TYB
Russia Map Shows Oil Hubs Hit in Dozens of Ukraine Drone Raids
Updated Jan 08, 2025 at 11:17 AM EST
Ukraine conducted more than 80 drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and depots in the last year, according to an investigation by the BBC's Russian Service.
The attacks, which took place in Crimea, occupied Ukrainian territory, and regions of Russia decreased in the second half of the year, but have long-standing ramifications on one of Moscow's top exports.
Here is a map created by Newsweek to illustrate the number of attacks and their locations throughout the past year.
Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for comment via email.
Ukraine's continued strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries are significant because destroying these facilities may injure Moscow's ability to continue fighting in the nearly four-year war, due to lack of funding.
Repairing the facilities after drone strikes has become more difficult, as sanctions have hampered access to imported equipment, and the reconstruction is costly, as Carnegie Russia Center senior fellow Sergey Vakulenko previously wrote that they are "probably in the vicinity of tens of millions of dollars per plant."
Ukraine has repeatedly conducted attacks on Russia's oil refineries and depots to destroy one of Russia's most valuable exports, which is funding their war with Kyiv.
At least 64 of the attacks this year caused fires to break out, which, in some cases, resulted in the closure of the oil depot or refinery temporarily for repairs.
BBC's analysis found that most of the attacks took place in southern Russia, with 20 percent of all attacks taking place in Krasnodar Krai; eight in Rostov Oblast; six in Belgorod Oblast; and five in Oryol and Volgograd Oblasts.
In their continued strikes on Russian oil facilities, Ukraine's strategy has shifted, and they now target those used to supply military equipment, rather than their previous targets, which were more often plants that supplied the domestic market with fuel.
Ukraine conducted a drone strike on a Russian oil depot near the Engels air base in southern Russia that houses nuclear-capable bombers today, causing a fire to break out.
One of the largest Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in 2024 was an attack on the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in the Rostov region, causing a fire to break out.
The largest oil refinery in the country has been subject to previous attacks by Ukraine, one of which destroyed 1.5 million tons of oil and fuel products worth $540 million in July, according to Kyiv.
Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil depots and refineries may have long-standing economic ramifications, as oil remains one of Moscow's key sources of revenue.
Russia increased its estimated oil and gas export sales for 2024 by $17.4 billion, and as of the spring of last year, their oil was still being imported by China, India, Myanmar, Turkey, and some EU countries.
Moscow's average daily production of crude oil hit a 20-year low last year, and this was reportedly due to repairs on the facilities, which were necessary following Ukrainian drone attacks.
Kyiv's attacks on oil facilities, in addition to Western sanctions, will likely have significant effects on Russia's economy, with it being the third largest producer of oil globally.
Filip Rudnik, a research fellow in the Russian department at the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW), wrote in a commentary article:
"The Ukrainian attacks and the resulting drop in fuel production have created a number of challenges for the Kremlin, including the need to deal with logistic tensions, strengthen air defense and increase imports of petroleum products.
"Given the political importance of fuel availability, reduced processing has forced the Russian government to use tools of intervention in order to ensure that the market is adequately saturated.
"For example, it has forced the fuel sector to redirect supplies onto the domestic market at the expense of the foreign markets.
Should the Ukrainian strikes continue and cause more temporary shutdowns at refineries, the government will probably have to step up its intervention, and that will generate costs for the state and may lead to market imbalances."
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Roman Sheremeta, a professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, wrote:
"Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are the most effective sanctions! These strikes help burn the oil that fuels Moscow's war machine."
It remains to be seen whether Ukraine's strategy will continue changing when conducting drone strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries, and what consequences these attacks have on Moscow's economy and war effort.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-map-shows-oil-hubs-hit-dozens-ukraine-drone-raids-2011598
Shocker! Suspicious Drone Found In Bhopal Central Jail
Wednesday, January 08, 2025, 11:02 PM IST
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A suspicious drone was found in the Bhopal Central Jail by the jail authorities and the matter was handed over to the police, the officials said here on Wednesday.
