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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Vd Merwe,Basie, 68, stabbed to death, Booysens, Pretoria
18:53 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
2011-03-08 Pensioner Basie van der Merwe, 68, was stabbed to death by three blacks after the old Boer had stepped outside his Booysens, Pretoria home to fetch his newspaper on March 7 2011. He was stabbed six times, in the chest, back and left hand. Nothing was robbed.
Distraught wife Annemarie, 58, dragged her bleeding husband into the house and called the emergency services. She stayed with him until her son Johan, 35, arrived and taken his shocked mom to the neighbours. "I am so bitter today. My dad has survived cancer and surgery and he died in such a cruel, unnecessary way. It makes one very angry.' He said when he arrived at his parental home his dad was still breathing - but his eyes were closed. "My mom was besides herself and I took her to the neighbours. When I came back he had died.' SAPF spokesman Bongo Nkosi Msimango claimed that this was a robbery - although nothing was robbed. The son said the three black knifemen must have entered the house while his dad had stepped outside to fetch the paper. "One knifeman showed up at my parent's bedroom door and told my mother to be quiet. She screamed for help. Then they stabbed my dad as he was on his way back into the front door, and ran away. The police claimed that they have rounded up two suspects in the nearby squatters' camp and are 'questioning them to determine if they can be linked to the murder.' Apparently police picked up Mrs van der Merwe's knitting-bag in the field nearby. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bejaarde-buite-huis-vermoor-20110308 http://tinyurl.com/679zeyl
Fourie, Jacomien, kidnapped: manager magistrate court Potgietersrus
The office manager at the Mokerong law court near Potgietersrus was kidnapped in her own car from home and brutally assaulted in a motiveless crime.
Mrs Jacomien Louise Fourie, 55, was found after a massive police search at 5pm in her yellow Hyandai Atos near the Marken road, about 60km away from her home. The police confirmed that she had been assaulted. Her husband Flip had raised the alarm after he received a call from her at 11am to come to their home urgently - and when he arrived shortly thereafter she was missing, the house was overturned and there was blood on the dining-room tablecloth. Her car was gone said Shaun Potgieter of the Suri-Cat-company. She had been at home, recovering from back surgery, and was wearing a back-brace when she was kidnapped. There were court-documents scattered throughout the house. The Transvaal Agricultural Union called on its members to help search for the woman.
http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Hof-kantoorbestuurder-in-haar-eie-kar-ontvoer-20110308 http://tinyurl.com/6e7t9e5
Artist Cornelius Bosch torched to death
2011-03-09 15:15 SA artist Cornelius Bosch, 55, missing since 24 February from his Kameeldrift smallholding near Pretoria, was found torched to death. Dental records confirmed his identity, writes Hilda Fourie of Beeld.
His body was found on Monday in an open field next to Zambesi-drive, north of Pretoria, near his smallholding. His bakkie is still missing. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Kunstenaar-se-verbrande-lyk-gekry-20110309
Reknowned South African painter Cornelius Bosch vanished from his Kameeldrift smallholding without a trace: nothing was ‘robbed’ or ‘stolen’ from his smallholding. Bosch, 55, was last seen Feb 24 before he disappeared http://www.ofm.co.za/news.asp?nid=17660
Local detectives and the provincial police’s detective services had launched a search-party for him. The art website Artween said Bosch describes himself as a South African artist who has been working as a painter full-time for 20 years. His works ranged from landscapes to abstract paintings. Bosch's friend and colleague, Hester Carstenssaid shortly after his disappearance that it was a mystery that his Bible, toothbrush and other personal items were still at the house, which means he hasn't gone on a trip…”.
Investigating officer Warrant Officer Stephen Joubert also said that forensic investigators could find nothing amiss at his home. It was clean and tidy. Nothing appeared out of place.”
Anyone who has seen his GWM bakkie, registration XJC187GP, can call w/o Stephen Joubert on 082-565-6887 or w/o Pieter van der Merwe on 071-993-7019. http://www.ofm.co.za/news.asp?nid=17660 his face book: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1164229224104&set=a.1138452379699.2022465.1179082997&theater
Dutch donate R200m to clean Durbs water
Daar is nog steeds baie drolle in die drinkwater…
Durban, described late last year as one 'giant-faeces smeared squatter-camp’, is getting a R200m grant from the Dutch government to improve the water-quality for some 800,000 squatters over the next three years.
