Table of contents for 2021-05-27 in Star

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za ARROWHEAD Properties, which is in the throes of merger talks with Fairvest Property Holdings, lifted distributable earnings per B share by 57 percent for the six months to March 31, 2021, in spite of the many weak property market fundamentals that have plagued other real estate investment trusts (Reits). The board decided to defer the payment of an interim dividend until financial year-end, and no distribution guidance for the full year was given due to the uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. Arrowhead’s share price increased 1.19 percent to R3.39 yesterday afternoon. The share later closed at R3.28 on the JSE. The price had risen sharply from only 93 cents a year ago, but the price remains well below net asset value at the end of…

Alyssia Birjalal alyssia.birjalal@inl.co.za Award-winning record label boss, DJ Tira, has added another feather to his cap. The DJ has been hard at work with his team creating an online application called “YouDeh” that will allow fans to connect with their favourite celebrities. According to the app details, “YouDeh” allows users to connect any time and anywhere with people they never would have imagined possible connecting with, face-to-face and real-time. Users must be 13 years and older to use the app. DJ Tira recently took to social media to share the news and within minutes fans had already started commenting on his post, saying that they had downloaded it. Accompanying the video was the caption: “Malume has developed an app to help you connect with your favourite celebrity. “Fact is,…

ITUMELENG MAFISA AFRICAN Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader Kenneth Meshoe says South Africa is in the middle of a sexuality and morality crisis. Meshoe was reacting to the approval of a risqué Diesel jeans campaign that depicts couples kissing. There were complaints that the adverts were sexually charged and not appropriate for children’s eyes. Diesel said the campaign emphasised the importance of human connection. The billboards in Joburg have since gotten the approval of the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB). Complainants had said the position that the couples were in suggested something sexual. Another issue was the age difference between the couples in the billboards. “The idea that sex sells makes women commodities and companies that resort to that show how low they view women. Many times, many companies don’t…

Bongani Nkosi bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za THE EFF and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni Tuesday joined forces to mount a spirited legal battle against an earlier judgment that shot down the government’s BEE-linked Preferential Procurement Regulations. Their lawyers took on those of Sakeliga, AfriForum’s business wing, at the Constitutional Court. The EFF joined Mboweni’s side in his bid to appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal's (SCA) ruling that declared the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Regulations, adopted 2017, invalid and unconstitutional. Delivered in October last year, the SCA’s ruling was in Sakeliga’s favour. Still named AfriBusiness at the time, Sakeliga dragged Mboweni to court over the regulations that stipulated pre-qualifying and sub-contracting criteria for potential tenderers. The pre-qualifying criteria, detailed in the regulations, allowed state-owned entities to disqualify prospective contractors on the basis that their…

MASHUDU SADIKE LIMPOPO songstress Ntsikwane Raphesu has gone back to the studio to start work on her third album, which she hopes to drop later this year. The 38-year-old artist has two albums; the first was titled Wonderful and the second Soul Experiment. In an interview yesterday, Ntsikwane told Pretoria News that she was not yet sure what to name her third contribution to the music industry. “But it will most likely be called Lesedi, which will be a song on the album,” she said. The singer, songwriter and guitarist from Solomondale, a small township outside Polokwane, grew up in a “very musical family”, she said, which meant that she did not have to look far for musical inspiration. “My late father was a self-taught pianist and singer. He…

WHAT notice period is required to end a fixed-term lease? A lease for two years starts on the first day of January and terminates on December 31 in the second year. Unless there is a provision in the lease for a notice of termination, the lease automatically comes to an end on the last day of December. The landlord is not obliged to give notice to remind the tenant, or notice to end the lease. If a lease agreement is regulated by the Consumer Protection Act, the landlord must notify the tenant in writing the lease is about to end, by providing 40 to 80 days’ notice before the expiration of the lease. What would be the situation if the landlord did issue a notice, informing the tenant that the…

Peter Bachtis | Benoni THE two protagonists have had their sorry behinds handed to them by two people who would not lie down and accept the insidious goings on inside Belarus and Russia. In a James Bond-type thriller, Lukashenko, the so-called leader of Belarus, had an Irish aircraft threatened and diverted to land so that the feeble-minded leader could arrest journalist Roman Protasevich, who defied the dictator, criticising him and the cover up of the Belarusian disputed elections. In Russia, we have another entrenched dictator, Vladimir Putin, who had Navalny incarcerated, because he dared to speak up about Russia’s Mafia-type links and their corrupt practices. In Myanmar, Aung Sun Kyi has been arrested in a coup orchestrated by a few generals. There is a trend here, as dictatorships…

