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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Afrikaner survival debate in holland
17:01 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
Fiery debate about the survival of the Afrikaans language - coupled to the plight of the Afrikaner people: in Dutch national quality daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad.
http://bit.ly/lngpAp - Dutch MP Martin Bosma has inadvertently launched a debate in the Dutch news media about the future survival of the Afrikaners in South Africa – merely by writing an article in the country’s top international daily, NRC Handelsblad on April 20. Bosma displayed a deep admiration for the language - praising the brilliant uniqueness of Afrikaans poetry. He also is pleading for its survival - and the survival of all the people who speak it. Bosman said ‘Afrikaans is Dutch’, and that the Dutch "should be concerned about the way in which Afrikaans was being plowed under by a deliberate anglicisation policy under the ANC-regime". Mr Bosma was recently made chairman for the Dutch parliament's fraction for the Dutch Language Union.
-- And this week -- Flemish Euro-MP Derk Jan Epping wrote a column in NRC (left) - lamenting the 'wasted billions of Euros spent on 'false hopes' in South Africa -( on Oct 26 2011:_ Background: A genocide complaint was lodged against the ANC and the SA government on April 5 at ICC, the Hague by Afrikaner/Boer attorney Paul Kruger of Krugersdorp…
The first seed of this sudden focus on the current plight of the small Afrikaner minority in South Africa was sown on April 5 2011, when a SA attorney called Paul Kruger strolled into the International Criminal Court in The Hague and lodged a formal request to investigate the ruling African National Congress party and the South African government for genocide against the Afrikaner people. http://bit.ly/fzfvvv This event was however large ignored by both the Dutch and the South African news media, even though hundreds of invations and press releases were sent out well in advance to a press conference at the nearby Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organisation in the Hague – which provided the conference facilities, since the Afrikaners have been members of UNPO since 2008.
Even the Afrikaans correspondent in Holland failed to show…
Even Dr Leopold Scholtz, the official representative for the Afrikaans Naspers group in The Hague, confirmed by telephone to me that he would attend – but never showed up. And neither did his invited wife Ingrid, who provides news coverage from the Netherlands for SolidarityRadio in South Africa. Leopold offered his apologies, saying there were family reasons he had not shown.
Debate launched:
A furious response from old left-wing anti-apartheid campaigners followed Bosma’s article. Now the debate is wide-open, with Afrikaans language-campaigners, such as Dr Joseph Secreve in the Netherlands and Dr Dan Roodt, pitting their arguments against the Afrikaner poet-laureate of the defunct anti-apartheid movement, author Breyten Breytenbach. After Bosma’s opening salvo, the newspaper published articles by Afrikaans-language activist Roodt, who agreed with Bosma's comment that ‘things are not going well with the Afrikaners and their language under the ANC-regime’. Breytenbach also got space, and dusted off his well-known comment again, stating that ‘Afrikaans is brown, a creole language created in the mouths of slaves, servants and Boers, a language which was hijacked by the apartheid-regime to prove their ethnic-European origins with'. http://www.artikel7.nu/?p=56296
SA expat Drs. Joseph Secrève, a leading member of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG) writes: “Critics of Bosma’s support for Afrikaans, should first investigate the way in which the Afrikaners were reduced to ‘untermenschen’ by the English at the start of the previous century – long before apartheid emerged.Expat Dr Joseph Secrève: “The racist attacks which have cost 20,000 Afrikaner lives over the past 17 years; the violence; the 30,000 annual rapes of babies and toddlers… that’s why Afrikaners are clamouring to leave the Heart of Darkness…’
‘Lord Milner: the Boer war ‘s purpose was to eradicate every trace of Afrikanerdom… ‘
“ During the Anglo’s war against the Boer repubics, its financier Lord Milner described the war’s purpose as “to eradicate every trace of Afrikanerdom from South Africa; and the English demonised Afrikaans as "that Miserable bastard jargon".
When the National Party won the elections and declared South Africa an independent republic in 1961, Lord WF Deedes reacted with: ‘The Afrikaners made two mistakes, first to leave the Commonwealth and secondly by surviving.’
