Oil pipeline imperils Red Sea coral reefs
– Environmentalists are warning that a United Arab Emirates-Israeli oil pipeline deal threatens unique Red Sea coral reefs and could lead to “the next ecological disaster”.
The agreement to bring Emirati crude oil by tanker to a pipeline in the Red Sea port of Eilat was signed after Israel normalised ties with the Gulf Arab nation late last year and should come into force within months.
With experts warning of possible leaks and spills at the ageing Eilat port and the Israeli environmental protection ministry demanding “urgent” talks on the deal, activists mobilised last week.
They held a protest in a parking lot overlooking Eilat’s oil jetty against what they see as a disaster waiting to happen, chanting that profits will be made “at the expense of corals”.
“The coral reefs are 200m from where the oil will be unloaded,” said Shmulik Taggar, an Eilat resident and founding member of the Society for Conservation of the Red Sea Environment.
“They say the tankers are modern and there won’t be any problem,” he said, warning however that “there’s no way there won’t be a malfunction”.
He predicted that with the projected arrival of two to three tankers a week, traffic will be “back-to-back”.
This, he said, would also impact the aesthetic of a city promoting ecological tourism.
“You can’t sell green tourism when you have oil tankers by the dock,” he said.
The Jewish state and the UAE established ties last year as part of the US-brokered “Abraham Accords”. –
‘Ibelieve I owe you an apology,” says ANC deputy secretrary-general Jessie Duarte to Constitutional Court Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo after insinuating in an article that the evidence that was led at his Commission of Inquiry into State Capture was “an onslaught on the people” and that Zondo is allowing this onslaught because he works within the “narrow parameters of the existing laws”.
Duarte apologises to Zondo because she says “I have a deep respect for the work that you do”.
The apology to the judge is a half-hearted one, like it was done as an afterthought. Most importantly though, Duarte’s apology does not go anywhere near actually acknowledging what was wrong with her initial op-ed piece in The Daily Maverick.
Just so it is clear, Duarte took to a public platform and insinuated that esteemed struggle heroes like Albertina Sisulu and Nelson Mandela, alongside whom she says she had the privilege of working, helped shaped the democratic centralism that is the basis of decision-making in the ruling party today.
“What would Nelson Mandela do?” is one of the questions she claims to use as her selfreflecting tool.
A lot can be said about how she invokes the names of struggle royalty in defence of the rampant looting of state funds over the past decade, but South Africa’s biggest worry should be the fact that a top six official of the ruling party goes all out to defend a system of decision-making that takes away members of parliaments’ oath to the constitution and replaces it with loyalty to their party, even in the face of blatant wrong-doing.
The lack of self-reflection in the apology points to a leader who actually believes that the mechanism that has guided the ANC’s decisions during the worst of state capture is actually the best mechanism.
And therein lies South Africa’s problem: a ruling party that values loyalty to the party more than the constitution will continue to provide cover to corrupt leaders who can manipulate the decision-making processes of the party.
The moral compass of the party will always guide its decision-making and if shady characters have been allowed space to manipulate its structures, that party will protect those carrying out corrupt acts.
The most recent national executive committee (NEC) meeting of the ruling party actually had to spend time deliberating on whether party officials charged with crimes should step aside or not.
It is very scary how far gone down the path of skewed morals the current leadership of the ruling party has allowed the organisation to go.
Surely, it makes moral sense to have leaders step aside and clear their names if they can, without being burdened with the expectations of carrying out the daily duties in the organisation?
That’s a no-brainer, but with leaders like Duarte who can publicly proclaim that a structure set up to probe corruption is an “onslaught on the people”, this becomes an actual debate.
“I believe I owe you an apology” to Judge Zondo should actually be “South Africa, we owe you an apology.”
The apology should be for all the times that her leadership and that of her colleagues actually prevented individuals within the ruling party from obeying their consciences and preventing the looting that got us here in the first place.
Duarte should apologise for invoking the names of Mandela and Sisulu to defend the actions of looters whose values bear no resemblance to those struggle icons.
When she and her party stop using the tyranny of numbers in parliament to defend the looting of the public funds, then her apology will mean something.
The apology should be for all the times that her leadership and that of her colleagues actually prevented individuals within the ruling party from obeying their consciences and preventing the looting that got us here in the first place.