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SAA's management has been wracked by instability since September 2012, when the majority of the board, led by former chair Cheryl Carolus, resigned over a breakdown in its relationship with Gigaba. Chief executive Siza Mzimela and some of her key lieutenants followed in early October.
The Mail & Guardian can reveal that SAA's fleet committee selected the new Airbus A350 over Boeing's long-haul offering in a recommendation to the SAA board in late August – and that the outgoing board gave a nod to the choice.
SAA insiders say it is this decision that appears to have precipitated events that blocked the Airbus bid – and have left SAA's top structure in disarray.
"The previous board accepted the recommendation from the fleet committee," said one well-placed source. "That's when events started melting down – after the shareholder [the minister] was advised of SAA's view on the bids.
There was a sense that the minister's office was quite shocked the process had progressed so far."
If the minister was surprised, he should not have been. The new fuel-efficient long-haul fleet was central to a detailed turnaround plan that Carolus's board had prepared.
High fuel costs are punishing SAA, especially in relation to the older generation Airbus A340-600s it has on an expensive long lease.
Securing the right aircraft quickly was key to the turnaround strategy.
According to an aviation source, the delay created by SAA's board upheaval means SAA has lost the production slot offered by Airbus during its bid. Now any new decision about the bids may be influenced by the consideration that delivery by Airbus could be up to a year later than initially planned.
Said an SAA manager: "If you look at what's happened, you have to ask yourself if we would have had such big problems if the ministry had concurred with the choice of Airbus."
Department of public enterprises spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete said the "reality" was that the Carolus board "only met 30% of its key performance indicators, the most important of those being financial management".
He said the department had not seen a "detailed turnaround" plan.
Tshwete confirmed that the fleet committee had made a recommendation to the board to procure from Airbus, but denied that the minister was aware of this preference.
"The department was concerned that there was no long-term strategy that had been shared with it that informed the fleet renewal programme," he said.
"This is the reason that the programme is being revised: to be aligned with the long-term strategy that is being developed."
But the ministry's explanation why the procurement process was placed on hold is called into question by allegations of a disturbing pattern of interference in procurement matters – and by the events surrounding the arrival and sudden departure of acting chief executive Vuyisile Kona.
The Sunday Times this week revealed detailed allegations about the meeting held at the Saxonwold compound on October 29.
Kona, who had previously left SAA under a cloud but had been enthusiastically endorsed by Gigaba and brought back as chair of the board when Carolus left, attended the meeting. At the time of the meeting Kona was in a very powerful position because, as both board chairperson and acting chief executive, the separation of powers at the airline had in effect disappeared.
Siyabonga Mahlangu, the special legal counsel to Gigaba, had invited Kona to the Gupta meeting.
Gigaba's friendship with the Guptas is well known, but according to a source familiar with the ministry, Mahlangu is a power broker who is also close to the family.
Responding to a question about the frequency of the special adviser's meetings with the Gupta family, Tshwete answered with a question: "Mahlangu wouldn't be able to provide you the number of times he meets other business people, why is this different?"
Also present on October 29 were Rajesh "Tony" Gupta, the most unctuous of the Gupta brothers, as well as President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane and the son of Free State Premier Ace Magashule, Tshepiso.
Tony and Duduzane are directors of Mabengela Investments, and Tshepiso lists Mabengela as his employer.
Mabengela appears to be the vehicle for the Zuma family's empowerment by the Gupta family.
Mabengela was to have been the vehicle for Duduzane's share in the aborted R9-billion ArcelorMittal empowerment deal and it owns the R4-million Saxonwold house where Duduzane reportedly lives.
Another Gupta company, Confident Concept, owns a Saxonwold home worth R3.2-million, where Magashule lives.
Neither Duduzane nor Tshepiso could be reached for comment this week.
According to the Sunday Times Tony made an offer to make R100 000 available to Kona and then upped it to R500 000. The report didn't specify what the money was for, but said Kona refused and later spoke to board colleague Dudu Myeni about the meeting.
