Eskom concedes it made R3-billion irregular payments to diesel suppliers to keep the lights on last year. While it didn’t use the word “prepayments” - a toxic term ever since the 2016 prepayment of R659-million to a Gupta-linked coal mine - its seven-page press release did refer to advanced payments and what is calls “payments outside of the contractual terms”.
Eskom made the concession after an amaBhungane investigation showed how the utility awarded contracts potentially worth R21-billion to five suppliers then channelled R3-billion in apparent prepayments to the smaller and more obscure suppliers who were already struggling to deliver enough diesel.
AmaBhungane’s @sajournalist explains:
Not guilty.
Beliefs about leopards and predation on livestock are shown to be false.
A ten year study tracking 29 leopards on freehold farmlands in Namibia found that wild prey constituted 96.8% of identified kills, and no individual exhibited specialization for livestock—despite entrenched beliefs that there are "problem" leopards which deserve to die.
Africa's leopards are declining and disappearing from large parts of their former range.
Illegal killings are common, and the study emphasizes the importance of habitat protection and wild prey availability which protects livestock better than killing leopards.
I’ve been coming to this lake for over 20 years.
It’s where I learnt to swim in very cold water.
Just look at what’s happened to the glacier.
Nigardsbreen, Norway.
We are diagnosing the health of our planet using the wrong math.
> Right now, global success is measured by GDP. But GDP has a dark secret: it thrives on destruction.
“It is not right to consume anything at a faster rate than it can replace itself. This is something the scientists tell us - though we’d rather not agree that the danger is as pressing as they claim. We would prefer not to change our habits until we are compelled to.”~A.A.Milne
Pollinators are disappearing.
And with them, our food security.
One in five native pollinator species in well-studied regions now faces elevated extinction risk.
Bees are among the hardest hit.
Yet every flowering plant we protect, every chemical we refuse, every hive we build is an act of resistance.
My father builds beehives not as a hobby —
but as a deliberate stand for life.
Protect the pollinators.
Protect the future.
@21Fede_@Strange_Animals Well that's all we'll have left of the Vaquita, Ai pics, if we don't collectively do something against the thieves with no conscience.
The vaquita is a tiny, critically endangered porpoise from the Gulf of California. Less than 10 individuals are believed to remain.
(Photos VaquitaCPR)