Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 22/04/2025I'm often stunned by the extent to which the UK (and the rest of Europe/other colonial powers) has utterly failed to reckon with their colonial barbarism. By rights, the term "colonialism" should evoke the same emotions as the "Nazism". 061
Reposted by MontyWim Vandevelde @wimvandevelde.bsky.social · 18/02/2025“Stopping such studies so abruptly is unethical, a huge waste of time and resources, and a violation of trust. It’s extremely complicated — and expensive — to restart them.” bhekisisa.org/health-news-...bhekisisa.orgHow the health department will deal with Pepfar’s near collapse - BhekisisaOffering state HIV patients who qualify a six-month supply of antiretroviral (ARVs) pills at a time, so that they only have to return to clinics or community pick-up points twice a year to collect the... 021
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 18/02/2025Worker-lead environmental change... from the aviation industry. open.substack.com/pub/wcwd/p/a...open.substack.comA Safe Landing for AviationAviation workers are working together to develop a sustainable future for their sector. 010
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 17/02/2025This is bloody heartbreaking. More than 100,000 preventable deaths... 010
Reposted by MontyErnesto @ernest33141.bsky.social · 15/02/2025@34thparallel.bsky.social Please Please Please Share. Share. Share. Enter February 28 into your Smart Phone Calendar. Say you're IN! WE REALLY CAN DO THIS TOGETHER!!!! Please Do This With ME!?! 8239120
Reposted by MontyThe Continent @thecontinent.org · 16/02/2025Across Africa, a growing number of people are struggling to meet their most basic needs. See Afrobarometer's latest survey in this week’s issue. 613757
Reposted by MontyUnscrambled @strandloper.bsky.social · 16/02/2025Lost in the fog of shock and awe, a major war is growing in scale in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bukavu - a provincial capital in the east of the country - has fallen to Rwandan-backed rebels. www.reuters.com/world/africa...reuters.comM23 rebels advance into eastern Congo's strategic city of BukavuRwandan-backed M23 rebels advanced on Sunday into the centre of Bukavu, the second-largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, meeting little resistance from government troops, witnesses and the armed group said. 043
Reposted by MontyOccupy Wall Street @occupywallstnyc.bsky.social · 15/02/2025Free movement for all. 1719
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 16/02/2025We were very lucky to still have a culture of great independence in our judiciary. 010
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 16/02/2025Damn, I didn't know Trump senior was a klansman. JFC. 210
Reposted by MontyShailly Gupta @shaillygupta.bsky.social · 14/02/2025TB remains the world's deadliest infectious killer disease. While there are newer tests, drugs and regimens available, more research is needed for new drugs, tests and regimens to end this ancient disease. Check out this very good update of impact USAID fund freeze on all TB related workcidrap.umn.eduUSAID funding freeze disrupts global tuberculosis control efforts 064
Reposted by MontyAmnesty International @amnesty.org · 14/02/2025The Sudan conflict has been ignored enough. Attacking and killing civilians seeking safety in a displaced persons camp is unconscionable. The RSF and all other parties to the conflict must immediately end all attacks on civilians. 14621
Reposted by MontySana Bég @sana.msf.ca · 04/02/2025"It starts w/ finding clean water, continues w/ finding food, & ends with finding a place to sleep. Is this the life I will live forever?” Zahra's story is one of millions. In parts of #Sudan, 1 in 3 kids under 5 are acutely malnourished. This crisis is happening now, and it's preventable. @msf.camsf.orgSudan malnutrition crisis: MSF renews call for immediate action to prevent death and starvation | MSFAction must be taken now to prevent even more avoidable death from malnutrition in Sudan. 14414
Reposted by MontyDoctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) @msf.ca · 04/02/2025#Migration: In recent months, our teams have identified more cases of women and girls who have repeatedly suffered extreme violence such as kidnapping and sexual assault, either on the migration route or in their home countries. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK0T...youtube.comOne and Thousands: Stories of Women on the Migration RouteYouTube video by Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières 113553
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 04/02/2025Everyone asking the Dems to stop the unfolding coup: Don't you realise this couldn't have happened without them? They've long been whittling democracy down to oligarchy. They helped create & buttress a political system for the rich, funded by the rich. They aren't going to save anyone but themselves 000
Reposted by MontyLeon Simons @leonsimons.com · 04/02/2025Global Warming Has Accelerated Groundbreaking new paper by James Hansen et al. www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.... 12210119
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 04/02/2025JFC. We've gone from being famous for Mandela to Musk. And the bloody little Freedom Front+ is begging him and Trump to intervene in SA politics, as they trash USAID-funded anti-retroviral programmes and other healthcare here. It's the worst of US imperialism 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 04/02/2025What are the chances that the US wasn't involved in this... 000
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 04/02/2025Let's talk about medical racism... SO much of it, but I've never seen anything about the fact that all medicine info sheets STILL are only in English & Afrikaans - 32 years post-apartheid. 010
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 04/02/2025Enraged my local chat group by suggesting we maybe don't clean up our area by spraying a WHO-described "probable carcinogen" all over our streets. So tired of being pilloried for caring about reality and other people. How do you all manage? 000
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 22/01/2025We need to be realistic about people's psychology, but then use that to improve all our lives. 000
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 22/01/2025I'm very much a believer in Determinism, since it's so plainly true, but also vigorous activism. The right's belief in free will only leads to the idea that you can will your problems away, or force people to choose to be 'better' just by punishing them. 100
Reposted by MontyPierre de Vos @pierredevos.bsky.social · 22/01/2025The Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Law limits the definition of marriage to “a legal union between two persons of the opposite sex” and states that “a marriage or marital union between persons of the same sex wherever concluded” is not recognised in Namibia. www.mambaonline.com/2025/01/21/n...mambaonline.comNamibia: Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Law EnactedActivists have vowed to challenge a new law in Namibia that overturns a landmark Supreme Court ruling by outlawing same-sex marriage. 122
