Table of contents for 2022-03-24 in Cape Times

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za THE MAJOR banks have ticked some of the boxes on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures’ (TCFD) detailed guidance but have ignored many of the recommended elements of reporting. This was according to the latest investor briefing by non-profit shareholder activism organisation Just Share, on an analysis by them of the most recent climate risk-related disclosures of Investec, FirstRand, Standard Bank Group, Nedbank Group and Absa Group, and assessing them against the recommendations of the TCFD. The TCFD, created in 2015, is a consistent climate-related financial risk disclosure standard for use by companies, banks and investors in providing information to stakeholders. “Recognising that all five banks are still in the early stages of TCFD reporting, we have highlighted what we believe to be the most important…

siyabonga Mkhwanazi siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za | POLITICAL BUREAU Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has said government wants to see an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The government is putting in place mitigating measures to contain rising fuel prices and the announcement would be made soon. The conflict in Ukraine has led to the rise in fuel prices in the global market and this has pushed up food prices. But Godongwana, who was part of the economics cluster of ministers in the National Assembly yesterday answering questions, denied claims by MPs that the government was sitting on the fence on the conflict in Ukraine. Godongwana said South Africa was calling for peace and a negotiated settlement between the two countries. “First and foremost, we don’t have an ambivalent position and…

Nicola Daniels and Chevon Booysen AS THE spotlight continues to fall on the country's banking sector and the power it has, an extensive report recently tabled before Parliament has found that South Africa has the highest level of concentration in the sector, relative to countries such as Brazil, Australia and Nigeria. The 416-page “Measuring Concentration and Participation in the South African Economy: Levels and Trends Report” by the Competition Commission (Compcom) provides a detailed assessment of both the levels and trends in concentration and participation over the past five to 10 years across 178 industries. The report paints a bleak picture of how four commercial banks control almost 90% of the country's banking sector. Increasing concentration is commonly associated with “higher margins and profitability, suggestive of a decline…

THE commemoration of 21 March 1960 when police officers wantonly opened fire on a group of Black South Africans peacefully protesting oppressive apartheid pass laws in Sharpeville killing 69, is rightly a cathartic reminder of the price paid in dignity and human life in the Struggle for freedom and human rights. That the iconic day is designated Human Rights Day underlines the constitutional enshrinement of “upholding the values of human dignity”, that South African “society is rooted in non-racialism and non-sexism”, that “our country is founded on the rule of law, and that all are equal before the law” and “obliges the state to protect and uphold these rights.” These are the rituals of rights enjoyed by South Africans in the post-1994 democratic dispensation, at least on the hallowed script…

Odwa Mkentane odwa.mkentane@inl.co.za A GROUP of Tafelsig residents held a peaceful protest outside Huguenot Primary School yesterday over issues with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED)’s online application system. Tafelsig Community Activist Philidelphia Hartzenberg said people who do not have internet access are being made to pay R60 for assistance to complete the online application. “There are people who have been doing online registration since 2020 but till today they have not been placed. “Most parents who live in our area and surroundings do not have cell phones, even if they do have one they do not have an access to the internet to apply online. “There is a lady in our area who charges people for online applications and that is ridiculous. The school is supposed to assist the…

Alexander arefiev | Russian Embassy We took note of the article titled “The ultimate test for a country is how it behaves in times of war” by Koert Meyer published on March 14, 2022, in the Pretoria News. In our opinion, not only has the author failed to explain the connection between a state’s “abolitionism” and its foreign policy, but he also premised his ideas on a number of mistakes that could mislead the readers. Let us help correct them. First of all, Meyer’s “Russia is notorious for centuries of fighting first among its own people, then extending it to its weaker neighbours”. Well, Russians indeed had to fight a lot to defend their country’s sovereignty and protect their right to exist as a nation – against Poles, French,…

Ukraine has repeated a call to Western leaders to supply Kyiv with advanced weapons to fight Moscow’s troops, one month after their invasion. “Our armed forces and citizens are holding out with superhuman courage, but we cannot win a war without offensive weapons, without medium-range missiles that can be a means of deterrence,” Ukrainian presidential advisory Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday. The appeal comes shortly after Russia announced it had deployed hypersonic missiles on the battlefield, close to Ukraine’s border with Romania, in what analysts said was the first use of such weapons in the world. Yermak said it was “impossible” for Ukraine to defend itself without a reliable “air defence system that shoots down enemy and ballistic missiles from a great distance”. Ukraine’s appeal for greater military support from…

