Daily news update: Tutu’s greatest gift, Cele threatens to ‘take action’ against blogger, all eyes on DJ Hlo

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Tutu gave SA ‘the greatest gift of all’ – hope and forgiveness

President Ramaphosa delivered the eulogy at Archbishop Tutu’s funeral, saying he gave us “the greatest gift of all – hope and forgiveness”.

The proceedings took the form of a Requiem Mass, where the Archbishop’s daughter, Reverend Naomi Tutu, spoke on behalf of the family.

“I am here to convey our thanks. I want to first apologise as a family we have received many messages and we haven’t been able to respond. We have just been overwhelmed,” she said.

“We shared him with the world, and you shared part of the love you had for him with us. We are thankful […] to celebrate daddy’s life this week”, she said.

Aquamation: Desmond Tutu’s chosen flameless cremation

The body of Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu is to be reduced to dust by aquamation, a new cremation method using water that funeral parlours are touting as environmentally friendly.

Like human composting, a technique of composting bodies with layers of organic material like leaves or wood chips, aquamation is still authorised only in certain countries.

In South Africa no legislation at all governs the practice.

Aquamation, or “alkaline hydrolysis”, consists of cremation by water rather than fire.

Cele threatens to ‘take action’ against blogger after posts about ‘daughter’

Police Minister Bheki Cele has threatened to take action against entertainment blogger Musa Khawula unless he apologises for and retracts statements made about his daughter.

On Friday Khawula posted videos on Twitter claiming Cele was at Coco nightclub in Cape Town with his daughter Khumbuza Cele. Khawula claimed that Khumbuza was celebrating her 24th birthday at the club.

Speaking to eNCA’s Dasen Thathiah, Cele said the woman in the video is not his daughter, but has the same name as his daughter. He also said he wants Khawula’s claims to be retracted.

Cele’s spokesperson Lirandzu Themba confirmed that the person in Khawula’s Twitter videos is not the police minister’s daughter. She also said that Cele “plans to take necessary action” if Khawula does not retract the statements and apologise for them.

All eyes are on DJ Hlo as she wins Ukhozi FM song of the year

After years of causing controversy, the Ukhozi FM song of the year (Ingoma Ehlukanisa Unyaka) campaign has finally taken quite an amusing turn in 2021 in that no one seems to know the song that came out tops.

Ingoma Ehlukanisa Unyaka (the song that will ring in the new year) is an annual campaign that sees South Africans from all walks of life drop everything they’re doing and tune into Ukhozi FM to find out what the song of the year is. This time around, they spent the first day of 2022 trying to find out who the artist behind the song of the year is.

According to the station, the Ukhozi FM song of the year for 2021 is a song called Isbani by an artist called DJ Hlo. The song received 214,966 votes overall.

Rassie Erasmus’ New Year’s message: ‘Forget 2019, focus 100% on 2023’

South African rugby’s director of rugby Rassie Erasmus saw in the new year with only one thing on his mind, it seems: defending the World Cup next year.

The social media-loving Erasmus, who is currently serving a ban by World Rugby for a video he made criticising the match officials in the first Test between the Springboks and British and Irish Lions last July, put out two tweets in the early hours of 1 January 2022, showing just how focused the director of rugby is on winning the world title again next year.

Eramsus initially said on twitter: “I know!! Don’t tweet after 24h00!! Happy new year to all out there!! Not my words but I do believe in it, ‘If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.’ I hope we smash 2022 together.”

Erasmus followed up that tweet with another, focusing on the defence of the World Cup title. In it he says South Africans should now forget about 2019 and focus fully on 2023.

Dlamini-Zuma gazettes changes to level 1 lockdown regulations

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has gazetted amendments to Adjusted Alert Level 1 lockdown regulations from midnight on 31 December.

Changes to Covid-19 regulations were approved at a special Cabinet meeting on Thursday, when Ramaphosa confirmed curfew would be lifted.

He said all indicators suggest South Africa passed the peak of the fourth wave.