Innholdsfortegnelse for 2021-12-20 i Star

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za RETAILERS may have grappled with tighter Covid-19 restrictions, and the spate of civil unrest in July but their e-commerce sales went through the roof as shopping patterns evolved. The upswing in online retail sales was a tailwind for retailers in 2021 with Statista market and consumer data projecting 31.6 million South Africans could be converted to online shopping by 2024. The upswing comes as the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way South Africans work, school and play with a growing number of consumers avoiding shopping malls and opting to make use of on-demand grocery apps on their smartphones. Big retailers have taken advantage of the growth in online shopping, including Pick n Pay, which rebranded its on-demand delivery app Bottles to Pick n Pay asap! in…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za A TUSSLE over “who brought the most assets into the marriage” played off in the Limpopo High Court, sitting in Polokwane. The man complained that he had to share his hard-earned assets with his now former wife, while she brought only a car and furniture when they got married. But, as the court pointed out, when they signed a prenuptial agreement before the wedding, it was binding, and the assets should be divided equally. The court said that although at the stage of changing vows, the couple had no idea the marriage would not last, the prenuptial agreement remained in place. The couple, who cannot be identified as the application forms part of divorce proceedings, were married for about five years before things turned sour. To make…

Chulumanco Mahamba chulumanco.mahamba@inl.co.za NEWBORN baby Luke is going home for Christmas after the fast mobile ICU ambulance team’s response for the baby born with pneumonia. New parents Samantha and Johann Pieterse had planned for a home birth with their midwife and the first-time mother said all was going well when she went into labour on November 29. The next morning their son Luke was born but he was battling to breathe. “It was very distressing. His breathing was so laboured that we could hear his gasps and the midwife said we needed to call for urgent medical assistance. It was such a shock to me that I collapsed, and they had to call Netcare 911 to send assistance for both of us,” Samantha said. The baby was experiencing respiratory…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za SOWETO residents will square off with Eskom at the South Gauteng High Court over the power utility’s decision to cut off electricity to more than 700 households in the township earlier this month. Eskom announced the disconnections on December 6 and blamed the move on high energy losses as a result of illegal connections, meter bypassing and consumers buying electricity from ghost vendors by the power utility. Eskom demanded a R6 052 reconnection fee because in the past eight months it has lost about R96 million in revenue in Diepkloof alone. Soweto owes Eskom R6.9 billion and this is after the power utility wrote off R5.3bn in the 2020/21 financial year. In part A of the residents’ legal action, which is the urgent application, they…

SINAZO ALUNGILE NOVUKELA | Mount Frere ALTHOUGH the successful passing of the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution is a work in progress, the amendment was going to be a breakthrough for ordinary South Africans to be able to access land, especially those wanting to practise agriculture. While the completion of the process was perceived as a beacon of hope for many, the amendment of this section was to address the skewed and unequal ownership of land and also redress the injustices of land dispossession dating back to 1913. With the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development spearheading the process of redressing the injustices of land dispossession by putting in place policies that enable farmers to access land; the department redistributes land to aspiring farmers.…

THERE are two main realities that are a threat to the peace and stability of South Africa – the Constitution and the media. For the Constitution, it is almost always against the will of the people and is more of an invisible father in the atmosphere. It is my view that the Constitution should be sourced from the general public and supported in its existence by the same public. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the implications and interpretations of the Constitution by the judges for the public and with the manner of reporting of the situation by the media. Both are superfluous institutions that serve the interests of those that matter to them. If I sound unreasonable, here are the facts: South Africa has a disadvantaged majority under…

Anita Nkonki anita.nkonki@inl.co.za RENOWNED actress Buhle Samuels has come out and cleared swirling rumours she was axed from Imbewu and claims she declined the offer of playing a gold digger role. This follows after entertainment commentator Phil Mphela took to Twitter to announce she was axed from Imbewu. Mphela revealed in his statement she was recast after she and the production team had conflicting views. He said the production team and the actress could not agree on her character and the story development for her character which resulted in her exiting the show. The former Muvhango actress slammed the rumours on Twitter and addressed the issue to Mphela “I was not fired. Would be nice if you verified such stories that point to one as being fired. The truth is…

