Innholdsfortegnelse for 2022-01-14 i Star

Baldwin Ndaba baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za Political parties in the City of Joburg have condemned the callous murder of five security guards who were attacked by unknown gunmen while working at the Goudkoppies landfill site on Tuesday. Yesterday, councillors observed a moment of silence following the incident at the landfill site in Devland which belongs to the City of Joburg. City of Joburg’s MMC for environment and infrastructure services Michael Sun said the attack happened when the guards had reported for night duty. “On-duty security personnel belonging to two private security companies, as well as in-house security guards, were approached by a gang of unknown gunmen who subsequently opened fire.” Four security personnel were declared dead on the scene by paramedics from ER24 and Netcare 911. Another security guard, recently in-sourced, died in…

Orielle Berry orielle.berry@inl.co.za WHAT STRANGE PARADISE Omar El Akkad`h Loot.co.za (R287) Omar El Akkad’s beautifully written book, What Strange Paradise (Picador) reads like a thriller, seen largely through the prism of an 8-year-old refugee boy. Amir Utu is fleeing the horrors of the war in Syria. He boards a boat packed with people of diverse nationalities, all of whom have paid a high price for a trip out of hell, seeking greener pastures elsewhere. On the high seas, on a well-appointed vessel, the human cargo is forced to change boats midway by the ruthless handlers. The boat they were initially loaded on was just for the sake of appearances. The unseaworthy dinghy the refugees get on to capsizes on a stormy ocean close to the shore of a small…

ANC SUPPORT has declined in recent years and it received less than 50% of votes cast in local elections in October 2021, its worst-ever performance at the polls. President Ramaphosa said many who supported the ANC had punished it by not voting. The ANC now is a very, very different party from the 1994 party. At the moment, it is struggling organisationally and financially. It is struggling financially because of a new law on political party funding. The party has basically been bankrupt and not been able to pay its workers for a very long time. The ANC came to power in 1994 when the country’s first democratic elections were held and Mandela became the first black president. The ANC has found it very difficult to dissociate itself from the…

Anita Nkonki anita.nkonki@inl.co.za AFTER cracking many of the prestigious Top 10 lists last year, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection has also been listed among the best-reviewed films globally in 2021. In this striking film, the late veteran actor Mary Twala is at the helm as an 80-year-old widow in Lesotho whose village is threatened with forced resettlement as a result of reservoir construction. The star then finds the will to live and ignites a collective spirit of resistance within her community. In the film, Twala works alongside the triple-Saftas winner Jerry Mofokeng wa Makhetha (Tsotsi, Five Fingers For Marseilles) and Makhaola Ndebele, who made appearances on Mzansi Magic’s The River. Vulture movie reviews hailed the film as the first masterpiece of last year. This Is Not a…

Within days of the release of the first volume of the report from the Zondo commission, both Cosatu and Saftu came out in support of the commission and demanded swift action against those named in the report for malfeasance. Abahlali baseMjondolo has not yet issued a statement, but given its long-standing opposition to corruption and deep antipathy towards Jacob Zuma and his allies, such as Zandile Gumede, the former eThekwini mayor, we can be sure that their position would be similar to that of the two trade union federations. Lindiwe Sisulu soon entered the fray. Making the point that the ANC has failed to achieve meaningful land reform, she launched a crude attack on the judiciary, which she described as “these mentally colonised Africans who have settled with the world…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE RAND strengthened to a two-month high yesterday amid positive investor sentiment following dovish comments from US Federal Reserve chairperson Jerome Powell. Powell on Wednesday said that it would take a few more meetings for the US central bank to further tighten its monetary policy. This disappointed market speculators who had expected the Fed would return to a more hawkish policy and begin hiking interest rates immediately as inflation in the US rose further to a 40-year high in December. As a result, the dollar lost some ground to other major currencies, including the rand. The rand was trading at R15.27 against the greenback in the early morning trade and by 5pm it was bid at R15.38, its highest since November 15th amid a subdued dollar and…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ULTIMATE Sports Nutrition (USN), a fast-growing locally developed global sports nutrition brand, is partnering with investment company Fledge Capital to drive its international expansion. Fledge Capital, previous investors in We Buy Cars and Dis-Chem, has acquired a 25 percent direct shareholding in USN which has turnover approaching R2 billion, a statement said yesterday. Founded by Albé Geldenhuys in 1999, USN is a 100- percent South African business launched from the entrepreneur’s Pretoria home and then outsourced to local pharmaceutical manufacturers in their aim to meet a gap in the market between superior but costly international sports nutrition products and cheaper but inferior local counter- parts, with reasonably priced quality products. Over two decades, USN claims to have become South Africa’s dominant market leader in sports…

