Índice para 2023-04-19 em Mercury

Civil society organisations are expected to challenge the Electoral Amendment Act, which was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday, saying the act in its current format does not change the electoral systems. The new law allows for independent candidates to stand for election in Parliament and provincial legislatures, but critics say Ramaphosa did not consult Parliament or the Constitutional Court regarding some of the issues raised about the bill. They also labelled it as unfair to independent candidates, who will not be able to contest freely against political parties. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has warned that litigation and the subsequent continued uncertainty could affect the quality of next year’s elections, expected to take place between May and August. The act comes three years after…

KWAZULU-NATAL Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube says the “glitches” that led to the disruption of the provision of food to pupils across the province under the school nutrition programme have been resolved. Dube-Ncube assured members of the provincial legislature (MPLs) yesterday that the last district that had been affected by the glitches was attended to yesterday. She made the remarks while responding to a debate during a sitting of the provincial legislature, where she had just tabled her budget. The provincial government has been heavily criticised after it emerged that thousands of pupils have gone hungry across the province since schools reopened last week following what unions termed a “mishandling” of the school nutrition programme tender. There have also been allegations that, in cases where food supplies were available, the food was…

It is alarming that Thyagaraj Markandan can mention a “tinge of admiration” for Thabo Bester (The Mercury, April 18). No doubt his thoughts are shared by many a young person out there. Gone are the days when an accused person pleads guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence. Now, it’s all about exercising one’s rights. Never mind that it leads to a shocking abuse of the judicial system. Honourable people who respect the opinions of society or who are remorseful for their illegal activities would face the music, but not our people. No, the trends following the example of well-known public figures is to go the entire length of a trial and cause as many delays as possible along the way to exhaust and frustrate the judicial officer, using…

INCREASED load shedding has brought driving into the realm of nightmare. In rush-hour Durban the other morning, functioning traffic lights were the rare exception. Ragged figures – normally car guards – took up point duty, only adding to the confusion and at great risk to themselves. It was chaos. Er, does the city not have its own metro police? Should they not be deployed to the major intersections during load shedding to direct traffic, setting up flows rather than jittery jumpings? Hippos where? IS THIS Bogota, in Columbia, or is it St Lucia, in Zululand? Are they getting it mixed up? St Lucia is well known for hippos walking down the main street of the village late at night, sometimes taking a dip in people’s swimming pools. Not just…

Retired Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Willie Seriti and Free State Judge President Hendrick Musi – who both presided as commissioners in the arms deal inquiry – could face the music in a misconduct complaint. This comes after their constitutional challenge to the Judicial Service Commission Act was dismissed. The pair turned to a full Bench (three judges) sitting in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, in a bid to evade the misconduct complaint lodged against them by Open Secrets and Shadow World Investigations with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). This is for the manner in which they handled the arms deal commission of inquiry as commissioners. The two face an investigation for “incapacity, gross incompetence and misconduct”, for alleged “failure to adequately investigate the arms deal”. They challenged the law…

The largest ruby in the world to come to auction will be offered by Sotheby’s in New York in the US in June, the auction house said this week. The gem is estimated to achieve more than $30 million (about R544m). That would probably make the 55.22-carat gem, known as the Estrela de Fura, the most expensive ruby ever sold at auction, said Uni Kim, a specialist in Sotheby’s jewellery department in Hong Kong. “It is from Mozambique, which is also one of the new and more popular origins that we see for rubies, apart from the more traditional and the classic Burmese pieces,” Kim added. The world record for a ruby sold at auction was set in May 2015 by “Sunrise Ruby”, a 25.59-carat Burmese stone that fetched $30.3m…

A Cape Town-based beauty salon owner has alleged that convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester and his girlfriend Dr Nandipha Magudumana hired him in November last year, to recruit young women for their modelling agency. Speaking exclusively to Independent Media, the beauty therapist, trading under the name “Taffy Tally Marz” and who is also known as “Talent”, runs an event management company and the Capetown Nails Guru, revealed that Bester and Magudumana paid him handsomely for recruiting women for them. He explained that at the time when he was hired by the couple, he was not aware of who Bester was. He said he only realised who he was dealing with when the stories appeared in the news. “I met Thabo Bester last year in November 2022. He first came…

