Содержание выпуска: 2023-05-31 — Mercury

The first leg of the long-awaited Go! Durban public transport service in eThekwini Municipality is set to launch in October. That is, if City officials meet the deadline set by eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, who wants the multimillionrand project launch to coincide with October’s “Transport month”. The launch of Go!Durban’s first route C3 – between KwaMashu and Pinetown – was expected in November last year, after it missed the July deadline because of a dispute with taxi operators. The taxi industry was brought into the project as their businesses would be affected by it. One of the matters the taxi operators and municipality cannot agree on is the ownership of the buses that will operate on the Go! Durban route. The municipality purchased the buses earmarked to run on this…

Latest stats shows 6 289 people killed between January and March this year THE murder rate in South Africa increased by 3.4% between January and March 2023 compared to the same period last year. This was revealed by Police Minister Bheki Cele during the release of the quarter 4 crime statistics yesterday. Cele said it must be remembered that the statistics reflected lives lost. “These are not just figures but human lives that should be protected at all costs. This is why these figures prompt us as the police to double-up policing efforts to decrease contact crimes,” said Cele. According to Cele, 6 289 people were killed with either a firearm, knife, sharp and blunt instruments, stones, or even bare hands between January and March this year. Cele said that…

“MY HUSBAND of 20 years is an alcoholic. He gets abusive when he is drunk. I moved out three months ago. I asked him to give up drinking and seek help, which he says he will do. “He blames me for the problem and accused me of making the children (ages 12 and 18) uncomfortable due to them having to live between two homes. When he is sober I tend to feel sorry for him. He has never been abusive when sober. He claims if I come back he will give it up or control his drinking but cannot do it without us.” It is his drinking, not your behaviour that has resulted in your deciding to move out. If your children are uncomfortable with having to live between two…

After three attempts, a woman has finally been successful in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) to have her ex-husband forfeit 50% of her pension benefits because he had been cheating and had children outside of the marriage. They were married in community of property from October 1, 1985. But on October 17, 2016, he filed for divorce against his now ex-wife. On November 19, 2020, the high court dismissed the wife’s counter-claim for a partial forfeiture order in respect of her pension benefits. Instead, it ordered that the husband was entitled to 50% of her pension fund. Aggrieved, the wife sought leave to appeal against the ruling. In March that year, she was granted leave to appeal to the High Court in Limpopo. Her appeal to the full court…

With alcohol abuse in South Africa’s higher learning institutions increasing at an alarming rate, the Department of Social Development, in collaboration with UCT, has launched an App to assist with early identification of substance use-related health risks and substance use disorders. The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement (Assist) web app tool was launched at Groote Schuur Hospital this week. In 2019, a survey in the Western Cape found that 5.6% of first-year university students reported an alcohol use disorder in a 12-month period. Another study found that binge drinking among university students was becoming a “public health concern”, and the country was among the top countries in the world faced with the problem. The app tool is a comprehensive risk assessment tool which provides a self-screening opportunity which helps with…

It is often said that criticising others is easier because criticism is an easy form of ego defense. Whichever way one looks at it, there is something horribly wrong with the images of newborn babies sleeping in boxes at Mahikeng Provincial Hospital. North West Health MEC Madoda Sambatha has since ordered an internal investigation, and for the nurse in charge together with the nursing manager to be placed on precautionary leave. But it may have been a case of nurses merely making do with what they had. According to the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), the ICU for infants had been short of 20 incubators and cribs, with no sign of these coming. The unit had 25 incubators, and more than 55 babies were born on the day…

Saint-Denis: There will be 10 000 torchbearers to carry the Olympic flame as it passes through some 60 French departments ahead of the 2024 Games, Paris Olympic organisers announced yesterday. After the flame is lit in the traditional ceremony in Olympia, Greece, it will arrive by sea in Marseille aboard the three-master Belem on May 8 next year. From there it will travel across France on its way to the Olympic opening ceremony in the capital on July 26. There has been speculation that the Olympic flame will be placed on the Eiffel Tower, but the final destination had not been decided. |…

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was hosting his fellow South American leaders yesterday for a “retreat” aimed at strengthening ties in a region where left-wing governments are newly back in style. Eleven of the continent’s 12 heads of state were to attend the summit in Brasilia – the first of its kind in nearly a decade – with only Peruvian President Dina Boluarte expected to miss it. Veteran leftist Lula kicked things off on Monday by meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, hailing the “historic” restoration of a relationship that was severed under his predecessor, far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil had cut diplomatic ties with Maduro’s government under Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who labelled the socialist leader a “dictator”. This is the first summit of regional leaders since 2014 in…

