Mickeys

Vineyards under threat from government-controlled mining company.

Government-controlled mining company, African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC) (Ltd) has applied to the Department of Mineral Resources for the right to explore several areas of both Stellenbosch and Tygerberg for ore.

Some of the main wineries likely to be affected include Jordan Estate, Mooiplaas, Zevenwacht and De Grendel and the area concerned also covers a great deal of the Bottelary Hills Renosterbos Conservancy as well. Tielman Roos, owner of Mooiplaas and the chairperson of the Bottelary conservancy area, said he was concerned about the application from an ecological and tourism point of view, whilst George Sieraha, chairman of the Durbanville Community Forum, expressed the fear that the application was an attempt to expropriate land for low-cost housing by stealth.

In a statement issued yesterday, chairman of the prestigious Cape Winemakers Guild, Johan Malan from Simonsig, was strongly opposed to any such development at all. He pointed out that not only would the proposed mining activities destroy the UNESCO registered Bottelary Hills Renosterbos Conservancy and the vineyards that attract large numbers of tourists to South Africa every year; it would also result in the loss of employment and income for a great many families working on the wine farms in these areas.

Malan goes on to say ‘Pristine and unique terroir coupled with great winemaking skills are the usual credentials for great wines and mining in the winelands will damage the reputation of South African wines in the international market. The long term benefits of protecting the natural beauty of the winelands will far outweigh the short term advantages of mining.’

Gary Jordan, whose farm is one of those threatened by the proposed exploration, has set up a Facebook page Stop Mining Our Winelands to garner support and share information. All protests and comments from interested and affected parties must be registered by 9th March 2010 and all information on how to do so is available on the page.

taken from News24

The powerful earthquake that killed hundreds of people in Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth’s axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist has said.

Chile and the Andes mountains, as seen from Space Shuttle Columbia in 1994

Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated how much the axis may have changed in position following the the disaster.

More than 700 people died and two million are estimated to have been affected by the 8.8-magnitude tremor and subsequent tsunamis.

The quake, the most powerful to hit the nation in 50 years, sent shockwaves out from the epicentre 70 miles from Chile’s second city, Concepcion.

Buildings and roads collapsed and 500,000 homes have been left severely damaged.

Six aid workers died when a plane carrying them to Concepcion crashed.

The team was on its way to help organise accommodation for those left homeless by the disaster.

Soldiers were sent to patrol Concepcion’s streets after mobs set fire to shops and started looting them, hindering attempts to rescue survivors.

Devastation after the Chile quake

If the planet’s axis did shift by 8cm during the quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that is the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.

The quake shifted the Earth’s axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude tremor off Indonesia that started the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, according to Mr Gross.

This was partly because the fault line responsible for the quake in Chile “dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake”, he said.

The different angle made Saturday’s tremor more effective at moving Earth’s mass vertically and shifting the planet’s axis, Mr Gross continued.

The 2004 quake in Asia, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused the Earth to move by around 7cm.

It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.

story from SkyNews

Port-au-Prince – Haiti’s desperate earthquake survivors faced a new deadly threat on Friday as the United Nations reported a rise in cases of diarrhoea, measles and tetanus in squalid tent camps for victims.

Haiti

A vast foreign aid effort is struggling to meet survivors’ needs 17 days after the disaster, which killed around 170 000 people and left one million homeless and short of food, water and medical attention.

And with medicine running low amid efforts to treat hundreds of thousands of injured and homeless cramped into makeshift camps, officials and aid groups are scrambling to avoid a potential public health calamity that could push the death toll higher.

“Several medical teams report a growing caseload of diarrhoea in the last two to three days,” World Health Organisation spokesperson Paul Garwood said.

“There are also reports of measles and tetanus, including in resettlement camps, which is worrisome due to the high concentration of people,” he told journalists in Geneva.

UN agencies and Haiti’s government aim to launch a vaccination campaign against measles, tetanus and diphtheria next week. Just 58% of Haitian infants were immunized before the quake, Garwood said.

He highlighted a “critical” need for surgeons, with an estimated 30 to 100 amputations being carried out every day in some hospitals, while supplies of anaesthetics and antibiotics were also needed.

The 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 decimated Haiti’s already meagre health system, creating conditions for disease to thrive in the cramped refugee camps.

Only one person in two among the Haitian population of more than nine million people has access to clean drinking water, and only 19% have decent sanitation.

On Friday, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa became just the second foreign leader to visit Haiti since the quake, lending his voice to international calls for more emergency relief and assistance with reconstruction.

“This is a tragedy, a humanitarian tragedy. Haiti at this moment represents the pain of victims but also hope,” Correa said.