WHILE everyone is excited about Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha Magudumana, the story might go much deeper than this action-packed movie. The story behind the story could be much more than what meets the eye. The Thabo Bester saga concerns something that no journalist wants to talk about; profits and corporate power in the South African prison industrial complex. It also concerns the globalisation of production and entrenched corporate power that stand to collapse many developing countries worldwide. Tracy Chang and Douglas Thompkins argue that “the prison industrial complex comprises two major segments: prison privatisation and prison industrialisation”. Most prisons are run by the Department of Correctional Services. However, there are a few private prisons that have been contracted out to private companies. The privatisation of prisons is a controversial…

A suspected Palestinian gunman opened fire at a vehicle in Jerusalem yesterday, wounding two Israelis and at least six Palestinians were injured during clashes with Israeli forces during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, officials said. An Israeli military spokesperson said soldiers in the West Bank city of Jenin, which has seen frequent Israeli raids over the past year, were apprehending suspected militants when they came under heavy fire. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six Palestinians were injured in the clashes and the military said there were no Israeli casualties. In Jerusalem, Israeli police said they were in search of a suspected Palestinian gunman who shot into a car wounding two in the Sheikh Jarrah area of East Jerusalem, a site of serious friction in recent years between…

Moscow: Moscow has opened a new criminal case against Russia’s top opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, who is already serving a nine-year prison sentence, his spokesperson said yesterday. Kira Yarmysh said it was the 10th case against the Kremlin critic, who was already facing up to 35 years in prison. Yarmysh said the administration staged a “provocation” against Navalny by placing an inmate “with personal hygiene problems” in his cell. The smell was so bad, Navalny “refused to go in there”, she said. According to informal prison “rules”, Navalny was expected to use force to kick the inmate out of his cell. “He told the guards that he would not do it because this convict was not to blame.” After being “hit and dragged into the cell”, Navalny “grabbed (the inmate)…

Brussels: Environmental groups lodged a lawsuit against the European Commission yesterday to challenge its definition of natural gas as a “green” energy source. Another NGO, Greenpeace, sued the EU executive separately for deciding that nuclear energy was worthy of its sustainable investment label. The legal actions at the European Court of Justice come a year after the EU established its so-called “taxonomy”, a classification list of energy sources deemed sustainable as it seeks to shift to a carbon-neutral future. Nuclear power and natural gas were included, considered “trans-itional” sources worthy of breaks for green financing. | AFP…

Beijing: A fire in a Beijing hospital has killed 21 people, the state-run Beijing Daily said yesterday. Emergency response teams received word that a fire had broken out at the Beijing Changfeng Hospital, the report said. The fire was extinguished about half an hour later and rescue efforts continued for about another two hours, by which time a total of 71 patients had been evacuated and taken to another location. The death toll was put at 21 by 6pm, it said. The cause of the accident was under investigation. Social media users posted videos of people sitting on external air conditioning units, while others, clinging to ropes, jumped from the building. | AFP…

AFRIMAT’S headline earnings per share is expected to fall 13% to 18% for the year to February 28, but the mid-tier mining group remains debt free and well capitalised to be able to execute its growth strategy. The share price slipped 2.97% to close at R49 on the JSE yesterday, some 27% below the R66.60 that it traded at a year ago. The construction materials, industrial mineral and bulk commodities mining group said in a trading statement yesterday that earnings per share were expected to decrease by between 15% and 20% compared to 560.7 cents for the year ended February 28, 2022. Headline earnings per share were expected to be between 445.2c and 472.3c, representing a decline of between 13% and 18% compared to 542.9c for the last financial…

OPPOSITION parties in the KwaZulu- Natal Legislature have questioned the government’s commitment to making the Zulu royal household financially sustainable through the provision of necessary support to the institution. This follows Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube’s announcement yesterday that her government would allocate R79.5 million to the royal household as part of support to the institution. Dube-Ncube told Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) that the funds would be transferred to the Royal Household Trust, which is a special purpose vehicle that governs the household’s funds, saying the government would continue its support as it regarded the royal household as a critical pillar in the province. “The Office of the Premier will continue to provide support to the Zulu Royal Household Trust, the Zulu royal household and His Majesty King Misuzulu kaZwelithini,…