Morgan Bolton morgan.bolton@inl.co.za Max Verstappen’s victory at the Monaco Grand Prix this past weekend was an important one. The 23-year-old Dutchman now leads the world drivers’ championship, while his first-place finish and the fourth-place finish of teammate Sergio Perez also elevated Red Bull into the pound seats. It would have been disastrous if Sir Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes won at a track that is suppose to cater to all the strengths Red Bull. After securing three wins on the trot, it seemed the Silver Arrows, with Hamilton at the fore, had engineered themselves out of a pickle by somehow making the W12 more competitive, and less prone to its back-end slipping out under braking. They are not seven-time champions for nothing. Red Bull hold onto the slimmest of leads in…

Imraan Valodia Plans are afoot to make amendments to South Africa’s Companies Act that would require companies to report on wage differentials. This is the gap between executive pay and the lowest paid workers in the company. The announcement was made by Ebrahim Patel, the minister of Trade and Industry. This is a significant development, and long overdue. The proposed change would go some way towards addressing the challenge of inequality as well as better regulating excessive executive pay. This is because transparency about wage differentials would mean companies could not continue to ignore the inequalities in earnings. Transparency would also enable social actors to question inequality in companies and to change it. On top of this, at least in theory, the massive inequalities between executive pay and the…

At least two people died yesterday as howling winds and huge waves slammed eastern India in the Covid-stricken country’s second cyclone in as many weeks. Last week, Cyclone Tauktae lashed western India, claiming at least 155 lives. Now Cyclone Yaas has forced the evacuation of more than 1.5 million people in the states of West Bengal and Odisha, killing two people. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the town of Digha had been “swamped” by waves the height of a double-decker bus. Nearly 20 000 houses were damaged and more than a dozen river islands were flooded, she said. The storm packed rain and winds gusting up to 155km/h, the equivalent to a category-two hurricane. Officials fear the emergency will further complicate efforts to halt a surge in coronavirus…

Washington: The teenager who filmed African-American George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer one year ago marked the anniversary of his death on Tuesday, saying the video helped bring justice but had left her traumatised. Darnella Frazier, then 17, took out her phone in Minneapolis and recorded Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, providing crucial evidence that led to Chauvin’s conviction. “A year ago, today I witnessed a murder,” Frazier wrote in a Facebook post. “I knew that he was in pain. I knew that he was another black man in danger with no power.” “It changed how I viewed life. It made me realize how dangerous it is to be black in America,” she wrote. “I still hold the weight and trauma of…

Colombo: Sri Lankan authorities yesterday battled to put out a fire raging for 8 days on a stricken container ship loaded with chemicals. The Singapore-registered vessel, within sight of the shore, is carrying 25 tons of nitric acid as well asother unspecified chemicals and cosmetics. Eight of its 1 500 containers fell overboard on Tuesday, one of them washing ashore at the Negombo tourist beach, 40km north of Colombo. Strong winds associated with a cyclone hitting eastern India hampered efforts to put out the blaze as a huge cloud of black smoke rose from the MV X-Press Pearl. Sri Lanka’s airforce used helicopters to drop about 425kg of fire retardant chemicals on the ship yesterday.…

Zaahier Adams zaahier.adams@inl.co.za Black Leopards (1) 2 Thutlwa 44, 64 Kaizer Chiefs (1) 1 Castro 10 TIKLAS Thutlwa may have been relatively unknown prior to yesterday’s game but he will now forever be known in Thohoyandou as ‘The Amakhosi Slayer’ as his brace breathed fresh life in Leopards’ bid to stave off automatic relegation. Thutlwa, 22, had not scored in the Premiership before, but struck either side of half-time to propel his side to a thrilling 2-1 victory and most importantly earn his side three invaluable league points. The Limpopo-based club are still rooted to the bottom of the table but they are clearly not going down without a fight as they are now just three points behind their nearest rivals Chippa United. The bottom Premiership club go straight…

