Only in Effrika

Nice place if it wasn't for some of the locals
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Re: Only in Effrika

#181 Post by Boac » Thu Jan 19, 2023 8:42 am

"Close up, 4" =))

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Re: Only in Effrika

#182 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:24 pm

Boac wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 8:42 am
"Close up, 4" =))
One must admire a perfectionist! :) ;)))

But back to the modern day reality on the ground in SA, where almost 90% of the SAAF 's fleet of aircraft have been grounded due to lack of maintenance, and where the country is literally grinding to a juddering halt due to lack of power, as a result of the careless kleptocracy, corruption, deliberate sabotage, incompetency and imbecility of those in power!
In the past two years, Eskom has been forced to rely increasingly on the open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) — which were intended only for dire emergencies or use during peak demand periods — because of a steadily increasing number of breakdowns within its ageing coal-fired power fleet.

In the past few months, the OCGTs have become essential in the face of the loss of 4,500MW of generation capacity due to problems at Medupi and Kusile, Eskom’s two newest coal-fired power plants, and a life-extension refurbishment at Koeberg, its nuclear power station.

Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer says this combined outage equates to about five stages of load shedding.

Kusile Units 1, 2, 3 and 5 — which account for nearly 3,000MW of the amount — will be unavailable until the end of this year, he told EE Business Intelligence. The complex life extension of Units 1 and 2 at Koeberg will only be complete by March 2024, if all goes well. Medupi Unit 4 is only scheduled for return-to-service by September 2024 following a hydrogen explosion in August 2021.

When you add this large, combined outage to the country’s existing power generation gap of 4,000 to 6,000MW declared by Eskom more than three years ago — which has still not been addressed — it is clear that South Africa is teetering on the edge of an electricity emergency.

The diesel emergency
Eskom’s management team drew the ire of government in November 2022 when it declared that the utility had run out of diesel and could not afford to buy more, having spent roughly double the R6-billion diesel budget for the financial year ending 31 March 2023.

When no further funds from Treasury materialised, Eskom chief financial officer Calib Cassim managed to scrape together R1.5-billion intended for other purposes from his budget for the remainder of the year, to immediately buy 50 million litres of diesel from PetroSA.

That provided enough diesel to keep the OCGTs running as needed through December 2022. As the fuel ran out, Cassim came up with yet another R1.5-billion from Eskom’s coffers for a further 50.4-million litres of diesel.

According to Oberholzer, this should last until the end of January 2023. “From an operational point of view, I can tell you we need diesel,” he told EE Business Intelligence. “We need at least — and this is based on certain assumptions — an additional 200 million litres of diesel to take us towards the end of March 2023. It may be less and it may be even more, it all depends on what’s going to happen in respect of unplanned breakdowns. This is the best assumption we have, based on the outlook ahead”, he said.

Cassim says that this would cost Eskom another R6-billion. When added to the eleventh hour R3-billion which he has just coughed up, and the previous diesel spend of about R12-billion, the utility’s diesel spend for the full financial year 2022/23 will amount to about R21-billion. This is much more than double that of the 2021/2022 financial year, when Eskom spent R8-billion on diesel.

It is easy to see that government is very upset by the financial and political consequences, as finance minister Enoch Godongwana declared in Davos on 16 January 2023 that, “I don’t think Eskom has a diesel problem, I think it has a management problem.”

The Cost of Load Shedding
But despite the prohibitive cost of diesel, there is widespread consensus that the burden of severe load shedding on the economy is much higher.

Estimates vary widely. However, based on 11,797GWh (gigawatt hours) of unserved electricity in the 2022 calendar year calculated from load shedding data from EskomSePush, and a very low assumption of R10/kWh for unserved energy suggested by Eskom, the total cost to the economy during the year would have been R115-billion.

This very conservative estimate does not account for the longer-term impacts of lost opportunities caused by extended load shedding on business, industry, agriculture and investment generally — and the money spent by households, business and industry on backup power systems.

Taking this into account, the cost of unserved electricity is likely to be much higher. At R50/kWh or even R85/kWh (if a study by the CSIR is anything to go by), the cost to the economy in 2022 would be more like R590-billion or R1-trillion respectively.

Rising OCGT usage
The worst-case scenarios began to rear their head when Eskom was forced to implement Stage 6 load shedding on 11 January 2023 after 11 generation units unexpectedly broke down, taking the total amount of generation capacity offline to more than half of its installed capacity of about 46,000MW.

The load factor for Eskom’s OCGTs shot up to 48% at that time — meaning they were running flat out for about 12 hours of the day — and this is what enabled South Africa to avert crippling Stage 8 load shedding for the first time.

There are growing suggestions within the African National Congress that Eskom is deliberately implementing load shedding to scupper the ruling party’s chances in the 2024 national election. This is reinforced by utterances from minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe, who has claimed that Eskom is allowing more than 20,000MW of installed generation capacity to “stand idle”.

In reality, Eskom’s system operator implements load shedding to balance supply and demand on the grid, to avert a national blackout. The risk of this catastrophe is still seen as slim — provided that Eskom has enough diesel for the OCGTs, as well as other emergency levers at the disposal of the system operator.

Eskom’s own OCGT power plants — Ankerlig and Gourikwa — can generate up to 2,067MW of power, which mitigates two stages of load shedding. There are also two further OCGT power plants — Dedisa and Avon — owned and operated by independent power producers (IPPs), which can generate 1,005MW to avert a further one stage of load shedding. The IPP OCGTs are not part of Eskom’s diesel headache as they buy their own fuel.

A look at the load factor trend for Eskom’s OCGT usage over the past year tells the whole story. In financial year 2021/2022 it averaged 7%, and in the year to date it stands at 14%, according to Cassim. This compares with an OCGT usage load factor of just 6% factored into Eskom’s latest electricity tariff approved by Nersa for the 2023/24 financial year starting 1 April 2023.

The diesel outlook
Now, once again, Eskom is peering into an abyss. Its second batch of diesel is expected to run out at the end of January 2023, and the Eskom board is looking at ways of coming up with the cash to keep the OCGTs running until the start of the new financial year on 1 April 2023.

“We now need to find cash somewhere, and as soon as possible. We have been given some actions that we are actively and urgently pursuing to see how we can obtain money to deal with this challenge of not being able to run the OCGTs”, Oberholzer said.