Italian police arrested a 49-year-old man who was allegedly in possession of more than a million photographs and videos depicting children in sexual acts with adults. The man, a musician in the city of Ancona, had been collecting the images for some 20 years, police said. “The man kept the files inside various hard disks, optical media and a smartphone, where they were meticulously divided into different folders sorted by type of photo/video and age of the victims,” the police said on Saturday.…

Five days before Libyans were meant to cast presidential votes, there is confusion over the fate of an election that has not yet been formally delayed but that has almost no chance of going ahead on time. The planned December 24 vote, along with a parallel election for a new parliament, was meant to help end Libya’s past decade of chaos by installing a political leadership with national legitimacy after years of factional division. However, the process has been dogged since the start by bitter disputes over the election’s legal basis and fundamental rules, including over the eligibility of deeply divisive front-runners. On Saturday, the electoral commission said it would not announce the final list of eligible candidates, drawn from the 98 who registered, until after legal discussions with the…

WHILE it’s too early for consolidated statistics on merger activity for all of 2021, available data on the first half suggests an exceptional year globally, for Africa and particularly for South Africa. A round-up of deals announced in the second half suggests even greater activity. This all points to a rising trend which augurs well for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2022. For instance, Refinitiv data shows Africa’s M&A activity rose sharply in the first six months of 2021, with deals recorded worth more than $57.7 billion (R916.36bn), up an astounding 576 percent from $8.5bn year-on-year. And more than half of this activity was recorded in South Africa, where 169 deals worth $52bn were concluded. There were actually slightly fewer transactions, but deal value skyrocketed. Deals which…

Chulumanco Mahamba chulumanco.mahamba@inl.co.za THE South African government has signed an agreement with the African Vaccination Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to donate 2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines to African countries. The government, through the African Renaissance Fund (ARF), with AVAT announced the agreement on Friday and said the value of the donation would be R288.6 million. The South African government said the donation would be produced at the Aspen Pharma pharma manufacturing plant in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, operated by Aspen Pharma. The government added that the vaccine would be made available to African countries through the African Medical Suppliers Platform (AMSP) over the next year. “This donation embodies South Africa’s solidarity with our brothers and sisters on the continent with whom we are united in fighting…

GLEN CHRISTIE | Durban North THE ruling by the High Court that Zuma’s parole was unlawful and he is to go back to jail; we will now see how effective the SAPS are in re-arresting him and taking him back to jail and how long it will take. If the court has made a ruling, he should be reporting back immediately. His supporters probably have protests in mind and planning things – one wonders what else we can look forward to. Arthur Fraser should also be arrested and put on trial. This scenario is marvellous news for tourism in this country, taking into consideration what happened in July by his supporters.…

The recent decision by the courts, ordering former president Jacob Zuma back to prison, is political vengeance by his political rival, who has influence over the judiciary. It was ordered last week that Zuma’s medical parole be set aside. Some people would like us to believe that the courts are independent and impartial while there is enough evidence to dismiss such an argument. First, the judges are appointed by the head of the government. They serve this individual. It means that they should be grateful to this individual for the opportunity, by pleasing them for the work they do. This is not the first time the courts are used for political point-scoring. This was also the case during the Thabo Mbeki period. Mbeki was outmanoeuvred by his rival, Zuma, when…

Sir Rod Stewart and his son Sean have pleaded guilty to battery. The pair were arrested for assaulting security guard Jessie Dixon at Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach on New Year’s Eve in 2019 when he refused to allow them entry to a private party. Almost two years later, they have entered guilty pleas to misdemeanour charges of simple battery. According to their attorney, Guy Fronstin, this means Rod, 76, and Sean, 41, will avoid a trial and won’t have to do any jail time, pay fines or spend any time on probation..…

Eshlin Vedan eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za Orlando Pirates will have a chance to redeem themselves after a 4-1 Premiership mauling by Mamelodi Sundowns on Friday when they face a rejuvenated Marumo Gallants at Orlando Stadium today (5.30pm kick-off). The defeat against Sundowns was Pirates’ third of the season. It proved that Sea Robbers co-coach Mandla Ncikazi exaggerated somewhat when he recently claimed that “Pirates are on par with Sundowns”. After maintaining a 0-0 scoreline at half-time, Pirates wilted in the second half as Sundowns outsmarted them tactically and slotted four goals in that time. Nevertheless, Pirates midfielder Ben Motshwari believes that his team must implement the lessons learned from the embarrassing loss to the defending league champions going forward. “We have to forget about the Sundowns game. We can take the positives from…

