Ten spyte van die hoë koste verbonde aan breëband was daar die afgelope twee jaar ’n toename van 120% in Internetgebruikers in Suid-Afrika. Die syfer het toegeneem van 1,8 miljoen in 2005 tot 3,9 miljoen gebruikers in 2007.
Volgens Matthew Buckland van die Aanlyn-uitgewersvereniging is die groei “fenomenaal.“ Engels word gebruik deur 52% van plaaslike gebruikers (2,10 miljoen), gevolg deur Afrikaans met 28% (1,11 miljoen). Sowat 36% van die Internetgebruikers is tussen 25 en 34 jaar oud, gevolg deur 35% tussen die ouderdomme van 35-49. 54% Van alle plaaslike gebruikers is mans, teenoor 45% vrouegebruikers.
Wat ook interessant is, is dat Suid-Afrika derde op die wêreldlys is van lande wat die Internet deur middel van hul selfone gebruik. Die Verenigde Koninkryk is eerste, gevolg deur die VSA, Suid-Afrika, Indië en Indonesië.
’n Kwart van Afrika se Internetgebruikers bevind hulle in Suid-Afrika. Telkom-landlyne verteenwoordig tans 39% van die totale telefoonverbindings op die vasteland.
Vir die eerste keer sedert 1994 wil dit voorkom asof die ANC se ‘permanente’ heerskappy oor Suid-Afrika dalk binne afsienbare tyd ten einde kan loop.
Die huidige stakings is in werklikheid ‘n sosiaal-politieke sindroom in die sin dat dit wel oor salarisverhogings gaan, maar terselfdertyd ook heelwat meer behels. Onlangs het Helen Zille, die ultra-linkse leier, in haar brief op die DA webwerf beweer dat die staking ook in groot mate die simptoom van die magstryd binne die regerende alliansie is.
Die Zimbabwiese regering het gister ’n nuwe wetsontwerp voorgestel ingevolge waarvan swart Zimbabwiese burgers ’n 51% aandeel in openbare maatskappye sal bekom.
Dit is nog nie seker hoe privaat maatskappye geraak sal word nie. Buitelandse beleggers beheer tans verskeie Zimbabwiese firmas, veral in die mynbedryf. Die regering oorweeg hier skynbaar ’n ander vorm van bemagtiging. Verlede jaar het vele van die plaaslike mynbase gewaarsku dat hulle hul deure sal sluit indien Mugabe poog om die myne oor te neem.
Sommige van die firmas wat op beide die Zimbabwiese en Londense effektebeurse gelys is, sluit Hwange, NMB-bank en Ou Mutual in. Van die firmas wat waarskynlik deur die nuwe beleid geraak gaan word, sluit Barclays, Bindura Nickel Corporation en Rio Zim in.
Volgens die wetsontwerp word “inheemse Zimbabwiërs“ gedefinieer as persone wat voor 1980 “benadeel is deur onregverdige diskriminasie gebaseer op ras en sulke persone se nasate.” Die wetsontwerp maak dit duidelik dat geen nuwe belegging goedgekeur sal word indien “inheemse Zimbabwiërs” nie die beherende aandeel het nie. Regeringsdepartemente sal voortaan ook 51% van hulle aankope moet doen by besighede waarin Zimbabwiërs die botoon voer.
Met werkloosheid geskat op nagenoeg 80% en die inflasiekoers wat tans rondom 4 500% huiwer, gaan die nuutste aankondiging beslis net bydra tot die verdere agteruitgang van die Zimbabwiese ekonomie.
Pole het pas daarin geslaag om ’n toegewing oor die Europese Unie-verdrag af te dwing, maar ten koste van die land se verhouding met sommige van die EU-lede.
Leiers van die 27 EU-lidlande het op 23 Junie in Brussel uiteindelik daarin geslaag om eenstemmigheid te bereik oor die opstel van ’n nuwe verdrag wat die EU-grondwet sal vervang wat in 2005 deur beide Nederlandse en Franse kiesers by die stembusse verwerp is. Die nuwe verdrag sal teen die einde van 2007 gefinaliseer word.