Both Mahlangu and a spokesperson for the Gupta family said the meeting was about how various companies that the Gupta family controlled could switch their corporate travel business to SAA and that nothing unlawful was discussed.
Gupta group spokesperson Gary Naidoo said they had issued a demand to the Sunday Times for a retraction and apology.
Given that the Guptas' Oakbay Investments owns just under 5% of SAA's rival Comair this explanation is barely credible.
A senior source at Comair confirmed that Atul Gupta was still on the board and that if there was any intention to transfer business away from Comair "we would have heard about it".
Stranger still was a text message that Mahlangu sent to Kona on November 27 last year in which he reportedly told Kona: "Uyangithengisa [you are selling me out]. Why did you let her know that u knew where she was going. U will compromise the mission."
Mahlangu, through Tshwete, told the M&G: "The attempt by the Sunday Times to draw a connection between this text message and their story about the Guptas is regrettable. It has no relationship whatsoever with such meeting."
He declined to answer questions about who "she" was, where she was going and what "the mission" might be.
However, this appears likely to be a reference to Kona's discussion with Myeni, who was appointed chairperson of SAA a week later.
Myeni did not respond to M&G questions, but an SAA source who has seen Mahlangu in action was in no doubt about a common sense interpretation of the message: "The 'mission' was clearly this contract, all of these contracts."
A range of sources with insight into the top structures at SAA said the relationship with the ministry became increasingly fraught over shareholder interference in procurement, though the ministry denies this. The same sources said that Kona acted like he was a man on "a mission" and demanded access to information about key, large contracts almost immediately after he arrived, in particular, the file on the fleet bids from Airbus and Boeing.
"He acted like an executive chair from day one," said one source.
That all ground to a halt not long after Mahlangu's November 27 text message.
By January 8 this year, Myeni, who is close to Zuma and chairs his charitable foundation, was installed as chair.
According to a report in Business Day, the SAA security department had also begun spying on Kona and would later send its reports to Myeni.
The board began overruling Kona over his negotiations with a minority union and over the appointment of two consultants.
On February 11, the SAA board announced a "cautionary suspension" of Kona as acting chief executive, pending an investigation into alleged contraventions of financial regulations.
The airline has declined to detail the nature of the investigation but, according to a source who has had insight into the dispute, the initial reason given was concerning a consultancy contract he had entered into with German airline Lufthansa.
Kona challenged the board after he was tipped off that a legal opinion on the Lufthansa contract had been doctored to justify his suspension.
On March 11, Gigaba removed Kona from the board, citing a breakdown in trust.
A source close to the process said SAA had offered Kona a settlement but had tried to insist the payment be held in trust for six months to make sure he did not talk to the media.
Kona is out of the country and could not be reached. His lawyer, Tando Ngeno, confirmed there had been settlement negotiations but would not disclose any details.
SAA has consistently refused to comment on the dispute.
This week, Naidoo declined to answer questions about whether there had been any contact with either Airbus or Boeing.
He said: "Oakbay and other companies owned by the Gupta family are private companies. Their dealings with other business entities are private for obvious reasons."
View full sizeJoe HansenDamascus beekeeper Roberta Cranswick checks a honeybee hive at Zenger Farm in Happy Valley on May 12, 2012. This hive, originally a captured swarm, is now thriving.
Keith Cavanaugh returned to his Southeast Portland home on a warm May afternoon to find a cluster of 5,000 honeybees clinging to a bush in his backyard.
He'd seen this before: It was a swarm.
"I'd seen these when I was a kid back in Virginia," Cavanaugh said, standing a few feet from the buzzing, football-sized clump of bees. "They're so docile. It's kind of amazing."
Luckily, Cavanaugh knew whom to call.
By early evening, Portland beekeeper Matt Reed pulled up in his bright yellow 1961 Chevrolet pickup truck, grabbing the necessary swarm catching gear out of the bed: a white protective bee suit with a hood and veil, a spray bottle of water, a small empty beehive and a net.