The jail authorities rushed to the jail premises as one of the jail warders found a drone near the high security cell, near the temple where new barracks are under construction.
Jail superintendent Rakesh said that at around 3.30 pm on Wednesday, jail warder Sonwar Chorasia spotted the drone. He took the drone and handed it over to his seniors.
The jail staff tried to check the gadget. Prima facie, the drone is said to be ‘Made in China’ but the specifications of the gadget is untraceable.
The authorities were checking if the drone was having a camera or not and who was operating it. Later, it was handed over to the Gandhinagar police for investigations.
In the Central Jail, around 70 members of SIMI, HuT, PFI, and other antinational organisations are kept in a high security cell known as Anda Cell.
Their safety and security is a big task for the jail authorities and the new development of drones in the jail has raised the eyebrows of the department.
https://www.freepressjournal.in/bhopal/shocker-suspicious-drone-found-in-bhopal-central-jail
Drone attack ignites oil depot at Engels airbase: New images emerged
January 8, 2025
Engels in the Saratov region was attacked by drones on January 8. As a result of the attack, an oil storage facility at the airbase is on fire, Astra reports.
The governor of the Saratov region, Roman Busargin, stated that drones struck Saratov and Engels. According to him, an industrial facility was allegedly damaged.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed in a morning briefing that 11 drones were allegedly destroyed in the Saratov region.
Astra analyzed photos and videos of the aftermath of the attack. It was revealed that an oil storage facility at the Engels airbase is on fire.
Photos later published by the governor of the Saratov region confirm this information.
Eyewitnesses report that the oil depot continues to burn. It is worth noting that the Engels airbase is located in the Saratov region.
After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, it became one of the primary facilities used by the Russian army to launch missile strikes on Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian special services have repeatedly attacked the airbase in Engels.
Explosions in Engels
As a reminder, explosions occurred in Engels in the Saratov region on the night of January 8. Local residents and authorities reported a drone attack.
Later, footage of the fire in Engels appeared online. Local residents reported on social media that an oil depot in Engels was ablaze.
However, the governor of the Saratov region claimed that an "industrial facility" was allegedly damaged.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/drone-attack-ignites-oil-depot-at-engels-airbase-new-images-emerged/ar-AA1xawBn
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/45098
https://t.me/astrapress/71903
Mysterious Drone Sightings in Eastern Sioux Falls?
January 8, 2025
Drone sightings have grabbed America's attention late in 2024 when multiple mysterious flying objects appeared off the coast of New Jersey.
Culture has seemingly moved on from the term UFO and they are now known as UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).
When east coast residents, law enforcement, and politicians demanded to know what they are and where they came from, the United States government said that what they are witnessing are simply airplanes or hobby drones.
No one on the planet bought that and the large box-shaped drones are still a mystery.
All kinds of conspiracy theories arose and are still wildly popular on the web today. Is there a mothership in the ocean?
Are they crafts from another world? Is this a setup to something bigger? Does the government really know and are not telling?
Are the drones searching for radiation signals from a lost nuclear warhead? This list goes on…
The mysterious drones have also been reported in other parts of the United States in the past few months.
Florida, California, New York, Minneapolis, and one that startled many people was the 4 hour closure of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio due to large drones hovering nearby.
But a sighting in Sioux Falls?
A user on the NextDoor app posted on January 7th, 2025:
"Has anyone noticed the large drones flying over East side of Sioux Falls? I noticed one last night around 10:30 pm-ish, and again tonight around 9:30 pm.
It was flying pretty low, and hovering over the neighborhoods around us. And yes, I’m sure it wasn’t a plane or helicopter.
😊 They are boxed shaped, maybe around the size of the car, and make a low humming sound."
Another user witnessed the same thing saying, "I saw it too. In the south eastern sky. E 26TH and Red Oak area."
