Table of contents for SW-2021-04-07 in Star

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…

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)…

COSATU says it is concerned that the deadly attacks in Mozambique may spread to other parts of the SADC region. Mozambique is in the throes of an insurgency by Islamic State-linked militants, which have left at least one South African dead. “Mozambique shares borders with Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania – all members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). “If the insurgency is not checked soon, it could spread throughout the region – threatening the peace and stability of the other member states,” Cosatu’s international secretary Sonia Mabunda Kaziboni said. The union federation has accused the SADC of not “mounting” a co-ordinated response to the looming danger. “We remain hopeful that the upcoming urgent SADC troika meeting called by the president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, to…

BONGANI NKOSI bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za SHOCKING details of how a Soweto secondary school principal and a teacher repeatedly gang-raped a learner at the school have emerged. These are contained in a new arbitration ruling that has gone against Mishack Khoza, the teacher. Khoza was charged alone, but The Star ascertained yesterday that the principal will also face the music soon. Arbitrator Coen Havenga ruled that Khoza should be dismissed summarily for raping the learner allegedly along with the principal a number of times. Khoza and the principal allegedly started raping the learner in 2016 when she was 13 and in Grade 8. She testified via CCTV that they continued to rape her the next year when she was in Grade 9. The girl detailed that they would take turns raping her in…

Bongani Nkosi bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za COOPERATIVE Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has cried foul over the proceedings of the litigation that resulted in the lockdown regulations being declared invalid and unconstitutional. Dlamini Zuma’s heads of argument before the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) argue that Judge Norman Davis found against Cogta despite the litigants’ submissions being vague and failing to raise arguments attacking the constitutionality of the regulations. The SCA will hear Dlamini Zuma’s application to appeal Judge Davis’s judgment next month. The Bloemfontein-based court will have to decide whether Judge Davis applied the rationality test correctly in the matter and also whether the requirements for a valid court order were fulfilled during proceedings. Dlamini Zuma will argue before the SCA’s Bench that such requirements were not fulfilled,…

Mórag Wright | Alberton In response to the letter published dated March 31 by Dr Thabisile Hoeane, while the doctor has made some valid points about the pass rate and unemployment issue among qualified teachers, as a teacher’s assistant I was heavily insulted by doctor Hoeane’s uninformed views of the education system and the roles of assistant teachers and the teacher’s assistant. There are profound differences between these two roles in a classroom. Assistant teachers are professionals in training who are studying teaching and are working the same roles as temporary student teachers on a permanent basis, to not only finance their studies but to also complete the practical hours required. They are not only allowed and capable of handling a lesson, but also required to. Teacher’s…

Mark Lorch Transitioning to working from home and barred from his lab, you might expect the reasearch of organic chemist Vittorio Saggiomo, from the Bio- nanotechnology group at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, to have come to a grinding halt. But Saggiomo wondered if he could turn common household appliances to good use in the Covid-19 fight. More specifically, could he create a cheap, highly sensitive home test for the virus? It turns out he could. At the moment, there are two main types of Covid-19 test: the PCR test and lateral flow test (LFT). The gold-standard PCR test checks for the presence of the virus by detecting its genetic material, RNA. But the material has to be con- verted into DNA and amplified before it…

Myanmar activists daubed roadways with red paint yesterday to protest against the junta’s bloody crackdown on protests, as an online fundraising drive to support the movement neared the $10 million (R145m) mark. The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, rocked by daily clashes between protestors and authorities that have left at least 570 people dead. Ten of Myanmar’s ethnic rebel armies voiced support for the protest movement at the weekend, stoking fears that the country could slide into broader civil conflict, while the UN has warned of a looming “bloodbath”. Yesterday, in the commercial capital Yangon, people smeared red paint on bus stops and pavements in protest against the military’s violence. The “bleeding dye strike” is the latest…

Minneapolis: A key witness in the trial of the police officer accused of murdering George Floyd sought yesterday to avoid giving evidence as his lawyers said he could incriminate himself on separate charges. Morries Hall, who was with Floyd in his car shortly before his death, is in custody and appeared by video camera at the hearing after he was subpoenaed to testify. Hall’s lawyers argued that it was impossible for him to be cross-examined without incriminating himself. Hall is seen as a potentially important witness for the defence of police officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen in a phone video kneeling on the neck of Floyd for more than nine minutes. Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Floyd’s death was due to asphyxiation. | AFP…

