Table of contents for Wednesday, February 3, 2021 in Post

RELIGIOUS BULLFIGHT Hindus target Holi Cow CHANELLE LUTCHMAN chanelle.lutchman@inl.co.za Facebook THE South African Hindu Maha Sabha has written to celebrity chef Yudhika Sujanani asking her to change the name of her restaurant, Holi Cow, and apologise to Hindus. The restaurant opened eight years ago in Fourways, Johannesburg. It received rave reviews over the years. Over the years, Sujanani has authored cookbooks and is a television personality. A few weeks ago, a petition was created and circulated on Facebook by a group calling itself South African Indians have Rights. It was directed to, among others, Ashwin Trikamjee, president of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, the South African Tamil Federation and the World Hindu Foundation SA. The identity of the person or people leading the group is not known at this…

India and South Africa’s bonds deepen One million doses of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India arrived in South Africa on Monday. In a Q&A, Jaideep Sarkar, the Indian High Commissioner to South Africa, speaks on India’s vaccination drive and its efforts to help countries, including South Africa. Q: India has largely been successful in curbing the positivity rate and it launched a vaccination drive on January 16. Can you elaborate on India’s Covid-19 combat strategy including the vaccination drive? A: Given the population size and density, experts had made several predictions that India would be most affected by the pandemic. But on comparative metrics, our policy has shown results. We focused on developing Covid-19 specific health infrastructure, training our human resources to fight against…

DECREASE IN INFECTIONS Beds available as Covid-19 cases decline CHANELLE LUTCHMAN chanelle.lutchman@inl.co.za HOSPITALS are starting to see a decrease in the number of Covid-19 patients admitted to public and private facilities, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday night. He was addressing South Africans on the pandemic, and the arrival of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccines from India. “In fact, the average rate of new infections has been steadily coming down over the last three weeks, indicating that we have now passed the peak of the second wave. In the past seven days, the daily average of new infections was around 5 500, compared to just over 10 000 infections in the previous seven days. In other words, the average number of daily new infections has come down to almost half of…

ACCUSED OF STEALING, BEATEN Mom’s 39-day search for son ends at mortuary CHARLENE SOMDUTH charlene.somduth@inl.co.za FOR 39 days, Kogie Abbas walked the streets of Chatsworth in search of her son who was missing since December. Her search recently ended when his decomposed body was found at the mortuary of the Prince Mshiyeni Hospital in uMlazi. Eugene Reddy, 31, was allegedly assaulted on December 14 by a group of men who accused him of stealing from a temple in Moorton, Chatsworth. Reddy, who was unemployed, died soon after arriving at the hospital by ambulance. Two videos of the attack surfaced on social media on Friday, and three suspects were arrested on Sunday. In the first video clip, Reddy sits on the roadside and cleans the grass off the socks of one…

FARM ATTACK ON ELDERLY COUPLE ‘Do whatever it takes to catch criminals’ CHARLENE SOMDUTH charlene.somduth@inl.co.za THOKO Didiza, the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, has condemned farm attacks following an incident where an elderly couple were attacked in Crowder near eMkhomasi (Umkomaas). Didiza said an attack on a farmer was an attack on the country’s food security. She was responding to an article in the POST last week, in which three people arrived at the couple's home under the pretence of buying vegetables. The farmer, 80, was dragged by the throat, and his wife, 73, was flung on to the coffee table during the attack. The farmer sustained injuries to his neck and body and his wife fractured her hip. She was admitted to a hospital in Durban…

THIS CRUELTY IS ANOTHER REMINDER OF WHY THE OCCUPATION MUST END No vaccines for Palestinians, Israel slammed POST REPORTER ISRAEL has been applauded for having one of the best Covid-19 vaccines in the world, and by the end of May it hopes to vaccinate 80% of its population. But it has also been criticised for not providing immunisation to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. According to the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, Israel launched its vaccination campaign on December 20, but preparations for it began months earlier. Its website, ijhpr.biomedcentral.com reported that over the course of last year, Israel had signed purchase contracts with several pharmaceutical companies. By the time the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had issued an emergency use authorisation for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19…