Whether there is any validity to these unidentified flying objects remain to be seen.
But one thing is certain: we've all seen airplanes and helicopters and most descriptions do not fit the drone sightings.
Can't access the post or image because it's an app.
Anybody have NextDoor?
https://espnsiouxfalls.com/ixp/486/p/mysterious-drone-sightings-in-eastern-sioux-falls/
https://nextdoor.com/p/39gKbqmjr9zz
Drone mapping unveils 3,000-year-old fortress, reshaping ancient history
January 8, 2025
A Cranfield University, UK, academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3,000-year-old 'mega fortress' in the Caucasus mountains.
Dr. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science at Cranfield Forensic Institute, has been researching the site since 2018 with Dimitri Jachvliani, his co-director from the Georgian National Museum, revealing details that re-shape our understanding of the site and contribute to a global reassessment of ancient settlement growth and urbanism.
Fortress settlements in the South Caucasus appeared between 1500–500 BCE, and represent an unprecedented development in the prehistory of the region.
Situated at the boundary between Europe, the Eurasian Steppe, and the Middle East, the Caucasus region has a long history as a cultural crossroads with distinctive local identities.
Research on the fortress—named Dmanisis Gora—began with test excavations on a fortified promontory between two deep gorges.
A subsequent visit in Autumn, when the knee-high summer grasses had died back, revealed that the site was much larger than originally thought.
Scattered across a huge area outside the inner fortress were the remains of additional fortification walls and other stone structures.
Because of its size, it was impossible to get a sense of the site as a whole from the ground.
"That was what sparked the idea of using a drone to assess the site from the air," commented Dr. Erb-Satullo.
"The drone took nearly 11,000 pictures which were knitted together using advanced software to produce high-resolution digital elevation models and orthophotos—composite pictures that show every point as if you were looking straight down.
"These datasets enabled us to identify subtle topographic features and create accurate maps of all the fortification walls, graves, field systems, and other stone structures within the outer settlement.
The results of this survey showed that the site was more than 40 times larger than originally thought, including a large outer settlement defended by a 1km-long fortification wall."
The research team used a DJI Phantom 4 RTK drone which can provide relative positional accuracy of under 2cm as well as extremely high-resolution aerial imagery.
In order to obtain a highly accurate map of human-made features, the team carefully checked each feature in the aerial imagery to confirm its identification.
To understand how the landscape of the site had evolved, the orthophotos were compared with 50-year-old photos taken by a Cold War-era spy satellite declassified in 2013.
That gave researchers much-needed insight into which features were recent, which were older.
It also enabled researchers to assess what areas of the ancient settlement were damaged by modern agriculture.
All of those data sets were merged in Geographic Information System (GIS) software, helping to identify patterns and changes in the landscape.
"The use of drones has allowed us to understand the significance of the site and document it in a way that simply wouldn't be possible on the ground," said Dr. Erb-Satullo.
"Dmanisis Gora isn't just a significant find for the Southern Caucasus region, but has a broader significance for the diversity in the structure of large-scale settlements and their formation processes.
"We hypothesize that Dmanisis Gora expanded because of its interactions with mobile pastoral groups, and its large outer settlement may have expanded and contracted seasonally.
With the site now extensively mapped, further study will start to provide insights into areas such as population density and intensity, livestock movements and agricultural practices, among others."
This data will give researchers new insights into Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age societies, and how these communities functioned.
Since the aerial survey was completed, Dr. Erb-Satullo has been carrying out further excavations at the site, uncovering tens of thousands of pottery shards, animal bones, and other artifacts that tell us more about the society that built this fortress.
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-drone-unveils-year-fortress-reshaping.html
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/megafortresses-in-the-south-caucasus-new-data-from-southern-georgia/7752B2551034811556C96E75E909D730
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy%E2%80%99s-orca-drone-changing-undersea-warfare-214283
The Navy’s Orca Drone is Changing Undersea Warfare
January 7, 2025
Drone warfare has utterly transformed the face of warfare in this century.
