Table of contents for 2022-06-13 in Cape Times

ELEVEN- month-old Imbusise from Qonce in the Eastern Cape was the youngest of seven burn survivors who underwent surgery during the Smile Foundation’s East London Smile Week recently. At 7 months of age, she endured excruciatingly painful burns to most of her little body, when a flask of boiling water fell over her. Since the traumatising incident, she has undergone a series of operations and has spent six weeks in ICU. Both Imbusise and her great aunt, who is also her caregiver, are receiving counselling which has been made possible by the Smile Foundation. To meet a growing need for post-trauma care in South Africa, the Smile Foundation announced its plans to extend its burn treatment programme. “Like Imbusise, there are many more children that Smile Foundation endeavours to help,…

A REPORT compiled by Namibia’s former head of the police's Criminal Investigations Directorate, commissioner Nelius Becker in June 2020 had warned of a fallout between South Africa and Namibia over the break-in at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in Limpopo where millions of US dollars were “concealed” before being stolen by a gang plotting with his domestic worker. Ramaphosa has come under scrutiny after former State Security head Arthur Fraser lodged a criminal complaint against him for alleged money laundering, defeating the ends of justice and kidnapping the suspects who were allegedly interrogated, citing breaches of, among others, the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, no 121 of 1998 (“Poca”) and the Prevention of Corrupt Activities Act No12 of 2004 (“The Corruption Act”). It is alleged that in 2020 one…

JOLENE’S Foundation in Elsies River has embarked on its winter drive in the hope of keeping the homeless and less fortunate not only fed, but also warm during the coldest season of the year. The NPO, named after founder Charmaine Alexander’s daughter, Jolene, has been around for eight years. Alexander said she’s had to change the feeding schedule from four days a week to two days - Tuesdays and Thursdays - as she does not receive sufficient donations. She primarily receives donations from the local Lexi Consani crèche in her area and from family members. “My heart breaks when people come to get food and the children are not wearing any socks, shoes or jerseys or anything warm. “Every year it gets colder in winter and these people have nothing…

SOUTH African authorities have denied the existence of monkeypox cases rumoured to be spreading in parts of the country. Yesterday, a concerned parent told Cape Times sister paper, Pretoria News that he had spent Saturday night in and out of the Mediclinic in Mpumalanga’s capital city Mbombela, where his infant was being treated for the zoonotic virus. “My son started acting up at night and we found that he was a bit feverish and had a rash and bumps.We drove to the Mediclinic where we were told that chickenpox was ruled out. The medical staff said this was a definite case of monkeypox but they were not allowed to say it publicly,” said the parent, who asked not to be named for fear of vilification. He said he decided…

THE Manenberg Community Police Forum (CPF) has requested that police leave no stone unturned in the case of Manenberg mother Shireen Essop, after she was found alive at the weekend. This follows a report that police failed to assist her at a petrol station in Govan Mbeki Road. Vigilant Klipfontein Mission Station Neighbourhood Watch members found Essop early on Saturday morning, apparently trying to seek help from the police who were buying coffee at the BP petrol station. According to one of the members, Dean Esau, they assisted her after seeing she was being ignored. “Shireen was speaking to the cop, she requested to make a phone call to her husband to fetch her because she was kidnapped about three weeks ago. “The policemen ignored her completely. “When I overheard…

It is not enough to simply not be a racist EVERY year on June 16, South Africans celebrate Youth Day to commemorate the 1976 Soweto uprising. But this day is not just about the Struggle of a generation past; it’s also about the challenges and dreams of today’s young people who are also eager for change. This desire for change was expressed vociferously at Stellenbosch University (SU) recently, when the urinating and alleged racist incident laid bare the fact that so many students of colour, specifically black students, still face racial discrimination on our campuses daily. Unsurprisingly, students from various SU societies and leadership groups arranged protest actions the following week to increase the pressure on management for change. This was not new pressure. This pressure was felt in 2015…

Gunmen have released 11 passengers who were abducted during a train attack in northern Nigeria at the end of March, a government minister said, though dozens others are thought to remain in captivity. Gbemisola Saraki, the minister of state for transportation, said the government was working to ensure all the kidnapped passengers were released. The freed passengers were taken to a hospital in Abuja. Saraki did not say how and where they were released, or if ransom was paid. Armed gangs, known locally as bandits, blew up the track on the Abuja-Kaduna route in the north of the country and opened fire on the night train on March 28, killing eight people. Nigeria’s state railway company initially said it could not account for 168 people who according to a passenger…

