TIMES SELECT TODAY | World’s oldest art is in SA | Your property could be drug lab

Three lines cross-hatched with six lines on a scrap of rock have cemented an SA cave’s place in early human history.

The red lines were drawn with an ochre crayon about 73,000 years ago and have been found on a smooth silcrete flake unearthed in the Blombos Cave in the southern Cape.

The cave, in the Blombosfontein Nature Reserve 300km east of Cape Town, has played a central role in providing information about the behavioural evolution of anatomically modern humans since it was discovered in 1991 by Professor Christopher Henshilwood of Wits University.

The new discovery, reported on Wednesday, September 12 in Nature, is the earliest known drawing by humans, predating previous drawings from Africa, Europe and southeast Asia by at least 30,000 years.

I agree with the party of Julius Malema that the students expelled from university or awaiting criminal charges in the courts should be allowed to return to studies.

These are students criminally charged for their actions during the Fees Must Fall protests of 2015-16. Unlike Malema’s colleagues, however, I do not believe that the return to studies must be unconditional.

To begin with, the courts should hear and decide on each of the criminal cases independent of political interference. When politicians in parliament believe they can demand that charges that belong with the judiciary be overturned, then we are flirting with danger when it comes to democracy, the independence of our institutions, and the rule of law.

A property valuer who was implicated in a R1.94bn civil damages claim against the City of Joburg and a criminal charge over an alleged dodgy property deal, has been appointed as the eThekwini municipality’s new head of real estates.

Thapelo Mmusinyane started his new duties at the beginning of September and the municipality said he was appointed because he met the requirements of the post, was registered with the Property Valuers Profession, and did “exceptionally well” in the job interview.

Mmusinyane, who was an internal candidate valuer at the Johannesburg Property Company, was implicated in a criminal case relating to the alleged irregularities and unlawful manner of the disposal of portions of the Huddle Park Property in Johannesburg. While the case was opened at Hillbrow and transferred to the Hawks in April last year, Mmusinyane was not arrested.

It was alleged that the City of Joburg disposed of an asset of the state in an allegedly irregular, unlawful and fraudulent manner to a non-compliant tenderer, which caused prejudice to both the city’s ratepayers and other shortlisted tenderers.

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