday denied that there was a stand-off over control of Eskom, saying there were no territorial battles on the issue and that upon Ramokgopa’s appointment, he made it absolutely clear what the roles of the three ministers would be. However,…

“ETHEKWINI refuses to pay debt to SPCA” – a headline in the Independent on Saturday, April 22, refers. What a load of codswallop, these excuses made by the relevant departments for not funding the SPCA. These organisations, that have been servicing the province for decades, providing thankless but necessary care for our forsaken animals deserve every ounce of support from the municipality. For goodness sake, get over all the red tape. Give the SPCA what is due to them, going back the three years that they have received no funding. Among many other things, a city is judged by how it treats its animals. We, the people of Durban, are waiting for this wrong to be made right.…

I think we have all learnt during recent years how devious and untrustworthy politicians are. I suggest however, that ex-president Mbeki’s behaviour takes the cake. Apart from his infamous and mistaken stance on the Aids issue and reinvigorating Jacob Zuma’s political career, he was the one who disregarded the advice of experts and stopped the investment in new power stations leading directly to our current energy problems. I think he feels himself to now be the “elder statesman” of the ANC and goes around pontificating on how poorly the current ANC politicians, especially the current president are faring. Does he have no conscience at all about what he has done to the country, or is he suffering from a guilt complex? Perhaps a kinder remark is that he is starting…

Mondays are reset days, days to plan the week (unless that’s a Sunday evening activity for you). Mondays are days to plan for what’s left of the month, or to make a blueprint for the rest of your life. It’s blue-sky Monday, not “blue-Monday”, a term I’ve thankfully not heard in years. Before you get to planning, try to take care of some foundational issues. Clear your head and heart of lingering resentments or unforgiveness – plans made on top of foundations of bitterness are sure to backfire and be costly to much more than your wallet. Make right with people in your immediate and extended family – plans made while in conflict or dissention are likely to crash into barriers of invisible loyalties and burn you up on the…

Calls have been growing for South African companies to join the international community in granting women menstrual leave. As of February 16, Spain joined a handful of countries, including Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam, and approved legislation entitling workers who have medical approval to menstrual leave. The decision by Spain meant that the country became the first European country to legally recognise menstrual leave in some form. In the Spanish context, the state’s social security system will be responsible for funding the leave entitlement. In Africa, Zambia was at the forefront of this trend, becoming the first African country to implement such a policy in 2017. According to Zambian law, all women workers were entitled to a day’s menstrual leave each month without the need for a medical certificate or…

The current drop in child vaccinations is the largest South Africa has seen since the early 2000s. This is according to the UN Children’s Fund’s (Unicef) “State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination” report. The report found that there was general reluctance for vaccination in Africa. There are currently 103 433 unvaccinated children in South Africa and a 30% decline in confidence in childhood vaccines in South Africa due to Covid-19. The report further noted that people under age 35 were more likely than people older than 65 to lose confidence in the importance of vaccines after the start of the pandemic. “Among the 10 countries with the highest gaps in vaccination coverage between rich and poor, seven were in sub-Saharan Africa.” Regarding vaccine hesitancy, the report…

Police have released a name of a suspect wanted in connection with an assault on a nurse at a clinic in Relela in the Tzaneen Policing precinct in Limpopo. Promise Lebepe, 30, is wanted by police for an assault which is believed to have taken place on April 19. “A preliminary investigation into the incident suggests that the 30-year-old suspect entered the clinic and demanded medical attention from the nurse who was attending to patients. “The suspect physically attacked the female nurse. The suspect, who is known, allegedly fled the scene and has not yet been arrested,” said police spokesperson Colonel Malesela Ledwaba. Attacks on hospital staff seem to be on the increase, as in Gauteng alone, it was reported that 61 attacks by patients have occurred since January last…

At least six people were murdered in a vigilante attack in Mpumalanga, and police are investigating the link between the murders and a robbery of a liquor outlet in the area. Provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said police initially received distress calls regarding two people being attacked by residents. He said in the early hours of Friday, police responded to the mob attack where two people were reported to have been brutally assaulted and lost their lives in Sifunindlela Trust next to Bhuga. “To the police’s surprise, on their arrival it was not only an attack to human lives, but also a malicious injury (damage) to property whereby a house was burnt down,” he said. Two victims were certified dead on the scene and a third later succumbed to…

Lille: Eleven people were injured, four seriously, after a car ploughed into a crowd at an international kite-flying festival in northern France. The accident was caused by a disabled driver, 76, who “confused the accelerator and brake pedals”, the prosecutor’s office said. The accident happened in the early evening at the seaside town of Berck-sur-Mer where hundreds of thousands of people gather each year for the festival. Four women, including two pensioners aged 75 and 82, are being treated for life-threatening head injuries in intensive care. The lightly injured driver faces a possible charge of causing injuries unintentionally. | AFP…

Tel Aviv: Tens of thousands of Israelis packed Tel Aviv streets for the 16th consecutive week to protest against government judicial reforms they see as an attack on democracy. The weekly protests have continued despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 27 announcing a “pause” to allow for talks on the reforms. The reforms are moving through parliament and have split the nation. Saturday’s demonstration came ahead of another mass protest planned for the coastal city yesterday. This was to coincide with a Netanyahu speech to the general assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. | AFP…

Ten civilians and three soldiers were killed and 88 jihadists “neutralised” in multiple incidents across Mali, the government said, in a wave of bloodshed it described as a resurgence of “terrorist incidents”. Early on Saturday, suspected jihadists attacked the Sevare airport area in the central Mopti region, detonating car bombs that killed 10 civilians and injured 61 others. The blasts destroyed some houses in the airport’s surrounds, which are home to a Malian military camp, the government said. “The attackers were routed and 28 terrorists neutralised.” An elected official said Senegalese soldiers from the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, Minusma, were involved in the fighting. Two local elected officials and a diplomatic source referred to the base as a “Russian” camp. Last year Mali’s junta began working with Russian military…

Lisbon: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is again at odds with Europe over Ukraine while pressing his first European tour since resuming office in January. The veteran left-winger is seeking to revive his country’s diplomatic ties after four years of relative isolation under his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, but tensions have been on display with the West over Ukraine. On Saturday, Lula again called for a “negotiated” settlement between Kyiv and Moscow more than a year after the Russian invasion. The Brazilian leader has angered Ukraine by saying Kyiv shares blame for the war. | AFP…