THE UK government yesterday came under pressure to also intervene in the matter of a Moroccan man who has been sentenced to death alongside two Britons by a pro-Russian court in Ukraine. The court in Donetsk, one of two self-proclaimed statelets in eastern Ukraine, last week ordered the death penalty for the trio after they were captured by Russian troops. Brahim Saadoun along with UK nationals Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner were said to have surrendered in April after fighting with Ukrainian forces in the besieged port city of Mariupol. British cabinet minister Brandon Lewis told Sky News the government was “engaged” with Ukrainian authorities in trying to help Aslin and Pinner after their “sham trial”. The Britons were combatants serving with Ukraine’s armed forces and fully entitled to…

YAOUNDE: -The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has strongly condemned an attack on a hospital in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region of the south-west. “Attacks on health-care workers, patients and facilities are serious violations of international human rights law,” Matthias Naab, UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Cameroon, said on Saturday. “They must be investigated and perpetrators must be held to account,” he said last Wednesday when suspected separatists attacked and torched Mamfe District Hospital. According to OCHA, there have been five attacks against health-care providers since January. | (Xinhua…

ISLAMABAD: A soldier was killed in an exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists in Datta Khel area in North Waziristan district of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an army statement said yesterday. “The military personnel fought bravely and effectively engaged the terrorists’ location,” the military’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in the statement. During an intense exchange of fire, a 25-years-old soldier lost his life, the statement added. Area clearance was being carried out to eliminate any terrorists found in the area, according to the ISPR.…

THIS Youth Day, the 1976 June16 Soweto uprising will be commemorated under the theme “Promoting sustainable livelihoods and resilience of young people for a better tomorrow”. Thursday will mark 46 years since the 1976 student uprising against the Bantu education system. Political party Al Jama-Ah said it was geared to assisting aspiring young entrepreneurs. “Al Jama-ah’s president and leader in Parliament, who is a member on the Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development, Ganief Hendricks, said the party is geared to assist the youth with applications to start small businesses. The party’s parliamentary constituency offices are equipped to help aspiring entrepreneurs with how to access funding, process of application and act as their mentor through the critical early stages of their small businesses,” the party said. The International Peace Youth…

PARLIAMENT has welcomed the Western Cape High Court’s dismissal of an application for urgent interim relief by suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane against her impeachment. Mkhwebane had also sought an interdict against President Cyril Ramaphosa against suspending her from office, but Ramaphosa announced her immediate suspension on Thursday – the day after Mkhwebane announced her office would be investigating the theft of a large amount of foreign currency from his Limpopo game farm. In a statement Parliament said the Section 194 impeachment process was the ultimate accountability-ensuring mechanism for all office-bearers. Parliament spokesperson, Moloto Mothapo, in a statement said the application by Mkhwebane followed a Constitutional Court decision giving the green light to the committee on its Section 194 inquiry – established to consider the motion for her removal. “The…

ANYONE trying to make sense of the alchemy beaming off the African Continent in the past five to eight years needs to do themselves a favour and visit the DaKart biennale before it closes on the 21st of this month. A herculean task impeccably delivered by artists, curators, creative directors, and the host nation Senegal, it is unfortunate that this biennale runs for only one month. The collective body of works exhibited, a vital piece of our puzzle unfolding, a reminder of who and why we are, foretold through seminal African institutions like DakArt. Following a four-year hiatus given disruptions caused by the global pandemic, DakArt returns in full splendour. A befitting setting Dakar Senegal serves as an encyclopaedia and repository of knowledge on both; post-colonial history and contributions to…

THE ANC in the province has served the party’s MPL Danville Smith with a letter informing him that he will be replaced as a member of the provincial legislature following his latest arrest last week. Smith was charged with theft of motor vehicles and fraud, along with two foreign nationals. He was released on R10 000 bail after a brief appearance in the Vredendal Magistrate's Court. The arrests came after police were tipped off about an alleged modus operandi of theft of motor vehicles. National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said Smith and his co-accused are accused of pretending they had transferred R210 000 as payment for a vehicle advertised on Gumtree, although no money was transferred to the complainant in order for the vehicle to be handed over.…