STEINHOFF International Holdings (SIHNV) yesterday provided an update on the application for the provisional liquidation of SIHNV made by the former shareholders of Tekkie Town in the Western Cape Division of the High Court earlier this month. On Tuesday, the court had directed that the hearing would take place between September 1 and 3. The court had also set a timetable for the parties to deliver papers prior to the hearing of the application, it said. The Tekkie Town executives had previously requested the matter to be heard on an urgent basis on May 24. The standoff is a result of the December 2017 accounting scandal that led to a decline of more than 95 percent in Steinhoff’s share price following the admission of irregularities. |…

Lindsay Lohan is to star in a Christmas romantic comedy Netflix. The Parent Trap star is making her return to acting by appearing in the untitled rom-com in which she plays a “newly engaged, spoiled hotel heiress”. The movie centres on an heiress, who suffers from amnesia after a skiing accident. However, she “finds herself in the care of a handsome, blue-collar lodge owner and his precocious daughter in the days leading up to Christmas,” Variety reports of the new film. Meanwhile, Lohan previously insisted it would be an “honour” to star in a Mean Girls sequel. The 34-year-old actress said: “I mean, I know that they’re going to do something, but I just don’t know exactly what yet. “And it would be an honour to be a part of…

MASHUDU SADIKE ANC MP Mathole Motshekga is disputing the legitimacy of Modjadji Queenship regent Prince Mpapatla Modjadji, saying the position has not been reviewed every 12 months as required by the law. In court papers yet to be filed before the court but obtained by the Pretoria News, sister newspaper of The Star, Motshekga claimed Prince Mpapatla was essentially a “self-proclaimed” regent because Limpopo premier Stan Mathabatha failed to review the position every year as required by Act no 6 of the Limpopo Traditional Leadership and Institutions Act of 2003. The notice of motion prepared by ANC veteran Mathews Phosa, who is representing Motshekga, is the latest in the legal dispute between the former ANC chief whip and Prince Mpapatla over the future of Balobedu Queenship heir apparent, Princess…

BONGANI NKOSI bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za IN a glaring shift, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) yesterday joined forces with the government to tear into the high court ruling that declared the lockdown regulations invalid and unconstitutional. Casac, as amicus curiae, and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s counsels ventured into scathing attacks at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) against Judge Norman Davis’s judgment. Casac is one of civil society organisations with a track record of squaring off with the government in court. In his judgment delivered at the Pretoria Court in June last year, Judge Davis found most of the regulations implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19 irrational. Scathing of Cogta, and labelling its approach to regulations as paternalistic rather than…

Lehae is a new housing development that’s now in the fourth phase of its construction. It is situated between Lenasia and the Golden Highway, south of Johannesburg. As with many other townships, unemployment rate is among the top problems in this community too. Coach Siya Ndzube, who has a background in boxing, started a small gym at home where he trains youth in the discipline of boxing to prepare them for the real world, and he uses this same gym to give women classes in self-defence. In recent days in the area there have been several incidents and to gain a few seconds to get out of harm’s way is vital. This gym hopes to achieve just that. Ndzube procured all the equipment and, being unemployed, he starts early to…

NTANDO MAKHUBU ntando.makhubu@inl.co.za MUSIC star Slovaz is a beneficiary of the era where Igoli – or Joburg – was indeed the city of gold. Slovaz received his industry recognition in a time when the South African entertainment industry was breaking boundaries. Born Kicky Khumalo, the Kwamashu-born musician encapsulates the lifeblood of kwaito through authentic music virtuoso. Nearly 17 years in the making and perfecting of his craft, Slovaz has been in music and TV since 2001. In 2004, he appeared in the controversial local drama Yizo Yizo. He played the character of a young man from Kwamashu, who arrived in Jozi to pursue his dreams and ambitions of breaking into the entertainment industry and starting a music empire. He was also featured on the soundtrack of Yizo Yizo 3, with…

