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Pakistan celebrates its first woman to summit K2 | The Guardian Nigeria News

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Pakistan on Friday celebrated Samina Baig becoming the first woman from the country to summit K2, the world’s second highest mountain.

The 31-year-old reached the top of the 8,611-metre (28,251-foot) peak early Friday as part of a seven-member local team, and was followed hours later by a second Pakistani woman, Dubai-based Naila Kiani.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised Baig and Kiani, with his office tweeting that both “have emerged as symbols of courage and bravery”.

Bangladeshi female climber Wasfia Nazreen also became the first person ever from her country to scale the mountain on Friday, her expedition told AFP

Iranian Afsaneh Hesamifard and Lebanese-Saudi Nelly Attar, meanwhile, became the first women from their respective countries to summit K2, the Alpine Club of Pakistan said.

Pakistan is home to five of the world’s 14 mountains higher than 8,000 metres, and climbing them all is considered the ultimate achievement of any mountaineer.

Besides being far more technically difficult to climb than Everest, K2 has notoriously fickle weather, and has only been scaled by 425 people since 1954 — including around 20 women.

More than 6,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the top in 1953 — some of them multiple times.

In 2013 Baig became the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest.

This northern hemisphere summer a record number of climbers are bidding to scale Pakistan’s treacherous peaks — including K2, known as “savage mountain”, and the notorious Nanga Parbat, nicknamed “killer mountain”.

On Thursday Sanu Sherpa, from Nepal, became the first person to complete the double summit of all 14 super peaks after he reached the top of Gasherbrum II in Pakistan.

Kristin Harila, meanwhile, remained on track for the record of climbing the 14 peaks in the fastest time.

The 36-year-old Norwegian scaled K2 — the eighth peak of the challenge — on Thursday night in pursuit of Nepali adventurer Nirmal Purja’s record of six months and six days.

It has taken her 70 days so far, and her next target is the nearby 8,051-metre Broad Peak.

Tragedy struck Afghan mountaineer Ali Akbar Sakhi, however, who died on Thursday after suffering a heart attack on K2, his brother told AFP.

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July 22, 2022
Why I chose Okowa as running mate over Wike – Atiku | The Guardian Nigeria News

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The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar has given the reason he chose Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa as his running mate over Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike.

Atiku, a former vice president, picked Okowa as his running mate in June amid stiff opposition by some PDP members and governors who recommended the Rivers State governor.

READ ALSO: Atiku dumps Wike, chooses Okowa as running mate for presidential election

In an interview with Arise TV on Friday, Atiku said he did not pick Wike as his running mate because he wanted someone he could work with “amicably”.

Wike contested the PDP presidential ticket – and was only behind Atiku.

“Governor Wike was not rejected. Nobody was rejected in the party. But you must understand that it’s the prerogative of the candidate to pick his running mate — a running mate he believes he can work with amicably, and then also deliver the policies of the party, and also try to unify the country,” Atiku said.

Atiku said he opted for Okowa instead of Wike because he wanted someone that could “deliver the policies of the party, and also try to unify the country.”

READ ALSO: God has not told me to support Atiku, we’re with Wike, says Ortom

The PDP presidential candidate praised Wike as a courageous and brilliant politician who has a future in Nigerian politics.

“Governor Wike is a brilliant politician. He’s courageous, tenacious,” Atiku said. “I believe he has a future in the political evolution of this country. It’s not a question of rejection. Certainly, not. I think it’s too harsh a word to say that we rejected governor Wike. Certainly not.”

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July 22, 2022
Nigeria: Benin Artefacts – I’ve No Conflict With Palace, Says Obaseki

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Benin City — Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, yesterday, said there was no dispute between the state government and the Palace of the Oba of Benin, His Majesty, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, over the return of looted Benin artefacts.

Obaseki, who addressed participants at a stakeholders’ engagement and unveiling of phase one of the Edo Museum of West African Art, EMOWAA, in Benin City, noted: “What is our plan for culture? As a people, we have a lot of assets from our past and it’s our responsibility to recreate them. So, it is beyond just several pieces of artwork; no, it’s beyond that. It is about using that as the contact point to bring out the best of who we are.

“There is a whole lot of research that still needs to be done. We can’t have things about us being explained to us from Europe. Nobody is going to do it for us.