A Tokyo court yesterday dismissed a rare suit by North Korean defectors seeking to hold Pyongyang accountable for a now-defunct repatriation programme they described as “state kidnapping”. The plaintiffs had symbolically summoned Kim Jong-un himself to court in the civil suit, though they made it clear they did not expect the North Korean leader to respond. The unusual case centred on a scheme that saw more than 90 000 people move to North Korea from Japan between 1959 and 1984. The programme mainly targeted ethnic Koreans but also their Japanese spouses, lured by fantastical propaganda promising a “paradise on Earth”. Five participants who later escaped from North Korea had demanded 100 million yen (R13 million) each in damages as they made their case in the Tokyo District Court. They accused…

NEW DELHI: At least 11 people died in a massive fire that broke out at a scrap godown in Telangana’s Secunderabad, an official said yesterday. “A total of 12 members were inside the scrap shop. “Bodies of 11 labourers have been shifted to Gandhi hospital,” Gandhi Nagar Station House Officer (SHO) Mohan Rao was quoted by the NDTV as saying. According to the police, the dead workers came from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Rao added that the reason behind the fire is yet to be determined but it is believed that a short circuit could have been the cause.…

NEW YORK: Some 670 000 Israeli citizens reside in “over 130 illegal settlements and over 100 outposts in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” Tor Wennesland, the UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, said on Tuesday. Wennesland told the UN Security Council that Israel’s settlement expansion “continues to fuel violence” in the occupied Palestinian territory. As for the call of the Security Council resolution 2334 (2016) on parties to prevent attacks against civilians, the special co-ordinator said that “unfortunately, daily violence continued”.…

WHILE other sporting codes have welcomed the decision to allow 50% attendance by the spectators, the Premier Soccer League appears to be in no rush let the fans know when will they once again enjoy "the beautiful game". SuperSport Park - which hosted the third ODI match between South Africa and Bangladesh yesterday - and SA Rugby wasted no time in announcing that they’ll conform to the President’s speech on Tuesday, that fans can fill up stadiums to half-capacity. Danny Jordaan, president of the South African Football Association (Safa) told the federation’s media department yesterday afternoon that “we are very happy" and "welcome the decision" to re-open the stadiums”. On the other hand, the PSL was non-commital. In a press release that was seen by IOL Sport,…

Ntombi Nkosi ntombi.nkosi@inl.co.za | Political Bureau THE EFF has given SAPS seven days to arrest Operation Dudula movement leader, Nhlanhla Lux. The party said it viewed the attack on 59-year-old Soweto resident Victor Ramerafe as an attempt to provoke the EFF. Police have confirmed that a case of housebreaking had been opened by Ramerafe and the docket was handed over to the provincial SAPS for further investigations. On Wednesday EFF members accompanied Ramerafe to open a case after members of Operation Dudula raided his home in Dobsonville, accusing him of selling drugs. Ramerafe alleged that on Sunday members of Operation Dudula raided his house and demanded that he bring out drugs on the premises. “They did not have a search warrant. They searched and left my house in a…

Staff writer WILDTRUST, along with several other conservation entities, has expressed its support for the recently published Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) notice that makes it clear that the use of drones for the purpose of recreational fishing is illegal. WILDTRUST said the largely negative reaction of the recreational drone fishing community to this notice had been surprising, considering that drone fishing had always been illegal, although arguably not always effectively enforced. Drone fishing is using a drone to take bait out and deposit it in a body of water, with the aim of catching fish. Its greatest benefit is that anyone can put bait far out to sea with great accuracy. A key concern around drone fishing is the inability of drone operators to successfully land…

Marsha Dean marsha.dean@inl.co.za MORE than 200 farm dwellers and women from various commercial farming areas across the province yesterday marched to Distell’s offices in Stellenbosch to demand an end to labour rights violations on commercial wine farms. The Women on Farms project (WFP) said profits made by Distell, as well as commercial wine farmers, were largely the result of the increasingly precarious and casualised labour of women farm workers, who say that they continue to experience abuse from farm workers, exposure to pesticides, an absence of toilets on the vineyards, unlawful evictions and tenure insecurity as housing contracts on farms are not in their own names. “While companies like Distell and commercial farmers celebrate the end of the harvest as a time for anticipated increased profits and revenue for for…