“Ever since that time, a ruthless propaganda-war has raged against the Afrikaners, demonising them as a loathsome people with unsound principles. English-South African author Nadine Gordimer even won the Nobel Prize for Literature by describing Afrikaner women as “lower than rats, closer related to plants, just fit enough to be raped in an act of genus preservation.”
“The anti-apartheid hysteria was merely a continuation of the Anglo-Boer war through other means. The foreign governments and big multinational conglomerates were keen to get their hands on SA’s mineral wealth and wanted to rid themselves of the high taxes levied against them by the apartheid-government. Ever since Mandela took over political governance, the unemployment among blacks had doubled and soem 60% of the entire population now believe that life was better for them during apartheid – referring to far less violence, efficient service-delivery by the government, and easier to find jobs. To claim that Afrikaners are leaving the country ‘out of shame’ as was claimed by one of your writers, reminds me of the words by George Orwell: “you must be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No normal person could be that stupid.’ ‘The fanatical pursuit of ‘positive discrimination’ against whites, the genocidal chant One Bullet One White Infant, the constant chanting of Kill the Boer by youth league leader Malema under order of his communist masters, the annual 30,000 babies and toddlers being raped, the racist attacks against Afrikaners which have cost 20,000 Afrikaner-lives over the past 17 years – those are the primary reasons Afrikaners are clamouring to leave the Heart of Darkness.
“It may be a shock to know that Afrikaners – of all the nations which ruled over South Africa – were the only ones who never called for the destruction of others, but who instead wanted to cultivate the various language-groups. And neither were they ‘nazis or fascists’ – on the contrary, the Afrikaners fought against the Nazis with the Allied forces.
“If it wasn’t for those left-wing idiots with their admiration for cannibals and mass-murderers such as Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot – while the Afrikaners were being boycotted – Afrikaans could have created a much greater defence agains the current language-imperialism from England and its ANC-puppet government. In short, Afrikaans is dying because of the Left – nobody else". Drs. Joseph Secrève. Amsterdam www.praag.org/rubriek145.htm
Dr Dan Roodt: ‘ Queen Wilhelmina sent a Dutch warship to rescue Paul Kruger from imprisonment and humiliation by the British… the ANC wants to rename Queen Wilhelmina Street in Pretoria after its church-street bomber Abobaker Ismael, who killed 19 people and injured/maimed more than 200…’Afrikaans-language activist and author Dr Dan Roodt writes that Bosma 'was entirely correct.' " The new South Africa", writes Roodt, 'to the Afrikaner means (pro-black-anti-white) positive discrimination, murders on Boers and sprawling squatter camps. The survival of Afrikaans is a lot more than the survival of a language and its literature”, he warned.
"The young, brave Queen Wilhelmina (of the Netherlands) sent the Dutch warship Hr Ms Gelderland in 1900 to Delagoa Bay (Maputo) to fetch the old, romantic Boer Republic president Paul Kruger, saving him from incarceration and humiliation by the British.
" Now the black nationalistic regime is planning to change the well-known Queen Wilhelmina Street in Pretoria: they want to replace it with the name of Aboobaker Ismael, the man who committed the vile Church Street bombing on 20 May 1983 in that very same Pretoria (left). "Not far from Oom Paul's bronzed-eyed guardian statue on Church Square, nineteen people were killed by the Church Street Bomb, and more than 200 people were injured and/or mutilated by the only 'military triumph' the ANC has ever ever booked.
Things are not going well with the Afrikaners.
"Things are not going well with the Afrikaners. Pres FW de Klerk handed over the entire flourishing country, with its army, police, economy and its central bank on a silver platter to a gang of inexperienced ex-terrorists and expats from Londen and Eastern Europe. From the ANC and his followers not one word of thanks was ever spoken. "On the contrary, like hungry crocodiles they insist on ever-more: more power, more money, more rights, ad absurdum. "Last week the governing ANC party defended its youth league leader Julius Malema in his hatespeech trial for singing the song "Shoot the Boer", claiming that it 'forms part of their'culture'. However we Boers feel at first-hand the results of this hatespeech slogan, as we are being murdered way out of proportion to our small numbers by blacks. "The ANC and Malema claim the right to shout "culture' whenever they call for genocide. Measured by the number of murders and rapes, South Africa has meanwhile become the most dangerous country on earth under their rule…
The vast black majority, politically in power and economically nearly in charge – applies draconian anti-white empowerment laws… against a defenceless, small minority…"The black-economic-empowerment laws of the ANC are being applied in the most draconian way - worse than in any other country in the world, astonishingly to protect a vast majority - a majority with all the political and nearly all the economic power -- , against a very defenceless, small minority.