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The Vaal Dam is its fullest in 13 years, with 14 open flood gates letting out 2 040m³ of water per second, water affairs officials said on Thursday.

Vaal dam

“The most flood gates that we’ve had open to date were 17 – and that was in the late 80s,” said water affairs spokesperson Linda Page.

The Vaal Dam was 109% full on Thursday afternoon – the highest since 1997, the national department of water affairs said.

“The dam capacity is expected to peak at 113% on January 30 2010,” said the department in a statement.

“A total of 14 flood gates have now been opened at the Vaal Dam due to recent heavy rainfalls in Gauteng.”

Eight sluice gates were opened earlier this week, while two more were opened at 08:00 and another two at 10:00 on Thursday.

“At noon, two more gates – a total of 14 – [were opened] to increase the outflow from 1 740m³/second to 2 040m³/second,” the department said.

In North West, the Bloemhof dam was 114% full on Thursday afternoon.

“At 14:00 [on Thursday] the outflow will be increased from 2 000m³/second s to 2 500m³/second.”

During the flood of 1996 the outflow from this dam was 2 400m³/second, the department added.

Warning

The Bloemhof dam’s capacity is expected to peak at 117% on February 2.

“Communities residing in the vicinity of the Vaal Orange River System are again being warned to stay clear of the river. The department wishes to re-iterate the warning that recreational activities such as canoeing, boating… should not be undertaken until further notice.”

Meanwhile, the Mpumalanga water affairs department warned Standerton residents against possible flooding.

“The department… would like to issue a word of special warning to people living in Standerton, around the Grootdraai dam catchment in the Lekwa Municipality to be on full alert, as the sluice gates have been opened to release water.

“The opening of the sluice gates has been necessitated by the heavy downpours with reports of over 100mm in areas close to Morgenzon and 75mm in Predekop as reported on Tuesday night. These heavy downpours have led to the dam rising to 110.1%.”

The provincial department said there was no immediate danger.

“However it is imperative that communities are extremely cautious. A joint operations committee has been established in the municipality and they are monitoring the situation.”

“We urge people living in low-lying areas and next to flood lines to be extremely cautious. People must move away from river banks and they must avoid crossing full rivers and overflowing bridges,” said Mpumalanga co-operative governance MEC Norman Mokoena in a statement.

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Port-au-Prince – Less than one month before Haiti’s devastating earthquake, geologist Claude Prepetit gave the latest in a string of warnings that the “big one” was coming. No one listened.

But now he has a fresh message for the authorities after 20 years of shouting into the void – evacuate Port-au-Prince or risk another disaster on scale of the January 12 quake which killed at least 150 000 people.

“We are sitting on a powder keg,” Prepetit, an engineer from the Haitian Mines and Energy bureau, told AFP.

“We are faced with the threat of future earthquakes and have to decentralise, and depopulate Port-au-Prince.”

Prepetit said in an article in the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste less than a month before the quake that “we have entered an apparent lull during which the energy has continued to accumulate in the ground, and the day when it cracks the consequences will be catastrophic for the region”.

For years he has pushed his ideas at schools, universities and conferences, explaining the slow shearing of the American and Caribbean continental shelves which made the tremor inevitable.

“Even in Los Angeles they are waiting for the big one but they don’t know when,” he says.

He pushed in vain for the government to buy seismological equipment capable of detecting the movements imperceptible to humans that would precede a big quake.

“The government listened to me but they had other priorities,” he said, referring to the meagre resources available to the authorities of the poorest nation in the Americas.

The last catastrophic earthquake to hit Port-au-Prince was in 1770, and with the tectonic plates moving by seven milimetres a year along the so-called Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, “over 240 years, that means there is a 1.4-metre gap to make up,” he said.

“It’s simple mathematics: a rupture of that size corresponds to a 7.3-magnitude quake,” he said. The quake that eventually hit was 7.0.

While the US Geological Survey says there is a 25% risk of aftershocks of a magnitude of 6.0 for a month after the quake, Prepetit is worried the 250km fault there has not been ruptured to the east of the capital, with only about a fifth of its length having cracked.

He fears the rupture could repeat in the north of the country, where there is another fault just below the town of Cap Haitien, home to 300 000 people.

Faced with these risks, Prepetit believes that the government “must depopulate Port-au-Prince, where there are two million people, 26% of the Haitian population” and move them onto dozens of shantytowns on 500 square kilometres of designated safe ground outside the capital.

“It is necessary to think of Haiti as a whole and not just of the ‘republic of Port-au-Prince’. It is necessary to take time to rebuild the capital and to locate people in the provinces, while creating infrastructure and jobs to keep them there,” he said.

