Table of contents for 2022-05-12 in Mercury

The newly elected ANC leadership in the eThekwini region wants the position of the city manager filled by July. Regional secretary Musa Nciki said filling the position was critical for the stability of the eThekwini Municipality. The municipality has been without a full-time boss for more than a year following the departure of Sipho Nzuza. The attempts to fill the vacancy last month failed amid allegations of interference by the ANC. Max Mbili, municipal manager in the Ray Nkonyeni Municipality, was the front runner and was apparently the candidate preferred by the ANC in the province. The ANC and eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, who led the interview process, dismissed any allegations of interference by the ANC as untrue. Musa Mbhele is the acting municipal manager until the vacancy is filled.…

Despite a number of challenges, the KwaZulu-Natal government has secured investments totalling R5.3 billion with 8 554 jobs set to be created in the process, Economic Development and Tourism MEC Ravi Pillay told the sitting of the KZN Legislature yesterday. He was presenting the department’s R3.41bn budget, in which he outlined initiatives aimed at reviving the province’s economy which was battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, last July’s riots and the recent floods. “The pandemic hit us hard. Household incomes fell rapidly. Many small businesses could not survive the shutdown, while most of the survivors face deep liquidity constraints. The July social unrest deepened the crisis. Unemployment remains the leading challenge that necessitates immediate policy priority,” said Pillay. He told the sitting that the multi- billion rand investments were the end…

Firstly, before this enraged customer gives forth, I would like to thank MultiChoice customer assistant Jeremiah Pillay for his patience and perseverance in dealing with me and my complaint. Now for the complaint. At the beginning of May, I started losing DStv channels on my TV until I ended up with only three channels – none of which was worth watching. Investigating this on the internet, I discovered that I was not alone with this problem – it seems that many others were also affected. Why was this happening? No satisfactory answer on the internet other than to “reset the service”. According to DStv on the internet, I had to send an SMS to 30333 with the message “reset”, followed by the card number, which I did very carefully, only…

The “old” way of “love”: Love as a bargain or trade – favours returned or unreturned determine the level of “love” and commitment. Love as a weapon or to establish and maintain power – inclusion if well-behaved, exclusion if not. Love as a face or image – a show of love offered in public contrasting greatly with what is privately experienced. Love as a teaching tool – it’s all about learning, shaping, seldom for enjoyment. Love as punishment through withholding – a “I’ll show you who is in charge” distortion of love. The “new” way of love: Love as service – the giver enhances the lives of others through chosen humility and service. Love as a means to learning – the giver seeks to grow, therefore watches, listens with patience…

Organisers of the Arise Benefit Concert, which will take place next month, have set themselves a target of raising R10 million in tickets sales and pledges. The concert, which will be held at Moses Mabhida Stadium on June 18, is aimed at raising funds for victims of the recent floods in Durban. The organisers said they decided to help after the provincial government and Premier of KZN, Sihle Zikalala, called on individuals, civil society and other stakeholders to come forward as the R1 billion relief fund set aside by President Cyril Ramaphosa was not enough to address the extent of the damage and devastation caused by the floods in parts of KZN and the Eastern Cape. Speaking at the launch this week, chairperson of the National Arts Council, Princess Celenhle…

LEAH, the police dog that died trying to rescue Sergeant Busisiwe Mjwara during a recovery operation in the Msunduzi River after last month’s floods, was honoured in a private funeral at Virginia Airport yesterday. Mjwara and Leah both died in the incident on April 17. They had been searching for three flood victims. A number of SAPS K9 officers, gathered to pay tribute to Leah yesterday. Lindy Swales, from Brenda’s Canine Fund NPC, who held the funeral service for Leah, said her family personally understood the importance of search-and-rescue teams and K9 units. “In 2016 our mother went missing in the floods in Durban and we spent two weeks with search and rescue. Although she was never found, we understood the importance of the search and rescue teams. “My two…

Government’s decision to permanently enshrine Covid-19 regulations such as mandatory mask-wearing while indoors into law will be challenged in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria. Civil rights organisation AfriForum and the public participation platform DearSA embarked on legal action for the court to review and set aside government’s regulations regarding the management of Covid-19 after the end of the state of disaster which came into law on May 5. The organisations filed their urgent application this week and the government is still due to file opposing papers. No date has yet been set for the hearing, although the applicants said it was an urgent matter which should be addressed by the court as soon as possible. The application follows the Department of Health’s announcement that regulations relating to notifiable diseases in…

Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former US president Donald Trump, articulating for the first time his stance on one of the most consequential decisions before him at the social media site he is acquiring. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake,” Musk said at an event hosted by the Financial Times. “It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.” The ban, he added, “was a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme.” Twitter had banned Trump’s account shortly after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, citing the “risk of further incitement of violence”.…

Stanley Ngwira was used to seeing mosquitoes throng the sky over his village in Malawi, but a drone hovering above the swarms was a new sight altogether for the retired teacher. The drones had been programmed to monitor mosquito breeding grounds in the central district of Kasungu – one of a slew of innovations under way in Africa to harness technology for health. Cheap to buy and easy to use, the drones were set to work last year to help scientists map which bodies of water were infested with mosquitoes, carrying malaria in a continent laden with some of the worst health-care outcomes in the world. “We were very impressed when we saw the researchers flying their objects which they said will help in fighting this disease,” 87-year old Ngwira…

THE South African agriculture sector was conveniently founded on the harsh premise of the exploitation of black farm workers as cheap labour. Despite 28 years of so-called freedom, this has not changed. And it is not about to change any time soon. That’s why the labour markets in the sector, especially the commercial fruit and vegetable industries, have now resorted to exploiting undocumented and heavily underpaid foreign workers from Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Malawi. No leopard can ever change its spots. One of the major reasons the Afrikaner-led apartheid government created the homelands in the first place was to remove black share-croppers from the land to stop them from competing with poor white farmers, and to transform them into cheap labour. If you doubt the veracity of this, you can ask…

Sri Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged yesterday to give up most of his executive powers but stopped short of yielding to demands for his resignation over the country’s economic crisis. The 72-year-old, in his first address to the nation since the start of a month-long protest campaign calling on him to quit, said he would announce a unity government in the coming days. He did not name the successor of his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who stepped down as prime minister to clear the way for a new cabinet. “I will work to give more powers to parliament and activate the key elements of the 19th amendment to the constitution,” he said, referring to democratic reforms he overturned soon after his 2019 election. Rajapaksa’s pledge to reinstate the amendment…

Moscow: Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina has left Russia, she said, after disguising herself as a food delivery courier to escape police. Alyokhina joins thousands of Russians who have fled their country since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. In September, Alyokhina was sentenced to one year restricted movement while protesting in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, but last month authorities moved to convert her sentence into real jail time. In an interview with the New York Times this week, Alyokhina, 33, said she dressed up as a food courier to avoid the Moscow police that were staking her out and left her cellphone behind so she couldn’t be tracked. Then a friend drove her to the border with Belarus and a week later…

Seoul: A senior official in South Korea’s new government was in hot water yesterday after apparently endorsing conversion therapy while trying to apologise for previously comparing homosexuality to mental illness. South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was sworn in Tuesday, is an avowed anti-feminist who on the campaign trail promised to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality. His newly appointed religion and multicultural secretary, Kim Seong-hoi, was forced to apologise this week over a 2019 Facebook post where he said homosexuality is “a type of mental illness”, and he appeared to endorse gay conversion therapy. | AFP…

RYAN Sandes could not hide his excitement at chalking up yet another huge achievement that only serves to cement his status as a South African sporting hero of sorts. The Capetonian renowned for his trail-running exploits completed what he described as “an epic adventure” when he and partner Ryno Griesel circumnavigated Lesotho on foot late last month. The duo traversed the entire mountain kingdom on foot over a period of 16 days, six hours and 56 minutes, an adventure that saw them cover an incredible 1 100km distance. Speaking to Independent Media a few days after the adventure, Sandes hoped he would have inspired a few people to realise that they can go for their dreams and goals no matter what they are. “I think being able to do projects…

WITH two rounds of Premiership matches remaining, bottom teams Baroka (16th, 22 points) and Swallows (15th, 24) have sounded a warning to the three clubs hovering above the relegation zone. Baroka and Swallows have the relegation axe looming overhead, but they are not accepting their fate. Baroka are undefeated in their last two outings with a win (Golden Arrows) and a draw (Chippa United). Swallows have achieved as much in their last three games with a win over Baroka and draw against top eight hopefuls SuperSport United. These are impressive results for the two teams propping up the log and best placed for the chop. Apart from Baroka and Swallows, three other teams are in danger of suffering the dreadful fate of relegation - TS Galaxy on 26 points, Chippa…