Chulumanco Mahamba chulumanco.mahamba@inl.co.za A FREE State government senior staffer has apologised for criticising members of the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) in viral social media posts that were condemned by the union and the local department of education. Back to school for inland provinces was on Wednesday and while South African parents posted their children’s first day of school, a Free State government employee found himself in hot water over Facebook posts about Sadtu. In a viral post that has since been deleted, a person by the name of Tshediso Mangope questioned the teaching abilities of Sadtu members implying that he would not subject his children to them. “Boy starts his journey at Grey College, he is too happy. No magwinya and archaar-eating Sadtu person will teach my children” (sic),…

From page 1 “Does this amount to perjury? The admission by the president of his knowledge of corruption and his refusal to divulge it will definitely make the final State Capture report questionable and render it as not worth the paper it is written on. “Honourable chairperson in light of the above it is imperative that Scopa takes the courage to summon the president to appear before it, to account for what he knows about the misuse of public funds for party political activities,” wrote Dirks. Approached for the comment, spokesperson for Ramaphosa Tyrone Seale said that the Presidency would not comment on the matter. Previously when the Daily News had approached Ramaphosa and asked whether he was not complicit in the covering up of crime, by declaring he was…

Julian Richfield julianrichfield2@gmail.com SURVIVING THE BEAST Angelo Agrizzi Loot.co.za (R215) TRUTH BE TOLD WITH the release of the first part of the Zondo commission’s report into state capture and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s praise for whistle-blowers in his speech at the handover, one is reminded of Angelo Agrizzi’s first testimony back in 2019. That testimony was dramatic, revealing, jaw-dropping stuff. Much has happened to Agrizzi since and his second book, Surviving the Beast “exposes the involvement of the highest echelons of power in dirty tricks, corruption, boardroom assassination, lies, deceit and cover-ups; murders and the swopping of cadavers”. Not only does the book make for fascinating and shocking reading, it is an unusual one. Agrizzi has used the novel device of QR Codes throughout the book, thereby availing the reader of…

There is no doubt that Novak Djokovic is an outstanding tennis player. His achievements are proof of this. He, no doubt, has a legion of fans, but there is something about his persona that excludes him from the same league of popularity as his rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Federer is pure class. He is a gentleman, charming and elegant and makes everything look “effortlessly easy”. He has no big ego and is just a very likeable person.. Nadal fights tooth and nail for every point. He believes a match isn’t over until he says it is. He is unrelenting. However, off-court he is actually quite shy and always extremely polite. Djokovic, however, comes across as arrogant with an inflated ego. His on-court antics such as screaming, fist pumping,…

Anita Nkonki APART from being a phenomenal star who has been in the music scene for more than 15 years, Duduzile “Lady Du” Ngwenya is also known for keeping it real about herself. She claims being genuine helps her fans be aware that they also go through the most as artists. The music star recently penned a message on Instagram making it clear that she does not perceive herself as a celebrity. “I am not a celebrity, fame is not what I am not chasing. I love what I do. I have been doing it for 15 years straight consistently. I have not changed even once. You know not what I know. I respect every single person and their opinion of me but because I know one life and it’s…

The City of Joburg’s Sport and Recreation recently collaborated with the Sylvester Mashilo Foundation to raise awareness of the impact of absent fathers by staging a Fatherhood New Year’s Run/Walk and a dialogue. City mayor Mpho Phalatse was welcomed by the Community Development MMC Ronald Harris, who said sport had a special way of uniting people. Delivering a message to participants, Phalatse elaborated on the importance of wellness. “I value physical fitness. Being a doctor and a former MMC for Health and Social Development, I have been exposed to growing incidents of obesity in the city as a result of non-active lifestyles. Let’s get our communities active and use city facilities such as community centres, sport facilities and parks,” she said. As the new mayor, Phalatse revealed plans to “rebuild…

Jesta Sidell It has been four months since South Africans cast their ballots in the 2021 local government elections. By now, the euphoria of that election period, coupled with the excitement of the festive season, has subsided, and for many reality has kicked in, while some ponder on what the year ahead has in store. At this instance, there is an individual, a family or a household that is heavily maligned and is still seized with the challenges of yesteryear, such as who will collect their refuse, where their next water source will be, how they will access quality health-care and much-needed electricity, or if job opportunities will be in their reach. The hunger for basic service delivery has never been greater. This hunger is brought on by the economic…