"The hundreds of thousands of top educated Afrikaners are now sitting unemployed, destitute in squatter camps - plakkerskampe -and small wonder: " Over the Easter weekend I spoke with my nephew and niece. First year students at the University of Pretoria, which is being rapidly, structurally anglicised just like they are doing to the five other Afrikaans-language universities. In some subjects, Afrikaners and indeed all white people of European origin are being actively discriminated against: a black student with an average final year exam score of fifty percent is admitted for a medical education. A brilliant Afrikaner student with an average 90 percent score is barred from studying for this subject.
Afrikaners have become second-rate citizens:
"Our children are no longer allowed to study at the universities which we have built ourselves, financed ourselves and founded ourselves. For the Afrikaners, the New South Africa means racial discrimination, farm murders and squatter camps. Afrikaners have become second-rate cizitens. We are discriminated against only because of our skin colour. What does one call that again? According the definition of the United Nations that 's referred to as apartheid.
“Writer NP van Wyk Louw, one of our greatest poets, was an enlightened Philosophe. Policitically he described himself as a 'liberal nationalist' - yet sometime during the fifties he wrote:
- "the demands of freedom, equal rights, equal chances for all is, when put abstractly, nearly self-evident. That is, if we take as its starting point normal humanity. However when it 's applied in South Africa this would mean that the small, relatively well-educated Afrikaner nation, together with the English-minority, will slide down as helpless minorities into a mass of blacks.’
“How profetic were these words. Not only single right remains self-evident for us Afrikaners today, not even the right to Life or equal treatment.,” concludes Roodt.
http://www.nrc.nl
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White Crosses Monument of Boer Murder victims gets more crosses June 4
Pietersburg. Mrs Lita Fourie of the Tabita organisation writes that the Boer-Murder White Cross Monument located on a kopje on the highway between Pietersburg and Potgietersrus will be upgrated with more crosses of murder-victims on June 4. She writes: "We will also use the day to pay homage to each Boer farmer, wife and child who was murdered in a farm-attack. New crosses will be planted, maintenance will be done of the existing crosses. Please contact me if you want to help: Tel Lita Fourie 0725427352. Mrs Fourie's charity also helps obtain funding for the plastic-surgery of many badly mutilated victims of farm-attacks:
Labels:
Afrikaner business; farming news:
Solidarity, representing the majority of Mango airline pilots, warns that it may not be flying in Nov/Dec ‘if its pilots don’t get paid better’ ; farmers work with AGRI-AIDS ngo to combat AIDS; TLU warns the ANC-regime that it’s plunging its citizens into long-term health risks with the plans to build antiquated, unsafe French nuclear-reactors instead of the safer pebblebed mini-plants developed in SA…
‘Mango airline must negotiate in earnest or we will stop them from flying in November and December ‘
Solidarity trade union has threatened to bring the low-cost SA airline Mango's flights to a halt ‘if it does not immediately set about wage negotiations in earnest.’ The union – which represents the ‘vast majority’ of the airline pilots, was issued with a strike certificate at a reconciliation meeting yesterday. It now will approach its members for a mandate for a possible strike. Their next ‘negotiation’ meeting is on 2 November 2011 in Benoni, says Ilze Nieuwoudt, Solidarity spokeswoman. “Negotiations with Mango have not gained momentum since August, after the company had initially indicated to our trade union that it was not prepared to listen to any wage demands. Solidarity subsequently declared a dispute with Mango and referred it to the CCMA to force the company into negotiations. “Mango initially undertook to implement an interim wage increase of 5,6% until a wage agreement was reached, at which time the difference would be implemented retroactively up to the agreed increase. However, this offer was withdrawn unilaterally earlier this week, which was the last straw for Solidarity’s members at the company,” explained Nieuwoudt.
