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IOL News
04-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Letters to the editor: We need a good attitude to work together and fix South Africa, no 'holier-than-thou' sentiments
We need a better attitude to fix SA The visit to America by Freedom Front+ leaders is an undermining of the authority of the President and his cabinet. As a sovereign state, South Africa has the right to make its own decisions and not be 'coerced' by American requests'. Being 'coerced' is the impression I got, because the implication is, if we don't meet their demands, our economy will suffer'. The President has already made himself clear on the denouncement of 'kill the Boer'. It should not be taken up literally, because if it were so, we would have already seen a real genocide. The small group of Afrikaners who exchanged their identity to become 'Amerikaners', is testimony to the fact that there is no genocide. The colonial conquest of South Africa included acts of genocide by a 'Christianing' Europe against the Khoi and San people. I speculate that descendants of these colonists (possibly AWB, FF+, their family and circle of friends) have probably shouted during apartheid 'slaan die hotnot' and 'skiet die k****' People of colour have lost more lives during the Struggle due to police brutality, than present day farm murders. As a product of 1976, other students and I had to run for our lives across a field when the police shot at us. Who can forget the brutal murders of Ashley Kriel, Robbie Waterwitch, Colleen Williams, the Cradock 4, Chris Hani, Steve Biko, Hector Pieterson, et al? If they (the FF+ and other colonialist descendants) are genuine in getting South Africa back on track, I would appeal to them not to fly to America, but to come forward on home soil to repent for the sins of their forefathers and start the process of restoration, reconciliation and restitution. This will lay the platform for the spiritual, social and economic revival to eradicate poverty, inequality and unemployment. Let's leave the holier-than-thou attitude behind and be humble enough to get our hands dirty in order to clean up the mess that the majority of South African find themselves in 'Helping Hands for A Better Future'. | Clive Solomon Goodwood Poultry vaccination a game changer The Democratic Alliance in KwaZulu-Natal welcomes the announcement by Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen that South Africa will begin its first-ever national poultry vaccination programme against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). This is a decisive step in protecting the agricultural economy – and in KZN, it could be game-changing. KZN is home to a significant and growing poultry industry. From large-scale commercial operations to emerging black farmers and subsistence producers in rural municipalities, poultry farming remains the single most important source of both affordable protein and agricultural employment in the province. Recent outbreaks of avian influenza have devastated producers across the country. For KZN, where rural livelihoods are often centred around backyard poultry operations or smallholder commercial ventures, the economic risks of HPAI are immense. By proactively rolling out vaccinations, Minister Steenhuisen is not only protecting South African poultry – he is safeguarding food security, rural incomes, and economic stability in provinces like ours. We further call on the KZN Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to: ■ Ensure full alignment with the national rollout plan, with special emphasis on rural and small-scale poultry producers; ■ Deploy veterinary support and training teams to all districts to assist with safe vaccination and biosecurity awareness; ■ Prioritise emerging black farmers and cooperatives to prevent inequitable access -to disease control interventions. We are especially encouraged by this action as a signal of a more responsive, science-based agricultural policy environment under the new Government of National Unity. The DA, in its role in the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) in KZN, will continue to monitor implementation and provide oversight to ensure that this programme reaches every farmer – not just the biggest, but also the most vulnerable. | SAKHILE MNGADI, MPL DA KZN spokesperson on Agriculture AI being willfully misused in law As a practicing attorney and someone who has been at the side bar for almost 40 years, I'm seeing more and more attorneys using Artificial Intelligence for not only their research but also their letters. Fortunately, their letters are completely see through and one can pick up the stultified manner in which AI writes letters. In one particular case, acting Judge DJ Smit had the lawyer (advocate) admit that the citation emanated from AI. In a previous case lawyers have been referred to be disciplined at the Legal Practice Council. We are probably going to see more and more of this. However, what is becoming a real nightmare is that when you do see clients and they ask for an opinion on a legal issue or on the strength of their case, they come armed with AI advice to not only challenge you but also to second guess. The advice that they pick up is sometimes enormously problematic and wrong. I have had quite a few clients advising me that they are going to go rather with the AI advice because it suits them better. This has had enormously destructive consequences for the clients. I suspect that they don't even bother to go and get the advice checked out by a lawyer. | MICHAEL BAGRAIM Cape Town LETTERS
The Star
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Star