But none of the options on the table look like quick fixes. One option would be to receive some of the arrear debt of more than R50-billion which Eskom is currently owed by municipalities. Another would be the receipt of a hefty diesel tax rebate claimed from the South African Revenue Service (SARS), which Eskom’s financials show as just over R3-billion for the year ending 31 March 2022.

In terms of an amendment to Section 75 of the Customs and Excise Act, from 3 August 2022 Eskom is allowed Fuel and Road Accident Fund levy rebates totalling R4.04/litre of diesel used for power generation. From estimates of diesel fuel burned in Eskom’s OCGTs, this R3-billion could therefore easily have risen very substantially.

However, the diesel fuel rebates anticipated by Eskom have been disputed by SARS for more than a year, and the clock is ticking.

Oberholzer maintains that Eskom has no problems in sourcing diesel, although it is largely all imported, and South Africa has no official strategic reserves.
The country as a whole uses between 12- to 14-billion litres of diesel a year, and at a load factor of 15%, the diesel used by the OCGTs operated by both Eskom and the IPPs would amount to about 1.13-billion litres — less than 10% of the total. DM
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01 ... for-diesel

I prophecy that the SA power grid will collapse early next winter if not before.
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Re: Only in Effrika

#183 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:27 pm



As useless as a concrete parachute! =))

A great rant.
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Re: Only in Effrika

#184 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:31 am

Good one TGA.

The President opened the new terminal at MUB here on Friday. The Minster for Transport said that we should look after it and not vandalise it. For goodness sake. They are not into that sort of thing here. We can't even think of any graffiti here. Also full time security. Although some years ago someone stole all the seats out of an aircraft on the apron. People are sitting in reclinable seats in mud huts around here. :YMPARTY:
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Re: Only in Effrika

#185 Post by Woody » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:06 am

Chinese fortune cookie says “ your railways are f****d”

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/trans ... ars-2023-1
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Re: Only in Effrika

#186 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:22 am

Woody wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:06 am
Chinese fortune cookie says “ your railways are f****d”

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/trans ... ars-2023-1
Yet another reason how South Africa is being destroyed by the ANC....
The ANC-led eThekwini Municipality wasted R500,000 in 40 minutes after ‘sabotaging’ a special council meeting it had called to elect a new deputy mayor on Thursday.


The planned election of a deputy mayor was scuppered after ANC councillors, along with their unofficial coalition partner, the EFF, and city manager Musa Mbhele failed to arrive at the venue inside the Durban International Convention Centre on Thursday morning.

These members started trickling in for lunch after the meeting collapsed for lack of quorum.

The cost of hosting the special forum has been pegged at R500,000 by opposition councillors who discussed the no-show at the venue. The amount included hiring the venue, additional deployment of the Durban Metro Police, private security, partial road closures, meals for 222 councillors, visiting Amakhosi, the media, guests, those in the public gallery and City officials. Other costs included audio-visual services and live streaming the event.

The city speaker, ANC member Thabani Nyawose, was present, and sat alone on the stage.

Read in Daily Maverick: “In blow to Ramaphosa, fraud-accused Zandile Gumede prevails in ANC’s eThekwini conference vote”

He claimed that he had no idea why his own party was not present. When cornered by angry opposition party members, who at some point called him “a coward”, he failed to give any assurance that he would act against the errant councillors.

“Why the ANC is not here I don’t know. What I have been told, they are at the exhibition centre (based across the road from the ICC) having caucus. When I phoned the EFF whip, they told us the same thing,” said Nyawose.

“I called some councillors but they did not respond or take my call. I have no other explanation except what I have been told by whips.”

During the fracas that ensued, opposition councillors accused the ANC of “sabotaging” the meeting.

‘Insult’
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi told those present that the wasteful expenditure was a direct insult to city residents.

“You call us to a meeting but your own party is not in a meeting and neither is the city manager. You and the ANC have plotted to make sure this meeting does not continue. It cost R,500.000 to host this meeting. What are you going to say to the city residents?”

Another councillor said the fact that mayor Mxolisi Kaunda was not present showed his lack of respect for the city. “If the mayor cannot respect us and be here, I see no future to be here,” the councillor was heard saying.

On Wednesday morning, the municipality released a media advisory that the special election would take place on Thursday. The election has been in the pipeline since December 2022 when the ANC, which leads a minority city government, removed deputy mayor Philani Mavundla, leader of the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), and various smaller parties who provided the ANC with the 16 seats it required for a majority.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Beware: Two Zuma men are now in charge of eThekwini”

Mavundla was also removed as chairperson of the powerful human settlements and infrastructure committee.

It has been alleged that the ANC wanted a more pliable deputy mayor and committee chairperson and would elect such a person with the help of the EFF and some smaller parties.

DA leader in the city, Thabani Mthethwa, tried unsuccessfully to get Nyawose to commit to “what he would do” about the errant councillors.

“It is clear that the undertaking we need from you is that you’re going to conduct necessary investigation against those councillors. Your office has incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure. We want you to commit to taking action against these councillors,” said Mthethwa.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... s-no-show/
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Re: Only in Effrika

#187 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:15 am

TheGreenAnger wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:24 pm

I prophecy that the SA power grid will collapse early next winter if not before.
SA’s load shedding crisis, which has been in existence for more than a decade, could soon be declared a National State of Disaster, President Cyril Ramaphosa suggested on Monday night.

At present, 2023 is set to be worse than 2022 in terms of rolling blackouts. Experts have warned that the recovery of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations cannot be achieved in the short term and it will take at least two years to improve the energy availability factor (EAF) from the current 58% to 70%.

The crisis is so dire that Eskom considered implementing permanent Stage 2 and Stage 3 rolling blackouts to give the public more predictability, a statement it has since backtracked on.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Eskom quickly backpedals on statement on permanent load shedding for two years, hints at ‘good performance’ incentives for staff”

Closing the ANC’s four-day lekgotla at Esselen Park in Ekurhuleni, Ramaphosa said the issue of possibly declaring the energy emergency a National State of Disaster was receiving urgent attention.

Calls for the crisis to be declared a National State of Disaster were made by a number of roleplayers, including traditional leaders, community-based organisations and trade unions. The call was further aired at the party’s lekgotla held over the weekend.

“It was observed that it would be necessary to have a National State of Disaster because that would enable us to have the instruments that would be necessary to fully address the challenge that our nation faces,” Ramaphosa said.

