Table of contents for 2023-09-06 in Mercury

Writing, thinking, talking about our mother, Mavis Iona Mulder Smith, has never been easy. I keep meeting unfinished business. We confront each other occasionally – in casual social interactions or when I cook the wrong way or regard, with an air of flippancy a matter she would have offered serious consideration. It is among several of my chief regrets that I discovered, when it was too late, the importance of a man knowing his mother. I hear mom’s voice now and then. Mom had a beautiful singing voice and would fill the house when she sang. “Just like Virginia Lee,” dad would say, “your mother sings just as beautifully. Listen, you can hardly tell the difference.” Virginia Lee was one of South Africa’s top-selling female vocalists. Sometimes my mother’s voice…

The alert issued by engine manufacturer CFM on non-certified parts being installed on its CFM 56 engines is a matter of serious concern to the global aviation industry. About 34 000 CFM 56 engines were manufactured for use on Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft. Faulty, incorrect or illegal parts have led to multiple crashes globally, resulting in hundreds of deaths. On September 8, 1989, Partnair Flight 394 crashed off the coast of Demark. Fifty passengers and five crew members died in the crash caused by the use of counterfeit aircraft parts in repairs and maintenance. Critical aircraft parts made by third-party suppliers are a significant worry. On average, a 737 consists of 600 000 parts. Each part plays a crucial role in air safety. A critical part made by…

WHILE cash-in-transit (CIT) heists continue to be a thorn in the side of the economy and South African authorities, resources are being strengthened to curb these crimes, the Hawks said. Hawks boss Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya briefed the media on Monday about successes achieved in the battle against CIT heists, human trafficking, contraband trade and fraud-related cases in the first quarter of the financial year. A total of 611 suspects were arrested for the various crimes during this period, he said. Officers seized various exhibits, including precious metals and diamonds, endangered species, vehicles, cash, firearms, ammunition, counterfeit goods, explosives and electronic devices worth about R6 112 768 985. This comes as 19 suspects – 17 men and two women – were killed in a shoot-out with the Hawks in Limpopo…

The residents of Vannin Court in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, one of the hijacked and dilapidated buildings in the area, said they would not allow city officials to move them to shelters. This comes after City of Joburg’s Transport MMC, Kenny Kunene and Public Safety MMC, Dr Mgcini Tshwaku visited the city centre for yet another inspection of hijacked and dilapidated buildings. Last week at least 77 people died in a inferno at a hijacked building in Marshalltown in the inner city. Kunene and Tshwaku employed the help of law-enforcement agencies as they assessed the levels of dysfunction of Vannin Court, an eight-storey building on Pietersen Street, Hillbrow. According to the residents, the building has been without electricity and water for almost a year, even though they are forced to pay rent.…

No single black experience or perspective is more important than another The 46th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko needs to be grounded on the definition of a new state of blackness and acknowledgement that black people have never been a homogeneous group. It has become clearer now that the holier-than-thou act of labelling fellow human beings non-whites was a form of political blackmail to coerce people to fit into a particular and narrow paradigm to promote the elusive ideal of black unity and solidarity. What intrigues me is not the myth of black homogeneity and cohesiveness, but the denial of its fragmentation and mythical existence in the name of Biko. The reality is that in this post-liberation, post-apartheid and non-racial society, this blackness is not only complex and…

Top Democrats in the US Senate were looking to gain the upper hand over House Republicans in talks over government funding when the chamber returned from summer recess yesterday, as the threat of an embarrassing October government shutdown looms. A bipartisan group of senators in the Democratic-controlled chamber was collaborating on President Joe Biden’s request for a stopgap spending bill to keep federal agencies funded until deals can be brokered on the full fiscal year beginning October 1. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Appropriations Committee have backed the 12 separate spending bills that would finance most government operations for fiscal 2024, while their House Appropriations Committee has been producing bills with only Republican support. The Senate so far is sticking with the $1.59 trillion (about 30.5 trillion) discretionary spending…

New York: Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said the site was considering suing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) over accusations of anti-Semitism. Musk has accused the US-based Jewish organisation of making unfounded complaints against him and X that have scared away advertisers. “It looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit ... oh the irony!” Musk said. The ADL has for years accused the social media site of amplifying anti-Semitic hate speech. | AFP…

