Table of contents for SW-2021-04-14 in Star

DINEO fAKU dineo.faku@inl.co.za PRECIOUS metals and minerals once gain came through for the beleaguered mining industry as output surged and was expected to lift even further in the medium term. Data from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) yesterday showed that production improved with export values growing 5.6 percent month-on-month in February to R53.5 billion. Analysts said that the output was 33.6 percent higher than the comparable period last year, suggesting that external conditions had become favourable in line with the global economic growth recovery. StatsSA said production in the sector rose 0.8 percent year-on-year in February, ahead of expectations as iron ore output surged. The statistics agency said that iron ore, the main ingredient in the production of stainless steel, was the largest contributor to the output with 65.7 percent growth,…

Kanye West has responded to Kim Kardashian West’s divorce petition. The couple – who share North, 7, Saint, 5, Chicago, 3, and Psalm, 23 months, together – decided earlier this year to go their separate ways and after Kim filed for divorce from the rapper. Kanye is requesting joint legal and physical custody of their children. Both Kanye and Kim agree there is no need for either of them to pay spousal support. Both have agreed to pay their own legal fees. Meanwhile, Kim’s mother Kris Jenner insists her and her family have rallied around Kim to offer “support” amid her divorce and are making sure Kim and Kanye’s children are happy. Kris said: “It’s always going to be hard anytime there’s a lot of kids. “The good thing…

MASHUDU SADIKE VICTIMS of the VBS Mutual Bank “hesist”, who had invested up to R100 000, are left with a little over three months to claim their money. Qualifying individuals and societies can redeem their money at any Nedbank branch before July 8, 2021. This is according to VBS liquidator Anoosh Rooplal who spoke at a joint meeting with Nedbank at the South African Reserve Bank last week. Rooplah said: “July 18 is the date when the agreement between the liquidator, the Prudential Authority and Nedbank is due to end. “In terms of this agreement, which was concluded in 2018, depositors were guaranteed up to R100 000 and had three years to collect their money.” She added that the intention was to avoid that the vulnerable depositors suffer a…

STAFF REPORTER BULLYING in schools has reared its ugly head again after a Grade 10 Limpopo learner allegedly overdosed on pills after she was assaulted by another pupil at the school. In a video that has gone viral, the 15-year-old from Mbilwi Secondary School in Sibasa, Limpopo, is seen being confronted by a fellow learner before they are interrupted by another pupil who slaps the learner several times. In the background, other learners are heard laughing or cheering. A second video showed that the two pupils were separated by a male pupil, but not before the learner landed some more slaps and pulled the 15-year-old’s hair. After the release of the video, social media users called for justice for the allegedly bullied learner using the hashtag #JusticeForLufuno and pupils…

Valerie Boje val.boje@inl.co.za THERE have been gains in achieving gender equality but many challenges which remain have been aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The first part of the 2021 United Nations Gender Equality Forum, hosted virtually by Mexico, wrapped up at the end of March, with the second to be hosted by France at the end of June. These events are intended to accelerate action for the achievement of gender equality and the rights and dignity of women and girls. Mexico is significant as it was here the first UN World Conference on Women, held in Mexico City in 1975, led to the adoption of a plan of action to eliminate discrimination and promote the full participation of women in society. Mexican ambassador to South Africa, Ana Luis Fajer said…

GIFT TLOU gift.tlou@inl.co.za JOBS of several medical staff at a Mpumalanga hospital are hanging by a thread after their alleged act of negligence. This comes after it emerged that a 22-year-old mother in Delmas took her baby to Bernice Samuel Hospital for diarrhoea; however, while receiving treatment the baby caught an infection and his hand turned purple and developed blisters. The baby had to be transferred to Witbank Hospital after complications which led to the amputation of his hand. Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane said the medical staff involved should be suspended with immediate effect. A preliminary report on the case should be ready next week, he added. “We need the truth as to what happened, but we also need to make sure we support the family, and offer counselling to…

Although the economy seems to be coming out of the doldrums, life is still tough out there and many people have lost their livelihoods, if not their lives, as a result of Covid-19. South Africa’s economy gained 6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to Statistics South Africa. However, this was on an analysed basis. Stripping out the statistics agency’s fancy footwork with accounting or statistical terms, real economic growth came in at negative 7%. And South Africans certainly felt it, with job losses across the country and no new jobs to be found. Almost a third of South Africans are officially unemployed, according to Statistics South Africa’s data for the three months to December. That figure doesn’t include those who have given up looking for jobs. When we…