HOPES TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CHANGE Former councillor now an MP CHARLENE SOMDUTH charlene.somduth@inl.co.za BRANDON Pillay will use his seat in the National Assembly to find solutions to service delivery. Pillay, 39, of Bayview, in Chatsworth, was sworn in as an ANC MP last Wednesday during a virtual ceremony at the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature in Pietermaritzburg. He replaces advocate Loyiso Mpumlwana, who died in December. Pillay served as the ward councillor for Bayview, Havenside, Mobeni Heights and Lamontville from 2011 to 2016. He then went on to become an ANC executive committee member and, more recently, he worked as a grant-in-aid manager in the eThekwini Municipality. “In 2019, during the general elections, the ANC compiled a candidate list. I was number 127 on the list and advocate Mpumlwana was 126. When he…

PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS ARE FRONT-LINE WORKERS Schools in Covid-19 crisis: leadership is the key JUSTIN FOXTON COURTNEY AFRICA African News Agency (ANA) “AS A country we are unwittingly setting in motion the wheels of a secondary crisis that will have untold ramifications for many years to come.” I WROTE these words in August of last year in an opinion piece titled “School Principals a Critical Part of Covid-19 Recovery”. In it I advocated for school principals and educators to be classified as front-line workers in the battle against Covid-19. I argued that principals are conduits into communities tens often hundreds of thousands strong. As community leaders, they are a highly-valuable and respected resource, involved at one of the sharpest and most dangerous edges of the South African coalface. If Covid-19…

Money and greed drive our politics HARDLY a day goes by without revelations about corruption by state officials from the national coffers. In 1994, after decades of oppression, South Africa became a constitutional democracy. We began to breathe the fresh air of wisdom. No one would have thought that the fresh air would turn foul. With the passage of time, the air has become contaminated and poisoned our democracy. The persons to whom the responsibility of governing the country is given have become the fountainhead of the contaminated air. Law is the fulcrum of democracy and democracy is what holds people together without force. Elite profligacy in the face of impoverished citizens underscores the core problem facing our troubled land, corruption. The masses will agree that corruption begets the plethora…

Reddy honest about his company THE funeral industry is shattered after it had to say goodbye to a unique doyen, the late Dan Reddy, the head of Wyebank Funeral Group. It is said “You give but little when you give of your possession. It is when you give of yourself, (that) you truly give”. These words hold true for Reddy, who was a community leader and a businessman. He was honest, dedicated and passionate about his company. Over the years, he was praised for his invaluable contribution to the funeral industry. Reddy could mingle with young and old. Many organisations will attest to his immense contributions in times of need. On behalf of the Funeral Directors’ Association, I convey our condolences to his wife, aunty Subbu, his four children and…

This is my plea to you, minister TO THE Minister of Basic Education A LOT has been mentioned about learners returning to schools on February 15. I make a fervent plea to please re-evaluate this resolution. This plea is based on the following: • There has been a lot of migration to various provinces during the school vacation. We have no knowledge with whom the learners have interacted (considering that everyone must be taken to be positive) and it is possible they will return to schools with the virus. I don’t think the Department of Basic Education has the capacity to test all the returning learners, and schools have limited resources to screen and confirm who has the virus. Schools will become a death trap. • It is the beginning…

LET GO OF LIMITING BELIEFS The elephant and the rope WHEN walking through an elephant camp, a man noticed the elephants were only secured with a small rope tied around one ankle. He wondered why the elephants didn’t break free as they were certainly strong enough to do so. He asked a trainer why the elephants didn’t try to break free. The trainer said they used the same size rope for baby elephants all the way up to adulthood. Because they’re too small when they’re babies to break free from the rope, they grow up being conditioned to think the rope is stronger than they are. As adults, they think the rope can still hold them, so they don’t try to fight it. The moral The elephants in this case…