The Dutch ministry for development co-operation’s project would help replace asbestos-cement pipes, and install 2,000 ablution blocks in 318 new ‘informal settlements’ which have mushroomed around the Indian-ocean beach resort since 1994. “R100m will be allocated to the non-revenue water branch to help reduce water losses by finding and repairing leaks and optimising water pressures,’ said a municipal spokesman…. “R100m would be spent on replacing old pipes, and on the sanitation project – which “aims to provide safe water and sanitation to approximately 800,000 people in about 318 informal settlements, predominantly through the construction of 2 000 new ablution blocks.” http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/R200m-Dutch-grant-for-eThekwini-water-20110308
What about the rest of the country? Why has only Durban been singled out for this Dutch largesse? Perhaps because the Dutch would have to spend their entire national budget for the next five years just to clean up the rest of the filthy mess which the ANC-regime has plunged South Africa into over the past 16 years. They inherited a pristine, well-run first-world country with crystal-clear fresh water in all its streams and rivers; kept clean by properly-run water-reticulation systems by qualified engineers working in hundreds of municipalities. A system which took many years and many millions in taxpayer-funds to build and maintain before 1994. The ANC-regime’s grotesque mismanagement has managed to destroy this water-reticulation system within just 16 years.
SEWAGE, TOXIC WASTE, RADIOACTIVE RUNOFF POLLUTES SA FARMS, RIVERS AND ACQUIFERS
On 17 Nov 2010 this site reported that since 1994 under the ANC-regime, SA has basically become one gigantic, faeces-smeared dump where even the underground acquifers are polluted with human faeces and deadly toxins… including radioactive minewater.
Ventersdorp farmers that month lay criminal charges against Ventersdorp municipality for illegal sewage-dumping; water-purification expert Willem Cooks sued Parys municipality over toxic pollution of drinking water piped to Parys, Vredefort, Bothaville, Bloemhof, Christiana, Leeudoringstad, Viljoenskroon and Wolmaransstad… From Brits and Magaliesburg, millions of tons of raw sewage and toxic mine-water are polluting the crucial Hartbeespoort Dam and the entire Limpopo River basin… and the once so hardy crocodiles of the Kruger National Park are still dying in the Limpopo’s tributary Olifants River because of toxic pollution. It’s also been reported that Durban’s beaches and its water were at dangerous pollution levels that month.
Don’t like tto hear about the toxicity of the water? Just fire your top water-expert…
Yet the government ‘s own top water-expert Dr Anthony Turton was fired from the CSIR after warning publicly that the health of the entire nation was at stake…if the pollution of its crucial streams and fresh-water-supplies continued at this rapid pace: http://blat.co.za/KeynoteAddressCSIR2008.pdf
RAW SEWAGE POLLUTES BOREHOLES, FOOD-CROPS and the POULTRY FOR SUPERMARKETS, FARMERS WARN….
2010-11-17 VENTERSDORP. Susan Cilliers writes in Beeld newspaper that farmer Johan Bester has laid a criminal charge of illegal sewage dumping against the Ventersdorp municipality.
Area farmers and supermarkets warn that the water in the Schoonspruit and even the borehole-water has become so polluted that crops and poultry from the area are dangerously contaminated with harmful bacteria.
Bester said that supermarkets have warned farmers that they can no longer buy chickens from their farms – unless the dangerous bacteria levels in the irrigation water are reduced. (similar conditions also exist around Parys: story below:)
Bester showed reporters two places near Ventersdorp on Tuesday where untreated sewage-waste formed filthy, smelly pools because the town's two sewerage pump stations were “often not working”.Sewage then cannot be pumped to the treatment plant and it forms dams, and then seeps into the Schoonspruit.