THE benefits of knowing and defining what you want – desire, aspire to, what you’re “cut out” for – and setting yourself in the direction of achieving it, include: You’ll be focused on your strengths and your future and not on your weaknesses and your past failures. You’ll be single-minded as you explore and enjoy your strengths and talents, and you’ll be a whole lot nicer to be around than you are likely to be if you’re scrambling about trying to settle your confused and uncertain soul. You’ll get more and more comfortable with the idea that who and what you are will undergo shifts and changes in expression, but the core of who you are and what you want will be as set as your fingerprints. You will see…

The most-talked-about, infamous escape artist extraordinaire, the elusive Thabo Bester’s rise in South Africa’s history of criminals, remains the most remarkable ever. Bester’s escape from the Manguang prison and him brazenly flaunting his ill-gotten booty reads like a Hollywood blockbuster in the vein of a John Grisham thriller. I’m certain that film producers have already conceptualised the script, and pencilled in the likes of Denzel Washington playing Bester, Halle Berry or Angela Bassett starring as Dr Nandipha Magudumana, and Hollywood legends Forest Whittaker, Samuel L Jackson and Morgan Freeman playing supporting roles. The rest of the roles to be played by South Africans. Thabo Bester is notably the most notoriously infamous South African criminal compared to state capturers the Gupta bothers, bank robber André Stander, or Daisy de Melker who…

After 35 years and almost 14 000 performances, the curtain fell for the final time on Sunday on the longest-running show in Broadway history – The Phantom of the Opera. Since opening in January 1988, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s megahit musical has wowed New Yorkers and tourists alike, becoming a symbol of the famous theatre district. The melodrama about a masked musical genius who haunts the Paris Opera House and whose heart aches for the young soprano Christine has been seen by 20 million people and grossed more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales. But producers decided it was time to end the record run after the show struggled to rebound from Broadway’s 18-month closure during the Covid-19 pandemic. Spectator Daniel Wright said the final night was “extraordinary”. | AFP…

Veteran journalist Mariah Vengtas Bisetty, whose career spanned more than 50 years at The Mercury, has died, aged 75, his family said yesterday. Bisetty, who started his career at The Mercury in 1967 as a full-time editorial assistant and later as a reporter, has been described by friends and former colleagues as a gentleman who mentored generations of journalists. He retired in 2016 after 49 years of service, but continued to work for The Mercury for several years thereafter until his health began to deteriorate, having served under 10 different editors in his career. Bisetty’s cousin, Krissy Bisetty, a former editor of the Post, said Mariah was an exemplary employee, a hard worker, true gentleman and always displayed old-school professionalism. “In total, he spent more than 50 years at one…

Explosions rocked the Sudanese capital Khartoum yesterday, the fourth day of fighting that has claimed nearly 200 lives despite growing international calls for an end to hostilities that have spawned increasing lawlessness. A weeks-long power struggle erupted into deadly violence Saturday between the forces of two generals who seized power in a 2021 coup: army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Underscoring the chaos, the US said one of its diplomatic convoys was fired upon, and the EU said its ambassador was attacked at home. Aid groups have reported looting of medical and other supplies. Battles have taken place throughout the vast northeast African country and there are fears of regional spillover of the conflict that has seen…

The number of Afghans in poverty nearly doubled to 34 million as the nation was racked by the collapse of the US-backed government and the Taliban takeover, the UN said yesterday. After the US-backed republic fell in 2021, vast foreign subsidies were halted and aid programmes dramatically cut back as many countries refused to deal with the Taliban authorities in Kabul. In December, those NGOs still providing vital help were dealt a further blow by a Taliban government order barring Afghan women from working for them. This month the curb was extended to the UN’s Afghan female employees and the organisation said it now faces an “appalling choice” over whether to continue its aid schemes. Yesterday, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released a stark new assessment of 2022 data estimating…