IF THE recent mass murders in townships and kidnappings of prominent business people across the country for ransom are anything to go by, one could be forgiven for thinking that these brazen crimes indicate the country becoming a failed state where law and order is concerned. Even Police Minister Bheki Cele and his boss President Cyril Ramaphosa can barely claim that they are in control of the situation. How when fearful residents tell of the daily horrors of children seeing bodies riddled with bullets in front of their homes, when kidnappers extort millions of rand from desperate families, when cash-in-transit heists are the order of the day and when vigilante groups called Operation Dudula have effectively taken over some communities? In less than a week, 17 people, mostly youth, were…

London: “The West, and especially America, is principally responsible” for the Ukraine crisis, John J Mearsheimer, a US political scientist, wrote in a recent opinion piece published in The Economist. American and European policymakers provoked the Ukraine crisis by trying to integrate Ukraine into the West and asserting that Russian president Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for the crisis, Xinhua news agency reported, citing Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “But that story is wrong,” he added. In his view, the Ukraine crisis “is the most dangerous international conflict since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis”. The West is now increasing aid to Ukraine while imposing economic sanctions on Russia, a step that Putin sees as “akin to a declaration of war”. Understanding the root causes is…

LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was expected to marry his partner Stella Moris inside a high-security prison in south-east London yesterday at a small ceremony attended by four guests, two official witnesses and two guards. Assange is being held in jail while US authorities seek his extradition to face trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ release of vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables more than a decade ago. The 50-year-old Australian, who denies any wrongdoing, has been in Belmarsh prison since 2019.…

Philippe Guéttier, adviser to the French Water Partnership, has said in an interview with APA on the sidelines of the World Water Forum hosted by Senegal that it is no longer time for speeches but for action. The World Water Forum has been organised every three years since 1997 for better management of the resource. But is there a collective awareness? There is always the same amount of water on Earth. This is a fact. However, human activities have modified the capacity to capture this water for a host of reasons. With climate change, the changes are even more visible in certain regions, including the Sahel. Water is not high enough on the global political agenda. In March 2023, there will be a UN conference on water and the Sustainable…

Kabul: The Taliban has ordered the secondary girls’ schools in Afghanistan to shut just hours after they reopened, saying they would remain closed until a plan was drawn up in accordance with the Islamic law for them to reopen. The Taliban Education Ministry said last week that schools would open on Wednesday after months of restrictions on education for girls. Even before the Taliban backtracked on its announcement, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) had expressed scepticism about the Taliban’s determination to allow girls to go back to school. “Taliban statements are often very different from Taliban actions,” said HRW’s Heather Barr.…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa will host the fourth South Africa Investment Conference today, as the government places more emphasis on public-private partnerships to generate economic growth post Covid-19. Naspers chief executive Phuthi Maha- nyele-Dabengwa yesterday welcomed the business-friendly tone of the investment conference. “In order to fully drive confidence, it is critical that business leaders and policymakers work together to create a consistent policy environment that encourages investment and supports local innovation, where South African tech companies and talent can thrive,” she said. The conference is in line with South Africa’s commitment to raise R1.2 trillion in five years in a bid to boost eco- nomic growth and stimulate employment. Since the first investment conference in 2018, South Africa has attracted R770 billion in commitments across…

Staff writer The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has confirmed that it suspended the approval of Lufthansa Technik, one of the Aircraft Maintenance Organisations (AMO) that maintains the fleet of Comair Ltd on Monday. According to a statement by SACAA, the suspension followed a four-day audit which started on March 15. Comair has since confirmed that it acted pre-emptively by arranging for SAA Technical (SAAT) to take over the line-maintenance of its aircraft “to prevent customer inconvenience”. “The audit of both the AMOs maintaining the Comair fleet follows the conclusion of the airline’s audit by the SACAA following a spate of incidents taking place from February 2022. During the safety oversight visit Lufthansa Technik’s quality control management system (QC) and safety management systems (SMS) were subjected to a review…