Your Stars SHARRON DUFF ARIES (March 21 – April 19) With the full moon energies here, you may feel driven and inspired or overwhelmed. You may need to dig deep for patience but remember that this too shall pass. This week may not be a good time to take on new projects. Focus on finishing what is on your plate. Lucky colour: pink. TAURUS (April 20 – May 20) Watch your spending habits over the next week and do not spend recklessly. There is a new cycle that you are stepping into and with this will come a change of fortune and happiness. But it’s not happening now, so keep an eye. Lucky colour: orange. GEMINI (May 21 – June 20) Things are coming full circle for you and this…

CHRISTIANITY There’s comfort to be found in the Bible CARDINAL WILFRID NAPIER Pixabay.com “But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” (Gen 2: 17) WHEN we read about the origins of man in the Bible, one thing that strikes us is the extremely positive outlook of the creation story, which is told plainly and simply: “God said ‘Let there be … ’” and it comes into existence from nothing. Even the creation of man is the same: “‘Let us make man in our own image and likeness.’ ‘God created man, male and female he made them’.” Then he placed them in the garden, with this simple instruction: “You…

Lunch box ideas Lunches for children are about making food exciting, healthy and nutritious, especially during the pandemic. Margaret Hirsch, the executive director of Hirsch's Homestores, and Lindsay Kleynhans, Hirsch’s in-house chef, recently held a virtual demonstration for lunch box and snack ideas FROM managing picky eaters to co-ordinating office time, school time and mealtime successfully, here are tips on how to juggle like a pro: Picky eaters: Have a variety of small helpings rather than one huge item and make it exciting. Instead of the traditionally sliced sandwich, use a cookie cutter to make it into a fun shape. You can do this with fruit as well. This will make it more appealing and it will make lunch time fun. You can also add a little note of encouragement,…

Angling in a good space for 2021 AT the end of the first month of the year and with the catches we have seen so far, it looks like it is going to be a fantastic year for all facets of angling. The offshore fishing has been a mix of tuna, dorado and billfish and all is good in the hood. Bottom fishing has taken a back seat with all the game fish around, but there are still decent rockcod and red fish to be caught if you want some variety on the table. But the ‘couta, tuna and dorado have been the main source of excitement in the central KZN region. Shore-based fishing has been on fire the past week, with plenty of inedible fish coming out along with…

Brady has no intention of calling time FRANK PINGUE TANNEN MAURY EPA TOM Brady has previously mentioned a desire to compete in the NFL until he’s 45 and as he prepares to make a 10th Super Bowl appearance, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback said he would consider playing even longer. The 43-year-old Brady, who on Sunday (US time) will seek a record-extending seventh Super Bowl championship, did not hesitate when asked about playing beyond his 45th birthday, in August 2022. “Yeah definitely, I would consider that,” Brady said. “It’s a physical sport and just the perspective I have on that is you never know kind of when that moment is. “There’s lot of training that goes into it. There has to be 100% commitment from myself to keep doing it.”…

Man City are back to beast mode ESHLIN VEDAN eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za MANCHESTER United’s shock loss to basement-club Sheffield United could have a big bearing on preventing them from lifting the title this season. The Red Devils were unable to return to winning ways this past weekend as they drew with Arsenal. Apart from Edinson Cavani, the other United forwards have struggled to come to the party of late, with Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial inconsistent. United have scored just seven goals in their last seven matches and are yet to beat a top-six side. Liverpool are coming back into form at the right time with their crunch game against Manchester City set for Sunday. David Moyes’s West Ham entered the game against the Reds in brilliant form, having won their last…

I won’t be bullied, says Yudhika FEBRUARY marks the eighth birthday of Holi Cow. It’s been an amazing journey. What started out as my iconic office space became my little curry shop, cooking school and then a little cake shop. We made a few curries, and then made a mint chutney, which led to a whole range of pickles and sauces. I made a mutton pie and a customer asked if he could buy one. It turned into a range of pies from chicken tikka masala to lamb vindaloo and even a Channa dhal and brinjal. We baked a cake or two and not so long ago I had 17 cakes to complete before the store opened for the day. We brought back old-fashioned treats like fresh cream doughnuts and…

