Inhoudsopgave van 2023-08-25 - Mercury

The expansion of BRICS – from five to 11 countries, including Ethiopia and Egypt – will allow Africa to have a greater influence on the group’s decisions regarding trade and geopolitics. There was a positive response to the announcement yesterday by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the two African countries, along with Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), would be part of the bloc that represents the Global South. BRICS will now represent 46% of the world’s population and an even greater share of its economic output. Announcing the outcomes of the 15th BRICS Summit that ended in Johannesburg yesterday, Ramaphosa said BRICS was made up of a diverse group of nations. “It is an equal partnership of countries that have differing views but have a shared…

Destruction and mayhem have enveloped South Africa as violent demonstrations engulf the land in a fiery inferno, Swellendam being the latest frightening example. Our democracy is facing threats. We were warned by many on numerous occasions of the mortal danger that complacency poses to our democracy. We witnessed carnage on an epic scale that will be embedded in our collective memories and recorded in history books for generations to come. The war for truth is now to preserve our democracy. Over the past 27 years, two unwritten norms have preserved our rainbow nation’s political system. They were mutual tolerance, in which parties accept each other as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, in which politicians exercise restraint in using their institutional powers. The fiery carnage in Cape Town, Umzinto and Swellendam completely…

If you visit my home in small-town USA, I think you’ll be surprised by my art collection. A local artist, and a prolific one at that, seeing my framed prints – mostly European art – told me politely but pointedly that there is so much original local art that framing and hanging a print of anything is unnecessary. I took that to heart. Over time, through the wonders of the internet, I have bought several pieces of South African art – and in making the purchases have talked with the artists. I love our large painting of the Berg’s Amphitheatre by Peter van Heerden, which hangs in my counselling study. The living room has several Western Cape scenes and one large close-up protea. A conversation starter and much-loved piece is…

Kept in prison for two years and eight months, with 37 court appearances for housebreaking and theft, only to have the charges withdrawn, will see the taxpayer fork out more than R3.3 million in damages for a KwaZulu-Natal man. The High Court in Pietermaritzburg has ordered the minister of police to pay the damages. The court found that the police acted with malice and that there was a strong indication that they had fabricated evidence to ensure that Mdunyiswa Mtolo remained behind bars. Any chance of him being released on bail was removed when the magistrate was told that he had another charge pending against him, which was not true. Mtolo was arrested by the SAPS on September 12, 2011, on two counts of housebreaking with intent to steal and…

A 44-year-old man who hacked the bank accounts of the Eastern Cape Education Department and stole almost R600 000 has been convicted of theft. Bruce Owen was this week convicted in the East London Specialised Commercial Crime Court and sentenced to three years behind bars, without an option to pay a fine. The provincial Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (known as the Hawks) said the theft took place in April 2010. “The department discovered 14 fraudulent payment transactions that were purportedly made to four different schools in the province,” Hawks spokesperson Warrant Officer Ndiphiwe Mhlakuvana said. “The discrepancies were identified when complaints were lodged by the rightful beneficiaries who did not receive their funds and the matter was reported to the Hawks.” He said investigations by the Hawks revealed that…

OPPOSITION parties in the eThekwini Municipality have expressed outrage at the R9 million price tag to host the mayoral izimbizo by mayor Mxolisi Kaunda. The decision was approved yesterday by council. The parties pointed to the announcement by the City that Kaunda would participate in radio shows to engage communities as one of the cheaper ways that the mayor could use to engage with the public. ActionSA councillor Alan Beesley said: “Public participation in the affairs of the City has been sadly lacking, and ActionSA supports any initiatives in which public participation is improved. However, these initiatives should come at a reasonable cost and should not be a vanity programme, or be used as an electioneering platform for the ANC.” DA councillor Thabani Mthethwa said: “This money could be used…

ONE of the greatest moments in Springbok rugby history came against the All Blacks during a World Cup. The 1995 edition in South Africa saw the “Rainbow Nation” unite to inspire Francois Pienaar’s Boks to a memorable victory over New Zealand in the final at Ellis Park. It required a drop-goal from Joel Stransky in extra time to secure the Webb Ellis Cup to send the country into delirium, and we will forever recall that Saturday afternoon in June. But to be honest, the Boks don’t have the best record against the All Blacks at the World Cup. Apart from the 1995 final, they have lost three other matches and won just once – a meaningless third-place play-off in 1999. In the 2003 quarter-final in Melbourne, South Africa lost 29-9,…

