Table of contents for 2021-10-21 in Cape Times

Staff writer SIGNALLING the start of a new chapter for people with drug-resistant (DR)-TB who face lengthy treatment regimens of injections and pills, a new all-oral six-month treatment regimen has been found to be safer and more effective. A clinical trial called TB-Practecal, led by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has found that a new all-oral six-month treatment regimen is safer and more effective at treating rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB) than the currently accepted standard of care. MSF announced the news yesterday at the 52nd Union World Conference on Lung Health. Currently, those with DR-TB face lengthy treatment regimens of up to 20 months that can include painful injections and up to 20 pills a day that can cause severe side-effects. Awande Ndlovu, who was enrolled in the trial at the Think…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za IN LESS than a week on the job, estate agent Gabriella Johnson has been suspended after she allegedly racially discriminated against a potential tenant who showed interest in a CBD-located Fountain Suites apartment. Live Real Estate, the company for which Johnson started working this week, also terminated their contract with the landlord of the apartment, who was described as being “race specific” in the leasing of the apartment. Potential tenant Pol Osei had taken to social media after a WhatsApp exchange with Johnson in which he enquired about the CBD property, which leases for R17 000 per month. After confirming with Johnson that the apartment was available for a 12-month lease period, Osei asked to arrange a viewing and get a lease application form. After not receiving…

Odwa Mkentane odwa.mkentane@inl.co.za THE Covid-19 pandemic has somehow been a blessing in disguise for the Elsies River Chess Club, the newly-crowned Western Cape A-Division champions. The club, which consists of plus-minus 20 active members mostly under the age of 20, is based at the local Elsies River Library and was established in 1978. Evidence of its progress shows as the club was crowned winners of the B-Division in the 2019 provincial league and National Chess Club Championship. Development officer of Elsies River Club, Eugene Steenkamp, said the Covid-19 pandemic brought new challenges to the club, but it was somehow a blessing in disguise for them as their chess improved substantially due to the time spent indoors. “This is a remarkable achievement as the winning points in all the games were…

Chevon Booysen Chevon.booysen@inl.co.za A RISK assessment procedure to have a new valve fitted at the N16 plant of Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM) had not been commissioned and completed at the time of the deadly explosion which claimed the lives of eight workers three years ago. This emerged when the inquiry into the incident resumed yesterday at Community House in Salt River. A number of witnesses had testified that on the weekend preceding the explosion there was a push for production as employees had to work overtime for material to be ready to be used for production at the N16 plant where the CBI single-base propellant was blended. RDM employee Janse van Rensburg was plant manager at the time of the explosion and was part of the modification committee. A risk…

THE local government elections are for candidates to win or lose. But the divisive forces of delinquent politicians, violating the electoral code of conduct in the increasing number of political hot spots, are on an intimidation march that resonates across South Africa. That is why the presence of election observers remains relevant. Over 1 800 election observers from the Election Monitoring Network, the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council and other accredited organisations working with the Electoral Commission, the security forces and other role-players are working hard to ensure the delivery of free and fair elections. Election observers play a significant role in encouraging politicians to affirm their commitment to desist from using speech or actions which will have the effect of provoking either party supporters or members of the public to commit…

Damascus: A rare bombing against an army bus in Damascus and shelling moments later of a town in rebel-held northwestern Syria killed at least 27 people yesterday in the deadliest flareup in months. Two bombs which targeted an army bus in central Damascus were detonated early in the morning, killing 14 people in the worst such attack in the capital in four years, the state news agency SANA reported. There was no immediate claim for the bombing but moments later shelling by government forces killed 13 people in Idlib province, an area controlled by groups that have claimed such attacks in the past. “A terrorist bombing using two explosive devices targeted a passing bus” at a key bridge in the capital, the news agency said, reporting that three people had…

LONDON: Queen Elizabeth has politely turned down the Oldie of the Year Award. The 95-year-old monarch – who still keeps to a busy schedule including meetings with world leaders, days at the races and much more – urged Oldie magazine to “find a more worthy recipient” . In a letter published in the magazine’s November issue, the Queen’s assistant private secretary Tom Laing-Baker wrote: “Her Majesty believes you are as old as you feel; as such, the Queen does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept and hopes you will find a more worthy recipient.” The chairperson of the awards had written to the Queen’s private secretary to ask if she’d accept the prize, which has celebrated the achievements of older people making special contributions…

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s ruling emir yesterday paved the way for an amnesty to pardon dissidents, which has been a major condition of opposition lawmakers to end a months-long stand-off with the appointed government that has held up planned fiscal reforms. Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah tasked the parliament speaker, the prime minister and the head of the supreme judicial council to recommend the conditions and terms of the amnesty ahead of it being issued by decree, Sheikh Nawaf’s office said. The statement by the emir’s office said the amnesty would cover “some Kuwaitis sentenced in past cases” but gave no further details. |…