Mpiletso Motumi mpiletso.motumi@inl.co.za EDWARD Mohlomi Ramolula, known professionally as AirDee, is a record producer and entrepreneur. His popular Xhosa tagline “M’na ndiyayi thandi imali” (“I love money”), at the beginning or end of all his music productions, has made him familiar with his fanbase. Ramolula has always wanted to incorporate his dream and love for music into the way he lives and carries himself. “Now my dream talks for me, my music is part of my personality and lives for me, and my career and humble personality have carried me so far into working with some of the best artists. I am dedicated to excellence through positivity. I think all problems can be solved with a positive attitude and that has never failed me.” In the cut-throat industry, Ramolula has…

Thobeka Ngema thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za MURDER and property-related crimes fluctuated in South Africa during the national lockdown from March 26 2020. This was according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) when they recently hosted a webinar on how the lockdown impacted crime trends. The ISS unpacked the nature and dynamics of violence and crime over the past year. ISS Crime Hub manager Lizette Lancaster said what was astonishing was the huge dip in murder during level 5 and 4 of the lockdown. “Although there are other sustained decreases, overall we haven’t seen these huge decreases,” said Lancaster. She said they did see fluctuations and increases starting to emerge. Lancaster said murder cases remained low during level 3 but the moment level 1 was put in place, it increased. “We started seeing…

Khotso K D Moleko | Bloemfontein The recent reports about communities killing alleged criminals are not surprising or unexpected. In many townships and informal settlements people die almost every day, while the residents daily face the risk of dying. It is no wonder statistics about coronavirus deaths hardly move many of them. In general, murder and killing another person have become a normal and acceptable thing. Seemingly, men can and must kill each other, but they should spare women. It is, therefore, safe to say there are categories of murder that are serious, but there are murders that can be overlooked. In my shallow understanding, violence and murder among men will spill over to women and society, no matter how many campaigns are conducted. Most people may think that…

SA’s foundation for providing housing and curbing informal settlements on rocky ground The perpetual mushrooming and burgeoning of informal settlements across cities is extremely distressing to the planning fraternity of the democratic South Africa. While, commendably, there has been much focus on construction of subsided housing to redress the spatial imbalances of the past, there have been precious few advances towards a more sustainable and permanent approach to curb the phenomenon of informal settlements and bury it together with the shameful history of apartheid. More than 26 years into democracy, a better life for all South Africans is still a dream for many, especially for the disenfranchised urban poor who reside in informal settlements. Spatial policy reform is proving inadequate to alleviate the plight of the spatially and economically marginalised…

CRIMINALS, in Gauteng in particular, and in South Africa in general, have come up with a new and dastardly innovation. This week the Gauteng Traffic Police issued a warning to motorists about criminals placing spikes or objects on public roads with the intention of forcing them to stop the vehicle and robbing them. Organised criminals in the province have now become daring and brazen and are placing spikes on busy public roads, mostly at night. This criminal pattern and trend is equal to acts of banditry committed through ambush tactics. This is an aggressive attack against the civilian population with some kind of paramilitary criminal methodology. An in-depth analysis has to be conducted on this kind of crime pattern. The police have further provided motorists with safety tips to follow,…

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said yesterday a journalist pulled off a plane that landed in Minsk had been plotting a bloody rebellion, and accused the West of waging a hybrid war against him. In his defiant remarks, his first in public since he ordered a warplane to intercept a Ryanair flight between EU members Greece and Lithuania, he showed no hint of backing down from confrontation with countries that accuse him of air piracy. “As we predicted, our ill-wishers from outside the country and from inside the country changed their methods of attack on the state,” Lukashenko, 66, told parliament. “They have crossed many red lines and have abandoned common sense and human morals.” Belarus has already been subject to EU and US sanctions since Lukashenko…

DAMASCUS: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad said Western criticism of yesterday’s presidential election has “zero value” as he cast his ballot in a Damascus suburb. Commenting on US and EU criticism branding the vote “neither free nor fair,” Assad said: “Your opinions have zero value”, an AFP journalist reported. Voting is being held only in government-controlled areas and the US and the EU said on Tuesday the election was “neither free nor fair”. “This fraudulent election does not represent any progress towards a political settlement,” they said in a joint statement. Assad and his British-born wife Asma both cast their votes in the suburb of Douma, a key rebel stronghold before it was retaken by government forces in 2018.…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s inept handling of the Covid pandemic led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and officials even feared he would ask to be injected with the virus on television to show it was benign, his former chief adviser said yesterday. With almost 128 000 deaths, the UK has the world’s fifth highest official Covid-19 toll, far higher than the government’s initial worst-case estimates of only 20 000. During seven hours of explosive testimony to a parliamentary committee, Dominic Cummings told lawmakers that Johnson was like a shopping cart that could not be guided. “Everybody was screaming, on quarantine – ‘Have a policy, and set it out clearly and stick to it!’,” Cummings said. “But nobody could find a way around the problem of the prime…

