Fishhoek Shark Attack

As tweeted by Fishhoek resident Gregg Coppen:

He followed that up with this:

Emergency services just arrived. It must have been a person. The shark breached it’s head out the water no remains http://yfrog.com/1dronnpj

And then this:

We are dumbstruck, that was so surreal. That shark was HUGE. Like dinosaur huge. #sharkattack #fishhoek

Then later:

Helicopters are out and looking for any trace of the remains. Shark headed off Clovelly way #fishoek #sharkattack

This after a shark warning was issued earlier in the day (via http://www.sharkspotters.org.za/)

Wow. More on this developing story later, I’m sure.

UPDATE: Middle-aged man fatally attacked by shark 20m out at Fish Hoek – victim not found (via 567 CapeTalk)

UPDATE 2: News 24 report:

Ian Klopper of the NSRI told News24 that an intensive search was underway to locate the swimmer, but had so far yielded nothing.
A white male, between 32 and 38 years old has been taken by a shark and we have not been able to locate the patient,” Klopper said.
The identity of the victim is still unknown.

Other reports suggest that the victim’s wife was on the beach receiving counselling from emergency services.

UPDATE 3: Cape Times report:

The search has been called off for the night for the body of a tourist from the DRC killed in a shark attack on Tuesday afternoon at Fish Hoek beach on Cape Town’s False Bay coast.
Divers and rescuers from the police and the National Sea Rescue Institute stood down as the water turned murky in failing light.
There has thusfar been no remains found of the man who had been on holiday in SA for a month.

And 6000 miles… commenter accuses shark spotters of negligence & desertion.

UPDATE 4: Joyanne comments that people are still swimming at Fishhoek this morning, despite the “no swimming” flags flying and the ongoing search for the remains of the victim.

UPDATE 5: News24 weighs in with headline “Shark Rips Tourist Apart”, full of conflicting information and reminding us of previous False Bay shark attack in 2005 when a diver was also “Ripped Apart”.

Ashtray Electric’s Dark Bus Trip

Here on 6000 miles… you know that we are always happy to promote the latest musical offerings from South Africa – especially for our overseas reader(s). To that end, please find below the video from Cape Town band Ashtray Electric for their single When Sex Becomes A Sport.

Great song, wonderfully dark video.
I’m getting elements of The Music, Snow Patrol, a touch of Starsailor and a dash of Placebo. Add that to a hint of red berries and plenty of coffee and spice and it’s all good.

Duncan White gets it right

I don’t often reproduce other people’s work in full on here, but after I wrote this, it was nice to see that I’m not the only person feeling that way. Here’s Duncan White in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph

It is wrong to equate Angola with South Africa after Togo attack

It was grimly predictable. No sooner had the first reports of the shooting in Cabinda begun to filter through than South Africa’s ability to host a safe World Cup was called into question

What a laughable leap of logic, what reactionary racist rubbish.

It seems almost insulting to have to make the distinction between what happened in Angola and the security situation in South Africa but with banal parallels being so blithely drawn, the organisers of the World Cup have had to defend themselves. This is ludicrous.

It seems there was a lack of communication between Caf, African football’s governing body, and the Togolese federation about the team’s movement. At least, that’s what the political buck-passing indicates. The terrorists did not have any problems locating the Togolese convoy. Caf needs to prove they did not underestimate the dangers Cabinda presented when scheduling games there and that they had appropriate security measures in place. But, ultimately, it is impossible to prevent acts of terrorism taking place.

Since Munich in 1972, sport has been the target of terrorist attacks. After the Sri Lanka cricket team were fired on in Lahore last year, Arsène Wenger predicted that international sports events would increasingly become the target of terrorists. He has been proved right.

The infuriating flaw is when people equate an act of terrorism with a wider sense of African danger. There it is, the creeping stereotype about the “dark continent” and its propensity for violence. Shouldn’t we take the World Cup back to safe old Europe?