With a Covid-hit, shrinking economy and a mounting public debt burden, the Minister of Finance, Mr Tito Mboweni, announced a tight budget in February 2021. This budget also constrained its allocation to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). Within the DHET budget, the allocation to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was set to increase from R34.8 billion in the 2020/21 fiscal year to R36.4bn in 2023/24 – a cumulative increase in nominal terms of 4.6% over the three-year period. This allocation covers NSFAS bursaries to university students and students at technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges. However, the National Treasury’s Budget Review projected inflation at 3.9%, 4.2% and 4.4% in the three fiscal years from 2021/22 to 2023/24. This means that the consumer price…

YEARS after she was booted from the SAA board as chairperson, Dudu Myeni’s tenure will haunt her for life. On Monday, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed her application to appeal against the North Gauteng High Court which last year declared her a delinquent director. This after the high court had, in December 2020, dismissed her application for leave to appeal against its judgment. In a terse ruling, the SCA ruled: “The application for leave to appeal is dismissed with costs on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospect of success in an appeal, and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard.” The application to declare her a delinquent director was brought by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and the SAA Pilots’…

The World Health Organization on Tuesday called for a halt on the sale of live wild mammals in food markets, to prevent the emergence of new diseases. The WHO said that while traditional markets play a central role in providing food and livelihoods for large populations, banning the sale of live wild mammals could protect the health of market workers and shoppers alike. It said some of the earliest known cases of Covid-19 had a link to a wholesale traditional food market in Wuhan, in China. The interim guidance was drawn up alongside the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “The guidance calls on countries to suspend the sale of captured live wild mammals in food markets as an emergency measure. “Animals, particularly…

N’Djamena: The situation in northern Chad is now “completely under control” after rebels entered the area on Sunday, the day of the country’s presidential election, the government said. The incursion by “several columns of heavily armed vehicles coming from Libya” happened at around 6pm on Sunday in the Zouarke area in Tibesti province, around 1 000 kilometres north of the capital N’Djamena, government spokesperson Cherif Mahamat Zene said in a statement. But the rebels were chased and dispersed by the armed forces and “the government now assures the public that the situation is entirely under control,” according to the statement released late Monday.…

I am not a great believer in conspiracy theories. I generally like to live my life based on facts. But I have also come to understand over the years that the cliché “where there is smoke, there is fire” usually means the kitchen is burning up. And that brings me to the omission of Kyle Verreynne for the first couple of T20 Internationals against Pakistan. Social media was in outcry after the Cape Cobras wicket-keeper/batsman was left out of a virtual South Africa "A" side, dressed up as the Proteas, due to the Indian Premier League absentees and injury-enforced absence of captain Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen. I did not blindly join the choir calling for Verreynne’s inclusion in the T20 team as I believe that some players…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za ESKOM is set to offload its controversial multimillion-rand residential development project in Mpumalanga before the end of September as part of raising more than R2 billion in capital. The power utility said yesterday that it would finalise the sale of Die Wilge Flats near the Kusile power station during the first half of the current financial year. It would also sell its Lephalale stands near the Medupi power station in Limpopo to raise more money. Meanwhile, Eskom said it would implement stage 2 load shedding yesterday due to a shortage of generation capacity. Yesterday, the struggling power utility said it had raised R76.1 million from the disposal of two high-rise office buildings in Kimberley and Johannesburg as part of its strategy to sell non-core immovable…

SCHRODER European Real Estate Investment Trust (Sere), which is invested in European growth cities, had collected 93 percent of rent due for the quarter ended March 31, 2021, ahead of the 89 percent collected in the previous two quarters. The property portfolio was independently valued at €274 million (about R4.7 billion) as at March 31, a 0.6 percent decrease on its December 31 valuation, the company said in an update yesterday. The valuation fell by €3.2m, or 1.2 percent net of about €1.4m of capital expenditure invested in the refurbishment of Boulogne-Billancourt over the quarter. The like-for-like valuation during the quarter was driven by the improved yield re-rating at the Berlin DIY investment, delivering a valuation increase of €1.1m, or 4 percent. The yield re-rating improved across the industrial portfolio,…

Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song have announced the birth of their first child, a boy called Dakota, into the world. The baby was born on Monday, April 5, in Los Angeles, California. The couple – who met a few years ago – said they were overjoyed about the baby’s arrival. Last February, Culkin revealed he was trying for a baby with Song. He confessed: “We practice a lot. We’re figuring it out, making the timing work. Because nothing turns you on more than when your lady comes into the room and says ‘honey, I’m ovulating’.” Culkin, 40, – who is best known for starring in the Home Alone franchise as a child – said he wanted to start a family while he was still young. “I got an ulcer or…

NTOMBI NKOSI and SIHLE MAVUSO AS THE 30-day deadline edges closer, tensions appear to be rising in the governing party. This comes as ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule has seemingly changed the rules of engagement surrounding the resolution reached by the national executive committee last month that all members facing corruption or other serious crime charges step aside within 30 days or face suspension. But a recent memorandum by Magashule in which he instructs all nine provincial secretary-generals to provide him with names of members who have been charged with corruption or other serious crimes and those accused by tomorrow has left some NEC members tongue-tied. ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe yesterday asked to be contacted later when asked to comment on the memo, while Magashule’s phone rang unanswered as this paper…

YET another public entity has embarked on a process that could result in the retrenchment of employees, barely a month after the SABC let go of over 600 workers. The SA Bureau of Standards (SABS) has issued a section 189 notice to its employees, a measure it needed to fulfil in terms of the Labour Relations Act before retrenching. The process started with consultations. Up to 170 employees could lose their jobs by May 15, from a headcount of 832. SABS hoped to save R150 million once retrenchments were done. The standards bureau told workers a cash crunch forced it to consider retrenchments. “The SABS is currently in dire financial straits,” it said in a notice. It said Covid-19 exacerbated its cash crisis, as it had negative effects on the…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za TWO judges, in separate cases, voiced their displeasure at the conduct they were shown as judicial officers by parties involved in cases before them. A “rude” lawyer and an “obstructive” soon-to-be divorcee received more than a slap on the wrist for their attitudes towards the judges. The lawyer got more than he bargained for when North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria Judge Bert Bam found him to be in contempt of court and gave him an option of a R30 000 fine or 30 days in jail. In the other case, Judge Nicolene Janse van Nieuwenhuizen ordered a woman in a divorce case to foot the entire legal bill for missing two days of court. The woman had refused to subject herself to a virtual court hearing. Judge…

Lisa Isaacs lisa.isaacs@inl.co.za BULLYING and harassment are common experiences during psychiatry registrar training in South Africa and are under-reported. In correspondence in this month’s SA Medical Journal, experts who served as members of the Council of Psychiatrists, Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, for the triennium 2017-2020, aimed to understand how workplace experiences and supervision could affect training and examination outcomes, with a focus on bullying during specialist psychiatric training. Authors Natalie Beath of Stellenbosch University; Ugasvaree Subramaney at Wits; Zukiswa Zingela at Walter Sisulu University; Bonginkosi Chiliza at University of KwaZulu-Natal; John Joska at UCT; Carla Kotzé at the University of Pretoria; and Soraya Seedat at Stellenbosch University conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive study of registrar trainees in psychiatry at eight universities between June 1 and November 30, 2019. They…

Chulumanco Mahamba chulumanco.mahamba@inl.co.za MORE financial woes have befallen the cash-strapped Emfuleni Local Municipality after Midvaal Local Municipality announced it will withhold payments due to its failure to supply water. The office of Midvaal executive mayor Bongani Baloyi said on Sunday afternoon the Midvaal Municipality took a decision to withhold all payments due to the embattled Emfuleni Municipality in relation to water supply at Risiville with immediate effect. “Risiville is a Midvaal demarcated area which receives water supply from Three Rivers East which is Emfuleni supply area. It can be confirmed that there is reduction in supply systems causing low, sometimes no, water supply volume and pressures in Risiville.” The water reductions are the result of money due to water utility Rand Water by the Emfuleni Municipality. The municipality’s debt stands…

