Table of contents for 2024-01-12 in Cape Times

THE National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) board has resolved to appoint an independent legal firm to investigate allegations levelled against board chairperson Ernest Khosa. As a result, Khosa will be going on a month-long leave of absence to enable the board to deal with allegations contained in the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) report and in leaked audio recordings. The recordings alleged that service providers awarded multimillion-rand tenders by NSFAS to administer direct payments to students paid kickbacks to Khosa, higher education minister Blade Nzimande, and the South African Communist Party. They have all denied the allegations. The board said the decisions were taken following a special meeting it held on Wednesday to discuss the NSFAS state of readiness for the 2024 academic year. “The chairperson reiterated to the…

Madly Deeply The Alan Rickman Diaries Edited by Alan Taylor Canongate In her short but on-point foreword about this larger than life and hugely colourful stage and film actor, Emma Thompson astutely describes her dear friend as having been both profoundly nurturing and imperturbably distant; generous and challenging; dangerous and comical; sexy and androgynous; temperamental and languid. Virile and peculiar. These are just a few of the opposing forces of the man who entertained, enthralled and endeared himself to audiences in a diverse range of plays and films from Die Hard to Sense & Sensibility, the Harry Potter series, Private Lives and more. Reading his tell-it-all, amusing, often heart-rending, bawdy, but mostly down-to-earth and completely blatant diaries you’ll find a man who lived his life to the full, endeared himself…

The Curry Guy One Pot Dan Toombs Loot.co.za (R515) Quadrille DAN has drawn over 150 recipes from a lifetime of global travels, spending over five months on the road researching this book. Collaborating with local chefs and restaurants all over the world, he has developed an extraordinary collection of spicy delights, from Malaysian devil curry to Sri Lankan black pork curry, Cape Malay bobotie to Hungarian goulash. His popular curry house dishes, including Chicken tikka masala, Beef Madras and Chicken dhansak, no longer need a base sauce to taste just as delicious. Packed with beautiful colour photography and featuring tips and tricks to make the perfect dish every time, Curry Guy One Pot will transport you thousands of kilometres without having to leave your own kitchen!…

To what extent have the 27 million-strong electorate matured in civic and political culture? ARE New Year’s resolutions overrated? Steeped traditionally in Western culture but effectively now globalised, it resembles more of a parlour pastime of do-gooding intentions and aspirational “good-for-you goals” of people for the year ahead. The nascent year 2024 is no exception but for some 60 million South Africans it will be tempered by the little matter of a constitutional invitation to participate in a customary countrywide mass vote casting exercise most likely in May, intended to define and formalise the clamouring good intentions of the country’s political classes and aspirants, at least in policy pledges for the next five years. When politicians dabble in resolutions and manifesto pledges, often bordering on outrageous election bribes especially through…

US President Joe Biden has played up his leadership credentials as he enters an election year but now finds himself on the defensive after his Pentagon chief kept his cancer diagnosis secret for a month in an extraordinary lapse. The 81-year-old Democrat has until now led a tightly disciplined White House with little of the merry-go-round of staff changes seen under Donald Trump, his predecessor and likely rival in a November rematch. Yet Biden now faces uncomfortable questions about his credibility as commander-in-chief of the world’s top military, and mounting calls to sack Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who twice went unannounced into hospital as Washington grapples with foreign crises in Israel and Ukraine. So far, Biden has resisted taking action over the 70-year-old Austin’s vanishing act, but the White House…

New Zealand’s Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA) yesterday criticised the government’s preparation to repeal new smoke-free measures. The HCA said it was disappointed to see the Action on Smoking and Health chairperson and director among those defending the repeal by minimising smoking harm, particularly to Maori and Pacific peoples, promoting vaping as the main tobacco control strategy, and suggesting that a smoke-free generation had already been achieved. The most recent New Zealand Health Survey found that daily smoking rates had decreased. But the HCA said this proportion of daily smokers was equivalent to 284 000 New Zealanders being irreparably harmed and who would die early. It said Maori daily smoking rates remained 2.5 times that of non-Maori at 17%. New Zealand’s current tobacco control measures alone would not achieve the Smokefree…