“Work is already under way within the government to establish whether the legal requirements for the declaration of a National State of Disaster are met and what specific actions we would be empowered to undertake to urgently resolve load shedding within the framework of a National State of Disaster,” he said, as those in attendance cheered in agreement.

Ramaphosa’s remarks came after the party received presentations from representatives who shared the devastating impact of rolling blackouts on communities, small businesses and the farming sector.

“The lekgotla agreed that energy security is very central to our country’s national interest, our country’s national sovereignty and national security. Without energy security, we will not be able to achieve our other developmental priorities such as building a transformed, inclusive, growing and job-creating economy,” Ramaphosa said.

The remarks came after several politicians and businesspeople instructed a legal team from seven law firms to demand that the government stop cutting SA’s power. The group also wants fair compensation for the damage caused by rolling blackouts and for the government to play open cards about South Africa’s energy crisis.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, John Steenhuisen, announced that he had instructed lawyers to immediately apply to the high court for an interdict to stop the tariff increase and Stage 6 rolling blackouts amid the government’s poor response to “the biggest crisis our country has faced in three decades of our democracy”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Eskom’s rolling blackouts — 26 years of ANC meddling, manipulation and vested interests

He said the time “for writing letters and for government talk shops” and for “begging” was over — “it’s now time to take this government head-on”.

The lekgotla took place ahead of an expected Cabinet reshuffle.

On Tuesday, the office of the ANC’s secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, is expected to brief members of the media at its headquarters, Luthuli House, on the outcomes of the lekgotla. - Daily Maverick
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Israeli Gangsters -1

#188 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Feb 05, 2023 12:08 pm

Lawless South Africa now a staging post for both Islamic terrorists and Israeli gangsters amongst many other international criminal groups including the Sicilian Mafia...
A global web of crime is linked to a group of Israeli mobsters and suspects, some who based themselves in South Africa, ensnaring this country in a decades-old network of violence involving drug trafficking, extortion and bombs used on rivals in gang wars.

Over the years, though there have been some arrests and incidents in South Africa hinting at organised crime links to Israel, a broader picture has not emerged publicly.

DM168 can now reveal just how tightly enmeshed South Africa is in globally powerful Israeli syndicates.

The boss of a notorious Israeli crime family – the Abergil Organisation – was apparently in South Africa about two decades ago, suggesting the syndicate has had ties to this country since back then.

Others linked to it may still be in South Africa.

Case 512
According to a state witness in what is possibly the biggest organised-crime investigation in Israel’s history, known as Case 512, one of that country’s most wanted former fugitives, Yaniv Yossi Ben Simon, allegedly travelled from his base in South Africa to Israel several years ago to help enforce violence against opponents there.

Simon, who is accused of being involved in the Abergil Organisation, is yet to go on trial in connection with such accusations. Along with seven others, he was arrested in Bryanston, Johannesburg, in November last year.

Simon had apparently been living in South Africa since 2007 and became a wanted ­suspect in 2015, the same year an indictment that forms the core of Case 512 was filed in Israel.

He is implicated in Case 512, which is continuing in that arrests linked to it are still being carried out.

Assault rifles, dollars and drones
During Simon’s arrest in South Africa, a substance thought to be cocaine, firearms including assault rifles, $40,000, drones fitted with cameras, frequency jamming devices, suspected stolen motorbikes and a bakkie with a built-in soundproof compartment were discovered.

In December, national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Fannie Masemola said those seized items “give us an indication that we have broken the back of a syndicate that is most likely linked to criminal underworld activities”.

Other sources in South African policing circles said the items pointed to a syndicate geared to carry out hits. They questioned why it took so long to arrest Simon.

These sources also questioned, more broadly, whether there were dubious links, cultivated during the State Capture years, which coincided with Jacob Zuma’s presidency, between local intelligence operatives and Israeli criminals.

The Man from the South
Simon and his co-accused are expected back in a Gauteng court towards the end of February, and he faces extradition to Israel.

The media was barred from a previous court appearance as part of strict security measures.

Simon is allegedly a close associate of Itzhak Abergil, head of the Abergil Organisation. Abergil was criminally charged in the US in 2008 and in 2012 pleaded guilty to charges including murder, conspiracy to commit extortion and drug importation.

According to a US indictment, he was also known as “the Man from the South” and “the Big Friend”.

A statement on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation website said Abergil “used the power and influence of the Abergil family to conduct criminal activities in Israel and around the world”.

He was later sent from the US back to Israel to serve prison time there. Last year, he was sentenced to another 15 years in jail for murder and drug trafficking.

A man who murders’
Details of Israel’s case against Abergil and several others, and their alleged links to South Africa, are contained in a lengthy 2021 court judgment linked to Case 512. For ease of reference, it will be referred to here as the Case 512 judgment.

It includes input from a state witness who recalled an alleged conversation with an associate (it was not clear when it happened) that suggested links between Abergil, Simon and South Africa.

“After an hour and a half or two hours, Yitzhak [presumably Abergil] arrives with a guy named Yaniv – Yaniv Ben Simon,” the witness had claimed.

“So, at that time, I know that they brought him too from South Africa … Yaniv is known as a man who murders. Murder, they brought him especially for Yitzhak to help him in the war.”

It appeared that “the war” was a reference to a battle the Abergil Organisation was having with rivals.

SA and the global web
DM168 can also reveal that: Another witness referred to in the Case 512 judgment claimed that Abergil once told him that Simon was “like a brother to him, and that they were together in South Africa”. The judgment also said Abergil was previously in South Africa and had medical treatment for an ear issue. Backing this is a report in an Israeli news publication that he had travelled to South Africa in 2002 to have ear surgery.

Israeli authorities, based on the judgment, had previously flagged South Africa as one of the countries through which “large quantities of drugs” were being pushed.

The Abergil Organisation was linked to countries including the US, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Morocco, Japan, Australia and Canada. This all points to South Africa being part of the Abergil Organisation’s global operations.


In terms of Simon, aside from firearm and drug charges stemming from this country, the South African Police Service (SAPS) said he faced attempted murder charges in Israel relating to two bomb blasts carried out there in 2003 and 2004.

The Case 512 judgment explained that around that time there had been plans to assassinate Zeev Rosenstein, a crime boss and rival of the Abergil Organisation.

It said in 2003 an explosive device was planted near Rosenstein’s office in Tel Aviv. It was detonated via remote control and several people were wounded in the explosion.