Thirty-nine local observers of Zimbabwe’s general elections have been arrested, police said yesterday, as the troubled poll entered an unscheduled second day. They were arrested in multiple raids on Wednesday night and their computers and mobile phones were seized, police said. “These were coordinating the alleged release of election results by some civic organisations,” police spokesman Paul Nyathi said. Some were taken from an “election observation data centre,” according to a group of human rights lawyers. Those arrested are from two prominent civic groups – the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) and Election Resource Centre (ERC) – which work to promote free and fair elections. The two organisations also conduct vote tabulations separately from the official tally overseen by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. “There can be no clearer sign of…

India began exploring the moon’s surface with a rover yesterday, a day after it became the first nation to land a craft near the largely unexplored lunar south pole. Pragyan – “Wisdom” in Sanskrit –rolled out of the lander hours after the latest milestone in India’s ambitious but cut-price space programme sparked huge celebrations across the country. “Rover ramped down the lander and India took a walk on the moon!” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, yesterday. The six-wheeled, solar-powered rover will amble around the relatively unmapped region and transmit images and scientific data over its two-week lifespan. The successful touchdown of the Chandrayaan-3 (“Mooncraft-3”) mission came just days after a Russian lander crashed in the same region. It also comes four years…

DAKAR: At least five people were killed and eight injured when a building collapsed in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, an official has said. It was not clear what caused the building collapse, or how many people were inside when disaster struck this week in the Dakar suburb of Rufisque. An official from the interior ministry at the scene, Birame Faye, said firefighters pulled five lifeless bodies from the rubble. Eight survivors were taken to hospital. Investigations were under way. Residents said that the collapse could have been linked to construction in an adjacent building. Senegal’s booming builing sector is poorly regulated. | Reuters…

EIN GEDI: A landslide at a popular Israeli nature reserve near the Dead Sea killed a boy and injured at least eight people yesterday. Police rescue efforts were assisted by the military, which sent helicopters to assist with the evacuation of casualties. Some of the injured, who had been trapped under rocks, were flown to hospital. “You could see rocks the size of cars falling down,” said Yonatan Bar David, who was at the Ein Gedi site with his family. He was unharmed but two of his children had minor injuries. Rockfall warnings are common in Ein Gedi, a hiking site known for its springs and waterfalls. | Reuters…

Mr Du Bois glosses over too many salient points, so I would rather focus on a few so nothing is misconstrued (The Mercury, August 21). Regarding the two-tier system he mentions, the facts are that Trump has four indictments, which means four different juries believed Trump committed crimes, and they can now go to trial with the evidence they have. This brings the total felony charges he now has to 87 felony counts which brings the total to 91. Felony counts differ from misdemeanours because they are considered way more serious. Rico stands for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act. It was made a law in the ’70s to combat organised crime. Ironically, it was Rudy Giuliani as mayor of New York who brought it back in a very…

I have to express my deep concerns about the delays in implementing the Section 154 support intervention for the eThekwini Municipality. This intervention was mooted by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), and a report was tabled before council months ago. However, the council has still not taken any action on this intervention. I am further concerned by the fact that proper processes were not followed during the initial tabled report. Political parties were not briefed and the executive committee did not deliberate on the matter, as is required before matters are presented to full council. It appears the ANC is in a fix over this intervention. We often read about ANC internal discussions about this support intervention through the media, but nothing has come before councillors.…

SECTION 194 inquiry chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi heaped praise on fellow members for conducting the inquiry into the fitness of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to hold office in an unbiased and transparent manner. “Members worked diligently, without any fear or favour and without any preconceived outcome in mind, with just the evidence placed before them to reach a conclusion,” Dyantyi said. Speaking to the media, Dyantyi said Mkhwebane had “from the word go” referred to the inquiry as an illegal, unlawful, irrational and invalid process. The inquiry sent its final report for submission to the National Assembly, recommending Mkhwebane’s removal from office, after it found her guilty of misconduct and incompetence. The report was adopted without Mkhwebane submitting her written response, despite a plea from her newly appointed attorney of record…

THE Public Service and Commercial Union (PSCU), along with Transform RSA, Resistance Against Impunity Movement and Racist Banks Must Fall are bracing for what they described as a massive campaign to end South African banks’ “racist practices”. This campaign is billed to spill into the 2024 general elections, according to PSCU secretary-general Tahir Maepa. Speaking at the Ivan Philip Fredericks Memorial Lecture in Athlone, Cape Town, this week, Maepa highlighted the need for a commission of inquiry into banking practices. “There can be no doubt that the primary responsibility for criminality and racial bias in the banking sector lies with the banks themselves and those who manipulate and control those banks, their boards and senior management, who happen to be majority white, angry, hateful males.” His remarks come as Standard…

KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said yesterday that the province had just under 20 000 police officers to take care of a population of 11.7 million people. Mkhwanazi said the province had 11 districts and 184 police stations. “There is a population of over 11 million people and just under 20 000 police offers to service all these people, it is a mission impossible.” Therefore, he said the police needed the support of Community Policing Forums (CPFs) and members of the community. Mkhwanazi was speaking at a Provincial Community Policing Indaba in Durban yesterday. The KZN CPF and the KZN Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) said the Indaba was aimed at finding solutions to crime. Mkhwanazi said crime prevention required the involvement of communities. “It is…

Time running out for Ramaphosa to swop ideology for action IT IS HARD to overstate how dire the unemployment crisis has become lately. The crisis has been so bad that positive coping mechanisms have not just raised hopes for the potential changes likely to occur after the 2024 national and provincial elections, they have led to a widespread rethink of the wisdom of our past political choices in entrusting politicians in government with our precious votes. High unemployment is such a waste of resources that no one interested in efficiency and the advancement of our constitutional democracy can be complacent about it. Nobody wants to be jobless. No wonder the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, published by Statistics South Africa on August 15, is dominating the news and even drowning…

Crash investigators yesterday picked through the wreckage of a jet said to have been carrying Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin that crashed with no survivors, two months after he led a mutiny against the army leadership. Investigators opened a criminal probe but there was no official word on what may have caused Wednesday evening’s crash, or even official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death beyond a statement from the aviation authority saying he was on board. The Kremlin and the Defence Ministry also made no comment on the fate of Prigozhin, 62, head of the Wagner mercenary group and a self-declared enemy of the army top brass over what he said was its incompetent prosecution of Russia’s war in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin made a virtual statement to a summit of the…

For the first time in the history of the US, two Indian-American presidential candidates locked horns over the country’s foreign policy in the Republican party’s first presidential debate. On Wednesday night, Nikki Haley, 51, accused Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, of supporting America’s foreign adversaries and abandoning its friends, and said that her GOP rival lacked foreign policy experience. Asserting that a win for Russia is a win for China, Haley said that Ukraine is the first line of defence for the US, something that she said Ramaswamy did not understand. She said he wanted to hand over Kyiv to Moscow. “The problem that Vivek Ramaswamy doesn’t understand is he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel,” Haley…

Peshawar: The owner and operator of a stricken cable car that dangled over a Pakistan ravine for more than 12 hours have been arrested after repeatedly ignoring safety warnings, police said yesterday. Six teenage boys were among eight people left stranded hundreds of feet in the air when two of the three chairlift cables snapped on Tuesday, leading to a daring rescue mission that brought them to safety. “The initial notice was issued to the owner in June, followed by a second notification served in August,” police said. The owner had received directives to refurbish the machinery, enhance the quality of the chains and obtain a safety certificate. | AFP…

LOS ANGELES: Star Trek actor William Shatner has been spending time exploring the new frontier of artificial intelligence (AI). The actor best known for playing Captain Kirk in the series talked with ProtoBot, a device that combines holographic visuals with conversational AI, and grappled with philosophical and ethical questions about the technology. “I’m asking ProtoBot questions that ordinarily a computer doesn’t answer,” Shatner said. “A computer answers two plus two, but does ProtoBot know what love is? Can ProtoBot understand sentience? Can they understand emotion?” The device was developed by hologram technology provider Proto Inc with conversational AI developer CodeBaby. Shatner is a paid adviser for Proto. It is hoped the device will be used by educators, scientists and businesses. | Reuters…

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has found that some of the medico-legal claims that had been made against the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health were fake, suggesting that crime syndicates were attempting to milk the department. In a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) in the KZN Legislature yesterday, the SIU revealed that more than R5 million had been recovered through their investigations into medico-legal claims against the department. Medico-legal claims, arising from alleged negligence on the part of department staff, have risen to billions of rand over the years. Scopa member Zinhle Cele, of the ANC, welcomed the investigations by the SIU. “The work that is being done by the SIU must be commended. In the same vein, the Department of Health must also be urged to…

There is a shameful trend among certain letter writers to this publication to play the man and not the ball. The Mercury, rightly, publishes dissenting views which, in any democracy, is healthy and correct. Yet, every time Dr Duncan du Bois pens his views on mainly world views, there will be a couple of detractors personally vilifying him. If you do not agree, then pen your own letters to The Mercury, putting forward your own world view, but stop the despicable personal slagging. Dr Du Bois did justifiably respond to the past personal attack but it is sad and symptomatic of a sick society that you have to defend yourself against personal attacks when you have a democratic right to those views.…

