Topnotchtours

30/08/2023

The Independent uk

Ukraine's Kharkiv builds classrooms underground to protect students from missiles

Forced to shield its school-children from the threat of supersonic Russian missiles fired at short range, Ukraine‘s eastern metropolis of Kharkiv has built dozens of classrooms in metro stations to allow some pupils to return to in-person teaching.

Kharkiv, Ukraine‘s second largest city, had a population of more than 1.4 million before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Parts of the city lie less than 20 miles from the Russian border. Its northern suburbs were scarred by fighting.

Kharkiv’s schools have been forced to teach online throughout the war as some Russian missiles can reach the city in under a minute - not enough time to get from many classrooms to a shelter.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Tuesday that 60 school rooms been created in Kharkiv’s metro stations ahead of the new school year in September, creating space for more than 1,000 children to study in-person.

“The children will be able to socialise with each other, find a common language, communicate. I absolutely support this,” said Iryna Loboda, the mother of a schoolboy outside a metro station in the city centre where classrooms have been built.

Maanya Sachdeva30 August 2023 12:00
1 hour ago

30/08/2023

Al Jezeera reports
2h ago (09:48 GMT)
Ukrainian drones ‘will not go unpunished’: Russia
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory overnight “will not go unpunished”.

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the drones, some of which struck an airbase in Pskov, 600km (400 miles) from Ukraine, could not have covered such distances without information from Western countries.

29/08/2023

Support the NY Times for good journalism

28/08/2023

3 Sets of Tennis with good buddies this am @ our club in Clifton!

awesome friends awesome tennis

the Western Cape is an amazingly beautiful Bubble!

Let Topnotchtours plan your tours around southern africa & guide you whilst revealing amazing hidden gems as well as the peoples of this great continent!
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18/07/2023

"The decision by Russia to exit the Black Sea Grain Initiative is a stab on the back at global food security prices and disproportionately impacts countries in the Horn of Africa already impacted by drought," Korir Sing'Oei a minister in Kenya's foreign affairs ministry said in a tweet.
More than 50 million people across Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan are in need of food aid because of successive years of failed rains.

18/07/2023

07:01
What are the challenges to the ICC?

Baerbock stressed the importance of ensuring that more countries sign the Rome Statute. Currently, there are 123 signatories.

She said the importance of the ICC has become clearer in the past year, amid Russia's war on Ukraine.

Russia is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, collectively known as the P5, along with the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom.

"Now is really the watershed moment where we have seen that if a war of aggression is being done by a P5 country, this is also a moment where we have to react by law and bringing together those who believe in law and not in war."

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March. Putin is accused of war crimes for his role in forcibly deporting children from Ukraine.

WE NEED TO MAKE CLEAR TO VLADIMIR PUTIN that he is unwelcome in S. Africa.

18/07/2023

Ukraine with us help of Patriot missile system shoots down Kremlin's unstoppable missiles!

It is rare and risky in modern Russia to speak out in defense of people charged with treason, especially after a bill was adopted last month increasing the maximum sentence for the crime to life in jail.
The Russian state media agency Tass reported on the arrests of Maslov and Shiplyuk last summer and on Zvegintsev’s this week. It said Zvegintsev was detained about three weeks ago and is under house arrest. NBC News could not verify those details.
Shiplyuk was in charge of the laboratory of hypersonic technologies at the institute, which has “unique hypersonic aerodynamic installations designed to study the fundamental and applied problems of hypersonic flight,” according to his bio on the website. Maslov is a renowned expert in the field of aerogasdynamics, it said.
The institute released an open letter in support of Maslov after he was arrested in June for what it said was “high treason,” saying his colleagues were “shocked” by his detention. It was also raising money on behalf of the families of Maslov and Shiplyuk to cover their legal expenses.
Tass reported this week that the materials in Maslov’s case are classified and have been handed over to a judge in a St. Petersburg court. The agency said Maslov’s case was investigated by the FSB, Russia’s secret service.

Doesn't pay to be at the forefront of your technology in Russia today.

17/07/2023

from Biz news.com

‘Your Lungs’

“Sasol wanted an average” with periods of very concentrated emissions, Eugene Cairncross, a professor emeritus in chemical engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, said in an interview. “Your lungs don’t operate in that way, you breathe every few seconds. What they had proposed represented a significant slackening of the limit.”

