Latest news with #TimCocks
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Lesser flamingos lose one of their only four African breeding sites to sewage
By Tim Cocks KIMBERLEY, South Africa (Reuters) -Until the last half-decade, the majestic lesser flamingo had four African breeding sites: two salt pans in Botswana and Namibia, a soda lake in Tanzania, and an artificial dam outside South Africa's historic diamond-mining town of Kimberley. Now it only has three. Years of raw sewage spilling into Kamfers Dam, the only South African water body where lesser flamingos congregated in large enough numbers to breed, have rendered the water so toxic that the distinctive pink birds have abandoned it, according to conservationists and a court judgment against the local council seen by Reuters. Lesser flamingos are currently considered near-threatened, rather than endangered, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature: there are 2-3 million left, four-fifths of them spread across Africa, the rest in a smaller area of South Asia. But they are in steep decline, and the poisoning of one of their last few breeding sites has worsened their plight dramatically. Tania Anderson, a conservation biologist specialising in flamingos, told Reuters the IUCN was about to increase its threat-level to "vulnerable", meaning "at high risk of extinction in the wild", owing largely to their shrinking habitats of salty estuaries or soda lakes shallow enough for them to wade through. "It's really very upsetting," Anderson said of the sewage spills in Kamfers Dam. "Flamingos play a pivotal role in maintaining the water ecosystems of our wetlands." A 2021 study in Biological Conservation found sewage threatens aquatic ecosystems across a vast area of the planet. Although 200 nations came together at the U.N. COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia last year to tackle threats to wildlife, no agreement was reached. 'THEY JUST DISAPPEARED' Footage taken by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa in May 2020 shows Kamfers Dam turned flamboyant pink with flamingos. When Reuters visited this month, there were none. A closer look at the water revealed a green sludge that bubbled and stank of human waste. "It was a sea of pink," Brenda Booth recalled, as she gazed over the bird-free lake located on the farm she owns, dotted with acacia trees and antelope. "They all just disappeared," said Booth, who last month secured the court order compelling the African National Congress-run municipality in charge of Kimberley, a city of 300,000, to fix the problem. Over the years, the treatment plant "became progressively dysfunctional to the point where ... approximately 36 megalitres a day of untreated sewage was being discharged into the dam," said Adrian Horwitz, the lawyer bringing the case in the High Court of South Africa, Northern Cape division. Municipality manager Thapelo Matlala told Reuters thieves had vandalised the plant and stolen equipment, grinding it to a halt. "We are working on a new strategy for ... repairing the damage," he said outside his office, adding that this needed 106 million rand ($5.92 million), money the council didn't have. Failure to deliver services was one of the main reasons the ANC lost its 30-year-strong majority in last year's elections. Lesser flamingos mostly eat spirulina, a blue-green algae - filtering it through their beaks. This limits them to alkaline water bodies, largely in East Africa's Rift Valley. They're fussy about where they breed, with just three sites in India alongside the remaining three in Africa. Flamingos began breeding at Kamfers Dam in 2006, said Ester van der Westhuizen-Coetzer, wetlands specialist for local diamond miner Ekapa Group, as she waded through grassland at the edge of another lake where she had spotted a flock. In 2020, there were 71,000 on the dam, with up to 5,000 new chicks each season. "They've missed three or four breeding seasons," she said, and many also died of botulism, a disease that flourishes in waste. Sewage has become a problem across South Africa, where few treatment plants are in working order, and if nothing is done, "the whole system will degrade and blow up," she said. "That will have a huge impact, and not only on flamingos." ($1 = 17.8903 rand)
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
South Africa's white Afrikaner separatists want Trump's help to become state
By Tim Cocks ORANIA, South Africa (Reuters) - A group of white Afrikaners was so opposed to majority Black rule when apartheid ended some three decades ago that they carved out a separatist enclave, the only town in South Africa where all residents, including menial workers, are white. Now, the residents of Orania - population, 3,000 - in the semi-arid Karoo region want U.S. President Donald Trump to help them become a state. Last week, community leaders from Orania visited the United States seeking recognition as an autonomous entity. South African authorities acknowledge it as a town that can raise local taxes and deliver services. "We wanted to... gain recognition, with the American focus on South Africa now," Orania Movement leader Joost Strydom told Reuters, on a hill strewn with bronzes of past Afrikaner leaders, including from the era of racist white minority rule that was ended by internal resistance and international outrage. The 8,000-hectare settlement is riding an unprecedented wave of support from right-wing Americans for Afrikaner nationalists, who irrevocably lost power when apartheid ended in 1994 and Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first Black president. In New York and Washington the Orania leaders met influencers, think-tanks and low-ranking Republican politicians. "We told them South Africa is such a ... diverse country that it's not a good idea to try and manage it centrally," said Strydom. Three senior Orania officials interviewed by Reuters were vague about the help they sought in the U.S. They said they were not seeking handouts but wanted investment to build houses to keep up with its 15% population growth, infrastructure and energy independence that it has almost half-achieved with solar. Strydom declined to say whether his delegation had contact with the Trump administration. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. South African foreign ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told Reuters: "(Orania's) not... a country. They are subject to the laws of South Africa and ... our constitution." Other Afrikaner nationalist groups have also visited the U.S. to build alliances with overwhelmingly white, Republican audiences, prompting accusations back home that such trips stoke racial tensions. The leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) last week accused Orania's leaders of "destroying the unity of this country", a charge they reject. 'START OF SOMETHING' Afrikaners are descendants of Dutch settlers who began arriving in the 1600s. They resisted the British Empire in South Africa, but once in charge of the country, they hardened racial segregation using discriminatory laws. "There were 17,000 laws on land alone," foreign ministry spokesperson Phiri said. "We had... to reconstruct South Africa into a country that represents all those who live in it." In 1991, as the end of apartheid neared, a group of about 300 Afrikaners acquired Orania, previously an abandoned water project on the muddy Orange River, to create a homeland exclusively for white Afrikaners. "It's the start of something," former Orania Movement leader Carel Boshoff, said of his community, comparing its desire for independence - Orania even uses its own informal currency - to that of Israel, established after World War Two despite stiff resistance from Arabs living in that territory. Boshoff, whose father founded the town and whose grandfather, Hendrick Verwoerd, is widely viewed as the architect of apartheid, dreams of a territory stretching to the west coast nearly 1,000 miles away. Orania's activities are funded through local taxes and donations from supporters and residents. Its leaders were dismayed to find the only solution that anyone in the United States was interested in discussing was U.S. residency, after Trump offered in February to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees. "We can't be exporting our people," Boshoff told Reuters beside a framed photo of his late grandfather. "We told them ... 'help us here'," he said. Some U.S. right-wingers have sought to make common cause with Afrikaners in their opposition to diversity policies that aim to empower historically unjustly-treated non-white groups. South Africa's Black empowerment laws have been ridiculed by Trump's South African-born adviser, Elon Musk. Those laws were the reason Hanlie Pieters moved to Orania eight months ago, after 25 years of living in Johannesburg, to become head of marketing for the town's technical college. "Our children ... what opportunities will they have?" Pieters said, bemoaning quotas for Black workers, while trainee plumbers and electricians honed their skills in a shed nearby. A third of all South Africans are out of work, most of them poor Blacks. One such unemployed man, 49-year-old Bongani Zitha, said he thought "people in Orania... are doing very well" compared to many South Africans. "So many people looking for opportunities. It's a struggle," he sighed. Zitha, who has lived in a corrugated shanty town in Soweto with no piped water or sewage since 1995, said at least the people of Orania have "rights to health, education, everything". And unlike himself under white minority rule, he added, Orania residents are free to live wherever they want.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
World must stick to climate goals despite US, UK envoy says
By Tim Cocks PRETORIA (Reuters) - The world must carry on pursuing the greenhouse gas emissions reductions outlined in the Paris Agreement, despite the United States' withdrawal, Britain's climate envoy said on Thursday, adding that the UK was moving ahead with its targets. Last month U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the world's second biggest emitter from the agreement that aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit). See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. "Around the world people are noting that the U.S. has pulled out of Paris, but we've got to carry on," Rachel Kyte told Reuters in an interview on a visit to South Africa's capital Pretoria. "The science hasn't changed, no other country has changed its position ... the direction of travel is the same." U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Monday called pledges to achieve net zero carbon emissions a "sinister goal," singling out Britain for its clean energy targets. "(Britain's) energy security ... food security, and the well being of the British people is entirely linked to the (world's) ability ... to manage this climate crisis," Kyte said. "So it's regrettable that the United States is out ... but we're moving ahead," she said. Britain's decision this month to use its National Wealth Fund for defence spending has raised fears of reduced funds for green energy. Kyte said no decisions had been made on how funds will be earmarked. "It's not a zero-sum game," she said, because the energy transition was being driven by "using public money effectively to crowd in private investments. The United States is also withdrawing from the Just Energy Transition Partnership to help developing countries including Indonesia, Vietnam and South Africa transition from coal, Reuters reported exclusively on Wednesday. "It's too early to tell what impact that has, but all the other partners are remaining, and ... deploying capital," which will in turn attract commercial investment, Kyte said.