EU-leiers, onder aanvoering van kanselier Angela Merkel, het ’n konsessie aan Pole gemaak deur te besluit om die huidige EU-verkiesingstelsel onveranderd te behou tot 2017. President Lech Kaczynski en sy tweelingbroer, die eerste minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, het die besluit as ’n oorwinning vir Pole bestempel. Die Poolse eerste minister het ander EU-lande by die pas afgelope beraad geskok toe hy gesê het Pole is op groter stemregvoordele geregtig aangesien die land se bevolking nou veel meer as die huidige 38 miljoen sou beloop indien die Nazi’s nie miljoene Pole tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog vermoor het nie.
Die Italiaanse eerste minister, Romano Prodi, het in sy reaksie op die beraad gesê Europa het die gemeenskaplike wil om te vorder, verloor. Hy het Engeland veroordeel weens die land se “hardkoppige aandrang” om ’n Europese vlag en volkslied uitgesluit te kry van die EU-verdrag en het ook die houding van Pole gekritiseer. Die Duitse dagblad Bild, wat Angela Merkel ondersteun, meen dat dit beter sou gewees het as die samesprekings misluk het en glo nie dat die Kaczynski-broers met die konsessie van Brussel tevrede gaan wees nie.
Werk aan die bou van die Saal is in 1678 begin. Die sewentien boogvensters wat ‘n uitsig bied op een van die mooiste tuine in Europa, is deur argitek Jules Hardouin-Mansart beplan om die Sonkoning en sy eggenote se appartemente aan mekaar te verbind.
Aan die noordekant van die Spieëlsaal is die Oorlogsaal en aan die suidekant die Vredesaal. Lodewyk XIV het die vertrek daagliks as ‘n deurgang na sy Kapel geneem. Die swanesang van sy absolutistiese heerskappy is in die lang vertrek, toe vol ornate silwer meubels, voltrek.
In die negentiende eeu is die vredesluiting om Pruise se oorwinning oor Frankryk te vier op 18 Januarie 1871 in die Spieëlsaal afgehandel en Willem I is tot die Keiserryk se koning gekroon. Die swaar oorlogskuld wat Frankryk opgelê is, sou bydra tot Pruise se opbloei.
Vir die eerste maal in die Spieëlsaal se geskiedenis is ‘n volle restourasieprojek, van vloer tot dak, deurgevoer. Elke stukkie brons, hout en glas is skoongemaak en waar nodig herstel, teen ‘n prys van 12 miljoen euro.
Die oorspronklike werk van Le Brun is dus hierdie keer heeltemal noukeurig blootgelê en die 40 personeellede betrokke was oorstelp met die vonds. "’n Baie fyn oog vir kleur en ‘n baie groot skilder," sê Meneer Didier wat die projek gelei het. Die herstelwerk het die span in staat gestel om te sien hoe die skilder sy tonele beplan het en waar hy gehuiwer het. Sodoende kon hulle ‘n unieke insig in sy werkmetode verkry.
Die ontdekking wat kunshistorici die meeste getref het, was dat die blou wat Le Brun gebruik het simbolies van donker na lig geskakeer word hoe nader die kyker aan die Oorlogsaal beweeg. Die oorspronklike groen-brons verguldings van die lyste en om die vensters is ook teruggebring. Elke detail is deur en deur geverifieer om met argiefbeskrywings te klop. "Ons het niks bygevoeg nie," het die direkteur bevestig.
Die provinsiale gesondheidsdepartement van die Noord-Kaap word tans deur die plaaslike tesourie en die kantoor van die eerste minister geadministreer. Dit volg op jare van nepotisme en korrupsie.