No longer is it about how many tanks an army has or how many aircraft carriers a navy can maintain, it’s all about rapid maneuverability, stealth, affordability, and mass.
Both the Russians and Ukrainians have proven this with their drone-swarming techniques that the two armies regularly use against one another in the ongoing Ukraine war.
Now, this philosophy is migrating to the sea.
We live in a time when the power projection capabilities of the United States Navy, notably in the all-important Indo-Pacific, are under constant strain.
This is in part due to the development of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems by American rivals.
The U.S. Navy is further strained, though, by the domestic woes of a sclerotic U.S. defense industrial base and an increasingly cash-strapped U.S. government that is both unable to fund the systems the Navy wants and is unable to fundamentally adapt to the new multipolar strategic environment.
The Design
Yet, thanks to some innovative design concepts of the United States military’s research arms, the Navy is slowly starting to embrace the idea of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs).
Going back to 2017, the Navy began developing what has become known as the Orca.
This is a multi-mission platform designed for a multiplicity of important mission sets, ranging from surveillance to undersea cargo delivery, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, mine clearing, and strike missions.
The Orca is considered an “Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle” (XLUUV).
Boeing is building this system for the Navy. It is based on design architecture from Boeing’s earlier Echo Voyager, meaning that the Orca was built with modularity in mind.
(This modularity is key for Orca’s multi-mission capabilities. It means that Orca has a plug-and-play design).
Its modular payload means that Orca is capable of adding up to 34 feet in length and can host an eight-ton payload. Again, this is a key tenet of a multi-mission platform like the Orca.
In fact, Orca is essentially meant to be a drone mothership. Its cargo hold has a capacity of 2,456 cubic feet, meaning it can bring with it multiple other, smaller unmanned vehicles or drones.
Orca is the apotheosis of network-centric warfare. She represents a true transition from the warfare of yesteryear to something entirely new today. A new kind of warfare that is more devoid of the human element than at any time before.
Sure, this reduction of the human elements ensures U.S. sailors are better protected from dangerous missions.
At the same time, though, many people should be concerned that removing that human element from combat could have unintended ethical complications.
What’s more, it might ensure that warfare is more likely to occur amongst the great powers using these systems.
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Orca itself is powered by an advanced hybrid diesel/lithium-ion battery system that enables the vehicle to operate submerged for extended periods, recharging via diesel vehicles when surfaced.
Since this is still an experimental vehicle, it is unlikely that the Orca will be the Navy’s final XLUUV design.
Its top speed right now is reported to be at nine miles per hour (so she isn’t a speed demon), but its typical operational speed is likely to be slower at just shy of four miles per hour.
Orca has an impressive projected operational range of around 7,480 miles.
Boeing delivered its first Orca to the Navy in December 2023, meaning that the program had shifted from development testing to operational capability.
The vehicle’s autonomous nature means that it can be deployed easily from a friendly pier and navigate on its own to its destination completely free of human involvement.
This makes the Orca a relatively simple (and, therefore, cheap) platform because its logistical footprint is as small as its overall operational footprint.
Some Challenges to Overcome
One of the promises of developing autonomous systems was that they would be cheaper than their manned counterparts. For the Navy, with its complex platforms, such as the aircraft carrier, this seems like a smart move.
Yet, Orca went about 64 percent over budget, according to the Government Accountability Office, thereby continuing a dangerous trend, especially for the Navy, of all new Pentagon platforms going over their intended budgets.
What’s more, like the manned counterparts to Orca, the Orca program ran over its allotted timeline by about three years.
Unlike many of those manned Navy platforms that have gone over budget and time, however, the Orca’s sea trials have proceeded apace with no complications whatsoever.
Indeed, the testing phases for this XLUUV have been successful in proving the vehicle’s endurance, functionality, and the reliability of its autonomous systems.
