South Africa

Credit: https://www.zapiro.com/241217dm

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/post/1962641

South African rescuers have so far pulled 78 bodies and rescued 166 people from the Stilfontein gold mine over three days of operations, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe told reporters at the scene on Wednesday.

Imagine this: a young girl is shipwrecked along South Africa's Wild Coast in the 1730s.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22055020

Wanna guess where?

Water storage levels throughout Gauteng Province have significantly declined due to excessive water withdrawals by municipalities, raising serious concerns. Rand Water has repeatedly warned municipalities in Gauteng about this potential crisis. We have communicated through letters, held meetings with many municipalities, and engaged in discussions at Gauteng's Intergovernmental Governance Forum and the Gauteng Water Imbizo. Unfortunately, the crisis we sought to prevent has now materialised. The water supply systems in Gauteng, including Rand Water reservoirs, are critically low, and the situation is anticipated to worsen with the ongoing heat wave.

Rand Water would like to alert communities, particularly in Gauteng, that water storage could soon be depleted f municipalities do not implement our recommendations. It is essential to act now to prevent the impending disaster. Rand Water emphasises that it is operating at full capacity and cannot pump additional water into the

system. Due to the limitations imposed by the organisation's extraction license from the Department of Water

and Sanitation, Rand Water cannot extract more water from existing sources. The only viable solution to

address this issue is through Water Conservation and Demand Management.

In light of this, Rand Water has advised municipalities to reduce the physical losses of 33% identified in the No Drop report, repair leaks, enforce by-laws, and address illegal connections. Additionally, Rand Water reminds consumers that the organisation is a bulk water supplier; therefore, any water shortages should be reported to the respective municipalities, as the organisation (Rand Water) is not responsible for water

distribution within municipalities. Consequently, inquiries regarding water interruptions should not be directed

to Rand Water. Rand Water is left with no option but take steps to protect its system from total collapse.

For media inquiries, please contact:

• Justice Mohale (Media Relations Manager) at 083 417 6999 jmohale @randwater.co.za

"The EFF has been dealt yet another blow with its deputy president and founding member, Floyd Shivambu, resigning from the party. He will be joining former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe party but did not reveal which position he will be occupying."

"In his journey across the heartlands of the Karoo, Wandile Sihlobo meets with some of the black farmers who are still waiting for title deeds on land currently owned by the state. And he laments the condition of failing municipal infrastructure that he encounters along the way."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18506062

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22593543

While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed rollout of solar and wind power, China is going all in on renewables.

New figures show the pace of its clean energy transition is roughly the equivalent of installing five large-scale nuclear power plants worth of renewables every week.

A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early.

It's installing at least 10 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity every fortnight.

By comparison, experts have said the Coalition's plan to build seven nuclear power plants would add fewer than 10GW of generation capacity to the grid sometime after 2035.

Energy experts are looking to China, the world's largest emitter, once seen as a climate villain, for lessons on how to go green, fast.

"We've seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy]," CEF director Tim Buckley said.

"China's response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17393699

Do you guys like UFC?

A shocking new video has emerged of a Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament Renaldo Gouws appearing to spew hate speech.

edit: Holy shit... Lemmy needs to fix their mark-up when it comes to titles - it almost literally looked like it was actively trying to spell out the k-word.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/20782191

A case of rabies has been confirmed in a pet dog residing in the Capri area of the Southern Peninsula in Cape Town. The dog exhibited symptoms such as fever and increased aggression. Both the infected dog and a younger dog from the same household, which was injured, were humanely euthanized. The source of the infection is currently unclear, none of the dogs in the household had a recent travel history outside the province. Rabies is not endemic in wild animals in the City of Cape Town, with the closest wildlife cases in the past reported in the Paarl area. Recent investigations into reports of seals exhibiting aggressive behavior in the City found no evidence of rabies infection in seals.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/19484761