Table of contents for 2021-05-13 in Cape Times

Reuters and Staff writer ISRAEL said it killed 16 members of the Hamas military wing in an airstrike on Gaza yesterday as global concern mounted over the country’s most intense hostilities in years. At least 53 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the Palestinian territory's health ministry. Six people had been killed in Israel, officials said. A Palestinian source said truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the UN had made no progress towards ending the violence that flared this week after tension during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadaan and clashes in East Jerusalem. The offensive is the heaviest between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave, and concern is growing that the situation could spiral out of control.…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za A TAFELSIG school teacher has been fired for punching a Grade 5 learner in the face and stomach after the pupil defied his instruction not to go to the toilet. Abdul Galant from Huguenot Primary School has also been found not fit to work with children again. He challenged his dismissal at the Education Labour Relations Council, which found against him, after he was in October 2019 charged with seriously assaulting a learner with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm. According to documents before the arbitrator, the pupil was standing in a line with his peers when he ran to urinate, defying Galant who refused him permission. Galant was minding the pupils during the school’s feeding scheme, when after breakfast the learners lined up again…

Lisa Isaacs lisa.isaacs@inl.co.za LESS than half of children (43%) received free school meals in February and March this year, well below pre-pandemic levels (65%), and November/December 2020 levels (49%). This is according to Wave 4 results of the National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram), released yesterday. The Nids-Cram Wave 4 data was collected between February 2 and March 10, with 5 629 successful interviews conducted. Respondents with children were asked if their child had received a school meal in the past seven days. “Restricting this to those dates where schools were open and children could receive meals shows that only 43% of respondents said yes. “The leading explanation for low school meal receipt is rotational timetables where only half of children attend on any one…

Nicola Daniels nicola.daniels@inl.co.za FED-UP Early Childhood Development (ECD) employees took to the streets yesterday in a countrywide protest over delays in the payments of the sector’s stimulus relief fund, which is now more than a month overdue for many. The national Department of Social Development (DSD) received R496 million from National Treasury as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Covid-19 relief measures, to assist ECD programmes and services that had been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The protest yesterday was spearheaded by the Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) which had been approached by many affected centres. “The DSD failed to deliver on its promise to facilitate the funds and payout to ECDs by March 31, resulting in hundreds of ECDs buckling under the strain of Covid-19 and closing down,” CECD…

Owen Simons | Retreat DIRK Smit is retiring as the Speaker of the City of Cape Town. It is with a sour taste in my mouth that I reflect on this. During all my communications with Smit, essentially concrete complaints against wasteful expenditure by councillors, he has never once apologised, followed up properly, nor found against any of them. Smit has also not offered any community useful solutions when asked by myself, the greater Retreat office or any of our members. In short, I hope that Smit will enjoy his retirement, with the millions he might be getting, especially the portion which comes from the poor people of Cape Town. I am not sorry to see Smit go. The sad part is that the City will simply appoint a…

Neil Veitch | Kenilworth DRIVING past UCT the other day for the first time since the fire, I turned to try to glimpse the ruined outlines of the library. In vain, as the Arts block effectively masked the buildings above University Avenue – including the Jagger Library. Students in my day used to jokingly ask each other: “Why are you going to the library?" aghast at the idea of anyone doing some work. The fatuous answer: "Because it is there!" Well, now it is not there, or, at any rate, only partially there. Gone is the soaring double- or triple-volume reading room with its elegant columns and mezzanine floor balcony enclosing quiet corners leading to sacred seminar rooms. No longer does the reserved book section, filling and emptying…

TSEPANG MOLEFE IN EARLY 2003, a landmark litigation was brought by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) against the government. The TAC confronted the government for not providing proven and cost- effective medicines for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to pregnant mothers. It won the case on the basis of the constitutional guarantee of the right to health care, and the government was ordered to start programmes for prevention of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV in public health facilities. As the wheels of justice turned, it became clear that the struggle for ordinary people against HIV would never be the same again and that people could live healthy lives with the virus. The “Deadly Air” case, which will be heard in the Pretoria High Court from May 17 to the 19, is…

