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Telkom says AI helped it capture over 20% of SA's mobile market

Telkom says AI helped it capture over 20% of SA's mobile market

News24a day ago

Deaan Vivier/Media24
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City of Johannesburg warns that shack fires are rising, and most are preventable
City of Johannesburg warns that shack fires are rising, and most are preventable

News24

time2 hours ago

  • News24

City of Johannesburg warns that shack fires are rising, and most are preventable

Over 2 000 shacks burnt nationally between September and February. SA sees about 10 shack fires every day, with deaths every second day. Most fires are preventable: stoves, candles, and electrical plugs and wiring are the main risks. As temperatures drop and power cuts persist, residents in Johannesburg's informal settlements face a deadly seasonal threat: shack fires. According to the City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS), hundreds of fires break out each winter, many caused by unsafe heating and cooking methods, and illegal electricity connections. At a recent Disaster Risk Awareness launch, EMS and disaster officials highlighted the region's vulnerability. 'From 2022, our data show that between 850 and 900 people were affected by various fire incidents in this region alone,' said Niel Rooi, head of disaster management for the City of Johannesburg. He added: 'Informal dwellings are built using combustible materials, and many residents cook or keep warm using unsafe methods. We're here to prepare communities to respond to and prevent fires.' According to Rooi, in 2022, there were 445 shack fires recorded in Johannesburg's informal settlements. While some were extinguished without major injuries, others left families homeless or worse. Xolile Khumalo, media liaison officer for City of Johannesburg EMS, said their current campaigns aim to reduce those numbers through education and awareness. 'We're teaching communities how to safely use paraffin, store flammable liquids and avoid locking children inside homes unattended. We're also warning about the risks of illegal electricity connections which have caused many of the recent fires.' City of Johannesburg acting deputy director at the Emergency Services Academy, David Tembe, told City Press: We are here to give you information about preventing fires. We want to work with you for your safety and the safety of the city. We won't win this battle unless we work together, hand in hand. David Tembe Bongani Siziba Tebogo Letsie / City Press Tebogo Letsie / City Press Emergency services in cities such as Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni run winter fire awareness campaigns, but fire officials say prevention still depends on taking basic precautions at home. Tebogo Letsie The City of Johannesburg EMS, whose Stay Alive Until We Arrive campaign targets high-risk communities, urges residents to follow these critical safety steps: Store paraffin in sealed containers, away from flames or stoves Blow out candles and turn off heaters before sleeping Never leave children alone near heat sources Avoid illegal electrical connections – they're deadly ... and illegal Keep a bucket of water or sand nearby at night As winter deepens, EMS officials are clear: these fires are not acts of fate, they are mostly preventable. 'Fire spreads fast,' Rooi warned. 'But being prepared spreads faster.'

Documenting Life on Both Sides of the South African Color Line
Documenting Life on Both Sides of the South African Color Line

New York Times

time4 hours ago

  • New York Times

Documenting Life on Both Sides of the South African Color Line

David Goldblatt began photographing in 1948, the year apartheid was imposed in his native South Africa. He was just out of high school. A liberal Jew who hated the system of racial separation, Goldblatt, as an insightful outsider, depicted life on both sides of the color line. Documenting rather than proselytizing, for 70 years, until his death in 2018, he portrayed with unsurpassed clarity the societal warping and tension that apartheid inflicted — most brutally on people of color, but also on the ruling white minority. The earliest photograph in 'David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive,' an impressive and moving retrospective through June 22 at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven (seen previously at the Art Institute of Chicago and Fundación Mapfre in Madrid), dates from 1949. It is a picture of children, mostly Black but some white, laughing and playing on the border between two multiracial working-class Johannesburg suburbs that were about to be classified as white only, forcing most residents to relocate far away. Compared with what followed, South Africa, at least in that scene, seems almost like Eden. As the longstanding reality of white supremacy became rigidly codified, you see in Goldblatt's photographs how a country of staggering wealth and beauty was twisted into an unnatural shape. In one emblematic tableau, a group of Black men, viewed from a distance, gather on a grassy outcrop that overlooks the tall buildings of Johannesburg. The skyline looms through a haze, a pale apparition that is geographically close but for these men impossible to enter. Except, of course, as the servants and laborers who maintained the premises. In 1983 and 1984, Goldblatt rode the bus early in the morning with workers heading from Black communities to their jobs in Pretoria. He joined them again at night on the return. Each way could take more than three hours. Balancing himself and his Leica on the bumpy drive, shooting with fast film and no flash, he produced dark, grainy images, sometimes illuminated by the headlights of passing vehicles. Many of the passengers are asleep, but the less fortunate ones are standing. The feeling of fatigue is overwhelming. Like one of his role models, Dorothea Lange, Goldblatt understood that the impact of a photograph is amplified by words and that, in his case, the photographs would be especially mystifying for audiences outside South Africa. To provide context, he wrote lengthy captions, which are included in the wall labels in the exhibition and in abbreviated form in the excellent catalog. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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