Table of contents for 2024-03-14 in Cape Times

THE interviews of candidates for the deputy public protector (PP) post were thrown into a tailspin yesterday when the DA raised issues of conflict of interest and perception of bias against EFF MP Busisiwe Mkhwebane. The party told the justice and correctional service portfolio committee that Sekgame Shadrack Tebeile and Public Protector South Africa executive manager for investigations Ponatshego Mogaladi have some sort of connection with Mkhwebane. This as the justice and correctional services committee was set to interview the first candidate after they held a closed session. DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach said Tebeile is acting pro bono for Mkhwebane, while Mogaladi was disciplined by Mkhwebane and her dismissal was overturned by the Labour Court. “I see a conflict in both of those matters and it is unavoidable and I…

THE GOOD Party has announced veteran politician Patricia De Lille as its candidate for Western Cape premier. In a statement yesterday, the party said that De Lille, or Aunty Pat as she is fondly known, offered voters a tried and tested leader with unmatched experience that is necessary to attend to, and eradicate, the suffering experienced by the majority of the province’s residents. “When political parties present plans and manifestos to voters, it’s important for voters to also consider who will be charged with implementing these plans. “With De Lille, voters can rest assured that she will not stop fighting until the work is done,” GOOD said, adding that her fight for a fairer South Africa started long before 1994 and will continue long after 2024. De Lille is up…

The increasing influence of climate change on human mobility and immobility, coupled with misleading narratives surrounding mobility, underscores the pressing need for in-depth research into climate-induced migration patterns. This is according to recently published research led by Dr Nicholas Simpson, associate at the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at UCT and a senior research fellow for the Climate and Sustainability Programme at global affairs think tank ODI, along with a diverse team of scientists, including ACDI-UCT researchers Drs Petra Holden, Andreas Meyer and Christopher Trisos. The team emphasised the crucial role of understanding how nature-based adaptation influences (im)mobility in relation to climate risks. As climate change continues to escalate, its impacts on the movement and settlement of people become more pronounced. Extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and resource scarcity…

THE Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has vowed to “leave no stone unturned” in probing the death of a Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) student, allegedly at the hands of police. Chaos erupted at the Witbank police station this week following the death of Thabelo Mbau, 22, who was allegedly attacked by police at the Khayalethu student residence at the Emalahleni campus on Friday. Mbau, a second-year electrical engineering student, died of his injuries in hospital on Saturday, prompting Ipid to launch an investigation into the incident. At least four students were reportedly arrested on Tuesday, after violence erupted during a student march against police brutality relating to Mbau’s death. The students had gathered at the university to march to the police station to hand over a memorandum. Some students…

LAST month the World Health Organization (WHO) said southern Africa was suffering the deadliest regional outbreak of cholera in at least a decade. At the epicentre of the disaster were Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where cholera cases surged more than four-fold between 2022 and 2023. Over 1 600 deaths were reported in the three countries. Already 2024 is threatening to be another devastating year for cholera in the region as warmer weather, and unusually heavy rains and storms have fuelled the disease’s spread. Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi have reported more than 13 000 cases so far this year. Cholera bacteria are spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated by the faeces of an infected person. Oral vaccines help contain outbreaks and limit the spread of the disease. But…

President Vladimir Putin warned the West yesterday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict. Putin, speaking just days before a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” said Putin, 71, in response to a question on whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war. Putin said the US understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian territory, or to Ukraine, Russia would treat the move as an…

Hours after surveillance footage captured a cat leaving the Nomura Plating factory in Fukuyama city on Sunday night, a worker discovered a trail of yellow-brown paw prints leading away from a container of toxic , and potentially deadly, chemicals, reports say. Officials in the city, in Hiroshima prefecture, believe the cat fell into the container before escaping the factory. The company alerted local authorities. The 11-foot-tall vat of metal plating solution contained hexavalent chromium, which can cause rashes and irritation or damage to the eyes and skin, as well as lung cancer if breathed in. It’s also the chemical at the centre of a groundwater contamination incident in a small town in California in the movie Erin Brockovich, which was based on a true story. City officials say the…

BRUSSELS: A Belgian farmer is taking French oil and gas company TotalEnergies to court, seeking compensation for climate change-fuelled damage to his farm and a legal order for the company to halt investments in new fossil fuel projects. The case, filed yesterday at the Tournai commercial court, is the first climate change-related lawsuit in Belgium to target a multinational company. Hugues Falys, who farms a herd of cattle in Lessines, argues that, as one of the world’s top 20 CO2-emitting companies, TotalEnergies is partly responsible for damage extreme weather did to his operations from 2016-2022. | Reuters…

London: Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, head of the global Anglican communion, warned yesterday that a new definition of extremism set to be unveiled by the UK government risks stoking division. Welby said that the new definition “risks disproportionately targeting Muslim communities, who are already experiencing rising levels of hate and abuse.” Senior minister Michael Gove is expected to produce the new official definition later this week, following regular pro-Palestinian protests in London, which have seen arrests for anti-Semitism and isolated incidents of violence. Welby said yesterday that leaks and reports of the new definition suggested it “has a danger of ... and driving people to one extreme or the other”. | AFP…