‘IN GOD’S HANDS’ Mom of slain make-up artist unfazed by bail call JANINE MOODLEY janine.moodley@inl.co.za THE mother of slain make-up artist, Sherne Pillay, remained unshaken despite bail being granted to her daughter’s alleged killer, Ebrahim Chohan. She said he would get what he deserved. “If he is not convicted by the law of the land, the law of God will convict him. All we can do is leave everything in God’s hands,” said Nadira Pillay. “Bail does not necessarily mean he is exonerated. I have a lot of faith in the detective working on the case; he will do the best job he can.” Chohan, Pillay’s boyfriend, was granted R10 000 bail in the Durban Magistrate’s Court recently, after he was arrested for her killing. Pillay, 27, a make-up artist…

SA RANKS AMONG THE TOP 20 MOST CORRUPT COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD. SA’s poor corruption ranking comes as no surprise JANINE MOODLEY janine.moodley@inl.co.za FOR opposition parties, it was no surprise that South Africa ranked poorly in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The CPI, known as the leading global indicator of public sector corruption, looked at 180 countries based on perceptions of corruption. For 2020, it also looked at corruption and the impact it had on countries’ ability to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. The CPI used a scale of zero to 100 – where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. The results were released on Thursday. South Africa scored 44 and is among the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world. For the past 10 years, SA…

POLITICS ANC receives backlash over appointment POST REPORTER THE ANC has been criticised on social media for replacing the late Jackson Mthembu, the Minister in the Presidency, with Dr Xiaomei Havard, who was born in China. Mthembu died on January 21 of Covid-19. Last Wednesday, the ANC’s parliamentary office announced his position in the National Assembly would be filled by Havard from Gauteng. According to an IOL report, the party received a backlash on social media, with xenophobic attacks aimed at Harvard. One Twitter user said: “No matter how long she has been with the ANC, it doesn’t matter. We have so many South Africans or Africans we can choose from … ANC you’d better reverse your decision if you want to keep people’s votes.” Another Twitter user had an…

SHE IS ONLY PARTLY OF INDIAN DESCENT, NOT WHOLLY Kamala Harris, far from being Indian YOGIN DEVAN P RAVIKUMAR Reuters IT IS said the invasive myna bird was brought to Durban from India by indentured labourers between 1888 and 1900. Hence, they are referred to as Indian mynas. They were sold to unwary residents on the promise that they could be trained to talk. When in groups, mynas make quite a din – they produce high-pitched notes and chatter, most commonly a raucous “radio, radio, radio” and a jarring “kharr, kharr, kharr”. The Durban Municipality declared the myna an avian enemy a while back – their droppings foul buildings and vehicles; they do not tolerate other similar-sized birds; and they can cause house fires when old wiring in the roof short-circuits…

Soccer craftsman was the Al Pacino of our time ABDUL Bhamjee, 82, an enigmatic craftsman and ambassador of nonracial football, has passed on. As a young man in the 1980s, I was in awe of him. I often thought of him as being the mafia of local football. All that finger beckoning, the distinct swagger, the gold jewellery and the flamboyant dress code put him up with the Al Pacinos of our time. He had the ability to encroach on anyone's space and suck up the air. His sarcasm never softened. The media loved him and he loved them. His often accelerated speech turned into frenzied monologues as the soccer fraternity guffawed at his theatrical announcements which were made for maximum effect. There was always something intriguing about him. He…

We say we’re humane, but we’re not WE LIVE in a grim world of inequality and violence. There is more wealth than ever in history and yet more than a billion poor go hungry. Medical science has made progress, yet millions die yearly from curable disease. We have the technology to feed everyone on Earth, yet people die from starvation. The nations of the world say they are progressing toward democracy and yet they bomb and terrorise one another, frighten and kill, all in the name of progress. We talk peace and yet we spend billions on funding military personnel. How can we sit around the dinner table, carelessly chatting away, while we are presented, week in and week out, with the images on our television sets of bomb blasts,…

‘EVERY FAILED EXPERIMENT IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO SUCCESS’ Fall forward I’VE found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. Nelson Mandela said: “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that’s less than the one you’re capable of living.” I’m sure in your experiences – in school … in applying to college … in picking your major … in deciding what you want to do with life – people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on. But I’ve never understood that concept, having something to fall back on. If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything, except my faith. I want to fall … forward. At least…

