Meanwhile, in South Africa....

[arwen]

I have been pondering whether to start this thread or not, as it is not helpful to spread "bad news". On the other hand, denying things that are actually happening only increases it. I will do my level best to find some good news stories in between what I post here on this thread.

But at the moment, South Africa is engulfed in the flames of hatred and intolerance (http://ewn.co.za/Media/2015/04/14/Xenophobic-violence-in-KZN), and this is underreported globally, so many people still have the misty-eyed sentimental view of Nelson Mandela and Truth and Reconciliation, which is simply incorrect.

In the past two weeks, there has been a sharp escalation of violence, hatred and intolerance. Statues have been defaced (http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/12/Ghandi-statue-vandalised), land occupations have been taking place (http://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/malema-orders-land-occupation-1.1797834#.VS5Ho5Mpo20), and now, the ugliest of them all, Xenophobia has flared up.

On Tuesday, Africans from other parts of Africa were violently attacked, some killed and burned alive (http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/14/Foreigners-accuse-locals-of-intolerance?hc_location=ufi) - this is termed Xenophobia.

Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa have responded with shock at the brutal attacks, saying Xenophobia in South Africa is worse than apartheid (http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/15/Zimbabwe-Xenophobic-attacks-in-SA-worse-that-apartheid).

In the meantime, the country's collapsing electricity supply grid means that power blackouts have become a regular feature of daily life in South Africa. (http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/14/Eskom-announces-stage-two-load-shedding-from-6am)

I will stop there for now. I am part of a group of energy healers here who work on our country, specifically, and we have our work cut out for us. If any Avalonians feel so moved to include South Africa in their energy healing/frequency raising work, it would be most gratefully appreciated.

At the moment, several of us here can only say: "Cry, the beloved country".

[Lifebringer]

Twitterverse and FB viralize this. They must have "younger understanding leadership of promise and accountability now." The old battles of no compromise, when instead there should be a equal dividing of all properties, if those who have it through military force and international corporate farm theft, must make a compromise. With so large a population, thet just wants their nation's opportunities also. The nationals must be able to farm and feed themselves, if the corporate farm prices are taking 2/3rds of the wages to feed their families. They must be able to make ends meet on their availability of fresh vegetables, to build their immune systems naturally. Otherwise pharma gets more guinea pigs to test vaccines on, and we know what happens in those labs from the whistleblowers don't we? So to find out all there is to know about this, we must take this viral and make the world/UN/US/Brits take notice of what is transpiring now.

[MorningSong]

Thank-you for the heads-up... do keep us informed.

:hug:

[Inaiá]

I'll be praying. Hope it heals soon...

[Violet]

Please, do keep us updated. Yesterday this was on our news, but it was only a few seconds, so I didn't really catch the story (as they perceived it). Something about a Zulu leader and people being burned, but obviously not (yet) important enough for full (or at least one minute) coverage.

[arwen]

Thank you for your comments Lifebringer, Morningsong, Inaiá and Violet.

Lifebringer, thank you for your suggestions, and I am adding some comments to that, from my perspective - The US/UK/UN all have embassies and a strong presence here in South Africa, so they are already well aware of the situation. I doubt that they care very much, they are only here to look after their own interests and agendas. Pardon my cynicism on that, but I worked in government here for 10 years, trying to build the Post-Apartheid South Africa, and I met all of their officials in the course of my work.

In my view, the solution will not come from any government or official source. We have a unique problem in that only 4% of the total population pay tax. We all know by now that taxes do not go to the people, they go to the excessive appetites of the government for personal luxuries such as houses, top range cars, endless parties and food, business class travel and 5 star hotels, and the rest of course, goes to the Vatican and the Bank of International Settlements.

The wealthy minority (both White and Black) insulate themselves from the suffering of the ordinary people with their wealth, and the anger and frustration of the masses builds up more and more. In this case, the anger has been directed at the wrong target - other Africans coming to South Africa to live and work. They are from Zimbabwe, Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, and many other areas, and they start businesses - usually small spaza shops, and create wealth, and the South Africans resent them for doing this.

Unfortunately, the violence spread to Johannesburg (http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/17/Overnight-xenophobic-violence-in-Johannesburg) and a very telling comment from the article linked to is this:


A Pakistani man who's been staying in the area for 16 years says they don’t understand why locals want them to leave when they are employing South Africans.

“For the small money, they don’t want to work. All of them are behind the big money. We will never be able to get rent by the end of the month and the landlords won’t spare us. Whatever happens with us, they're not worried about anything.”