Volgens die waarnemende LUR vir gesondheid in die Noord-Kaap, Gomolemo Lucas, gaan “verstandige finansiële stelsels“ vir die department geskep word. Hy het toegegee dat daar verskeie wanpraktyke in die tenderproses die afgelope paar jaar plaasgevind het. Lucas se uitsprake bevestig die ouditeur-generaal se bevindinge van laas jaar. Die OG het naamlik op ’n hele klomp onreëlmatighede in die departement se finansiële bestuur afgekom. Probleme is toegeskryf aan onbekwaamheid en ook aan korrupsie.
Residents of Mirosov, a small Czech town of some 2,000 near the Brdy military zone where the United States seeks to place a missile shield radar base, have rejected the US facility in a local referendum. On Sunday, the CTK news agency said all but 30 of the 897 valid votes cast were against erecting the radar base.
The referendum is not politically binding in Prague so it’s up to the town’s council to try and halt the base’s construction. Another 13 municipalities in the region have received the same mandate from their residents. Several other towns in the military zone’s vicinity have rejected the base in opinion polls.
One, although a former Marine, I detest anything that sounds like a "horror film," and a film about human sacrifice sounds appalling.
In fact, the violence in this film, which does show human sacrifice and those escaping it and fighting back, is not gratuitous but at the core essence of the story, and Gibson shows only half the gruesome Mayan-Aztec reality which the Spanish terminated after 1502. It may make professional anti-racists uncomfortable, but Apocalypto cleaves tightly to reality in details both large and small, right down to the colors of the plant dyes used in native clothing, the jade used by different classes of women and the feather headdress of the great king.
(Using artistic license, Gibson does blend different periods of Mayan architecture and decor, and by the time the Spanish came, as shown in the film, the jungle Mayan cities already had been mysteriously abandoned. It was actually further north, in the very similar and neighboring Aztec culture with its own human sacrifices, that the Spanish would find the same psychopathic atrocities, which caused them to eradicate the Aztec regime root and branch with the aid of oppressed local tribes.)
Two, I detest our national tendency to mindless action movies. Methinks Americans should break with their hyperactive national character by doing less and thinking more, perhaps precluding further Ritalin kid-faux cowboys in the White House.
What Apocalypto represents, however, is a mindful action movie. It is done by a storyteller worthy of Homer, a director worthy of Cecil B. DeMille (Gibson’s movie has 700 extras, all in differing accurate costumes), and a deeply spiritual man (when not off the wagon; Mel in Australia used to drink two scotches in beer, which he called "liquid violence").
Apocalypto transmits via entertainment a tremendous message, one that reflects the values of his father, Hutton Gibson, a courageous Holocaust revisionist, a Traditional Catholic–and an honored speaker at the 2003 conference held by this very magazine.
Not many Hollywood "action flicks" start with a quote from historian Will Durant (1885-1981), author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, eleven-volume The Story of Civilization: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
Third, I wondered how much relevance Mayan Indios in 1502 had to me, a white man in 2007, except for the possible fact that my Washington, DC area is now being flooded by illegal alien descendants of the Mayans and Aztecs. (The greater DC area is now only 54% white.)
Actually, plenty of relevance: The entire movie delineates how a tiny psychopathic ruling class misrules, lies to, entertains with mass festivals, impoverishes and oppresses an entire nation–and how God and man ultimately thwart them.
The title "Apocalypto" comes from one of the very many utterly unique scenes in this revolutionary piece of film making. Mayan manhunters pass through an orphan girl’s smoldering shell of a village, not unlike the pulverized Ramadi or Fallujah in Iraq, or Dresden in 1945 Germany or Gaza in Palestine. They take along their captives destined for human sacrifice, neck-tied to a wooden rail, heading for their torture and death. The psychopaths prod her aside;-they have no time for starving orphans; the clock is ticking for show time in the Yucatan.
She dries her little-girl tears and thanks to Gibson, from somewhere real, inside the character, come two riveting eyeballs trained on them and a voice of doom that "spooks" even the hardened enslavers. She then "reveals the end" of all that they represent; in Greek, she "apocalyptizes" the final things.
