Latest news with #Natal
News24
13 hours ago
- Politics
- News24
‘It's not goodbye, but thank you' – Mondli Makhanya signs off after nine passionate years at the helm of City Press
It was back in the 1980s that the love affair began. This lowly newspaperman was just a youngster in the soulful township of KwaMashu. The house was always full of newspapers. During the week, it was The Natal Mercury and the Daily News. On Monday and Thursday, it would be (begrudgingly) Ilanga lase Natal. Begrudgingly because the newspaper that was founded in 1903 by John Dube, who later became the first president of the ANC, had been bought by Inkatha (the forerunner to the IFP) in 1987. Under the ownership of the Bantustan party, it was always spewing the gospel according to Mangosuthu Buthelezi and his band of bloodthirsty disciples, and denigrating the forces that were fighting apartheid. From the progressive segment there was what was called the 'alternative press', feisty and insightful newspapers such as the Weekly Mail, the New African, New Nation, UmAfrika and South. On Sunday would land City Press, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Tribune. It was always a veritable feast and, for a young news addict, it was also a huge distraction from schoolwork. Especially since some close comrades would arrive in the evenings and weekends to partake in the feast as everyone knew that there would be a newspaper buffet at the ready. The readings would inevitably be followed by much discussion and hectic arguments as we delved into the meaning of what we had consumed and what it all entailed for the revolution. It was during this time that the love affair with this wonderful institution began. At the time it was led by a giant intellect by the name of Percy Qoboza. The man was the legendary editor of City Press. His column, Percy's Itch, was unmissable for both its prose, penetrating insights and courageous positions. Reading Qoboza's writing was like walking through a well-manicured park that is replete with beautiful flowers, wild thorns, majestic trees and birds chirping beautifully in the branches. Did we forget the porcupines that could prick the thickest skin? The man's courage was beyond measure. He had been clashing with the apartheid regime since the early 1970s as editor of the outspoken The World newspaper, which was eventually banned in 1977, along with anti-apartheid organisations and other publications. Qoboza's detention, continued harassment and threats did not stop his fire. As editor of City Press, he moulded the publication in his image: fearless, uncompromising with truth, charismatic, entertaining and generally full of nonsense. It was that man whose work inspired this lowly newspaperman in those teenage years to want to be a member of this most noble tribe that we consider the highest species on earth. But the thought of ever sitting in Qoboza's seat was the furthest thing from the mind. The only ambition was to be nearly as good as this icon and to be nearly as full of sh*t as he was. In life, we all have heroes whose qualities we aspire to emulate. They become your lodestar because of all the positives they possess. Faultless not. Fallible lots. In my more than 35 years of journalism, of which 23 have been spent in the editorship of various newspapers, I have tried to follow the lodestar that was Percy Qoboza. I have for the past nine years had the fortune of sitting on the chair that Qoboza sat on, steering the ship that a great captain once steered. It has been a privilege to work with teams that greatly loved this republic and understood the ethos that Qoboza and those who followed him left us. Together we exposed malfeasance during the rule of the Gupta dynasty when their loyal servant Jacob Zuma gave the greasy family control of the country and its resources. We broke big political stories and unpacked complex political and judicial processes. We covered South Africa's recovery from that traumatic period as the country's engine spluttered back to life. We were empathic as we told stories of the still downtrodden masses who are being failed by the democracy they strongly believe in. We fought for the sustainability of the rule of law. We helped South Africans manage their lives through informed advice pages. We were at the centre of policy debates about how to achieve inclusive growth and be a fair society. We gave the South African cultural sector a massive boost and entertained society with exclusive and in-depth forays into Celebville. We were in the backline, midfield and front row of sports coverage as we captured triumphs and heartbreaks in prominent and obscure sports disciplines. To be a journalist in South Africa comes with the joy of being a chronicler of a nation being moulded. We have had a ringside seat in one of the great dramas of our times where a nation was born out of fire and became a poster child of what humanity could achieve if we put our minds to it. The ringside seat also gave us privileged insight into how easily that great feat can be undone, as we witnessed when