Among them was Rosenstein, who, according to some Israeli publications, became known as “the wolf with seven lives” because he had survived that many assassination attempts.

The Case 512 judgment said Abergil had masterminded the bomb plot, whereas Simon had allegedly been “in charge of carrying out the plan” and possibly activated the remote control that set off the explosives.

Abergil was convicted in a bombing case in 2021. The same year, Rosenstein was released from jail in Israel following 17 years in prison for drug trafficking.

Cocaine on planes
Other sections of the Case 512 judgment referred to an individual named Zion Alon, who was allegedly linked to Abergil Organisation suspects and had a home in South Africa.

A man with the same name is reportedly the father of one Shai Alon. Again, this links to South Africa.

In April 2021, an Israeli government statement announced that Shai Alon, who had left for South Africa back in 2018, was arrested here as part of an investigation involving cocaine being smuggled from Johannesburg to Israel on planes.

The cocaine was concealed in passengers’ carry-on luggage.

Shai Alon’s arrest, the statement said, was owing to long-term cooperation between South African and Israeli authorities.

Though it was not immediately clear what had since happened to Shai Alon, in July last year another accused in the case, Rami Yogev, who had worked as security for Israel’s national airline, El Al, was reportedly sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Assassinations and ‘diamond Champagne’
Suspicions have previously surfaced that certain organised crime suspects in Johannesburg and Cape Town, who may have dodgy police or state security officers backing them, have partnered – or in some cases clashed – with Israeli counterparts over lucrative drug trafficking deals.

After the assassination of Marc Batchelor, a former South African soccer striker who had underworld links, in Johannesburg in July 2019, some reports suggested that relations between him and an Israeli businessman had soured over a debt collection issue.

Meanwhile, there were also suggestions that Israeli suspects had been involved in extortion-style crimes targeting individuals from South Africa and vice versa.

In early 2018, South African policeman Charl Kinnear testified in a court case against Cape Town suspect Nafiz Modack and others that Modack had extorted R200,000 from two Israeli businessmen selling Champagne containing diamonds destined for city clubs.

Modack was acquitted in that extortion case, but he is now an accused in a murder case relating to Kinnear’s assassination in Cape Town in September 2020.

Extortion
In a more recent extortion case, Yossi Mosley, who was based in South Africa and arrested while visiting his home country of Israel in August last year, was indicted there the following month for allegedly trying to force businessmen to be his work partners.

He did so from South Africa.

DM168 has seen the indictment, which accuses him of extortion and harassment – and of having a reputation of being associated with organised crime.

Mosley reportedly entered into a plea agreement in the matter and in December was sentenced to 11 months in jail in Israel. DM168
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Sicilian Mafia - 2

#189 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Feb 05, 2023 12:11 pm

From Sicily to South Africa – the tangled Mafia web
The arrest of Mafia don Matteo Denaro, who had been on the run for about three decades, raises old Cosa Nostra suspicions in this country.

About two decades before Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano’s 2016 death in an Italian hospital, there were sus­picions stemming from some South African police about who would fill his role as top mobster.

A South African Police Service (SAPS) document from 1997 claimed that a man named Vito Palazzolo, who was in the country at the time, had basically taken over from Provenzano, whose health had taken a knock, and that Palazzolo was viewed as “The Godfather” of the Sicilian Mafia, Cosa Nostra.

V for vendetta (and Vito)
For his part, Palazzolo has never been convicted of anything in South Africa and has always denied criminal involvement.

His stance towards claims against him can be neatly summed up in two sentences from a 2010 Western Cape High Court judgment relating to Italy wanting him sent back there.

These say: “Ever since [Palazzolo’s] arrival in South Africa on 26 December 1986, his relationship with the South African authorities has been troubled.

“In fact, he maintains that, probably because of his undeserved reputation as an influential member of the Italian Mafia, the South African government has for many years waged a vendetta against him.”

Meanwhile, in terms of Cosa Nostra hierarchy, it appears that Matteo Messina Denaro was ultimately the successor to the Mafia group’s throne.

Detaining the Don
On 16 January, police in Italy announced a massive breakthrough – they had arrested Denaro, who was one of their most wanted targets and had been on the run for about three decades.

By that point, Denaro had already been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, in absentia, in connection with a string of crimes, including the 1992 assassinations of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

Explosives were used to eliminate them, in separate incidents, while they were travelling in cars.

(Back in 1985, Falcone issued an arrest warrant for Palazzolo, who that year was sentenced to three years in jail in Switzerland – he later headed to South Africa – relating to his control of bank accounts linked to heroin sales.)

With Denaro in custody, questions have arisen about what will now happen to Cosa Nostra.

The long arm of Italian law enforcement that caught Denaro has also dredged up decades-old suspicions (which some former cops will undoubtedly insist are factual) of Cosa Nostra activities in South Africa.

A chapter of the book Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the Global Drug Kingpins Stalking South Africa details several suspicions about Cosa Nostra and how it was believed that a few decades ago harsher police action in Italy saw mafiosos fleeing to other countries.

‘Cosa Nostra in SA’
In the 1990s, some police officers in South Africa suspected that several Cosa Nostra members had set up shop in this country and had local thugs, some of them based in Cape Town, acting as their foot soldiers.

According to the 1997 SAPS document that named Palazzolo as a suspect, other alleged mafiosos who “form[ed] the nucleus of Cosa Nostra in South Africa” included Mariano Troia, who was arrested in Palermo in 1998. (Troia died in 2010.)

Another was Giovanni Bonomo, who was arrested at an airport in Italy in 2003. (He also apparently died in 2010.)

Among the local figures with suspected Mafia links was nightclub security boss and rumoured intelligence agent Cyril Beeka. (He was assassinated in Cape Town in 2011.)

Mafia henchmen
In the 1990s, Beeka ran a company called Pro Security, which some cop investigators said was simply a guise for an extortion racket and a front to mask the activities of apartheid-era cops.

The SAPS document said Pro Security “consists of one hundred and twenty members comprising … South Africans, Moroccans, Russians, German's and French…

“Beeka, together with his staff at Pro Security, [fulfil] the role of soldiers for the criminal organisation Cosa Nostra.”

It said the group was responsible for crimes including extortion, prostitution, drug distribution and firearm smuggling.

These crimes are still prevalent in South Africa.

State Capture and corruption
Deep suspicions of Mafia activities in South Africa back in the 1990s erupted into a national scandal involving elements of what is now known as State Capture.