The most effective way of cutting sulfur-dioxide pollution is through the installation of flue-gas desulfurization units that both Sasol and Eskom have previously said could cost billions of dollars to install and would need significant supplies of lime and water.

For the fiscal year through June 2022, Secunda produced 137,300 tons of sulfur oxides and 49.2 million tons of climate warming carbon dioxide, or its equivalent, according to the company’s sustainability report. That’s more greenhouse gases than either Norway or Portugal. Sulfur dioxide, which is produced alongside greenhouse gases, doesn’t warm the planet.

Secunda is the eighth-biggest source of sulfur dioxide in South Africa after seven coal-fired power plants owned by Eskom. (Bloomberg)

Read also:

I will not die silent – SAPS whistleblower in hiding
Exclusive Martin Wolf: Insights on South Africa’s path to success and wake-up call for Democratic Capitalism
Mining giants collaborate with SA government on $1.5 billion water project
© 2023 Bloomberg L.P.

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02/07/2023

Love Fareed Zacharia of CNN's Global briefing

Russia faces significant problems, including the recent rebellion and its flagging war on neighboring Ukraine.

But the country has even bigger things to worry about, Fareed says, pointing to a surprisingly short life expectancy, underperformance in the global knowledge economy, and a government that is notoriously corrupt and anti-modern.

“What does this all add up to?” Fareed asks. “I am not sure. But it is fair to say that Russia’s biggest problem is not that it is losing the Ukraine war, but rather that it is losing the 21st century.”

29/06/2023

KOCH Network raises over $70 million to derail Trump's presidential shot; waiting to see who other contenders are. US politics is strange........
SUPPORT THE NEW YORK TIMES

29/06/2023

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Nigeria investigates a dayslong oil spill from a Shell pipeline in a region already blighted by pollution

Story by Reuters
Published 6:18 AM EDT, Tue June 27, 2023


Workers stand by a container to collect oil spill waste, in Ogoniland, Nigeria, June 16, 2023.
Workers stand by a container to collect oil spill waste, in Ogoniland, Nigeria, June 16, 2023.
AP
Reuters
—
Nigerian authorities and Shell’s local subsidiary were on Monday investigating the cause of an oil spill on the Trans Niger pipeline that lasted several days.

The spill from the 180,000-barrel-a-day, which happened at Eleme in Rivers State in south Nigeria, was detected on June 11. Four days later it was confirmed by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited in a statement.

Environmental rights groups said the spill lasted a week before it was contained.

Representatives from Shell, the Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, and local communities were at the site on Monday to gather information, analyze data, examine physical evidence, and assess the causes of the leak, said Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, which monitors spills in the Niger Delta.

A Shell spokesperson confirmed Monday’s visit to the site.

22/06/2023

Highway Engineering Discoveries · Follow
·
Oresund Bridge Between Sweden and Denmark is, Longest Bridge and tunnel in Europe !!
The bridge that comes from Sweden turns into a tunnel under the sea and reappears in Denmark; both countries are united by this beautiful work of Engineering.
It has a total length of 16 kilometers and connects Denmark with Sweden through the Øresund Strait.For Engineering information visit …

22/06/2023

ukraine hits bridge carrying traffic to Crimea.

I guess the bully doesn't like it that the party that was invaded fights back to regain its own internationally recognised territory.

20/06/2023

new york times article

Maya Salam
By Maya Salam
June 20, 2023, 1:29 p.m. ET
The British pop superstar Elton John lamented the “growing swell of anger and homophobia” in the United States and described several laws recently passed in Florida that curtail L.G.B.T.Q. rights as “disgraceful.”

“It’s all going pear-shaped in America,” John, a longtime leader for gay rights and visibility, said in an interview published Tuesday in Radio Times, in which he pointed to a rise in violent incidents and recent legislation curtailing rights. “We seem to be going backwards. And that spreads. It’s like a virus that the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement is suffering.”

19/06/2023

19/06/2023

DAF worker assembles an electric truck plant in its Netherlands plant
DAF said it does not recognise the picture offered by T&E, citing its sale of electric trucks (being assembled above) since 2018 and ‘a completely new generation of electric trucks’ with zero-emission ranges of up to 310 miles’. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock
Automotive industry
European truck makers ‘trail in global race to net zero’
DAF and Iveco among firms least prepared for move to zero-carbon tech, study claims
Jasper Jolly

Mon 19 Jun 2023 10.16 BST
UK and European lorry makers are at risk of losing out to US and Chinese competitors in the race to produce net zero emissions, an environmental group has warned.
support "The Guardian"

17/06/2023

Un-amuse bouche: Russia says the Black Sea grain deal cannot be extended, but that it will work with poorer countries to ensure that they won’t run short on food. Thirty-six countries count on Russia and Ukraine for more than half their wheat imports.

tks
Reuters

16/06/2023

Tks Guardian & Yorkshire Post

13/06/2023

Elections soon in Zimbabwe?
the following makes chilling reading for me;

First batch of Russian helicopters have arrived with 14 more to follow.