“That is why we must insist that when these works come, we host them here in Edo State, their home, so that it’s available for everybody to see. There is no quarrel with the palace.

“It is not just about us but the people of the state. So, let’s facilitate it so everybody can access and benefit from it.

“I don’t see why we cannot achieve this. So, each and every one of you here, from your Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, have the responsibility to make sure we get the first phase of the EMOWAA done and then, let those coming after us build on what we have started.”

Earlier, Chairman of EMOWAA Trust, Mr. Phillip Ihenacho, said that the core mandate of EMOWAA was to support the preservation of West African heritage and culture.

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July 22, 2022
Gunmen kill 17 in northwest Nigeria

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KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Gunmen have killed 17 people including five policemen in separate attacks in northwest Nigeria’s Katsina state in the latest wave of violence in the region, police and a local official said Thursday.

Northwest and central Nigeria are a hub of criminal gangs known locally as bandits who raid villages, killing or abducting residents after looting and burning homes.

The criminals, who maintain camps in a vast forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, were declared terrorists by Nigeria’s government in January.

Late on Wednesday a group of around 300 bandits on motorcycles attacked a police post near Gatakawa village in Kankara district, killing five policemen, local police spokesman Gambo Isah said.

“We lost five policemen in (a) gunfight with the bandits in an effort to prevent them from raiding Gatakawa village,” Isah said.

The attackers also killed three civilians from the village, he added.

Separately, at least nine people died between Tuesday and Wednesday in attacks on four villages in neighboring Faskari district blamed on the same gang, local official Musa Ado said.

“Four villages were attacked and a total of nine people were killed, with Ruwan Godiya village losing six people,” Ado said.

“A person was killed in each of the other three villages where the bandits looted livestock and other supplies,” he added.

Bandits have intensified attacks in Katsina state, operating from hideouts in neighboring Zamfara state which is their stronghold.

Although the gangs are motivated by financial gains with no ideological leaning, Nigerian officials are concerned about possible ties with jihadists making inroads from the northeast where they are waging a 13-year insurgency.

© Agence France-Presse

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July 21, 2022
WHO discusses declaring emergency on monkeypox | The Guardian Nigeria News

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Monkeypox experts discussed Thursday whether the World Health Organization should classify the outbreak as a global health emergency — the highest alarm it can sound.

A second meeting of the WHO’s emergency committee on the virus was held to examine the worsening situation, with nearly 15,400 cases reported from 71 countries, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.

On June 23, the WHO convened an emergency committee of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — the UN health agency’s highest alert level.

But a majority advised the WHO’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the situation, at that point, had not met the threshold.

The second meeting was called with case numbers rising further.

“I need your advice in assessing the immediate and mid-term public health implications,” Tedros told the start of the meeting, which lasted more than six hours.

If the committee advises Tedros that the outbreak constitutes a PHEIC, it will propose temporary recommendations on how to better prevent and reduce the spread of the disease and manage the global public health response.

But there is no timetable for when the committee will reach their conclusions from the meeting or make the outcome public.

– Stigmatisation fear –
Ninety-eight percent of reported cases “are among men who have sex with men (MSM) — and primarily those who have multiple recent anonymous or new partners,” Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s technical lead for monkeypox, told a press conference on Wednesday.

They are typical of young age and chiefly in urban areas, according to the WHO.

Tedros said Thursday that this posed a challenge, as in some countries, “the communities affected face life-threatening discrimination”.

“There is a very real concern that men who have sex with men could be stigmatised or blamed for the outbreak, making the outbreak much harder to track, and to stop,” he told the meeting.

Tedros said the first committee gathering helped delineate the dynamics of the outbreak, but he remained concerned about the number of cases.

Despite an apparent declining trend in some countries, six nations reported their first cases last week.

“As the outbreak develops, it’s important to assess the effectiveness of public health interventions in different settings, to better understand what works, and what doesn’t,” he said.

Tedros also said information coming from endemic countries in Africa was “very scant”, making it hard to characterise the situation in the region and design interventions.

A viral infection resembling smallpox and first detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.

– ‘Scary and exhausting‘ –
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said that as of Monday, 7,896 confirmed cases had been reported from 27 countries in the European Economic Area.