South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, appointed a police officer at the time, Andre Lincoln, to investigate suspicions of high-level crime.

Court papers dated 2020, relating to legal issues Lincoln faced, later stated: “During 1996, Lincoln received information relating to Mr Vito Palazzolo, allegedly a highly placed member of the Italian Mafia, who was resident in Cape Town.

“It suggested the existence of mutually beneficial and corrupt relationships between him and a high-ranking officer in the SAPS, and also a Minister in the National Cabinet.”

Lincoln and a team investigated links between corrupt colleagues, South African politicians and top-tier international crooks – suspected mafiosos included.

But Lincoln was instead accused of crimes, forced out of the cop service and later, after much legal wrangling to try to prove his innocence, reinstated.

Lincoln’s take on the situation was that fellow apartheid-era cops effectively set him up to thwart investigations he was conducting and that were leading back to the state.

Travel in Thailand and jail in Italy
Fast-forward to 2009.

Palazzolo, who also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, was still based in South Africa and sentenced in Italy, in absentia, to nine years in jail relating to Mafia association.

His birth country wanted him extradited.

In 2012, Palazzolo was arrested while he was travelling in Thailand, and the following year he was sent to Italy to serve the jail sentence he faced.

A few years later, in 2018, Palazzolo was reclassified in Italy from “Mafia” to a “common” individual and in 2019 he was released from custody.

Red flags
In October 2021, DM168 revealed how Palazzolo, after his release from jail in Italy, had visited South Africa.

But he had problems, apparently because his South African passport was red-flagged.

Palazzolo said his travels were made difficult because the Department of Home Affairs deemed him a known fugitive from justice and had declared him a “prohibited person” (someone who is indefinitely banned from entering South Africa).

But Home Affairs strangely told DM168 it had no record of Palazzolo, under the Von Palace Kolbatschenko name, applying for this status to be lifted, even though court documents suggest he did.

’Ndrangheta’s global grip’
While suspicions, assassinations and arrests relating to Cosa Nostra have unfolded over the years, another Mafia group stemming from Italy may have crept closer to, and into, South Africa.

The Calabria-based ’Ndrangheta is said to be a bigger threat than Cosa Nostra.

DM168 understands the ’Ndrangheta may work with another of the world’s most powerful criminal gangs, Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital, or First Capital Command, to smuggle mass drug consignments via ports including Durban Harbour.

“The ’Ndrangheta is one of the most extensive and powerful criminal organisations in the world…” according to international police organisation Interpol.

“It has expanded around the world and continues to grow at a steady rate. Today, the ’Ndrangheta is considered the only Italian Mafia organisation present on every world continent.” DM168
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Re: Only in Effrika

#190 Post by TheGreenAnger » Mon Feb 06, 2023 10:31 am

The ignominy of being a South African these days.
If indeed Russia launches a massive new attack and another attempted invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇦. on 24 February 2023 - exactly at the time that South Africa joins Russia 🇷🇺 in joint naval exercises, the stink of ignominy will hang forever over the ANC and by extension us as South Africans.


The above is from Prof Raphael de Kadt, the eminent political scientist
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Re: Only in Effrika

#191 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Feb 07, 2023 1:43 pm

The ANC boneheads disgust me...

https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/s ... -and-china
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been offered opportunities to carry out naval exercises with the United States, but declined, and is instead proceeding with Exercise Mosi II with Russia and China later this month.

This emerged during a media briefing last week with Rear Admiral Chase Patrick, Director, Maritime Headquarters, US Naval Forces Europe-Africa, who spoke to the media about Exercise Obangame Express 2023, which has just concluded in Nigeria.

“We do invite South Africa to our exercises, and they’ve, as I recall, have declined to participate in those. We do have upcoming exercises, for example Cutlass Express, which is focused on some of our partner countries on the eastern side of Africa which I think would have been a really good place to involve South Africa, but they’re just – they’re not playing in that exercise this year,” Patrick said.

He added that “in terms of our relationship with South Africa, we’re always keen to build – to building and growing that relationship. We do make it a point to send our ship in port to that country anytime that we circumnavigate the continent. And in fact, we did have the Hershel ‘Woody’ Williams there just – I think just this past fall…and that’s not the first time we’ve done that. So any opportunity we get to actually exercise with our partners in South Africa, we do seek that.”

South Africa’s decision to host Exercise Mosi II with China and Russia between 17 and 27 February off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal coincides with the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, and this has drawn criticism from some quarters.

Kobus Marais, opposition Democratic Alliance party Shadow Minister of Defence and Military Affairs, has said the exercise “could further alienate SA from our largest and most important trading partners.”

He also criticised the SANDF’s decision not to allow media onto ships during the exercise, condemning the lack of transparency, and suggested the ANC government is ashamed of how it’s let the military and its capabilities go to waste.

The Russian Navy will be sending the frigate Admiral Gorshkov to South Africa and Russian news agency TASS last week reported that it will perform a training launch of a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic missile during Exercise Mosi II. An unidentified official said this would be the first-ever event of its kind, but the launch has not been officially confirmed.

The Zircon surface-to-surface hypersonic missile has a range of around 400-1 000 km at speeds of Mach 5, although a speed of Mach 8 has apparently been achieved in testing. The weapon was test-fired from the frigate Admiral Gorshkov from January 2020 and is expected to enter service this year, when it will arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines.

The upcoming Exercise Mosi II and January’s visit by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov have shone the spotlight on South Africa’s foreign policy, which maintains strong economic and political relations with the global north as well as the global south, but experts fear the shift to Russia, Cuba, and China could alienate the country’s biggest Western trading partners. South Africa has been reticent to criticise Russia openly for invading Ukraine. The country abstained during each vote criticising Russia at the United Nations. Some have read this as tacit support of Russia.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, paid a visit to his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor at the end of January for the 15th session of the SA-EU Ministerial Political Dialogue and said that, “We have always respected South Africa’s traditional non-aligned stance in foreign policy. The European Union doesn’t ask Africa to choose sides. We are just asking all the countries in the world to stand on the side of the United Nations Charter. Nothing more. But nothing less.” He also urged South Africa to use its close ties with Russia to push for peace in Ukraine.

Last month the Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans explained the decision to proceed with Mosi II. “The envisaged exercise will benefit all countries involved through interoperability of the naval systems, joint disaster systems management enhancement, maritime cooperation and anti-piracy exercises,” said Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Thandi Modise. In addition, Exercise Mosi II will serve as a platform for the three nations to share operational skills, expertise and experience, the Ministry added, with the exercise set to “benefit all three participating nations”.