Addis Ababa: Ethiopia’s military launched a new air strike on the Tigrayan capital Mekele yesterday, the second bombardment this week hitting Tigray People’s Liberation Front targets in the city. The raids mark a sharp escalation in the near year-long conflict in northern Ethiopia that is pitting government forces and their allies against the TPLF, Tigray’s once-dominant ruling party. A government spokesperson confirmed the latest raid, which had been reported by humanitarian and diplomatic sources and a local resident. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties from the strike.…

From page 1 Phumzile Mvovo said while Ntuli was not a union member, he had been represented by a NUM member in the disciplinary process. He said Ntuli was moved to Megawatt Park after Eskom did not follow proper procedures in taking action against him. He added there was a continuous attempt by high ranking Eskom officials to “purge black leaders” within the company, citing poor performance issues. “We have seen 12 black managers purged and a number of white Eskom employees replacing them,” Mvovo said. He added that the alleged attack on black managers was a serious reversal of transformation gains hard fought for.…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za THE Special Investigating Unit (SIU) will oppose former Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize’s South Gauteng High Court bid to overturn part of its Digital Vibes report implicating the ex-KwaZulu-Natal premier. The unit announced yesterday that it would oppose Mkhize’s application to review and set aside its findings against him relating to the R150 million communications contract awarded to a company run by his associates. “The review application does not suspend the implementation of the SIU report,” the unit explained. In its application, the SIU wants the repayment of money paid to several respondents flowing from the bank accounts of Digital Vibes, which is run by one of Mkhize’s associates, Tahera Mather, and his former assistant private secretary, Naadhira Mitha. The SIU said the amount it sought…

Siphokazi Vuso siphokazi.vuso@inl.co.za THE City has remained mum on its way forward after it was dealt a heavy blow by the Western Cape High Court when it granted the EFF an order to interdict and restrain the DA-led council from removing the party’s election banners on Tuesday. In response to questions around the outcome of the judgment, City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said: “The City notes the judgment of the Western Cape High Court. “It is still studying the content thereof. “We will not make any further comments at this point in time.” The legal clash started after the EFF had hung various banners on poles and bridges around the city to campaign for the imminent local government elections. Via an email sent on October 3, the City then requested the…

Siyavuya Mzantsi siyavuya.mzantsi@inl.co.za THE Western Cape has turned down an appeal by a murderer challenging his “shockingly harsh and inappropriate” 15-year prison sentence. The murderer said the trial court gave no due consideration to the fact he was a “minor” (17-years old at the time of the commission of the offences) and he was sacrificed at the altar of retribution, as opposed to that of rehabilitation. He failed to complete Grade 9. The man, now 20 and whose name the court withheld, pleaded guilty to the charges, among them murder, two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, and unlawful possession of a firearm. The court papers showed he admitted to threatening one of his victims, a Mr Beneke, with a knife before robbing him of his cellphone on December 3,…

Staff writer NEW large-scale works, and an exhibition of archival material encompassing books, letters, photographs, visual references and drawings that provide insight into South African painter Johannes Phokela’s process and practice will be on display in his Only the Sun in the Sky Knows How I Feel: A Lucid Dream exhibition. The exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA marks nearly a decade since Phokela’s last institutional show and includes a select survey of his oeuvre from the last three decades. Organised around Phokela’s obsessive engagement with pictures, the exhibition posits him as a painter of significance in both an African and international context. His concerns with pictorial traditions and images are used as tools to explore and critique social mores and corrupt value systems in the aftermath of empire. Raised in Soweto…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za TRAFFIC chief Farrel Payne will go on pre-trial facing three sex-related charges next month after the director of public prosecutions (DPP) declined his representations. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said Payne, currently out on bail of R5 000, faces charges of sexual assault, crimen injuria and attempting to commit a sexual act. “The DPP in the Western Cape has declined representations made by former Cape Town traffic chief Farrel Payne. Payne is charged with sexual assault, crimen injuria and attempting to commit a sexual act. His case has now been postponed until November 19 for a pre-trial conference at Cape Town Regional Court,” said Ntabazalila. Anti-GBV activist Alexis Serra has been advocating the immediate suspension of Payne. She said the internal investigation against him by the…

IF ONLY contempt for competence could catch up with all of us in politics! It could be a wish, Nkosikhulule Nyembezi, we could fervently be hoping for. Competence is, indeed, the one huge issue. Bewilderment, however, is the other very significant stumbling block. Many first-time councillors, eagerly taking up their seats in council, will quickly come to realise that they are going to have to do a lot of learning and will have to learn to push a resistant elephant. After getting elected, new councillors will have to get to grips with the Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998, the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, the Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003, the Cape Town Municipal Spatial Development Framework, the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and the Neighbourhood Development…