The worst affected were Spain (2,835), Germany (1,924), France (912), the Netherlands (656) and Portugal (515).

“Particular sexual practices are very likely to have facilitated and could further facilitate the transmission of monkeypox among MSM groups,” it said.

Danish company Bavarian Nordic is the lone laboratory manufacturing a licensed vaccine against monkeypox and jabs are currently in scarce supply.

Loyce Pace, the assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said it was “very hard” for the world to handle monkeypox on top of Covid-19 and other health crises.

“I know it can be scary… and, frankly, exhausting,” she told reporters at the US mission in Geneva.

However, “we know a lot more about this disease, we’ve been able to stop outbreaks previously and we, importantly, have medical counter-measures and other tools available”.

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July 21, 2022
Amazon announces presence in Nigeria with cloud service infrastructure

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Amazon Web Services is making what can be described as the first announcement of its presence in Nigeria with the launch of ‘AWS Outposts’, an infrastructure service that enables users to locally host, run, manage their workload and connect with Amazon’s cloud service offerings.

Amazon in a statement shared with BusinessDay described the infrastructure as fully-managed and configurable computing and storage racks built with AWS-designed hardware. These it says, allows its customers to run AWS services on-premises, including computing, storage, and databases, while seamlessly connecting to AWS’s broad array of services in the cloud.

“Customers in Nigeria who have workloads that require low latency, data processing, or data storage on premises can benefit from AWS Outposts,” said Amrote Abdella, general manager, AWS Sub-Saharan Africa. “We are excited to bring AWS Outposts rack to Nigeria as we continue to deliver advanced cloud services to meet AWS customers’ business needs.”

Abdella also said these workloads include applications that might need to generate near real-time responses, communicate with other on-premises systems, or control on-site equipment, such as factory floor equipment, health management systems, and retail point-of-sale systems. Customers can also use AWS Outposts rack to securely store and use customer data in Nigeria, which is important for organizations in highly regulated industries and data sovereignty requirements.

AWS Outposts rack according to the statement, brings AWS infrastructure and operating models to datacenters, co-location spaces, and on-premises facilities. With AWS Outposts rack, customers can use the same APIs, control panel, tools, and hardware on premises as in the AWS Regions to deliver a consistent experience.

Read also: Amazon puts Jumia, Konga on notice as it sets April 2023 launch in Nigeria

It identifies Paystack, a Nigerian fintech as one of the indigenous businesses already using AWS services to build what it describes as powerful B2B payments and growth tools for thousands of Africa’s most ambitious businesses. “AWS’ reliability has enabled us to seamlessly scale our operations, and exponentially grow transaction volumes. We are excited by the launch of AWS Outposts rack in Nigeria which brings cloud-scale innovations and services to Nigeria’s tech ecosystem,” said Ezra Olubi, Paystack co-founder and CTO.

54Gene, a health technology company is also identified as another local firm using the service, and has built its Genomics Infrastructure & Insights Ecosystem (GENIISYSTM) platform on AWS, enabling them to collect and analyze diverse datasets to unlock scientific discoveries. “Using AWS, we have been able to deploy new digital services faster than it would have taken us previously. Continuous innovation is part of 54Gene’s DNA. The launch of AWS Outposts rack in Nigeria allows us to extend and run AWS services on premises. We are thrilled with this, said Francis Osifo, vice president of 54Gene.”

AWS Outposts rack enables customers to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces as in AWS Regions. With AWS Outposts, customers can choose from a range of general, compute, memory, storage, and graphics-optimized Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, both with and without local storage options.

Other possibilities are Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume options, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) on Outposts. Customers can then run a broad range of AWS services locally, including Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), and Amazon EMR, and they can connect directly to regional services like Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon DynamoDB through public or private connections.

While Amazon is known more for its eCommerce offering, the company says for over 15 years, its AWS service has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering. AWS says it has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any cloud workload, and now has more than 200 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management.

Operating in different regions across the world, AWS is used by businesses and governments alike to as it says “power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs”.

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July 21, 2022
Hit by China shutdown, Tesla boosts auto prices and sells bitcoin — Business — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

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Tesla reported solid quarterly earnings Wednesday despite a hit from Covid-19 lockdowns in Shanghai that Chief Executive Elon Musk said prompted the company to liquidate most of its bitcoin holdings.