“Mango employees are tired of waiting for the company to deal with issues that have been outstanding for months. Apart from the wage negotiations that are being delayed by Mango, a dispute regarding the employees’ contracts has been dragging on since March,” said Nieuwoudt. “All Mango employees work on a contractual basis and therefore do not receive medical and pension benefits. Mango employees are therefore not remunerated on nearly the same level as employees elsewhere in the industry.” The trade union warns that passengers and booking agents “should bear the possibility of a strike by pilots in mind when booking flights for November and December.” “Solidarity is, however, still set on reaching a wage agreement and will again meet with the employer on Wednesday, 2 November in order to seek a resolution to the dispute.”
http://www.salabournews.co.za/index.php/component/content/article/70-labour-news/2373-solidarity-threatens-to-halt-mango-flights-over-wages.html
Is the R500-million fresh produce market industry becoming extinct in South Africa?
Also: Daily prices of fresh-produce at Pretoria:
Pretoria. Oct 28 2011 - Agri-journalist Alani Janeke writes of the widespread worry amongst marketers of fresh produce that the industry is becoming extinct in South Africa. André Young, chairman of the SA association for food-markets, said ‘worries were expressed at the 2011 AllFresh conference.” that fresh-produce markets were increasingly difficult to find:
"Many producers (farmers) have lost trust in (municipal) produce markets and exclusively deal with wholesalers. The municipalities face challenges to maintain their produce markets: for instance the producers (farmers) have to pay for exhibition spaces there'. “There's also the issue of 'commissions' and, he pointed out, 'much more must be done to try and solve such problems at municipal levels. A solution must be found in which the farmer no longer has to carry all those risks,' he warned.
“Fresh-produce markets are far too valuable to disappear…’ -
RSA Holdings' (Santam Ltd) ceo Jaco Oosthuizen pointed out that a 'stable' supply of fresh produce was being traded between 1991 and 2010 at the fresh-produce markets, but that the industry 'now is becoming more competitive - and that is not a good sign." The fresh-produce industry is far too valuable disappear from the SA economy, he warned. "Annually it provides a combined income of R500-million to municipalities - and by the end of this book-year South Africa could well have traded R11,3-billion's worth of fresh-produce (since 1991."He urges 'far better cooperation and -communication between the agents, the markets and producers (farmers) to try and solve the present problems."
28 Oktober 2011 http://www.landbou.com/node/57964
Other problems also need to be solved however. Such as the following:
Farmers hampered by ANC-regime’s excessive obsession with historic water-irrigation rights:
One of the biggest problems facing fruit- vegetable and grain- farmers in (semi-arid) South Africa is water or rather – the government’s greedy attitude towaters the country’s scarce water-resources; more specifically the fact that the Marxist-orientated regime has become overly-obsessed with suing commercial farmers who traditionally have always had legal irrigation-rights from rivers and streams in the growing season and used this water very sparingly and carefully; whereas the ANC-run municipalities view fresh-water as a highly lucrative source of income to squeeze the ratepayers with .Many commercial farmers consequently now end up facing high court-costs just to fight for their traditionally-established irrigation rights. They face constant streams of unfounded allegations by ANC-municipalities that farmers 'use most of the country’s water.’ The fact is that farmers irrigate their land with water wihich then drains back into the eco-system again, returned downstream – in pristine condition.
http://www.landbou.com/bedrywe/tuinbou/ander-tuinbou/ander/pryse-van-varsprodukte
AIDS: 3,300 (one-third) of 10,000 tested farm-workers in 4 provinces were HIV-plus: http://www.agriaids.org.za
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- Another major problem facing commercial farmers is the still expanding AIDS-epidemic. The non-government organisation AgriAids.org.za director Gretha Kostwinder – a former agricultural advisor at the Dutch embassy -- also warned at the AllFresh Conference that farmers have to keep a close eye on the health of their workers.
