17 'angry' sharks netted in sardine haul on KZN south coast
Marine aficionado Sean Lange who runs the news site The Sardine News told TimesLIVE there was a frenzy of marine activity about 100 metres off the shoreline as scores of the silver fish were spotted.
'There were three boats who netted in extremely dangerous conditions as the waves were about 5m high at one time. One of the boats got their net caught in their propeller and had to be rescued by the other boats.
'When they eventually brought the nets to shore, there were lots of sharks — 17 in one net. The sharks — bronze whalers or copper sharks — were angry at being disturbed as the crew attempted to get them safely back into the water,' said Lange.
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The Herald
12 hours ago
- The Herald
SA's International Mathematics Olympiad winners — it all adds up
If there was one picture that drove Black Twitter nuts last week it was a photo showing seven high school pupils holding up SA's flag after a 'record-breaking performance' at the International Mathematics Olympiad in Australia (July 10-20). One silver medal, four bronze medals, and an impressive 38th position out of 110 participating countries. Why the furore? Not one of the seven looked phenotypically black African. Three Asian-looking students. Three probably white. And one undecided but certainly not dark-skinned African. 'You can see it was not a dancing competition,' sniped a commentator on X. 'There's a big elephant in the room,' sighed another. 'Colonisation did a serious number in Africa,' unleashed a popular posting, taking us way back. 'I didn't sight a single native South African in the image,' observed one with jaundiced eyesight. So, let's first get the racists out of the debate. If based on a sample of seven, you believe that white or Chinese South Africans, for example, are more intelligent in mathematics (or any other field of human achievement) than black citizens, then stop reading this column for I have nothing to say to you. If, on the other hand, you believe these young achievers are less African/South African than dark-skinned people, then please find another place to ply your narrow-mindedness. Now for the facts. Yes, the history of colonialism and apartheid explain the gross inequalities that still bedevil education but it's been 30 years and that cannot be the whole explanation. Blacks are high achievers in virtually every field of human endeavour, from athletics (we now dominate sprints in junior and senior track), to producing world-class opera singers of which the unbelievable Pretty Yende is only one example, and we led from the global south in fields such as infectious diseases and vaccine science, having discovered, among other breakthroughs, the omicron variant. Nor does the snapshot of one year's top performers represent the whole picture when it comes to race and mathematics. There was a Nkonyane in 2023, a Kasi in 2021, a Bopape in 2019 and so on. Girls, boys, black, white, English, Indian, Afrikaans in recent years. Still, in a country that is more than 90% black, why so few from among the majority? Pure and simple. It is the choices we make. The more I studied the performance of this select group of young people, the more I realised what incredible hard work lay behind their performance. They spent many months in training preparation. There were camps over a period of a year. They started way back with a commitment to mathematics that involved parents, teachers and professionals travelling around to other countries, including Botswana, where the Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad was held in June. The head of the SA Mathematics Foundation, Prof Seithuthi Moshokoa, makes the salient point: 'Mathematical excellence is built over years of dedication, curiosity, and rigorous training.' We have the only rugby team on the planet that won three world championships with our most diverse sporting team with black stars in every position. Why? Because there are multiple, reinforcing structures from preschool through schools and clubs that from a broad base of participation choose the best among them to represent SA. Let me be clear, until there is a Craven Week for mathematics, don't expect the representation of Olympiad teams to change any time soon. Forget [Hendrik] Verwoerd for a moment: what choices have post-apartheid education policymakers made to undermine black achievement in mathematics? We brought in a subject called mathematical literacy to boost achievement with an increasingly small pool of pure maths pupils. We use the lowest of pass rates (30%) and proudly declare with great festivity that our children are doing well in mathematics and other subjects. Teachers even tell children in grade 12 to choose 'the low hanging fruits,' the simplest questions, just to get them over the pass line. In Singapore, China, Japan, Norway, Finland and Korea, they would find such behaviour in policy and practice to be extreme, if not weird. While those countries bring in AI tools to boost elementary school mathematics in the 21st century, our schools struggle to find competent maths teachers for work in overcrowded classrooms. Where other countries invest in the potential of all their children to do mathematics, our policymakers, planners and practitioners seem to collude in sending messages that pure maths is for the smart kids and the rest do its 'literacy' equivalent. We made those choices. Accept responsibility. Stop blaming the past alone. To the seven children in those math Olympiad photos, I have a message for you: Well done. SA is proud of you.
