24 hours in pictures, 5 May 2025
Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world.
epaselect epa12074195 People participate in the 'Balloon Parade' in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, 04 May 2025. The event, considered the largest balloon parade in the world, featured a marine world theme. Floats decorated with balloons were created by 13 international artists from Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Picture: EPA-EFE/FRANCISCO GUASCO
Demonstrators protest against offshore oil and gas drilling in Cape Town, South Africa, on May 05, 2025. Demonstrators in Cape Town gathered outside the Western Cape High Court to protest offshore oil and gas drilling along South Africa's coastline, coinciding with a court case challenging the government's approval of exploration in blocks between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas. Organized by environmental groups The Green Connection and Natural Justice as part of the 'Who Stole Our Oceans' campaign, the protest raised concerns over threats to marine biodiversity, small-scale fishers' livelihoods, and the climate, calling instead for a shift to renewable energy. The demonstration highlights the ongoing clash between environmental advocates and government officials, such as Minister Gwede Mantashe, who promote oil and gas projects for economic growth. Picture: Matrix Images Activists protest outside Cape Town High Court on May 05, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. Civil organisations are questioning the environmental authorisation process and challenging the government's alleged failure to properly assess the significant risks posed by oil and gas exploration, including oil spills, climate change impacts and threats to small-scale fishers' livelihoods. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach) A picture taken with a drone shows rapeseed fields in full bloom in Rokietnica village, southeastern Poland, 05 May 2025. Picture: EPA-EFE/Darek Delmanowicz Participants run during the Wings for Life World Run App Run in Pretoria, on May 4, 2025. The Wings for Life World Run is a running competition held on the first weekend of May since 2014 to collect funds for the not-for-profit foundation Wings for Life. The entry fee goes completely to Spinal Cord Research. Picture: Tyrone Bradley A mitre of a cardinal as he attends the Ninth Novendiale Mass in memory of Pope Francis at Saint Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican in Rome, Italy on May 04, 2025. The Vatican announced on the 21 of April the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta. The conclave with gathers a College of Cardinals is due to start meeting on the 07 of May to elect the new Pope. Picture: Matrix Images / Andre Pain Deputy President Paul Mashatile and Gwede Mantashe at the business breakfast engagement session on the Transformation Fund at Freedom Park Heritage Site and Museum on May 05, 2025 in Pretoria, South Africa. The Transformation Fund is a key initiative aimed at accelerating transformation and supporting black-owned and black-managed businesses across various sectors in South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images/Frennie Shivambu) Tourists take selfies as they visit a section of the Great Wall of China near Beijing, China, 05 May 2025. During the May Day national holiday, observed in China over a period of five days from 01 until 05 May, popular tourist spots become very crowded. Picture: EPA-EFE/JESSICA LEE Environmental protesters gather outside the head offices of TotalEnergies in Johannesburg, South Africa, 05 May 2025. The protesters gathered to hand a memorandum to the company as they stand in solidarity with coastal communities in the Western Cape of South Africa and give their full support to The Green Connection and Natural Justice, who have brought a judicial review against the environmental authorization granted to TotalEnergies to conduct offshore oil and gas drilling along the coastline from Cape Town to Cape Agulhas. Picture: EPA-EFE/KIM LUDBROOK Participants disguised as Christian and Moor soldiers take part in a re-enactment of Moors and Christians battles during the last day of 'Moors and Christians' festival in the town of Alcoy, Spain, 05 May 2025. The festival marks the battles between Muslim Moors and Christians to take control of the city of Alcoy in 1276. Picture: EPA-EFE/PABLO MIRANZO Gayton McKenzie (Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture of South Africa) at the 2nd G20 Culture Working Group Session on Day 1 at the Sandton Convention Centre on May 05, 2025 in Sandton, South Africa. This significant gathering forms part of South Africa's G20 Presidency, the first to be hosted on African soil, and serves as a platform for in-depth discussions on four key priorities. (Photo by Gallo Images/OJ Koloti) A window cleaner works on a high-rise building in Bangkok, Thailand, 05 May 2025. The World Bank downgraded Thailand's gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for 2025 to 1.6 percent from 2.9 percent, marking the lowest growth prediction among ASEAN economies due to the impact of US reciprocal tariff measures, lower than expected tourist arrival number, high public debt as well as the global economic slowdown. Picture: EPA-EFE/RUNGROJ YONGRIT
PICTURES: EFF march to Kleinfontein
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TimesLIVE
a day ago
- TimesLIVE
EPA moves to repeal US vehicle emission standards by revoking greenhouse gas rules