Kuala Lumpur: Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh spoke up yesterday for diversity and women’s empowerment in the entertainment industry, saying “we should never allow somebody to put us in a box”. She was speaking at her first news conference in her home country since her historic best actress win – Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award – for the sci-fi action comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once – the Malaysian star said: “I don’t believe that just because we are women, we are a weaker sex.” | AFP…

LONDON: Britain has sanctioned an individual suspected of financing Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, as part of an effort to “disrupt an international terrorist-financing operation”, the British government said yesterday. The government said it had used domestic counter-terrorism powers for the first time to freeze all assets and economic resources belonging to Nazem Ahmad in the UK and barred anyone in the country from doing business with him or any of the companies he owns. Ahmad, who was sanctioned by the US in 2019, has an extensive art collection in the UK and conducts business with British artists, galleries and auction houses. | Reuters…

PROTEAS white-ball coach Rob Walter may have been involved in robust discussions at Cricket South Africa’s annual coaches conference on Monday, but he no doubt would have been keeping one eye on Bangalore. At the conclusion of the international season, Walter proclaimed that he would be spending the off-season “mostly watching the IPL.” And if he did indeed tune into Monday’s action, Walter would have noticed that his burgeoning all-rounder Sisanda Magala was not able to take the field due to a hand injury and that Wayne Parnell (1/48) faced a baptism of fire on a batting paradise at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. However, he would have also received yet another strong message from former Proteas captain Faf du Plessis who he is by no means a spent force. In fact,…

Going aggressively after clients who owe it billions in outstanding loans THE LAND BANK has decided to approach the National Treasury and ask it to help with conducting a forensic investigation of third-party agents who were disbursing and managing more than R10 billion debt owed to it in bad loans. This comes after the Land Bank aggressively went after clients who are owing it billions of rand in outstanding loans after it resumed new lending activities to commercial farmers after a two-year hiatus. Non-performing loans are part of the reasons why the cash-strapped bank entered a serious liquidity crisis when it failed to make interest payments due on its R50bn borrowings in April 2020, triggering a cross default on substantially all of its borrowings. Land Bank chairperson Thabi Nkosi…

The Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, has upheld the right of all pregnant and lactating women and children under 6 to access free health services at all public health establishments, including hospitals. This is irrespective of their nationality or documentation status. It was ordered that the Gauteng regulations and a policy, introduced by the Gauteng Department of Health in 2020, which denied free health-care services to pregnant and lactating women and young children who are asylum seekers, undocumented, or persons affected by statelessness, are declared unlawful. It was also declared that any other similar policies or circulars that prevent pregnant and lactating women and children under 6 from accessing free health services are inconsistent with the National Health Act and are invalid. The court ordered that, by no later than May…

MOST people who voted in the past election would have done so for a reason, some with valid reasons, others with reasons less cogent. Some may have voted just for the sake of voting, some because of past loyalties, some on a racial, ethnic or religious basis, some to create what is termed a “strong opposition” and some to ensure the “other” party does not win. Whatever the reasons, I will dare say that many did not know who they were voting for, except for the name of the political party, without knowing who exactly would represent them in national and provincial government. Many are influenced by the hype during vote-harvesting season, but if one has to ask a voter who will be the parliamentarian that represents him in his…

The DA has written to KwaZulu-Natal Human Settlements MEC Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba, calling for an urgent meeting between his department and affected residents and stakeholders of Bayview in Chatsworth around the proposed Turnstone Road housing development. The appeal comes after a community meeting on Saturday, where residents expressed shock over the department’s plans to proceed with building on Portion 215 or ERF80, which they claim is a play lot that has served their community for several years and also has heritage significance. The community is enraged that the department has allegedly not followed due process in terms of rezoning the site. The alarm was first raised when residents found out about the development through community WhatsApp groups. They raised the matter with DA ward councillor Ganas Govender, who at the…