"The trick is to get all the bees in the box," Reed said as he walked up to the swarm hanging six feet off the ground.
Reed sprayed the bees with a light mist of water to get them to stick together and positioned the box directly under the swarm.
Then he shook the branch.
The swarm slid into the hive with a roar, and within seconds most of the bees had piled into the box, with a handful still crawling on the bush or drifting about. Reed quickly secured the hive, covered it with a net and hauled the box back to his vintage truck.
The whole thing only took a couple of minutes.
"You don't see that every day," Cavanaugh said as he and his family looked on. "It's pretty cool."
Beekeepers Matt Reed and Roberta Cranswick say most people who call them about honeybee swarms are terrified – a swarm can be quite a sight, after all. So they offer these four tips for safely dealing with a honeybee swarm.
Without a hive to protect, swarming bees are docile and generally won't be defensive, so there's probably no immediate danger. It's always a good idea to keep small children and people with bee sting allergies away from the swarm, however.
2. Don't try to kill the bees.
Because of bees' ability to make honey and their importance for pollination, beekeepers will want to capture the swarm rather than kill it, and the beekeeper will usually do this for free (they get a new hive out of it). But people will often spray the swarm with a pesticide out of fear – at that point no beekeeper will want it.
4. Wait the bees out.
A swarm is a temporary situation for bees, a rest stop on their way to finding a permanent home. If the swarm is unreachable (30 feet up in a tree, for example) or if no beekeeper is available to catch it, the best option is often to wait – the bees will move on within a day or two. It's always important to watch out for beeswax comb, though. If bees start making wax, it means they're planning to stay. In this case a professional will be needed to remove them.
Swarming is part of honeybees' natural behavior, Reed said. With the advent of spring, honeybee populations begin to swell, and workers labor to fill their hives with honey. As they run out of room, a queen will take a percentage of the hive (the largest swarms might be 15,000-20,000 bees) in search of a new home when the weather gets warm.
The result is a cyclone of bees wafting through the air, but eventually the bees will cluster on a tree branch, building or even a parked car. There they gather and send out scouts in search of a permanent, protected home – perhaps in a hollow stump or the wall of somebody's tool shed.
"The swarm is the way honeybee colonies reproduce," Reed said. "If a colony's strong enough, they may swarm three or four times a year."
People can expect a lot of swarms in Oregon this summer, said Oregon State University honeybee researcher Ramesh Sagili, because a lot of hives came through winter looking particularly big and strong to start 2012. That means they're going to fill up fast and want to swarm.
"I'm seeing a lot of swarms compared to last year," Sagili said. "I am expecting it to be more than an average year."
Swarms can be disconcerting for passers-by – in June 2011, a swarm disrupted a downtown MAX stop – but Reed notes bees are actually at their least aggressive while swarming because they don't have a hive to protect.
"They're generally totally docile (while swarming)," Reed said. "And hopefully they're accessible."
, and he said he caught more than 100 swarms in 2011. He expects 2012 to be similar, if not better. Reed sells the swarms to people interested in buying feral bees and he has a waiting list of more than 100 people wanting to buy swarms.
has a swarm call list of dozens of beekeepers willing to pick up swarms at no charge in Portland and outlying areas.
Roberta Cranswick of Damascus collects swarms in more far-flung areas like Gladstone, Boring and Troutdale, for example. By early May, the retired medical health professional had already caught a couple of swarms, which are now sitting in her backyard, making honey for her to harvest later in summer and pollinating her vegetable garden.
"One of the things I'd noticed over the years is there weren't any bees around," Cranswick said. " Since I got bees, I've noticed I have an awful lot of produce."
Cranswick will donate any more swarms she catches to Zenger Farm, a nonprofit farm, wetland and educational facility in Happy Valley that hosts five beehives.
One of those hives, the fruit of a swarm caught last year, was starting to fill up by mid-May.