The Ministry of Defence stated that, “contrary to the assertions by our critics, South Africa is not abandoning its neutral position on the Russian-Ukraine conflict. We remain firm in our view that multilateralism and dialogue are keys to unlock sustainable international peace. We continue to urge both parties to engage in dialogue as a solution to the current conflict.”

Pointing out its other defence diplomacy ties, the Ministry reported engagements with counterparts in recent months in the United Kingdom, the People’s Republic of China, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. “There was no hype about any of these countries, especially with regard to the USA wherein we held an even longer exercise, known as Exercise Shared Accord in KwaZulu-Natal last year regarding our military health capabilities.”

Defending Mosi II as business as usual, the Ministry said that the South African National Defence Force plans and budgets for military exercises with other nations across the globe, both at bilateral and multilateral levels, with Mosi II “no exception”.

“In addition, the biennial maritime Exercise Oxide between South Africa and France took place in November last year at the Simon’s Town Naval Base.”

This will be the second time Mosi will be taking place with the first one held in November 2019 in Cape Town. Exercise Mosi II will see over 350 SANDF personnel from various arms of services and divisions participating alongside their Russian and Chinese counterparts.
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Moral Disgrace - Part1

#192 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:00 am

A non-profit coalition of about 30 organisations has called on South African authorities to refuse re-entry to the Kremlin’s Antarctic mineral ‘explorer’ — a regular visitor in Table Bay. Meanwhile, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, who was in Antarctica on Monday, has told Our Burning Planet that Russian state vessels should not berth anywhere near Table Mountain.
The Akademik Alexander Karpinsky — a Russian seismic ship equipped with powerful airguns that could harm marine life — has left Cape Town, ostensibly to look for fossil fuels in the seabed below the climate-stressed Southern Ocean.

Now, a fired-up non-profit coalition representing 29 groups has sent a letter of demand to national and Western Cape authorities. They say they will not let the ship, due back in Table Bay within weeks, off the hook for its loud seismic blasts and ocean-based surveys that resemble the early stages of prospecting.

The 1959 Antarctic Treaty — to which Russia and South Africa are two of 12 founding signatories — allows scientific research. But it forbids traditional mineral resource activities, such as prospecting, which the Karpinsky seems to have conducted via Cape Town almost every year since a 1998 mining ban in the Antarctic came into force.

Numerous peaceful protests by Extinction Rebellion (XR), Greenpeace volunteers and other non-profit groups were held in Cape Town on 28 January to “unwelcome” the Kremlin-owned ship.

Owned by the Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition (PMGE), a subsidiary of the Kremlin’s state mineral explorer, Rosgeo, the ship had sailed from St Petersburg to Cape Town as part of an annual voyage that takes her to the stark, treacherous Southern Ocean.

The Karpinsky was in the port city’s larger container dock for several days, as protesters at the popular Waterfront and harbour areas chanted, “Hands off Antarctica!”

At about 9.30am on 1 February, the Karpinsky slipped out of town, heading, oddly, towards Tallinn, the Estonian capital. Minutes later, her navigation system seemed to correct itself.

Next stop, Antarctica — Earth’s last unmined frontier. Here, another season of murky seismic investigations may now help Rosgeo — Russia’s largest geological minerals, oil and gas explorer — build long-term inventories of the Far South’s potential resource wealth.

At the Earth’s opposite northern ends, in the Russian Arctic, Rosgeo’s PMGE subsidiary has legally explored for minerals. The subsidiary also has a licence under the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority to prospect and explore a central Atlantic block for polymetallic sulphides. Thus, its decades-long Antarctic interests through Cape Town should not be surprising — yet these were only first exposed by a series of Our Burning Planet articles between 2021 and 2023.

As reported, the subsidiary’s multiple Russian-published reports have repeatedly declared that these Antarctic missions are aimed at investigating the Southern Ocean’s “mineral potential”.

In its December-published annual scientific report, the subsidiary goes on to note its seasonal goals are “decreed” by the Kremlin and include “the creation of an information base for the assessment and scientific forecast of the mineral raw-material potential of the Antarctic”.

It is exactly this type of activity that an abandoned 1988 Antarctic mining pact defines as “prospecting”. Setting some legal precedent by featuring signatures of 20 Antarctic Treaty states — including Russia and South Africa — the pact understands prospecting as an activity “aimed at identifying areas of mineral resource potential for possible exploration and development”.

In February 2020, Rosgeo issued a statement near the foothills of Table Mountain, laced with the language of commerce uncannily like the mining pact’s prospecting definition. Though it did not not offer recoverability estimates, the announcement said the Karpinsky had hunted down a staggering 500 billion barrels of oil and gas in the Antarctic seabed.

The protesting groups told Our Burning Planet it was hardly Rosgeo’s Cape Town-issued statement alone that sparked the protests.

The subsidiary has previously declared in Russian-language documents that the “nature” of these seismic surveys — which have searched more than 100,000km of sensitive Southern Ocean seabed for hydrocarbons — is geopolitical rather than scientific, and might ultimately lead to future extraction.

“The works of the PMGE aimed at studying the geological structure and mineral resources of the Antarctic are of a geopolitical nature. They ensure guarantees of Russia’s full participation in any form of possible future development of the Antarctic mineral resources — from designing the mechanisms for regulating such activities up to their direct implementation,” the subsidiary reveals in its 55th anniversary report, published in 2017.

And in this 2015 report, the subsidiary reveals that “the purpose of the geological and geophysical work” of that year “was to ensure the geopolitical interests of Russia in the Antarctic in the form of systematic regional geological and geophysical studies of the subsoil of Antarctica and the adjacent continental shelf, which represent a potential reserve for the extraction of mineral raw materials by future generations of humankind”.

Themba George, a Khayelitsha-based volunteer with 350.org, at the January protests against the Karpinsky. (Photo: Jamie Venter)
Our Burning Planet has uncovered absolutely no evidence or even a suggestion that Russia has, at any point, engaged in mineral resource activities such as Antarctic exploratory drilling, dredging and other excavations, or has any immediate plans to do so. But numerous documents approved by the Kremlin — rather than simply the Rosgeo statement — point to the early stages of prospecting, by claiming there are supergiant oil fields beneath the Southern Ocean totalling “70 billion tons” (thus, 500 billion barrels).