A female motorist was arrested after a high-speed which ensued when she allegedly snatched the keys of a vehicle belonging to the Tshwane metro police department and fled while an officer was busy issuing a traffic fine to her. The incident occurred on Monday afternoon after the officer was driving along Francis Baard Street approaching Thabo Sehume Street in the Pretoria inner city. The officer is a VIP protector assigned to City of Tshwane city manager Johann Mettler and the woman has been identified as senior manager at a subsidiary of one of the water boards. Municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the VIP protector came across a motorist allegedly obstructing traffic in a Mercedes-Benz sedan in the CBD. “The police official activated a siren and signalled to the female motorist…

ADVOCATE Johan Brand has maintained that High Court Judge Mandlenkosi Motha’s instruction that legal counsel in a case before him must file heads of argument regarding the lack of diversity in their team had nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the case, among others. Judge Motha’s instruction related to a case about black economic scorecards, but the advocates in the matter were all white. The case in question concerned Periform Work Scaffolding Engineering against the Commissioner of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commission. Judge Motha cited potential violations of the Constitution, which addresses the need to correct past inequalities, as his concern. He then ordered the legal team to submit heads of argument to him regarding the matter. However Brand, one of the senior advocates appearing in the…

THERE is an end in sight to the water crisis that has been affecting residents in Bronkhorstspruit and surrounding areas for weeks. This comes after the City of Tshwane promised to restore water to residents following last week’s protests over water outages caused by a pump breakdown at the Bronkhorstspruit water treatment plant. On Friday, the City’s executive met with the Gauteng MEC for local government, Mzi Khumalo, and a representative from the Department of Water and Sanitation over water outages that have plagued the area for weeks. Municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba said parties discussed water supply challenges in Region 7 during the interaction and also exchanged technical information. The meeting, he said, expressed satisfaction with the plans that the City provided together with the timelines for restoring water. Last…

The further budget cut of R1.1 billion in 2024/25 for the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) means planned performance and new programmes of interventions will continue to be negatively impacted. In October last year, the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) announced a budget cut of R311.2 million, reducing the 2023-2024 allocation from R10.9bn to R10.6bn. The budget for 2024/2025 currently stands at R9.7bn. This was according to the portfolio committee on higher education’s adopted Legacy Report, which was presented yesterday at the NRF-iThemba LABS in Eerste River. The report of the fifth Parliament committee covered its oversight work over the department and its entities, as well as challenges in the sector such as transformation, and made recommendations for the seventh administration to carry through. Committee chairperson Nompendulo Mkhatshwa said…

PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan will bow out of public service with little to nothing to cheer about at the end of the current administration’s term. That is true of most of his Cabinet colleagues who have decided not to avail themselves after the May 29 election. However, the unique thing about Gordhan is that his last stint as minister has been one to forget. He leaves behind a trail of destruction of the country’s state-owned companies that will take years to fix. Sure, he will blame the years of state capture for the mess that Eskom, Transnet and Denel have become. His critics have pointed out that this was part of a strategy to shield himself from being held accountable. There may be merit to that argument. After all,…

Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts yesterday to rush food to war-torn Gaza by land, air and sea after the EU top diplomat said starvation had become “a weapon of war”. The Israel-Hamas conflict raging since October 7 has caused mass civilian deaths, reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland and sparked warnings of looming famine in the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people. A Spanish charity vessel, the Open Arms, was on its way to Gaza from Cyprus, towing a barge with 200 tons of aid, in a first voyage meant to open a maritime corridor. The flow of aid trucks from Egypt into Gaza has slowed recently, a trend variously blamed on Israel and its security checks of cargo, and on civil unrest in…

KADUNA: Gunmen have abducted dozens of people from a north-western Nigerian village, according to two local representatives and a UN source, just days after the kidnapping of more than 250 pupils from a school in the same region. Criminal gangs often carry out mass kidnappings in north-west Nigeria, targeting schools, villages and highways. Tuesday’s abductions in Kaduna State’s Kajuru district came as security forces searched for the pupils who were kidnapped last week from their school in Kuriga village about 150km away. The spate of abductions is challenging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government, which promised to tackle insecurity | AFP…

JAKARTA: High tides hampered Indonesian rescue teams searching for a Taiwanese passport holder still missing after a passenger boat capsized in waters off the capital Jakarta this week, state media reported yesterday. The boat, carrying 35 people, capsized near the Kepulauan Seribu area of Jakarta after the vessel was hit by a wave, Indonesia’s search and rescue authority said. All on board were rescued except the 46-year-old. Two days into the search for the remaining passenger, high tides were hindering rescue efforts, the chief of the rescue agency’s Jakarta branch said. This comes as another Indonesian boat sank over the weekend and two drowned. | Reuters…