Make no mistake, unmanned systems will be an important way for the Navy to cut down on its costs. The hard lessons learned from the Orca program will be applied to future unmanned undersea vehicles.
Eventually, the Navy will have an impressive fleet of these drones that will serve as critical force multipliers and help to protect the costlier manned warships and submarines of the fleet that are increasingly under the threat of enemy A2/AD systems.
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Singapore exploring use of AI, drones as surveillance measures to combat high-rise littering
08 Jan 2025 01:33PM
Authorities are monitoring the "suitability and safety" of technologies such as drone flights as surveillance measures to tackle high-rise littering, said Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor on Wednesday (Jan 8).
Speaking in parliament, Dr Khor said that the ministry will continue to monitor and explore ways to enhance detection and enforcement capabilities.
These include "keeping pace" with technological developments in video analytics and artificial intelligence, she said.
"In addition, we will continue to strengthen partnerships with communities to develop localised solutions to address high-rise littering, and urge residents to be considerate and not commit such acts, which is an anti-social behaviour that threatens public safety and hygiene," Ms Khor added.
In the coming year, NEA will introduce new operational measures to improve the detection rate, said Dr Khor.
For instance, cameras that can be deployed for longer and have higher resolution will be used. They will also be placed in more "covert locations".
She was responding to questions from various Members of Parliament including Mr Tan Wu Meng (PAP-Jurong) and Ms Foo Mee Har (PAP-West Coast) about how the ministry is leveraging on the latest technologies as well as the enforcement measures in place.
Responding to a supplementary question from Ms Yeo Wan Ling (PAP- Pasir Ris Punggol), Ms Khor said that the current assessment is that there are some "challenges" when it comes to the use of drones.
This includes battery life of the drones but also safety risks due to the high-rise environment and also privacy concerns.
"The important point to note really is that the use of surveillance cameras and other technologies really just to augment all the efforts we have put in to tackle high-rise littering, and it is a multi-pronged and holistic approach," she said in response to a supplementary question from Mr Tan.
"I don't think we can just depend on technology to do this. We need to work together with the community, and we need a more sustainable way - it is really to change behaviour and cultivate more gracious behaviour and collective responsibility in tackling high-rise littering issues and keeping Singapore clean and safe."
Dr Kho noted that there has been a "significant" drop in the average amount of high-rise littering feedback in 2022 and 2023 (about 27,100) as compared to 2020 and 2021 (about 33,500).
"When there is such feedback at a block of HDB flats, NEA (National Environment Agency) will work with the town council to first issue advisories to residents in the block," she said.
"Should the high-rise littering issue persist, NEA will investigate to determine the likely offending unit and deploy surveillance cameras with video analytics to capture acts of high-rise littering and support enforcement efforts."
Between 2021 and 2023, NEA deployed cameras in about 97.1 per cent of 7,400 persistent high-rise littering cases.
The rest were assessed to be unsuitable due to the design and layout of the blocks and the lack of appropriate vantage points, she added.
"In instances where camera deployment is not feasible, NEA will step up educational outreach to households in the affected stack, conduct stakeouts and initiate further investigations if there are eyewitness accounts," said Dr Khor.
"Members of the public who are aware of their neighbours’ littering behaviour may also submit video evidence of high-rise littering acts to NEA for investigation."
Dr Khor explained that the detection rate of such acts can vary due to factors such as weather, duration of surveillance and visibility of the camera to would-be offenders. This in turn can cause the yearly enforcement rate to fluctuate.
From 2021 to 2023, high-rise littering was detected in about 30 per cent of surveillance cameras deployment, resulting in over 3,300 enforcement actions, she added.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/drones-ai-high-rise-littering-mse-environment-4844591
Ball-shaped drone breakthrough flies in all directions, rolls gracefully on ground
January 8, 2025
HAGAMOSphere, a spherical drone that can move in any direction without tilting, has been named a CES Innovation Award 2025 Honoree and will be unveiled at the ongoing CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This unique drone was developed as a collaborative effort between the industry and academia in Japan, a press release said.