the randy, corrupt polygamist took us to the edge of doom. We have been able to share in joyous moments when our artists and sportspeople conquered the world. We have also witnessed tragedy when the state failed its people and even oversaw a bloody massacre. But being a journalist in this country comes with an added duty of being part of that nation-building project. We have had the responsibility of helping our once-divided country forge a nation and live up to the Constitution's opening line that 'South Africa belongs to all who live in it'. This lowly newspaperman is proud to have been editor in chief of a City Press that rose to the challenge of being more than just a newspaper. A newspaper that was a nation-builder, an activist, a dutiful citizen and an uncompromising defender of the Constitution. The City Press that I hand over to a new editor has vast horizons ahead of it. At the beginning of this year, we took a big leap by becoming a purely digital publication, having published our final print edition at the end of December. This has opened up wide vistas that will ensure we are here to serve South Africa way into the future. This leap is enabling us to tell stories in more creative and innovative ways as we continue our mission of being a servant of this nation's people. It is now time for me to move to a role within the Media24 stable, where I will be more available to all the excellent publications in South Africa's biggest and most influential media organisation. So, this is not a goodbye to City Press. I will still be very much part of this great institution that I fell in love with back in the 1980s. This is just a thank you to you, the readers, for having walked this path with this lowly newspaperman. And as billions of humans have done since the time of the pharaohs and the writing of Ezekiel chapter 37, this lowly newspaperman urges: Always, always, always love Orlando Pirates Football Club.
Business Insider
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Corporacion America Airport reports Q1 EPS 25c, consensus 47c
Reports Q1 revenue $447.8M vs. $433.0M last year. Commenting on the results for the quarter Mr. Martin Eurnekian, CEO of Corporacion America Airport (CAAP)s, noted: 'We had a solid start to 2025, driven by a strong recovery in Argentina and traffic growth across all our markets. Total passenger traffic rose by over 7% year-over-year, or more than 9% when excluding the discontinued Natal concession in Brazil. Argentina led the rebound, delivering double-digit growth and reaching record-high volumes in January. Uruguay also achieved an all-time record at Carrasco airport in January, while Italy posted strong performance at both Florence and Pisa airports. Growth was broad-based, with gains in both international and domestic traffic. International traffic in particular maintained strong momentum, increasing nearly 13% compared to the same period last year. Revenues grew by 6% year-over-year, or close to 12% on an ex-IAS 29 basis-outpacing traffic growth and highlighting our focus on maintaining commercial revenue momentum. Adjusted EBITDA excluding IAS 29 rose 4% to $158 million, supported by positive contributions from Argentina, Uruguay, and Ecuador. EBITDA margin ex-IAS 29 stood at 38%, impacted by inflationary pressures in Argentina, where Peso-denominated costs continued to outpace currency depreciation, as well as FX translation effects in Brazil and, to a lesser extent, in Italy. On the commercial front, we are advancing key initiatives to increase revenue per PAX as well as enhance the passenger experience. In Argentina, we are completing the expansion of the duty-free arrivals area at Ezeiza Airport this month, more than doubling its size. In Uruguay, we inaugurated a new covered parking facility at Montevideo Airport, further improving service quality and unlocking growth in commercial revenues. Strategically, we continued to advance value creation projects across our portfolio. In Armenia, we are progressing with our $425 million Capex program. In Italy, the Florence master plan received a positive environmental review, and in Argentina, we remain in active negotiations with the government regarding the revision of the economic equilibrium of the Aeropuertos Argentina concession agreement. On the new business front, we submitted our proposal for a 30-year concession in Montenegro and further clarifications in Angola. We boosted our new business development team to pursue future opportunities. Finally, we were honored to receive several industry recognitions that speak to our operational excellence. Carrasco Airport in Uruguay was named Best Airport in Latin America and the Caribbean under 2 million passengers by ACI. Brasilia Airport ranked second globally for punctuality in its category and topped Brazil in passenger satisfaction, while Guayaquil Airport in Ecuador earned a prestigious 5-star EFQM rating. We enter the rest of the year with strong momentum and remain focused on executing our strategy with discipline to control costs and deliver value creation.'