NAIROBI: Tanzania’s new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, said yesterday that her government would form a committee for scientific research into Covid-19, in a departure from the pandemic-sceptic policies of her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died last month. Magufuli, who Hassan said died of heart disease at 61, had dismissed the threat from Covid-19, opposed mask-wearing and social distancing and denounced vaccines as part of a Western conspiracy. “We cannot segregate ourselves, but also we can’t blindly accept everything (on Covid-19) without our own investigations and inputs,” she said. | Reuters…

THE announcement of the dates for the Fifa World Cup qualifiers last week would normally bring 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. 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 an SA fan. Bafana have now missed out on three of the last four Afcon tournaments, with 2019 in Egypt…

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 unveiled the World Cup board that will be responsible for organising the event to be hosted at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town. The six person board will consist of chairperson Patience Shikwambana, COO of Sascoc; representative of the mayor of Cape Town, JP Smith; Western Cape director of sports and recreation Dr Lyndon Bouah; Netball SA president Cecilia Molokwane; NSA COO Blanche de le Guerre; and deputy-director general of sport Sumayya Khan. According to Mthethwa, the board will be responsible for “strategic overall guidance and compliance; approval of all contractual obligations, finalisation of an organisational structure of the organising committee,…

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…

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…

GIFT TLOU gift.tlou@inl.co.za THE DA is reportedly weighing its options on the government's “tardy and criminally slow vaccine roll-out strategy”. This comes after the party announced that it will approach the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to urgently launch an investigation into the vaccine roll-out plan. The party’s MP, Siviwe Gwarube, argued that South Africa began its vaccine roll-out exactly seven weeks with the Johnson & Johnson Sisonke trial which is meant to overlap with phase 1 of the roll-out to cover the target of 1.2 million healthcare workers. “To date, just over 269 000 healthcare workers have been vaccinated, a fraction of the target. The trial alone is meant to cover 500 000 healthcare workers but has been impossibly slow. In the last four days alone, not a single…

ITUMELENG MAFISA DESPITE concerns by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), the ANC has said it is confident that the SABC will be able to cover the upcoming local government elections. “The public broadcaster has always displayed impartiality and they have lived up to their slogan – we think that they will be able to do their work,” ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said. The public broadcaster has been experiencing a spate of disruptions with its broadcast that have been blamed on power outages. The CWU also claims the SABC does not have enough manpower to cover the elections across the country. Recently, the SABC concluded its retrenchment process that saw 621 employees laid off, as part of the broadcaster’s turnaround strategy and long-term sustainability plan. “In the past, the SABC…

AMANDA MALIBA TWENTY-one-year-old dancer and muso Kamo Mphela says her latest EP is the beginning of charting a brand that reflects her authentically. Titled Nkulunkulu, the project will be released later this month, following the release of her single of the same name last month. Mphela was introduced to Mzansi’s entertainment scene through a feature in amapiano hit Jobe in 2019. For a long time she was known only as a dancer but has since featured on several songs including SBWL with Busiswa, Amanikiniki and Sandton”. Although her first attempt at releasing an EP, in 2019, fell flat, she believes this body of work is more representative of who she is and the type of music she wants to be known for. “The music on Nkulunkulu is more of…

Covid-19 has prompted a transformative moment for philanthropy. Collectively, McKinsey found major philanthropists made capital contributions of $10.3 billion by May last year. Closer to home, corporate South Africa has made a massive difference, with 81% of companies contributing to causes over the pandemic period. Neptal Khoza, head of corporate social investment (CSI) at Capitec Bank – which has donated more than R27 million to relief efforts to date – says Covid-19 has laid bare the social divide. It’s also prompted an unprecedented global giving culture. Khoza says he’s witnessed a genuine sense of giving from corporate leaders that goes beyond the average 1% spend on CSI. “I’ve seen staff donating to food parcels and clients getting actively involved in donation campaigns. The isolation of lockdown has counterintuitively brought…