The official Apocalypto poster from Icon Productions (Gibson’s own film company that also did Braveheart), depicts a Mayan high priest, with an obsidian knife in hand, striding forth from his ziggurat where for years he has been sacrificing trembling humans.
In 1486, in fact, during an Aztec temple dedication before huge and roaring crowds (just 16 years before Columbus’s fourth expedition, which landed in Central America), in a four-day festival twenty thousand live captives, knowing in advance what was going to happen to them, consciously saw and felt their hearts, hands and feet being surgically sliced away by the glass-like but razor-sharp obsidian knives, this before their heads were cut off and flung, followed by the torsos, bouncing and flipping down the pyramid steps–naturally "as the crowd roared."
Other Mayans were used as target practice for various elite weapons. Raids to small villages, as depicted in Apocalypto in an unforgettable 15-minute sequence, brought a never-ending supply of fright-sickened new victims.
But the Mayans also fought wars and humiliated captured foreign leaders; as Gibson relates in the fascinating "Director’s Commentary" on the DVD, they spent nine interminable years degrading, humiliating–and amputating various parts off–a captured head of state. As Gibson related, in the end the captives were just "balls of nerve endings." It would appear that the sociopathic priests enjoyed making fools even of their own kings; the Mayan heads of state were persuaded to try accessing the gods by driving a stingray spine through their penis. (See sidebar: "Mel didn’t show half of it.")
It reminds one of George Orwell’s description in the novel 1984 of the ultimate psychopathic regime. Big Brother’s spokesman explains with chutzpah to the captured Winston Smith: "Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship [or Mayan priestly rule] in order to safeguard a revolution [or new order]; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power."
–Part III, chapter three
Here speaks pure sociopathy from the summit of the State.
Vast swaths of forest were also cut down for fuel by the Mayan ruling class, heedless of devastation to the environment (especially of the top soil), all this to bake the clay bricks used for these ever-higher ziggurats.[However, the Mayan and Aztec cultures (and those of the Incas, Apaches, and other Amerindians) never even invented the wheel–except as a child’s toy!–despite all those round logs they cut down and rolled and despite the vast distances encountered in the Americas. Nor did they possess horses in pre-Columbian America. So everybody trudged along, carried or pushed something with human power until Spain came in 1502.
Nor did the Mayans and Aztecs, canoers, invent the sail in a hundred generations of feeling the wind blow their canoe sideways. Perhaps they were waiting for the "white gods" to return.
Ethnographer-adventurer Thor Heyerdahl of "Kon Tiki" fame wrote in 2000 a book called Ingen Grenser–Norwegian for "No Boundaries"–where he renews his thesis, shared by many Indians 500 years ago, that ancient whites, the "white gods," had very long before founded their pre-Columbian civilizations before vanishing, along with their influence.)
All film dialogue is spoken entirely in the authentic Mayan of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico where the film was made, and all actors, including the star, Rudy Youngblood of Texas, are Amerindians from North and Central America. (As a young man awakened by horror to his destiny and abilities, Youngblood’s performance at the hands of producer-writer-director Gibson is superlative.)
It is said that in his 2004 The Passion of the Christ, the "antisemitic" (in reality "New Testament"!) remarks are left only in the Aramaic language and are not even printed in the subtitles. Interestingly, in the French subtitles to his most recent movie, Apocalypto, even more so than in the English or Spanish subtitles, the murderous high priest makes many Talmudic-sounding statements during the human sacrifice scene.
"These are the days of our great lament," the high priest intones to the crowds from atop his pyramid. Then he asserts to the overawed mob (again, this is in the French subtitles translating the Mayan): "Notre peuple a été choisi." That means: "Our people has been chosen." (French, because of the Norman conquest of England, is often similar in vocabulary to modern English.)
In the English and Spanish subtitles, this is prudently rephrased as "We are a people of destiny" (perhaps in dishonor of Franklin Roosevelt’s inaugural address: "This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.")[footnote2: Hutton Gibson was strongly opposed to Roosevelt and his war, albeit he was wounded in 1944 in the Pacific as an Army officer.]