And it is none other than Russia’s 2022-approved “Reproduction and Use of Natural Resources” programme, which has a budget of 156-billion roubles ($2-billion) for the next three years, that hardwires Antarctica into the Kremlin’s very latest mining policy.

Heavily reliant on scientific research, this programme’s strategy for developing Russian minerals lists, as its first priority, “the study of the geological structure of the Arctic, Antarctic and the seabed and global ocean”.

The programme also cites “Geology: Revival of a Legend” — a federal project aimed at the “aggressive development” of Russia’s economy and boosting its mineral wealth. And, indeed, the PMGE says its 2022 assessments of Antarctica’s mineral potential were carried out under the framework of the “Legend” federal project.

These state documents were reviewed by us in their original Russian form, as well as other reports that indicate the apparent raison d’être of Russia’s Antarctic seismic surveys.

An Extinction Rebellion protester framed by Table Mountain, with the Karpinsky docked in port. (Photo: Shelley Christians)
The mining ban does not expire, but it can be renegotiated after 2048 should one of just 29 decision-making states under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) — the greater 55-state framework that governs the region — call for it.

This may suit some, suggests Prof German Leitchenkov, Antarctic geoscience head at Russia’s Research Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean, a state body that partners with the PMGE on research.

Leitchenkov — while having led papers on Antarctica’s mineral potential that suggest the mining ban is a “gentleman’s agreement” — told us he also worried about Antarctic environments and that other countries could be prospecting.

When asked if sanctions-hit Russian oil and gas changed Antarctic exposure to the possibilities of mining, the professor said: “I will not foresee any changed circumstances for the potential of Antarctic mining in the longer-term future.”

Echoing Leitchenkov’s sentiments, two Russian-speaking men arrived during the protests at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. They claimed to work on the Karpinsky. In response to protester complaints about Antarctic “exploration” and “blasting” — a protester told us — the men reportedly said, “Everyone’s doing it.”

Our Burning Planet was unable to verify their identities, and they declined our requests for comment.
DM/OBP
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Moral Disgrace Part 2

#193 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:01 am

The letter says it wants authorities to refuse port entry to all ships, including the Karpinsky, looking for Antarctic oil and gas, and to table a formal proposal for a permanent ban on hydrocarbon mining at the ATS’s upcoming midyear annual meeting in Helsinki.

It is also concerned about the peer-reviewed impacts of seismic blasts on Southern Ocean marine life.

“There is no other plausible reason for Russia to have built up this detailed hydrocarbon inventory, other than that it hopes to start extracting some of these oil or gas resources at some point in the medium- or long-term future,” the letter adds.

“If that happens, Antarctica — and the whole world — will suffer even more devastating impacts.”

CFor his part, in a direct response to the demand letter, Hill-Lewis is outspoken about Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent official visit to Pretoria; upcoming military exercises off the KwaZulu-Natal coast with Russia and China; and Russian state vessels calling at his gateway port city for any number of possible reasons.

These are all issues the Democratic Alliance – South Africa’s official opposition, of which Hill-Lewis is a member — has been critical about in public statements.

“Russian state vessels should not be here,” says Hill-Lewis, who happened to jet into Antarctica on Monday to relaunch Cape Town as a gateway destination.

“All of these Russian war exercises, and the meetings with Russian government ministers, are a shameful moral disgrace.”

Even so, Hill-Lewis points out that his hands are tied.

“Unfortunately, the ports are managed by national government and therefore the City has no control over the vessels which dock there.”

While at Wolf’s Fang Runway in East Antarctica’s Queen Maud Land — the same vast region where South Africa has a research station — Hill-Lewis said: “‘It was a privilege to witness the Antarctic’s pristine wilderness first-hand via a short flight from Cape Town…

“We want more people to choose our city as their preferred gateway to reach international scientific bases, or to experience the continent’s unique sustainable tourism offering.

“We are launching a new destination marketing campaign with a clear message — Cape Town is the best place to come before you head way down south. Where else can you go from sun and beautiful beaches to Antarctica in just five hours?”

The letter of demand, apart from Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace volunteers who have spearheaded the campaign, includes signatures by diverse concerned groups such as the South African Fishers Collective, the South Peninsula Khoi Council and WildAid Africa.

“What happens in the Antarctic will impact the same ocean animals that visit the ocean off our South African coast,” says Margie Pretorius, director of Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC), which also signed the letter.

The SWC was one of the applicants that took Shell to court over its now suspended seismic surveys off the Wild Coast, home to the annual sardine run and rich in marine life.

“If we oppose seismic blasting on the Wild Coast,” says Pretorius, “we must oppose it in the Antarctic.”

The Green Connection is another group that has successfully challenged Shell and other offshore explorers in South African courts. It, too, has now set its sights on Antarctica. In 2017, the group’s Liziwe McDaid co-led a Herculean coalition that stopped South Africa’s $76-billion nuclear power deal with Russia.

“Underwater noise may cause marine species not being able to communicate with each other,” says Nandipha Masango, the group’s media coordinator. “Or they might simply migrate to other areas — shifting the food chain within the marine ecosystem.”

XR Cape Town spokesperson Cassi Goodman says, “There is much more awareness about the harm caused by seismic blasting these days… Just because something has been done for a long time, like seismic blasting in the Antarctic, does not mean we can allow it to continue.

“We used to build things with asbestos, but once the adverse health effects from exposure to asbestos became known, it had to stop, no matter how difficult and inconvenient it may have been.”

The Karpinsky on a moody ocean outside Cape Town in January, shortly before being towed into port by tugs. (Photo: Shelley Christians)
Though there are some, if debatable, attempts to soften noise in the Antarctic, at least 15 countries are known to have pulsed seismic blasts through the Southern Ocean in recent years — for purposes that range from monitoring volcanoes to gathering UN climate data.

Germany, according to German research, has led at 60,000km in surveys. Still, this is significantly less than Russia’s airgun lines, which could extend as far as 140,000km or more.

“There are questions around whether other — including Western — states might be laundering their ‘prospecting’ through ‘scientific research’,” according to Prof Alan Hemmings, an Antarctic governance expert at Canterbury University in New Zealand.

Hemmings cautions that prospecting may be laundered via indirect processes such as advanced modelling of data outside the Antarctic Treaty area.

But Russia, “as far as the accusations and evidence in the public domain are concerned, is seemingly in a class of its own”.