The exodus began after the Israeli missiles struck the Gaza apartment building. Carrying luggage, personal documents and valuables, residents walked away from the damaged structure, where an air strike wrecked two apartments that they said was used by the Interior Ministry, run by Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group. “Israel is bombing civilians in their homes because they are unable to face the men from the resistance. We are easier targets for them,” said one woman, who gave her name only as Umm Hassan. Residents on both sides have sought cover as rocket attacks and air strikes have escalated since Monday into the heaviest fighting between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in Gaza. In Tel Aviv, where sirens blared repeatedly early yesterday, heralding rocket barrages launched from Gaza, Margo…

A SHIRT worn by Napoleon during his exile on the island of Saint Helena and a letter he wrote there to practise his English have gone on display at a museum in Belgium ahead of an auction later this year in Britain. A silk scarf he wore around his head on the windswept British outpost is also on show, along with a walking stick made from a narwhal tooth, a rare object from the exiled former French emperor’s life on Saint Helena. The exhibition at the Battle of Waterloo memorial museum, near Brussels, is part of commemorations of the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death at the age of 51 on May 5, 1821. The letter is one of only a few texts written by Napoleon in English that have survived. It…

LONDON: Tony Blair has finally caved in to a social media frenzy over his hair and had it cut, admitting that his previous look, which earned him a comparison with the wizard Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings books, had come in the way of his work. Appearing on Good Morning Britain with a brand new and much shorter “do”, the former prime minister complained that he had been unable to take care of his mane because of the lockdown in the UK. “Gandalf is better than some of the things I’ve been called. Look, it was lockdown. Anyway it’s done. It’s over. It took me some time to get organised”, Blair told hosts Alastair Campbell and Susanna Reid. His work for the Institute for Global Change, a foundation…

London: An Italian financier facing probes by Vatican and Roman prosecutors has been arrested here, court officials said. Gianluigi Torzi, 42, was arrested by police on Tuesday and appeared at Westminster Magistrate’s Court “following a warrant issued from Italy”, a court official said. Prosecutors in Rome issued that arrest warrant on April 12 for alleged money laundering and fake invoicing. Torzi is believed to have a house in London. “Full bail arguments were heard. He was remanded in custody until May 18,” the court official said, adding that a date for an extradition hearing was expected to be determined then.…

MIHLALI BALEKA HUGO Broos is an ambitious man. But the new Bafana Bafana commander in chief is also realistic, saying yesterday that inspiring the senior national team to the 2022 Fifa World Cup might be impossible as it might take time to rebuild the team. “If there’s something that I want from you, it’s patience,” Broos said in his first media briefing yesterday afternoon. “We’ll do everything to qualify for the World Cup. But you have to be realistic also, it’s not an easy group. We have Ghana, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.” He continued: “Africa is not at the top level. But it’s tough. On the other side, I also said before, we’ll try to rebuild a successful team, and there can be moments of weaknesses. And it can happen…

Ashfak Mohamed THE SA Rugby Executive Council (Exco) will no longer be an “almost exclusively male preserve” following amendments made to the governing body’s constitution to ensure that more females are represented. SA Rugby held their annual general meeting on Tuesday, and made two constitutional amendments to boost women’s visibility in the sport. The first will see at least three women serving on a 12-14 person Exco from 2021 to 2025, after which the number of Exco members of one gender will not exceed the number of members of the other gender by more than three. In addition, each provincial union will have to have at least one female member among their three-person delegation that attends and votes at the General Council meetings. The organisation has been criticised in the…

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said his third Premier League title, secured on Tuesday after a lockdown-impacted campaign, was the toughest he had won so far. City, who could complete a rare domestic and European treble if they beat Chelsea in the May 29 Champions League final, ended their wait to be confirmed as league winners when second-placed Manchester United lost at home to Leicester City. “This has been a season and a Premier League title like no other,” the Spaniard said. “This was the hardest one. We will always remember this season for the way that we won. I am so proud to be the manager here, and of this group of players. “They are so special. To come through this season – with all the restrictions and difficulties…

