Innholdsfortegnelse for 2022-09-05 i Star

INDEPENDENT Power Producer DNG Energy is threatening online publication, the Daily Maverick, with court action should it print any report without the company’s response. The Daily Maverick has once again landed itself in hot water – this after a leaked copy of a loaded legal document from DNG Energy’s lawyers acting for chief executive Aldworth Mbalati. In recent months, DNG Energy took the Department of Minerals and Energy, Minister Gwede Mantashe and director-general Thabo Moloi to court after Moloi allegedly solicited a bribe from Mbalati in order for DNG to win the R300 billion tender to produce electricity. Moloi did not deny inviting Mbalati to Kream restaurant in Pretoria. According to Mbalati, his refusal to pay the bribe solicited by Moloi and other “big guns” linked to Mantashe, the…

From page 1 “There are people whispering and saying ‘let’s recall him’, but there is no one who came to this (ANC) leadership and said ‘recall this fellow’ Bayahleba. They lack confidence because when you recall you have to put reasons and you have to prove the reasons. You may as well be wrong in your argument but you must put it to the PEC. “This PEC has not come to that, and I have not come to a decision to resign. I am going to hand over. This is a smooth transition and a seamless handover process. It has happened previously where they plunged both the ANC and the government into a crisis. Both myself as the premier and the leadership of the ANC are concerned about that. What…

FORMER Springbok wing Bryan Habana was once one of the fastest players on the rugby field and warmed many a rugby fan’s heart with his skills. These days he is still warming hearts, and this was evident when he handed over school shoes to children in Alexandra township in Joburg. It was an auspicious day for the learners of Ikage and Iphutheng primary schools in Alexandra, when Habana visited them to hand over shiny new My Walk school shoes and share some words of encouragement with them for the future. Habana’s non-profit organisation, the Bryan Habana Foundation, joined the My Walk “Step into Greatness” campaign by donating 3 000 pairs of new school shoes to the learners at these two schools. My Walk is a social, environmental sustainability enterprise and…

Reuters recently reported on the UN secretary-general’s statement asking governments and the private sector to co-operate to bring Russian food and fertilisers, as well as Ukrainian grain, to world markets. Antonio Guterres stated that securing more food and fertiliser out of Ukraine and Russia would be crucial to help calm commodity markets and lower prices for consumers affected by the conflict worldwide. The announcement from the UN secretary-general has since led me to many provocative thoughts around how individual states and businesses might navigate international conflict, especially during times of such great economic uncertainty worldwide. While many businesses aim to align themselves with the West and London as they seek out opportunities for growth, should we, as South Africans, be looking to BRICS for a growing investor base instead? In…

Prohibiting patients from accessing healthcare facilities based on the pigmentation of their skin or the language they speak is devilish and regrettable. This comes in the wake of a viral video showing Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba shouting at the patient for using “her” facilities when she should be using Zimbabwean ones. It is disappointing the issue of foreign nationals “collapsing” the country’s health system has not received the academic or scholarly discussions necessary to determine if there is any relationship between the influx of foreigners into this country and the dire state in which that system now finds itself. South Africa’s healthcare system has been weak and sick for most of the 28 years under a democratic dispensation. There are various factors affecting our public health services which are…

What a difference a week in sport can make, never mind in politics! In the space of just seven days, we saw the Springboks rise from a meek defeat to Australia in the Rugby Championship to demolishing the same team at the week- end. In between these two games was a week of deep introspection for coach Jacques Nienaber’s men, while the public understandably turned up the heat on a team that had not lived up to their reputation as world champions. The Springboks have a very poor record in Australia and they went there a fortnight ago promising to kick their hoodoo into touch but in their first match, in Adelaide, their lacklustre performance did not live up to their mission statement. Nienaber made eight changes to his team,…

United Nations: UN Secretary-General António Guterres has named former Kyrgyzstan president Roza Otunbayeva as the UN’s new special representative for Afghanistan. Otunbayeva became interim president of Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 after a bloody uprising forced then-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev into exile. She relinquished power the following year after new elections were organised. Guterres also appointed Senegalese diplomat and former government minister Abdoulaye Bathily as his Libya envoy, the UN Libya mission said on Saturday. |…

A failed assassination attempt on the Argentine vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, provided a foreboding backdrop to powerful courtroom drama Argentina 1985, which opened at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. Kirchner, survived the attack outside her Buenos Aires home on Thursday night after a loaded gun aimed directly at her face at close range apparently failed to go off. The incident was captured on video. Santiago Mitre’s movie Argentina 1985 follows the prosecutors who, despite death threats and enormous legal difficulties, brought members of Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship to trial in 1985. It is the only time a democratic government has launched a large-scale judicial assault on a country’s former dictatorial rulers, and the case proved a watershed for Argentina. Speaking to reporters before the film premiere, Mitre…