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa can barely claim to be helping to fight crime when he failed to have the robbery at his Phala Phala farm reported to the SAPS, but instead to his head of security. He can hardly claim that he presides over a government that champions transparency and accountability when he quickly hides behind a police investigation opened against him. If there was no such investigation, he would not have voluntarily disclosed that millions of dollars allegedly concealed on his farm were stolen in 2020. His continued refusal to come clean about the events during and after the robbery, including alleged kidnapping, torture and bribery of the suspects, reverses whatever little gains were made in his administration. Telling the recent Limpopo ANC elective conference that he had not stolen…

ACCESS and accessibility to education and, in particular, higher education is an obstacle in South Africa. Obstacles to access and accessibility to education are the manifestation of the three important factors: global neoliberal conceptualising of education, nationalist elites’ failures, and most importantly, lack of student activism qua SRC failures. On the eve of liberation, South Africa was confronted with an anti-education global order that conceptualised education in terms of commodities that can be bought and sold in the market. The anti-education global order nudged the states to decrease their spending on public and social welfare programmes and create a “conducive” environment for the market to thrive. Unfortunately, education was not spared from the anti-global education gospel largely preached by the Euro-American governing elites backed by the Bretton Woods Institutions. The…

Fiji faces its biggest threat from “devastating climate change” rather than conflict, the country’s defence minister warned yesterday at a high-level security summit that has been dominated by geopolitical tensions. This weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together defence ministers from around the world, has seen sparring between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan while delegates also voiced concern about the Ukraine war. It comes as Beijing jostles with Western powers for influence over Pacific island nations. But Fijian Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu sought instead to focus attention on the threat posed by climate change to his Pacific country, which is regularly hit by cyclones. “Machine guns, fighter jets, ships … are not our primary security concern,” he told hundreds of delegates at the event in Singapore. “The single greatest threat to…

New Delhi: More than a week after testing positive for the coronavirus, Congress president Sonia Gandhi was yesterday admitted to Ganga Ram Hospital for treatment. Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala tweeted, “Congress President Sonia Gandhi was admitted to hospital owing to Covid related issues. She is stable and will be kept for observation …” Sonia Gandhi on June 2 tested positive for Covid-19 infection, a day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned her and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.…

MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) has dissolved a 7 000-strong caravan of thousands of migrants that set off from southern Mexico last week, seeking to reach the US. The INM gave them a migration document that proves their regular stay in the country and provided food and water to them, it said. An international organisation monitoring the migrant situation said the US-bound caravan was not being deterred by any Mexican authorities. Most of the migrants in the caravan are reportedly from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – three countries the US did not invite to the Summit of the Americas.…

Brookline (Massachusetts): The chair of a September 11, 2001, attacks victims’ families group says members are outraged by the “betrayal” of US golfers playing in the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Invitational Series. The comments from Terry Strada, the widow of a 9/11 victim, were made in a public letter Friday to agents of such major champions as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed. “Please rethink your membership in this Saudi enterprise,” Strada wrote. “We urge you to reconsider so that you can stand with us and send a message to the Kingdom.”…

Bafana Bafana’s scheduled 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Zimbabwe has been cancelled, owing to Fifa banning the Warriors from international competition. This means that South Africa will not be in action this week. With that being said, the following are five matches you should keep your eyes peeled for the next few days. Today: Liberia v Morocco @ 9pm After beating Bafana 1-0 last week in their Group K opener, Morocco will be looking to make it two wins on the trot by downing Liberia at the Stade Mohammed V. On paper, Morocco will be the firm favourites to beat the 149th-ranked Liberians. A win in this game will put Morocco in firm control of Group K. Today: Australia v Peru @ 8pm This is the Asia v…

From page 1 on June 14 2020, but he was not involved in anything criminal. In a statement, the Namibian Presidency said: “There is absolutely no truth in the allegations that President Geingob inappropriately used his office to assist President Ramaphosa. The Presidency had an opportunity to look in particular at paragraph 13.23 of Mr Fraser’s statement under oath, which is publicly available, and which reads that: ‘President Ramaphosa sought the assistance of the President of Namibia, President Hage Geingob in apprehending the suspect in Namibia’”. “As can be seen from the above-quoted part of Mr Fraser’s statement, it does not make any allegation of criminality on the part of President Geingob, except a suggestion that President Ramaphosa ‘sought’ assistance from President Geingob ‘in apprehending’ – which literally means ‘assistance…