SOME South African football fans were left frustrated last week after it emerged that Benni McCarthy would not be the Bafana Bafana heir to the throne. Instead, the job went to Belgian Hugo Broos. Sixty-nine-year-old Broos is hardly a household name in South African football but the fact that he led Cameroon to the Africa Cup of Nations title in 2017 creates some hope that he can revive Bafana Bafana’s fortunes. The following are some reasons why it may be good that Benni did not get the job. McCarthy is not only a respected personality within South Africa but also in Europe. He was a clinical goalscorer in his heyday as a player, scoring goals against the biggest teams in the game. His good work with AmaZulu is…

Sizwe Dlamini sizwe.dlamini@inl.co.za DEPUTY Finance Minister David Masondo said yesterday that the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) should be allowed to do what it was mandated to do by its investors and stakeholders, and that no other entity could tell the asset manager how to act. Masondo said this while making his submissions to the meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance (Scof) with the PIC, the Sekunjalo Group, Matome Maponya Investments and the National Treasury on the Mpati Commission of Inquiry Report yesterday. Masondo said there seemed to be huge discontent over the findings of the PIC Commission of Inquiry report by Justice Lex Mpati, as well as serious issues and disputes over transactions between the PIC and parties involved. He strongly recommended that those entities that were unhappy with…

Lisa Isaacs lisa.isaacs@inl.co.za THE City says it will have to review its contract with its baboon management programme service provider following the announcement by the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) yesterday that it has withdrawn support for the use of paintball guns to keep baboons out of urban areas. The NSPCA earlier this month said it was reviewing information on the use of paintball guns after receiving images of animals left with injuries as a result of the practice. “For many years, paintball guns have been used as a deterrent, however, times have changed and technology has evolved,” the organisation said yesterday. “Just because a practice was conducted years ago does not mean it should be continued today, especially when there may be alternative methods that can be used to…

Nicola Daniels nicola.daniels@inl.co.za BEFORE it’s too late, fishing communities are saying no to mining on the West Coast, as this could threaten fishing stocks, vegetation and pose health implications for residents. Prospecting mining company Buchuberg Resources (Pty) Ltd and Cape Zircon (Pty) Ltd hosted their most recent public meeting for the community of Lambert’s Bay about its application to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) to prospect for minerals including diamonds, gold ore, heavy minerals, rare earths and mineral sands. In March, Buchuberg Resources lodged two applications for onshore prospecting rights and environmental authorisation, and in April Cape Zircon also lodged two applications. Opposition in the public meetings has been strong in Lambert’s Bay and Ebenhazer. Small-scale Lambert’s Bay fisher Rosey Shoshola said: “This mining is going to…

OWN Correspondent TO DEMONSTRATE how simulated satellite cameras can aid vegetation monitoring in South Africa, a UCT Master’s student was hand-picked to present his paper at the 2021 SpaceOps Conference, the 16th International Conference on Space Operations held virtually recently. Brendon Maongera’s paper, South African Satellite Operations Testbench for Capacity Building in Space Operations Training and Research, became the focal point during an afternoon session at the conference. Maongera said his research focused on building a simulated satellite camera and assessing and monitoring its effectiveness using a testbench – a special station developed to test a mechanism using software and hardware tools. He aimed to prove that the same techniques used to fly a simulated satellite can be replicated and used to operate an actual satellite in space. “I…

Lisa Isaacs lisa.isaacs@inl.co.za The City says the water quality at Strandfontein beach has not shown a major change or decline in the past five years, despite a report of discoloured water and lack of bird and sea life. Resident Keith Blake said in recent weeks, he and other fishermen had noted a darker than usual colour in the water stretching between Strandfontein and Muizenberg beaches. “We noticed wave after wave of dark coffee, almost oil-like, mixture in the surf on an almost daily basis. The colour of the seawater has also not been clear, almost a pea-soup colouration.” He said there were also few or no seagulls or seals in the surf. “There seem to be no black seabirds fishing in the shallows for small fish, no crabs, no octopus…