The Citizen
02-05-2025
- General
- The Citizen
Fly anglers tie things up
The South Coast Fly Anglers (SCFA) recently held their annual awards ceremony hosted by Stephen and Olga Brand at their farm near Trafalgar. Prizegiving was a somewhat raucous event, with good natured heckling and harassing being the order of the day. The club thanked the various sponsors, too numerous to mention, for their invaluable contributions during the year. SCFA is a relatively small but active fly fishing and fly tying club, with members ageing from their teens to late 80s, from all backgrounds and abilities. They all share a love for 'the gentle sport' as it is referred to by some. Those who are only interested in tying flies, either as a recognised art form or for their own use, are also welcome to join the club and can attend the monthly fly tying sessions under expert guidance. Monthly club activities include a meeting on the last Thursday of the month at the Umtentweni Tennis Club. The members also enjoy one salt water and one fresh water fishing outing, plus a fly tying evening where expert instruction is given on tying the salt and fresh water fly of the month. There are regular longer outings to various salt and fresh water venues, generally in KZN, but also as far afield as the Richtersveld in the Northern Cape on the Orange River. RESULTS Most meritorious fish (international): Liam van der Merwe, with a 99cm giant trevally. Liam van der Merwe, for a permit of 68cm. Most meritorious fish (local): This was a new award, given posthumously to the late Stan Park, for his 3,1kg rainbow trout caught at Mountain Lake near Matatiele. Most prolific angler: Neil Scott recorded 135 fish caught during the year. He also walked away with the saltwater fly-tyer of the year and the freshwater fly-tyer of the year awards. Merit certificates: Liam van der Merwe for the most international species caught. His nine species included moustache trigger fish, yellow margin trigger fish, blacktip kingfish, giant kingfish, permit, bonefish and puffer fish, as well as chisel mouth and Natal yellow fish, known as the Natal scalie. John New for most local species caught. His seven species included small mouth yellowfish, rainbow trout, bass, tilapia, flagtail, thornfish and moonie. Surprisingly, wave garrick do not appear on either of these lists. Merit award: Mark Rose for his first bass caught on fly. Foul Hook trophy: Arthur Cary for capsizing his kick-boat at Sterkfontein Dam! Chris van Wyk chairman award: Brand Family for their outstanding service to the club. HAVE YOUR SAY Like the South Coast Herald's Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
The Guardian
03-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
US natalist conference to host race-science promoters and eugenicists
A natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science, apparently including the man behind a previously pseudonymous race-science influencer account, and the founder of a startup offering IQ screening for IVF embryos, will be held at a hotel and conference venue operated by the public University of Texas, Austin. Details of the conference have emerged as a prominent supporter of pro-natalist positions, tech billionaire Elon Musk, lays waste to US government agencies under the banner of his 'Doge' initiative, with the blessing of Donald Trump. Natalism in its current often rightwing iteration encourages high birth rates, and Musk has been a vocal proponent. He also maintains a large compound home near Austin, where reportedly he plans to house some of his children and two of their mothers. The Natal conference website embeds a Musk post on X, reading: 'If birth rates continue to plummet, human civilization will end.' Musk, who reportedly has at least 13 children by four mothers, was in recent days confronted on X by musician Grimes and rightwing influencer Ashley St Clair over his alleged neglect of the children he has fathered with them. The conference, scheduled for 28-29 March, is being organized by Kevin Dolan, who the Guardian identified in 2021 as the person behind a Twitter account that was prominent in the far-right 'DezNat' movement, and last year as the organizer of the first conference. It is the second time the conference has been held, and once again, the speakers roster runs from provocateurs who emerged from the 'fascist fitness scene' to practitioners of 'liberal eugenics'. Patrik Hermannson, a researcher at Hope Not Hate, a UK anti-hate nonprofit, said that the pro-natalism beliefs informing the Natal conference was one of the crucial planks of 'the modern race science movement'. 