One recalls that when Apocalypto was released in December 2006, it was just four months since Gibson’s famous July 28, 2006 "antisemitic tirade." On Gibson’s website one sympathizer, a born-again Christian, probably expressed best why the movie-going public shrugged off Gibson’s “anti-semitic rant” and went to see Apocalypto:
"I’d like to see what the Jews say about us when they get drunk!"
We further learn from Gibson in the Director’s Commentary on the DVD — which he dispenses together with the film’s Iranian co-producer and co-writer, Farhad Safinia– that for authenticity they had all the actors playing Mayan rulers "wear curved nose prostheses."
The curvy-nosed priest then continues with his harangue: "We were chosen to be the masters of time; we were chosen to walk with the gods."
In the telling closeup, the Mayan king and high priest nervously exchange glances during the high point of the killings. We know from archeology and temple architecture–when beams of light would fall on certain points–that the Mayan priests knew exactly when eclipses would take place, but the point was to be seen as miracle workers. But will the solar eclipse yet again "do the trick" and, as darkness overshadows the great city, overawe the trusting crowd, striking a quasi-9/11-like fear in them? Will the public believe forever that through killings their leaders protect the nation from ecliptic terror and doom?
The whole scam behind their grand pleasure in killing victims was that in this way the peuple choisi would "save the harvests and the nation." (Writer Margaret Huffstickler has commented: "The eclipse is like 9/11, and invading Iraq and establishing Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is the ‘necessary’ human sacrifice.")[footnote: On Columbus’s last expedition, in 1503-04, he was stranded for over a year on Jamaica with wrecked ships. In a scam designed to intimidate the Arawak Indians of Jamaica into feeding him and his men, he used his trusty Ephemeris from the German astronomer Regiomontanus to correctly predict the lunar eclipse of February 29, 1504. It worked; they kept feeding him.]
In the subtitle of the official Apocalypto poster, above, we read the slogan: "No one can outrun their destiny." This certainly applied to the psychopathic native ruling class of pre-Columbian Central America. At the very end of the movie, ominously, the Spanish arrive in power from their great, dark ships, with soldiers, priests and brandished crucifixes, to eventually overthrow and annihilate the murderous Mayan ruling class. How interesting for Mel Gibson to introduce for the movie’s final scene the Spain that exactly ten years before, in 1492, had not only sailed the ocean blue but expelled the Jews and fully unleashed the Inquisition on the the marranos, the secret Jews still in power in the background. (To this day, 515 years later, only one resident of Spain in two thousand is Jewish.)
Through DVD technology, we can first enjoy the artist’s cinematic work and then, merely pressing the remote control, consult him personally through his commentary as to what he was thinking, aiming at and enduring technically trying to achieve each shot and scene. We can also appreciate his use of costumes, history, authentic weapons, makeup for men and women of different classes, and see the scenes, such as the one with the burnt and limping deer, that he cut for brevity or distraction of the storytelling flow.
Truly, in the hand of the masters, the cinema is the premier art form of our time. In Apocalypto, after viewing the two-hour masterpiece, the viewer therefore should spend another profitable two hours on another day reliving each scene with this truly great artist, Mel Columcille Gibson, and his brilliant Iranian colleague Farhad Safinia, and a third hour with the "Special Features" on the DVD of Apocalypto to understand the secret ocean of detail that Gibson has channeled into this mighty current. It is what Wagner would have called a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total art form. Then–as my Barnes Review-reading friends actually did–see Apocalypto another four to six times. That is doable with a great work of art.
What stands out, finally, is what the father says in the jungle to Jaguar Paw: "Fear makes you weak, and fear makes you sick." This is, as the Will Durant quote at its beginning shows, a movie about now, about the psychopathic regime now, and about transcending the real fears we face now. And, as the hero says after he takes the plunge over the waterfall, "This is MY forest." See the movie.
