SOUTH AFRICA - Taps Run Dry in Johannesburg
Residents rich and poor have never seen a shortage of this severity. While hot weather has shrunk reservoirs, crumbling infrastructure after decades of neglect is also largely to blame. The public’s frustration is a danger sign for the ruling African National Congress, whose comfortable hold on power since the end of apartheid in the 1990s faces its most serious challenge in an election this year.
A country already famous for its hourslong electricity shortages is now adopting a term called “watershedding”—the practice of going without water, from the term loadshedding, or the practice of going without power.
Residents of Johannesburg and surrounding areas are long used to seeing water shortages—just not across the whole region at once.
No drought has been officially declared, but officials are pleading with residents to conserve what water they can find.
Even residents of Johannesburg’s more affluent and swimming pool-dotted suburbs have found themselves relying on the arrival of municipal water tankers, which came as a shock to some.
-www.cbsnews.com, 21 March 2024
Arno's Commentary
According to government statistics, the average rainfall in South Africa stands at 464 millimeters per year, quite similar to Israel (400-500 mm). According to government sources, Israel has an overabundance of water thanks in large part to its investments in desalination, selling significant amounts to neighbors such as Jordan. This again shows Israel’s technological advantage.
What is ironic is that Israel would be the ideal country, with its available technology, to alleviate South Africa’s water shortage and unreliable supply system. Yet it was South Africa that accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister stated: “The state of Israel is accused of genocide at a time when it is fighting genocide. A terrorist organization carried out the worst crime against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and now someone comes to defend it in the name of the Holocaust. What brazen gall. The world is upside down.” What a profound statement, “The world is upside down.” Here we are remined of the words of Isaiah 5:20: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