Zaahier Adams zaahier.adams@inl.co.za AMAZULU have undoubtedly been the fairytale story of the 2020/21 Premiership season. From their ambitious owner Sandile Zungu to their charismatic coach Benni McCarthy and fine players, Usuthu have captured the imagination of the Mzansi footballing public this past year. It has been a rags-to-riches story for a club that previously was involved in basement battles at this stage of the season to now be dining alongside giants like Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates at the summit of the Premiership table. However, with three games remaining and coming off a 16-day break after their first league defeat since January that virtually put an end to their title challenge, AmaZulu must now show that there is indeed a happy ending to their story. They face fourth-placed Pirates at…

As president, she’s inspired by the industry to become a catalyst for the country’s economic growth Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za MINERALS Council South Africa, previously known as the Chamber of Mines, will be led by a woman for the first time in its 131-year history after veteran executive Nolitha Fakude was voted president during the council’s annual general meeting (AGM) held virtually yesterday. Fakude, who was previously Sasol’s vice-president for strategy and sustainability and currently chairs the board of Anglo American plc’s South African business, said her vision was propelled by #MakingMiningMatter. “Personally, I am inspired by the fact that we have got the possibility as an industry to become catalysts of economic growth of the country,” said Fakude. Fakude succeeds Mxolisi Mgojo, Exxaro Resources’ chief executive, while the new vice-presidents…

Jamal Grootboom jamald.grootboom@inl.co.za After a very long hiatus, Shekhinah has returned with her sophomore album, Trouble in Paradise. The last time I sat down with the Your Eyes hitmaker to talk about music was right after the release of her debut album, Rose Gold. At the time, the songstress had already garnered acclaim for her top-charting features, which included Back To The Beach. In 2019, Shekhinah was the most streamed local female artist on Spotify and was in the top 10 again in 2020, almost four years after the release of her debut album. Shekhinah’s ability to stay at the top of the charts - coupled with album sales - shows just how people will gravitate towards great artistry, without pandering to trends. I chatted to the beloved songstress, following…

ITUMELENG MAFISA JOBURG Metrobus service has blamed past employees for fuelling the current strike which entered its fourth week on Monday. A spokesperson for the bus service, Goodwill Shiburi, said past employees were seen picketing outside with drivers who were on strike. The union that declared a strike at the municipal entity Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of SA (DEMAWUSA) was demanding an 18% salary increase and the reinstatement of workers that had been fired since 2016. Metrobus also confirmed that DEMAWUSA leader Dion Makhura was also an ex-employee of Metrobus. “This thing is about individuals and not workers. Most of those workers were stealing money from passengers, that’s the biggest thing. Some were fired for taking the vehicles where they are not supposed to be and proper…

KENNEDY MUDZULI kennedy.mudzuli@inl.co.za UNIVEN FM radio has announced the departure of highly-rated Musa Manuel Baloyi, also known as Fakaza Diema, after seven years. Baloyi had been the University of Venda radio station’s music compiler and content producer. “I have received an opportunity I cannot refuse,” Baloyi said. “A leading media training institution has offered me a radio production scholarship.” Baloyi joined the Thohoyandou, Limpopo-based community station in 2011 after acquiring his radio broadcast certificate. “I continued with my studies part-time. I was studying digital radio production. I registered as a part-time student doing it while working as a volunteer at Univen FM. “I then joined Univen FM as a producer of various programmes for 12 months. I was later promoted to the position of assistant programmes manager and marketing officer…

SONRI NAIDOO A VLAKFONTEIN family in Gauteng say their hearts are filled with joy after reuniting with their son – who had been missing for more than 20 years. According to Sanisile Mbatha, the mother of Sbusiso Mvelase, he had been battling with issues at home and resorted to using drugs. She said he took a walk to clear his head, but never returned home. It is alleged that Mvelase was assaulted by someone in the community and his body was thrown in the veld somewhere, resulting in him suffering from memory loss. Mvelase lived on the street from the age of 15 until two weeks ago, when someone from the Reamogetswe-Samukelwe, a non-profit organisation in the Vlakfontein community, noticed him at Bara taxi rank. The team from the…