Priorities also include improving construction standards, which are non-existent in the capital, and educating a population that is familiar with hurricanes and floods but has long forgotten the risk of earthquakes.

“Education can save people, and ignorance can kill,” Prepetit said.

When his house started to shake like a leaf on January 12 the geologist had his wits about him and took shelter beneath a doorframe, he says.

But he admitted that during those 16 seconds which seemed to last an eternity he said that he, like millions of other Haitians, ended up praying: “No, my God, no!”

taken from News24

Port-au-Prince – A strong aftershock struck Haiti on Wednesday, creating panic among people camping out in the capital’s streets after last week’s devastating earthquake.

Haitians resume some semblance of normal life after the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, was mostly reduced to rubble following a massive earhtquake.

The 6.1 aftershock rattled already shattered buildings but there was no immediate reports of damage from the tremor, which struck after daybreak. Fearing damage from aftershocks, thousands of people have been sleeping in streets in the capital Port-au-Prince since the January 12 earthquake.

The US Geological Survey said Wednesday’s tremor was centred west-northwest of Jacmel.

Meanwhile fears of violence and looting have eased in Haiti as US troops provided security for water and food aid deliveries, and thousands of displaced Haitians heeded the government’s advice to seek shelter outside Port-au-Prince.

Medical care, handling of corpses, shelter, water, food and sanitation remain the priorities for the international operations, UN relief officials said a week after the magnitude 7 quake.

While military escorts still are needed to deliver relief supplies, the United Nations said security problems were mainly in areas considered “high risk” before the January 12 quake. Some 4 000 criminals escaped from damaged prisons soon after the temblor hit.

“The overall security situation in Port-au-Prince remains stable, with limited, localised violence and looting occurring,” the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

US Black Hawk helicopters swooped down on the grounds of Haiti’s wrecked presidential palace on Tuesday, deploying troops and supplies and immediately attracting crowds of survivors who clamoured for handouts of food.

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taken from News24

Port-au-Prince – In just one terrifying minute the earth convulsed on Tuesday in Haiti, flattening buildings and casually tossing chunks of twisted metal and concrete into the air.

Thousands fled sobbing in terror and panic onto the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince, seeking to escape the fury of the 7.0 earthquake.

But hundreds are feared to have been killed in yet another tragedy to strike the impoverished Caribbean nation, which is still trying to recover from a series of 2008 hurricanes and storms.

“The centre of Port-au-Prince has been destroyed, it’s a catastrophe,” wailed Pierre, covered in dust, and so shocked he could hardly speak as he surveyed the devastation around him, having walked several kilometres to find his house.

No corner of the city had been spared from the wave of destruction which unleashed its fury on the two million inhabitants for a full 60 seconds, witnesses said.

Many have been forced to abandon the ruins of their homes, and were squatting in sports grounds and open spaces. Few dared to return indoors, terrified of being buried in one of the huge aftershocks which continued to rock the nation.

“When we get an idea of the toll it will be measured in the hundreds,” a local doctor, who was bloodied and nursing an injured left arm, told AFP.

Rescue efforts were hampered when communications were snapped in the minutes after the earthquake struck at 21:53 GMT.

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Britain remains in the grip of wintry weather with travellers facing more delays, although the worst of the big freeze seems to be over for now.

Trucks are stuck along the A20 motorway to Greifswald as snowdrifts block the road, near the northern German town of Guetzkow, January 10, 2010. Snow and freezing weather swept parts of Europe on Saturday causing travel chaos for thousands and forecasters predicted no let-up in Britain's harshest cold snap in 30 years.

Many parts of the country have had snow flurries but with above-freezing temperatures in most areas the situation on the ground was set to improve.

Milder weather on Sunday and lighter than expected snowfalls increased the chances of getting transport networks back to normal and resuming full deliveries of food.

Hundreds of schools that were forced to shut last week were also reopening today ahead of a crucial exam period for many students.

Most of inland England will see maximum temperatures of around 2C today, rising to 3C or 4C in the far south west.

Scotland is due to fare a bit better, up to 3C inland and up to 6C on the far north coast.

But temperatures will remain freezing at night for the foreseeable future, with another band of snow forecast for many parts tomorrow.

Eurostar services are suffering another day of restrictions following last week’s train breakdown.

Villagers sledge down a snow covered hill in Priston on January 9 2010, near Bath, England. Britain is continuing to be gripped by the Arctic weather and forecasters are predicting more snow in the next 24hrs and that the cold spell could last for at least another week.

Several rail routes are affected, with Chiltern Trains saying London-bound trains were unable to call at Rickmansworth because of weather damage caused to the platform.