ON MONDAY as everyone was enjoying the Easter holiday, and some were driving home from the long weekend, Eskom sent out a strange press statement, trying to calm our collective nerves. The beleaguered state-owned power utility wanted to assure the public that the lights would remain on despite it losing a legal challenge against Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s largest software companies. At the heart of the legal dispute was an initial claim from Oracle, which is contracted to Eskom, that it had been underpaid by about R7.3 billion. Eskom disputed that amount and it was reduced to under R400 million. Now Eskom contends that the amount due to Oracle is only R166m, and it applied to the high court to prevent the software giant from ending its technical…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been moved to a prison sick ward with symptoms of a respiratory illness, alarming supporters who say he is being denied proper medical care and is being “slowly killed”. Navalny, 44, was tested for Covid-19 on Monday after exhibiting symptoms of a respiratory illness, the federal prison service said. Earlier, an Instagram post under his name said Navalny had a high temperature and a cough, adding that three people from his prison ward had been hospitalised with tuberculosis. Navalny’s worsening health comes after he declared a hunger strike last week, demanding proper medical care for his severe back pain and leg numbness. Navalny’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, said he has lost 13kg in three weeks. Navalny, who survived a near-fatal poisoning last year, joked on…

GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) does not back requiring vaccination passports for travel due to uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission of the virus, as well as equity concerns, a spokeswoman said yesterday. “We are not certain at this stage that the vaccine prevents transmission,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. “There are all those other questions, apart from the question of discrimination against the people who are not able to have the vaccine for one reason or another,” she told a UN news briefing. The WHO now expects to review China’s Covid-19 vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac for possible emergency use listing, Harris said. | Reuters…

LONDON: Piers Morgan slammed Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, as “delusional”. He was critical of the Duchess’s tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey last month, and even left his position as host of Good Morning Britain after his on-air outburst following the interview, where he said he “didn’t believe a word” of what she had said. Piers now accuses the former actress of “making millions off the royals while trashing family”. “It’s not really about Meghan Markle – she’s a delusional duchess who wants to make millions off the royals while trashing family – It’s really about free speech.” | Bang Showbiz…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za A SERIES decider is a heck of a time to be experimenting with your back-up bowlers, but South Africa have been forced into exactly that scenario for today’s third one-day international 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 this year’s Indian Premier League which starts on Friday. They’re joined by David Miller and Quinton de Kock, who with the bat 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…

Eshlin Vedan eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za Maritzburg United boss Ernst Middendorp understands that his troops are showing plenty of resolve in their efforts to avoid relegation. After being in the dreaded drop zone for much of this season, the Team of Choice’s form has picked up recently. They are currently on a run of five league games without defeat, with two wins, and have moved up to 13th place in the standings, four points clear of the drop zone. Their most recent win, a 5-1 demolition of struggling Chippa United last weekend, marked the first time in history that the KwaZulu Natal-based club scored five goals in a league match. “This was a huge win,” said Middendorp. “We had problems early on as we conceded and were not able to bring our approach…

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…

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…

Gabrielle Union was told by her stepchildren to stop working. The Bring It On star has revealed her stepchildren – Zaya, 13, Zaire, 19 and nephew Dahveon Morris, 19 – wanted her to stop working as they thought the family could easily survive on Dwyane Wade’s salary. She explained: “They had looked up how much their dad made and they thought that I should not work. “I should just be at home like the other moms of their friends because ‘dad is rich and you should just stay home and we should be a normal family like everyone else’. “They just wanted to be normal, whatever that is. By the time we got married it was just, I think, a relief for them, which isn’t always an emotion you associate…

An Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane flying from Addis Ababa into Zambia accidentally landed at an airport that is still under construction, a government official and the airline said Monday. The plane hit the tarmac on Sunday at the uncompleted airport in Zambia’s northern Copperbelt province, which is currently served by the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport around 15km away. The transport ministry’s permanent secretary, Misheck Lungu, said the pilot had landed at the future Copperbelt International Airport “by error”. “When he was about to land he was communicating with the radar and they told him, ’We can’t see you’,” Lungu said. “So he used his sight as he had no control and landed at an airport still under construction.” Lungu added that no damage resulted and said investigators would issue…