’Farming will have to stop if the sewage-dumping continues…’
"The Schoonspruit is the main source of many water schemes that provide water for irrigation, people, animals and industry - up and as far as Bloemhof," said Bester. Untreated sewage also flowed into the Elandskuil Dam due to the municipality's "poor service delivery and irresponsibility".
Bester feared that should the sewage dumping continue, farming activities in the area will have to stop completely."It looks as though borehole water on farms has been polluted. I became aware of the problem when I saw how awful my water looked: so bad that my cattle don't want to drink it at times."
Bester represents a group of farmers who have formed an action group opposing planned town development in the vicinity of the sewage pump station in Ventersdorp.
- They ask that the land should rather be made available to farmers so that they can, through private initiatives, set up a better sewerage system and are able to grow feed in the area. The group are considering launching an article 21 company. "In this way, jobs will be created and feed will be provided for farmers while we also protect the area's ecology."
Vandalism
The ‘’ acting municipal manager’ Gideon Moremedi complained that ‘people are vandalising the pump stations.’ He was “aware of the charge that had been laid” and confirmed that ‘the sewage pump stations only worked on occasion,” adding: “we have instructed a company to clean out the sewage pipes because objects in them cause the pump stations to stop working." "People also vandalise the pump stations. We still want to build a pump station for the town which can be used when the existing pump stations aren't working." http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Sewage-polluting-farmlands-farmers-say-20101117
1-million e-coli bacteria per 100ml of water measured at Parys sewerage outlet:
Johan Brits of Volksblad writes that pensioned-off water-purification expert Willem Cooks, 71, of Gouws Street in Parys is suing the local ANC-run municipality; he fears for the health of residents as the disfunctional sewerage plant causes dangerous pollution in the drinking water with the toxic disease-causing Escherichia coli. http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bejaarde-wil-hof-toe-oor-vuil-water-20101115
Picture: Water-purification expert Willem Cooks, 71, with the water-filters he installed a year ago inside his own home to filter the reticulated municipal water again: the filthy goop is loaded with toxic bacteria – and this is the ‘safe drinking water’ which the disfunctional water-purification plant in Parys delivers to all the local residents. The municipality on September 17 2010 was served with a court order by the High Court in Bloemfontein against the “Ngwathe” municipality. Judge Molemela ordered the ANC-municipality to “stop the deliberate sewage spillage into the Vaal River that has been occurring unabated for some time”. http://www.save.org.za/happenings/news_popup8.html
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SAVE experts recently measured one-million parts of e-coli bacteria per 100ml of water in the Vaal river outlet from the Parys municipality sewarage plant. SAVE’s officials were denied access to the Parys water-purification plant after they warned that ‘clean water was being pumped into the river in the daytime and dirty, untreated water at night’.
Cooks says he’s “fighting-ready to deal with the person in charge of that water-purification plant. I will not remain silent.’ He showed Volksblad the incredible filth he’d filtered out with his two water-purification filters which he installed in his own home, to re-filter the ‘clean’ reticulated water from the municipal plant. He has two filters: one to clean the water with before it goes into the boiler-system and the second one to purify the water used in the kitchen. Within a year, the filters showed ‘very thick, brown filthy layers of pollution.
“If the filters look like this after they had filtered supposedly clean reticulated water coming from the municipality, I am very worried about the health of all the people in Parys. Not everybody can afford to install their own filters. And why do taxpayers have to spend even more money when their rates already are supposed to pay for a water-reticulation system from the municipality? I am supposed to receive clean water. Consumers should not have to clean their own water,’ he said.
He says that even after the water has gone through the home-filters, ‘it still reeks as if there’s a dead mouse in the water…’ Cooks has 40 years of experience in working with water- and sewerage installations. He has worked at water-purification plans in many municipalities. He lays the blame for the dangerously filthy water of Parys squarely on the so-called “Ngwathe-municipality’s disfunctional water-purification plant. He said there is ‘an extraordinarily high concentration of ferrichloride in the drinking water because the plant is disfunctional.
Save the Vaal river – waging a desperate struggle
Cooks is not alone in his complaints: the ngo SAVE THE VAAL (SAVE) also recently revealed that the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry had from last year started writing to the municipality with written warnings specific sewerage-installations were not in working order, and that they had to be repaired and maintained urgently.