FORMER minister Zweli Mkhize’s lobbyists believe reports of his imminent arrest are part of an elaborate scheme to influence public opinion and to hide a political plot to abuse law-enforcement agencies to get him arrested and charged to eliminate him from the ANC presidential race. Recent media reports suggested that an arrest related to the Digital Vibes scandal was imminent, saying that law-enforcement authorities were in the late stages of their investigation and there was a possibility this could lead to criminal charges. According to his supporters, Mkhize, who is now an ordinary MP, has significant support in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape in his bid to become president of the ANC at the national elective conference in December. Tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu has also put forth her bid to…

I GUESS many of we adherents of the St Clement’s arts soirée associate Rick Andrew with the razzle-dazzle song and music he produces, along with wife Jilly. But this week we were introduced to his art – paintings he has been producing (and selling) over the years. It was a fascinating insight into the workings and development of a painter, the practicalities – examples of Rick’s work projected on to a screen. But, alas, no nudes. Speculation has it that they did not want to overexcite Professor Pieter Scholtz, doyen of the St Clement’s soirée. Rick last night did another presentation: “What Makes Art Art? – for the Critical Thinkers, a group who meet regularly at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties – not in the hurly- burly of…

recently the Human Rights Commission announced that they would investigate why certain areas in KwaZulu-Natal, specifically oThongathi, still had no water after 24 days. This is very public spirited of them as provision of water is a basic right of citizens. The provision of water is not only essential for sustaining life but it also impacts the residents in terms of their dignity. At the same time, we have a situation where a greater injustice and worse hardships are suffered and that is the racist collusion of the big five banks in South Africa to close the bank accounts of Sekunjalo. We have here a large number of people, more than 40 000, who are directly affected by this gross injustice. When banks close accounts it is normally in terms…

KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) has said the cost of damages to public and private infrastructure after last month’s floods, adds up to R25 billion. The department said the devastation was difficult to comprehend with more than 400 lives lost including: 386 in eThekwini 31 in Ilembe 7 in Ugu District 4 in King Cetshwayo 3 in Harry Gwala 2 in uMgungundlovu 2 in uMzinyathi It said 48 people were still unaccounted for, while the lives of 77 600 people were severely disrupted, 7 286 homes were destroyed and 12 062 homes partially destroyed. Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka said R1bn had been allocated to the province to deal with flood-related damage. “We have not received the allocated funds. “However, we are in talks with provincial and national…

Food prices around the world soared to record levels this year as the Russia-Ukraine war slashes key exports of wheat and fertiliser from those countries, at the same time as droughts, floods and heat, fuelled by climate change claim more harvests. Wheat prices hit a 14-year peak in March, and maize prices reached the highest ever recorded, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES) said. This has made basic staples more expensive – or harder to find in many countries, especially the poorest. Climate change, widespread poverty and conflicts are now combining to create “endemic and widespread” risks to global food security – which means higher food prices may be the new normal, unless action is taken to curb the threats. IPES suggests not only cutting emissions…

TOYOTA has said none of the company’s employees will lose their jobs. The company was commenting after operations ceased at its Prospecton plant after last month’s floods caused extensive damage to the facility. On Tuesday, The Mercury’s sister newspaper the Daily News reported that Toyota staff were experiencing financial difficulties due to the shutdown of the Prospecton plant. In a statement, Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) said that from a human resource perspective, the safety and welfare of its employees remained a key priority. It also said that no TSAM employees would lose their jobs, and they would receive support from the company throughout the process. TSAM said the majority of Toyota employees fell under the NBF (National Bargaining Forum) and, as such, payment was governed by the rules of…

Just after noon on Tuesday, a passenger flying in a single-engine plane about 32km east of Boca Raton, Florida in the US, radioed air-traffic control. “I’ve got a serious situation here. My pilot has gone incoherent,” the man said, adding that from about 9 000 feet up he had “no idea how to fly the airplane”. The passenger told the control tower that he was not sure where he was, only that he could “see the coast of Florida in front of me”. From a tower in Fort Pierce, about 120km north of Boca Raton, the air traffic controller asked the passenger to reiterate his situation. The passenger repeated that the pilot was incoherent: “He is out.” For about the next five minutes, the air traffic controller instructed the passenger…