"I was hoping it would swarm today," Cranswick said while examining the hive. "Swarming is a genetic trait. You can propagate bees that swarm this way."
As Cranswick looked over the hive, she noted it was nearly full of crawling bees and honeycomb, showing the full cycle of honeybee proliferation – the hive that was once a swarm is now ready to swarm again.
Housing affordability increased in 22 of the Golden State's 28 metropolitan areas during the third quarter, according to the California Building Industry Association. On a statewide basis, a family earning the median income could have afforded 63.5% of the new and existing homes sold during the three months ended Sept. 30, up from 61.3% in the second quarter. "As builders continue to compete with a glut of foreclosures and as housing prices continue to find their footing, this remains an opportune time for prospective home buyers," said Mike Winn, CBIA’s president and CEO. The San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin County metro area was California’s least-affordable for the 12th consecutive quarter, and second in the nation with just one-third of homes sold being affordable to a family earning the median income. That is also higher than 27.5% in the second quarter. The metro area of Sutter County and Yuba County, about an hour north of Sacramento, was California’s most-affordable with 89.3% affordability, up from 88% in the second quarter. Nationwide, 72.9% of new and existing homes sold in the third quarter were affordable to families earning the national median income, up slightly from 72.6% in the second quarter. The New York City metro area is the nation's least-affordable market for the 14th consecutive quarter with 23.3% affordability. Fairbanks, Alaska, was the most-affordable housing market in the U.S. with 97.8% of its properties affordable for the average family. Write to Kerry Curry. Follow her on Twitter @communicatorKLC.
A'Saffa Foods, a fully integrated poultry and processed food producer based in Oman, was recently honoured with ‘Oman’s Most Trusted Brand’ award in the poultry segment.
The award instituted by Apex Press and Publishing was presented to a representative from A’Saffa Foods at a special function held at the Crowne Plaza, Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre, under the auspices of Sayyida Tania Al Said and the patronage of Talal Al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of Supreme Council for Planning and the general coordinator for the Tanfeedh programme.
In its 2018 edition, Oman’s Most Trusted Brand Awards endorsed top performing brands in the country, based on public feedback obtained in a survey conducted by Apex Press and Publishing.
The awards ceremony was attended by their highnesses, excellences, chairmen, managing directors, chief executive officers, and senior executives from the corporate sector.
“This award is a reflection of our commitment towards quality products; and our customer-centric approach. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all those who voted for us,” he added.
A’Saffa Foods is investing heavily in enhancing their operations and developing their people, while remaining focused on delivering innovative food solutions to meet the needs of customers. Achievements such as these are an important part of the company’s strategy and vision.
The company’s board of directors have approved an expansion plan to raise chicken meat production capacity by 100 per cent and continue in their endeavour to foster and support food security, self-sufficiency and increased employment opportunities in the sultanate. The total capital expenditure outlay of the expansion is RO45 million.
It is noteworthy that A’Saffa Foods has also won the “mid-cap” category for Best Performing Companies, at the Alam Al-Iktissad Wal-Amal (AIWA) magazine’s Awards this year.
The company takes pride in being accredited and certified by the international certifying body TUV and has been given the ISO 9001:2008 - Total Quality Management System, ISO 14001:2004 - Environmental Management System and HACCP - for Food Quality and Hygiene Proud.
Osteoarthritis Is Much More Common Now Than In Ancient Knees, Study Suggests : Shots - Health News Even after a Harvard team took into account differences in age and weight among ancient specimens and knees today, they found that modern humans tend to have more osteoarthritis.
Arthritis is a joint disease that can cause cartilage destruction and erosion of the bone, as well as tendon inflammation and rupture. Affected areas are highlighted in red in this enhanced X-ray.
American doctors have been noticing an increase in osteoarthritis of the knee. They have suspected two driving forces: more old people and more people who are overweight.
A study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that's far from the whole story. Even correcting for body mass index and age, osteoarthritis of the knee is twice as common now as it was before the 1950s.
"That's an incredible difference," says Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and co-author of the study.

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