“Angst” is not a common English term; meaning “dread, panic, anxiety,” derives from German, although Afrikaans “angs” is encountered more frequently meaning “fear”. The German word is first recorded in English in a letter of George Eliot in 1849, and thereafter became more familiar, particularly as the work of Freud was increasingly recognised and translated. Often the meaning is diluted to “anxiety” as in “The Age of Anxiety”, a state which Freud would consider “normal”, word which is losing definition in our strange times, as the “new normal’. With the Covid pandemic being masked by euphemisms like “wave”, the horror of multitudes of global deaths need recognition. The common solution is the panacea of statistics and graphs. The strong German meaning of “angst”, which includes ironically the sense of…

THE Covid-19 pandemic is more than a health crisis. It has also revealed other fault lines such as weak and inadequate social service delivery systems and institutional challenges. The poverty and inequality fault lines are unlikely to be redrawn or removed if new and innovative evidence-based solutions are not found to respond to these problems. What might we learn from social policy and social development responses in the Global South to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and to help Covid-19 recovery? My lens is a southern one largely because the social development approach – and related social protection policies that have come to be the bedrock of government responses to the pandemic – originated in development contexts in the mid and late 1990s. During the 1990s, the exponential growth…

A senior UN official has warned the Security Council that urgent measures are needed to avoid famine in the war-torn region of Tigray in Ethiopia, in a briefing seen by AFP. “There is a serious risk of famine if assistance is not scaled up in the next two months,” wrote Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray in early November to disarm and detain leaders of the regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). He said the move came in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps. More than six months later, Lowcock said, the fighting and abuses continue in Tigray, where the spectre of a famine has been hovering for months. “Concrete measures…

LONDON: Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate yesterday returned to the university where they met and fell in love two decades ago. The royal couple, currently on a tour of Scotland, went back to the University of St Andrews to hear how students were coping with the pandemic, while also taking part in land yachting on the nearby beach. William, 38, and Kate, 39, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, met in 2001 when they were undergraduates studying history of art at the university on the east coast of Scotland.…

Taipei: A Taiwanese court yesterday sentenced a man to death for killing a scooter driver in a random knife attack that has reignited debate about capital punishment. Taiwan is one of Asia’s most progressive democracies and markets itself as a regional bastion of human rights. But it has drawn criticism from abroad and local rights groups for enforcing the death penalty. Wang Ping-hua, 24, was convicted of murdering a man riding a scooter after quarrelling with his wife over where they should eat as the couple sat in a parked car. “Wang stabbed and killed the victim, who was a stranger, by ambushing him from behind to vent his anger,” Taipei district court said. Polling shows the majority of Taiwanese support the death penalty.…

HERMAN GIBBS MAMELODI Sundowns added another glorious chapter to the club’s history books by annexing the 2020/21 Premiership title after a 3-1 triumph over SuperSport United in the Tshwane derby yesterday. The latest conquest marks a record-breaking fourth consecutive league championship. It also marks an overall 11th title since the start of the PSL in 1996. This feat will bring a measure of comfort to the team that was eliminated from the Caf Champions League a few days ago. Hours before the kick-off, Sundowns enjoyed morale-boosting news after the PSL announced the nominees for next month’s annual awards. Sundowns, with 12, have far and away the most nominations in multiple categories, including the premier award Footballer of the Season. Yesterday’s win took Sundowns up to 60 points and into…

HERMAN GIBBS South African mixed martial artist Dricus du Plessis has landed a plum slot on the undercard of the historic Conor McGregor-headlined UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) bill in Las Vegas in July in what will be a career highlight. Pretoria-based Du Plessis will become part of history since the Dustin Poirier versus McGregor bout will be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view of all time. Du Plessis is thrilled to share McGregor’s spotlight, more so after McGregor was recently named top of Forbes’ list of highest paid athletes, ahead of football icons Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Du Plessis said he had no idea of how big the McGregor bout was until the day when booking opened, and the online tickets were snapped up in under a minute. For the…