Reposted by Montyjamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/01/2025i think the executive orders directing agencies to end energy efficiency regulations and open up more land to drilling and mining is so indicative of the character of the american right — in its view everything, whether people or our larger environment, is something to be exploited and dominated 1160357065945
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025I keep imagining what the coverage would be like if wealthy white people had been forced into the mine, then trapped and starved by SAPS - and the 14-year-old who was down there had been a blonde white girl... 020
Reposted by MontyFiona Harvey @fionaharvey.bsky.social · 21/01/2025This is what I was writing about 20 years ago as a terrifying but far off prospect, a key tipping point in the climate crisis. Now it’s here. Report by my colleague @patrickgreenfield A third of Arctic’s vast carbon sink now source of emissions, study reveals www.theguardian.com/environment/...theguardian.comA third of the Arctic’s vast carbon sink now a source of emissions, study revealsCritical CO2 stores held in permafrost are being released as the landscape changes with global heating, report shows 9143100
Reposted by Montysingemonkey.bsky.social @singemonkey.bsky.social · 21/01/2025In some ways I think Musk is the triumph of the Apartheid regime - to have placed someone raised in our rank stew of white supremacy in the position of Grand Vizier of the richest and most militarily powerful nation in the world. Verwoerd would be smiling today. #musk #southafrica #apartheid 031
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Great point. SAPS is long past redemption. Upside is that it's a perfect opportunity to replace it with something radically different - just and valuable to people. Downside is that no party is anywhere near having that kind of vision. Any NGOs working on this? 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Stilfontein is every bit as much a SAPS massacre as Marikana was. 011
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025A SAPS spokesperson] told the M&G that the police “...are there because of the crime that is being committed that is illegal mining. Food has never been our arrangement from the beginning. /14 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025from the bodies of those who had died in shaft 10." “We request food. We have run out of food. Please we are humbly begging, people are dying non-stop … we know that hunger is the reason we are dying,” it said. /13 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025"“Most of the people are perishing at shaft 10, as they are forced to climb up at shaft 10 but they keep falling and dying and we can’t find their bodies,” said a miner in letter filed by the LHR's with the Con Court. "According to the letter, some of the miners were eating human flesh /12 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025"While there were initial reports of miners exiting the mine, those individuals used the Margaret Shaft ..., which is entirely inaccessible ... by those trapped at shafts 10 and 11 ..." Shaft 11 is 2km deep. /11 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025"According to Jessica Lawrence of Lawyers for Human Rights (LRH), the miners are “physically trapped” and cannot leave the mine without external help from above ground. “It is incorrect to suggest that they are choosing to remain in these unbearable conditions. /10mg.co.zaLawyers say ‘trapped’ illegal miners in Stilfontein can’t surface without help – The Mail & GuardianOver 1500 miners have exited, but authorities are unable to say how many more remain underground 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025To be fair, the M&G and Daily Maverick have also done some good reporting. But there's been no widespread sense of horror, as for Marikana (and even then, it wasn't enough). A monstrous crime has been committed, that's killed untold numbers of vulnerable people, but there's no general outcry. /9 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025How were emaciated miners supposed to get to the surface three months later? When activists got the SA Constitution Court order last week, it took them just three days to bring everyone to the surface. /8 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025"The police have used the escape of the 14 men to argue that the zama zamas [informal miners] are not trapped and “simply refuse to resurface because they are avoiding arrest”." It was almost impossible for those men to get to the surface back at the beginning of November. /7 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025The deepest part of the mine is 2km down, with no working lifts at any level, and SAPS didn't provide any lifts--nor protection for miners from the gangs. /6 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025There were over 100 *children* forced to work in the mine by the gangs, then trapped underground to starve by SAPS. One miner described seeing young men who had been kidnapped, mostly Mozambicans and Zimbabweans. "“They say they don’t want to go underground,” he said. “We see them crying.”" /5 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Many miners were picked up by the gangs where they were waiting for day jobs on the side of the road, and told they were going to work in Joburg. Instead they were taken to Stilfontein and forced underground at gun point. /4 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025"An official who saw them described their bodies as “crushed”. He added: “We don’t know how they did it.”" As well as devastating consequences for miners, and those they support, of being arrested by SAPS, they could be killed by the gangs that control the mines for leaving--as SAPS well knew. /3 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025As long ago as early November, "five young men climbed out from an abandoned shaft near Khuma, surprising a police guard stationed there. They reported travelling for three weeks through the tunnels after escaping the gang and then climbing vertically for more than a kilometre. /2 110
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025I kept wondering why the miners in Stilfontein didn't just come up, rather than starve to death. The South African Police Service cultivated the lie that they were callous criminals trying to force SAPS to back down. The media (aside from Ground Up) did nothing to dispel this. Here's the truth: 1/groundup.org.zaThe violent underworld of Stilfontein’s zama zamasSouth Africa’s illicit gold trade is lucrative and controlled by gangs 223
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Is the huge increase because of the northern hemisphere's winter? 000
Monty @theviscountess.bsky.social · 29/12/2024What's the likely total of Covid deaths? It's infuriating how lightly many people still take it. Like their indifference was justified all along, when it was pure luck. 110