Siphokazi Vuso and Odwa Mkentane THE Albert Fritz saga has triggered an end-to-end review of the province’s sexual harassment policy which was adopted in 2011. It has also emerged that the probe into sexual misconduct allegations against the dismissed MEC cost more than R160 000 from the public purse. This was revealed in written replies from Premier Alan Winde to questions by ANC spokesperson on Community Safety Melusi Kama. Fritz was axed last month after a report by Advocate Jennifer Williams found that the allegations of sexual harassment against him by four women were substantiated. Winde said the report by Williams also found there was sufficient credibility in the allegations of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and Fritz creating an environment that was conducive to sexual harassment. Winde added the full…

Staff writer ASTRONOMY’S newest mystery objects, odd radio circles or ORCs, have been pulled into sharp focus by an international team of astronomers, including UCT’s Dr Jordan Collier, using the world’s most capable radio telescopes. First revealed by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), odd radio circles quickly became objects of fascination. Theories on what caused them ranged from galactic shockwaves to the throats of wormholes. A new detailed image, captured by the SA Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT radio telescope and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is providing researchers with more information to help narrow down those theories. There are now three leading theories to explain…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za DESPERATE to be a father, a divorced chartered accountant failed in his application at the Johannesburg High Court for rights of contact and care of his former lover’s 4-year-old son. The 52-year-old man, who cannot have children despite numerous IVF treatments done with his ex-wife prior to their divorce, met his former lover on the Tinder app while she was pregnant. A romantic relationship ensued between himself and the woman – a mother of two minor boys. However, the mother, a nursery school teacher who had moved into the man’s Northcliff home with her children, said she had noticed an obsession with her baby boy and decided in the best interests of her children to move out of his home after noticing the relationship intensifying, which alienated…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za THE same whole-of-society approach that was used during the Covid-19 pandemic, where all spheres of government came together, is being attempted to tackle the “pandemic” of crime in Khayelitsha and other hot spots. Khayelitsha, the fastest growing township in the Western Cape due to new informal settlements, has seen at least eleven people, mostly youth, killed in mass shootings in the span of about a week. Five people were shot dead in Endlovini informal settlement and, less than 5km away, six people were killed in Enkanini informal settlement. Crime in the area is also affecting the health department and, as a result, police visibility around the Khayelitsha Site B clinic has since been requested after health workers returning from night shift continue to be attacked at gunpoint…

Three Ugandan government officials, including one of the country’s top geologists, and their two military escorts were killed in a remote, mineral- rich region bordering South Sudan and Kenya, officials said yesterday. They came under attack on Monday during a mineral mapping exercise in Karamoja, an impoverished and volatile region in the country’s north-east, said army commander Brigadier- General Joseph Balikuddembe. The officials – all from the mineral and energy ministry – had travelled 490 kilometres from the capital Kampala to Moroto district. “Their translator tried to explain to the armed warriors about their mission in the area but the warriors, probably out of lack of information opened fire, killing all the five in cold blood,” Balikuddembe told AFP. The translator escaped, he added. Karamoja – a sparsely populated and…

MELBOURNE: The leader and co-founder of Hillsong megachurch, Brian Houston, has resigned after two complaints were investigated by the church board. A statement released by the board yesterday said it had accepted his resignation. The news followed a statement on Friday that detailed the complaints made against Houston. About 10 years ago, he sent “inappropriate text messages” to a staff member who then resigned, according to the statement. It said Houston had a dependence on sleeping pills, from which he has since recovered, and was under the influence of the medication when he sent the messages. The second incident occurred in 2019 at the Hillsong Conference, in Sydney. Houston knocked on a hotel room door and spent “time with the female occupant”, the statement said. The church investigation found…

NANNING (China): About 20 civil aviation technical experts yesterday arrived at the site of Monday’s plane crash to carry out an investigation into the tragedy. “We’ll conduct the on-site investigation today to calculate the distribution of the wreckage, possibly expanding the investigation area based on the aircraft’s trajectory,” said one of the experts. Affected by continuous rainfall, the site is slippery and muddy, and the search and rescue work has been hindered to some extent. A road leading to the core site of the accident has been built and weaved bamboo has been laid along the road to reduce the impact of the rain.…

Georgetown: Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said yesterday rising food prices would hit the global economy and have a magnified impact on his small South American nation, which he said would seek to attract investment to boost domestic output. Higher food prices have driven up global inflation, partly fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both major exporters of wheat and other food products. “The impact of that on the global economy will be tremendous and as a small developing state that impact is magnified for us,” the president told a conference in the United Arab Emirates.…