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US withdrawing from plan to help major polluters move from coal, sources say
By Tim Cocks, Francesco Guarascio and Fransiska Nangoy (Reuters) - The United States is withdrawing from the Just Energy Transition Partnership, a collaboration between richer nations to help developing countries transition from coal to cleaner energy, several sources in key participating countries said. JETP, which consists of 10 donor nations, was first unveiled at the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal were subsequently announced as the first beneficiaries of loans, financial guarantees and grants to move away from coal. Joanne Yawitch, head of the Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit in South Africa, said on Wednesday that the United States had communicated its withdrawal from the plan there. In Vietnam, two foreign officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Washington was withdrawing from JETP in the country, and one of them said the U.S. was also exiting from all JETP programmes, including in Indonesia. Another source familiar with the matter said the U.S. had withdrawn from the JETP in Indonesia and South Africa. "We have been informed by the U.S. of their withdrawal," said another South Africa-based source in the donor group. "There remains significant finance available, and the International Partners Group remains fully committed to supporting South Africa to deliver on its just energy transition through the partnership," the person said. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, Washington has slashed foreign aid and championed development of fossil fuels. The U.S. state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak on the matter. U.S. commitments for Indonesia and Vietnam exceeded $3 billion in total, mostly through commercial loans, while in South Africa the commitment was for $1.063 billion out of $11.6 billion pledged for the country.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
G20 finance ministers, central bankers to meet amid fractious geopolitics
By Tim Cocks JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 top economies gather in South Africa on Wednesday and Thursday, for a meeting marred by the absence or curtailed attendance of key members and disputes over the main issues of climate, debt and inequality. Agreeing on a declaration has always been tough for a gathering that includes rivals China, Russia, the European Union and the United States, but differences are starker than ever, and some finance ministers were too consumed with domestic politics to show up. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Japan's Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato will not attend, as he focuses on a parliamentary debate. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is also skipping it, as is EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. There seemed little hope of agreement on issues host President Cyril Ramaphosa sees as core: inadequate climate finance from rich nations, reform of a financial system that penalises poor countries and widening inequalities. "Those global priorities are at risk," said Alex van den Heever, political scientist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, adding that issues like poor country debt were not priorities for the U.S. or the developed world in general. "With the United States in the position that it's in, it makes it very difficult to see how people will move forward." CLIMATE WOES South Africa had hoped to make the G20 a platform for pressuring rich countries to do more to tackle climate change, and to give more towards poorer countries' transitions to green energy and adaptation to worsening weather. "Those most responsible for climate change have a duty ... to support those least responsible," Ramaphosa said last week. "What the American presidency does, effectively, is reconfigure the conversation (by) ... reintroducing elements we thought were resolved," Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told Reuters on the sidelines of a G20 briefing on Tuesday. "Where it leads is anyone's guess," he said, adding that some countries might reconsider the scale and pace of their transition from fossil fuels to green energy as a result. Some analysts said the retreat of the G20's biggest economy from the discussions raised questions about its relevance. Others saw an opportunity for moving ahead without the U.S. "There could very well be synergies between large portions of what's left by excluding the U.S. on particular issues," said Daniel Silke, director of the Political Futures Consultancy. "It's an opportunity for South Africa to take its leadership role."