President Vladimir Poetin het Donderdagaand ‘n konferensie van geskiedenisonderwysers in Moskou toegespreek waar hy na hoofstukke uit die Russiese verlede onder Stalin verwys het as "problematies" en "verskriklik". Hy het bygevoeg dat elke staat egter met soortgelyke dinge uit sy geskiedenis worstel. In Rusland, so onlangs as die twintigste eeu, is miljoene mense tydens Josef Stalin se skrikbewind gedood.
Die "verskriklike sy" van die Russiese geskiedenis was veral die hongersnood in 1932 – 1933 in die Oekraïene en ander dele van Rusland waartydens tussen vyf en sewe miljoen mense dood is. Gedurende die "Groot Terreur", 1937 tot 1938, toe byna 1,6 miljoen mense aangehou is, het 700 000 slagoffers omgekom wat doodgeskiet is. Ander is daarna in kampe oorlede.
Tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog is miljoene Duitsers, Tsjetsjniërs, Krim-Tartare en ander volke uit hul gebiede gedeporteer en na raming het tussen 20 en 30 persent die onmenslike toestande nie oorleef nie.
Die konferensie is gehou om nuwe leerplanne vir skole te bespreek omdat die materiaal van die negentigerjare vervang moet word. Die bestaande handboeke vir skoolgaande kinders, so lui die kritiek, behandel die Russiese geskiedenis van die 20ste eeu as ‘n reeks opeenvolgende katastrofes. Om die outoriteit van die staat weer te herstel, moet "foute" uitgewys word, maar ook suksesse.
"’n Mens kan nie toelaat dat ons skuldgevoelens opgelê word nie," het Poetin aan die onderwysers gesê. Waar daar ooglopende swak voorstellings van die Russiese geskiedenis in ‘n skoolhandboek voorkom, het hy vermaan dat "baie handboeke deur mense geskryf is wat deur buitelanders betaal is. Diegene wat betaal, bepaal die deuntjie."
Die twee vakbonde, naamlik die Nigeria Labour Congress, wat hoofsaaklik uit handearbeiders bestaan, en die Trade Union Congress wat witboordjiewerkers bedien, is ontevrede met die feit dat brandstof 15% duurder geword het. President Umaru Yar’adua weier om die verhoging wat sy voorganger afgekondig het, ongedaan te maak.
Die regering hou vol dat die staking deur "politieke" gronde teweeggebring is omdat dit onverantwoordelik is om vir ‘n toename van 5 naira ‘n land te verlam. Die wisselkoers is tans 128 naira vir $1. Olusegun Obasanjo het die verhoogde prys van 65 na 75 naira op 28 Mei bekend gemaak.
Die regering het by monde van die president ná twee dae aangekondig dat hulle wel sal oorweeg om die prys te verlaag na 70 naira per liter. Ander toegewings is ook voorgelê in die hoop dat die stakers sal besgee.
Verdubbelde verkoopsbelasting wat teen die einde van Mei ingestel sou word, sal laat vaar word en ‘n salarisverhoging van 15% terugwerkend vanaf 1 Januarie 2007 is aangebied. Die vorige regering het reeds die verhoging aangekondig, maar amptenare het nooit die beloofde beter vergoeding ontvang nie.
Die twee vakbonde hou egter voet by stuk dat die hoër brandstofprys onaanvaarbaar is en het onderneem om die arbeidsaksie vol te hou totdat die regering gehoor aan hul eis gee. Die gevolg van die besluit is oral in Nigerië sigbaar.
Met sonsopkoms staan honderde taxi’s dig saamgedrom om vulstasies met 25 of 50 liter kannetjies gereed om die paar druppels brandstof nog beskikbaar in die hande te probeer kry. Die meeste stasies ontvang geen brandstof meer van privaat- of regeringsdepots nie. Die groot hawe van Lagos, Apapa, word byna heeltemal lamgelê omdat die Nigerian Port Authority asook doeanebeamptes deelneem aan die staking.
By die Murtala Mohamed-lughawe word internasionale vlugte wat uit Lagos vertrek gedwing om van hul direkte trajekte af te sien omdat hulle elders moet aandoen om eers vol te maak aangesien vliegtuigbrandstof ook nie meer volop is nie.