Dayang poised to reap profit margin from new AWB purchase
PETALING JAYA: Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd could reap a profit margin of about one-fifth from the purchase of a new accommodation work boat (AWB). As for daily charter rate, the group's management anticipates it be around RM80,000. Dayang intends to acquire a new 60-tonne AWB with a capacity of 239 passengers at about RM130mil to replace an ageing vessel. The boat will be constructed by Shin Yang Group Bhd with completion targeted by the third quarter of financial year 2027 (3Q27). ]The acquisition will be financed through a 60:40 equity-to-debt ratio. 'Management anticipates a daily charter rate of circa RM80,000 and expects a 22% profit margin from the AWB. 'With full utilisation projected for 2028, we see the vessel acquisition as a strategic move to enhance Dayang's competitiveness in tender bids and optimise operational efficiency,' Phillip Capital Research said in a report. Despite a bad monsoon in the 1Q25, the research firm expects vessel utilisation rate to improve in the 2Q25 with Dayang's fleet operating at full capacity. Meanwhile subsidiary Perdana Petroleum Bhd 's fleet has been operating at 80% since April this year. According to the research firm, Dayang's current order book stood at RM5.1bil (versus RM5.2bil in 4Q24), and revenue recognition is expected to accelerate in the coming quarters following the completion of the maintenance, construction, and modification contract transition phase in March. 'We expect Dayang's strong order book will keep the group busy over the next four years until 2029. 'The RM3bil worth of offshore platform decommissioning tender – covering 31 platforms across Sabah, Sarawak, and Peninsular Malaysia over three years – is currently under commercial evaluation. 'We gathered that Sapura Energy Bhd is one of the bidders for the Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia areas.' The research firm said Dayang's management noted that the decommissioning contract allows for operational flexibility. Given its strong local presence, Dayang is well-positioned to secure the Sarawak package, it added. Trading ideas: Alliance, LSH, LYC, 7-Eleven, RHB, Master Tec, Mah Sing, CIMB, Capital A, SKP, Yinson, Berjaya, BAT, Bintulu, Bank Islam
The Herald Scotland
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Anything but Average: Why AWB were a simply great Scottish band
Scoppa went on to say that the group went beyond merely sounding like a soul band. It was a soul band. "There's no question about that, although there's the obvious question about how in the world the sextet got to this level of proficiency and emotional involvement in a culturally alien idiom". Read more: The band attracted lots of critical praise for their exemplary musicianship and songwriting skills – the same qualities that appealed to the Atlantic Records label, one of the biggest and most influential labels ever. Atlantic released the AWB album and saw it be certified gold and top both the pop and the R&B charts in the States. Its single, Pick Up the Pieces, did the same. Some critics alighted upon the 'Average' in the band's name. "Average White Band is rubbish!!!", exclaimed one writer on the UK magazine, Beat Instrumental, in 1973. "They should be called Extraordinary White Band. Why? Simply because these six, white, dedicated musicians have something unique – the ability to play black soul music that not only sounds right, dammit, but FEELS right, too!" Then there was this, from a Rolling Stone writer in December 1974: "Their name has a nice sense of irony and confidence, because the Average White Band plays music that is anything but white; despite their pale faces and soft Scottish accents, they play, sing and write as if to the ghetto born. "Make no mistake", added Judith Sims. "This band isn't 'good for a white soul band' - they're just plain good, with high-intensity rhythm, strong, ungimmicked vocals, and a wealth of original material that ranks with the best R&B songs". Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Ben E King were all said to have admired the band. And, famously, when they became one of the first white groups to appear on the venerable US music show, Soul Train, the host Don Cornelius told the audience: 'It's something that has to be seen to be believed. They play and sing like they were raised on cornbread and black-eyed peas.' One of the very first Scottish bands to make it big in the States, the Average Whites deserved all the critical and commercial success that came their way. It was not doffocukt to see why they had such a successful crossover into the US music market. As the Scottish music historian Brian Hogg has put it, the AWB album continued the group's "intuitive and rhythmic understanding of black music, but infused with a great sense of discipline [than on their debut album, Show Your Hand]". Pick Up the Pieces, that great instrumental, was their calling card. On YouTube there's a video, shot in 1977 at the Montreaux International Festival. It's all there: that great opening sax riff, the driving drumbeat and rhythm guitar chords, that energetic funk groove. The band were much, much more than one song, however. Others come to mind: Let's Go Round Again, Person to Person, Cut the Cake, You Got It, Nothing You Can Do, and a brilliant cover of the Isley Brothers' Work to Do. Plus, they were great live - even until the very end, when the original line-up from the glorious days of the Seventies had been whittled down to just the remaining original founding members, Alan Gorrie and Onnie McIntyre. Anthony Baxter's new documentary should be worth watching.
