Botanist discovers 4 new plant species in Renosterveld
Company sells its 20 percent stake in BICS to Belgian digital services provider Proximus as part of the process
ONE of the Cape floral kingdom’s most threatened plant genera, Polhilia, has now been comprehensively revised and populations of these endangered species documented, thereby aiding efforts to ensure its conservation.
Stellenbosch University (SU) said this was thanks to the field work and research completed by Brian du Preez, a keen botanist and PhD student, for his MSc studies in the Department of Botany and Zoology.
“Polhilia species grow in Renosterveld, a vegetation type endemic to the Cape. But more than 90% of Renosterveld has been severely transformed for crop agriculture, resulting in Polhilia species, along with countless other threatened plants, being confined to small patches of remaining Renosterveld,” Du Preez said.
In the study, four new species are described, bringing the total number of species in this genus to 11, all of which are threatened with extinction, and classified as critically endangered.
Until the discovery, the species was known from only two collections made in 1924 and 1928 in the Porterville and Saldanha areas respectively, and thus listed as extinct on SANBI’s Red List of South African Plants.
In 2017 Du Preez discovered a single plant of Polhilia ignota growing along a fence next to the N7 highway only five kilometres north of Piketberg.
Subsequently, members of the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) found another two populations nearby Voëlvlei Nature Reserve and southwest of Porterville, bringing the total number of known plants to roughly 230.
POLICE and protesters clashed in Myanmar yesterday, with injuries on both sides on the most violent day so far of demonstrations against the military coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi.
A doctor said one woman was unlikely to survive a gun wound to the head. Three other people were being treated for wounds from suspected rubber bullets after police fired guns – mostly into the air – and used water cannon to try to clear protesters in the capital, Naypyitaw. State television reported injuries to police during their attempts to disperse protesters – its first acknowledgement of the demonstrations taking place in the country.
The incidents marked the first bloodshed since the military, led by army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, overthrew Suu Kyi’s newlyelected government on February 1 and detained her and other politicians from her National League for Democracy (NLD).
The military claimed that the NLD won by fraud – an accusation dismissed by the election committee and Western governments. Yesterday, police in Myanmar raided the NLD’s headquarters in Yangon. The raid was carried out by about a dozen police personnel who forced their way into the building in the commercial capital after dark.
The protests are the largest in Myanmar for more than a decade, reviving memories of almost half a century of direct army rule and spasms of bloody uprisings until the military began a process of withdrawing from civilian politics in 2011.
The UN expressed concern about the use of force against demonstrators.
“I call on the security forces to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms including the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. The use of disproportionate force against demonstrators is unacceptable,” Ola Almgren, the UN representative in Myanmar, said.
According to reports from Naypyitaw, Mandalay and other cities, numerous demonstrators have been injured, some of them seriously, by security forces. A doctor in the Naypyitaw hospital said the shot woman had suffered what was most likely to be a fatal head wound.
“She hasn’t passed away yet, she’s in the emergency unit, but it’s 100% certain the injury is fatal,” said the doctor, who declined to be identified. “According to the X-ray, it’s a live bullet.” Neither police nor the hospital responded to a request for comment.
State-run MRTV news said a police truck had been destroyed at a demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city. It showed footage of the aftermath, including injured police. MRTV described the protests as being orchestrated by people who wanted to harm the nation’s stability and had acted aggressively. It made no mention of the coup or other demonstrations across the country.
Earlier, witnesses said police fired into the air in Naypyitaw as a crowd refused to disperse. They then blasted them with water cannon while the protesters responded with stones. Footage posted on social media apparently of the woman who was shot showed her with other protesters at what appeared to be a bus-stop shelter some distance from a row of riot police as a water cannon sprayed and several shots could be heard.
The woman, wearing a motorbike helmet, suddenly collapsed. Pictures of her helmet showed what appeared to be a bullet hole. Video from the central town of Bago showed police confronting a crowd and firing water cannon. Police arrested at least 27 demonstrators in Mandalay, domestic media reported.