FNB SAID IN its Week Ahead note that StatsSA would publish gross domestic product (GDP) data for the second quarter of 2022 tomorrow. It expected the economy to have shrunk by 0.9 percent quarter-on-quarter during the second quarter underpinned by a myriad of headwinds. This is below the Bloomberg consensus forecast of a contraction of 0.5 percent quarter-on-quarter (based on five research houses at the time of writing). “While most sectors, as indicated by the high-frequency indicators, pointed to a quarterly contraction in GDP, the risk to our forecast lies with the personal services, finance, real estate and business services, and general government sectors,” it said. This risk was reflected in the Bloom- berg survey, with expectations for economists ranging between 0.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to -0.9…

THE provisional curatorship of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa)-owned insurance company 3Sixty Life is still in limbo. The controversial curatorship was placed by the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on December 21, 2021. The curatorship stunned companies in the field when a few days before Christmas the Prudential Authority (PA) placed 3Sixty Life under curatorship with sketchy reasons while white-owned insurance companies which were accused of corruption have missed the PA’s attention. While a curatorship is given by court, the PA has the power to decide whether a company should be placed in curatorship. It is believed that 3sixty Life’s victimisation may be linked to its Numsa ownership. Numsa, one of the biggest unions in South Africa, has been vocal about government’s slow efforts at…

THE National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has noted that it is beginning to see an increase in Covid-19 and its variants in wastewater treatment plants, which may indicate an impending wave. The NICD released its weekly Covid-19 surveillance report, the Wastewater-based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 Report for week 34 of 2022. Based on data collected between June 2021 and August 23, 2022 the report summarises and interprets findings from detection, quantification and sequencing of Covid-19 by the NICD from untreated wastewater in 17 treatment plants across five provinces. The NICD says Covid-19 levels in wastewater correlate with population levels of Covid-19 over time and indicate the geographic distribution of the disease and variants thereof. The report reveals that Covid-19 in wastewater is beginning to increase in certain areas and Omicron…

From page 1 Last week it retracted and removed a deceiving article, and apologised to Symbion Power LLC and its chief executive Paul Hinks, after publishing a false story claiming the family of Durban businessman Vivian Reddy were part of a consortium that lost a case against Eskom. In a letter published yesterday by the Daily Maverick, the publication said its article on May 8, claiming that Reddy’s son had a relationship with Symbion and that they were being sued in a US court, was wholly incorrect and that the Daily Maverick apologised for the errors. “The article incorrectly stated that Symbion was being ‘sued’ in a US court. Daily Maverick wishes to clarify that those proceedings are a discovery application by a former business partner in the company’s Madagascar…

26-year-old Greyville, Durban-born actress and mental health activist Nomvelo “Mvelo” Makhanya bagged her very first SA Film and Television Award (Safta), for Best Supporting Actress in a Feature Film, for her role in the Netflix film I Am All Girls. The 16th SA Film and Television Awards (Saftas) were held in two ceremonies, one on Friday and the other on Saturday. The biggest weekend of the local awards season was streamed on YouTube and screened on Mzansi Magic, with the theme “Frame the Future”. This year saw the MultiChoice offering leading the awards tally, scooping 54 awards across both evenings – up from the 47 they took home last year. In a statement issued by Black Coffee’s Soulistic Agency yesterday, the agency said that Makhanya’s stellar performance was given alongside…

The ANC school of political life, thought and action is awesome. Case in point is the president’s ability to remain calm while prevaricating the onslaught regarding the Phala Phala shenanigans. Man, the opposition parties were furious as he stood firm in his resolve not to answer their pointed questioning. In essence, the president very ably told all of us where to get off… And further, that he could not care less what we thought of his posturing. Are his actions any different from Zuma’s? I don’t think so. Politicians the world over climb onto their lofty pedestals, thinking they are untouchable. So too does President Cyril Ramaphosa avoid answering pertinent questions. This questions his honesty and integrity. He must answer… Finish and klaar!…

Britain will get a new prime minister this week, with either Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former finance minister Rishi Sunak being announced later today as the next leader of the governing Conservative Party, and the next prime minister. Tomorrow, in a break with tradition, the appointment of the new prime minister will take place at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where Queen Elizabeth spends her summers, rather than at Buckingham Palace in London. The 96-year-old monarch has had to scale back her public appearances this year due to episodic mobility issues, and will not travel to London. Johnson is first expected to make a statement outside Downing Street tomorrow morning before travelling to Scotland to tender his resignation to the queen, expected at around midday. Either Truss or Sunak will…

London: The BBC said it had donated sales proceeds derived from a 1995 interview with Princess Diana to charity after it was found she was tricked into the bombshell expose. A record 22.8 million people watched the Panorama interview, in which Diana detailed infidelity in her marriage with Britain’s heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles. Retired senior judge John Dyson said in an independent report published in May that BBC journalist Martin Bashir commissioned faked bank statements then showed them to the princess’ brother to persuade her to appear. |…

Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamists executed five Palestinians yesterday, two of them on charges of espionage for Israel that dated back to 2015 and 2009, the Interior Ministry said. The dawn executions, by hanging or firing squad, were the first in the Palestinian territories since 2017. Past cases of capital punishment being carried out in Gaza have drawn criticism from human rights groups. The ministry statement did not provide full names for the condemned men. It said three had been convicted of murder. The two convicted spies, aged 44 and 54, had given Israel information that led to the killing of Palestinians, it said. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, which oversees the country’s intelligence services, declined comment. “The execution was carried out after the conclusion of all legal procedures. The rulings…