Daily Maverick
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
After the Bell: A humble epistle to Freedom Day
Freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose. In fact, it's another world with an enormous amount left to lose. In political terms, 27 April 1994 was the greatest day in my life – as I'm sure it was for so many of us in South Africa. I still remember it with shivers. I couldn't believe it had happened, in my own lifetime, right there, right in front of me. It all seemed otherworldly, like you were participating in some kind of crazy dream. Could this really all be real? This was despite the fact that the actual day was full of doubt, confusion and misgivings. People forget today, but there were three car bomb attacks in the week before the election and on election day itself. Nine people were killed. The election campaign had been raucous. Famously, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) had tried to prop up Lucas Mangope's Bophuthatswana regime, and AWB members were infamously shot on live TV during a dismal failed coup. The election apparatus was transparently thrown together at the last moment, and its failings and weaknesses became clear as the election progressed. There were actually three days of voting, and it was still a mess. In general, nobody really knew what to expect – which of course was to be expected. It was a kind of stress relief mechanism just to stand in an election queue for hours, it was a kind of solemn act of faith and resolution. Which is probably why so many people did. And yet, in an economic sense that we can only see with some vague clarity now, the election was, apart from everything else, an implicit experiment in human development. And that is because the election constituted South Africa's move from an authoritarian to a free state. And so today, we celebrate Freedom Day, which by a country mile, is my favourite public holiday. Honestly, I would give up Easter Friday and Workers' Day in a heartbeat before giving up Freedom Day. After all, there is no Diwali public holiday, even though it's celebrated by more than a billion people; there is no Ramadan day, and so on. And, one points out slightly tongue in cheek, there is no Employers' Day, without whom there would be no workers. I suspect many of our civil liberties and freedoms today are taken for granted. Trying to explain, for example, how censorship worked during apartheid feels like a pitch for a script in a dystopian television series. Being old enough to know personally what it was like to live in an authoritarian state and a free country makes me view simple pleasures like travelling freely with a kind of awe. Freedom and human development But what about the economic argument? This is where things get really complicated, very fast. The demonstrable, conventional wisdom is that freedom has a very high correlation with human development. The Canadian Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index, consistently finds that countries with a higher economic freedom (secure property rights, free markets, rule of law) score higher on the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI). For instance, a 2018 study by the Cato Institute found a correlation coefficient of ~0.7 between EFW scores and HDI. Just in case there is any doubt, that's not a perfect correlation, but it's enormously strong. This is a coefficient that varies from -1 where there is no correlation, to +1 where it's absolutely certain. So correlation is strong, but not perfect. Why does that happen? In theory, because freedom fosters innovation, entrepreneurship and efficient resource allocation, and that all drives economic growth and human development. In theory, civil liberties enable social mobility and access to education, while political rights ensure accountability, reducing corruption and improving public services. So now, as a South African in 2025, you would be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at those assertions. Tell us again about reducing corruption and increasing accountability? And the much larger question, how is it possible that China, just to take the most obvious example, has gone from GDP per capita on a PPP basis of $2,000 in 1994 to $19,000 in 2023 with absolutely no political liberalisation at all? Over the same period, SA went from a GDP per capita of around $9,000 to $1,400 with