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to repeal all greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for light-duty, medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicles and engines in the coming days after it removes the scientific finding that justified those rules, according to a summary of the proposal. In a draft of a summary of the forthcoming proposal, seen by Reuters, the agency is expected to say that the Clean Air Act does not authorise the EPA to impose emission standards to address global climate change concerns and will rescind the finding that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and engines endanger public health or welfare. It is also expected to justify rescinding the endangerment finding by casting doubt on the scientific record used to make the finding. 'We further propose, in the alternative, to rescind the Administrator's findings because the EPA unreasonably analysed the scientific record and because developments cast significant doubt on the reliability of the findings,' the summary says. The US Supreme Court, in its landmark Massachusetts vs EPA case in 2007, said the EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and required the agency to make a scientific finding on whether they endanger public health. In 2009, the EPA under former president Barack Obama issued a finding that emissions from new motor vehicles contribute to pollution and endanger public health and welfare. It was upheld in several legal challenges and underpinned subsequent greenhouse gas regulations. The summary also says that one of its rationales for repealing the vehicle standards is that the required technology to reduce emissions would risk greater harms to public health and welfare. Former president Joe Biden's administration said the standards would hike upfront vehicle prices but save consumers money in the long run after accounting for lower fuel costs. The agency is likely to announce the proposal in the coming days, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. The EPA said it had sent its proposal to reconsider the endangerment finding to the White House for review on June 30. 'The proposal will be published for public notice and comment once it has completed inter-agency review and been signed by the Administrator,' the agency said. The agency did not comment on the tailpipe rules. The rescinding of all vehicle emission standards is the latest — and most extensive — attempt to put a quick end to EPA tailpipe rules that were forecast to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 49% by 2032 over 2026 levels. Nearly 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector, according to EPA data. The EPA forecast that between 35% and 56% of all sales between 2030 and 2032 would be EVs to meet the requirements. The Trump administration has taken a multipronged approach to dismantling rules designed to improve vehicle efficiency, reduce fuel use and boost electric vehicles, including ending the $7,500 (R133,175) new EV tax credit and $4,000 (R71,026) used EV tax credit on September 30, and has frozen billions of dollars in EV charging funding for states. Under legislation signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month, carmakers face no fines for failures to meet fuel efficiency rules dating back to the 2022 model year. Last year, Chrysler parent Stellantis paid $190.7m (R3,386,259,900) in civil penalties for failing to meet US fuel economy requirements for 2019 and 2020 after paying nearly $400m (R7,102,319,400) for penalties from 2016 through 2019. GM previously paid $128.2m (R2,276,293,560) in penalties for 2016 and 2017. In June, Trump signed three congressional resolutions barring California's electric vehicle sales mandates and diesel engine rules. He approved a resolution to bar California's landmark plan to end the sale of combustion-only vehicles by 2035, which has been adopted by 11 other states and represents a third of the US car market. California has filed a suit to overturn the repeal.
The Citizen
16-07-2025
- The Citizen
24 hours in pictures, 16 July 2025
24 hours in pictures, 16 July 2025 Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world. US President Donald J. Trump responds to a question from the news media prior to boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 July 2025. President Trump will be speaking at an Energy and Innovation summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Picture: EPA/SHAWN THEW The pack of riders (peloton) cycles past a sunflower field during the 11th stage of the 112th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, 156.8 km starting and finishing in Toulouse, southwestern France, on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP) Syrian security forces take aim from a rooftop position amid ongoing clashes in the southern city of Sweida on July 16, 2025. Damascus deployed troops in the predominantly Druze province of Sweida, after clashes between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribes killed scores of people, with Syria's defence minister declaring a ceasefire on July 15 in Sweida city, which government forces entered in the morning. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP) Children carry a paddle board at Malvarrosa beach in Valencia, Spain, 16 July 2025. The temperature is to reach up to 38 degrees Celsius in Valencia during the day. Picture: EPA/Biel Alino South Africa's swimmer Connor Buck (bottom) competes in the final of the men's 10km open water swimming event during the 2025 World Aquatics Championships at Sentosa Island in Singapore on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP) SoftBank Group Corp. Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son speaks during the event SoftBank World 2025 in Tokyo, Japan, 16 July 2025. SoftBank Group and OpenAI are moving forward with plans to offer generative AI-powered business automation services to major Japanese corporations. Picture: EPA/FRANCK ROBICHON Operation Dudula members outside Braamfischer Clinic checking the passports and IDs of migrant nationals on July 16, 2025 in Soweto, South Africa. It is alleged that Operation Dudula has been turning away foreign nationals from accessing health care services from public clinics. (Photo by Gallo Images/Fani Mahuntsi) The entrance to the New York Stock Exchange in New York, New York, USA, on 16 July 2025. Picture: EPA/JUSTIN LANE An aerial view of tourists enjoying the beach at a resort in Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / AFP) Army soldiers turn over a damaged car affected by flash flooding due to heavy rains in Zapopan, Jalisco state, Mexico on July 16, 2025. At least one minor died and dozens of homes and streets were flooded after heavy rains hit the municipality of Zapopan in western Mexico on Tuesday night. (Photo by ULISES RUIZ / AFP) Stray dogs roam at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, 15 July 2025 (issued 16 July 2025). Kabul's stray dog population is surging, posing threats to public safety despite long-term efforts, such as vaccination, sterilization programs, and even euthanasia due to rabies concerns. Picture: EPA/SAMIULLAH POPAL Morocco's Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita receives South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma in Rabat on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Abdel Majid BZIOUAT / AFP) A youth dives in the Tigris river to cool off amidst power cuts due to an extreme heatwave in Baghdad on July 15, 2025. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP) Activist from the Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation (ECOTON) and students put up an installation in the shape of a heart and lungs damaged by exposure to microplastics waste during a protest to raise awareness of the impact of single-use plastic on the environment and human health in Surabaya on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Juni KRISWANTO / AFP) Handout picture released on July 16, 2025 by the Public Defense Department of the State Police Commissioner in Iceland shows lava and smoke erupting from a volcano near Grindavik on the Icelandic peninsula of Reykjanes. A volcano erupted on Wednesday in Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest, weather authorities said, the ninth eruption to hit the region since the end of 2023. Broadcaster RUV reported that the nearby fishing village Grindavik had been evacuated, as had the Blue Lagoon, Iceland's famed tourist spot. (Photo by Handout / Public Defense Department of the State Police / AFP) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) and Bavaria's State Premier Markus Soeder (2ndR hidden) watch traditional Bavarian 'Schuhplattler' dancers performing atop the Zugspitze mountain in Grainau near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on July 15, 2025, prior to taking part in a meeting of the Bavarian state cabinet. (Photo by Michaela STACHE / AFP) City Power employees remove illegal conections at Crown Mines in Johannesburg, 16 July 2025. City Power and other law enforcement officers conducted a disconnection operation targeting illegal electricity connections focusing on a nearby informal settlement where illegal connections have compromised infrastructure and safety. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/ The Citizen Army personnel patrol a street on an armoured vehicle after Awami League party activists allegedly clashed with security personnel to rebuke a rally by the newly formed Jatiya Nagarik Party, or National Citizen's Party in Gopalganj on July 16, 2025. At least three were killed and a dozen others injured in Gopalganj on July 16, after a clash broke out between law enforcement agencies and alleged Awami League affiliates attempting to foil a programme by the National Citizens Party (NCP). (Photo by Anik Rahman / AFP) Alisha Lehmann of Switzerland and teammates in action during a training session of the Swiss women's national soccer team in Thun, Switzerland, 16 July 2025. Switzerland will face Spain in the quarter finals of the UEFA Women's EURO 2025 on 18 July. Picture: EPA/ANTHONY ANEX MORE: 24 hours in pictures, 15 July 2025
Daily Maverick
15-07-2025
- Daily Maverick
SA's critical minerals strategy a shopping list to revive existing carbon-intensive mining economy
South Africa's recently released critical minerals and metals strategy continues to prop up carbon-intensive processing and manufacturing activities, while giving a nod to greener minerals and green hydrogen as future endeavours. Following successive pronouncements by South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe on the need to leverage the country's critical minerals, the ministry recently published its national Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy. Mantashe has been vocal in criticising developed countries for defining 'critical minerals' to serve their own interests, and in February this year, threatened to withhold access to these minerals from the US if it limited funding. At the time, he called on African countries to embrace their strategic mineral advantage and take charge of growing demand. The South African critical minerals strategy seeks to do just that, by charting a roadmap that leverages these resources to the nation's benefit, while simultaneously driving growth, job creation and industrial development. Its stated intention is to focus on the entire value chain, with a view to growing the country's existing industrial base while improving value addition. The draft is sensitive to geopolitical tensions and trade restrictions and positions itself in that context, identifying the need to anchor the country as a supplier of critical minerals globally in the context of growing demand for certain minerals. Similar to many African countries, South Africa's value chains are primarily upstream, with a focus on extraction and export and little