Table of contents for 2022-08-04 in Mercury

THE DOMESTIC currency market weakened slightly yesterday as South Africa’s energy crisis continued while the announced increase in global crude oil output in September failed to allay investors’ uncertainty over the pace of US rate hikes. Opec and its allies (Opec+) yester- day agreed to raise their oil output by only 100 000 barrels per day in September. The recommended increase misses market expectations after US President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia last month and called on the Opec+ cartel to pump more crude in a bid to ease high energy prices in the US and Europe. The 31st Opec and non-Opec ministerial meeting noted with particular concern that insufficient investment into the upstream sector would impact the availability of adequate supply in a timely manner to meet growing…

REFUSE collection services have been brought to a halt in almost all areas of the eThekwini Municipality as a result of protest action by Durban Solid Waste (DSW) workers. Head of DSW Raymond Rampersad said his unit had received a string of complaints from community members as the streets were not being swept and refuse was not being collected. He said about 80% of the city had been affected by the go-slow. Workers have been on the go-slow since Monday, protesting against a council resolution that ordered departments to cut their overtime budget by 50%. The council policy requires all units to cut the overtime budget and use the savings made to fill vacancies. Before the resolution, DSW had an overtime budget of R110 million, which has now been slashed…

In enterprise of martial kind, When there was any fighting, He led his regiment from behind – He found it less exciting. THE St Clement’s arts soirée was packed to the rafters this week for a second and highly entertaining presentation on Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera by retired judge Chris Nicholson, who is a fundi in such matters. G&S were the Victorian partners in the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company that performed at the Savoy Theatre, in London, for over a century and has to this day taken the English-speaking world by storm with the biting wit of the lines and the matching musical score. Gilbert is probably unique in being a librettist – writer of the lyrics – who is ranked alongside the composer of the music.…

African Democratic Change (ADeC) Councillor in eThekwini Municipality, Visvin Reddy, stormed out of the Human Settlements and Infrastructure Committee meeting after the acting chairperson refused to allow a debate on the state of poor service delivery. Reddy wrote to the chairperson of the committee, PG Mavundla about two weeks ago, requesting him to call an urgent meeting to address the service-delivery challenges facing residents of the city. ADeC is gatvol at the prevailing conditions in eThekwini in respect of water, electricity, sanitation and roads. People of oThongathi have been without water for months and others throughout the city are experiencing constant disruptions in supply. Water tankers have been called off and people are desperate for water. A water-shedding schedule was published and to date we have no idea whether this…

They used to say when everything else fails, “read the manual”. Now, that has been conveniently altered. In the examination room? Faced with some difficult questions, just because you forgot to study? Just call the attention of the invigilator and request to leave the exam because your “ancestor just sent a message to walk out”. Some judges and lawyers are importing religion and witchcraft into law courts. These scrapings of the bottom of the barrels have already started a new trend in our society and seriously threaten all semblance of genuine law and order. Is it again a case of pandering to catch votes by “agreeing to accept all forms of spirits from the other world to manage our affairs in this real physical world?” And where does that stop?…

THE United Domestic Workers of SA (Udwosa) has expressed concern at a recently released report which revealed that many domestic workers were being paid less than last year, and well below the national minimum wage. South Africa aligned domestic worker wages with the national minimum wage for the first time in March 2022. The national minimum wage for each ordinary hour worked increased from R21.69 to R23.19 from March 1, 2022. But a 2022 SweepSouth Report on Pay and Working Conditions for Domestic Workers for South Africa and Kenya revealed that while domestic workers’ income increased on average, earnings still sit well below the national minimum wage for many. The surveys were conducted with more than 25 000 domestic workers in South Africa and more than 1…

Five suspects, including a 24-year-old police constable, have been remanded in custody after they appeared before the Ogies Magistrate’s Court for possession of suspected stolen property. The men are Emmanuel Zwane, who is attached to Witbank detectives, Given Nhlanhla, Ngadla Mkhwanazi, Thembelani Ndlebele and Vusi Bophela. Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said the five were arrested on the R555 Ogies/Delmas Road on Sunday. “According to the report, police spotted a Toyota bakkie parked on the side of the road, with six men loading bags into it. They approached the men, when suddenly officials and security guards from Transnet arrived and informed the police that the men were loading chrome, which they allegedly stole at Transnet,” said Mohlala. “Police arrested four suspects while two fled. Police spotted a Golf and…