IT IS necessary to correct continued misinformation by Samwu (SA Municipal Workers Union) regarding firefighter issues (“City can end firefighters strife by suspending apartheid-era agreement”, IOL 11 May). The current Fire Services agreement, which regulates pay and working conditions is not a “pre-1994 agreement”, a falsehood, which Samwu uses to delegitimise the current lawful agreement which the union has signed and supported several times over the years. A March 2020 Labour Court ruling affirms that the current collective agreement is valid until a new one is agreed to by parties to the bargaining council. The court further confirmed that all parties, including Samwu, had unanimously extended a 2007 collective agreement in 2010, and again in 2014. In 2018, all parties entered into voluntary arbitration on new working conditions, for which…

Farouk Cassim | Cope PUBLIC outrage at the inability of the Forensic Services Laboratory to test DNA samples in quick time has continued to grow. The South African Police Service (SAPS) has witnessed a growing backlog of testing at its forensic science laboratory. The national backlog of cases in December stood at 117 736. Roughly 39 400 of the test samples were from the Western Cape. The backlog has now risen to 172 000 nationally. In other words, the backlog increased by 54 264 since December. The trend is in the wrong direction. Parliament has also been concerned about the backlog building up in this alarming way. In November, SAPS indicated to MPs that it had allocated an additional R250 million to its forensic services division to deal…

OUR government is fast running out of excuses for not prioritising the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine that the World Health Organization (WHO) has approved. WHO has listed the vaccine for emergency use, paving the way for it to be rolled out globally. As the country’s largest trading and BRICS partner, it boggles the mind that our government failed to use its strong bilateral relations to secure millions of doses of the Chinese vaccine at a much cheaper rate. Even President Cyril Ramaphosa and Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize have been at pains to explain the logic behind overlooking the Chinese and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines, often hiding behind the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority processes. Instead they have opted for a Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine which is being…

At least five people died in Bangladesh yesterday on an overcrowded ferry carrying more than a 1 000 passengers, officials said, as millions defied a coronavirus lockdown to head home for the Muslim holiday of Eid. Tens of millions of Bangladeshis usually travel home to villages for the festival but this year the government has shut down long-haul buses, trains and boats to prevent the virus from spreading. But ferries used to carry ambulances and food transportation trucks have remained in use, prompting a dangerous rush of people in recent days hoping to catch a ride on the vessels ahead of Eid tomorrow. The five people who died were found unconscious on the ferry near Shibchar, south-west of Dhaka, after more than 1 000 people rushed onto the vessel, which…

A Frenchman has been arrested in the Central African Republic (CAR) after an arsenal of weapons was discovered in his home, Radio France Internationale reported on Tuesday. A government spokesperson told French news agency AFP that the man, who claimed to be a journalist, was detained in the capital Bangui on Monday. According to humanitarian sources, the man had worked as a bodyguard for several organisations in the CAR, which is fighting an armed rebellion seeking to overthrow the government. The man was detained with “huge amounts of weapons and ammunition”, the Russian national security adviser to President Faustin Archange Touadéra, Valery Zakharov, said on Twitter. Russia has deployed hundreds of paramilitaries from the private security companies to the CAR to support government forces against rebel groups. A diplomatic source…

Bangkok: A severely ill hunger-striking Thai democracy activist released from prison vowed yesterday to keep fighting for reform to the country’s monarchy, defying his bail conditions. Parit Chiwarak, who goes by the nickname “Penguin”, was held in pre-trial detention for nearly 100 days for multiple royal defamation charges. He is one of several protest leaders hit with such charges after massive demonstrations calling for changes to the kingdom’s powerful royal family. To protest detention, Penguin had gone on a hunger strike for 57 days. A Thai criminal court granted the university student bail on Tuesday under strict conditions, including that he doesn’t engage in activities that “dishonour the monarchy”.…