THE death toll from days of flooding and landslides in India and Nepal crossed 100 yesterday, including several families swept away or crushed in their homes by avalanches of mud and rocks. Experts say that they were victims of ever-more unpredictable and extreme weather across South Asia in recent years caused by climate change and exacerbated by deforestation, damming and excessive development. In Uttarakhand in northern India, officials said 46 people had died in recent days with 11 missing. At least 30 were killed in seven separate incidents in Uttarakhand’s Nainital region on Tuesday, after cloudbursts – an ultra-intense deluge of rain – triggered landslides and destroyed several structures. In Nepal, 31 were reported dead after days of heavy rains across the country. A disaster management official said that 43…

The images of the scorched airplane in a pile of rubble are grim – but all 21 people on a private plane walked away unharmed from the crash in Houston, Texas. The plane failed to gain altitude during an attempted takeoff, crashed into a field and burst into flames, authorities said. “This is a good day,” Sergeant Stephen Woodard of the Texas Department of Public Safety told reporters this week near the site of the crash. “No one is deceased – and man that is an awesome feeling for us right now as first responders.” The McDonnell Douglas MD-87 plane was on its way from the Houston Executive Airport in Brookshire to Boston shortly after 10am local time, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. It was carrying 18…

Guatemala City: At least 10 security officials and four journalists were injured during the protest of the 1960-1996 Guatemalan civil war veterans in Guatemala City, Spanish media reported yesterday. The veterans took to the streets on Tuesday to demand that the parliament adopt a law obligating the government to pay them a war-time bonus of 120 000 quetzals (about R224 000). The protest turned violent as participants stormed the congress building, barricaded inside and set several parked cars on fire. Many were seen carrying machetes and sticks. The EFE news agency reported that four journalists were injured while covering the protest.…

BERLIN: Bulgaria detained 11 people yesterday and raided 46 residential and commercial buildings in an investigation into tax fraud by the Italian mafia involving the trade in luxury vehicles, German police said. The main suspects who were detained belong to the Ndrangheta, the most powerful mafia group in Italy, and are accused of tax fraud worth ¤13 million euros (R219m). The perpetrators illegally claimed VAT by selling exclusive cars several times in different European countries, police said in a statement. The suspects will be brought before a magistrate shortly, the statement said.…

Lutho Pasiya lutho.pasiya@inl.co.za Halloween is all about creative costumes, fun parties, haunted houses, and lots of sweets. Don’t toss leftover Halloween sweets in the trash, when there are so many smart uses for all of those treats. Try these sweet ideas. Add leftover Halloween sweets to your baking Chocolate and sweets work well in many dessert recipes. You can chop up any kind – especially if it’s chocolate or caramel-based – and add it to basic biscuit dough, fudge, or brownie batter. Or you can crush hard sweets or peppermints and use them as toppings to decorate cupcakes, cheesecake or biscuits. Save it for Christmas pies Maybe you don’t need to get rid of your leftover Halloween sweets altogether but just take a one-month break. Saving your sweets to make…

From page 1 “The court is silencing her after she has built courage over the years to finally talk about the ordeal. “We want to understand to what extent a court is allowed to make this type of order and there is no evidence of the man being harassed by the client. We are hoping that the high court in making its determination will do so within the context of this second pandemic, which is GBV, in the country,” she said. Women and children rights group community activist Latifa Jacobs said alleged perpetrators approaching the courts to silence women had been occurring under the radar. “Sometimes the victims are so traumatised that they don’t go ahead with the rape case, especially if this was someone close to or known to…

Tarryn-Leigh Solomons tarryn-Leigh.Solomons@iinl.co.za ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and EFF leader Julius Malema will touch down in the Western Cape today in an effort to gain the confidence of voters for the parties as they canvass in the DA-led province this weekend. With just days to go before the 2021 local government election, Ramaphosa is set to make his first stop in Mamre this morning, while Malema will be out canvassing in Stellenbosch. Ramaphosa is expected to conduct community meetinge in Mfuleni and Khayelitsha. Malema’s three-day campaign trail will see him out in Khayamnandi, Bellville, Nyanga, Khayelitsha and Kraaifontein. The ANC in the province has already made it clear that the aim of this municipal election is to wrestle their way to the top as they say the DA-led government has…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za IN what has been described as a regression in the national fight against gender-based violence (GBV), a gag order has forced a 31-year-old woman not to talk about her alleged rape to anyone. Fighting back, the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) is expected to appeal the decision at the Western Cape High Court tomorrow. The gag order came after the woman’s alleged rapist, her ex-boyfriend, approached the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court to silence her. The court ruled in his favour. The 31-year-old alleged that in 2015 she was raped by her then-boyfriend. She spoke of the incident to close family and friends. According to WLC attorney Chriscy Blouws, four years later she also shared her experience in a closed safe online messaging group that was designed to create…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za UCT MAY soon be challenged for its decision to approve mandatory vaccination in principle, for its campus community for the next academic year. As of January 1, all staff, as a condition of being able to perform their duties, and students as a condition of registration, will be expected to provide “acceptable” proof of having been jabbed against Covid-19. The council met at the weekend to deliberate on the proposal and the university announced the decision yesterday, after weeks of engagements with both staff and students. A short survey for the UCT community was also conducted. UCT Student Representative Council (SRC) said they note the decision and remain concerned about the exclusionary aspects of the policy and will continue to engage the executive on the matter. “This…