beneficiation and value addition. Like its neighbours, for example, Zimbabwe and Namibia, the country wants to take steps to localise beneficiation and processing. Carbon-intensive processing However, the strategy is less focused on leveraging minerals for the low-carbon transition and related green technologies, unlike the recently finalised African Union Green Mineral Strategy. Instead, it continues to prop up existing carbon-intensive processing and manufacturing activities, while giving a nod to the need to pursue greener minerals and green hydrogen as future endeavours. Noting the difference between a 'green mineral' and 'critical mineral' strategy, the one published by the ministry is very much the latter. This follows a unilateral view of what counts as a 'critical mineral', which Mantashe has previously stressed should be something that a country decides for itself. In the words of the strategy, critical minerals are those which are 'critical for South Africa'. This is seen to include 'minerals that are strategically important for economic growth, industrial development, job creation and national security', measured through economic potential, supply risks and risk of supply disruptions. In the strategy, this translates into a list of 21 minerals and metals (some of which are not strictly speaking either), which fall on a continuum of 'highly' critical to 'moderately' critical to the country. Sitting in the highly critical list are coal and iron ore, both extremely carbon-intensive input materials, grouped with minerals and metals well known for their green transition value, such as chrome and platinum. Lower on the list are gold, copper and aluminium, coupled with rare earth metals, cobalt, and uranium. This classification clearly illustrates that although there are differing interpretations of what a 'critical mineral' is, the South African approach is by no means linked to forward-looking technologies or a low-carbon transition. Coal Instead, it presents as a lengthy shopping list of measures across a broad spectrum of mined resources to revive South Africa's existing minerals economy, including sectors that have fared poorly in recent times, such as gold. South Africa is not alone in designating coal a critical 'mineral'. US President Donald Trump earlier this year issued the 'Reinvigorating America's Beautiful Clean Coal Industry' executive order. This designation of coal is contrary to the forward-looking and globally driven critical minerals environment, which the strategy itself acknowledges is primarily driven by the renewable energy transition, geopolitical dynamics, technological advancements and international trade policies and standards. The latter would include the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that penalises carbon-intensive goods and services. The strategy also seeks to position the country as a regional hub for critical minerals' processing and beneficiation, as well as battery manufacturing, and underscores the importance of working with other countries in the region. Regional coordination However, notwithstanding comments around the difficulties of nationalism and unilateral action, it does not meaningfully address how South Africa intends to work with its neighbouring partners to jointly benefit from their respective strategic advantages and what role these other countries might play. This is something the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA) could play a role in facilitating and supplementing, as it provides for the progressive elimination of tariffs on mining-related goods and services between members. The strategy then pans to other sectors such as hydrogen and fuel cell manufacturing, revitalising the ferro-alloys sector through various incentives and stimulus measures, trade measures to support the local steel industry, a handful of measures to stimulate electric vehicle manufacturing, and steps to develop a downstream industry for titanium. The measures are detailed and considered and build on or echo previous initiatives that have sought to revitalise these aspects of the economy. For example, the focus on batteries and fuel cells to support new energy vehicles (e-mobility) in the Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan and Electric Vehicle White Paper. The basics To work, however, South Africa will first need to ensure it gets the basics right. Minerals and metals have little value if they can't get to the ports or national processing facilities; if there is no power to process or utilise them; or if the ports are non-functional or congested. This has been a challenge over the past decade that has brought the South African mining sector to its knees. The strategy acknowledges this, but offers little more than reiterating the need to deepen existing efforts (Operation Vulindlela) to support port, energy and rail infrastructure and to create special zones, support initiatives, infrastructure finance and energy conservation measures. The strategy is laudable for the many measures and interventions it seeks to introduce or build on to further grow the sector, but given the breadth of its scope, and the legacy challenges that beset the industry, it will need a comprehensive implementation plan with sufficient financial backing and political will to get it off the ground. This may be the hardest part of all. Similarly, if it is to overcome the nationalistic trade tendencies and geopolitical tensions to become the regional hub it promotes, it will need to develop a much clearer strategy with neighbouring countries so that each can profit from their relative advantages. DM Olivia Rumble is a consultant to Enzi Ijayo Africa Initiative and a director at Climate Legal. Leezola Zongwe is a researcher at Enzi Ijayo, specialising in critical minerals and energy policy.