A renowned US mountain guide, who recently achieved the rare feat of climbing Mount Everest and two nearby peaks in less than three weeks, said yesterday Nepal needs to do a better job of policing the world’s highest mountain to save it from pollution. Garrett Madison, 44, who climbed the 8 849m Everest for the 13th time last week, said its higher camps were littered with torn tents, food wrappers and empty oxygen bottles discarded by climbers. “We need to find better ways to bring the waste down,” Madison said in the Nepali capital Kathmandu after returning from the mountain. “We need better policing to check that every team brings down its garbage.” It is mandatory for climbers to bring their waste down from the mountain and claim back a…

The scrap at the bottom got tense with relegation only confirmed on the final day of the Premiership season. Here, Herman Gibbs and Mihlali Baleka look at the four clubs that filled out the last spots. RICHARDS BAY FC – 13th Played: 30 Won: 8 Drew: 9 Lost: 13 Goals For: 20 Goals Against: 30 Points: 33 Richards Bay FC will get to live another season in the top-flight after ensuring that they saved their Premiership status on the last day of the season. It was such a brilliant first half of the season from Richards Bay that they looked destined to qualify for African football next season by holding onto the coveted second place. But while the climb to the top was impressive in the first half of the…

Looking to up your winter footwear game? Then look no further than the cowboy boot. I’m sure by now you might have noticed that they are pretty much everywhere. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get yourself a pair. If you want to get in on the trend but are not quite sure how to style them, here are a few tips on what to wear with this winter’s hottest boots. Two trends in one If you want to combine two of the hottest fashion trends right now, then you have to style your boots with the very popular maxi denim skirt. Opt for a skirt with a slit to show off the boot. Pair with jeans While skinny jeans are a great option, the straight-leg…

Former president Jacob Zuma has asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to institute an inquiry into the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Shamila Batohi for allegedly being part of the planning or execution of alleged criminal activities involving arms deal prosecutor advocate Billy Downer. Zuma alleges Downer contravened the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Act in that he was aware of the leaking of a report disclosing his confidential medical condition to journalist Karyn Maughan. The former president has brought a private prosecution against Downer and Maughan in respect of this matter, but they have applied for the charges to be quashed. On Monday, Zuma’s lawyers Ntanga Nkuhlu Inc. Attorneys wrote to Ramaphosa requesting the institution of an inquiry in terms of Section 12(6) of the NPA Act and/or 84(2)(f) of the…

Grid collapse will annihilate the whole of South Africa They have done it again, the bootlickers! They did it for Zuma; now they do it for Ramaphosa, going down on all fours and licking his boots. Mind you, that’s what they get paid for, our honourable parliamentarians, to sit in their comfortable seats and vote en masse for the president and the ANC but against any opposition motion that’s tabled in Parliament. Conscience? Who cares about conscience, morality and ethics? In the world of politics, conscience is a dispensable item. The question of right and wrong never troubles them. All that matters is their loyalty to their master and, of course, that fat pay cheque and perks. If you are a principled man of conscience and morals you cannot get…

’TWAS a weirdly entertaining yet puzzling encounter as the Stormers took on Munster in the URC final in Cape Town at the weekend, on a pitch that started out looking like a sponge and ended up looking like a bog that’s been trampled by a herd of buffalo. Entertaining in the first half because Munster put on a display of running, handling rugby, interplay between forwards and backs, that was superb. Puzzling because by half-time, they were ahead by only a few points. In the second half, the puzzlement was provided by the Stormers, who seemed to have forgotten that a penalty goal is worth three points. Awarded a series of penalties, all of them goalable, they chose instead to kick for the corner, with no result. Yet the game…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has conceded that poor governance, ineffective management, increasing debt and underspending on public infrastructure like wastewater treatment plants have all contributed to poor water quality. He was commenting as the cholera outbreak has resulted in the deaths of 24 people in Gauteng and the Free State while hundreds have been hospitalised. Ramaphosa said the events were “deeply tragic” and the government was determined to remedy its shortcomings. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) and international relief organisations warned that after years of steady decline, cholera has made “a devastating comeback”, putting over a billion people in 43 countries at risk. According to the WHO, 24 countries have reported cases since the start of the year, including parts of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Ramaphosa commended…

COUNCILLORS in the eThekwini Municipality have called for a discussion on the future of the City Fleet over its “inability” to manage municipal vehicles efficiently. City Fleet is a unit of the municipality tasked with the maintenance of the city’s vehicles. It maintains close to 8 000 vehicles belonging to the metro. Councillors across party lines have called for a council engagement to discuss the future of the entity amid concerns that the unit is not maintaining the municipal vehicles in an efficient manner. They said the vehicles were sent to the unit for minor repair work and kept there for long periods, and sometimes they suffered more damage while in the care of the unit’s employees. Views of what should be done differed. City mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said…