'It's about having more babies,' he said, 'but it's important to ask whose babies. It's about promoting the idea that certain people should have babies that have been improved with positive eugenics.' On the ticketing page of the website for the conference, prospective attendees are told of the venue: 'Register to see address.' However, in small print on the main page, prospective attendees are told that on day one they can 'mingle with speakers and experts for dinner at the Bullock Museum of Texas History in Austin', and the following day attend a 'symposium at the AT&T Conference Center, featuring keynote speakers as well as a closed-door, facilitated 'unconference''. A promotional email sent out by the organization said the conference had secured 'discounted accommodations at the AT&T Conference Center for attendees', accessible with a discount code. Standard tickets are $1,000 according to event's ticketing page, but buyers are warned that purchases will 'require approval'. The Guardian emailed the University of Texas for comment on their venue hosting the conference. One of the speakers at the conference is billed under a social media alias, Cremieux, but the Guardian has corroborated that the account is apparently run by Jordan Lasker, a long-time proponent of eugenics. The @cremieuxrecueil X account has been boosted or engaged with dozens of times by that platform's proprietor, Elon Musk, often on the topic of falling birthrates. On 27 November, Musk reposted a Cremieux comment on falling birthrates, adding: 'With rare exception, all countries are trending towards population collapse.' On 29 April, Cremieux posted: 'Only about a third of the world even meets replacement rate fertility. This is the biggest problem of our time.' Musk responded: 'Yes.' Musk has also boosted or responded favorably to Cremieux posts on other rightwing hobby horses such as crime in Portland, Oregon, and allegations that Democrats had created loopholes in the asylum system. Away from X, Cremieux runs a Substack also featuring posts on the supposed relationships between race and IQ. A prominently featured post there seeks to defend the argument that average national IQs vary by up to 40 points, with countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia at the high end and countries in the global south at the low end, and several African countries purportedly having average national IQs at a level that experts associate with mental impairment. Those arguments, first made in a book by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, are now so discredited that journals including Proceedings of the Royal Society and Psychological Science have retracted articles that relied on the data. In 2020, the scholarly European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association published a blanket condemnation of Lynn's data alongside its code of conduct on its website, writing: 'Any conclusions drawn from these data are both untenable, and likely to give rise to racist conclusions.' Lynn, whose work Cremieux seeks to defend in the post, was a self-described scientific racist, and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as 'one of the most unapologetic and raw 'scientific' racists'. Until his death in 2023, Lynn was a key figure in organized scientific racism. He served on the board of the Pioneer Fund, which funded 'leading Anglo-American race scientists' for decades. He was editor of Mankind Quarterly, a long-standing 'pseudo-scholarly outlet for promoting racial inequality'. He held a position on the advisory board of the Occidental Quarterly, a key platform for far-right intellectuals to express pseudo-scientific antisemitic views. He also presented at the American Renaissance conference, a white nationalist gathering where in 2002 he claimed higher rates of psychopathy and psychopathic behavior existed among Black populations compared to others. Jordan Lasker has also sought to rehabilitate and employ Lynn's work in papers published under his own name, perhaps most controversially in a co-written paper, Global Ancestry and Cognitive Ability. One of his co-authors, Bryan Pesta, was later dismissed from his tenured professorship at Cleveland State University over the use of National Institutes of Health data in the paper. Last October, the Guardian reported that Pesta had joined a video call with a network of race-science researchers who claimed to have 'under the table' access to sensitive genetic data at the UK Biobank. Another of Lasker's co-authors on Global Ancestry and Cognitive Ability, Emil Kirkegaard, was the host of that video call. Kirkegaard is a self-described eugenicist, explicitly advocates 'race science', and has credentialled himself as a senior fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research (UISR), an organization headed by Richard Lynn until his death. Lasker's role in running the Cremieux account has long been a subject of social media speculation, and recent efforts by some writers to further substantiate that identification have not been disputed by Lasker or the Cremieux account. While previous investigations have focused on Lasker's alleged history across several Reddit accounts, the Guardian obtained a scrape of the website of the 2024 Manifest conference via a source whose identity is being protected over fears of retaliation. Last year, the Guardian reported that Manifest was held at a venue that FTX bankruptcy administrators alleged was partly secured with donations from the company Sam Bankman-Fried led into bankruptcy. Lighthaven, owners of the venue, subsequently denied that they had seen the money. Source code from the site detailing conference registrations indicates that Cremieux, a guest speaker there, registered under an email associated with Lasker. When the Guardian reached out on that Lasker-linked email to ask about the registration and other evidence pointing to his operation of the Cremieux, Lasker replied with a message