Musk, who has generated recent headlines over his controversial withdrawal from a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, said the company had navigated a tricky environment with the Shanghai closure and lingering supply chain problems that have raised costs.

The electric vehicle maker reported second-quarter profits of $2.3 billion, about twice that in the year-ago period as the automaker lifted car prices to “embarrassing” levels, as Musk put it.

Although Tesla profits topped estimates, they lagged behind those in the first quarter, the first sequential profit drop since late 2020, which coincided with a fall in automotive profit margins due to rising costs.

And while revenues jumped 42 percent to $16.9 billion, they came in below the $17.1 billion projected by analysts.

Musk described the period as a “unique quarter,” but told investors and analysts on a conference call that the restart of the Shanghai plant and the ramp-up of new factories in Germany and Texas create “the potential for a record-breaking second half of the year.”

The company cited the drag from Shanghai, where its factory was shuttered for part of the quarter. But Tesla said it finished the three-month period with “a record monthly production level” after the China restart.

Tesla said supply chain challenges remain an ongoing headache, as factory shutdowns, labor shortages, logistics and other issues “limited our ability to consistently run our factories at full capacity.”

Bitcoin sale
During the quarter, Tesla liquidated about 75 percent of its holdings in bitcoin, the value of which has declined sharply in 2022.

The moves on bitcoin resulted in one-time costs of $106 million, said Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn.

Musk attributed the move to the need to raise cash because of the uncertainty of when Shanghai operations would return.

The sale “should not be taken as some verdict on bitcoin,” Musk said at the outset of the call.

But cryptocurrency is a “side show to the side show” compared with the goal of accelerating the energy transition, said Musk, who pointed to the scorching heat now plaguing many countries as underscoring the need for change.

Torrid demand for Musk’s electric vehicles has allowed Tesla to pass on higher prices to consumers.

In the United States, Tesla’s cheapest vehicle, the Model 3, starts at nearly $50,000.

“We’ve raised our prices quite a few times, they’re frankly at embarrassing levels. ” Musk said. “But we’ve also had a lot of supply chain and production shocks and we’ve got crazy inflation.

“I am hopeful — this is not a promise or anything, but I’m hopeful that at some point we can reduce the prices a little bit,” he said.

Bullish on rest of 2022
Several analysts had viewed the second quarter as the weakest of the year for Tesla in the aftermath of the Shanghai factory lockdown and other supply chain issues.

But many Tesla watchers are bullish on the second half of 2022 in light of the company’s growing production profile.

CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson told AFP the second quarter was “especially impressive” given the headwinds of the Shanghai closure and the costs of upping production at new plants.

Musk has shown boundless confidence in Tesla’s ability to shake up the auto market, leading the company as it has met production targets on its core product, even as the cars remain too expensive for many consumers.

But Musk has been less enthusiastic of late about the economy as a whole, saying last month that a recession “appears more likely than not” and confirming plans to reduce the company’s salaried work force by about 10 percent.

Most recently, the controversial CEO has become embroiled in a messy fight with Twitter after withdrawing his takeover bid. The case will go to trial in October to determine Musk will be forced to complete the transaction.

Shares of Tesla added 1.6 percent to $754.45 in after-hours trading.

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July 21, 2022
After much ado, Abe finally dumps APC, may join SDP | The Guardian Nigeria News

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After going back and forth trying to gain a foothold in the party, Senator Magnus Abe, factional leader of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, has exited the party to seek his long-awaited desire to govern the state via another platform.

The news of Abe pulling out of APC had been in the social media since last week, before a letter of resignation purportedly signed by him (Abe) and addressed to the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, went viral online.

Though Abe on his Facebook’s personal account denied issuing such a letter, a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Parry Benson made available to newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday, confirmed that Abe has left APC in search of better fortune in another party.

The statement however did not reveal the next move for the 2023 governorship aspirant, nor the party he was going for. But inside sources within APC told The Guardian, that the former representative of Rivers South-East Senatorial District at the National Assembly was moving to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Abe had since 2015 made frantic efforts to govern Rivers State but failed due to deep-seated animosity between him and the immediate past Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi.