STAFF REPORTER WHILE the Wings For Life World Run is only taking place in May, there are already 700 000 registered participants from 195 nations. To add to those numbers, 7 million kilometres have been run and close to €30 million (about R520m) received by Wings for Life in the form of entry fees and donations. The organisation was started in 2004 by Heinz Kinigadner, a two-times motocross champion, and Dietrich Mateschitz. In 2003, Kinigadner's son Hannes had an accident which left him tetraplegic. “He was 19 and it left him paralysed from his shoulders down. After Heinz found out what hardships such an injury entails, he was determined to do something about it. “Together with leading neurologists and scientists, they wanted to find out if this spinal cord injury…

Kieran Sharkey AT FACE value, it seems plausible that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, could behave seasonally, being more prevalent in winter and less so in summer. The four other coronaviruses that commonly circulate in humans behave in this way. We’ve also seen Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and deaths spike over winter in the UK and other countries, which is suggestive of a seasonal effect. Some association between viral transmission and the seasons is to be expected. Many human behaviours are seasonal. In summer, we spend more time outdoors, where risk of infection is much lower, and we are likely to lead more active lifestyles, which can raise the body’s ability to resist infection. We’re also likely to benefit from increased exposure to sunlight, which raises vitamin D…

The Japanese government said yesterday that it had decided to release into the sea more than 1 million tons of water that has collected at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite opposition from local fishermen and nearby countries. The combination of cooling water and groundwater seepage had become contaminated from contact with reactors that melted down during the 2011 nuclear disaster, and initial attempts to treat it were only partially successful, leaving significant levels of radioactive isotopes. The government says the water will be treated further to remove dangerous isotopes and diluted to well below World Health Organization standards for drinking water, in an operation to be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, has collected the water – equivalent…

WASHINGTON: Human rights lawyer Kristen Clarke, pictured, has been chosen by the Biden administration to head the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division as assistant attorney general in January, along with Merrick Garland, who was nominated for the post of the US Attorney General at the time. Biden’s nominee, Clarke, is claimed by the American Account-ability Foundation to have organised a 1999 university conference that gathered supporters of the idea of releasing people convicted for killing police officers.…

MEXICO CITY: Prosecutors in Mexico have arrested 30 marines in connection with the disappearances of an unspecified number of people in the northern state of Tamaulipas in 2014, the Navy said. “Thirty naval service members were made available to the Attorney-General’s Office on April 9 in compliance with arrest warrants for the alleged crime of forced disappearance of persons,” the Navy Secretariat said in a statement. The Navy said it decided to hand over the uniformed men “in strict adherence with protocol” so that prosecutors can “carry out the pertinent investigations”. Tamaulipas, long marred by violence linked to drug trafficking, has one of the highest rates of missing persons in the country.…

MIHLALI BALEKA SOUTH AFRICA (0) 2 Kgatlana 51’, Salgado 57’ BOTSWANA 0 Banyana Banyana reminded their counterparts why they have been crowned “Queens of southern Africa” for the past four years after beating neighbours Zambia and Botswana in their international friendlies during the Fifa break. On Saturday, they beat Zambia 3-1 at Bidvest Stadium, before returning to the same venue yesterday to beat Botswana 2-0 thanks to second-half goals from Spain-based striker Thembi Kgatlana and Gabriela Salgado. The South Africans, who will miss the Olympics in July for the first time since their maiden qualification nine years ago, used the friendlies as part of their preparations for the Cosafa Championship and Africa Women’s Cup of Nations qualifiers. Coach Desiree Ellis made four changes yesterday to the team that…

AUDITOR-General Tsakani Maluleke has officially declared the SA Post Office to be commercially insolvent. Reports emerged yesterday that Maluleke conferred the struggling post office to a growing list of collapsing parastatals with irregular expenditure of over R200 million, as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure exceeding R26m. Maluleke allegedly said that there was no evidence that officials behind the irregularities had been held to account. She was said to have been constrained by the post office’s “poor status of the accounting record” and grossly inadequate internal controls with no proper record keeping to ensure that complete, relevant, and accurate information was accessible and available. In January, former chief executive Mark Barnes accused the government of interfering with the institutions’ turnaround strategy, which had led to financial difficulties at the…