In just a few years, drones have rapidly moved from being a military tool to one with several civilian applications.
During this time, the concept of a drone has undergone multiple design evolutions as well.
Interesting Engineering has covered various types of drones in the past, but an event like CES brings us the acme of design and innovation.
Drone attachments that keep the onboard stable while flying have been launched aplenty, but preventing the drone itself from tilting is a massive achievement.
How does HAGAMOSphere do it?
Inside the HAGAMOSphere are eight propellers mounted on a cubic frame. A proprietary algorithm maintains the balance of the drone by controlling the rotation of the eight propellers.
This allows it to move forward, backward, left, or right without tilting.
The makers, DIC Group, have taken this ability a step further to develop a specially designed geometrically shaped sphere guard that allows the drone to roll on the ground and move by itself.
Thus, the drone can be deployed in the air or on the ground based on requirement, expanding the application areas where drones can be used.
How was it developed?
The versatility of the design signals that the HAGAMOSphere is a product from a company that specializes in drones. However, DIC Group, Japan’s leading fine chemical developers, backed its development.
The company teamed up with Masashi Miwa, an associate professor at the University of Tokushima, an institute that works in multicopter research.
The prototype was developed by Hishida R&D Co., a firm that specializes in custom drone development, and also carried out field tests of the HAGAMOSphere.
On its part, DIC supported the project by picking the materials for the drone construction, designing structures needed for mass production, and using computer-aided engineering (CAE) to run flight simulations.
Under its “Direct to Society” initiative, DIC works to develop new business opportunities across industries. The HAGAMOSphere is a project under this initiative, and its concept model will be unveiled at CES in 2025.
“We have a strong desire to provide new value to society through advanced technologies and initiatives. We look forward to showcasing our unique concept model, HAGAMOSphere, at CES 2025,” said Takashi Ikeda, President and CEO of DIC, in a press release.
The prototype has been recognized for its outstanding design and engineering and has been named CES Innovation Awards 2025 Honoree, a first for the DIC Group.
https://interestingengineering.com/ces-2025/japan-drone-moves-without-tilting
The Mystery of Zhang Daibing's Death, the Chinese Pioneer of the Drone Industry He Was 47 Years Old
Beijing, January 8 2025
Investigations are underway in China into the death of the 47-year-old scientist Zhang Daibing, considered one of the top experts in the drone sector at a national level.
This was reported by the “Southern Metropolis Daily”, after this week the journalist of the broadcaster “Cctv” Xiang Ligang had spoken of a suicide related to alleged online debts incurred by Zhang.
The circumstances of the death have not been disclosed by official sources.
Zhang was the deputy director of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), and over the course of his career, he coordinated or participated in more than 20 military and government research projects, receiving awards such as the First-Class Military Science and Technology Progress Award and the Second-Class Invention Award of Hunan Province.
In parallel with his academic career, Zhang was a member of the expert group on new drone systems of the Department of Equipment of the People's Liberation Army Ground Forces and a researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He also collaborated with the Computer Research Institute of China North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco).
In 2018, Zhang launched the startup Yunzhihang Technology in Changsha, Hunan Province, focusing on the development and sale of innovative drones, including a “robotic snake” and unmanned aerial vehicles designed for firefighting on tall buildings.
In 2021, his company developed high-voltage direct-drive technology, enabling drones to carry payloads of up to 500 kilograms for operations such as cleaning skyscrapers and controlling fires.
A day before his death, Zhang shared videos on social media showing drones being used to clean tall buildings.
Zhang has often stressed the importance of expanding the use of drones beyond reconnaissance and promoting their industrial application.