The Dutch wing of environmental group Friends of the Earth, which won a landmark court victory against Royal Dutch Shell last year, is targeting 30 major corporate emitters of greenhouse gases in a campaign launched yesterday. Milieudefensie is sending heads of the companies letters demanding that they provide plans outlining how they will trim emissions of the heat-trapping gases by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. Shell is appealing against The Hague district court order to cut emissions. | Reuters…

The engines of the global economic recovery – which revved into high gear in 2021 after the world ground to a halt in 2020 – are slowing down. And 2023 could be even worse. Taken together, this year and next are set to mark the sharpest slowdown after an initial rebound from a global recession since at least the 1970s. That grim assessment comes from the World Bank’s biannual Global Economic Prospects report, released this week. After rebounding to an estimated 5.5% global growth in 2021 on the heels of the 2020 pandemic recession, the report said growth is poised to decelerate to a worse-than-expected 4.1% this year, and then soften to 3.2% in 2023. Blame the slippage on the Omicron variant, coupled with persistent disruptions to supply chains, nagging…

THE 2007/8 CRISIS, whose negative persistent effects on output, productivity, employment etc lingered in South Africa until met by the 2020 coronavirus economic crisis, was as much a financial crisis as a crisis of macroeconomics. The crisis not only shook the consensus on macroeconomic policy, but exposed the severe limitations of monetary policy, especially the key tenets of its intellectual foundations. As a consequence, in Europe, Japan, the US and in developing countries like China, Bangladesh, Brazil and many others, the crisis caused swift changes in the operational conduct of macroeconomic policy, especially monetary policy. In South Africa, it was, sadly, business as usual, despite critical plodding from careful economists. It had to take one-and-a-half decades of suffering for the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to recognise that the conduct…

Bongani Nkosi bongani.nkosi@inl.co.za RONALD Lamola, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, has blamed the terrorism-accused Thulsie twins for the extensive delay in the kick-off of their eagerly anticipated trial. Exactly five years and six months after their arrests during raids in Newclare and Azaadville, west of Joburg, Tony-Lee and Brandon-Lee Thulsie were yet to stand in the dock. The State accused them of collaborating with the jihadist group Islamic State to target Jewish, US and other institutions for bombings. These alleged targets included the US embassy, the UK High Commission, the SA Zionist Federation, King David High School in Linksfield, Joburg and arms manufacturer Denel. Police nabbed the pair after Tony-Lee allegedly discussed terrorist plans with an undercover US Federal Bureau of Investigation agent between May and June 2016…

Orielle Berry orielle.berry@inl.co.za The Good Nigerian David Dison Loot.co.za (R206) For sheer chutzpah balanced with some fine descriptions of Joburg’s dark underbelly, The Good Nigerian by David Dison (Jacana) definitely did it for me. Louche detective Jerome Nossel is back in fine fettle as the rough and tough guy with a soft inner core in Dison’s latest crime story. Nossel struts the streets of his beloved Egoli, bringing the hard-core criminals to book, not without a tad of trauma and a few mishaps along the way. Nossel is enjoying a leisurely quiet Sunday afternoon snooze when he’s broken out of his weekend ritual by the persistent vibration of his mobile phone, summoning him to the Franklin hotel at the behest of his friend and associate, Alex. Little does Nossel know…

LINDIWE Sisulu’s comments on our Constitution and the gross inequality in our political system, which has left the masses impoverished, must be tackled seriously to prevent a blow-out in our country. Last year took its toll on us medically, socially and financially. Some lost loved ones in a pandemic. Let us join hands in praying for peace, stability, prosperity and hope from a marauding biological virus in 2022. We pray for peace for the whole of humanity, with its myriad diversified peoples. Whether peace is reached only after unimaginable horrors precipitated by mankind’s arrogant clinging to old patterns of behaviour, or is to be embraced now by an act of consultative will, is the choice before all who inhabit our strife-torn planet. At this critical juncture in our turbulent…

IN THIS era of increasing natural and man-made disasters, with what language shall I address the president to acquaint him with the sentiments of the state of our general security in our beloved country? It is the hardest thing in the world to witness a country’s security machinery ebbing away. Our security is tantamount to a beach ball with a leak. The only way to keep it full is to continue pumping it full of air. Mr President, your government has two basic responsibilities before the people of South Africa: to rule and to serve. Our government’s assignment to rule is for protection. The assignment to serve is for empowerment. The South African people have an indissoluble love towards their country and they felt wretched after they saw their…

