Innholdsfortegnelse for 2022-03-05 i Pretoria News Weekend

Kaymery Swart kaymery.swart@africannewsagency.com Some people are all about that life. You know, the soft one. For those who cannot really afford that lifestyle, faking it seems to be the route to go. This no longer needs to be the case when glamming up your wardrobe space is budget-friendly. Room dividers First things first … Purchase, or make, a room divider! This is an essential component of DIYing your way towards a self-made walk-in closet. Purchase a divider in any material of your choice. Brick, wood, and glass are good options in this case. Brick gives it a more permanent feeling and also could fit in perfectly with your brick walls. A bonus is that it isn’t easily movable. Although wood has a temporary vibe it could give the space a…

Bongani Hans bongani.hans@inl.co.za AS FAR back as 1999, Parliament held engagements about the banking sector’s discrimination against black lenders. Among those who made submissions to the trade and industry portfolio committee hearing then was the Banking Council of SA, which is now called the the Banking Association SA (Basa) and Cosatu. The discussions were aimed at addressing topics including why black government employees and black-owned businesses were being charged higher interest rates on loans. Now, 23 years later, there has still been no real effort by the banks to deal with the issue. The government has also done little to stop it. Consequently, 80.8% of the black population are stuck in the periphery of the economy, while the 7.8% white population take the lion’s share. This week Basa insisted that…

Ntombi Nkosi ntombi.nkosi@inl.co.za THE ROAD Accident Fund (RAF) has named law firms that have over the years made a fortune from the entity while poor people who had been injured in accidents get little or no compensation. CEO of the RAF Collins Letsoalo said they were serious about turning around the entity, saying the agency wanted to prioritise victims to be compensated on time. Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula and Letsoalo also denied reports that the RAF had hidden R300 billion. “A lot of things are being written about the RAF that they are hiding R30bn. They are running a spaza shop, they are running something that they don’t understand. But those who have access to the media are bad mouthing, but we are not bad mouthing – we are…

Tony Raymond Kirabira and Leila Choukroune THE Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group led by Joseph Kony, launched a war in northern Uganda in 1987. For more than two decades, the group engaged the Uganda People’s Defence Forces while also targeting civilians and abducting children to become its soldiers and sex slaves. It is infamous for having pushed 66 000 children into war, and driven about two million people into camps. Various military campaigns by the Ugandan Army weakened the group and pushed its members into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Kony and four of his top commanders – Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen – in 2005. The group took part in a…

The dreaded first month of the year, Janu-worry, has come and gone, and many made it through by hanging on to the thinnest thread. In February, we still had to live through the after-effects of our financial decisions and play catch-up to rectify the state of our wallets. During this time, we may have taken out additional credit, withdrawn from our savings accounts, put some business plans on hold, or borrowed money from friends in order to get by. But as we come to March, we have the opportunity now to start from scratch, redefine our goals, and readjust our budgets. Here are a few financial tips that you can put into practice in order to fix your finances and live a less stressful life. Take a look at your…

Sacha van Niekerk sacha.vanniekerk@inl.co.za There’s a reason why long showers, bubble baths, a day at the pool or even a dip in the ocean have the ability to relax, revitalise and refresh our minds and bodies. Water has therapeutic properties that can medically and psychologically aid in peoples’ health and wellness. For centuries, bodies of water have been recorded to possess healing properties, in both a spiritual and medicinal sense. With the pandemic raging on, wellness vacations and healing holidays are on everyone’s minds. The trend is proving to be big as borders open up and people become comfortable with travelling again. If you’re looking to centre yourself, unwind and find healing on your next vacation, visiting these healing waters may be exactly what your mind, body and soul are…

ORLANDO Bloom has splashed out on a £126 000 (R2.6 million) electric car. The 45-year-old actor – who has a daughter, Daisy Dove, 18 months, with pop star fiancée Katy Perry, and 11-year-old Flynn with ex-wife Miranda Kerr – was recently seen driving in his brand new Lucid Air sedan in Beverly Hills, in photographs obtained by the Daily Mail. The Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan rival is hailed as “the future of sustainable mobility”. The EV can reach up to 378km/h and has a range of more than 800km. The Pirates of the Caribbean star is known for his efforts to raise awareness of climate change. In 2018, Orlando was honoured with the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Special Award for his environmental awareness work. The movie…