Rassie Erasmus was not definitive this week about who he had in mind for the Springboks’ captaincy in 2024. There is a strong case for double World Cup-winning leader Siya Kolisi to continue as the Bok skipper, with the form he is currently in at French club Racing 92. But Erasmus hinted that although Kolisi is still keen to represent South Africa, it’s not a made-out case that he will be captaining the side up to the next World Cup in 2027 in Australia. So, a change in leadership can still happen. Independent Newspapers looks at a few contenders who could take over from the inspirational Kolisi … Eben Etzebeth The Bok lock has stood in for Kolisi a couple of times, and has matured over the years to become…

Revised transaction terms were no longer in best interest of its stakeholders, says Takatso AFTER months of ducking and diving with information on the sale of SAA to equity partner Takatso Consortium, retiring Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan announced the deal was called off yesterday, a move opposition parties hailed. “As a result of various factors, we have come to the point where those negotiations will no longer continue. Our search for the right partner for SAA will not happen through this process,” Gordhan said, adding that the Cabinet was updated on the matter yesterday morning. The deal, signed in February 2022, was subject to renegotiation of the terms of the transaction. Takatso said in a statement that it had concluded that the revised transaction terms were no longer…

While vandalism was noted as a major problem, an extensive report on water facilities in Knysna will be compiled and presented following an inspection by a joint technical team to the area this week. The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) in the province said in conjunction with provincial government, Knysna municipality and Breede-Olifants Catchment Management Agency (BOCMA), they undertook a technical site visit to assess the water facilities in Knysna, Garden Route on Tuesday and yesterday (Wed). This was a follow-up to a joint inspection conducted in November last year by DWS, the BOCMA, the Department of Local Government Western Cape (DLG), the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), and the Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) which was regulation focused. During the inspection…

SOME MPs have described the embattled Kannaland Municipality as having “no leadership” after mayor Jeffrey Donson snubbed a meeting with the National Assembly’s co-operative governance and traditional affairs committee, claiming “connectivity challenges”. The intention of the engagement this week was for the committee to be updated on the implementation of recommendations during its oversight visit in January last year as the municipality faced financial woes and other issues. Provincial government involved in assisting the municipality told the committee that while there were programmes to support it, systemic issues that hamper optimal municipal functionality persisted as it kept on changing administrative leadership. Senior manager Sandra Greyling said: “As the province, we would have to go back and do orientations in relation to the support plan implementation process. There is still a…

With recent pronouncements by government leaders on the need for a state bank, there is no need to look far for an existing bank that will be an ideal candidate. Why reinvent the wheel when Ithala SOC Limited – a 100% owned subsidiary of Ithala Development Finance Corporation, KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial development agency – is ripe and ready to become a state bank. With its good governance and sound infrastructure, Ithala, which is a pioneer in banking the unbanked sector and helping them manage their money, has all the right ingredients to become a state bank, thus enabling the growth of our national footprint beyond the borders of KZN. President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Postbank Amendment Bill into law in September 2023, formally transferring the Postbank’s shareholding from the embattled South…

US President Joe Biden headed to the political battleground state of Wisconsin yesterday after clinching the Democratic Party’s nomination, where he will focus on securing the votes of suburban women, black voters and Latinos across the Midwest. Biden’s campaign issued a new video titled “Let’s Go” after voters in Georgia helped the 81-year-old incumbent president secure the last of the 1 968 delegates needed for the nomination, teeing up what would be the first US presidential rematch in nearly 70 years. Biden has sharpened his attacks in recent weeks on former president Donald Trump, 77, and what he called Trump’s “campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America”. In Milwaukee, Biden will again tout his administration’s economic policies – although that strategy has failed to…

The British government is planning to pay asylum seekers up to £3 000 (R71 512) each to move to Rwanda under a voluntary plan to help clear the backlog of refugees who have had their applications to remain in the country rejected. The new agreement with Rwanda is separate from the government’s stalled plan to forcibly deport most asylum seekers to Rwanda, last year ruled unlawful by the UK’s Supreme Court. Instead, it mirrors an existing government policy, where asylum seekers are offered financial assistance to leave Britain for their home country, but under the new plan people will get the money if they agree to live in Rwanda. Kevin Hollinrake, a junior business minister, said the new policy was cheaper than looking after people in Britain who had been…

Vilnius: Lithuanian intelligence services yesterday said that an attack on Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov, a close ally of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was likely “organised by Russia”. Volkov, 43, was briefly admitted to hospital after he was struck with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius late on Tuesday. The attack came almost a month after Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison, which Volkov blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin, and days before elections that look set to extend the Kremlin chief’s stay in power. Volkov on Telegram said that he was struck 15 times on the leg during the attack. | AFP…

Geneva: The UN yesterday called for increased support for the many Rohingya refugees languishing in camps in Bangladesh, where funding shortfalls have left many without enough food or other aid. In its annual response plan to the crisis, the UN appealed for $852.4 million (about R15 billion) to provide desperately-needed assistance this year to the mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and their host communities. Bangladesh is home to about a million members of the mostly stateless minority, many of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar. About 95% of Rohingya households are dependent on humanitarian assistance. | AFP…