Chulumanco Mahamba chulumanco.mahamba@inl.co.za JANUARY 23 marks four years since the passing of internationally beloved musician and cultural activist Hugh Masekela and this year his legacy will celebrated with the annual Hugh Masekela Heritage Festival. The Hugh Masekela Heritage Foundation and insurance company Assupol are set to celebrate the cultural legacy of Masekela, affectionately known as Bra Hugh, on the fourth anniversary of his passing, with an online festival at www.skyroomlive.com on January 23 at 8pm. “The Hugh Masekela Heritage Foundation, established by Bra Hugh in 2015, and a reflection of his lasting commitment to preserve and promote African heritage, tradition and identity, is proud to be, with the committed support of Assupol, part of the Hugh Masekela Heritage Festival, and its core values of the growth and promotion of African…

Staff Reporter THE Mona Lisa is still one of the most beloved paintings in the world after being the most Instagrammed painting, with almost 2 million hashtags. The artwork, which was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, is currently exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. In second place with just above 1.7 million hashtags on Instagram was the Starry Night oil-on-canvas painting by Vincent Van Gogh. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (263 001), and Guernica by Pablo Picasso (169 727), are among the paintings that have more than100 000 Instagram hashtags, respectively ranking third and fourth. Rounding off the top 10 is The Son of Man by René Magritte with 9 857 Instagram hashtags, according to Money.co.uk. Money.co.uk established a comprehensive list of the paintings considered to be the…

Kazakhstan, the largest country in Central Asia, has rarely made international headlines over the last 30 years. This changed in the past week with countrywide protests triggered on January 2 by a double price hike for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is used by many as a cheap alternative to gas. The peaceful demonstrations that started in the oil city of Zhanaozen, in the western part of the country, quickly turned into the deadliest unrest the country has seen in its 30 years of independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Kazakhstan’s current leader, Kassym- Jomart Tokayev, who became acting president on March 20, 2019 due to the resignation of long-reigning strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev, gave the order to “open fire with lethal force”, labelling the protesters “bandits and…

Human Rights Watch hailed a German court’s sentencing yesterday of a former Syrian colonel to life in prison for crimes against humanity in his war-ravaged country. In the first global trial over state-sponsored torture and killings in Syria, Anwar Raslan, 58, was found guilty of overseeing the murder of 27 people in Damascus in 2011 and 2012. He later fled to Germany. Government ally Russia, had blocked efforts at the UN Security Council to bring cases of Syrian atrocities to the International Criminal Court. | AFP…

Hundreds of thousands of Indian pilgrims began packing an island in the Ganges yesterday for a vast religious festival as Covid-19 cases surge nationwide, prompting fears of a superspreader event. Officials said they expected 3 million people to take a ritual dip in the holy river today, the climax of the annual Gangasagar Mela. A Kolkata court ruled that the festival could go ahead. Virologists say that a stampede could happen if the police try to enforce social distancing on the river bank. | AFP…

SMISO MSOMI smiso.msomi@inl.co.za Kaizer Chiefs will be charged for their failure to fulfil two of their Premiership fixtures last month and will appear before the league’s disciplinary committee on January 21, Premier Soccer League prosecutor Zola Majavu said yesterday. Majavu confirmed the charges initially laid by the PSL had also been upheld by the National Soccer League (NSL)executive committee on the Soweto giants. “Kaizer Chiefs Football Club have been charged in relation with their non-fulfilment of their two fixtures as a result of the allegations that most of their players had tested positive (for Covid-19),” Majavu said. “That case has also been enrolled for hearing on January 21 at 4pm,” his statement read. The Glamour Boys rounded off 2021 in unfortunate fashion as an outbreak of Covid-19 infections wreaked havoc…

ZAAHIER ADAMS at Newlands IN a Test match that is likely to be decided by the barest of margins today, the spotlight has been placed firmly on the Decision Review System (DRS) after the Indian team were left fuming yesterday at Newlands. The furore erupted when on-field umpire Marais Erasmus’ decision was overturned after he had adjudged Proteas captain Dean Elgar to be out lbw. Television replays indicated otherwise, much to the surprise of both Elgar and Erasmus, who was overheard on the stump microphone as saying: “That is impossible.” And although India ultimately gained their revenge with the final ball of the day when DRS ruled in their favour on this occasion to eventually dismiss Elgar caught down the leg-side, the initial frustration with use of technology by the…