On April 18, this year, he again joined the guber race but the intractable splits in APC, which began in 2015 has refused to heal and makes it difficult for Abe to play in the mainstream. He was not part of the Amaechi’s faction of APC, which endorsed Dakuku Peterside as the governorship candidate in 2015.

In 2019, Amaechi again endorsed another party chieftain, Tonye Cole against advice by concerned party members. The move and other irreconcilable issues further widened the division in the party. The court eventually ruled that the APC had no candidate in the elections of that year.

The last straw was the endorsement of Cole, again as the party’s governorship candidate for 2023. The manner that decision was arrived at has caused other aspirants, chieftains of the party and their supporters to take a walk from APC.

Those who left said they no longer see a future in APC, while Tonye Princewill said he left because of the party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.

Citing his reasons for dumping the party, Abe, while speaking on TVC programme yesterday, maintained that he left to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

He however said he is still part of the family of the APC Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The Senator insisted that although he has left the party, the purported letter of resignation circulating online does not originate from him.

He said: “I have since left the APC in Rivers State but the letter circulating round is not from me. I am still part of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s family and have no issue with him whatsoever.”

“I am a part of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political family and I’m also part of his own family, and that is a very separate thing, from the politics of Rivers state. Yesterday there were some funny letters circulating on the Internet, that I resigned from the APC because Asiwaju refused to intervene in the politics of Rivers State. That is ridiculous, all politics is local, I have no interest whatsoever in the APC in Rivers State.

“I have no stake in the APC in Rivers state, I don’t know anybody that is in the entire executive of the APC in all the 319 wards in the state. I don’t even know who my ward chairman is, I don’t know any ward ex-officio, officer of the party, I don’t have anybody who is running for any office in the APC in Rivers State that I know, except Asiwaju who is running for President.

“I have absolutely no stake in the party in Rivers and all politics at the end of the day is local. And so it will be irresponsible of me to stay in the APC in Rivers state and support a party in which I have no stake in their victory.

“So it is clear to everybody who is watching the politics of this country that my future in the politics of Rivers State is not tied to the All Progressives Congress and so it is clear that I’m no longer a member of the APC in Rivers State as far as that goes; but, the purported letter flying around wasn’t authored by me and I know absolutely nothing about it and it does not reflect my views and my opinions as far as the politics of Rivers State is concerned.

“I have said in the coming days a lot of things will unfold, but the issue of me and the APC in Rivers State I think that was decided a long time ago. I don’t know why people are still speculating and writing letters on an issue that I have made public a long time ago, that I’m not part of the APC as far as Rivers state is concerned.”

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July 21, 2022
Ukraine’s Zelensky moves against ‘spies’ — World — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

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Ukraine’s army is putting up fierce frontline resistance against Russian troops, but President Volodymyr Zelensky’s shock dismissal of two top law enforcement officials has revealed another front in the war closer to home — against spies and Kremlin sympathisers.

His dismissal of SBU security chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of President Zelensky, and of prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova, is unprecedented since the start of the invasion.

The decision was announced Sunday and approved by parliament on Tuesday, with Zelensky berating the pair for their failure to counter the activities of Russian spies and collaborators in Ukraine.

In his daily video address, he said there were over 650 cases involving officials suspected of treason and aiding Russia, including 60 “working against our state” in Russian-held areas of the country.

“Everyone was expecting… more tangible results” from Bakanov and Venediktova in “fighting collaborators and traitors”, said Andriy Smyrnov, deputy head of the presidential administration.

‘The last straw’
“The president and his cabinet were not pleased with the work of Bakanov and Venediktova” even before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told AFP.

In the last few months, at least three top SBU officials have been accused of high treason.

One of them, Oleg Kulinich, who was sacked in March and was arrested on Sunday, had been based in the southern region of Kherson.

Situated close to the Crimean peninsula which was annexed by Moscow in 2014, the region was quickly taken over by Russian troops at the start of the invasion — a significant setback for which the government was heavily criticised.

“This man was collaborating with Russian secret services. It is a very serious blow. In my view, it was the last straw for Zelensky,” Fesenko said.

Zelensky had already sacked the regional head of the SBU for Kherson, Sergiy Kryvoruchko.