KAMPALA: Uganda’s incumbent President Yoweri Museveni was sworn in yesterday to serve his sixth five-year term in office. Chief Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo swore in Museveni in the capital Kampala. “I Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni swear in the name of the Almighty God that I shall faithfully exercise the functions of the president of Uganda,” said Museveni amid ululations from hundreds of his ruling National Resistance Movement party supporters. “I shall uphold, preserve, protect and defend the constitution and observe the laws of Uganda and I shall promote the welfare of the people of Uganda,” he said.…

HERMAN GIBBS and ESHLIN VEDAN EMBATTLED Kaizer Chiefs were back in the trenches last night at the FNB Stadium, where they kept their slender top eight hopes alive with a 1-1 stalemate against Swallows. The outcome of this Soweto derby means that Chiefs will remain in 10th place and live to fight another day for a top eight berth. Swallows retain fifth place on the standings. Swallows were the first to draw blood after a freakish eighth minute goal by striker Kagiso Malinga. Left-back Sifiso Hlanti booted the ball into Chiefs’ goalmouth from 30 metres out and Malinga deflected the ball from under the noses of two hesitant defenders past goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma. The riposte by Chiefs emerged seven minutes later after fine build-up work. Midfielder Willard Katsande outjumped…

A top executive of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games sponsor Toyota Motor Corp said officials of the Japanese company felt “conflicted” over the desire to see the Olympics succeed and public concerns about holding the event during a pandemic. Less than three months before the Games begin on July 23, Japan is battling a surge in Covid-19 infections, and a majority of the population wants them cancelled or postponed for a second time. “As sponsors, it breaks our heart to see public discontent aimed at athletes,” the automaker’s operating officer, Jun Nagata, told an earnings briefing yesterday. “To be honest, we are conflicted every day over what the best course of action is.” To forestall a virus outbreak during the event, Japan is preparing…

The dates for the Women’s Rugby World Cup have been announced, with the showpiece running from 8 October to 12 November 2022 in New Zealand. The tournament, which was initially scheduled for September 2021, was pushed back due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. It will be the South African women’s first appearance on rugby’s biggest stage since 2014, with the event set to play out at Eden Park and the Waitakere Stadium in Auckland and the Northlands Events Centre in Whangarei. The event will also feature increased rest periods, with World Rugby announcing that the tournament will see the event extended from 35 to 43 days, accommodating five rest days in between matches. The adapted competition format, which is expected to super-charge the schedule for players and fans…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE UN HAS forecast that South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) will rebound less than 3 percent in 2021 due to a number of downside risks clouding Africa’s outlook. In its World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2021 yesterday, the UN said South Africa’s GDP was projected to expand by 2.8 per cent in 2021. This is the lowest GDP forecast for South Africa this year after an upwards growth outlook of 3.8 percent by the SA Reserve Bank, 3.3 percent by the National Treasury, and 3 percent by the World Bank. The UN report also warned that medium-term prospects were constrained by lack of fiscal space, chronic high unemployment and lingering power shortages as Eskom fails to resolve the energy…

SOUTH African growth indicators for April saw the highest and fastest growth on record, signalling a strong economic bounce back to pre-Covid levels, according to the BankservAfrica Economic Transactions Index (Beti) for April. The Beti increased by 25.9 percent year-on-year in real terms, boosted by current higher commodity prices. The headline Beti is a reflection of the economy’s recorded changes on an annual basis. However, with the lockdown impact from April 2020 distorting the number somewhat, the short-term variations were important to observe, BankservAfrica cautioned. Economist Mike Schüssler and BankservAfrica’s Head of Stakeholder Engagements Shergeran Naidoo said yesterday that while the index was encouraging, true growth still remained elusive. “On a monthly level, the Beti improved by 2.3 percent. This is the strongest since February 2021; the…