He is actually quite correct. The problem and causes are complex, but one of them is definitely the Culture of Entitlement (http://www.unisa.ac.za/chs/news/index.php/2013/07/africa-speaks-lecture-series/) that has been created by the government, where people expect to be given houses and utilities for free, and to be given top jobs with all the luxuries they see their government enjoying, and of course, this is simply not possible in a country with a 4% tax base. While there is a culture of entitlement, and no sense of personal responsibility, we are not going to solve our problems until the people as a whole develop a sense of responsibility. (All my views).

Thank you for the prayers and concern, most heartily appreciated, and I will post periodic updates on this and other situations in South Africa from time to time.

[arwen]

South Africa's regular power blackouts
(Opinion piece)

It always amuses me when any other country in the world has a power blackout, the global media headlines scream about it. What is barely reported is that South Africa's state-run monopoly electricity power supplier, Eskom, has been hitting South Africans with periodic power blackouts since 2008. And since December 2014, we have had continuous rolling blackouts, called "load shedding (http://www.moneyweb.co.za/archive/eskom-should-prepare-for-system-collapse-intensiv/)", and at the moment, they are daily again. There is a real possibility of a total system collapse in the near future.

When hearing people like Simon Parkes talking about how there is an expected disruption to global systems such as power supply, and other basic food and water supplies within the next 2 years, I can honestly say that South Africans are probably the best prepared people in the world to deal with this, since we already deal with things like this all the time, it is part of our daily lives over here.

The upside of South Africa's government failures is that people have to become more enterprising, and less reliant on the government. The downside is that the government has refused several offers of help from experts who can solve the problem with more sustainable methods of supplying power, because of course, they have been bought out by the Cabal and are mere puppets.

The answer, obviously, is free energy, but the South African government, like every other government in the world, would not even consider that, as there is no money in that for them.

Personally, I have adapted my lifestyle so that I do not even blink when the power goes off. I simply switch into off power activities. However, for businesses who depend on electricity supply to deliver services and products, this is fatal. As always, the wealthy can insulate themselves from this by buying very expensive generators which kick in when the power goes off, and many retail shops have done this. But small businesses are not surviving this, and are going out of business.

I had a conversation with a friend recently, who is one of the old, skilled experts who was kicked out of his job for being Caucasian, and he is a credible person with expertise. He said that he and his colleagues (all former employees that were kicked out of Eskom for being Caucasian, in the name of "Transformation") know that these power blackouts are, in his words "Bull****". He said: "We made Eskom to be unbreakable, and we powered the entire sub-Saharan region. We built Eskom to last forever". His opinion on why they are doing this is that they are blackmailing Treasury to keep giving them more and more money. I personally think there is also the aspect that the government here likes to make people feel disempowered (literally), and at effect of them.

In any case, candlelit dinners are the norm, and I attended a Research Expo at a University last week, where all the presentations were done by means of Poster - instead of the usual Powerpoint, which depends on electricity. And right on cue, as the Expo started, the power went out. We are adapting our lives over here to be less dependent on electricity, since there is a real probability that we will not have any in the future.

It is amazing how quickly people can adapt to conditions like this, and it shows that without government interference, people would do very well, and are naturally enterprising. Governments are increasingly becoming redundant, and at present are purely parasitic entities, living off their people and harvesting their energy and enterprise. I for one, look forward to the coming changes that will topple all these old, parasitic and redundant institutions that suck the life out of their people and prevent progress. I look forward to the release of free energy, the removal of corrupt parasitic governments, and the enabling and freeing of people to use their enterprise in the interests of the people and their communities.

It will be a world that THRIVES. :)

[Inaiá]

Hi. Here in Brazil there was a little comment about the situation in South Africa in the news . It lasted, as our friend said above, less than one minute. No images. Just a general statement.

The media and the cabal have their agendas. We gotta have ours.

Let's keep walking together.

[arwen]

Thanks for that, Inaiá - and together with Violet's feedback, that confirms my sense that this story is being suppressed on purpose.

I think the main reason is that the Cabal backed the new government of Post-Apartheid South Africa, and moved to get rid of all the "service to others" people in government, and replace them with puppets. (I have personal experience of witnessing that over a period of 10 years). The bottom line, in my view, is that this is an embarrassment to the Cabal who have managed our new country through Foundations such as The Carnegie Corporation of New York (Education and Academia); the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Vaccines, Monsanto and IT); the Rockefeller Foundation (Academia and Buildings), and the Oppenheimers (Who developed Employment Equity and BEEEE legislation).

South Africa is run almost completely by Western Cabal interests, and I find it simply extraordinary that it is part of BRICS.

But as you correctly say, the Cabal have their agenda, and we have ours, and we walk together. I love that! Thank you so much, and love to you.