The ANC has vowed to scrap the SABC’s contentious TV licence fee and replace it with a hefty tax. This is according to Communications Minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who addressed the media in her capacity as a member of the ANC. She provided feedback on the ANC’s national policy conference that took place over the weekend. “The TV licence arrangement is not working, it is actually impacting on the SABC’s ability to survive,” said Ntshaveni, adding that the public broadcaster must be strengthened. “The SABC has both a commercial mandate and a public mandate. “In the public mandate, we want the SABC to be funded from the national fiscus, but we are also proposing a household levy,” she said. The SABC is no stranger to this idea as it had earlier…

THE SA Schools Act outlawed corporal punishment at schools 26 years ago. The law makes anyone who contravenes it guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a sentence that could be imposed for assault. The Western Cape Education Department has removed a Bella Vista Primary School teacher following allegations she hit pupils with a plank, and threatened their parents A parent is reported to have removed their daughter from the school in January when they found out about the alleged incidents. It is a cause for concern that it took the intervention of the Witzenberg Justice Coalition to get the teacher removed by pressuring the provincial department. It is also shocking that teachers engage in this illegal activity to maintain discipline in the classrooms. In fact, it is…

The parents of a 12-year-old UK boy yesterday appealed to European judges to maintain his life support, in another high-profile medical ethics case for Britain. Archie Battersbee was due to have his life support at the Royal London Hospital ended yesterday. But his parents are seeking a last-ditch ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to keep him alive. “As directed by the courts, we will work with the family to prepare for the withdrawal of treatment, but we will make no changes to Archie’s care until the outstanding legal issues are resolved,” said Alistair Chesser, for the hospital’s governing trust. Archie’s mother, Hollie Dance, found her son unconscious at home in April with signs he had placed a ligature over his head, possibly after taking part in…

LOS ANGELES: Johnny Depp’s assistant said the actor allegedly kicked Amber Heard in the head, according to unsealed court papers. Text messages sent in 2014 from the actor’s then-employee Stephen Deuters are said to have detailed how the actor apparently attacked the actress, 36, onboard a private jet. Mention of them was barred from the former couple’s defamation trial but has been made public in a tranche of 6 000-plus pages of unsealed documents from the case. Deuters reportedly texted Heard about Depp: “He was appalled, when I told him he kicked you, he cried.” According to the documents, Depp, 59, remorsefully texted Heard about the incident. | Bang Showbiz…

BEIRUT: The World Bank accused Lebanese politicians of being cruel by asserting that deposits in the country’s collapsed banking sector are sacred, saying such slogans “flagrantly contradict the reality” in a report yesterday. Lebanon is in the third year of a financial meltdown that has left eight in 10 people poor and which the World Bank says is deliberate. Lebanese politicians often say depositors’ rights must be preserved in any plan to address losses of some $70 billion (about R1.2 trillion) in the financial system, even as their savings have lost 80% of their value due to the collapse. | Reuters…

It has been a grim start to Women’s Month in KwaZulu-Natal with gender-based violence (GBV) sharply in focus after the horrific murders of women and girls in the past few days. Two matric pupils were killed and dismembered by a man who attacked them with an axe in Ngwangwane village, in the Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma Municipality near Creighton in southern KZN at the weekend. In Durban, a Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) student was murdered on Sunday, allegedly by a fellow student. The murders have prompted organisations against GBV to call for more focus to be placed on educating men and boys about respecting women, and for better responses to such crimes by the justice system and law-enforcement authorities. In the Ngwangwane village yesterday, the families and friends of murdered…