The Hawks’ and the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) apparent lack of appetite in concluding investigations involving President Cyril Ramaphosa’s allies does little to help restore the public confidence that these law enforcement agencies should be enjoying. Instead, it adds to negative perceptions and gives credence to allegations of interference in investigations involving the president’s opponents. Take, for example, the criminal investigation against Eastern Cape premier and re-elected ANC provincial chairperson Oscar Mabuyane and his Public Works MEC Babalo Madikizela, both heavily implicated by a public protector report which found that funds meant to be used to ferry mourners to the memorial service of Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ended up personally benefiting the two and the ANC. It is worth mentioning at this stage that Mabuyane’s win over Madikizela for the…

Mabuyane’s Eastern Cape ANC leadership victory is bad news for the poor OSCAR Mabuyane’s Eastern Cape ANC leadership victory and his subsequent endorsement of Cyril Ramaphosa’s re-election spells more doom and gloom for the people of the Eastern Cape. You would be excused for believing that the people of the Eastern Cape were under some sort of spell as they keep voting for their own poverty and failing leadership. Social media users did not spare a moment when they used Mabuyane’s victory as an opportunity to laugh at the Eastern Cape’s endless woes. His leadership has been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons, even during the deadly pandemic. His administration came with, thankfully, a now former health MEC, Sindiswa Gomba, who brought the Velaphi-style ambulance scooters that were…

Cyber experts are urging Africa to up its game in the face of criminals targeting the continent’s fast-growing internet economy with scams and theft. “The issue of cybersecurity has to be raised to the core duties of the state,” Chadian economist Succes Masra said at a cyber conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s economic hub this week. “If you do that, you will get follow-through. There’s incomplete awareness about this problem, and we have to speed things up.” Half a billion people in Africa are connected to the internet, according to Interpol – a figure that in raw numbers places the continent ahead of other regions such as South America or the Middle East. Major attacks on the internet itself are very rare in Africa, the most spectacular being a brief…

TUSCON: Arizona was preparing for its first execution since 2014 yesterday, with an inmate convicted of killing a student scheduled to be put to death eight years after the state carried out its last lethal injection, described by lawyers as botched. Clarence Wayne Dixon, convicted of stabbing and strangling Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin in 1978, was scheduled to die at 10am local time at the state prison in Florence, Arizona. Lawyers for Dixon asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution on grounds of insanity, a request which justices denied without explanation. | Reuters…

THE INSTITUTE of Directors in South Africa (IoDSA) has slammed SAA for appointing Professor John Lamola as the executive chairperson and chief executive of the soon-to-be-privatised airline. SAA’s board appointed Lamola to the position last month, to assume his duties from May 1, following the departure of interim chief executive Thomas Kgokolo after a year at the helm. IoDSA said yesterday that Lamola’s appointment to the dual roles suggested that the state had not learned the lessons of the past few years regarding the importance of good governance. IoDSA chief executive Parmi Natesan said the Zondo Commission’s reports had shown that governance lapses in terms of appointments, oversight and accountability were some of the fundamental causes of the implosion of our key state-owned enterprises, among them SAA. Natesan said it…

An Al Jazeera reporter was shot dead during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank yesterday, with Palestinians and the news channel accusing Israel of killing her and Israel’s leader saying she was likely hit by Palestinian fire. Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, a Palestinian- American, was wearing a press vest that clearly marked her as a journalist while reporting in the city of Jenin, the Qatar-based outlet said. She was covering the latest arrest operation launched by the Israeli military amid deadly Arab attacks in Israel. The death of a prominent, veteran reporter for the popular news channel seemed likely to add more fuel to a surging conflict. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Al Jazeera described Abu Akleh’s death as blatant, cold-blooded murder by the Israeli military, which said…

Singapore, a country that has a majority Buddhist population and where Muslims are barely half that percentage, has seen it fit to ban the Indian film Kashmir Files. The film has a fiery potential of igniting religious intolerance in a general population of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus, who otherwise enjoy a peaceful co-existence. The other reason offered by that government is that the film is not a documentary, but is based on “loose” facts. Actually, whether the latter reason is valid is not half as important as the consequences of viewing it and chalking up a frenzied hatred for other local religious groups that are thousands of miles from where the “events” of the film are said to have occurred. There are sympathisers for the hardline attitude of…