While KwaZulu-Natal’s crime statistics – released last week for the period April to June 2023 – show a decline in some areas, there is no cause for celebration. The reality is that they remain horrifically high, with KZN also being South Africa’s murder and rape capital. The province also contributed a staggering 25.4% of murder cases country-wide. During the three months this year, 17 people were murdered and 21 were raped daily, on average. The reality is that no one is safe in our province, particularly women and children. The 651 cases of kidnappings in just 90 days, up by an alarming 76%, is further proof of this. Not even our SAPS officers are safe, with six members killed during the same period. The vulnerability of citizens on our roads…

IT’S the huge ’un tonight, a match as important as any in the Rugby World Cup that follows. The Boks versus the All Blacks is always a humdinger. This one is psychologically as well as physically decisive. It is likely to have a profound effect on the future performance of both sides in the World Cup. Also, it is played in the knowledge that they are under scrutiny. World Rugby authorities are on the warpath against foul play. Get over-excited and shoulder-tackle with no arms, and you’re likely to be red-carded and barred from a few matches in the World Cup. Ask England captain Owen Farrell. All of which recalls a story Springbok lock forward Salty du Rand used to tell about the 1956 Bok tour to New Zealand. There…

Issues are mounting at Koeberg nuclear power station as the life extension project falls further and further behind schedule. In 2010, the Eskom Board approved a project to refurbish the plant at a cost of R20 billion to extend its lifespan by an additional 20 years. The Koeberg Alert Alliance (KAA) said initially that Eskom announced the refurbishment work would take five months for each of the two units. KAA spokesperson Lydia Peterson said: “Work began on unit 1 on December 10, and was originally scheduled to be completed in 180 days, with the unit returning to service in June 2023. “It was then reported in May that the planned completion date would be in August. “In August, Eskom announced that unit 1 was scheduled to return to service only…

I am astonished at the stupidity shown by Lawyers for Human Rights supporting a couple who are asking for the law regarding maternity leave to be extended to husband and wife for four months. We are living in a country with massive unemployment crippling the population and someone suggests four months maternity leave for the husband and mother. If such a law was imposed, there would be one result that “blind justice” did not see coming: human resources managers would avoid hiring people who may possibly have babies in the future. With such a large pool of unemployed people this is not difficult. Businesses will focus on hiring men and women who are less likely to have more children. Currently, fathers are guaranteed 10 days of leave and mothers are…

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has threatened to round up Roman Catholic faithful who visit a global pilgrimage site in his country, accusing them of “worshipping poverty”. Every year thousands of people, many travelling for days on foot, visit Kibeho in southern Rwanda where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three schoolgirls four decades ago. But Kagame, himself a Catholic, lashed out at the pilgrims after more than 20 000 attended a Catholic mass in the hillside town on Assumption Day, August 15. In an address to a youth conference this week, he said: “I thought that when you pray, you are praying for what can help improve your lives, praying to get rich and get out of poverty. No one must worship poverty ... If I ever…

LONDON: Britain will host a global summit on artificial intelligence at the old home of Britain’s World War II codebreakers in November as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pitches Britain as global leader in guarding the safety of the fast-developing technology. The summit will take place at Bletchley Park, the site in Milton Keynes where mathematician Alan Turing cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, the government said yesterday. Executives from tech companies, government officials and academics will meet to discuss, in part, how to prevent AI being used to spread misinformation during elections and the use of the technology in warfare, an official said. | Reuters…

NEW YORK: US federal authorities this week charged two men with running a money-laundering scheme that handled more than $1 billion in illegal transactions, including moving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency for North Korean government hackers. The charges filed in a Manhattan federal court accuse Roman Storm of Washington state and his business partner, Roman Semenov, a Russian citizen, of laundering money and violating sanctions through their business Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency “mixer” that allegedly moved money for the Lazarus Group, a sanctioned North Korean cybercrime organisation. | Washington Post…

THE fishing has been good despite the windier conditions. Make the most of the gaps in the weather and go get some fish. Bigger is better. When it comes to scratching for bronze bream, sometimes it pays to have a bigger bait. If you find that the fish are just pecking at the bait and not committing to the bite, changing to a bigger/bulkier bait will often result in a solid bite. This means putting on two prawns instead of just one. Try it and see the results. The rock and surf fishing is starting to head towards a summer pattern. There are still plenty of winter edibles on offer but the wind makes planning a bit tricky. The north coast has seen some decent kob action along most…