The Weekend View

The Stop Stockouts Project says it has found that in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, almost all women and girls who were surveyed did not receive the contraceptives they requested. The project says some of its findings are that poor national procurement planning continues to be the main driver of contraceptive shortages and stockouts. The Stop Stockouts Project says access to contraceptives is a crucial component of the enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health rights. 

The National Credit Regulator ("NCR") says consumers must be vigilant of debt counsellors engaging in the deceptive or misleading practice of placing consumers under debt counselling without their knowledge or consent. The NCR says it has been receiving alarming complaints that Debt counsellors are duping consumers into debt counselling without a full understanding of the process which they are entering into. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa has welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the three spheres of government to combat crime in the Western Cape. Ramaphosa attended the pledge signing event in Cape Town. This will see cooperation between the national government, provincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town to pull together ideas and resources to fignt crime. 

A container ship THIS WEEK lost part of its cargo in bad weather off the coast of Port St. Johns in the Eastern Cape. The MSC Antonia, sailing under the flag of Liberia, encountered severe weather conditions while en-route from Colombo, Sri Lanka to New York on Wednesday and lost 46 containers overboard. 305 other containers were also damaged.  The vessel is now expected to arrive in Cape Town TOMORROW (Sunday 1st Sept) where she will undergo a thorough assessment, discharging of damaged cargo if necessary and the securing of the remaining cargo. 

Floyd Shivambu is now the National Organiser of the Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK) party. The former EFF deputy president announced last week that he would be joining the MK party. The party's President is Jacob Zuma and Dr John Hlope is Deputy President. The uMkhonto WeSizwe Party will be led by the National High Command which will be comprised of commanders of different skill sets and experiences. The high command of the  MKP will be the highest decision making body comprised of 8 officials and additional members not exceeding 45. 

Since Thursday the Chinese hospital ship - Peace Ark -  has been docked at Cape Town's V&A Water Front. The gigantic medical vessel will be docked in the area until Wednesday, 29th August. In conjuction with the South African Military Health Service, the ship will be providing health service to the visiting local community of Cape Town and its outskirts. 

Experts are warning of a spike in fraud targeting retirement funds with the Two Pot system arriving on 1st September. The system will enable withdrawals of up to a third of your retirement contributions once a year from R2,000 up to the full balance of your savings pot. But without advanced biometrics, the security of such withdrawls can be compromised. Experts say Signatures on forms can be faked, OTPs intercepted, and legacy biometrics can be spoofed with today's sophisticated AI tools. 

Ongoing load reduction and electricity challenges, water constraints, unemployment and crime were some of the many issues raised at the Presidential Imbizo YESTERDAY. Scores of  residents from Ekurhuleni and the surrounding areas, flocked to the Tsakane stadium for the Gauteng leg of the Imbizo. The meeting, which is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is held between the country's executive and community members in an effort to improve service delivery challenges facing locals. 

A new book, Life Esidimeni - Portrait of Lost Lives, will be launched in Johannesburg TODAY. The book is a graphic and detailed work to preserve memory of the 144 people with mental illness who died from neglect and starvation while in the care of Gauteng's public health system in 2016. In the course of 4 years, the author Harriet Perlman and photographer, Mark Lewis, travelled to meet the families who lost loved ones in this horrific tragedy. Perlman says the book pays tribute to the people who had someone they loved cruelly taken from them and tells the story of those who fought back

After 40 years in captivity, the last elephant in South Africa's national zoo has been released back into the wild. The elephant, named Charlie, was captured in 1984 from Zimbabwe's Hwange national park when he was two years old. He was taken to Boswell Wilkie Circus here in South Africa and trained to perform tricks. In the early 2000s he was transferred to the Pretoria Zoo. Thanks to the work of the EMS Foundation, which advocates for the rights of wildlife, Charlie the elephant THIS WEEK arrived at his new home at the Shambala Private Reserve in Limpopo province.