Cabinet reshuffles under the presidency of the incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa have not been at the lightning speed of an F1 race, compared to those of his predecessor Jacob Zuma. Yet, while these have not been frequent, there is still a majority agreement that there are lacklustre performers in his current Cabinet. Some of these, as the Zondo Commission on State Capture stated and recommended, should not even be part of the current Cabinet. But Ramaphosa and his advisers would have none of it – party unity always seems paramount, in the face of public perception of corruption-accused comrades continuing to occupy political office. Following his much-vaunted recent reshuffle, after his re-election at Nasrec last December, one name has been on everyone’s lips and how this name is much more ambitious,…

Brussels: The EU and the US have expressed concerns over a new Polish law creating a body to probe “Russian influence”, which critics say Warsaw will use to target the opposition. The EU has “special concern” over the committee, which would have powers to block citizens from public office, the bloc’s justice commissioner said yesterday. Brussels fears the new panel could be used against independent judges in Poland, and commissioner Didier Reynders said the European Commission is prepared to take appropriate action if necessary. The creation of the commission has been slammed by the opposition who have labelled it as “anti-constitutional” and “Stalinist”.…

MOSCOW: The desire of some countries to join BRICS is a topic of discussion within the bloc, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said yesterday when asked about Venezuela’s aspiration to join BRICS. On Monday, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro said that Caracas would like to become part of the BRICS group. “Over the past year, more and more countries have shown a keen interest in this format (BRICS), and more countries have declared their intention to focus on connecting to it. This topic is for discussion of members of this format, which will be done,” Peskov told reporters. |…

NATO foreign ministers will seek to narrow divisions over Ukraine’s membership bid at a meeting in Oslo this week, with allies at odds over calls to grant Kyiv a road map to accession at their July summit. Nato has not acceded to Ukraine’s request for fast-track membership as Western governments such as the US and Germany are wary of moves that they fear could take the alliance closer to entering an active war with Russia. But Kyiv and some of its closest allies in eastern Europe have been pushing for Nato to at least take concrete steps to bring Ukraine closer to membership at the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11 and 12. “It would be very sad if in any way anyone could read the outcome of…

Serbian protesters smashed two cars belonging to journalists in Kosovo’s Leposavic town yesterday, a day after 30 Nato soldiers and 52 protesters were hurt in clashes as EU and Nato officials urged a de-escalation of the violence. Unrest in the region has intensified since ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo’s Serb- majority area after April elections that the Serbs boycotted, a move that led the US and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday. Nato said in a statement it would send additional forces to Kosovo to curb the violence, adding it “has directed the deployment of the Operational Reserve Forces (ORF) for the Western Balkans.” Masked men smashed the windshield of a car with an Albanian licence plate marked as “A2, CNN affiliate”, a Reuters reporter who…

French rugby international prop Mohamed Haouas was handed a one-year jail sentence yesterday for hitting his wife in public. Haouas, 29, who has played 16 times for France, told a court he had lost control when he saw his wife smoking at the shopping centre where she worked, after telling him she had given up. “She has the right to smoke ... but the problem is that she lied to me ... and I said to myself that if she can lie about the cigarette, she could lie about other things,” he told the court in Montpellier. The court did not follow the recommendations of the prosecution, who had called for the prop to face 18 months in prison, beginning immediately. Instead, Haouas will remain free while he launches an…

IT IS clear from the instructions and projections issued to the Minister of Electricity by the Office of the Presidency that the leadership of this country has not read André De Ruyter’s book Truth to Power. The prescriptive powers of Minister Ramokgopa to determine the types of energy sources from which electricity must be generated and the percentage of power from such sources are tragically unrealistic and out of focus. The idea that power from the coal fleet of stations could be ratcheted up to 80% is a case in point. When President Ramaphosa asked De Ruyter the extent to which the energy availability factor of the current coal fleet could be marshalled, De Ruyter told him 70% was out of the question. That is so because the fleet struggles…

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has accused Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane of attempting to “capitalise on the suffering of citizens for political mileage”. Maimane lodged a criminal complaint against Gordhan at the Cape Town police station on Monday, following the death of a 3-year-old asthmatic child which was allegedly linked to load shedding, as her oxygen-driven nebuliser stopped running due to power cuts. Police spokesperson Wesley Twigg confirmed a culpable homicide case was reported. The child is reportedly from Bromhof, Johannesburg. Maimane added: “I’m laying culpable homicide charges against this ANC government. “Every life lost due to electricity outages is on their hands. “They are responsible for the negligence which led to the failures to provide power and power alternatives to police stations, hospitals, schools and…