Skopje: An investigation into the alleged theft of cancer drugs in North Macedonia has triggered public outrage in the Balkan country, sparking protests and promises from officials to act. Anger has been simmering for weeks since reports alleged that cancer drugs from a leading oncology treatment centre in the capital, Skopje, had been stolen by organised crime networks and sold on the black market. Authorities raided the Skopje Oncology and Radiology Clinic in the capital, the state prosecutor’s office said. North Macedonia’s public health care sector has been riven with a myriad problems for decades. | AFP…

LISBON: Chinese technology giant Huawei has filed a lawsuit with a Lisbon court against a resolution by Portugal’s cybersecurity council (CSSC) that effectively bars operators from using its equipment in high-speed 5G mobile networks, the company said. The CSSC was seen as a blow to efforts by Huawei to enter standalone networks in the 5G market in Portugal, and extend existing contracts on 4G platforms on which the new technology is based. Europe and the US have concerns that Chinese involvement in critical infrastructure could compromise security. Beijing and Huawei reject such suggestions. | Reuters…

Business owners are feeling the impact of high levels of load shedding, saying this has placed a strain on them as they raised concerns over the Eskom announcement that Stage 6 load shedding would be implemented until further notice. Jeannie Sarno, owner of Burnham House B&B in uMhlanga, said the impact of Stage 6 load shedding was catastrophic and crippling to residents and business. “This is especially the case with bed and breakfasts and guest houses where guests do not want to be impacted by the interruptions while they are on holiday, but mostly when they are working.” Sarno said if there was a reliable schedule, then businesses could work around the scheduled times, but the unpredictability of stages meant plans were made at the last minute. “It is a…

It is a sad reality that even almost 30 years after the dismantling of apartheid, deep racial attitudes still plague South Africa. The ANC and its leaders seem fixated on race, more concerned about race quotas than actually getting the job done. This kind of attitude has held back the country from achieving its full potential. A quick glance around the world shows that race should not be a factor in determining a leader’s capabilities. Singapore just elected a president of Indian origin who beat his rivals by more than 1.5 million votes. Crime rates are low and corruption is punished severely. Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has earned the respect of world leaders for his transformation of India into the third largest economy in the world. The…

Confirmation that KwaZulu-Natal will not be able to afford the wage increase for government employees spells disaster for our province. The bombshell announcement – by Finance MEC Peggy Nkonyeni – places our province at the precipice of a fiscal cliff. Equally alarming is that no other department will be more affected than KZN’s Department of Education (DoE), with the largest staff component in the republic after the SANDF. The significance of this revelation for the DoE cannot be over-emphasised given 91% of its current budget is spent on Compensation of Employees (CoE). This leaves only 9% to deliver some sort of quality education in a safe environment, along with everything else that is required for the proper functioning of our schools. Serial budget cuts have already severely affected the functioning…

AN acting judge and senior advocate, based in Pretoria, is due to face the law following a road-rage incident during which a man was stabbed in the neck and left leg last month. While the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) elected not to prosecute the senior member of the legal fraternity, AfriForum decided to take the matter further. The organisation said the spectre of selective prosecution had not ceased – but instead of a politician being shielded from the prosecution, it was a senior member of the legal fraternity. AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit has taken up the case of Conrad Pretorius, who was stabbed in the neck and leg and left with life-threatening injuries. On August 1, Pretorius and his wife were driving in Menlo Park when they encountered the advocate…

IN A CASE described by a judge as “the ultimate betrayal of a trust relationship”, committed by a father against his 9-year-old son who had accused him of rape, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria rejected the father’s version that the child had lied. The father was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for the rape but has appealed his conviction. It was a case of the father’s word against that of his son, with the court concluding that the child was an honest witness and the father a liar. The rape occurred when the child visited his father at his father’s home in Heidelberg. The appellant (father) lived alone in the house, from where he sold alcohol. In December 2016, his son visited him at his house and both of them…

Residents in Mobeni, south of Durban, have accused the eThekwini municipality of neglecting a sewage spill at the local cemetery for 10 months. EThekwini Municipality issued a statement yesterday saying that Ednick Msweli, the head of the Water and Sanitation unit, was at the cemetery yesterday to see for himself the extent of the leak. “The damaged sewer has resulted in some pollution, affecting about four nearby graves. A contractor will have to be appointed to repair the damage to contain the pollution that is currently visible in the area as we are trying to establish the cause of the burst sewer pipe. Our teams are on site with jetting machines to assess the extent of the damage as well as the work that is required to repair the pipe,”…