Florida’s sea turtles are grappling with a gender imbalance made worse by climate change. Recent heat waves have caused the sand on some beaches to get so hot that nearly every turtle born was female. “The frightening thing is the last four summers in Florida have been the hottest summers on record,” said Bette Zirkelbach, manager of the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, a city in the Florida Keys, a string of tropical islands stretching from the southern end of the state. “Scientists that are studying sea turtle hatchlings and eggs have found no boy sea turtles, so only female sea turtles for the past four years,” Zirkelbach said, whose turtle centre has operated since 1986. When a female turtle digs a nest on a beach, the temperature of the sand…

Firstly, congratulations to the Clare Estate Crematorium in electing a new head, Pradeep Ramilall, as chairman of the board. They have always bent over backwards in accommodating all funerals during our trying times. The same cannot be said about the Mobeni Heights Crematorium. Last year we were assured by the eThekwini Municipality that we would have a new furnace up and running at the beginning of this year. Sadly, to date nothing has happened. If this was run by the Clare Estate Crematorium, you can be assured it would have been up and running the week the furnace broke down. It is time to hand over the running of the crematorium to the professionals. I am disillusioned and have no faith in the municipality. Sadly, our councillors and community forums…

When you are under excessive stress of deadlines and unknowns and trying to pin down moving parts, there are a few steps you can take to slow the world down and to release or lower your levels of understandable anxiety. Always look for the big picture. Asking yourself questions and being brutally honest with your answers can help: How do I fit into what is going on? What is my role in this? How did I get myself here and what may it take to get myself unravelled or untangled from the quagmire I am facing? Always be determined to take a position of learning and humility. This means giving up the idea of having all the answers and of having to solve all the problems. If you were that…

THE newly established National Energy Crisis Committee of Ministers, (Necom) this week outlined their plan to end blackouts and secure energy security. The committee, comprising all government departments and Eskom, said it was mobilising all resources at its disposal to achieve energy security by focusing on a limited number of high-impact interventions. Eskom said yesterday Stage 2 blackouts would be implemented from 4pm to midnight yesterday and tonight. It said the power cuts were needed due to a loss of generation capacity. Necom is to be led by the director-general in the Presidency, Phindile Baleni, and would report to an inter-ministerial committee chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said: “Our short-term objective is to reduce the severity and frequency of load shedding through immediate measures…

As the wrangle over the Nelson Mandela Day marathon in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands drags on, the grandson of the global icon has urged athletes to boycott the new marathon to take place on the same route but with a different name. Inkosi Mandla Mandela of Mvezo in the Eastern Cape said the decision by KwaZulu-Natal Athletics (KZNA) to change the name of the event after a court ruling went against it was regrettable. Last week, the Pietermaritzburg High Court heard the matter regarding the marathon. At issue was that the marathon was usually held by the uMgungundlovu District Municipality, which had the approval of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Mandela royal family. This year, however, KZNA said it wanted to take over the marathon. The court ruled in favour…

THE Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, has granted the National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit a restraint order against the assets of former SAPS Crime Intelligence head Richard Mdluli and others amounting to more than R13 million. The order was also obtained against Mdluli’s co-accused, head of supply chain management Heine Barnard, and former police Crime Intelligence CFO, Solomon Lazarus, as well as against some of Mdluli’s family members. Mdluli and his co-accused were custodians of and in control of the Crime Intelligence’s secret service account, which consists of money allocated by National Treasury for the specific purpose of preventing crime and gathering intelligence to combat crime. The other parties against whom the restraint order was obtained include Mdluli’s former and current wives, Theresa Lyons and Vusiwane Mdluli, Barnard’s wife, Juanita…

March on Union Buildings contrasts with today’s challenges HISTORY reminds us of the 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956, calling for the free movement of black women in South African urban areas. This act illustrated the sisterhood bond that the early feminist thinkers aspired to since women from different backgrounds and races participated in the march. The women who participated in the protest challenged the systematic oppressive and racist rules of the apartheid regime. As one reflects on this phenomenon, one recognises solidarity among the women of 1956, which dispels the perception that women cannot unite for a common cause. It also creates the illusion that South African men and women are comrades in the struggle since they fought against colonialism and…