“You have to fight, you can’t stay in a comfortable environment forever. Only through hardship can you truly grow,” he said in an interview.
https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news/the-mystery-of-zhang-daibing%27s-death-the-chinese-pioneer-of-the-drone-industry-was-47-years-old/
Drone expert roped in to assess conditions of Stilfontein illegal miners
8 Jan 2025 12:13 pm
The Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) says funding has been secured for a drone to examine the conditions at the abandoned mine in Stilfontein, North West, where illegal miners are still underground.
Rescue operations are ongoing at the mine, three months after law enforcement intensified efforts to curb illegal mining as part of Operation Vala Umgodi.
The mine features three primary entry and exit points: Margaret Shaft, Buffelsfontein Shaft 10, and Buffelsfontein Shaft 11.
To date, at least 1 500 illegal miners, known as zama zamas, have been arrested, and nine bodies have been recovered.
However, hundreds of miners remain underground in an attempt to evade capture.
Human rights activists have since raised concerns about the underground conditions, amid claims that zama zamas have run out of food and have resorted to cannibalism due to severe starvation.
Following a site visit by Macua along with the Stilfontein Solidarity Committee (SSC) and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) on Tuesday, a proposal has been made to government for drone technology to be used in order to help retrieve the miners.
Macua revealed that money has been raised to hire a drone expert to assess the ongoing situation underground.
The mine features three primary entry and exit points: Margaret Shaft, Buffelsfontein Shaft 10, and Buffelsfontein Shaft 11.
“The video footage obtained through this drone inspection will be instrumental in providing all concerned parties, and possibly including the court, with a clearer understanding of the conditions faced by the trapped miners.
“The footage that can be obtained by the drone will serve to illuminate the circumstances underground, thereby facilitating informed decision-making about the urgency of the rescue operation, which the state has dragged its feet for the past two months,” Macua spokesperson Magnificent Mndebele said in a statement.
Mndebele said the non-governmental organisation (NGO) hopes the evidence obtained will be made available for joint assessment by all parties involved in the rescue efforts upon completion of the drone operation.
“This process will be conducted in an open and transparent manner to ensure fairness and accountability.”
Pulley system fails
This was not the first proposal that Macua has suggested to the state, according to Mndebele.
He indicated that when the pulley system was destroyed two weeks ago, an offer was made to lower a cellphone underground to record the conditions and gain a better understanding of the situation.
“However, this proposal did not materialise as the pulley system, which was needed to send down the camera, was destroyed shortly after we made the request.”
Mndebele added that the mining rights activist group remain committed to ensuring that the right to life of those trapped underground is protected.
ConCourt to help Stilfontein illegal miners?
Macua has also decided to approach the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) with an urgent application concerning the miners.
The organisation wants the apex court to order the government to provide food, water, and medical supplies to the zama zamas, warning that the situation has reached crisis levels.
Previously, two applications by Macua and the Society for the Protection of our Constitution were dismissed by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/drone-expert-conditions-stilfontein-illegal-miners/
>>22315075 PB
"Missile? Firework? UFO? Arson?"- Netizens react as videos of strange moving objects streaking over Palisades fire go viral
Jan 08, 2025 11:44 GMT
"STRANGE FAST MOVING OBJECTS SEEN OVER SOCAL FIRES. People online are observing strange projectiles coming in and out of the #SoCal fires on live TV. Missile? Firework? UFO? Arson? Are we under attack???"
"Multiple Users on X are recording their televisions as they see streaks of something mysterious whizzing through the wildfire smoke. What the hell are those?"
"With 85mph winds it could be anything including pieces of flying burning debris, birds, bats, or swarms of insects. It's odd-looking though," clarified another user.
"Looks like a missile, not a laser," added a tweet.
"Every time I am in that area, there’s always weird stuff in the night sky.""Why isn't the News Channel acknowledging and questioning it," asked another netizen.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/news-missile-firework-ufo-arson-netizens-react-videos-strange-moving-objects-streaking-palisades-fire-go-viral
https://x.com/calwireupdates/status/1876877229306564636