Two former executives at a Swedish oil company went on trial in Stockholm yesterday, accused of complicity in war crimes committed by Sudan’s regime between 1999 and 2003. Swede Ian Lundin and Swiss national Alex Schneiter are accused of asking Sudan’s government to make its military responsible for security at the site of one of Lundin Oil’s exploration fields, which later led to aerial bombings, killing of civilians and burning of entire villages, according to the prosecution. Lundin, 62, was chief executive of family firm Lundin Oil, now known as Orron Energy, from 1998-2002, and Schneiter, 61, was vice-president at the time. Heading into the courtroom, Lundin told reporters he and Schneiter looked “forward to defending ourselves in a court of law.” “The accusations against us are false, they are…

India was buzzing with speculation yesterday over rumoured plans to scrap official use of the country’s English name, after a state-issued invite sent to world leaders referred to it as “Bharat”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has worked to remove lingering symbols of British rule from India’s urban landscape, political institutions and history books, but its next move could be the biggest such action yet. Modi himself typically refers to India as Bharat, a word dating back to ancient Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit, and one of two official names for the country under its constitution. Members of his Hindu-nationalist ruling party have previously campaigned against using the country’s better-known moniker, India, which has its roots in Western antiquity and was imposed during the British conquest. This weekend India hosts…

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has mainly brought his daughter, Ju-ae, to military-related events in an apparent bid to highlight his feats in the military sector and elicit the loyalty of the armed services, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said yesterday. Kim’s daughter has made public appearances on 15 occasions since her first one in November last year, and 12 cases of the total, or 80%, were at military-related events, the ministry said. She attended events related to the economy and social affairs three times. Ju-ae, believed to be 11 years old, was first reported on by state media in November 2022 when she attended the firing of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile with her father. But many observers see the possibility of Ju-ae becoming a hereditary successor as low,…

TEHRAN: Iranian authorities yesterday arrested an uncle of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody in September last year, sparking months of protests. Safa Aeli, 30, was arrested by security forces in the family’s home town of Saqez in western Iran, the Kurdish-focused Hengaw rights group, France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network said, adding that Iranian authorities forcibly entered Aeli’s residence. His arrest comes as the government steps up a crackdown before the September 16 anniversary of Amini’s death after she had been arrested for allegedly violating strict dress rules for women. | AFP…

THE FINANCIAL Sector Conduct Au- thority (FSCA), which supervises bank compliance around “Conduct Standards” in the treatment of clients, is currently assessing the extent to which fairness is understood and applied across the banking sector, when decisions are taken to close bank accounts. This was according to a response from the National Treasury to questions submitted to it by Business Report. The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture’s chairperson chief Justice Raymond Zondo has recommended that existing legislation be changed, or that new laws be introduced, that will require banks to allow customers to defend themselves before their accounts are shut down. Recently the bank accounts of the companies owned by Sekunjalo Group, including that of Independent Media, the owner of this newspaper, were threatened with closure, and various…

RATEPAYERS led by the Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) have withheld R1.2 million in payments meant to be paid to the eThekwini Municipality for services, as part of a campaign to boycott rates. The money has instead been deposited into a trust account. The WRA, under the umbrella body of eThekwini Ratepayers’ Protest Movement, declared a dispute with the municipality at the end of June and began boycotting rates payment at the end of July. “As of today (Monday) R1.2m (has been paid to the trust account), we are hoping to get R1.5m by the end of the week,” said the chairperson of the WRA, Asad Gaffar. WRA is leading the rates boycott against the municipality, saying besides the rates being excessive, the process leading to their implementation was flawed and…

PEACE has broken out in the world of chess, according to the BBC, after a year of dispute and recrimination between a Norwegian world champion and an American prodigy who unexpectedly beat him in the Sinquefield Cup last September in St Louis, Missouri. Magnus Carlsen accused Hans Niemann of foul play after he lost. Niemann then sued his rival, the online platform Chess.com, and a second grandmaster for defamation. Chess.com now says the row is settled. But there are some quirks. Niemann admits that he has cheated twice in online matches on Chess.com, aged 12 and 16, but denies that he has done so in the Sinquefield Cup or any in-person game. The website suspended his account after his admission, then said in a report that it had evidence he…