The New Zealand academic is hardly alone in his suspicions. In 2022, a paper commissioned by the Australian Navy flagged Russian activities through Cape Town, arguing that Rosgeo’s successive expeditions “could prepare the ground for potential hydrocarbon and mineral extraction, notably oil and gas deposits”. Last year, French academic commentary also flagged these operations.

The PMGE has also given the work of its Antarctic seismic ship special consideration.

In an October 2016 report, the subsidiary credits the ship for the “overwhelming majority” of work needed to identify Antarctica’s potential supergiant oil fields.

“Vast sedimentary basins were discovered with predicted hydrocarbon resources estimated at 70 billion tons of standard fuel,” this report notes.

“The overwhelming majority of these works were carried out from the R/V Akademik Alexander Karpinsky.”

Reaction by Russian, South African authorities
Rosgeo and its subsidiary have not denied their interests in Antarctic oil and gas, but they have repeatedly told Our Burning Planet that all of this is just legal science.


After repeatedly seeking comment from South African national environmental authorities since October 2021, we finally received a reply about 16 months later – on 1 February.

In that reply, Albi Modise, spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, says that — as a founding signatory of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty — South Africa “fully” subscribes to the founding principles under the Antarctic Treaty System and related environmental laws, including the mining ban.

That surely means that South Africa and other signatory states have a duty under Article 13 to the ATS’s environmental protection protocol, which also outlines the mining ban, to ensure compliance and that no one engages in any contrary activity.

Here, Modise does argue that signatory states protect Antarctica as a “collective”. But he also says Russia is free to pursue its national interests under the “freedom of scientific investigation” — a treaty cornerstone abused by Japan for years to justify its now withdrawn “scientific” whale slaughter.

Logistics and equipment are the responsibility of each signatory state, he says. Ports authorities should be contacted about vessel “presence”, and “any interested party” should submit questions to the ATS’s annual meetings.

South African officials, among the minority delegations not to join walkouts during Russia’s speech at the 2022 midyear meeting in Berlin, declined our comment requests, citing “media protocols”. The next meeting is only in May and June, hosted by Finland in Helsinki.

Since October 2021, we have also asked for comment from the ATS authorities to which Modise refers. The secretariat declined. We have also sent questions to various representatives of the ATS’s Committee for Environmental Protection on a number of occasions, to which answers have not been received.

For direct comment on the letter of demand, we have separately contacted Rosgeo; the South African Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries; the Department of International Relations and Cooperation; the Department of Transport; the Transnet National Ports Authority and ​​​​​the South African Maritime Safety Authority.

Replies to our queries were not received by deadline.

“It is shocking to think Russia’s Karpinsky has been using Cape Town as a launch pad for nearly 25 years to conduct oil and gas exploration in the ecologically vulnerable Antarctic region, which offers a sanctuary for critically endangered blue whales and emperor penguins, under the guise of scientific research,” according to Elaine Mills of Cape Town’s Greenpeace volunteer group.

Mills also says South Africa, as the only African country with a seat at Antarctica’s decision-making table, has a special watchdog role on behalf of the entire continent.

She adds: “We will continue with our vocal and very visible protests until the government meets our demands and fulfils its moral duty towards Africa, the continent most vulnerable to the devastating consequences of climate change.”

The Karpinsky is set to arrive at Antarctica’s Neko harbour on 28 February.

And whether or not Cape Town’s mayor wants that ship to be part of his grand new gateway vision, she is expected to return to the city before the austral autumn ice closes in.
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The bone heads have f%^@ed it up Donny!

#194 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 09, 2023 8:53 pm

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared load shedding a national state of disaster, with immediate effect.

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs gazetted the declaration on Thursday (9 February).

Speaking during his State of the Nation Address (SONA), the president said that the energy crisis in the country has done untold damage to the country and is an existential threat to businesses and the economy.

Through declaring the crisis, the president said that the coordination of addressing the crisis can be focused at a single point.
And the single point of the crisis is the ANC, the cause, the ongoing perpetrators of, and never the solution, to the crisis.

https://businesstech.co.za/news/governm ... -shedding/


Every liberal thought I ever had is subsumed by my hatred of these boneheaded idiots...

If we ground their heads into bone meal... the cattle would have had the good sense not catch bone headed kaffirdom by eating it.

My anger knows no bounds...

Time for a counter revolution....


SA, another failed black African state...
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Re: Only in Effrika

#195 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 09, 2023 9:06 pm

TheGreenAnger wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:24 pm
Boac wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 8:42 am
"Close up, 4" =))
I prophecy that the SA power grid will collapse early next winter if not before.
Even I was too optimistic, even though the grid hasn't collapsed yet. The useless bastards couldn't run a cake sale. The cakes would be stolen before the money was...

They say you become more right wing as you get older! =))

Capetonian is laughing at me... I can feel it.
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Re: Only in Effrika

#196 Post by Woody » Fri Feb 10, 2023 12:51 pm

Been here a couple of days and load shedding has become a way of life for locals, when it kicks in every body heads to the nearest coffee shop and logs onto the Wi-Fi for a couple of hours, depending on the level there appears to be two or three breaks per day, one starting at midnight for two hours and then another later in the morning, also for two hours and this evening as a special treat another two hours from 16.00, it’s ok in the summer, but winter could be problematic.
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Re: Only in Effrika

#197 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:08 pm

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Re: Only in Effrika

#198 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:24 pm

Woody wrote:
Fri Feb 10, 2023 12:51 pm
Been here a couple of days and load shedding has become a way of life for locals, when it kicks in every body heads to the nearest coffee shop and logs onto the Wi-Fi for a couple of hours, depending on the level there appears to be two or three breaks per day, one starting at midnight for two hours and then another later in the morning, also for two hours and this evening as a special treat another two hours from 16.00, it’s ok in the summer, but winter could be problematic.
It seems OK here. We are off grid so do not know but friends have not complained. It is usually a fault that causes a power failure.
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Re: Only in Effrika

#199 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:32 pm

At least some folk are positive... listening to Michael has made me reconsider some of my negative comments and the urge to abandon my SA citizenship. Sometimes one just becomes so depressed about the foolishness of some (or most) of those in government.




His wine farms produce some decent stuff... ;)))



https://www.bartinney.co.za/
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Re: Only in Effrika

#200 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:47 pm

@Woody give this place a whirl (or a Merle)...

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/ ... le-estate/

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