Table of contents for 2025-12-24 in Cape Times

THE exhibition Crossing Lines: Contemporary Voices from Zimbabwe & South Africa at DHV Artworks in the Dallas Design District (8-22 November) afforded the community of North Texas a glimpse into Southern Africa’s diverse contemporary artistic practices. The show marked the conclusion of a month-long intensive creative residence at Indibano Art Residency – an institution founded by Bukekile Dube with the idea of fostering collaborations and mentorship, and building a lasting relationship between Dallas and parts of Africa – with the participating artists being South Africa’s Lloyd Maluleke and Zimbabwe’s Nothando Chiwanga and Pardon Mapondera. The trio constituted the third cohort of invited artists for the initiative, following Tamari Kudita and Kganya Mogashoa, who were followed by George Masarira, Richie Madyira and Mandla Mavengere. Deborah Hartigan, the show’s curator and owner…

Four lifesavers have been praised for their quick action at Fish Hoek Beach yesterday, rescuing a child and an adult swept out by a powerful rip current. The incident, which occurred on Sunday afternoon, December 21, at around 4pm, saw a 10-year-old child caught in the rip current and pulled out to sea, while an adult family friend who tried to assist was also swept away, Lifesaving South Africa said. On-duty volunteer lifesavers immediately sprang into action, swimming out with Rescue Tube Buoys (RTBs) and reaching both individuals before they submerged. Both were safely brought back to shore, assessed on the scene, and advised to seek further medical evaluation at a hospital. Dhaya Sewduth, Media Director of Lifesaving South Africa, praised the duty squad at Fish Hoek Beach, Amber van…

Australia’s decision to ban children under 16 from social media, with Denmark eyeing similar measures for under-15s, has reignited a global debate about children, technology and harm. The political appeal is obvious: draw a clear line, claim protection and move on. But from a South African legal and policy perspective, this approach is both insufficient and misdirected. It treats children as the problem, rather than the digital systems that systematically fail them. Studies across psychology, human-computer interaction and digital governance show that harm to children online is not simply a function of access, but of platform design choices such as algorithmic amplification, persuasive design, endless scrolling, social comparison metrics and targeted advertising optimised for engagement rather than well-being. These are not neutral technologies. They are engineered environments that shape behaviour…

US tech giant Amazon said it has blocked over 1 800 North Koreans from joining the company, as Pyongyang sends large numbers of IT workers overseas to earn and launder funds. In a post on LinkedIn, Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said last week that North Korean workers had been “attempting to secure remote IT jobs with companies worldwide, particularly in the US”. He said the firm had seen nearly a one-third rise in applications by North Koreans in the past year. The North Koreans typically use “laptop farms” – a computer in the US operated remotely from outside the country, he said. He warned the problem wasn’t specific to Amazon and “is likely happening at scale across the industry”. Tell-tale signs of North Korean workers, Schmidt said, included…

WASHINGTON: US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this week that Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro needs to be “gone” from power, in one of the clearest indications yet that Washington is seeking a change of leadership in Caracas. President Donald Trump announced a blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” sailing to and from Venezuela earlier this month, and Washington’s forces have seized two ships and pursued a third so far. Referring to those efforts, Noem told Fox News that “we’re not just interdicting these ships, but we’re also sending a message around the world that the illegal activity that Maduro’s participating in cannot stand, he needs to be gone.” Washington has piled pressure on Maduro in other ways this year, accusing him of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns” – which…

DJ Warras’ sons and pallbearers paid cultural homage in traditional Zulu style during his funeral at the Immaculate Conception Church in Rosebank, Johannesburg yesterday. Family members, friends and colleagues from the media and music industries gathered during the private service to say their final goodbyes. The ceremony served as a tribute to the popular broadcaster and DJ, honouring both his roots and life while reflecting a sense of identity and shared mourning. Warras, born Warrick Stock, was shot dead last week in the Johannesburg CBD. He was 40-years-old. Police confirmed on Monday that the two people of interest initially taken in for questioning, were arrested. One of the most striking moments of the service came as his three sons and the pallbearers entered wearing black suits paired with umqhele,…

WHEN art and infrastructure work together, communities feel seen, opportunity grows, and the future becomes something we build together. That is the motto driving a creative community project that turns renewable energy infrastructure into a living gallery. The Blowing Art Initiative at the Impofu Wind Farm in the Eastern Cape was birthed when Enel Green Power South Africa partnered with three acclaimed South African artists, Falko, Motel, and Bushy, along with school learners to paint murals on selected wind turbines, bringing colour, story, and a sense of belonging to a site that powers progress in the province. Themed ‘People are Energy,’ Enel Green Power said the Blowing Art Initiative deepens its community commitment by giving local creators a high-profile canvas and young people a formative experience that blends science,…

DRESSED in an orange puffer jacket, Japanese scientist Yoshinori Iizuka stepped into a storage freezer to retrieve an ice core he hopes will help experts protect the world's disappearing glaciers. The fist-sized sample drilled from a mountaintop is part of an ambitious international effort to understand why glaciers in Tajikistan have resisted the rapid melting seen almost everywhere else. “If we could learn the mechanism behind the increased volume of ice there, then we may be able to apply that to all the other glaciers around the world,” potentially even helping revive them, said Iizuka, a professor at Hokkaido University. “That may be too ambitious a statement. But I hope our study will ultimately help people,” he said. Thousands of glaciers will vanish each year in the coming decades, leaving…