South-east Asian nations yesterday urged restraint over Taiwan after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island prompted an enraged China to vow “punishment”. Pelosi’s dramatic trip to Taipei, defying stark threats by China, overshadowed a meeting of Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, which had been expected to focus on the bloody crisis engulfing Myanmar. Asean spokesperson Kung Phoak, Cambodia’s deputy foreign minister, said ministers at the closed-door talks – meeting face to face for the first time since the pandemic – had expressed concern over “growing tension in the Taiwan Strait”. “We hope that all sides will try their best to de-escalate the tension there, avoid actions that may contribute to the escalation of tension, and engage in dialogue,” Kung Phoak said.…

Top leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban were holding discussions yesterday about how to respond to a US drone strike in Kabul that the US said killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, three sources in the group said. The US killed Zawahiri with a missile fired from a drone while he stood on a balcony at his Kabul hideout on Sunday, US officials said, the biggest blow to the militants since Osama bin Laden was shot dead more than a decade ago. The Taliban have not confirmed Zawahiri’s death. Officials of the Islamist group, long-time allies of al-Qaeda, initially confirmed the Sunday drone strike but said the house that was hit was empty. “There are meetings at a very high level on whether they should react to the drone strike, and in case…

San Francisco: Twitter has now dragged tech investors and entrepreneur friends connected to Elon Musk into the $44 billion (about R742bn) takeover deal that has been terminated by the Tesla CEO and a legal trial is set to begin from October 17. Twitter’s legal team, in a subpoena in the court, has asked for “extensive requests for communications, including checklists, timelines, presentations, decks, organisational calls, meetings, notes and recordings” related to the deal’s financing. The top investors mentioned in the subpoena include David Sacks, who helped Musk with the formation of financial services firm PayPal. Twitter’s legal team has also gone after Tesla and SpaceX board member Stephen Jurvetson, and investors Jason Calacanis, Keith Rabois and Joe Lonsdale, general partner at VC firm 8VC, who called Twitter’s subpoenas a “giant…

Beijing: Three people were killed and six others wounded in a knife attack yesterday at a preschool in southeast China’s Jiangxi province, police said. A “gangster wearing a cap and mask” stormed the private school in Anfu county, police said in a statement published on China’s Twitter-like Weibo. The 48-year-old suspect is still at large. In a video of the scene shared by state-run Beijing Daily, a police officer can be seen carrying a tiny child in his arms to an ambulance. Mass violent crime is rare in China, which strictly prohibits citizens from owning firearms, but there has been a spate of mass stabbings in recent years. | AFP…

THE HEAD OF commercial banking at Sasfin who started out as a teller in a bank is offering support to entrepreneurs in South Africa. Armed with a degree in economics and mathematical statistics, Andile Hote has walked a long journey from the rural parts of the Eastern Cape to working in the country’s leading financial institutions. “Knowing that my work supports entrepreneurs, the South African economy and job creation leads my approach to every deal we do at Sasfin. I come from those values – I know what they mean to our clients,” Hote told Business Report. Hote says that South Africans’ famed resilience has truly been put to the test over the past two years, between Covid-19, electricity shortages, unrest, increase in fuel prices, interest rate hikes and climate…

THE water crisis in the province can be resolved through collaborative efforts while sustaining water service delivery will require investments through tariffs and taxes. This is the view of the SA Local Government Association (Salga) KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, Thami Ntuli. Speaking yesterday to councillors from across KZN, Ntuli said sustaining water service delivery would require investment through funding instruments such as tariffs, taxes and transfers. “South Africa is a water-scarce country and we need to collectively take responsibility for how we manage and use our water resources.” Councillors from various municipalities in KZN have gathered in Durban for a three-day training programme hosted by Salga on the ins and outs of managing the water and sanitation department. Ntuli said some of the challenges faced by municipalities regarding water and sanitation included…

CALLS are growing for the SA government to take action, as the UK has banned Bain & Company from tendering for government contracts for three years because of the role it played in the capture of the South African Revenue Service (Sars). This, while the company continues doing business in South Africa. The Zondo Commission’s report had recommended that all Bain’s public sector contracts be investigated with a view to prosecution. UK Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “After reviewing the Zondo Commission’s findings detailing Bain’s role in alleged state capture and corruption by the former government of South Africa, I consider Bain to be guilty of grave professional misconduct. I have consequently acted to exclude them from competing for central government contracts for a period of three years.” Integral…