Nigerië is die sesde grootste olieuitvoerder ter wêreld, maar die land se belangrikste bron van inkomste word skynbaar nie geraak deur die krisis nie. Die multinasionale instansies wat meesal in die suide opereer, maak gebruik van hul eie personeel.
Die NLC het Woensdag aangekondig dat hulle toesig sal hou oor stakende werkers om te verhoed dat hulle terugkeer na hul poste voordat ‘n gewenste uitkoms bereik is. Verskeie Nigeriese koerante het foto’s van padblokkades en versperrings deur munisipale busse geplaas om werkers te waarsku dat hulle dopgehou word.
Die regering het dieselfde dag bevestig dat "die reg om te staak gerespekteer word, maar dat dit nie misbruik moet word om wet en orde te ondermyn nie." Hulle het die vakbonde daaraan herinner dat niemand gedwing mag word om aan die staking deel te neem nie.
President Yar’adua is besonder kwesbaar vir die politieke druk wat tans oplaai omdat hy nog geen regering aangewys het sedert hy op 29 Mei die amp oorgeneem het nie. Volgens die onafhanklike koerant This Day verkeer hy tussen twee vure. As hy te kragdadig optree om sy posisie te legitimeer sal hy sy gewilde beeld van ‘n "gewillige dienaar" by die bevolking prysgee. Indien hy nie optree nie, sal die maatskaplike onrus verder uitbrei.
Watter manier van optrede hy ookal kies, is dit duidelik dat die mag van die president ‘n knou toegedien is en dat dit niks goeds voorspel vir die afsienbare toekoms in Nigerië nie.
In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.
The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.
As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.
The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.
The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.
Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).
Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.
I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.
The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.
As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
■Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
■Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.
The writer is President of the Czech Republic
Die nuwe direkteur-generaal van die departement van binnelandse sake, Mavuso Msimang, het Woensdag teenoor die parlement se staande komitee oor openbare rekeninge (SKOOR) toegegee dat die departement se kontrak met die maatskappy wat die Lindela-repatriasiesentrum naby Krugersdorp bestuur, “’n bedrogspul” is.
“Dit is nie ’n goeie kontrak nie. Ons gaan dit definitief volgende jaar hersien om te kyk of dit nie verbeter kan word tot voordeel van die departement nie,“ het Msimang erken.
Die kontrak is opgestel met Leading Prospects Bpk, wat die sentrum namens die departement bestuur. Die dokument is só opgestel dat die departement slegs voordeel trek wanneer die sentrum optimaal benut word. Volgens Msimang is die deparement se doelwit om die getal onwettige immigrante in die land te verminder.
Daarom maak die kontrak nie sin nie, want die departement behoort nie voordeel te trek uit die feit dat daar meer onwettige immigrante in die sentrum aangehou word nie. Volgens die kontrak betaal die departement R80 per dag per aangehoudene aan Leading Prospects Bpk, met die aanname dat daar maandeliks 3 250 persone by die sentrum aangehou word.
Selfs al word daar minder persone aangehou, is die departement egter steeds verplig om dieselfde bedrag te betaal. Oor die afgelope paar jaar het die aantal persone wat by Lindela aangehou word, gedaal tot sowat 1 500 per maand.
SKOOR het die departement beveel om binne die volgende twee weke die name van alle direkteure en aandeelhouers van Leading Prospects Bpk aan die komitee voor te lê. Daar word tans gespekuleer dat sommige van die aandeelhouers prominente politici is.
Leading Prospects Bpk het ’n kontrak van tien jaar met die departement van binnelandse sake.
In 2002 klim ek en my vrou op vlug LX289 op pad na Zurich en uiteindelik na Londen. Ons gaan vir 'n jaar in die buiteland werk en dan keer ons terug huis toe en hervat ons lewe. Maklik soos dit.