The tug-of-war often encountered between divorced parents over their children must immediately stop and parents must act like responsible adults and realise that the ones suffering are the children. This was the message from an acting judge who had stern words for the parents of two daughters, aged 6 and 7. The parents are fighting over the custody of the children, with each party lashing out at the other over their ability to be a good parent. To make matters worse in this case which landed before the High Court in Bloemfontein, the children’s nanny had badmouthed the mother. But when confronted by the legal parties about her claims that the mother left the children with her so that she could go and “drink at the bar her new lover…

The conservAtion and environmental affairs committee of the KZN Legislature has called on Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism MEC Siboniso Duma to assist eThekwini Municipality in carrying out its repair works on the Northern Wastewater Treatment Plant in Durban. The plea for intervention was made by committee chairperson Siyabonga Mshengu during the portfolio committee’s recent engagement with the department, in which he expressed concern over what they had noted during a visit to the plant in Springfield, Durban. He told the MEC they had observed criminal activity near the plant, including illegal electricity connections from the plant to dwellers at a nearby informal settlement. He also cited instances of armed men who had made it difficult and unsafe for eThekwini staff to do their work. Other committee members also…

The diplomatic immunity gazetted by international relations minister Naledi Pandor on Monday before the BRICS summit in August is to provide security and assurance to visiting delegations from the member countries. This is according to the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco). Pandor granted immunity to delegates who are expected to attend the BRICS ministerial meeting in Cape Town from tomorrow, and the BRICS summit from August 22 to 24. According to Pandor’s notice, gazetted on Monday, participants will be granted immunity in accordance with the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the August summit after a warrant for his arrest was issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Commenting on the gazette, Lwazi Somya, a senior researcher at the Southern African…

For our country to avert “an imminent crisis at next year’s elections”, as Tuesday’s Mercury editorial put it, something totally new has to be introduced, namely, a “voters coalition”. Democracy is not the handmaiden of the political class. It is the doctrine which holds that the numerical majority of an organised group can make decisions binding on the whole group. Voting is one part of the exercise in democracy. The other part is civic activism. This refers to the ways in which citizens participate in public affairs and influence decision-making. Civic activism is important for ensuring accountability, transparency, and representation in governance. We are very fortunate in that a key founding provision of our state requires, in section 1(d) of the Constitution, a democratic government to “ensure accountability, responsiveness and…

HARARE: Zimbabwe’s treasury has announced measures to encourage the use of the local dollar as opposed to the US dollar, in a bid to boost the local unit and tame rising consumer inflation. The measures include a directive that all government departments collect fees in the local currency, the introduction of a 1% tax on all foreign payments, and that all customs duty be payable in local currency, with the exception of designated or luxury goods and where an importer opts to pay in foreign currency. The Treasury will also assume all foreign currency debts from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said. |…

Kampala: Ugandan activists called on foreign donors to impose sanctions on rights abusers after President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-gay law described as among the world’s harshest. The veteran leader defied warnings that approving the much-criticised bill against homosexuality would strain ties between Kampala and key international partners and aid donors, including Washington. Among other harsh measures, the new law prescribes a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” in certain circumstances, although Uganda has not carried out capital punishment for many years. The move has triggered outcry and calls for a tough response from Uganda’s backers. |…

A swarm of drones hit Moscow yesterday in an unprecedented attack, while Russian drones struck Kyiv for a third straight day as Ukraine gears up for a major offensive against Russian forces. The Russian defence ministry blamed Kyiv for the attacks that saw three drones crash into residential buildings in Moscow. Officials said no one was seriously injured and there was only “minor” damage to buildings. The Russian defence ministry said that eight drones were used in the attack, adding that five were downed and three disabled. Of the three that hit residential buildings, two crashed into high-rises located in Moscow’s affluent southwest, while a third damaged a residential building in a suburb of the capital. The other drones fell outside Moscow. Some of the debris was found about 15km…

TEHRAN: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, pictured, has ordered the country’s foreign ministry to take measures to resume and develop diplomatic relations with Egypt. Iranian government spokesperson Ali Bahadori Jahromi made the remarks when answering a question from reporters about the likelihood of resuming the ties at a weekly press conference in Tehran yesterday, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported. A day earlier, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said his country welcomed the resumption of bilateral relations with Egypt and had no problem in this regard, according to his official website. He made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, who visited Cairo earlier in the month and extended Egypt’s “willingness” to resume ties with Iran. Iran and Egypt severed diplomatic relations in…