RENERGEN said yesterday it had signed a 10-year sales agreement for the supply of helium with iSi Automotive, which was the company’s first direct-to-customer helium deal. The domestic producer of natural gas and helium did not name iSi Automotive as its customer on Monday when it announced the sales agreement, citing confidentiality, but the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) informed the company that it was not technically complying with ASX guidance note 8 section 4.15. ASX advised the company to halt trading on the stock market as a result. The group said yesterday that its first helium sales agreement for the Phase 2 plant for the Virginia Gas Project was with iSi Automotive. “The 10-year sales agreement commences on the completion of construction of our plant for Phase 2 of Virginia…

STAFF REPORTER SEX pest teachers will no longer have a chance to make it back to the classroom after being fired for sexually assaulting pupils. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has published regulations intended to prevent the re-employment of teachers dismissed for misconduct. The regulations detailed the periods teachers guilty of certain types of misconduct could not be re-employed. But it was clear that those guilty of sexual offences were indefinitely banned from re-employment. The sexual offences included sexual assault on a pupil, student or other employee, and having a sexual relationship with a pupil of the school. Teachers also banned for life were those guilty of grave corporal punishment, assaulting fellow employees to the extent of causing grievous bodily harm, murder, attempted murder, rape and indecent assault. Motshekga stipulated…

Google is hiring people who use Android devices to give feedback for a new medical records tool for patients. According to Stat News, Google is back after 13 years for such a tool for digitally documenting patient health records. “The tech giant has launched an early user feedback programme aimed at exploring how patients might want to see, organise, and share their own medical record data,” the report mentioned. Google is currently recruiting about 300 patients for its health records study in the US. A company spokesperson said that it was “running a user feedback programme to test features that give users the ability to collect health information from their provider patient portals”. In 2008, the company launched Google Health aimed to give people a way to see their health…

Tenants challenge rental increases they believe are not justified due to repairs and maintenance issues not attended to by the landlord. Under common law, the landlord is obliged to deliver the building hired in a fit and proper state for the purpose intended; and is liable to the tenant for any damage caused by a defect in the property leased, “where they have knowledge of such defect, or by reason of his trade or calling he ought to have known of the defect” (Kotze, C.J. in Atkins v Delport, 1903 13 CTR 686). The landlord is obliged to deliver the property reasonably fit for the purpose for which it was let and also to maintain it in that condition during the lease’s currency – Harlin Properties (Pty) Ltd and another…

Gift Tlou gift.tlou@inl.co.za THE City of Joburg’s service delivery to informal settlement residents in Lenasia remains a mystery to the community. Despite providing water tanks, Pikitup service and earmarking electrical connection points inside households, the city is still unleashing its legal unit on the community. According to court applications seen by The Star, the city has identified the residents as “Unlawful invaders of the remaining extent of erf 129 farm 301 Rietfontein”. The issue of land and ownership of the area has been widely debated in the past, with a group of farmers in the vicinity claiming to have bought the land from the city decades ago. The city has since identified several areas in the south of Joburg as “hot spots” for land invasion. These include Ennerdale,…

STAFF REPORTER BLOEMFONTEIN self-taught baker and self-proclaimed Muffin King Anathi Nonxuba, 27, who has made a living by selling muffins, has now expanded his business to easy mix. Nonxuba – who is a marketing graduate – started selling muffins in the Bloemfontein CBD in 2019, following a visit to his mother in Joburg and after two years of unemployment. “I had been working as a sales consultant at Virgin Active in 2017 before I was retrenched. I was unemployed for two years before I decided to visit my mother, who lives in Bloem. It was around that time I started selling the muffins,” Nonxuba said. He said he had always been an entrepreneur on the side; even during the two years of his unemployment he sold a few T-shirts…

Thami Zwane | Edenvale Audited numbers have confirmed what is known: 90% (89 523 044ha) of the land is in private hands. The lion’s share of 72% (26 663 144ha) is owned by whites, followed by coloureds at 15%, Indians at 5%, and blacks at 4% (1 271 562ha). The 4% is further shared with errant blacks in possession of unduly acquired South African identity documents. South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in diversity! This is the only country in the world where the majority indigenous people are almost landless. A sense of belonging and ownership starts with the land. It’s now nearly 27 years of constitutional democracy and the land legislation of 1913 is still adversely impacting on us. How long will the…