Officials will be imprisoned as criminals:
Said SAVE in a statement: “We will no longer tolerate this type of conduct by Ngwathe municipality. We will now seek to imprison those officials who disregard the court order. Last year, the Johannesburg High Court ordered the Emfuleni municipality to cease a similar practice. River users are tired of empty promises by municipalities and Ngwathe's total disregard for our health by allowing dirty, untreated water to run into the Vaal River and then that very water is used as a basic commodity by communities, including the Parys community. There are communities who are dependant on the river water for their primary water use and Ngwathes's total disregard for these people's basic right to clean water is criminal conduct that must now be addressed in the criminal courts"…
Since the warnings by the government nothing was done – and the raw sewerage has since April 2009, been pouring directly into the local spruit (stream) leading to the Vaal River. On 19 October 2010, the Department delivered a final ultimatum to the municipality to fix the problem under Section 19 of the Water Act.
Officials from SAVE were barred from accessing the water-purification plant – shortly after testing at the outlets in Parys showed dangerously high e-coli levels of 10-million parts per 100ml water. E-coli bacterii come from the gut of humans and animals.
Drinking water is not allowed, by law, to contain ANY e-coli bacteria and a river should never contain more than 1000 units per 100ml of water to make it safe for humans and animals to drink. The ‘Ngwathe’ municipality meanwhile has refuses all comment http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bejaarde-wil-hof-toe-oor-vuil-water-20101115
Statement from Save the Vaal – affected communities: Parys, Vredefort, Bothaville,Bloemhof, Christiana, Leeudoringstad, Viljoenskroon and Wolmaransstad.
- “… it came to SAVE's attention that the Ngwathe (Parys) municipality was pumping raw sewage into the Vaal River. This criminal conduct causes unlawful pollution of the Vaal River. Recently, when a SAVE Parys committee member did a random inspection at the Ngwathe waste water works, it became apparent that clear water was being let into the River during the day but raw sewage was being pumped into the Vaal River at night. This conduct prompted SAVE to approach the High Court to interdict Ngwathe/Parys from committing this criminal offence and to stop killing fish and bird life. Communities such as Parys, Vredefort, Bothaville, Bloemhof, Christiana, Leeudoringstad, Viljoenskroon and Wolmaransstad all draw water supplies from the Vaal River. Sewage in water is highly dangerous to human health - a fact well know to the general public and municipal officials as a result of it being spelt out in past court applications and the media and which fact is by now common knowledge to all South Africans who followed the Zimbabwean disaster.
The disgraceful conduct of Ngwathe by surreptitiously pumping it's excess sewage into the Vaal at night must immediately cease. Today, judge Molemela ordered the practice to stop by no later than 24 September 2010 and also ordered Ngwathe Municipality to take steps to properly maintain its sewage works in order to ensure that there is no overflow or spillage from the sewage works into the Vaal River.
SAVE chairman, Lötter Wepener and SAVE Parys chairperson Annalien Burger, said that SAVE will not rest until Ngwathe ceased pumping raw sewage into the Vaal River and also until Ngwathe ensures that the effluent which it pumps into the Vaal River complies with the Department of Water Affair's standards. 'We will no longer tolerate this type of conduct by Ngwathe" Wepener and Burger said. "We will now seek to imprison those officials who disregard the court order. Last year, the Johannesburg High Court ordered the Emfuleni Municipality to cease a similar practice.
"River users are tired of empty promises by municipalities and Ngwathe's total disregard for our health by allowing dirty, untreated water to run into the Vaal River and then that very water is used as a basic commodity by communities, including the Parys community", Wepener and Burger said. "There are communities who are dependant on the River water for their primary water use and Ngwathes's total disregard for these people's basic right to clean water is criminal conduct that must now be addressed in the criminal courts".
“River users who hailed the court order expressed dismay that it was once again necessary to go to court to compel a municipality to properly maintain its waste water treatment plants and to stop polluting the Vaal River.