Na 5 jaar is ons nog hier en ons het teen alle raad besluit om terug te keer na Suid-Afrika. Meer en meer wil dit vir my lyk ons het 'n verkeerde besluit geneem.
Ons het nooit ons koebaais gesê nie en ons voel ons moet eers vir onsself gaan kyk of dinge werklik so sleg is soos almal dit uitmaak.
Vir enige persoon wat sy land verlaat dink ek, daar is maar altyd 'n hunkering na waar hy hoort. As jy afgesien het van jou land en jy het finaal besluit jy gaan nooit weer terug nie, dan moet jy maar vrede maak met daai hol kol.
As jy nooit daardie finale besluit gemaak het nie vreet dáárdie verlange jou, dag na dag.
Ons hoort nie waar ons tans is nie, ons sal altyd "foreigners" wees. Maar dan vra ek myself af, hoort ons dan enigsins nog in SA of is ons ook nie maar net die "settlers" nie?
Soveel Afrikaners maak elke dag 'n lewe in SA, wonder bo wonder. Etlikes offer hul lewens op daarvoor.
Wat as ons slagoffers word van die geweld, sal ek ooit myself kan vergewe?
Intussen het ons Boeremeisietjie drie geword en was sy skaars 6 weke van haar lewe in ons vaderland. Geoordeel aan alles wat hier tot haar beskikking is en opgeweeg aan dit wat in SA bestaan, lyk dit maar nie so lekker om alles hier op te gee vir die onsekere nie.
Wat van skole, gaan sy die skoolopleiding ontvang wat sy hier kan verwag?
Gaan daar 'n Universiteit wees wat nog enigsins die moeite werd sal wees?
Kan ons rustig gaan slaap snags?
Kan ons ons geliefkooste tydverdryf, stap, nog beoefen?
Ek het nie antwoorde op dié vrae nie en ek reken dit is seker waarom ons die tog moet maak.
Ons kan net hoop dat die Afrikaners se oë oopgaan en sien wat hul werklik verloor.
Een troos, as dinge nie uitwerk nie, kan ons totsiens sê.
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Die dokumente is op die internet te besigtig op die organisasie se webwerf. Oesama het blykbaar ‘n Ryan Air 727 gebruik, alom bekend as die "vlug van die Bin Laden-familie", wat op 19 September 2001 vanaf Los Angeles opgestyg het met Saoediërs aan boord. Terwyl die FBI ontken dat Oesama dit gehuur het, staan daar duidelik in die verslag dat die "Saoediese koninklike gesin of Oesama Bin Laden die vliegtuig gehuur het".
Die groep het daarna in Orlando geland, toe in Washington aangedoen en later na Boston gereis. Die vliegtuig het daarna egter die VSA verlaat en die volgende dag in Parys aangekom. Ses vlugte tussen 14 en 24 September 2001 altesaam is opgeteken om Oesama Bin Laden se familie en gesin uit die VSA te ontruim volgens JW.
"Volgens die FBI, en dit is ongelooflik, het nie een Saoediër of een van die lede van die Bin Laden-gesin enige inligting van waarde aan die ondersoekers kon lewer nie." verklaar JW op hul webtuiste. ‘n Paar dae ná die verskriklike aanvalle op New York, die Pentagon en verskeie passasiersvliegtuie wat daarvoor aangewend is, is die vermeende baasbrein se naastes en gesin dus deur die FBI ondervra sonder dat dit enige nuttige inligting opgelewer het.
Die organisasie is bekommerd dat die FBI, wat hoegenaamd geen ongerymdhede opgemerk het nie, nie hulle werk behoorlik gedoen het nie. ‘n Segspersoon van die FBI het ter verduideliking gesê dat die onafhanklike Kommissie van Ondersoek na 11 September 2001 se voorvalle bevind het dat "geen persoon aan boord met terrorisme verbind kon word nie" en dat "geen politieke inmenging" die vlug uit die VSA gehelp het nie. Kennelik het die FBI egter ook nie veel gedoen om die vlug te keer nie.