The situation nationwide was quiet by nightfall. Orders banning gatherings of more than four people and a curfew from 8pm. to 4am have been imposed on Yangon and Mandalay.
Suu Kyi’s party had won a 2015 election but Myanmar’s transition to democracy was brought to a halt by the February 1 coup staged as her government was due to start a second term.
Promises on Monday from Min Aung Hlaing to eventually hold a new election drew scorn. He said the junta would form a “true and disciplined democracy”, different to previous eras of military rule, which brought years of isolation and poverty.
He gave no time frame but the junta has said a state of emergency would last one year.
A civil disobedience campaign affecting hospitals, schools and government offices shows no sign of ending, but the crowds in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital and commercial hub, appeared smaller yesterday than the previous day.
“WE ALL want a clean, peaceful home, especially now,” says Becky Rapinchuk, who writes the blog Clean Mama. The challenge, Rapinchuk explains, is that “our homes have turned into schools, restaurants, workout facilities, where you work... It’s upset the home system.”
To find peace in these multipurpose spaces, Rapinchuk has systems and rituals that she has used for years in her Chicago home. She has shared those ideas on her blog, and now they’re available in her new book, Clean Mama’s Guide to a Peaceful Home.
It’s more important than ever to establish daily resets, routines and habits, because otherwise, every day rolls into the next, she says. “When you never leave your home, there’s no starting or ending point ... It’s hard on our psyche.”
But even when we know what we need to do, it can be hard to motivate ourselves to get excited about cleaning. So to get these habits to stick, Rapinchuk pairs a “pain point” with a happy task. For example, she says, “I don’t like unloading the dishwasher, but I race myself to do it while the coffee is brewing, then it’s done ... My motivation is my coffee.”
Soon, some of these habits will be as automatic as brushing your teeth twice a day.
“As you attach (a task) to something, the habit builds, and you slowly layer things in,” Rapinchuk adds. “It’s super satisfying as you see how it enriches your life. You’ve got that pay-off, and that’s your reward.”
It’s also important to cut yourself some slack, she says. Life will never be perfect, “but you can do your best for each day, even just one little load of laundry.”
Here are Rapinchuk’s top suggestions for getting in the habit of cleaning and making even the most onerous chores more palatable.
Do the chores you dread first
Rapinchuk likes to get the least-fun cleaning tasks done early in the week, when she feels more motivated. “Do the thing that you don’t want to do first, and everything else is easier,” she says.
Which chores would you never get done if you didn’t have to do them? How can you prioritise them? For her, it’s cleaning the bathrooms, so she knocks that out at the beginning of the week. To make it as much of a pleasure as this dirty job can be, she uses homemade bathroom cleaner with lemon and lavender essential oils.
Designate tasks to certain days of the week
Rapinchuk has a weekly cleaning schedule and cleans a little bit every day. It’s a habit she established when she worked full-time outside the home. Mondays are reserved for the bathrooms. She has her dusting day on Tuesday, vacuuming day on Wednesday and so on. If she doesn’t get to a chore one week, it’s no big deal; she’ll wait until the next week.
On Fridays, she does her grocery shopping or picks up her grocery order. Put in a grocery order on Thursday night, she suggests, or earlier in the week if you can meal plan ahead of time. Then pick it up on the way home on Friday night. Include a rotisserie chicken and a bagged salad, “and you have an easyish meal, plus groceries all done,” she says. If you have to do the groceries on a weekend, go as early as possible so you can enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Set up organisation stations
“Where are things (in the house) driving you crazy?” Rapinchuk asks. “Pick a storage solution, and corral things together. Make things easy to put away” and easy to find. As you look around the house for pain points, think about what could help. Let’s say you have kids, Rapinchuk says, and their bathroom towels are still ending up on the floor.
Hang hooks above where the towels are on the floor – at a reachable height – where they will remember to hang them up. If the kids still don’t get on board, she suggests putting a basket where they toss the towels, or even establishing consequences or rewards. Slowly teach them the new routines, one at a time.
