Joint approach combining damage and paleoseismology observations constrains the 1714 A.D. Bhutan earthquake at magnitude 8±0.5

International audienceThe region of Bhutan is thought to be the only segment of the Himalayas not having experienced a major earthquake over the past half millennium. A proposed explanation for this apparent seismic gap is partial accommodation of the India-Asia convergence further south across the Shillong Plateau, yet the seismic behavior of the Himalayan megathrust in Bhutan is unknown. Here we present historical documents from the region reporting on an earthquake in 1714 A.D. and geological evidence of surface rupture to constrain the latest large event in this area. We compute various earthquake scenarios using empirical scaling relationships relating magnitude with intensity, source location and rupture geometry. Our results constrain the 1714 A.D. earthquake to have ruptured the megathrust in Bhutan, most likely during a M7.5–8.5 event. This finding reclassifies the apparent seismic gap to a former information gap and implies that the entire Himalayan arc has a high level of earthquake potential

Editorial: Special Edition Legal Interpretation after Endumeni: Clarification, Contestation, Application

This special edition consists of a selection of contributions delivered during a conference "Towards an integrated approach to the interpretation of legal documents: contracts, wills and statutes", hosted by the University of the Western Cape, on 23 March 2018. The aim of the conference was to take stock of the state of legal interpretation in South Africa five years after the watershed judgment in Joint Natal Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality. The papers in the special edition provide clarifications, contestations and applications of the Edumeni approach to the interpretation of legal documents

UNDOING THE PAST THROUGH STATUTORY INTERPRETATION: THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND MARRIAGE LAWS OF APARTHEID

Recent legal scholarship has increasingly focussed on the way in which the law can be employed as a strategy of memory in post-conflict societies. War crimes trials, civil reparation or restitution claims, and the like, have all been extensively discussed as memorial practices. However, the way in which ordinary process of statutory interpretation can be employed to undo the past has thus far received little or now attention. In this article I investigate how the South African Constitutional Court has approached the interpretation of a number of apartheid marriage laws under sections 35(2) of the interim and 39(2) of the final Constitutions. I argue that, far from adopting a purposive approach to statutory interpretation as is often claimed, the court has in fact adopted a very narrow textual approach to statutory interpretation. I claim that this approach to the legislative legacy of the past is both hermeneutically and politically suspect. What is more, it discloses a predilection for monumental, as opposed to, memorial practices of memory

Editorial: Legal Interpretation after Endumeni: Clarification, Contestation, Application

This special edition consists of a selection of contributions delivered during a conference "Towards an integrated approach to the interpretation of legal documents: contracts, wills and statutes", hosted by the University of the Western Cape, on 23 March 2018. The aim of the conference was to take stock of the state of legal interpretation in South Africa five years after the watershed judgment was delivered in Joint Natal Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality. The papers in the special edition provide a clarification, contestation and application of the Edumeni approach to the interpretation of legal documents. &nbsp

Die estetiese republiek : kuns, reg en post-liberale politiek in Nietzsche, Arendt en Lyotard (Afrikaans)

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this documentThesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2006.JurisprudenceLLDUnrestricte

<i>Oberholzeria</i> (Fabaceae subfam. Faboideae), a New Monotypic Legume Genus from Namibia

<div><p><i>Oberholzeria etendekaensis</i>, a succulent biennial or short-lived perennial shrublet is described as a new species, and a new monotypic genus. Discovered in 2012, it is a rare species known only from a single locality in the Kaokoveld Centre of Plant Endemism, north-western Namibia. Phylogenetic analyses of molecular sequence data from the plastid <i>mat</i>K gene resolves <i>Oberholzeria</i> as the sister group to the Genisteae clade while data from the nuclear rDNA ITS region showed that it is sister to a clade comprising both the Crotalarieae and Genisteae clades. Morphological characters diagnostic of the new genus include: 1) succulent stems with woody remains; 2) pinnately trifoliolate, fleshy leaves; 3) monadelphous stamens in a sheath that is fused above; 4) dimorphic anthers with five long, basifixed anthers alternating with five short, dorsifixed anthers, and 5) pendent, membranous, one-seeded, laterally flattened, slightly inflated but indehiscent fruits.</p></div

Natural habitat of <i>Oberholzeria etendekaensis</i>.

<p>Plants of <i>O</i>. <i>etendekaensis</i> in their natural habitat (low-growing shrublets in foreground), Etendeka Mountains, Namibia. The plants grow in stony soil and scree derived from basalt of the Etendeka Group, Karoo Supergroup. This section of the Great Escarpment lies to the east of the Namib Desert, about 50 km from the Atlantic Ocean coastline. The climate is very arid, with an average annual rainfall of about 100 mm. Photo: W. Swanepoel.</p

Summary of the statistics of the phylogenetic analyses that were conducted on both the ITS and <i>mat</i>K datasets.

<p>Summary of the statistics of the phylogenetic analyses that were conducted on both the ITS and <i>mat</i>K datasets.</p

Phylogenetic tree based on plastid <i>mat</i>K gene sequences.

<p>Phylogenetic relationship of <i>Oberholzeria etendekaensis</i> (arrowed) derived from maximum parsimony analysis of the plastid <i>mat</i>K gene sequences; 74 taxa, 1572 total characters with 1518 included, of which 456 (30%) were parsimony informative. Tree shown is strict consensus of 794 equally most parsimonious trees of 1076 steps. Numbers represent maximum parsimony bootstrap support values (500 replicates) greater than 70% for selected clades; thickened branches represent clades with Bayesian posterior probabilities greater than 0.95. Both bootstrap and Bayesian analyses strongly support <i>Oberholzeria</i> as the sister group to the Genisteae clade (100% and 1.0, respectively).</p