Nyaniso Qwesha | Joburg I AM asking this question because of the recent student protest in various South African universities. These protests are becoming a yearly occurrence, and they, therefore, need a solution from all of us. The question is what to do, are there practical solutions to have a permanent solution? There are no easy answers to this question, especially when considering some of the information published by Statistics SA. The higher education studies explicitly put in context the problem faced by various higher education institutions. If we zoom in on the StatSA report published, we can see that the tuition fees component of funding increased from 27% in 2006 to 35% in 2015, almost an 8% rise within the same period. Furthermore, the fee contribution decreased…

THE topic of toxic masculinity comes up more in conversations about #MeToo than about Black Lives Matter, understandably so. Cop machismo is an important way of understanding police violence against people of colour. It helps explain why Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck – continuing for two minutes after Floyd’s pulse stopped – and why three other officers chose to keep the crowd at bay rather than save Floyd’s life. Much commentary on the broken relationship between police and African-Americans focuses on anti-Black bias and structural discrimination. While it’s hard to overstate the role that race plays in policing, gender matters too. Legal scholar Frank Rudy Cooper has described encounters between the police and African-Americans as “Who’s the man?” contests. Some cops perform their masculinity by showing…

ANTI-COUP protesters turned Myanmar’s New Year festival of Thingyan into a rallying point yesterday, painting pro-democracy messages on traditional clay pots and collecting flowers. Myanmar is in chaos and its economy paralysed since the military seized power from civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1. A junta crackdown against dissent has resulted in the civilian death toll reaching at least 710 as of late Monday including 50 children, according to a local monitoring group. Many in the anti-coup protest movement have vowed to boycott water fight celebrations for the Thingyan festival, with some saying it would be disrespectful to have fun when so many have lost their lives and nearly 3 000 people are detained. Last year’s festivities were also called off because of pandemic restrictions. Protesters in…

Rio de Janeiro: A judge on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court this week suspended parts of four decrees issued by President Jair Bolsonaro relaxing Brazil’s gun control laws. The decrees were to go into effect yesterday. Justice Rosa Weber’s decision will be analysed by the plenary of the court from Friday, along with other appeals filed by multiple groups against the right-wing president’s arms policy. Among other changes, Weber eliminated a section that increased the number of firearms civilians can own from four to six. Weber’s decision was hailed as a “great victory for Brazilian society” by Ilona Szabo, president of the Igarape Institute, which specialises in security and development issues.…

WASHINGTON: US federal health agencies were due to call for an immediate pause in use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after six US recipients developed a rare disorder involving blood clots, the New York Times reported, citing officials briefed on the decision. All six were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second woman in Nebraska is in critical condition in hospital. The company’s shares were down 3% before the opening bell. The Food and Drug Administration, Johnson & Johnson and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Less than a week ago, Europe’s drug regulator said it was reviewing rare blood clots in four people in the US who received the shot.…

World No 2 Daniil Medvedev of Russia has tested positive for Covid-19 and has been withdrawn from this week's Monte Carlo Masters, the ATP said yesterday. Medvedev, who was seeded second behind top-ranked Novak Djokovic at the event on clay, has been put in isolation and is being monitored by the tournament and ATP medical teams, the men's tennis governing body said in a statement. "It's a big disappointment not to play in Monte Carlo," said the 25-year-old. "My focus is now on recovery and I look forward to getting back out on Tour as soon and as safely as possible." The ATP on Monday posted a video of Medvedev's practice session in Monte Carlo with Spaniard Rafa Nadal. The governing body did not immediately respond to a request for…

HERMAN GIBBS Tomorrow’s Nedbank Cup quarter-final between Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates has been described as the “final before the final”, and Rhulani Mokwena says it is a pity there will not be spectators to witness the “spectacle”. Sundowns co-coach Mokwena made the “final” reference while addressing the media ahead of tomorrow’s shootout at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria (6pm kick-off). "With respect to the remaining teams in the competition, the Sundowns-Pirates match has been correctly referred to as a 'final before the final'. It will be a match between high-quality players," said Mokwena. "There have been matches between these two teams in the past when there was not much to write home about. It might have been because of the highly competitive nature of the teams. "This time, the…