:)

[arwen]

In keeping with my intent to post positive aspects on this thread as well, here is a picture I took of a rainbow that appeared in Cape Town about a week ago - I am taking that as a sign of Hope, that no matter how bleak it looks here, we will emerge through it all.


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[arwen]

Xenophobia - South Africa's Shame (http://ewn.co.za/Features/Xenophobia) features an excellent synopsis with images and videos of the whole shameful development, and gives a good sequential overview providing a basic understanding for people not living in South Africa.

Personally, I am convinced there is far more behind this than meets the eye, but since I can only speculate at this stage, I will not elaborate on that unless I find data that can support my intuition.

[arwen]

Gates, Monsantos Water Efficient Maize for Africa project exposed as not, Climate Smart, but corporate smart.

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) (http://www.acbio.org.za/) has today released a new report titled "Profiting from the Climate Crisis; Undermining Resilience: Gates and Monsanto's Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project" (http://www.acbio.org.za/index.php/publications/gmos-in-south-africa/479-gates-and-monsantos-water-efficient-maize-for-africa-wema-project). The report condemns the Gates Foundation and Monsanto's WEMA project as nothing more than corporate "green washing," designed to ensnare smallholder farmers into adopting hybrid and genetically modified (GM) maize in order to benefit seed and agro-chemical companies.


The WEMA project is being hailed as a ‘Climate Smart Agriculture' (CSA) success story responding to the climate crises facing Africa. However, according to the ACB report, the WEMA project under the guise of philanthropy and fighting climate change, rather sits at the apex of efforts to completely transform African agricultural systems by exploiting decades-long public breeding in the public interest, and shifting ownership of maize breeding, seed production and marketing almost exclusively to the private sector.

The ostensible goal of the WEMA project is to produce GM and conventional hybrid drought-tolerant maize varieties for smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). WEMA is being heavily funded (a whopping US$ 85 million so far) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and USAID. Its key partners include Monsanto, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and the national agriculture research institutions (NARS) in each WEMA country, namely, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Uganda.

According to Director of ACB, Mariam Mayet, "the fact that the WEMA project is being touted as a CSA case study is a shocking indication of how much ground has been lost to multinational agribusiness in the climate policy space in Africa and internationally."

Eike Zaumseil, climate-expert of Bread for the World, adds: "The WEMA case justifies the fears of civil society that climate-smart agriculture provides a dangerous platform for corporations to implement industrial agriculture. Yet there is overwhelming evidence that industrial agriculture is destructive to people, biodiversity, seed, water, soils, and the climate. Cynically, farmers are encouraged to adopt unpredictable GM-monocultures, while abandoning their most valuable climate-asset, which is their traditional seed diversity."

WEMA's partners have made their best maize germplasm lines available to the project, with Monsanto ‘donating' the drought-tolerant gene while retaining complicated intellectual property rights on it. Much of the germplasm from CIMMYT is the result of another Gates funded initiative, the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. WEMA's implementing partner is the industry backed African Agricultural Technology Agency (AATF).

According to Mayet, "the WEMA model will reach only a select subsidized layer of small-scale farmers. Further, the costs and technical requirements of both GM and hybrid seed production, currently beyond the reach of small African seed companies, will inevitably lead to industry concentration; enabling multinational agrochemical/quasi seed companies including and especially Monsanto, to dominate."

The report also argues that Monsanto's GM drought tolerant maize is likely to spell disaster for smallholder farmers as this will not perform predictably under conditions of environmental stress – ironically - exactly the kind of conditions it is meant to thrive in. According to Gareth Jones, the author of the paper, "The inclusion of Monsanto's highly compromised and controversial insect resistant GM maize MON810 into the WEMA project is astounding given that this variety has already dismally failed both commercial and smallholder farmers in South Africa. "

The Gates Foundation is playing a central role in the Green Revolution push in Africa. Aside from the US$85 million given to the WEMA project, it has also put around US$720 million into the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (of which CIMMYT is a member), close to US$ 100 million into the AATF, while many of the seed companies involved in WEMA have received support from the Foundation's flagship project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The report calls on the Gates Foundation and other donors such as USAID, DfID, SIDA, and DANIDA to shift their funding streams away from these catastrophic Green Revolution interventions to genuine solutions that promote diversified and participatory research agendas, reflecting the plurality of agro-ecological conditions found throughout Africa.

Contacts:
Mariam Mayet: Tel: + 27 (0)83 269 4309
e-mail: Mariam@acbio.org.za
Gareth Jones: Tel: +27 (0) 11 486 2750 / +27 (0) 81 493 4323
e-mail: gareth@acbio.org.za
Eike Zaumseil: Tel: +49 (0)30 65211-1851
e-mail: eike.zaumseil@brot-fuer-die-welt.de