New Delhi: A popular newly released Indian film was pulled from Netflix yesterday after a backlash from Hindu activists for its depictions of meat-eating and inter-religious romance. Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food was taken down just weeks after its premiere in the latest instance of digital entertainment platforms in India canning controversial projects. The film, which was the second-most watched Netflix feature in India the day before its removal, centres on the daughter of a Hindu priest who aspires to become the country’s top chef. In the process she abandons the strict vegetarianism of her upbringing. | AFP…

London: An elderly former postmaster has revealed that Britain’s Princess Catherine and the Middleton family stood by him when he was accused of stealing £16 000 in the Post Office accounting scandal. Hasmukh Shingadia, 63, served the Middleton family at the Spar supermarket and Post Office in Upper Bucklebury, Berkshire, where Kate grew up. He was suspended in 2010 over a scandal in which hundreds of post office managers across the UK were wrongly accused of theft and fraud because of a software glitch. Shingadia said Princess Kate and her family continued to frequent his Spar and Post Office even after his conviction. “Not everybody did that, and some locals shunned me,” he said. | IANS…

Moroka Swallows have been slapped with a suspended R1 million fine for failing to honour two DStv Premiership fixtures against Mamelodi Sundowns and Golden Arrows late last month. PSL prosecutor Advocate Zola Majavu said yesterday evening that Swallows pleaded guilty to charges of misconduct and bringing the league into disrepute. In his statement, Majavu implied that because Swallows – who are coached by Steve Komphela – pleaded guilty at the start of the hearing, the Premier Soccer League’s disciplinary committee felt the club had shown remorse. Hence, the Dube Birds were handed a mere slap on the wrist. Majavu announced that R400 000 of the suspended R1m fine was payable immediately, as were the costs of the disciplinary committee’s hearing. If the club was found guilty of a similar offence…

Independent Media this week announced that Adri Senekal de Wet has taken up the mantle of Editor-in-Chief overseeing a diverse portfolio of 18 titles. Many will know Senekal de Wet as the driving force behind Business Report and Personal Finance for the past few years. With a B Com (Economics), Senekal de Wet did not start out as a news pundit, her initial career spanned a stint in Treasury at the then Volkskas Bank (now Absa) as a money and capital markets trader. She also worked at various financial institutions and managed a stakeholder relations company, with a natural progression towards financial journalism which she started at Fin24, then as Economics editor at Sake Beeld and Economics and Markets Editor at Sake Rapport. She joined the Sekunjalo Group in 2010…

AS CONTENTION rises around current land zoning permissions at the Riverview Church of Christ in Lakeside, real estate company RE/Max Premier, a billboard lessee renting at the same premises, has distanced itself from the conflict. This as the deadline looms for storage company Metric Storage to have nearly 100 container units removed from the premises by January 19, as the City said it currently contravenes a number of municipal compliance regulations. Owner of RE/Max Premier, Kevin Jacobs, said there was a “significant amount of misinformation and misunderstandings circulating” regarding their advertising on the billboard at the church premises. According to Jacobs, after being unsuccessful with an application to the City to erect a billboard in 2022, they had approached the church for an alternative location for a billboard, which had…

MORE than 3 600 kilometres of South Africa’s railway tracks have fallen into disuse between April 1994 to the end of November 2023. This is according to a parliamentary response by Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, following questions by DA MP, Leon Schreiber, about Transnet Freight Rail railway tracks that had fallen into disuse since April 1994 and copper cables stolen since April 2019. “A total of 3 636 kilometres of railway track have fallen into disuse since April 1994 to the end of November 2023. “TFR has lost 4 633 kilometres of copper cable through theft from 2019/20 financial year to date as of the end of October 2023,” To Gordhan said. Schreiber said the figures showed enough railway track to cover a roundtrip on the previously-popular freight…

Happy Celina Baljeet Basra Loot.co.za (R275) Wildfire llc An innovative debut novel, Happy is the story of a starry-eyed cinephile who leaves his rural village in Punjab to pursue his dreams – set against the global migration crisis. In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother’s phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard’s Bande a part on YouTube. His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he’s not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a journey to Europe where he’ll finally land a breakout role. After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in…

Remedy for death Sarah Naidoo Loot.co.za (R241) Kwela SCIENCE journalist Roshana Peterson wants to escape her traumatic past and mundane reality. The story takes her from Cape Town to the sub-tropical hills of KwaZulu-Natal – with a mysterious man who claims to have the cure for a global pandemic decades before. In an excerpt from Remedy for death, the two delve into the realms of science, death and consciousness to reveal what it means to die, and truly live. The woman and the fortune teller The windows shuddered and Roshana’s lemonade glass rattled on the wooden table as the train passed the house. They had made their way back to the kitchen, the old room with its ancient contents locked away once again. She placed a steadying hand on her…