Another SBU official is suspected of having shared with Russian troops top secret maps of minefields intended to hamper their advance.

Zelensky on Monday said there would be a “review” within the SBU, pointing out that 28 agents could be sacked for “unsatisfactory” work.

One of Bakanov’s deputies has also been sacked.

Prisoner exchanges at risk?
Venediktova was heading up the high-profile investigations into atrocities committed by Russian forces, particularly in the town of Bucha, which became a symbol of the alleged Russian war crimes.

According to the influential news site Ukrainska Pravda, she incurred the wrath of the presidency by attracting excessive media attention and for rushing through trials of captured Russian soldiers.

According to the report, the trials angered Moscow and made negotiations over prisoner swaps — a priority for Zelensky — more difficult.

For many observers in Ukraine, the reshuffle appears to have been a move to reinforce presidential control over law enforcement.

The interim replacements of both Bakanov and Venediktova — their respective deputies — are considered to be more politically docile.

“It is clear” that these men “will execute all the political orders” of the presidency, said Tetyana Shevchuk, an expert from the Centre for Action Against Corruption, a non-governmental organisation, cited by Forbes Ukraine.

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July 20, 2022
South Africa’s power cuts take a toll on mental health | The Guardian Nigeria News

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You can’t do your work because there’s no power. You eat late and bolt your food before the lights fail. And then to be at home, in the utter dark, gives you the creeps.

As blackouts unfurl across South Africa, triggered by problems that have overwhelmed its energy provider, stress is taking a mounting toll on mental health, experts say.

“People are frustrated, some (are) angry, some are experiencing symptoms” of post-traumatic stress disorder, said Sinqobile Aderinoye, a psychologist in Johannesburg.

“The consistent on-and-off of the electric grid is creating an air of disillusionment.”

South Africa has struggled for years with power cuts, known here as load-shedding, as as its monopoly utility Eskom failed to keep pace with demand.

But ageing infrastructure and labour disputes have added to the crisis — and in recent weeks, the country has been hit by rolling blackouts that can last up to nine hours a day.

“There was a time … I felt like I was going to scream,” said Blessed Dlamini, a 25-year-old father living in downtown Johannesburg.

For five hours, he recalled, he had no power as he struggled to work and at the same time deal with a hungry two-year-old.

“It was very, very hectic,” said Dlamini who works for a sexual health centre.

Blackouts eased this week, with cuts reduced to about two hours a day.

But the schedule of cuts provided by Eskom is not always followed, giving rise to an unpredictability that leaves many people on edge.

The crisis “is leading to feelings of hopelessness, which is associated with depression,” said Claire Lownie, a psychiatrist in Johannesburg’s financial centre, Sandton.

Fight-or-flight
Plunged into darkness with a sense of unmet basic needs, the human brain can be triggered into survival mode, leading to a fight-or-flight response, explained Aderinoye.

“The brain starts to think we are under attack. The body is then notified that we are in danger and we create an anxiety response,” she said.

At work, on the streets or around the dinner table, swapping tips on how to cope with blackouts has become a national pastime.

Some people prefer the romantic feel of candles to light their homes, while others resort to camping lanterns.

Others debate whether coughing up money for take-out meals is preferable to investing in gas cookers or simply eating at odd hours.

Yet, in a country burdened by high crime rates, outages aren’t a simple inconvenience. Fear of burglary, assault or rape runs deep.

“You cannot go around when it’s dark,” said Flora Sithole, 30, a domestic worker employed in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Rosebank.

“We are so afraid of that — it’s not safe. Our country is not safe.”

The added stress caused by power cuts often compounds an already precarious situation, psychologists say.

Anxiety, depression and other disorders were already up almost two-thirds since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Cheryl Johnston, a Johannesburg-based psychologist.

“A lot of people are at or crossing over (their) breaking point,” she said.

The result can be “abnormal behaviour” as well as angry or violent outbursts, Johnston said.

Having a plan and being prepared to deal with the cuts is the best way to cope, according to health experts.

Dlamini said he has joined Twitter to follow the city’s electricity updates more closely.

Better mental health awareness is also crucial, Johnston said.

“Being able to be honest with yourself about the emotions that you’re having and waiting for yourself to be calm before taking action… is the best thing you can do,” she said.

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July 20, 2022