Odwa Mkentane odwa.mkentane@inl.co.za SOME of the eight suspects arrested for allegedly being part of a “romance scam” were in South Africa illegally. This emerged when the State indicated that it would oppose bail, saying they were likely to tamper with evidence and some were in the country illegally, as their passports had expired. The Nigerian nationals, Perry Osagiede, Enorense Izevbiege, Franklin Edosa Osagiede, Osariemen Eric Clement, Collins Owhofasa Otughwor, Musa Mudashiru, Prince Ibeabuchi Mark, and Toritseju Gabriel Otubu made their first appearance at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The suspects, aged 33 to 52, were arrested – for internet scams, money laundering, and global-scale financial fraud – in Cape Town. The operation was initiated based on mutual legal assistance from US central authorities, approved by South Africa. The suspects…

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa’s labelling of voters as drunk when they criticised the ANC perhaps sums up the term of the administration – drunk on power. His comments, while campaigning in Ga-Rankuwa in Pretoria on Friday, are unpresidential and undermine the intelligence of the voters the ANC has failed since it took over the governance of the country. With a smile on his face, Ramaphosa said: “Keep quiet. You are drunk,” before jokingly adding: “When it is this hot and you drink alcohol, it is fermenting inside you and drives you crazy.” This appears to be a worrying strategy his team is adopting whenever they are asked to answer uncomfortable questions and, more importantly, account for the mess communities everywhere find themselves in under his leadership. A week before his campaign…

A Spanish drone operator on Tuesday received permission to try to rescue three emaciated dogs trapped near a volcano in the Canary Islands, by catching them with a remote-controlled net and flying them out over a stream of lava. The three dogs have been stranded for weeks in an abandoned yard covered with volcanic ash on the island of La Palma. They have been fed by drones dropping packages of food, but until now no one has been able to figure out how to rescue them. Helicopters are banned from flying to the area because of hot gas that can damage their rotors. After evaluating the proposed rescue mission, emergency authorities said in a statement they had decided to allow it. Jaime Pereira, chief executive of drone operator Aerocamaras,…

NEARLY 100 candidates took the constitutional oath this week to become the first women judges at Egypt’s State Council, one of the country’s main judicial bodies. In line with the county’s plan to empower women in the judiciary sector, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi instructed in March that the State Council and the Public Prosecution, the two judicial bodies once exclusive for male judges, appoint females. The first batch of women members at the council included 48 judges as assistant counsellors and 50 as vice-counsellors. “The move is a dear gift for women in Egypt,” said Taha Karsoua, vice-president of the State Council. Karsoua said the decision is an implementation of Sisi’s directives, adding that the new judges will have the same tasks as male judges in achieving justice and settling…

LONDON: The head of the UK National Health Service Confederation, Matthew Taylor, said yesterday that the government should reintroduce some anti-Covid-19 measures such as mandatory mask wearing, work from home and a ban on unnecessary indoor gatherings as hospitals are on the edge of being overwhelmed ahead of winter. “The question is, is it better to act early or do we wait for things to get worse,” Taylor told Sky News. The medical chief said that all health leaders he has spoken to told him that their hospitals are “right on the edge” following a steady increase in coronavirus cases and deaths over the last few weeks.…

ESHLIN VEDAN eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za ORLANDO Pirates were frustrated and held to a 0-0 draw by 10-man Maritzburg United at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg last night. The Sea Robbers will be disappointed that they did not close out the game after creating several opportunities to score while their opponents failed to have a single shot on target. They also had a one-man advantage for a significant part of the second half after Brandon Theron was issued his marching orders and still failed to make it count. It was clearly Pirates who dominated the first half but they made a hash of some of their opportunities while Team of Choice goalkeeper Marcel Engelhardt bailed his side out a number of times. Pirates goalkeeper Siyabonga Mpontshane was virtually anonymous in the first…