Terrorist attacks occur everywhere. We had one in the United Kingdom on Friday when a bomb went off under the car of a police officer in Northern Ireland. Yet because this attack happened in Africa, it gets translated into a general continental problem, rather than one relating to a specific exclave of a specific country.

Angola and South Africa are miles apart. Quite literally: the capital Luanda is 1,500 miles from Johannesburg, the distance between London and Moscow. Angola only emerged from a brutal 27-year civil war in 2002 and while it has enjoyed huge economic growth in the last eight years, it still bears the scars. It has the highest infant mortality rate in the world and the second-highest death rate in the world. The median age is 18.

South Africa is vastly more developed and has a track record of hosting major international events, especially sporting events. As Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the 2010 World Cup, has pointed out, a war in Kosovo did not mean the German World Cup was called into jeopardy.

South Africa has its problems, especially the rate of violent crime. During the Confederations Cup last summer, you felt many people waiting for something serious to go wrong. Nothing did. The job of ensuring the World Cup passes with as few incidents as possible is a big one. Let’s not burden South Africa with the responsibility for Cabindan terrorism too.

Brilliantly put. One has to wonder why the local news fails to notice this sort of article in the international press, but readily and happily reproduce bigoted, negative rubbish.

Thanks to my Dad for the heads up.

Some perspective, please

After the dreadful attack on the Togolese national football team, questions have been raised about the World Cup tournament in South Africa later this year. But why?

 After all, France 1998 went ahead despite the Kosovo conflict, which was occuring on the same continent.

As Danny Jordaan has pointed out, South Africa 2010 has nothing to do with the African Cup of Nations save for being held in the same year.  What happened on Friday, 3,000 kilometres away from SAFA headquarters is tragic, but it has no bearing on the World Cup.

This situation has merely highlighted the West’s blinkered view of Africa as a single troubled entity. But Angola is just one of fifty-two countries here and is as different from South Africa as Hungary is from the UK and Honduras is from the US.

So can we drop the hysteria and get a little perspective, please?

EDIT: See also here.

Statpr0n and three big moments

I was flicking through some WordPress plugins and seeing what they could do for 6000 miles…when I realised that there are three fairly large moments rapidly approaching. And, quite conceivably, they could all arrive on the same day. Although I will not be making any particular effort to ensure that they do. Honest.

Firstly – on January 30th, I will complete my 365th day of consecutive posts. I got the post-a-day idea from the inimitable Brian Micklethwait and I thought I’d see how it went in February. It went well and the rest is, as they say, history. Or soon will be, anyway.
I’ve had to throw the odd quota photo in here and there to keep things going, and – mainly due to intercontinental travel – I have even pre-written a couple of entries, but generally, you’ve had one or more quality posts each day.
It’s been hard work, really hard, sometimes, but readership is up, subscriptions are up and I’ve actually enjoyed the challenge.
Will I continue? I haven’t decided just yet, but it seems likely. Watch this space on 31st January.
And before and after as well, obviously

The second big thing is that I am “just” 10,000 words short of 200,000 words on 6000 miles… blog posts. That’s a whole lot of words and a whole lot of posts considering I (apparently) average just over 300 words per post. One memorable effort didn’t even have any words at all. That must have dragged the average down a bit.  

The last bit of news is that – at an average 8 comments per post – I am almost up to 5,000 genuine (i.e.ham, not spam) comments. This blog would still exist without comments and commenters, but it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting and fun. Posts about the 2009 general election in South Africa were particularly well commented upon, as is any post about the contentious issues in local politics. Quota photos generally don’t get comments, nor do admin posts; those about religion do and that one about The Killers concert really got people going.

I’m going to make an effort to reward my 5,000th comment in some way.
Not sure how yet, but I’ll do it.
And because of all the spam that Akismet sifts out for me, no-one will know who or when it is, save for myself and The Guru. And thus, he’s not allowed to enter. Sorry, The Guru – it just wouldn’t be fair.

This post is 422 words long and is being filed under admin.
All of which means that no-one will actually have read this far.