DON’T CARRY YOUR BURDENS THROUGH THE NIGHT The weight of the glass ONCE upon a time, a psychology professor walked around a stage while teaching stress management principles to an auditorium filled with students. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected the typical, “glass half empty or glass half full”, question. Instead, with a smile on her face, the professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?” Students shouted out answers ranging from 225g to 900g. She replied: “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t matter. It all depends on how long I hold it. “If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache…

COMPASSIONATE LISTENING AND SUPPORT HAVE BEEN VITAL FOR MANY DURING THE LOCKDOWN What we’ve learnt about bereavement during the pandemic THE coronavirus pandemic has been extremely distressing for those who are bereaved and grieving, regardless of whether Covid-19 was the actual cause of death of their loved one. We know anecdotally and from emerging research that people who have lost someone during the pandemic were less likely to have visited them before they died or able to attend the funeral. Our Bereavement Diaries project, which gathered pandemic diaries of people supporting the bereaved in assisted living and retirement villages, or who trained as Cruse bereavement volunteers, adds nuance to this narrative. The 43 diary entries we received between May and September last year offer some important, real-time insights into how…

ONLINE PLATFORMS USED TO SUPPORT TEACHING How learning continued MMAKI JANTJIES Pexels.com THE Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the key role teachers play in schools. Before the pandemic, many teachers had not received substantive formal technology training, either to support blended teaching and learning or to fully apply online learning. The decision by the Ministry of Basic Education to shut schools in response to the pandemic forced teachers to adapt and innovate to ensure that learning continued. South African schools are clustered into quintiles ranging from one to five. This was done to ensure an equal and fair distribution of resources across schools. Schools in the lower quintiles are often based in underserved communities where resources are limited, while quintile five schools are well resourced. The approach was introduced to address…

Kolisi is no gimme for the Sharks MIKE GREENAWAY SAMUEL SHIVAMBU BackpagePix THE multimillion-dollar deal between the Sharks and American Consortium MVM Holdings will certainly mean some world-class recruits for the Durban team, but the strong speculation that Siya Kolisi will be one of them is not necessarily true. The World Cup-winning Springbok captain has become an international brand and is represented by American entertainment giants Roc Nation, who last week confirmed their partnership with the Sharks as part of the MVM deal, so a natural conclusion to make was that Kolisi will be moving from Western Province to the Sharks when his contract with the Cape team ends in August. But Marco Masotti, the head of MVM Holdings, which has a 51% controlling share of the Sharks, would not…

SA youngster lands US soccer opportunity ESHLIN VEDAN eshlin.vedan@inl.co.za Supplied JOHANNESBURG youth Jashil Vithal recently embarked on a new journey and is playing College soccer in the US at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, where he is studying sports management. He is set to remain with Mississippi Gulf Coast College for the next two years. The 19-year-old, who is a product of the Jabez Football Academy in Johannesburg, said he was awarded the opportunity by the academy’s scout, Lyle Bennett. “I feel blessed to be given this opportunity and I’m going to make the most of it. “I’m looking to better myself in all aspects as well as being an integral part of a state-winning championship team,” said Vithal, who played first-team football for Glenvista High School from 2017…

IN THE BEST INTEREST OF MANY BUT... No one will be forced to take vaccine JANINE MOODLEY AND CHANELLE LUTCHMAN JAIRUS MMUTLE GCIS NO person will be forced to take the Covid-19 vaccine. President Cyril Ramaphosa made this clear during his national address on Monday night. He said that while it was in the best interest of the country that as many people as possible received the vaccine, no one was obligated to do so. The first batch of Covid-19 vaccines arrived in South Africa from India on Monday and will go to the country’s 1.25 million front-line health-care workers who are part of phase 1 of the roll-out. The 1 million doses of the Covishield vaccine, developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford and produced by…