SOMERSET West residents have demonstrated the values of ubuntu by accommodating families who lost their homes and those who were evacuated during a raging wildfire. Several homes along Silverboomkloof Road were gutted and two firefighters who were battling the blaze were hospitalised since the fire broke out five days ago. The fire services included the City of Cape Town, Cape Winelands District Municipality’s (CWDM), CapeNature and the Winelands fire department. Areas affected include Silverboomkloof, Spanish Farm, La Sandra, Lourensford and the Helderberg Nature Reserve. About 16 horses at a riding stable also had to be evacuated and kept at a local school field. The Friends of Helderberg Nature Reserve management closed the nature reserve on Saturday due to the fire. According to Cape Town fire service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse, the…

SOCIAL Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has revealed that her department has recorded a R1.8 billion under-expenditure which was returned to the National Treasury in the 2021-22 financial year. Zulu revealed this when she was responding to IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe asking about the amount returned unspent to the National Treasury and the breakdown of the amounts of each of the provinces. Van der Merwe also enquired how the under-spending affected the budget available to the welfare programmes in the provinces. In her response, Zulu said R 1 863 186 000 was underspent by the national department during the financial year under review. She said R1 824 329 000 was underspent in the social assistance programme. “The underspending relates to the social assistance grants (old ages and child support…

THE wheels of justice have a knack of turning frustratingly slowly. The victims, whether it is the state or individuals, are callously left to deal with the immediate consequences. When the alleged crime is state capture and corruption, and involves an international dimension, then justice has a tendency to drag on for years. South Africa’s polity has for the last decade been defined by state capture and corruption personified by the alleged antics of the administration of former president Jacob Zuma between 2009 and 2018 – a national metric of shame whose due process has been dragged kicking and screaming and hopefully finally heading towards some sort of closure. The real and opportunity costs of state capture will probably never be known, although one estimate puts the figure at a…

Some 1 200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank region of Masafer Yatta face the risk of forced removal to make way for an army firing zone after a decades-long legal battle that ended last month in Israel’s highest court. The ruling opened the way for one of the largest displacements since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. But residents are refusing to leave, hoping their resilience and international pressure will keep Israel from carrying out the evictions. “They want to take this land from us to build settlements,” said Wadha Ayoub Abu Sabha, a resident of al-Fakheit, one of a group of hamlets where Palestinian shepherds and farmers claim a historic connection to the land. “We’re not leaving,” she said. In the 1980s, Israel…

A volcano in the Philippines spewed a huge column of ash into the sky yesterday, blanketing a region still recovering from last week’s eruption. The blast from Bulusan volcano lasted 18 minutes, the Philippine seismological agency said, impairing road visibility and forcing airlines to cancel flights. On June 5, Mount Bulusan sent a grey plume shooting up at least 1km and covered 10 villages with ash. Residents of Juban town in Sorsogon province, still reeling from last week’s eruption, were woken up yesterday by the volcano’s thundering. “I thought it was just raining, but when I looked outside there was ash everywhere,” resident Antonio Habitan told AFP. “Our river was once clear but now it is ash-coloured.” No casualties were reported, but the seismological agency raised the alert level to…

LONDON: Adele’s boyfriend, Rich Paul, is looking forward to being “an older dad”. The 40-year-old sports agent already has three children but suggested he would be a “different” type of parent if he has more kids at this stage in his life. He told E! News: “As a young dad, growing a business, it was pretty tough.“But now looking as an older dad, if I was to have more kids, I’m looking forward to being a different dad. “You know, I have a daughter that’s a junior in college so I was a very young dad, but now, different age, different time in my life, different position in my life. I’m really looking forward to being an older dad.” Though Rich values his experiences as a younger parent, he pledged…

TUNIS: Tunisian military prosecutors said on Saturday they had begun investigating a journalist on suspicion of “harming public order” for saying the president had asked the army to close a powerful labour union’s headquarters, and a witness said the reporter had been arrested. The journalist, Salah Attia, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that President Kais Saied had asked the army to close the headquarters of the UGTT union and put political leaders under house arrest, but that the army had refused. ”Police arrested Attia in a cafe in the suburb of Ibn Khaldoun,” the witness, who was with Attia, told Reuters by phone.…