one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. There has been progress, but nowhere nearly to the same degree. There are lots of other outliers too: Singapore (in some ways), Qatar, UAE are all high-growth, high HDI and authoritarian. But there are good examples of the opposite, too, of low freedom and declining HDI: Venezuela, DRC. The critics of the notion of a correlation between freedom and HDI point to the lack of causality and universality. But critics of the critics point to some special factors that allow some authoritarian states to develop without improving freedoms. China, for example, has a two-thousand-year history of Confucian-oriented high-level administration and economic planning. And while civil liberties are constrained, economic changes have been dramatic. China's low baseline in the 1970s meant even modest market reforms under Deng Xiaoping yielded massive gains. It's also worth noting that, like many authoritarian states, there is a tendency to see a declining rate of return. China's growth has slowed over the past years, and like all authoritarian states, there is always the looming risk of an enormous administrative error, as we saw during the brutal Covid-19 lockdowns in 2023. Yet Chinese advocates would argue that huge administrative errors are not the domain of authoritarian states alone. Hello, Donald Trump. Yet it is generally true that big administrative mistakes in democracies have a way of correcting themselves fast, whereas big administrative mistakes in authoritarian states have a way of getting worse at a furious rate. Hello, Vladimir Putin. As entrepreneur Mark Barnes and I discussed in the Stand Up! Business podcast this week, freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose. In fact, it's another world with an enormous amount left to lose. And despite SA's lack of a big freedom dividend, its early days yet. Let's ask that question again in another 30 years. DM
BBC News
24-02-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Arsenal 0-1 West Ham - the fans' verdict
We asked for your thoughts after Saturday's Premier League game between Arsenal and West are some of your comments:Arsenal fansAmo: Another gutless performance with no answers to an opposing team that had been struggling. Poor show as once again we bottle it when fans could see the opportunity to narrow the gap on Liverpool. Not worthy of being champions at this There's no point in us being angry or upset. The harsh reality is that we got hit by bad luck. Getting a striker like Alexander Isak, another world-class player, and Bukayo Saka back will take us to the next level and the league title! I see good days ahead. We just need to stick together as Arsenal Dreadful performance! Poorest match this season. Lopsided midfield, lots of defenders... other clubs have injuries so we are not different. Having two shots on target is pathetic! Need a top coach to sort this out now or next season will be no If you persist at playing at walking pace for most of the game, then this is entirely predictable. Graham Potter could have handed out cups of tea to his defence. They had that much time! Arsenal's poorest display of the season by a country Ham fansMichael: Huge result and performance at Arsenal. You can see the effect Potter is already having on the team and our defence in particular. Last time out Arsenal scored five against us and now we get a clean sheet at Emirates Stadium. Aaron Wan-Bissaka proved once again he is one of the season's best signings. Delighted too for players like Ollie Scarles and Aaron Cresswell. Can't wait now for Evan Ferguson to get match fit and start Excellent away perfomance as we limited Arsenals chances to one good save and then countered superbly. AWB again proving himself as this season's best signing for West Ham. Lets hope we take this performance on to Leicester - consistency is key!Barry: Great display from the Hammers. Defensively strong, quick and direct attacks. Mohammed Kudus had one of his best games this season. Jean-Clair Todibo and Aaron Creswell were great at the back. Scarles and AWB had great games and James Ward-Prowse was excellent. We look like a team that knows what is expected of them under Amazing performance. Defended brilliantly and took our few chances well. Now need to see how we operate when we are attacking rather than defending majority of the game. Excellent performance still and Scarles is a hero.