Covid burial guidelines Place of death (hospital/home) • Wear appropriate PPE . • Move the corpse to the mortuary or funeral parlour in a body bag. Mortuary/funeral parlour • Wear appropriate PPE. • Prepare the corpse for viewing or burial. • Allow viewing by the family on site, strictly controlled. • Wrap in shroud/blanket (traditional beliefs) or a body bag (if preferred by family). Body for viewing (funeral) • Laid in an open casket, coffin or similar based on religious beliefs (no plastic wrapping necessary). • A person issued with authorisation/ permission to bury the deceased and the programme director to ensure compliance with Covid-19 infection prevention and control recommendations. • Law enforcement agents to monitor compliance at the viewing. • Single file viewing of body only with the following…

HEADSCARF BATTLE Triumph for Muslim women as army amends dress code NADIA KHAN nadia.khan@inl.co.za AN OFFICER in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has claimed a second victory against her employer. Despite the SANDF instructing Major Fatima Isaacs to remove the headscarf, she wore under her beret, she refused. And after two years, her employer has amended its dress code policy to allow the headscarf to be worn. Isaacs, 48, of Athlone, Cape Town, has been employed by the SANDF for more than 10 years and works as a clinical forensic pathologist at 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg. In June 2018, she was instructed that wearing a headscarf was contrary to the SANDF dress policy. After she refused to remove her headscarf on the command of her superior, she was…

POLICE CAPTAIN AND ADVOCATE ‘Every day is a chance for me to learn’ CHARLENE SOMDUTH charlene.somduth@inl.co.za Supplied FROM a young age, Radhika Marimuthu’s parents had taught her about the importance of education and she followed their advice. Today, Marimuthu of Parlock, Durban, is a captain and an internal liaison officer in the SAPS KwaZulu-Natal corporate communication office in Durban. She was also recently admitted as an advocate in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. Last month, she completed an introductory, intermediate and advanced course by Interpol, on the investigation of transnational and organised intellectual property crime. Interpol is the international criminal police organisation which enables police in 194 member countries to work together to fight crime. Marimuthu, who was stationed at Malvern SAPS, said: “I never stop learning. Every day is a…

USED TO QUELL PROTEST MOVEMENTS OPINION India is world leader in internet shutdowns SUBIR SINHA African News Agency (ANA) Archives THE storming of the Red Fort in Delhi on January 26 marked an escalation of tensions between the Indian government – led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – and farmers who have been protesting against agricultural reforms since August. With footage of the farmers clashing with police going viral, the Red Fort incident also marked a spike in interest in the farmers’ movement around the world, much to Modi’s embarrassment. The authorities’ response to events at the Red Fort – a historic building symbolic of Indian independence, and located in the very heart of Old Delhi – was swift. Delhi Police shut down the city’s internet, affecting more than 52 million…

TARIFFS LOOM Consumers to pay more for electricity JANINE MOODLEY janine.moodley@inl.co.za ARMAND HOUGH African News Agency (ANA) Archives SOUTH Africans will need to have more money for their utility bills as an electricity tariff hike of up to 10.95% could become effective in April. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has said it would allow Eskom to recover an extra R6 billion of allowable revenue from consumers. Nersa’s decision was based on Eskom’s multiyear price determination regulatory clearing account (RCA) applications for the three financial years 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17 and Eskom’s supplementary revenue application for the 2018/19 financial year. Eskom had originally applied for R66.6bn in terms of the RCA but Nersa only approved R32.67bn. The power utility was unhappy with this decision and approached the high court,…

Editor’s View Our leaders should not be satisfied with handouts OUR war against Covid-19 has entered a new chapter with the arrival of Covishield in South Africa. Until now our best defence against the virus was to duck it. The vaccine, Covishield, changes that. It was developed by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company. An Indian company, the Serum Institute of India, joined Astra-Zeneca to make the vaccine. They took a weakened version of a common cold virus found in chimpanzees and modified it so that it looks like the coronavirus. Once injected, our body starts making antibodies to fight anything that looks like it. So, if a person is infected with Covid-19, the body is already primed to fight it. India’s decision to give South Africa 1.5 million doses…