“I love Bafana” read one of the posters that the South African team held up as they posed for photos yesterday ahead of their departure to the Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations. But do South African sports fans truly love Bafana? It is hard to do so, as they haven’t won a trophy since the 1996 Afcon on home soil. In comparison, Banyana Banyana have been outstanding, winning the African title last year and making history by becoming the first senior SA team to reach the knockout rounds of the World Cup. Coach Hugo Broos’ team, though, have had a good run of results over the past 18 months, going unbeaten in 12 internationals before losing a World Cup qualifier 2-0 to Rwanda last November. In their…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned yesterday that any “pauses” in Ukraine’s defence against the Russian invasion would only help Moscow to re-arm and allow it to “run us over”. He was speaking from Estonia as Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of targeting civilians in their missile strikes in a sharp escalation of attacks, and as three Black Sea countries signed an agreement on clearing mines from its waters. Zelenskiy was visiting the Estonian capital Tallinn on the second stage of a tour of staunch Baltic allies, part of efforts to bolster support for Kyiv with the war nearing its second anniversary. “Give the Russian Federation two to three years, then they will simply run us over,” he said at a news conference with Estonian President Alar Karis. “We wouldn’t…

Kabul: A powerful earthquake hit north-eastern Afghanistan yesterday, shaking buildings from the capital Kabul to Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan. The epicentre of the 6.4-magnitude earthquake was in Jurm district in the Afghan province of Badakhshan in the mountainous Hindu Kush region, according to the US Geological Survey. There were no reports of damage or injuries. It struck at a depth of around 200km and was felt in the capital Kabul, about 300km from Jurm. Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. | AFP…

Oslo: Rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, is neither depressed nor suicidal contrary to his claims, two mental health experts testified yesterday in a Norway court. Breivik is suing the Norwegian state over his strict prison conditions. Held apart from other inmates in high-security facilities for almost 12 years, Breivik claims his extended isolation is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhuman” and “degrading” treatment. Two mental health experts testified they had observed no psychological suffering linked to his isolation and said there was a “low” risk he would try to commit suicide. | AFP…

Much like they did the last time they went to France, the Lions will endeavour to replicate the approach that saw them beat Perpignan away when they face Montpellier in the penultimate group stage match of the Challenge Cup this weekend. Just as they did last month, the Lions have travelled again to the south of France with a team devoid of what many would consider to be their first-choice players. There might have been some serious brow-furling previously about such a selection, but after beating Perpignan 28-12 with many of the same fringe players – and with a four-match winning streak in the United Rugby Championship backing up their progress – Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen finds his team in a healthy space. After two matchdays in Pool 2…

Judges at International Court of Justice told nothing could justify killings in Gaza THERE was an urgent need for provisional measures to protect Palestinians under attack in Gaza from the irreparable prejudice caused by Israel’s alleged violations of the UN Genocide Convention, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, in the Netherlands, was told yesterday in a landmark case brought by South Africa. This formed part of South Africa’s key arguments before the ICJ’s 15 judges. While South Africa argued that nothing could justify genocide, Israel has dismissed the case as “atrocious” and “preposterous” and vowed to defend itself today against allegations that it was breaking its commitments under the UN Genocide Convention, a treaty signed in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust. South…

Eighteen thousand South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) social grant recipients in the Western Cape were affected by late payment issues this month. This as more than 150 000 recipients across the country did not receive their grants for January, with the social grant agency blaming people for submitting incorrect personal information. The agency undertakes a verification process of banking details, names, addresses and ID numbers every month to prevent fraud. National Sassa spokesperson Paseka Letsatsi said they were inundated with calls from beneficiaries who did not receive their grant payments. “Sassa urges recipients to provide correct banking details when they apply for their social grants for the first time or when they amend their personal details. Providing Sassa with incorrect banking details may delay the availability of the money…

The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years Shubnum Khan Loot.co.za (R530) Viking Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Nearly a century later, it stands in ruins: an isolated boarding house for eccentric misfits, seeking solely to disappear into the mansion’s dark, dark corridors. Except for Sana. Unlike the others, she is curious and questioning, and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion: to the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects –and to the door at its end, locked for decades. Behind the door is a bedroom frozen in time and a worn diary that whispers of a dark past: the long-forgotten story of a young woman named Meena, who died there tragically a…