Mpiletso Motumi AS artist protests continue outside the National Arts Council (NAC) in Newtown, the council has denied the allegations of forceful removal from their building. At the weekend, a Facebook post claimed that the NAC was planning an ambush to forcefully remove artists from the building using the Red Ants. The post alleged that the removal would take place at the offices yesterday or today. “We call upon all artists for yet another massive arts performance activation at the NAC premises where artists will protest through performances to fight against this.” The post also cautioned other artist sit-ins in other provinces “not to allow anyone to convene or hold any meeting with them outside the sit-in premises until justice is served”. The contention is over the R300 million…

Changes to Basic Law have come at the right time and were ‘a step in the right direction’ THIS year marks the twenty-fourth 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 till 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, has 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…

European intermediaries began shuttling between Iranian and US officials in Vienna yesterday, seeking to bring both countries back into full compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal that Washington abandoned three years ago. Iran has steadily overstepped the accord’s limits on its nuclear programme after the US withdrew from the accord under then-President Donald Trump in 2018 and its reimposition of sanctions that have crippled the Islamic Republic’s economy. Tehran has repeatedly rebuffed “direct and indirect negotiations” with its old foe, but Washington earlier said it expected the discussions to be difficult. Neither side expected any early breakthrough. Even without face-to-face talks, the presence of both Iran and the US in the same location marks a step forward. “We are confident that we are on the right track, and if…

KINSHASA: A record 27.3 million people in Democratic Republic of Congo, or about one-third of its population, are suffering from acute hunger, largely because of conflict and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN said yesterday. The figure makes Congo home to the most people needing urgent food assistance in the world, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a joint statement. Besides conflict and the pandemic, the number also rose because the latest analysis covered more people than previous ones. Of the 27.3m going hungry, about 6.7m people were in the “emergency” phase, an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found. | Reuters…

Amman: Jordan’s top prosecutor yesterday banned the publication of any information or material relating to a case involving former Crown Prince Hamzah.The ban aimed to preserve the secrecy of the investigations conducted by the security services. The government said it had foiled a destabilising plot involving Prince Hamzah, King Abdullah II’s half-brother. Investigations showed there were movements by Hamzah and others that were targeting the kingdom’s security and that they were in contact with “foreign parties”. Several high-profile individuals have been arrested. The Jordanian Army denied Hamzah was under house arrest, but he had been asked to refrain from activities that could damage the kingdom’s stability. | IANS…

ZAAHIER ADAMS zaahier.adams@inl.co.za Kaizer Chiefs (0) 2 Castro 77, Ngcobo 85 Stellenbosch FC (0) 2 Sinkala 72, Nange 80 STELLENBOSCH’s inexperience at this level continued to haunt them yesterday in their Premiership clash against Kaizer Chiefs at 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 we…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za NINE months after its rather strange launch at Olympic House in Johannesburg, Cricket South Africa’s social justice and nation building (SJN) project will get down to some actual work at the start of May, with ombudsman Dumisa Ntsebeza stating that he would “act decisively” in dealing with racial discrimination within the sport. The project was the brainchild of former CSA director Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and was the result of several heart-breaking instances of discrimination in the sport described by a number of former players, coaches and administrators last year. The project didn’t get off the ground, because despite nine ambassadors – including Gary Kirsten, Lance Klusener and Geoffrey Toyana – being named, there was no clarity about what Ntsebeza would do or how the project would be…

MIHLALI BALEKA @Mihlalibaleka TSHAKHUMA TSHA MADZIVHANDILA (1) 1 Nevhulamba 17 MAMELODI SUNDOWNS (1) 3 Coetzee 46+2, Mkhulise 69, Vilakazi 82 STOP us if you can! That was a clear message from defending champions Sundowns, who extended their lead at the top of the Premiership to six points after beating TTM 3-1 at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium yesterday. This result ensured that the champions kept their title defence aspirations alive as they are unbeaten and have two games in hand compared to their challengers. TTM, meanwhile, dropped down to 15th on the standings, three points ahead of bottom-placed Black Leopards. After dropping points for the first time in the CAF Champions League in their last outing in Khartoum against Sudanese side Al Hilal, Sundowns were determined to bounce back…