Italian luxury label Gucci made a triumphant return to Milan Fashion Week recently, with a star-studded catwalk show that featured a new collaboration with sports brand Adidas. Pregnant music star Rihanna and her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky, “House of Gucci” actor Jared Leto and tennis champion Serena Williams were among the famous names at the catwalk show, Gucci's first at Milan Fashion Week in two years. Like other fashion houses, the label turned to digital showcases after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In November, it held an off-calendar catwalk show in Los Angeles. Walking a catwalk lined with mirrors, models wore an array of trousers suits: loose, fitted, patterned, studded or with pointy shoulders. Some blazers were one-shouldered. There were nods to 1980s disco looks with sparkling suits or…

James Mahlokwane james.mahlokwane@inl.co.za MAMELODI fashion designer Agrippa Zwane, 33, stunned the industry with a work-of-art dress picked and worn by Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane. From the excitement and passion he showed when speaking about the dress, it is clear that Zwane’s dreams came true when the fairest woman in the Republic wore his garment for homecoming in February. Having been an excellent academic all his life, abandoning analytical chemistry to follow his dream to study fashion design was one of the hardest things Zwane did as it disappointed his parents, who were unsure at first. Today, his love for fashion is paying off, and his parents have changed their minds about the trade. They watched him build his studio in front of their home after receiving his diploma in…

AS WE mark International Women’s Day on Tuesday, it is an opportune time to reflect on the importance of the empowerment of women, and the role that women and girls – half the world’s population – can play in the establishment of peace on Earth. The empowerment of women, and attaining their equal status with men, in the Baháí view, is necessary for the transformation of our communities, in addition to its role for individual progress and development. The emancipation of women, besides its role for their individual and collective well-being, is also a prerequisite to world peace. The Universal House of Justice, the governing council of the Baháí international community, states: “The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important,…

Siyabonga Mkhwanazi PARLIAMENT has extended its scope of looking for alternative venues after it added the use of community halls as part of the venues to be used for sittings. MPs in the joint standing committee on the financial management of Parliament agreed yesterday to join the chief whips forum later in March to discuss alternative venues for sittings. ANC MP Bheki Radebe said they also need to invite the South African National Heritage Council as it was an important stakeholder on the future of Parliament. ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina said following their meeting early this week, they decided to add the use of community halls as options. She told the programming committee there were seven options that were given to them by the parliamentary staff looking at alternative…

RECREATIONAL facilities play a crucial role in youth development. Research has shown that sports and fitness centres, community halls, parks, libraries, cultural centres and other facilities can keep young people out of harm’s way and reduce crime. In South Africa, however, the facilities aren’t available to everyone and townships are hardest hit as they continue to have large numbers of unengaged and uninvolved youths who are not in employment, education or participating in training – persons referred to as Neets. Research found that about 17 million people in South Africa, between the ages of 15 and 60, were in this group in the latter part of 2020 and more than half were below the age of 35. This significant number of idle youths has an impact on crime and community…

The world remains on edge following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, financial markets have reacted with large price moves, as investors scramble to assess the wider implications. Global equities fell sharply on the news that Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, only to sharply recover hours later when it became clear that Europe would not impose sanctions that will jeopardise its own economic recovery, nor that Nato will get directly involved. Over the weekend, Europe imposed harsher sanctions than the market was anticipating, and the situation remains fluid. The critical issue for investors is how disruptive the invasion will be for the functioning of the global economy. Russia will be increasingly isolated, especially as western policymakers look to damage the Russian financial sector with Swift sanctions on…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week and the ensuing sanctions imposed on Russia by the West have, understandably, sent jitters through the financial world. But you wouldn’t say so looking at some of the more popular stock market indices. In the first few weeks of 2022, the S&P 500, which tracks the top 500 companies in the US, came off its highs of around 4 700 points reached in December, hit a low of 4 225 on February 25, the day after the invasion, and promptly started climbing again. As I write it’s hovering around 4 400. The MSCI World Index, which tracks over 1 500 large and mid-cap shares across 23 developed market countries, peaked at 3 248 points in early January, dropped to 2 905 on February 24,…