The Fake Wife Sharon Bolton Loot.co.za (R275) Orion You’re not who you say you are. But neither is she. Olive Anderson has accepted that tonight she’ll be dining alone, without her husband. So when a beautiful stranger appears at Olive’s dinner table, telling the waiter she’s her wife, Olive is immediately unsettled. But the stranger wants to talk, and isn’t this what Olive wants on this lonely winter night? To vent to a perfect stranger? She’s too ashamed to tell her real friends the truth – six months into the marriage they all warned her against, her life is a living nightmare. Perhaps Olive should have asked the fake wife who she’s really married to. Perhaps she should have known this chance encounter had something to do with her secretive…

IN THE abundant literature about the failures of nationalist politics, there is a consensus that the limitations of nationalist politics are an assumption that controlling the state is the means to an end of colonial remnants. However, a few years down the line, post controlling the state, the nationalist elites come to terms with the reality that replacing the colonial administrators with nationalist elites does not signal the end of coloniality. To dismantle coloniality is a project bigger than the exchange and replacement of its nationalist elites, in particular in settler-negotiated settlement post-colonial states such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other settler-colonial states. In 1994, the ANC rose to power. Eventually, like many other nationalist political parties in Africa and elsewhere, it faltered. Thus in 2013, a new political…

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister declared a 14-day state of emergency in the capital yesterday, after 15 people were killed in riots as crowds looted and burned shops. Violence erupted in Port Moresby on Wednesday evening after a group of soldiers, police officers and prison guards launched protests over unexplained deductions to their pay. Within hours the unrest had also spread to the city of Lae, 300 kilometres to the north of the capital. “Today we call for a state of emergency for 14 days in our nation’s capital,” Prime Minister James Marape announced. More than 1 000 troops were on standby “to contain any situations that may arise going forward”, he said. At least 15 people were killed in the unrest in Port Moresby and Lae, said the police…

The UN said this week that one of its helicopters “crash landed” in Somalia and some passengers were reportedly taken hostage by the militant group al-Shabaab. The chopper was carrying nine passengers and crew when it “crash landed” about 70km outside Dhusamareb, the capital of central Galmudug state, according to an internal UN memo. The incident occurred late on Wednesday in territory believed to be under the control of al-Shabaab and six passengers were reportedly taken hostage by the militant group “although this cannot be independently verified”, read the memo. It said one passenger was killed in unclear circumstances while two fled to unknown locations. The personnel were third-party contractors and not UN staff, the memo said, and one Somali national was involved. The nationalities of the others aboard was…

Dubai: Armed men in “military-style” uniforms boarded an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman yesterday, a maritime security agency said, the latest in a spate of shipping incidents in the region. The Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged St Nikolas was boarded off Sohar in Oman and changed course towards Bandar-e-Jask in Iran, UK Maritime Trade Operations said. Communications have been lost with the vessel. It had been loaded with 145 000 tons of crude oil in Basra, Iraq and was destined for Aliaga in Türkiye via the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, Iran’s navy seized a ship off Oman’s coast to retaliate for the “theft” of its oil from the same tanker last year by the US, reports said yesterday. | AFP…

London: The UK government yesterday announced plans for what it said was the country’s “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years” to bolster its energy independence and meet carbon emission targets. The Civil Nuclear Roadmap includes exploring the construction of a major new power station, £300 million (about R7 billion) of investment to produce an advanced uranium fuel and “smarter regulation”. The measures would quadruple UK nuclear power by 2050 to 24 gigawatts, enough to provide a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs. Government says it is committed to the 2050 net zero target. | AFP…

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has promised a better version of his team at the Africa Cup of Nations following a lacklustre showing in their final warm-up match. The South African national team played to a goalless draw against lowly ranked Lesotho at the Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville on Wednesday, as they wrapped up their preparations for the continental showpiece. It was a match that left Bafana with more questions than answers, while handing a huge chunk of the squad some game time. Prior to the encounter, the Belgian mentor raised an issue of his squad being physically taxed after a long first round of the domestic league. Broos also put Bafana through their paces in the week-long camp he had with them in Stellenbosch, and both of these…