The fine imposed on Dudu Myeni is to say the least a joke – this woman deliberately called Mr X by his name and this was after many warnings by the Zondo commission not to do so. A review of the recording will reveal as much. Her blatant and sheer arrogance during the Zondo commission left little doubt that she thought she was untouchable. It seems she is. She should have been sentenced to at least 10 years with no option of a fine as she deliberately revealed Mr X’s name. The question that now arises is what message does this fine send out to other whistle-blowers when those blowing their cover are dealt with with a measly fine. The fine will not affect her finances at all, as this…

Two articles in The Mercury (August 2) – “‘Ancestral calling’ affecting pupils” and “Judge endorses cultural differences in compassionate leave” reflect the deep chasm in our understanding of culture and its practice among fellow South Africans even after nearly 30 years of democracy. Have we failed in our effort to build one nation, one South Africa as envisaged in the Constitution? The major focus has been on the extent of corruption devolving into factions that threaten peace and freedom after centuries of discrimination. The “ancestral calling” among pupils refers to “hysteria, where pupils break down screaming, the wearing of beads and refusal of pupils to cut their hair for religious or ancestral beliefs”. These are some of the issues that confront the schools. The issue of dress codes for boys…

The Master of the High Court has asked the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, for guidance on how to deal with the large number of cash payouts by courts in damages claims. Another question is whether it is best to establish a trust or appoint a curator where plaintiffs are unable to manage the money themselves. This is especially in Road Accident Fund (RAF) cases and, to a lesser degree, in medical negligence matters where the victims have suffered severe brain damage, and funds must be protected for further use. In many cases a lump sum, sometimes running into millions, is awarded. Two legal mechanisms are generally employed to protect the funds in these cases. The first is the appointment of a curator bonis (a person appointed by the court to…

The Constitutional Court has dismissed an appeal by a group of foreign nationals who wanted to be allowed to be enrolled as practising or non-practising legal practitioners in South Africa. The Legal Practice Act (LPA) does not permit foreign nationals to be admitted and authorised to be enrolled as legal practitioners (be it practising or non-practising). Lesotho nationals and University of the Free State law graduates Relebohile Rafoneke and Sefoboko Tsiunyane first challenged the LPA before a full Bench of the Free State High Court, which declared in September last year that the act was unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it did not allow foreigners to be admitted and authorised to enrol as non-practising legal practitioners. The high court also found that the differentiation served a legitimate government…

With fewer than 90 days to go before the start of the National Senior Certificate examinations for matric pupils, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education said it was well prepared. Teacher unions this week said teachers had done their best to prepare pupils. This year’s matric cohort had grades 10 and 11 impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted schooling. The exams will start on October 31 with English paper 1. Thirona Moodley, provincial chief executive of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), said that teachers and pupils were well on track for preparation for final examinations. “Schools will start trials at the end of the month. Schools will have completed the syllabus by then.” Moodley said Naptosa appreciated the hard work being put in by parents, teachers…

officers have arrested a tavern owner in Ulundi, northern KwaZulu-Natal, after he was found in illegal possession of a firearm, ammunition, drugs and a police uniform. The joint operation was conducted on Tuesday. Provincial police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nqobile Gwala said police received information that a tavern owner was in illegal possession of a firearm. Gwala said the team went to the tavern which is located at the owner’s residence in the Imbilane area. She said police searched the house. “Police found a pistol, 14 rounds of ammunition, a police uniform, various knives and a bag containing dagga,” said Gwala. She said the police officers then searched the tavern. “Alcohol to the value of R70 000 was seized,” she said. The 37-year-old suspect was arrested and appeared in the Mahlabathini Magistrate’s…