Think about where in the house you might need other solutions, especially containers. A jar at the front door for keys? Somewhere to put clean masks? A dish on the dresser for watches and change? A pretty basket on the kitchen counter to sweep up clutter when it’s time to cook?
Mind your self-talk
If you have a constant stream of negative thoughts about your home and the people making the mess in it, Rapinchuk recommends looking for solutions to the problems instead of complaining about them. Negative thoughts create negative energy, which makes household members less likely to pull their weight.
“Flip the switch with how you are thinking about your home,” she says. “It’s a gift to be in our homes.” She has a few sayings that help her stay on track, including: “take it out, put it away”, “group like with like” and “one in, one out”. As you repeat them, you’ll be teaching yourself and your family the cleaning and organisation strategies that will help everyone take more ownership of the house.
End each day with a clean counter and sink
Like everyone, Rapinchuk is tired at the end of the day, but every night she clears the kitchen counters, starts the dishwasher and cleans her sink with a mixture of baking soda, Castile soap and essential oils. “You’ll see that it pays off the next day, when you can walk into the kitchen and just make your coffee,” she says.
In her book, she recommends getting the family in on the nightly kitchen reset by assigning specific jobs and even putting on an audiobook or music to help make it more fun. The habit is so ingrained now that she estimates it only takes her family 10 to 15 minutes to clear the table, load the dishes and scrub the kitchen sink.
Feel free to tweak this routine to suit your family. It could be that you need to prep the coffee pot for its automatic turn-on or set out lunch bags on a clean counter for kids to fill in the morning. A little extra effort in the evening makes for a fresher start the next day.
AFRICA’S biggest mobile operator MTN yesterday announced that it had sold its 20 percent stake in Belgacom International Carrier Services (Bics) for R1.8 billion to Belgian digital services provider Proximus as part of a process to dispose of non-core.
MTN, whose net debt stood at R70.9bn at the end of June last year, said that the proceeds of the transaction would go towards paying down US dollar debt and for general corporate purposes.
“The sale represents further progress in MTN’s stated asset realisation programme, which aims to reduce debt and risk and unlock value,” MTN said.
Bics is one of the world’s biggest providers of roaming services and has been MTN’s preferred provider for international voice and messaging services to and from the rest of the world for years.
MTN said the closing of the transaction was dependent on customary regulatory approvals.
“Bics was classified as a non-current asset held for sale and this transaction has resulted in a remeasurement of its carrying value, resulting in a reduction of R397 million for the year ended December 31, 2020,” said MTN.
“Once all the conditions precedent have been fulfilled, MTN will receive proceeds of approximately €100 million (R1.8 billion) in cash, which the group intends to use to pay down US dollar debt and for general corporate purpose.” The group said it would record a profit on disposal amounting to approximately R1.2bn during the first half of 2021, mainly due to the release of the foreign currency translation reserve.
“This results in a net impact of R812 million over the two periods,” said MTN.
Former chief executive Rob Shuter unveiled MTN’s asset realisation programme in March 2019 in which assets that were not long-term strategic would be sold when market conditions were conducive.
The group initially set a target of raising R15bn, which was achieved within 12 months.
In March last year the group announced a further R25bn target in asset sales over the medium term.
In March, MTN sold its 49 percent stake in ATC Uganda and ATC Ghana
for R8.9bn. In November, the group offloaded its 18.9 percent stake in African online retailer Jumia, making R2.3bn in net proceeds.
Shuter said the company would focus on a pan-African strategy and make an orderly exit of Middle Eastern assets over the medium term.
As a first step, MTN entered into
advanced discussions to sell its 75 percent stake in MTN Syria.
Last week, MTN announced earnings per share would be between 75 percent and 95 percent higher for the year ended December 31, 2020 to between 886 cents to 987 cents compared with 506 cents for 2019.
The group said earnings per share
included impairment losses totalling about 155 cents that relate mainly to MTN Syria, MTN Yemen, MTN Guinea Bissau, MTN Liberia and Bics.
Earnings per share also included the benefit from gains amounting to approximately 341c on the disposal of the ATC Uganda and ATC Ghana tower joint ventures.