Okuhle Hlati okuhle.hlati@inl.co.za Athandile Siyo athandile.siyo@inl.co.za THE UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will soon close the window for refugees’ reintegration assessments of those who are living at Paint City in Bellville and Wingfield in Kensington. The refugees and asylum seekers have up until May 15 to approach the UNHCR and accept the reintegration package, which includes counselling and three months’ paid rent, along with food. The notice has come while the Scalabrini Centre and the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) continues legal discussions over the closure of the Cape Town Refugee Reception Office (CTRRO). To date the UNHRC, in collaboration with its implementing partner, the Adonis Musati Project, has placed 414 people from the Wingfield site back into their hosting communities. The figure was shared with Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za THE Sekunjalo Group says it will take the report of the Mpati Commission of Inquiry into impropriety in the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) on judicial review. This emerged when Sekunjalo Investment Holdings chairperson Dr Iqbal Survé addressed Parliament’s standing committee on finance yesterday. Survé took up the challenge after Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo suggested that those unhappy with findings of the Mpati commission should take legal action. “We definitely are to take that (report) on review. We did not take it on review simply because of the fact that there were no adverse findings,” Survé said. Earlier, Survé said the Mpati Commission did not investigate 97% of the white-owned companies that the PIC invested in even though the entity lost more than R200 billion.…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za BECOMING the first primary school in South Africa to receive a Science, Technology, Robotics, Engineering, Aeronautics and Mathematics (STREAM) laboratory, has fostered hope and excellence at Silverlea Primary School in Athlone. The school welcomed their Fourth Industrial Revolution (4iR) STREAM lab made possible through non-profit organisation and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education specialist, Sakhikamva Foundation, in partnership with local business sponsor, Polyoak Packaging Group. It is the first time a primary school has been outfitted with the fully equipped, 40-person tech laboratory environment that will promote the hands-on development of skills. School head girl Adrianne Hope, 13, said she was excited about the opportunities for pupils. “This lab opens doors for children who do not have robotics at home and we are appreciative of…

Siphokazi Vuso siphokazi.vuso@inl.co.za THE Western Cape Education Department (WCED) announced yesterday that a delay in the issuing of report cards for Grade 10 to 12 pupils has been fixed. This follows several schools issuing alerts to parents that they will not be handing out report cards to Grade 10, Grade 11, and Grade 12s due to a delay in the issuing of new recording sheets to be used. The schools have said to parents without these recording sheets, they cannot issue reports. Education MEC Debbie Schäfer’s spokesperson Kerry Mauchline told the Cape Times yesterday the delays were caused by an “error” in a circular outlining the revised subject weighting for calculating Grade 10 to 12 pupils’ marks, affecting only the province as it does not use the SA School…

Siphokazi Vuso siphokazi.vuso@inl.co.za PUBLIC contractors who worked at the Borcherds Quarry Wastewater Treatment Works plant want their jobs back, with their union saying it was unfair to let them go. This comes after the City said reinstatement or extensions of Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) worker contracts were not allowed in terms of the City’s management of job seekers database policy in response to the SA Municipal Workers’ Union’s call for the City to reinstate a group who worked at the plant in 2019. Their contracts ended last year. Several of the former workers who received the Tetavax vaccination (0.5ml) have also claimed they were “suffering side effects” such as “loss of smell, fatigue, frequent hunger and low libido”. City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said the previously employed staff in question…

Berta van Rooyen PARKSCAPE’s fire concern for upper Tokai Park on eNCA, May 5, refers (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDASo_rkQM). Long-term residents of Tokai learned with shock how Nicky Schmidt is steering the fire risk of the Tokai Plantation to the adjacent suburbs away from the public. Suburbs immediately affected would be Dennendal, Sweet valley and Tokai. Schmidt swept through the immediate past without proper clarification of facts. The clearing of the remaining pine stands immediately after a fire, is common practice given the recent fires in Eastern Mpumalanga, Lourensford and in the Southern Cape where the owners sold the wood that was still usable. Besides, there was no dog-walking allowed in upper Tokai and therefore the area most probably falls outside the binding order of the 2016 court judgment. She omitted…