Marcus Rashford scored twice as Manchester United made it four wins in a row and ended Arsenal’s perfect start to the Premier League season with a 3-1 victory at Old Trafford. Gabriel Martinelli looked to have given Arsenal a 12th-minute lead after finishing off a swift break, but the effort was disallowed following a VAR review. Martinelli forced two saves out of United goalkeeper David de Gea as the visitors began to dominate but it was the home side who drew first blood through debutant Antony. The Brazilian winger, signed from Ajax last week, was found on the right by Rashford and coolly drifted a shot into the far bottom corner. Arsenal deservedly drew level when the outstanding Martin Odegaard threaded a ball towards Gabriel Jesus in the box and…

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis has urged her troops to take their preparation games seriously if they are going to break into the World Cup final squad. The senior national women’s team started their preparations for the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand and Australia on Friday, clashing with Brazil in their first friendly. The African Queens were beaten 3-0 by their South American counterparts, thanks to goals from Geyse Ferreira, Adriano Silva and Tamires Britto. Ellis felt that her troops were put under pressure, while individual mistakes, especially defensively, and their bluntness in front of goal, let them down. The centre-back duo of Bongeka Gamede and Bambanani Mbane made poor clearances that led to the second goal in the first half and third in the second stanza. With Banyana’s…

Handover will be smooth, says premier GAUTENG Premier David Makhura has denied reports that he is being “elbowed” out of his position as the political leader of the provincial government. Makhura held an urgent joint media briefing with the new political leaders of the ANC in Gauteng, in response to widely circulating media reports speculating that he was being pushed to make way for a new premier under the watchful eye of provincial chairperson Panyaza Lesufi and secretary Thembinkosi “TK” Nciza. Lesufi and Nciza told the media that the provincial executive committee (PEC) of the ANC had held a special meeting on Friday to discuss three crucial agenda items, including readiness for the ANC’s elective conference in Gauteng in December, the state of local government and the reception of a…

TRANSPORT Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced a new driving licence that will be piloted from November 1 2023 until March 31 2024. Mbalula, with management from the Road Traffic Management Corporation provided an update on driving licensing interventions on Friday. The minister said during their previous briefing on the licence backlog, the Department of Transport reported the backlog from the Covid-19 restrictions had been cleared on July 14. “To date, in excess of 2 million cards have been produced. Not only have we been able to reduce the turnaround time for our card production to pre-Covid levels, we have now improved on those levels,” he said. He said the department was concerned about the high number of people who have yet to renew their expired driving licences, which stands at…

THE Springbok hierarchy is sweating because of a lack of flyhalves. There is Chris Smith, an excellent but very underrated player who is continually overlooked. Then there’s Manie Libbock, Tian Swanepoel, Robert du Preez and even Curwin Bosch. If the selectors can bring back Frans “Methuselah” Steyn and Duane “Grampa” Vermeulen, then they could play Ruan “spring chicken” Pienaar of the Cheetahs at flyhalf. Even Faf de Klerk would make an excellent flyhalf. He’s fast, nippy and has an eye for the gap. In fact, I can remember him filling in at flyhalf for Sale Sharks in one specific game where the flyhalf was injured. He was excellent. My loose trio for this Saturday would have been Kwagga Smith and Deon Fourie (flanks) with Elrigh Louw at number eight and…

US icon Serena Williams, considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, is retiring from professional tennis. Williams has won 23 grand slam singles titles, more than any other woman or man during the professional era, which began in 1968. Coached by her father, she changed the face of the women’s game. In the process, through speaking frankly about her life and career, she became a role model for many black women around the world. Tennis Kenya secretary general and former player Wanjiru Mbugua Karani recently said: “Serena has been the ‘be-all’ for African tennis, and especially for girls in Africa.” We asked Kenyan political sociologist and gender expert Awino Okech what lessons can be learnt for African women in sports when reflecting on Williams’ career. 1. Public…

Mogadishu: Fighters from the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab killed at least 19 civilians in a night-time attack in central Somalia, clan chiefs and local officials said on Saturday. The attack comes two weeks after al-Shabaab, which has waged a long insurgency against the Somali state, besieged a hotel in the capital Mogadishu for 30 hours, leaving 21 people dead and 117 injured. The sources said at least eight vehicles were travelling between the towns of Beledweyne and Maxaas when the insurgents intercepted and burned them and killed the passengers. |…

Kennedy Space Center: As Nasa resumed its second effort on Saturday to get its new 30-storey rocket off the ground and send its uncrewed test capsule to the moon, engineers detected a fuel leak near the base of the rocket as liquid hydrogen was being pumped in. Nasa offered no information on the likelihood of a new delay in the Artemis programme – which aims to return a human crew to the moon – following Monday’s aborted effort. Millions around the globe and about 400 000 visitors on nearby beaches waited for the launch of the Space Launch System. |…