Bang Showbiz NICK CANNON decided against putting his son through chemotherapy because of his own experience with the treatment. The 41-year-old comedian – whose son Zen died early this month from a rare brain tumour at five months – had been through the treatment himself for the autoimmune disease lupus and “didn’t want to see him suffer”. He said: “Alyssa [Scott, Zen’s mother] and I started asking, ‘Is there a way to prevent this? If not, how long do we have?’ The conversations quickly turned to, ‘How can we give him the best life for the time that he does have?’ It could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years. We were having quality-of-life conversations. “We could have had that existence where he would’ve…

Bongani Nkosi bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za A JUDGE has ruled that because a rapist beat up his girlfriend, his victim, not to subdue her before rape but as punishment for perceived infidelity, a life term in jail was inappropriate. Judge Takalani Ratshibvumo reduced the life imprisonment sentence previously handed to Mpumalanga man Lifa Masina to 15 years, finding that a magistrate erred in sentencing him for rape involving the infliction of grievous bodily harm – and not just rape. The magistrate sentenced Masina to life imprisonment in 2019 on rape and kidnapping convictions. The Ermelo Regional Court magistrate found a life term fitting because Masina assaulted his victim, who was his girlfriend, before raping her. The kidnapping charge related to the fact that Masina forced his girlfriend to go to his…

Not long ago, there was a heated debate about Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter’s fitness to hold office. Since he took over, there has been more load shedding than in any other time. The debate has died down. What happened? Maybe the electricity utility boss is fit for office, after all? The other day, Eskom presented its half-yearly financial report. It reported it had registered a profit. However, the organisation is forecasting a loss. Eskom is confronted by challenges such as corruption. Experts say load shedding will be with us for many years. On the other hand, the electricity utility is demanding huge annual tariff increments – 20.5%. Yet wage increments are hovering around 4 to 5%. This is daylight robbery. Clearly, Nersa is not on the consumer’s…

Sonri Naidoo sonri.naidoo@inl.co.za Community members in Rabie Ridge are up in arms over the misuse of drugs in the area. They say too many young people from a young age are using drugs and causing harm to their loved ones and the community. Cosmos Chokoe, a community leader, describe the drug situation as “uncomfortable” and says it has been difficult to handle it with the police. “Children as young as 14 years are hooked on to drugs. We never really find out who the people are who are selling them these drugs. But we see them hooked on them and causing harm to their families and many of our old people in the community by robbing and stealing from them,” said Chokoe. Chokoe added that many drug addicts attended rehab…

Countries have urged the top UN rights body to send international investigators to conflict-hit Ethiopia amid warnings of looming generalised violence, as Addis Ababa accused them of hijacking the process to exert “political pressure”. Addressing an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, deputy rights chief Nada al-Nashif cautioned that Ethiopia’s brutal 13-month conflict in the northern Tigray region could “escalate into generalised violence”. This, she said, would have “major implications, not only for millions of people in Ethiopia, but also across the region”. The meeting was called to consider launching an international investigation into allegations of horrifying abuses in the country, including mass killings and sexual violence. The session, which was requested by the EU with support of more than 50 countries, was slammed by Ethiopia…

Covid-hit Chelsea were held to a goalless draw by Wolverhampton Wanderers yesterday after the Premier League rejected their request to postpone the game, as Manchester City put struggling Newcastle United to the sword. Just four matches were left on the schedule this weekend out of the original 10 as Britain’s worsening Covid-19 crisis took its toll on the Premier League. Clubs will meet today to discuss what action to take, with growing questions over the integrity of the competition as the busy festive period looms. Stumbling Chelsea, who have struggled with illness and injuries to players in recent weeks, were only able to name four outfield players on the bench for their match at Molineux. The visitors, who have now won just two of their past six league games, enjoyed…