WheN Siya Kolisi lifted the William Webb Ellis trophy after the Springboks overwhelmed England in the Rugby World Cup final in Osaka in November 2019, little did he know that the next time he and his teammates might don the coveted green and gold jersey would be 20 months later. The much-awaited eight-match British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa, including a three Test match series, starting with an opener against the Stormers on July 3 at Cape Town Stadium, is going ahead. This against the background of the global coronavirus pandemic which at May 6, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, had cumulatively infected 154 640 649 people worldwide and claimed 3 232 285 lives. How ironic that the UK and South Africa have seen the emergence of…

PROFESSOR MUSA XULU | Ethnomusicologist of Zulu Music and Culture; Director: Heritage Development Trust. The Oxford South African Concise Dictionary describes culture as “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”, and even “the customs, institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or group”. Culture is always fluid and tends to move with the times, borrowing from the old and adapting to the new. The performing arts of a people, including poetry, creative engagements, texts in song-dances, orality and language, are all pointers to the evidence of cultural knowledge where all traditions are explicable. The same dictionary describes tradition as “the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being so passed on”. A long-established custom gets…

THE UN has accused authorities in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region of intimidating and arbitrarily detaining journalists and activists. “Over the past year, journalists, human rights activists and protesters who questioned or criticised actions by the Kurdistan regional authorities have faced intimidation, threats, and harassment as well as arbitrary arrest and detention,” the world body said. The joint report, by the UN’s Iraq mission and the office of its High Commissioner for Human Rights, came a week after an appeals court upheld six-year jail sentences for five journalists and activists after a trial criticised by rights groups. The report said 33 journalists, activists or human rights defenders had been arrested without knowing why. The charges included “inciting protests and destabilising” Kurdistan, as well as “spying”, “armed” struggle and “misuse of electronic…

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis expressed his delight yesterday as he resumed his weekly general audience in public for the first time in six months, reflecting a decline in coronavirus cases in Italy. During the winter and early spring, the pope had delivered his weekly address via a video link from the Vatican’s Apostolic Library. Yesterday morning, he stepped out into the San Damaso Courtyard, and said: “I am happy to restart this face-to-face meeting again, because let me tell you something, it’s not nice to talk in front of nothing, just at the camera, it is not nice,” he said.…

MOSCOW: The gunman who shot up a school in Russia’s city of Kazan on Tuesday was diagnosed with a cerebral disease last year, Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said. “According to the investigation, Ilnaz Galyaviev did not have a psychiatric or drug abuse record. However, we have learned that he requested medical assistance for strong headaches multiple times. “Last year, after visiting a medical facility, he was diagnosed with a brain disease. His relatives were noticing his aggressive and irascible behaviour at the beginning of this year,” Petrenko said yesterday. His condition prevents him being investigated.…

WASHINGTON: The meteoric rise in palm oil prices to record levels is poised to inflate costs for everyone, from restaurants to confectionery and cosmetic manufacturers, and could potentially change consumption patterns. The world’s most consumed edible oil is found in products as diverse as chocolate, pastries, soaps, lipstick and biofuel, and is widely used in Asian restaurants. The tropical oil has surged more than 120% in the past year and burst through 4 500 ringgit (R15 305) a ton to a record yesterday. The world’s top importer is India, followed by China, and the largest producer and user is Indonesia.…

Ashfak Mohamed GROWING up in the Western Cape, James Verity-Amm admits that he didn’t expect to play for the Bulls one day. Having attended Hottentots Holland High School in Somerset West, Verity-Amm followed the Stormers as a youngster, and even played junior rugby for Western Province. But following a stint playing for the University of the Western Cape (UWC) on a bursary, the 26-year-old full-back made his way to Australia to join the Western Force academy, where he also made his Super Rugby debut in 2017. After the Perth side was axed from the competition, Verity-Amm moved to the Brumbies, but two shoulder surgeries ruled him out for a year, and he had to return to South Africa. He was snapped up by Griquas last season, and attracted the attention…