Southeastern, which serves Kent, south London and East Sussex, said some services would have fewer carriages because several trains had been damaged by the icy weather.

In the air, budget airline easyJet said it had cancelled a number of flights to and from Gatwick Airport today.

British Airways said the weather was continuing to disrupt services. It is offering passengers due to fly from Gatwick or Heathrow the chance to rebook their flights.

All the UK’s main airports were open but passengers are advised to check with their airlines before travelling.

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Cape Town – AfriForum on Friday accused SA National Parks of trying to wriggle out of allegations of racism by casting doubt on the integrity of white hikers who say they were turned away from a hut on Table Mountain.

“It is a pity that SANParks, instead of apologising to the students and making it clear that all accommodation on Table Mountain is accessible to people of all races, now appear to cast doubt on the complainants personally,” AfriForum said in a statement.

The civil rights group lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission after being informed that two students, Etienne and Stiaan Terblanche, were turned away from the People’s Trail Hut because they were white.

Earlier this week SANParks spokesperson Reynold Thakhuli said he was surprised when he learnt of the case in the media as the two brothers had never made a formal complaint to the conservation body.

He said SANParks was nonetheless trying to probe the incident but suggested the Terblanche family was not being helpful and had failed to provide proof that they had called the People’s Trail Hut.

This also drew an angry response from Stef Terblanche, the hikers’ father, who said he personally informed SANParks area manager Gavin Bell of the incident.

He claims Bell acknowledged that a mountain trail brochure mistakenly presents the People’s Trail Hut as being reserved for “previously disadvantaged groups” and said it would be replaced.

“Why does Reynold Thakhuli… now try to make us out to be liars and cast doubt on us?”

AfriForum has said the students’ complaint has led to more hikers coming forward with claims that they too were turned away from the hut on racial grounds.

taken from News24

Two climbers have been killed in an avalanche on Ben Nevis in Scotland.

The deadly avalanche was reported at Coire na Ciste on Ben Nevis

Mountain rescue teams found the bodies in an area known as Number 3 Gully, on the north face of the peak.

The identities of the climbers have not yet been released, as next of kin are yet to be informed.

A member of the public raised the alarm are seeing two people get swept up in a large avalanche.

Five weather-related deaths have now been recorded over the past 24 hours.

An accident on the M62 near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire claimed the lives of three men on Tuesday night.

The trio were all believed to be from the Preston area of Lancashire.

Since then, Britons have been urged to wrap up for a freezing new year as the cold snap continued.

Large parts of the country were blanketed in snow, with Wales the worst hit.

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings of widespread icy roads across much of Scotland, north-east England, Yorkshire, the Midlands and Wales.

Earlier on Wednesday there were fears for the safety of another climber at Torridon, Wester Ross, following reports he too had been caught up in an avalanche.

Rescuers later found the man at Liathach Ridge, conscious but cold and with an injured arm.

Avalanches are not common in Scotland and recent weather conditions have been blamed.

When fresh snow settles on older and harder snow crystals, it results in a slippery layer – making the phenomenon more likely.

taken from SkyNews

Wildfires roaring across a swath of Western Australia razing almost 40 homes and sending hundreds of people fleeing for their lives

Sydney – Residents in Western Australia fled a raging wildfire on Wednesday that incinerated nearly 40 homes in the country’s worst blaze since “Black Saturday” fires killed 173 in February.

Hundreds of firefighters battled the inferno outside the wheat-farming town of Toodyay, 80km from the Western Australian capital Perth, apparently sparked when power lines collapsed amid searing heat and high winds.

Local resident Beverley Phillips, who fled by car with just her pet poodle and cat, described driving through thick smoke to reach safety.

“I jumped in the car and drove as fast as I could, but it was dangerous. I felt I could have gone into a culvert or a tree at any time,” Australian news agency AAP quoted her as saying.

“It’s all I have – the car, the dog and the cat,” said the 58-year-old, standing by her car, struggling to take in her loss. “All those photos of my daughter when she was a baby, of my mother… the beautiful garden.”

State Premier Colin Barnett designated the blaze a natural disaster, enabling the release of emergency funds, as he visited the area.

“This is a devastating fire with great destruction,” he told reporters, adding that the needy would receive a A$3 000 hand-out.

“I want to express my sympathy to those who have lost their homes, over 30 houses destroyed by a very severe, very intense bushfire in the surrounding area of Toodyay.”

Some 37 homes along with sheds, outhouses and livestock were engulfed by the fire, which swept through more than 3 000 hectares of land in the sparsely populated farming community.
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