"One-third (3,300) of the 10,000 farm-workers aged from 15 to 40 we tested in North West, Mpumalanga, KZN and Limpopo were HIV-positive,' she warned. Kostwinder also praised the farmers: 'since I started Agri-Aids I have not met one farmer who did not want to become involved in the project, and they consistently show a high level of concern about the health of their workers. We are very grateful for the feedback we get from the farmers.' The farmer plays a leading role in 'removing the stigma of AIDS'. Farmers also can sign cooperation agreements with AgriAids in which the worker is given more time off, whenever necessary, for workers to visit clinics and go for medical testing - and traditionally, commercial farmers in South Africa have always transported their workers for medical appointments anyway. Gretha Kostwinder has a very positive approach towards trying to solve the hiv-aids problem in agriculture. During her posting as agricultural counsellor at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria from 2001-2006, she was first confronted with the problem. After retiring from her diplomatic career in 2006, she decided to start the non-profit organisation AgriAids together with other women such as Marianne van der Laarse. AgriAids: 795 Park Street, 0083 Arcadia, Pretoria, tel. +27(0) 12- 343 5117; Fax: 086-56 50 298 (inside SA only) Email: mail@agriaids.org.za
http://www.agriaids.org.za.
Guide to growing vegetables: book and digital: published by Farming SA $95 book:
order tel. 021 406 4962 email lbw@media24.com AND: digital Apple iPad: R3.99 to download, including two short videos on how to market your produce at Cape Town municipal markets.The 96-page easy-to-carry pocket sized book provides useful information about growing vegetables, biological pest control, seeding, harvesting and similar information.
Specific guidelines concentrate on growing tomatoes, spinach, cabbage, potatoes, onions, beetroot, carrots and sweet potatoes. It was compiled by the Agricultural Research Council.
http://www.landbou.com/bedrywe/tuinbou/groente/tamaties/verbou-groente-met-handleiding
South African citizens face massive, long-term health-threats from greedy ANC-plans to install antiquated French nuclear-plants instead of safe pebblebed technology:
Oct 28 2011 -- The Transvaal Agricultural Union has been an avid supporter over the years of the country's unique, South-African developed and very safe Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor programme: which needs no cooling water. And its sonamed ‘pebble-sized fuel’ are encased in graphite – 9mm pebbles safe enough to handle by hand. The Transvaal Agricultural Union today is livid about the ANC-regime announcement that they were opting to install a series of antiquated, French-built water-cooled nuclear plants instead. The TLU today slammed this ‘greedy’ decision by the ANC regime, saying its officials were only looking to line their own pockets – and could care less about the proven dangers posed by water-cooled nuclear power plants...
--- Background on pebble-bed nuclear technology: Zuma scraps safe R20billion pebblebed mini-nuclear reactors for unsafe water-cooled French nuclear-reactors costing R1,6-trillion...http://bit.ly/w1VsIa
TLU pointed out that the Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor programme was a wholly-South African venture, using local nuclear-scientists with many years of experience – creating a unique programme which 'grew into one of the largest nuclear reactor design and engineering companies in the world. " "At the time more than 1,000 South African scientists and engineers were involved in the project, which also embraced universities, private companies and research institutes."History of SA nuclear plants versus coal-fire plants:
They also pointed out that 'most of South Africa’s coal-fired electricity is generated by large-scale plants built near the pit-heads of two coal-producing areas, both of them far inland on the eastern side of the country. "This requires long power lines from the coal-rich areas to load centers away from the pit-heads, which in turn implies high capital costs and transmission losses.
"These and other factors prompted the state-owned electricity utility Eskom to investigate small electricity-generating nuclear plants that could be placed near the points of demand rather than near water: the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) concept has a short construction time, a low operating cost and fast-load-following characteristics, and was considered to be the ideal option.
"This unique process developed by SA’s scientists caught the interest of overseas governments.
Westinghouse company in USA snapped up the South African nuclear scientists who developed the Pebble-Bed Nuclear Reactor technology:
"The Tsinghua University and Chinenergy Co. Ltd. of China entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with PBMR in March 2009.
"Korea and Japan also expressed interest, as did Canadian oil sands producers, while the USA’s Westinghouse took up a partnership in PBMR because of PBMR’s advanced technology.
"This advanced technology eliminates the need for cooling by water and the plants can thus be situated anywhere in a country.