JAMES MAHLOKWANE james.mahlokwane@inl.co.za THE City of Tshwane’s CCTV cameras may soon go live again. MMC for Community Safety Grandi Theunissen yesterday said the department was working on reviving the system in the next financial year. Last year the City made it clear there was no budget for the cameras. “We can definitely say we are planning on having them working in the new financial year, but there are some aspects we are also working at because this is going to be bigger than the cameras,” Theunissen said. He said funding was a crucial part of everything that needed to be looked at to make this a reality. According to Pretoria Central police station spokesperson, Captain Augustinah Selepe, the cameras played a big role in evidence collection in crimes like theft…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za IT WAS a battle for the soul of the chicken giant which was the subject of litigation before the Western Cape High Court. The David-and-Goliath case involved the company trading as “Chicken Licken”, which did not take kindly to a restaurant in Plettenberg Bay using the word “soul” in its name. Golden Fried Chicken Ltd,which owns Chicken Licken, took on Soul Kitchen Restaurant, mostly over the use of the word “soul”. The chicken giant owns intellectual property rights for the business and has registered various marks under the Trademarks Act. In July last year, it came to the attention of the applicant’s “ever-vigilant” attorney that a small bistro-type restaurant in Plettenberg Bay was trading under the name East Coast Soul Kitchen. The applicant contended that the restaurant…

Mashudu Sadike mashudu.sadike@inl.co.za A 19-YEAR-OLD model from Mutale village, outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo, is eyeing her chances to become the next Miss Teen Universe South Africa. Determination and passion have landed Ronewa Mafundzwa a spot in the competition to be held in Durban next week. Following the May auditions, Mafundzwa will now strut her stuff on the catwalk when she competes as one of the 64 finalists vying for the crown after beating about 100 other beauties in the semi-finals. “I believe that when one plans one should stay consistent and it should eventually work out even when you are from a small village,” the mathematical and computer sciences final-year student at the University of Limpopo told Pretoria News Weekend. “I was born and bred in Mutale and am proud…

THE Department of Health’s revised Guidelines to Manage Complaints, Compliments and Suggestions have been amended to ensure better clarity is given by health-care facilities when recording issues raised by patients. The department launched the revised guidelines this week to provide direction to the health sector regarding the management of complaints, compliments and suggestions by ensuring that standards and measures as set out by the norms and standards regulations applicable to different categories of health establishments are adhered to. Ronel Steinhobel of the Directorate of Quality Assurance said the guidelines gave direction to ensure that the rights of patients and their families to complain are upheld. She said this was achieved by setting out processes to ensure that patients, families and support persons were informed on how to lodge a complaint…

Lynne Hartnett The world is trying to make sense of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But his attack is not rooted in any rational calculation of costs and benefits. Instead, Putin is making an ill- conceived gambit to reclaim his nation’s stature as an imperial power and assert Russia’s prestige, authority and will on the world stage. Putin has positioned himself as a frustrated representative of an aggrieved fallen empire – for example, lamenting “the paralysis of power and will” that led to the complete “degradation and oblivion” of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although this grievance seems situated within what Putin has called the tragedy of the Soviet collapse, his imperial inspiration extends even deeper into the country’s past. As Putin described it in a 2012 speech,…

Martin Hesse martin.hesse@inl.co.za A recent case to come before the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA) highlights the importance of making sure that the money deducted from your salary for retirement fund contributions is going where it is meant to be going. For this it’s helpful to go back to Retirement Funds 101. If you are a salaried employee, you are probably contributing to an employer-linked pension or provident fund. The fund may specifically serve your organisation or it may be an umbrella fund operated by a financial services company, which houses many employers under one “umbrella”. There are essentially three parties involved: you, your employer and the retirement fund. (A fourth party, in the form of an administration company, appointed by the retirement fund, takes care of the day-to-day administration of…

Ashfak Mohamed ashfak.mohamed@inl.co.za DID the Bulls make the right decision to use many of their United Rugby Championship starters in today’s Currie Cup clash against Griquas in Kimberley (2.30pm kick-off)? While coach Gert Smal tried to explain yesterday that the home side’s exploits so far this season necessitated the strong Bulls team, it is a massive risk nevertheless. Many of these players travelled to Italy last week to take on Zebre in Parma, and while the Bulls won 45-7, they had to fly back to South Africa over the weekend. The likes of captain Marcell Coetzee, centre Cornal Hendricks, flyhalf Chris Smith, scrumhalf Embrose Papier, flank Arno Botha and lock Walt Steenkamp may have been looking forward to a deserved rest. Instead, they will have to make their way to…