The Herald
19 hours ago
- The Herald
Motsoaledi demands answers on hospitals' deadly negligence
'Now what do we make of this? All doctors and nurses are trained in the same institutions in the country. How come those doctors acted that way?' He said poor leadership led to the tragedy. 'I can guess that they don't even have management meetings, even mortality meetings — because if they did, some of these things would've been picked up. 'I'm particularly disappointed about the RMSH because I was there when the hospital was opened. It was one of the best. In my speech I mentioned that for it to be one of the best, it needed the management to be on their toes all the time. It means that didn't happen. They had facilities that many other hospitals didn't have, so there is a failure of management.' The Northern Cape department of health welcomed the health ombudsman's investigation report and committed to improving patient care. 'The department recognises the critical importance of mental health services and the vulnerability of psychiatric patients,' spokesperson Lebogang Majaha said. 'We are dedicated to implementing necessary improvements to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.' TimesLIVE
Mail & Guardian
20 hours ago
- Mail & Guardian
Walter Oltmann and the alchemy of wire
What does it mean to truly take your time? Artist shows us through a devotion to detail that transforms everyday materials into meditations on life, loss and transformation Stepping into Walter Oltmann's living room feels less like entering a domestic space than crossing the threshold into a quiet laboratory of time. Not the cold precision of a scientist's lab but something closer to an alchemist's den — where patience is transmuted into art and wire becomes the language of memory. Navigating between clusters of coiled metal strewn across the floor, I pass a man attending to the house's electricity, who gestures towards Oltmann and says, in jest, 'All he does is sit in front of the TV, watching the news, working that wire.' And indeed, there he sits — Oltmann, with fingertips hardened in silver residue — at ease, entangled in a kind of temporal ritual. Around him, wire sprawls like quiet potential yet, along the walls hang the finished testaments to this devotion — intricate works wrought from stillness, and on a small table, a copy of his monograph In Time. In this modest Kensington, Joburg living room, time itself seems to coil, loop and settle — proof that something enduring will emerge from meditative modes of making. Scrutinising an artist's practice has a lot to do with understanding their origins. 'I grew up in Nongoma and studied fine art in Pietermaritzburg. 'We had a very dynamic fine art department in Pietermaritzburg. I had a good general grounding course — learning a range of disciplines and techniques. But, already in my second year, my lecturers saw that I had a particular feeling for sculpture. So that's where it began. 'I had a lecturer, Willem Strydom, who worked mostly in metal and stone. He had trained in Britain, and I was impressed with the way he worked,' he says. Oltmann would later follow Strydom to Wits to pursue his master's degree. It was there that his practice began to shift — he recalls trips to scrapyards alongside Strydom, who sourced materials for his metal robust sculptures. Oltmann, constrained by cost, gravitated instead toward wire, a material that was not only affordable but forgiving. 'A piece of wire goes a long way,' he says with a slight grin. His first explorations with wire as a pliable medium for sculpture began in response to wire gabion structures encountered in the industrial Johannesburg terrain. From adapting such gabion forms in his student works, he has gone on to explore his medium of wire more directly to arrive at forms that often express softness and stillness, perhaps aptly so, as he comments: 'I work silently, alone.' Like many dedicated artists, Oltmann went on to become a lecturer. 'I spent many years, from 1989 to 2016, teaching at Wits.' Held in major collections such as the Iziko South African National Gallery, the Norval Foundation and the Seattle Art Museum in the US, his intricate, time-saturated sculptures remain anchored by wire, speaking to a lifelong engagement with this deceptively modest material. Walter Oltmann's 2020 work Spread is made from aluminium wire. 'Of course, I look a lot online, I look a lot in books and so on, and that becomes influential in what I do. 'I became interested in wire as a material in Africa and did some research during one of my sabbaticals. I discovered it was an incredible medium close to home. 'It was very difficult to make a piece of wire by hand — it takes a long time to draw a piece of wire, especially the thinner it gets. So, it was like an item of prestige and currency. That really sparked my interest and, yeah, it just never stopped.' Oltmann's exoskeletal structures depicting somewhat fanciful creatures — caterpillars, locusts, moths, crustaceans, reptiles — explore themes of metamorphosis and the balance between fragility and hardness. In his Armour and Lace series, the delicate yet tensile wire mimics familiar suits or shells — both shield and surface — inviting reflection on form, corporeality and the porous boundaries between interior and exterior. I ask about the act of making. Oltmann's meticulous, repetitive techniques involve a form of 3D drawing in space by way of coiling, weaving and knotting of wire — processes that are meditative yet generative, allowing form to emerge slowly through time and labour. This durational rhythm, rooted in ancient craft traditions, often dismissed, but rich in structure and meaning, defines his intimately intense practice. Time — its repetition, rupture and sedimentation — threads through Oltmann's work like wire through mesh. His sculptures evoke carapaces and exoskeletons and sometimes even depict bones and excavated relics associated with deep time. Motifs ranging from the silverfish (fish moth) — a small but destructive insect — to the coelacanth — a prehistoric fish discovered off South Africa's coast — symbolise hidden life and explore marginal creatures in suspended existence. These inquiries, central to his PhD research, infuse his practice with a sense of personal archaeology and temporal layering. This focus on the passage of time is reflected even after his objects leave his home studio. To my chagrin, he reveals that the pieces that make up his Silverfish sculpture lie in storage at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. 'I know it's in the dark, in the basement, but that feels oddly fitting,' he says with a dry chuckle. The artist's 2021 work Carapax (Zygen) Oltmann's book In Time was launched on 6 July. It followed his 2022 Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust Extraordinary Award for Sculpture, which supported the creation and exhibition of a major body of work at the Villa-Legodi workshop at the Nirox Sculpture Park. Curated by Sven Christian, In Time weaves together interviews, essays and images that reflect Oltmann's layered practice. Contributors include Brenda Schmahmann and Ashraf Jamal. Though Oltmann has long been embraced in the upper echelons of the art world, what provokes the viewer is not his status but the quiet, unsettling edge to his work — a tension that feels both creepy and compelling. His work places the hand at the centre of thought, using wire to draw in space through steady, tactile processes. He resists the urge for immediate spectacle, instead asking for a slower kind of attention — an insistence that meaning is not found only in the finished form but also in and through the act of making. His work was featured in To Protect These Fragile Things, a group exhibition at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, which ran from 24 April to 26 June.