So, with all of this happening, how do we, the long, long suffering Zimbabweans really know we are actually teetering on the edge again? That’s simple: POPCORN ! Supermarkets are suddenly full of shelves and shelves of popcorn known here as maputi. Its sun-dried maize (corn) exploded into popcorn using a pressure gun. This week it’s almost the only affordable thing in supermarkets and is selling at Z #399.99 for a 50g bag. As it was in 2005 and for many years afterwards, maputi has become the staple diet again; it’s in lunch boxes, sold on roadsides, outside hospitals, at bus stops. We’ve become the maputi nation again, thanks to the Min of Fin.

So, while some of us are worrying about what we can say, who we can talk to, what we can write and if we’ve censored ourselves enough, others are just worrying about how to survive this and what’s for supper. Patriotism versus Popcorn, says it all doesn’t it? How much longer Zimbabwe?

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend).

Love Cathy 9th June 2023.

thanks
Cathy Buckle: A Zimbabwean adventure of courage, determination and wildlife encounters

www.amazon.com/author/catherinebuckle

Cathy Buckle: Zimbabwe teetering on the edge –…

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13/06/2023

Russian media reported on Monday that a Ukrainian missile strike on the southern Zaporizhzhia front killed an experienced Russian general.
“As a result of an enemy missile attack, the Chief of Staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army, Maj Gen Sergei Goryachev, was killed,” the prominent pro-war blogger Voenkor said in a Telegram post.
Goryachev, a decorated commander, previously led Russian troops in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria.

Voenkor added that “according to representatives of the command of the United Group of Forces (S), the army has lost today one of the brightest and most effective military leaders”.

01/06/2023

Tara Reade accused President Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, an allegation he denies.

22/12/2022

This Vladimir somebody is scary;

Todays news "two former Russian Gas Executives and their families found dead in their apartments in Moscow.

"Dead men tell no tales" CLINT EASTWOOD used to say in the movies, but now appears the new Norm. in Moscow's book.
Who will call the Moscow bluff!

"Russia never started the war" yesterday Russian headline a press release.

Confuse the people with enough garbage scare them enough and you can get away with almost anything.

OR ?? What do you think?

Could some sort of Moral Compass return to this area of the Russian / Ukrainian war and in fact the world. Is this optimistic view just a pipe dream of mine?

19/12/2022

IRAN is a pretty scary place right now.
IRAN TENSIONS
Struggling to crush the unrest sweeping the country, Iran turns to public executions

I guess the Mullah's are only answerable to "big G"

I am against all religious extremists whatever their flavour ,

19/12/2022

Support the Economist

Hello from London,

I’ll shortly be crossing the English Channel to spend my holidays in a favourite corner of France. A rather subdued France. I was in the stadium in Paris when Les Bleus won the 1998 World Cup—and then partied in the streets until dawn. No party this time. After a thrilling 3-3 draw, in which France’s brilliant young star, Kylian Mbappé, scored all the team’s goals, Lionel Messi’s Argentina saw them off in a penalty shoot-out, and the celebrations are taking place in Buenos Aires instead. For a considered analysis of what the win means to Argentina—a country with more than its share of troubles lately—read the article we’ve just published from our correspondent there.

read more @ the Economist on line or hard copy .

Worth every penny, assuming you still have pennies.

16/12/2022

Looking for a Durban based Shuttle company to collect guests from Port
and drive 2 people to Hluhluwe and drop off at National park

Please contact
ted on [email protected]
or whatsapp +27 82 469 3940

02/03/2022

The war in Ukraine could become the first meaningful "crypto conflict", Mr Keatinge told BBC News, as those seeking to "evade sanctions, protect their savings or avoid a collapsing banking system turn to cryptocurrencies for solutions".
Criminals laundered $8.6bn (£6.4bn) of crypto-currency in 2021, up 30% on the previous year, according to a report by blockchain data company Chainalysis published prior to the invasion.