2012年12月9日 星期日

‘No’ to Mandela banknotes

DO NOT refuse to accept the new Mandela banknotes — unless you want to face the wrath of the Reserve Bank.

On Thursday, exactly a month after the Mandela banknotes hit South African ATMs and wallets, this reporter was surprised to see notices on Gautrain’s ticket vending machines at Rosebank and Pretoria stations saying they don’t accept the new banknote series yet.

The Reserve Bank said earlier specimens of the new notes were made available to stakeholders like vending machine operators and banks months ago so they could update their machines to be ready to accept both old and new banknotes.

When she was shown a cellphone picture of the notice, a Reserve Bank official was genuinely surprised.In this video we demonstrate three different types of home made electricity wind generator.

“Was it taken this morning,” she asked, promising to escalate the news about the notice to the higher echelons.

Two hours later,Most Popular zclp from the World Leader in Book Scanning. the higher authority arrived in the form of Hlengani Mathebula, group head of strategy and communications at the Reserve Bank. He’s in charge of the extensive communications campaign to launch the new notes.Speed Queen offers commercial dry cleaning machine and coin operated laundromat units for vended.

“It is illegal, the fact that they cannot accept it. Once the money goes into circulation, it is legal tender.

“The industry has been given sufficient time to calibrate their machines,” he fumed, and declared the issue “has been addressed”.

And indeed, in mid-sentence Mr Mathebula received an SMS from a spokesman of Bombela (the Gautrain’s operating company) to say the notices had been removed and that the vending machines would accept the Mandela notes.

“They will accept it.Industrial laser cutter are used to cut flat-sheet material as well as structural and piping materials. Test it when you go back,” Mr Mathebula said.

At Pretoria station two hours later, the notices were gone, but none of the vending machines would accept the green Mandela notes.

Back in Rosebank, the machines also refused to accept the new banknotes.

“The notes are accepted at the ticket offices. Technically the machines just could not take it for the time being,” said Bombela spokeswoman Kelebogile Machaka in a phone call afterwards.

When asked why the machines are still not ready, a month after they were supposed to be, she said the ticket vending machines had been “gradually upgraded” at all Gautrain stations to be able to process both the old and new notes.

“This is a technical process which requires a software upgrade as well as a period of testing — this requires a reasonable period of time,” she said.

Gunzinger, now a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, argues that laser weapons have the potential to change “the negative cost ratio back in your favor.

While Gunzinger points to growing support for solid-state lasers, particularly from the Navy, he says a chemical laser like the one developed for the Airborne Laser could prove useful. “You could take an upgraded version of the Airborne Laser’s weapon system and use it to defend forward areas, forward air bases, from medium and even short range ballistic missiles,” he says. “The technology is there: It’s a question of if someone wants to fund it.This is used to perform laser cutting machine functions while using the water jet to guide the laser beam.”

And that’s the problem - with the US administration facing the fiscal cliff, the prospects of funding a major laser weapon system is unlikely at best.

But even if it were affordable, it’s not clear it’s desirable. “One of the things you have to ask yourself when dusting off an old idea is that if we decided not to do this last time, what’s different now?” says Oelrich. For laser weapons that answer still may be unclear.

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