As the 2024 elections draw closer, President Cyril Ramaphosa says he is not proud of three moments during his term in office. His biggest disappointment was not anticipating the corruption that followed the Covid-19 pandemic. The above is a quote of a statement made by President Ramaphosa. Now that he publicly acknowledges some of the ANC faults, here is hoping that he might consider doing something about it – and not just as a pre-election moment. The fact is that corruption has not been merely a post-Covid occurrence. It has been an endemic issue ever since the ANC became the governing party. It was as prevalent from the very start with the defence tenders – including the purchase of the submarines – as already mentioned by former ANC MP Mr…

The bill proposing the establishment of the Investigative Directorate (ID) as a permanent structure in the National Prosecution Authority (NPA), provides for the appointment of a retired judge to deal with serious complaints made against investigators. This provision is a mechanism of safeguards against abuse by the investigators and will be similar to the appointment of retired judges dealing with complaints against members of the SANDF and the Hawks. The NPA Amendment Bill, introduced by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola to Parliament last week, provides for appointment of a retired judge to investigate complaints or any alleged improper conduct on the body to be called Investigative Directorate Against Corruption. “The performance of the functions provided for in respect of the retired judge does not derogate from the powers…

ESKOM lost its bid not to present evidence or legal argument to defend a damages claim against the parents of a child who claimed he was severely injured when he stepped on a live power cable on the ground. The parents of the child turned to the Bloemfontein High Court to claim damages on behalf of their son. They presented evidence and called witnesses to what had happened that day. But when it was Eskom’s turn to state its case, the power giant asked the court to dismiss the claim as neither parent of the child could pinpoint where the power cable was lying on the ground. Counsel for Eskom argued that given this, the court should find that it could not make a finding on the damages claim as…

Independent Media’s counsel, advocate Eduard Fagan, put it to Kriel that the communique was that other creditors were offered similar documents to sign. Kriel stated that he was speaking to the best of his memory, to which Fagan responded that this submission would be challenged. In his testimony Kriel repeatedly referred to his conversation with Hove, stating that at the time the entities – SIG and IMC – had a healthy relationship and he had no reason not to sign as he believed this was routine to enable the listing of Sagarmatha. Fagan later put it to him that agreements are generally signed to protect certain interests in case relationships soured. Notably the relationship between Sactwu and Sekunjalo soured with the uncovering of the R2m donation to the CR17 campaign…

The world is losing the race to meet its climate change goals, the president of the upcoming COP28 summit said yesterday, as African leaders called for changes to what they said was an unfair international climate finance system. The grim assessment by Sultan Al Jaber, who will preside over the summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late November, came three days before the UN publishes its first “global stocktake”, an assessment of how nations are doing in their efforts to tackle climate change. “We are not delivering the results that we need in the time that we need them,” Jaber, who also heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, told delegates at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The summit, which opened on Monday, is…

A significant increase in Asian hornet sightings in the UK is raising alarm because of concerns that the hornets could ravage local bee populations. This year, British officials have reported at least 22 confirmed sightings of Vespa velutina, mostly in southern England. That was up from two last year and two in 2021. This “is very concerning,” said John Stoskopf Ascher, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s biological sciences department. The hornets, native to Southern Asia, have colonised East Asia and parts of Europe. Asian hornets feed on bees, interrupting pollination of plants and crops. They are different from Asian giant hornets, which caused a stir in the US in 2020. Bees native to Britain may have a harder time fending off the Asian hornets than bees…

Havana: Cuba had identified an alleged human trafficking ring aimed at recruiting its citizens to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said yesterday. The government was working to dismantle a “trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces involved in military operations in Ukraine”, the ministry said. The Cuban government had initiated criminal proceedings against those who were trafficking. The foreign ministry said Cuba was not part of the war in Ukraine and it would take action against anyone who participates in any form of human trafficking. There was no reaction from Moscow. | AFP…

MADRID: The exiled former leader of Catalonia, wanted for attempting the region’s secession from Spain, laid out tough conditions for his party’s support in parliament for a new prime minister and the ruling Socialists said their positions were a world apart. Speaking in Brussels, Carles Puigdemont, wanted for attempting to secede when he led Catalonia from 2016-2017, said any support from his party would require concessions including an amnesty for separatists by acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-leaning coalition. Otherwise, he said, Spain would have to go to the polls again. | AFP…