We will continue to do water tests (at great cost to ourselves) in weeks and months to come and promise further action by SAVE should we find that Ngwathe continues to disregard the right of the public to a clean River", Wepener and Burger said.
“. . . “SAVE will now be employing a team of experts to compile a comprehensive report in order assist us to imprison the guilty parties. 17 October 2010 Contact Lötter Wepener (Chair; SAVE) 082 552 4714 http://www.save.org.za/happenings/news_popup8.html http://www.madibengpulse.co.za/?Task=system&CategoryID-30703&HeadingText-Environment+280610+mine+acid#n
Crocodiles dying in the Kruger National Park of toxic pollution:
CROCODILES – WHICH HAVE THE OLDEST AND BEST IMMUNE SYSTEMS OF ANY CREATURES – ARE DYING IN THE OLIFANTS-RIVER SYSTEM, SOUTH AFRICA
ABOVE: From May 2008, crocodiles in the Olifants River gorge in the Kruger National Park suddenly started sickening and dying, with a mortality rate of 20 crocodiles per week reached during June and July. A total 170 crocodile carcasses were recorded by late November 2008. Post mortems revealed yellow-orange coloured, hardened fat in the tails and abdomen – a condition known as pansteatitis. Researchers analysed water, sediments, fish and crocodile tissue samples for potential toxins and chemical compounds at laboratories, both locally and around the world, and found many heavy metals, agricultural pesticides, fertilizers, organic waste and persistent organic pollutants – however in 2008, none of these were found to be above the levels “where adverse effects could be expected” and were therefore not individually responsible for poisoning the crocodiles. The Consortium for the Restoration of the Olifants Catchment (CROC) was set up to find a clear cause-effect relationship. This found that the crocodiles’ die-offs were ‘symptomatic of serious and growing environmental problems in the Olifants River system…http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/news/2009/crocodile_deaths.php
The death of the tourist paradise of Durban
Durban resident photographer/lawyer Snowy Smith lives in an apartment overlooking the Durban embankment and its once so world-famous beaches. For the past 20 years he has used his lens to record the devastating process in which the local ANC-municipality has managed to reduce this once so highly-favoured international tourism paradise into 'one big, filthy, faeces-smeared squatter camp, a mugger's paradise.'
In December 2009, nearly all the beaches of Kwa-Zulu Natal including at Durban, lost their international blue-flag certificate because of the high level of toxins and e-coli and its vast environmental pollution…
By June 2010 – during the World Cup 2010 football tournaments – only eight of the KwaZulu beaches along the Indian Ocean had managed to regain their Blue Flag status and worked hard at it – just to draw more tourists. The Durban municipality claimed in its propaganda that ‘testing was done every day the assure the cleanliness of the water’. However Durban lost their Blue Flag status after independent water tests showed unacceptably high levels of sewage-related bacteria and a lack of cleanliness..”
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Stench of human urine and faces hangs over the place…
“Just as well that photographs can’t convey the incredible stench of urine and human faeces which hangs over the place, either”, he wrote. “The whole place looks like a permanent prison now, with shuttered shops, heavy burglar bars, barbed wire, vagrants and incredible pollution everywhere."
- His huge body of photographic evidence also show the exact opposite reality in clear photographic evidence which is totally at odds with the constant stream pf reassuring press releases published by the city manager, who claims the city's water and ocean are sparkling clean: http://www.durban.gov.za/beachwater/
In his campaign to get the place cleaned up again, he has already submitted some 7,000 powerful photographs in support of his challenges to the Durban city manager, Dr Michael Ratcliffe - urging him to clean up this stinking mess and also to address the city’s terrifying crime rate. He has published a smattering of his latest pictures on a friend's in-your-face, no-holds-barred website called "The Death of Durban'. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/03/south-africa-claims-water-is-basic.html http://DeathofDurban.blogspot.com http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/02/tourist-mecca-durban-one-giant-faeces.html
Related Links
- Dangerous water pollution in South Africa
- Concerns about SA's water quality
- Acid water plan due in December
- R3bn for water infrastructure
- SA in race against toxic mine water
- Experts to tackle water crisis
- Action over sewage pollution
- Parys to stop Vaal sewage leak?
