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This past weekend was plagued with fire, gale force winds and the biggest upset in Cape Town Cycle Tour history. Here’s a round-up of news you know or may have missed over the past couple of days.

Cape Town Cycle Tour Cancelled

Everything was rooting against the Cape Town Cycle Tour this year. The Hout Bay fire that blazed since Saturday, the threat of protest action in the area and the biggest factor – gale force winds. After lots of contemplation, including the safety of the 3 500 participants from across the globe, the organisers of the Cycle Tour decided to cancel the event as the extreme weather conditions were too dangerous to ride in.

Hout Bay Fire

The fire that raged through Imizamo Yethu informal settlement in Hout Bay was devastating. It started right after midnight on Saturday morning and, according to News24, 15 000 people were affected with 3 500 homes destroyed and two people left dead. The City’s Disaster Management department set up an emergency shelter for those who were displaced and, in a show of good will, all the food and drink from the Cycle Tour was donated to the Hout Bay fire victims.

rAge Cape Town Cancelled

The Cycle Tour wasn’t the only thing that got called off this weekend. Organiser of the rAge expo announced that the Cape Town leg of the event is also cancelled due to financial and logistical reasons. The video, gaming, tech and computer exhibition was meant to take place from 27 to 29 April 2017.  According to Gearburn, rAge owner and project manager Michael James said they wanted to make the event bigger but there was not enough commitment and financial support to make this happen.

Backlash over ‘nice smelling domestic worker’ ad

A family based in Plumstead posted an ad on classified site Gumtree asking for a domestic worker to be clean, smell good and bath daily, twice if necessary. The pay for the position was also well below the minimum wage – R2 000 a month to work seven days a week. The current minimum wage is R12/hour, roughly calculating to R3 400 a month for seven days. In an article posted on News24, Abubkar Allie, the husband of the woman who had posted the ad, defended it but many people took issue with the low pay and the requirement to smell good. The ad has since been removed as the position has been filled but you can see a screengrab below:

Heart-attack gene discovered

With all that bad news, let’s end things off on a good note. A team of researchers at The University of Cape Town have discovered that a mutation in the gene CDH2 causes a genetic disorder called arrhythmogenic right ventricle cardiomyopathy (ARVC)‚ which increases the risk of heart disease and cardiac arrest. The gene was discovered by Maryam Fish‚ Gasnat Shaboodien and Sarah Kraus in collaboration with researchers from Italy. Essentially, what the researchers discovered is the cause of sudden heart attacks, particularly in young people and athletes. This breakthrough comes fifty years after Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first successful heart transplant right here in the Cape.

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