"It is High Temperature Reactor (HTR) technology and South Africa is acknowledged as the world leader in the development of this process.
"The Senior Vice President and chief technology officer of the US’s Westinghouse Dr. Regis Matzie said that “the South African PBMR technology will become the world’s first successful commercial generation IV reactor”.
South African government has stopped the PBMR in its tracks in favour of old-fashioned French-built nuclear reactors:
"Fast forward to the South Africa government’s baffling reaction to this enterprise – last year, funding for the PBMR was stopped. Top South African engineer and nuclear scientist Phillip Lloyd found it “extraordinary that the government has pulled the plug on PBMR”. At the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna in 2009, SA’s PBMR technology attracted universal praise. As a result of the funding stoppage, hundreds of SA scientists were made redundant and many were offered lucrative posts in the American nuclear energy industry. “Westinghouse has a scoop”, declared Lloyd. “They are picking this up for a song. PBMR is being promoted in North America as the next generation of nuclear technology”.
"Why would the South African government make such a bizarre move, destroying a home-grown technology as it mulls over extensive and long-term energy plans for the country?
It’s all a matter of graft, corruption and money: for instance, former president Thabo Mbeki’s ANC government spent more than R60-billion of the taxpayers' money on armaments the country didn’t need. Millions found their way into crony-bank accounts, cover-ups were quick and those whose pockets were lined were never brought to book.
"The ANC nailed its corruption-DNA to the masthead, so it was not difficult to predict the change of heart with regard to South Africa’s nuclear power options," TLU points out in its latest report on the issue.
IT’S THE MONEY...
In our May 2010 Bulletin, we predicted that the French company Areva was on the cards to tender for a nuclear-powered reactor which would cost billions and is not as advanced as the PBMR process. This has come to pass! The French reactors are water-cooled, so their power stations must be built on SA’s coasts. Selected articles referring to Areva as a possible nuclear provider were already appearing in the press last year, and France’s Electricite de France (EDF) declared that “South Africa is ready for nuclear power”.
Why the ditching of PBMR and the seduction by the French?
“It’s all about the money, of course. As with the arms deal, here is a lucrative opportunity for the South African powers that be to cream off considerable pickings in a deal which could cost one trillion rand. It is worth more than ten times the arms deal. France has been courting the responsive South African politicians since 2007, according to leaked diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Pretoria. Competition at the time was between the US and France, but France knows how to lobby. Mr. Jacob Zuma has been on two state visits to France since becoming president: French President Sarkozy laid on lavish dinners, functions, tours and receptions designed to dazzle and flatter the gentleman from Nkandhla. In February 2008, Sarkozy made a state visit to South Africa, praising the country’s new democracy and promising undying “cooperation” between the two countries.
- Sarkozy cannot be blamed for this approach – as a former colonial power, France knows too well how to flatter Africa. Sarkosy’s visit was “impeccably timed”, noted a cable, because it occurred shortly after the closing date for tender submissions but before Eskom’s board was due to make its recommendations on the preferred supplier of nuclear power. (Mail & Guardian 7.10.11) Areva supplied the existing nuclear power facility at Koeberg, and wasn’t going to allow a South African process, no matter how advanced, to thwart its plans to sell its product to the ANC government, well known for its empirically-documented venality. The ANC’s modus vivendi over the past seventeen years has shown it is more important to line one’s pockets than to defer to any other consideration, least of all to acknowledge the advanced nuclear PBMR process developed by South African scientists.
THE COST: SADDLING SOUTH AFRICANS WITH A LONG-TERM, LIFE-THREATENING, ANTIQUATED NUCLEAR-PLANT PROGRAMME:
South Africa is poised to issue the largest tender in its history (M&G 7.10.11). This multi-billion dollar contract could account for as much as 20% of the world’s total nuclear spending over the next twenty years. China appears to be in the process of providing the finance for the Areva tender. This duo appears to be the front-runner. Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe was feted in China on a state visit recently: the partying has started, and South Africans can be assured that “commissions” previously unheard of in this country will be widely distributed as a result of a successful tender.