- More than 86% of all SA sewage plants are 'non-functional'
- SA sewage standards ‘poor ‘– report
- Crocodiles dying off in the Olifants River due to widespread pollution warns Parks Board
- National Toxicity Control Programme
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Crime victim Chris Bronkhorst suffers in hospice
Maltreatment at hospice: leg had to be amputated because of untreated bedsores: the ongoing suffering of tortured, disabled Afrikaner pensioner Chris Bronkhorst, 67
By Adriana Stuijt. On September 29, 2010, four black males attacked a 67-year-old partially-disabled stroke-victim, the Afrikaner pensioner Chris Bronkhorst, 67, brutally tortured him with melting plastic and whipped him repeatedly with a sjambok in his Walkerville smallholding home. Some details of the torture meted out to the mentally-confused man were so gruesome that they have never been published. The attack was only confirmed to the news media four days later, on November 2, by the SAPS – and only after the family had told the news media about it.
Now shocking images are emerging of Chris Bronkhorst's continuing suffering: the maltreatment at a hospice where he was moved after his wounds were healed at the Milpark Hospital a month ago. A family friend writes me that while Chris was mentally traumatised and “uncommunicative' after his transfer from hospital, his wounds had completely healed: “There were no pressure sores on his body when he was moved to the hospice.. Now a leg has had to be amputated because of untreated pressure sores. This suffering man and his poor family, the ordeal just doesn’t stop for them.’
The pictures taken by family-members at the hospice this week show the extent of Chris Bronkhorst’s continued suffering: his buttocks are blackened from untreated pressure-sores, his limbs and back show gaping wounds. He suffers constant pain and is kept sedated and thus uncommunicative with morphine injections.
Family friend Magda Cracknell wrote shortly after the attack on her Face book page: “It is with great sadness that I want to ask you all to pray for the badly injured ‘crime’ victim Chris Bronkhorst. The 67-year-old disabled Afrikaner pensioner was tortured with melting plastic and whipped repeatedly with a sjambok. The traumatic attack has caused a severe shock to his body and he has lost his zest for life. On November 20 2010 he was taken back to the intensive care unit with a stroke and complications. A lot of the details of the tortures suffered by Mr Bronkhorst were omitted from the press reports.” A month ago, after his wounds healed, he was taken to a hospice in ‘uncommunicative state’. And there this defenceless man’s suffering continues unabated.
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Painful pressure sores; open, festering, infected wounds:
After only a month in hospice, the traumatised crime victim now suffers from painful pressure-sores and open, festering, infected wounds which show no sign of healing. And he’s surrounded by uncaring hospice staff.
Pictures: far-left: pressure sore on Chris’ back: such sores are caused by the patient not being moved for long periods of time. His right-leg has since then had to be amputated because of festing sores. He is in constant pain and kept sedated with morphine.
The badly traumatised, disabled tortured man’s suffering thus continued unabated after his attack, when he was found deeply confused, uncommunicative, bleeding and in extreme pain. "There were blood spatters against the kitchen wall where they had bashed him against it. He was also lashed with a sjambok’, said Mrs Bronkhorst just after the attack. And while she was waiting for the ambulance she also discovered that the black attackers also had dripped melting plastic on his hands – it is summised because they were angered about not finding any firearms in the gun-safe.
The forensic signs also showed that Mr Bronkhorst was roughly dragged from the kitchen to the living room and tortured there – so gruesomely that not all the details have been published. thus far “It’s a shock to see your husband like that – I thought he was dead,’ she said. And what for? They didn’t have to torture him: they could just have taken anything they wanted: the disabled man was unable to defend himself and was at home, alone. The torturers only took some bling, a cellphone, a watch and cash – total value: about R10,000… SAPS spokesman capt Shado Mashobane confirmed the ‘incident’ and said nobody was arrested. Her sister Caroniena Cameron asked Beeld: ‘what kind of people melt burning plastic on someone’s hands. Those are not human beings doing such things…’ original attack as described by Beeld:: http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Rowers-martel-en-slaan-verlamde-67-20101102