Breastfeeding gives children the best start in life and should always be the first choice for babies. There is no other food that can substitute for the lifelong benefits of breast milk. Breastfeeding is a life-saving intervention that can prevent malnutrition in all its forms, as it provides essential, irreplaceable nutrition for a child’s growth and development. However, breastfeeding rates in South Africa remain stubbornly low at 32%, still far from the World Health Assembly’s global target of at least 50% exclusive breastfeeding by 2025. As South Africa joins the annual global World Breastfeeding Week commemoration from August 1 to 7, it should thus be prioritised, now more than ever, and be anchored as part of good nutrition, food security and the reduction of inequalities. The theme for this year,…

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy dismissed the importance of the first grain export shipment from his country since the Russian invasion, saying it was carrying a fraction of the crop Kyiv must sell to help salvage its shattered economy. His comments came as an inspection of the ship was completed in Turkey before it continued to its final destination in Lebanon under a deal aimed at easing a global food crisis. The ship, Razoni, departed from Ukraine’s Odesa port on the Black Sea on Monday carrying 26 527 tons of corn to Lebanon’s Tripoli. This followed a UN-brokered grain and fertiliser export agreement between Moscow and Kyiv last month – a rare diplomatic breakthrough in a drawn-out war of attrition. But Zelenskiy said more time was needed to see whether other…

Men, especially those who are married and have a degree, have a high probability of outliving women, reveals a statistical analysis spanning 200 years across different countries. Challenging the notion that men don’t live as long as women, the study, published in the open access journal BMJ Open, showed that between 25% and 50% of men have outlived women. The study showed married men with a degree have an advantage over unmarried women educated only to high school level. Couples influence each other’s health, and this is particularly true for men, who benefit more than women from being in a stable relationship, pointed out researchers from the Syddansk Universitet in Denmark. The team studied sex differences in deaths in 199 populations from every continent over a period of 200 years.…

Hong Kong: Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee received a salary bump that would make him among the world’s highest-paid politicians, according to figures provided by his office yesterday, even as the government announced this week that the financial hub’s economy has tipped into a technical recession. The former security chief, 64, who assumed office in July, is paid HK$452 200 ($58 000) a month, and will receive an entertainment allowance of over $10 000 as well. His salary is a step-up from that of his predecessor Carrie Lam, who used to earn around $54 000 a month. This means Lee earns more than US president Joe Biden, whose annual salary is $400 000. | AFP…

ARSENAL manager Mikel Arteta said yesterday that he underwent open heart surgery as a two-year-old and that the operation allowed him to go on to become a professional footballer. In last week’s trailer for the Amazon Prime Video series “All or Nothing,” which will cover Arsenal’s 2021-22 season, Arteta can be seen telling players about the surgery in a dressing room chat. He told the BBC: “I was born with a big heart issue that they could not resolve until I was two-years-old because I was too little. “They had to open my heart and go through it. “It was one of the first surgeries that was done in that way in Spain, so we didn’t know how it was going to end up. Everything developed in a normal way…

ROYAL AM chief executive officer, Sinky Mnisi, has elected to break his silence over a number of topics surrounding himself and the club, refuting allegations that he was placed on suspension. Mnisi's name has been touted about in numerous sagas that have clouded the club in recent weeks, leading to him calling a press conference in his personal capacity yesterday at the OR Tambo Premier Hotel. “I remain CEO of Royal AM Football Club but I have decided to take special leave to allow the allegations by the media against me to slow down," he said. “You want to know whether I’m resigning, no, no! I’ve informed the president, I’ve sent an email to the club that I’m taking a special leave. “Everything negative is attributed to me.…

This week we have been anxiously watching the bowls at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England where our South African teams have been participating. The standard of bowls that we have seen on television has been exceptionally high and certainly shows that the game as a whole is strong. To date our teams have had a mixed bag of results with only one silver medal to date, that being in the Women's Fours who were beaten in the last few ends by India. Our team of Thabelo Muvhango, Bridget Calitz, Esme Kruger and skip Johanna Snyman all contributed to the team to get themselves into the gold medal final. Unfortunately, they came up against the Indian skip, Rupa Tirkey, who is an outstanding player. On several occasions over the…