Defence Minister Thandi Modise has defended the “leave on instruction” that a deputy surgeon-general was ordered to take since October 2020, saying it was within the provisions of departmental policy. The official has been paid R3.2 million in salaries and benefits since October 2020. DA MP Kobus Marais wrote to Modise enquiring about the charges levelled against deputy surgeon-general Noel Ndlovu, who he said was suspended three years ago for his apparent refusal to sign off the order of the Cuban drug, Heberon Interferon-Alpha-B2B. Marais also wanted to know when Ndlovu would be hauled before a disciplinary hearing. In response, Modise said Ndlovu was not on suspension, but was on “leave on instruction”. Modise also said the military police had opened a case against the CEO of Umkhombe Marine, who…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has finally appointed the long-awaited non-executive members of the board of directors for the public broadcaster, the SABC, for five years. Ramaphosa designated one of the new board members, Khathutshelo Ramukumba, as chairperson, and Nomvuyiso Batyi as deputy chairperson. Other board members are Renée Horne, Tseliso Thipanyane, Phathiswa Magopeni, Aifheli Makhwanya, Magdalene Moonsamy, Rearabetsoe Motaung, David Maimela, Dinkwanyane Mohuba, Mpho Tsedu and Palesa Kadi. “The SABC is a vital institution of our constitutional democracy. I trust the newly appointed board members will work hard at ensuring that South Africa continues to benefit from a stable, independent and effective national public broadcaster,” Ramaphosa said. The appointment of the board was delayed after Ramaphosa wrote to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula late last month, seeking clarity on the…

Recent academic studies by Edson Leroy Meyer and Ochuko Kelvin Overen reported that in South Africa, more than 3.5 million households do not have access to modern energy for lighting, cooking and heating. By the government’s own admission, the electrification of a 5% to 10% annual rate is insufficient for the country to achieve universal access to the grid by 2030. The report by Meyer and Overen suggests a new energy policy that recommends supplying 50kWh/month of electricity through renewable energy sources. The most successful and comprehensive application of a renewable energy policy to address poverty in rural areas is the experience in China. As part of the poverty reduction programme, a solar photovoltaic poverty alleviation project was introduced that is easily accessed and maintained. China set up solar…

The Kremlin said yesterday that President Vladimir Putin had visited two front-line regions in Ukraine, prompting Kyiv to brand it a tour of the scenes of Russian “crimes”. Moscow portrayed the trip as a marker of its control in occupied Ukraine, but Russia does not fully hold those areas despite claiming them after a widely condemned annexation. Putin’s visit to Kherson and Lugansk, only made public a day after it happened, came as China’s Defence Minister, Li Shangfu, was in Moscow to demonstrate what he called Beijing’s “determination” to have stronger Russia ties. Moscow has been seeking allies to confront the West as its war in Ukraine causes immense destruction and suffering but has not neared Putin’s goal of capturing control of the country. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it…

Swedish Radio has announced that it is quitting Twitter, the first major European public broadcaster to join three from North America that left the social media platform in the past week. Swedish Radio said Twitter had lost relevance for a Swedish audience, not blaming a new policy by Twitter, under owner Elon Musk, to label more public broadcasters as government funded. US broadcasters NPR and PBS and Canada’s CBC quit Twitter after it added new labels to its accounts, designating them “government-funded media”. That change appears to have been applied in North America but not in Western Europe, where they are labelled “publicly funded”. Swedish Radio said it was worrying that Twitter had reduced its workforce and that it could affect Twitter’s ability to handle bots, disinformation and hateful content.…

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities yesterday banned meetings at all offices of the opposition Ennahda Islamist party and police closed the headquarters of the Salvation Front main opposition coalition, party and official sources said. Ennahda fears the move will pave the way for banning the party and comes a day after police detained Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied and three senior officials, the party said. Police raided the party headquarters and evacuated all those present to start a search that will take days, party officials said. Police also prevented access to the headquarters of the Salvation Front party. | Reuters…

KATHMANDU: A mountaineer from Northern Ireland died while descending from the summit of the world’s 10th highest peak, and an Indian climber was missing on the same mountain, officials said yesterday. Noel Hanna, who had climbed Mount Everest 10 times, scaled the 8 091m Annapurna peak in west Nepal on Monday, but died overnight in Camp IV. The Department of Tourism said the circumstances of Hanna’s death were unclear. It said an Indian climber, who fell into a crevasse on Annapurna, had been missing since Monday. Two other Indian mountaineers, caught up in bad weather while climbing Annapurna, were being rescued. | Reuters…