containing a promotional code for discounted subscriptions to the Cremieux substack. Between the Guardian's request for comment and Lasker's response, the 'neofascist lifestyle influencer' Charles Cornish-Dale, who posts under the pseudonym Raw Egg Nationalist, told his X followers that the Guardian was about to 'doxx another anon', that is to identify another pseudonymous rightwing influencer account. Cornish-Dale was one of the influencers who responded with dismay after the Guardian identified Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind the 'L0m3z' X account and rightwing publisher Passage Press last year. Later in the year, Cornish-Dale was himself identified as Raw Egg Nationalist by Hope Not Hate. Cornish-Dale is a figurehead of the rightwing bodybuilding scene, and has been a keen promoter of the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory. He had nevertheless lived with his mother in sleepy south Dorset during the entirety of his career as a rightwing influencer, according to Hope Not Hate. Cornish-Dale and Keeperman are both also slated to speak at Natal this year. Other Natal speakers are affiliated with organizations that promote eugenicist ideas and practices. Broadly, eugenics is a group of beliefs and practices aimed at improving the genetic quality of a human population. It became the basis of a popular movement from the late 19th century, and led to governments around the world adopting policies such as forced sterilization of disabled and mentally ill people. The field was discredited due to its association with racial policies in Nazi Germany, and many critics have attacked it as a pseudoscience. One scheduled speaker, Jonathan Anomaly is a former academic and an advocate of what he has called 'liberal eugenics'. The Guardian reported in October that he was a senior staff member at Heliospect, a startup offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ even though screening embryos for these traits would be illegal in the UK. On the podcast of 'new right' figure Alex Kaschuta, in an episode published on Tuesday, Anomaly said of his company's services: 'What can you do? Well, through embryo selection, you're going to be able to calculate polygenic scores that reduce disease, boost IQ at least a bit, and maybe more in the future.' Diana Fleischman, another speaker scheduled to appear at Natal, is a podcast host and contributor at online magazine Aporia, as well as an academic evolutionary psychologist, according to her personal website. The Guardian also reported last October that Aporia was at the center of an 'international network of 'race science' activists seeking to influence public debate with discredited ideas on race and eugenics'. One of Fleischman's articles at Aporia is entitled 'You're probably a eugenicist'. On her Substack feed she has promoted excerpts from Aporia articles, including one on 29 November that used the Holocaust to bolster the claim that black people are innately less intelligence than whites: 'If anti-black racism has such devastating effects on cognitive performance among blacks, why did the Holocaust leave no discernible impact on cognitive performance among Jews?' The publication is operated by the Human Diversity Foundation, an organization registered in Wyoming by Emil Kirkegaard. Aporia's executive editor Bo Winegard was by his own account fired by Ohio's Marietta College in March 2020 after, in a seminar hosted by the University of Alabama, Winegard reportedly said 'people in colder climates, because the differences in brain size, have more propensity for cooperation'. Aporia editor Noah Carl was stripped of a postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge University after it emerged that alongside his academic work in sociology, he had simultaneously been publishing scientific-racist articles in outlets notorious for peddling scientific racism, including Mankind Quarterly. Returning to Natal for a second year running are also Malcolm and Simone Collins, the so-called 'hipster eugenicists' who have become the prominent advocates of pro-natalism. The Guardian reported in November that the Collinses, after being approached by a man posing as a potential investor in their projects, produced a proposal for a city-state on the Isle of Man that 'contained ideas that seem plucked out of a dystopian science fiction movie'. The plan envisioned a society that would 'grant more voting power to creators of economically productive agents', and be ruled by a periodically rotated 'dictator'. They said the arrangement would make the British crown dependency a center for the 'mass production of genetically selected humans'. The previous month, Hope Not Hate published an investigation, also derived from undercover interactions with the Collinses, showing that 'despite [their] rejection of the label, what the couple propose is often reminiscent of eugenics'. The Guardian reported on the 2024 iteration of the Natal conference ahead of the event, detailing the far-right history of event organizer Dolan, and the prominent place of other speakers in eugenicist and far-right politics. Politico reporting from the event, and revealed that long-time white nationalist activist Taylor, founder of the American Renaissance conference, had been in attendance.