French track-record on nuclear plants is poor:
Internationally however – the nuclear option is being downgraded because of the Japanese nuclear disaster following a tsunami. Yet France’s Areva needs a big contract to survive. Something clearly not being taken into account by the ANC government is that France’s track record on the construction of new reactors is poor. Its flagship, a new generation of reactors named EPR, under construction in Finland and France, is struggling with thousands of technical and safety problems, delays and billions in cost overruns. Similar issues arise in China. According to Dr. Rianne Teule, an expert on nuclear energy working for Greenpeace Africa, “combining the French and Chinese nuclear failures in a potential joint bid for the R1 trillion tender is a recipe for disaster”.
One-trillion Rand have to be coughed up by a country with a total tax-collection base of only R674-billion…
But who in the SA government is worried about this? There are some lucrative bank account transfers on the cards, so it’s onward with the estimated payment of one trillion rand from a country whose total tax collection for 2010 was R674 billion!
Pebble-bed mini-plants – already tested -- could be ready within two years: French only by 2024…
And it will be 2024 before all of these coastal reactors come on steam, while it is estimated the PBMR process could be ready within two years, if some of our scientists could be persuaded to return to South Africa.
Given the state of corruption, incompetence, nepotism and the government’s cavalier attitude towards the taxpayers of this country, the prognosis doesn’t look good, either for nuclear energy provision or , more insidiously, nuclear safety. The Fukushima nuclear disaster became so much more dangerous when the reactors heated and couldn’t be cooled – the PBMR process eliminates this problem. It doesn’t need water for cooling.
Will there be cadre-deployment at the new nuclear facilities? Perish the thought:
Will there be cadre deployment in these new facilities? Perish the thought, given the current lamentable performances in the country’s civil service.
- While sewage is running in the streets, the state budgets are plundered, the matric-results are dolled up and the many other vagaries of life under ANC rule are lamentable, they are not life-threatening.
A nuclear power programme of water-cooled reactors will be disastrous: - "A nuclear programme of water-cooled reactors under control of trade unionists who are uneducated on the subject of nuclear-engineering; the government deployment of political friends in such an industry -- and, of course, the inevitable cost overruns, the French/Chinese nuclear projects in South Africa could be a bridge too far!
http://www.tlu.co.za
Black US dancer Makeda Crayton in armed robbery, SAfrica
The Cape Dance Company was robbed of only one BlackBerry at gunpoint: also targeted was US dancer Makeda Crayton
source: journalist Pauli van Wyk, Die BEELD newspaper:
2011-10-27 FLORIDA, JOHANNESBURG, South Africa. It hardly seemed worth all the trauma it caused, because the two ‘neatly-dressed’, black armed male robbers who attacked the neo-classical Cape Dance Company at gunpoint the day before their opening night at Newtown's Dance Factory in the Johannesburg CBD only got away with one BlackBerry cellphone.
‘It was so bizarre’ : Makeda Crayton:
The Cape-Town based dancing group targetted by the armed robbers includes foreign dancers such as Makeda Crayton (right) - who said she initially was 'confused when one man just walked right up to me with his hand in front of his mouth indicating I had to be silent. It was so bizarre. A robber in the US would never allow his face to be seen. This man just walked up to me and I initially thought it was someone's friend I didn't know.” She only realised something was amiss when she saw the gun in his hand. "I ran so fast, it all went so silently. The moment people realised we were being robbed, we all just ran and tried to hide away,' she said.
Yet after all this fuss, the only thing they stole was a BlackBerry cellphone, said dance-troope chief Debbie Turner. "Fortunately we all got away safely. They could have looted our bags of equipment, sheet music, technical equipment, or they could have injured someone.' That would have been the end of the show - but as it was, the dances again worked hard the next day for their final rehearsal 'because the show must go on'.
The troupe dances October 27 – 30 at the Dance Factory, Newtown, Johannesburg; and moves to Artscape in Cape Town November 30 – December 11. They featuring a repertoire of neo- classical ballets by national and international choreographers, with acclaimed US choreographer Christopher L Huggins, as well as guest artists Crayton from New York and Justin Daniel from Ohio.
http://m.news24.com/beeld/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Dansgroep-beroof-deur-boewe-met-n-glimlag-20111027