Biden’s policies are un-American, unchristian AS THE Manchurian president churns out a stream of executive orders reversing Donald Trump’s policies, the only credible remark Kevin Govender makes is that “Biden is no sleepy Joe” (the POST, January 27-31). But what Biden is doing is without merit. If Govender unpacked what Biden as a Democrat stands for, he might not be so effusive in his praise. According to a report of the Senate Homeland Security Committee released in December, Biden, while vice president, was an active participant with his son Hunter in business deals with China’s energy company CEFC and received a 10% cut from the $5 million kickback. Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate agreement because it is a scam to siphon funds from wealthy countries, ostensibly, to…

Child’s plea to Ramaphosa is acknowledged DEAR Mr President I trust you are well and keeping safe. I would like to share something very important with you. The floods caused by Eloise got me thinking a lot about how the government needs to do more for its people. I know that this is a much talked about topic but I would still like to share my view. It is very sad that many people do not have access to clean drinking water, safe housing and food. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This breaks my heart. This flood is going (to) leave many lives in devastation. Mr President, I beg you to please help the people of our country to live a better life. Please stop corruption…

MOST APPS ARE FREE BUT THIS DOESN’T MEAN IT DOESN’T COST US Should you delete WhatsApp? PREETESH SEWRAJ commons. wikimedia.org MORE than two billion people worldwide rely on WhatsApp to keep them connected with friends, family and business colleagues. The dominance of WhatsApp appeared unshakeable until last month when it informed its users that there would be an update of its terms and conditions. Normally, most users are undaunted by tech companies sharing revised terms but rumours began to spread that WhatsApp would be sharing personal data with its parent company, Facebook. This resulted in fury from its normally loyal user base and threats to move to alternate messaging platforms such as Signal and Telegram. The reality is significantly less sinister, but it does highlight the lack of understanding of…

INSPIRATIONAL SPEECH Nobody will hit you as hard as life – Rocky SYLVESTER Stallone’s Rocky franchise is probably one of the most inspirational movie franchises in history and in 2006, it delivered again with Rocky Balboa. In the sixth film in this franchise, Stallone gave an inspirational speech about the value of hard work and commitment. “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. “It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. “It’s about how hard you can get hit and…

HINDUISM Death, the only guarantee after birth DR LOKESH MAHARAjH Pxhere.com JAMES Shirley, the English poet, wrote the poem Death the Leveller about 500 years ago, which might have been influenced by Hindu scriptures. No one can escape death – neither the prince nor the pauper. Death is the governing factor that controls and regulates life. Death is the only guarantee after birth. The Bhagavad Gita (2:27) says, “one who has taken birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again”. Hindu sages have declared that what we call death is nothing short of ignorance. The Bhagavad Gita continuously reminds us that life is eternal. Life existed before birth, and it will exist after death. Life also exists between birth and death. The Puranas,…

DIFFERENT KIND OF PREPARATION Returning to school in a pandemic JACKIE MAIMIN Pexels.com COVID-19 has changed our lives, possibly for ever. Last year, parents and children needed to cope with home schooling. Now as the new school year begins, we need to make sure that we have done and continue to do everything we can to protect our children and to encourage them to benefit from their school days. During the lockdown, many children missed their routine vaccines. Before school opens, make sure that your children are up-to-date with their vaccines, and have received all the necessary ones. Remember to deworm your children and pets regularly. This contributes to the kids’ general health which helps them to cope with school work. Although good nutrition can provide all the nutrients that…

Frylinck: I enjoy batting with Muthusamy ROBBIE Frylinck (62) has only total respect for Senuran Muthusamy (57) after sharing a match-winning 112 run sixth wicket partnership. This ensured the Dolphins beat the Cape Cobras on Monday to reach the final of the Momentum One Day Cup on Friday. The Dolphins will play the Lions or Knights who played in the other semi yesterday. Frylinck (62) said he enjoyed batting with the spin-bowling all-rounder due to his calmness. “When we went to bat I told the guys that we would walk it as we have naturally scoring guys, but unfortunately it did not go that way. Senuran is really calm. I’d like to think that I’m calm as well. You could feel the pendulum swing from when we were under pressure…