In a world submerged by rising seas, What We Can Know spans the past, present and future to ask profound questions about who we are and where we are going. Here’ an extract of the thriller by Ian McEwan. On 20 May 2119 I took the overnight ferry from Port Marl- borough and arrived in the late afternoon at the small quay near Maentwrog-under-Sea that serves the Bodleian Snowdonia Library. The spring day was warm and tranquil, and the journey had been smooth though, as everyone discovers, sleeping in a sitting position on a slatted wooden bench is an ordeal. I walked two miles up a picturesque track towards the water-and-gravity-powered funicular. Four library users joined me and we small-talked as we were carried a thousand feet up the mountain…

Why visits are so rare for South Africa’s emigrant families More than one million South Africans, about 1.6% of the country’s population of 63 million, currently live overseas. Emigration is never a solitary event or a purely economic decision. When one person leaves, an entire network of relationships is reshaped. This means that parents, grandparents, siblings and friends are left behind, making it challenging to maintain close bonds across continents. Despite vast geographical distances and the challenges of differing time zones, the enduring parent–child bond motivates families to seek meaningful ways to stay connected. Among the most powerful of these are transnational visits. For those who can travel, these visits serve as an emotional and relational lifeline: they allow parents to step into their adult children’s newly formed worlds, observe…

COLOMBO: India has committed $450 million (about R7.5 billion) in humanitarian assistance to help Sri Lanka recover from the devastating damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said yesterday. The cyclone killed more than 640 people when it swept across the South Asian island last month, causing floods and landslides that inflicted about $4bn in damage, according to the World Bank, or 4% of the country’s GDP. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has described the storm, which affected more than two million people, as the most challenging natural disaster in the island’s history. Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit, told a media briefing in Colombo he had handed a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dissanayake, committing to a “reconstruction package of $450 million”. While…

THE future of the KwaZulu-Natal Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) continues to hang in the balance as the National Freedom Party (NFP) now wants provincial legislature Speaker Nontembeko Boyce to fire its MPL Mbali Shinga. The NFP’s letter to the Speaker comes after the party resolved to temporarily suspend Shinga’s membership last week in response to her decision to refuse to toe party line when she voted against the Umkhonto weSizwe Party's motion of no-confidence in Premier Thami Ntuli. The suspension bars her from participating in all party activities including representing it in government. The party’s acting Secretary-General Sunset Xaba said Shinga was suspended after she did not respond to the letter from the leadership to provide reasons for defying the party’s instruction to support the motion.…

OUTGOING National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) advocate Shamila Batohi has come under fierce criticism from the Black Lawyers Association (BLA), which accuses her of presiding over the “moral decay” of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Nkosana Mvundlela, BLA president, in a scathing statement, said Batohi failed to provide direction on TRC cases, neglecting to assemble teams to tackle state capture prosecutions, and ignoring a victim-centred approach. The organisation said her tenure was responsible for deepened public mistrust in law enforcement. Batohi, who is set to vacate her office by the end of next month, took the hot seat in February 2019, stepping into the “long shadow of state capture”, a period she has noted was marked by profound institutional decay, erosion of public trust, and a deeply…

What began as a family dispute over a festive holiday has ended with a Western Cape High Court ruling that allows a father to take his son to the United States, despite fierce resistance from the child’s mother. The mother argued that she feared her minor son might not return to South Africa, especially without a confirmed return flight. She further contended that the father had encouraged the 16-year-old to take up residence in the USA, raising concerns that he would not return to his primary residence and care with her. However, Judge Gayaat Da Silva-Salie said the court was satisfied that the proposed travel would be in the best interests of the minor. The mother opposed the father’s application on the basis that the travel would be unlawful due…

Daily Glimmers Bridget McNulty Loot.co.za (R249) Penguin Random House In this turbulent world we need something to uplift, enrich and push us into a different mindset. It’s a gift that seems so hard to manifest, bombarded as we are with bad news. Thank heavens for Bridget McNulty. Daily Glimmers – the art of finding joys every day of the year has been on my bedside table for a while. It has not been a straight-through read but it has indeed made me look at things differently. So what is a glimmer - micro-moments that help shift and lift your mood – we all experience them but mostly don’t acknowledge them. In this delightfully readable book McNulty delves into the psychology of joy, of happiness, of gratitude and in her chatty…

A mural depicting Vladimir Putin and fatigue-clad Russian paramilitary fighters has appeared in the Central African Republic ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections as the country seeks to recover from decades of violence. The Russian embassy in Bangui called the work of a local artist that also features President Faustin-Archange Touadera and CAR military officers “a sign of our common victory over chaos and instability”. The colourful mural in the bustling capital could be seen as a comment on the importance of the Russian military presence for the government of 68-year-old Touadera, tipped to be re-elected in the polls on Sunday. The resource-rich former French colony remains the last bastion of paramilitary group Wagner, which has established itself as one of the CAR government’s main security partners in exchange for…

UNITED NATIONS: Sudan’s prime minister on Monday called on the UN Security Council to stand “on the right side of history” by backing a peace plan for the war-torn country that calls for a ceasefire and global monitoring of the conflict. Since April 2023, Sudan’s army has battled the paramilitary forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls the west and parts of the south, in fighting that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. “We need to declare a comprehensive ceasefire, under joint monitoring by the UN, the AU and the League of Arab states, in parallel with the withdrawal of the rebel militia from all areas it occupies,” Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris said. Idris pledged to organise free elections following a transition period to allow…