LOS ANGELES: Human rights groups have urged video-conferencing company Zoom to scrap research on integrating emotion recognition tools into its products, saying the technology can infringe users’ privacy and perpetuate discrimination. Technology publication Protocol reported last month that California- based Zoom was looking into building such tools, which could use artificial intelligence (AI) to scan facial movements and speech to draw conclusions about people’s mood. In a joint letter sent to Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan yesterday, more than 25 rights groups including Access Now, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Muslim Justice League said the technology was inaccurate and could threaten basic rights. “If Zoom advances with these plans, this feature will discriminate against people of certain ethnicities and people with disabilities, hardcoding stereotypes into millions of devices,”…

A SENIOR forecaster at the South African Weather Service says South Africa needs to learn how to deal with severe weather events from other countries. Puseletso Mofokeng, a senior forecaster at the South African Weather Service, said the island of Reunion, which is prone to tropical cyclones, was a good example of how to implement storm systems that prevent large-scale loss of life and damage to infrastructure. “We can learn from them by taking over our engineers and geologists to find out how they have managed to keep their island as good as it is. He was speaking during a Government Communication and Information System webinar on the impact of climate change on society. Devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal last month led to the loss of more than 400 lives and…

A dedicated service provider will soon be appointed to assist Msunduzi Municipality in stabilising its electricity supply over the next two years. This is part of the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) efforts to assist with its power supply woes. The move forms part of the aid package to assist the battling municipality restore its service delivery capacity and ensure that it is financially sustainable while adhering to principles of good governance. Presenting his department’s budget this week, Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka admitted that the municipality was facing serious challenges. “Given the ongoing challenges at Msunduzi, we have, during 2021/2022, enhanced our monitoring of the municipality’s recovery plan as part of our intervention. We specifically addressed the issues of Msunduzi’s waste management, potholes, recurring electricity outages and strengthening the…

The world faces a 50% chance of warming of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, if only briefly, by 2026, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said this week. That does not mean the world would be crossing the long-term warming threshold of 1.5ºC, which scientists have set as the ceiling for avoiding catastrophic climate change. But a year of warming at 1.5ºC could offer a taste of what crossing that long-term threshold would be like. “We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. The likelihood of exceeding 1.5ºC for a short period has been rising since 2015, with scientists in 2020 estimating a 20% chance and revising that last year up to 40%. Even one year at1.5ºC of warming can…

With a weakening of democracy, there has been a phenomenal rise in public sector maladministration in South Africa during the past few decades, and this has catalysed discussions and debates about corruption, poor governance and service delivery, and how a more transformed monitoring and evaluation system infused with vibrant civil society activism is critical for more effective, transparent and accountable governance in our country. It was this very issue that encouraged members of our newly formed Journal Club at REGENT Business School to examine, through a webinar, the monitoring and evaluation system in South Africa, specifically in terms of accountability, transparency and outcomes of service delivery programmes. The purpose was to review the role of civil society in the monitoring and evaluation system in South Africa. Dr Indran Naidoo, the…

Ukrainian forces reported battlefield gains yesterday in a counter-attack that could signal a shift in the momentum of the war, while Kyiv shut gas flows on a route through Russian-held territory, raising the spectre of an energy crisis in Europe. Following days of advances north and east of the second-largest city Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces were within several kilometres of the Russian border yesterday, one Ukrainian military source said on condition on anonymity. Before the advance, Russian forces had been on the outskirts of Kharkiv, 40km from the border. The gains appear to be the fastest that Ukraine has achieved since it drove Russian troops away from Kyiv and out of the country’s north at the beginning of April. If sustained, it could let Ukrainian forces threaten supply lines for Russia’s…

Democrats in the US Senate were due to lead a vote yesterday to codify the right to abortion into federal law in a bid to pin down Republicans on the deeply divisive issue ahead of crucial midterm elections, even though they expect the measure to fail. The move comes amid a political firestorm ignited by a leaked draft opinion that showed the Supreme Court’s conservative majority prepared to overturn Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 ruling guaranteeing abortion access nationwide. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate’s Democratic majority, told colleagues the vote would be “one of the most consequential” in decades, describing the draft opinion as “one of the worst court decisions ever”. “Before the day is over, every member of this body will make a choice: vote to protect…

LOME: Eight soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in an attack in northern Togo yesterday, the government said, marking potentially the first deadly raid on its territory by Islamist militants who have killed thousands in neighbouring countries. A group of heavily armed gunmen ambushed an army post in the Kpendjal prefecture near the border with Burkina Faso, the government said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. The government blamed “terrorists”. Security analysts said the attack was likely carried out by a local al-Qaeda affiliate that is based in Mali but in recent years has spread south into Burkina Faso. | Reuters…