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“Goodbye Bafana”

The normally cynical international press corps greeted the director and cast of "Goodbye Bafana" with cheers and applause following the film’s well-received premiere in Berlin on Sunday.

Dennis Haysbert enjoyed the bulk of the attention for his gripping performance as South African leader Nelson Mandela in Billie August’s portrayal of Mandela’s growing friendship with his white prison guard James Gregory, played by Joseph Fiennes.

Haysbert, who mastered both Mandela’s South African-accented English and his native Xhosa language for the role, said he thought "about five minutes" before agreeing to play the former ANC leader.

"The only doubts I had were about my worthiness, if I was worthy or not to play arguably one of the top five human beings to have every stepped foot on this planet," Haysbert said.

The star of "24" and "The Unit" said his greatest challenge was emulating Mandela’s famous reserve as he told his life story through almost 30 years of imprisonment until his release in 1990.

"I found it very painful, the sacrifices he made," Haysbert said. "It was extremely difficult playing someone whose love for his country outweighed his love of self, his love of youth or of his family. (And) to play a man whose tear ducts had been operated on so he couldn’t cry made it very hard for me to play. Every night when I went home I would have a glass of wine and just cry."

Co-stars Fiennes and Diane Kruger, who plays Gregory’s wife Gloria, said identifying with South Africa’s institutionalized culture of racism was difficult but was necessary in order to avoid a two-dimensional depiction of white South Africans.

"It is incredibly complex, the situation of these people they call the pale natives," Fiennes said. "Because they are African but also not. I think there is a certain schizophrenia of that generation. It would be easy to caricature, to just show a cliche of the racist white South African, but to be successful you have to really try and understand this certain social conditioning that is pretty scary and abhorrent at times. Sadly it is not too difficult to understand. You see a similar thing, a similar conditioning of fear, all around us now."

Critical reaction to the film has been mixed but Haysbert said that, for him, there was only one opinion that mattered.

"Nelson Mandela has received a DVD and God I hope he likes it," Haysbert said. "Probably the only person where I really care that he likes the movie and enjoys it, is Nelson Mandela."

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Blair blames spate of murders on black culture

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.

One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.

Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.

Mr Blair’s remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community – the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening – need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".

Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation".

Last night, British African-Caribbean figures leading the fight against gang culture condemned Mr Blair’s speech. The Rev Nims Obunge, chief executive of the Peace Alliance, one of the main organisations working against gang crime, denounced the prime minister.

Mr Obunge, who attended the Downing Street summit chaired by Mr Blair in February, said he had been cited by the prime minister: "He makes it look like I said it’s the black community doing it. What I said is it’s making the black community more vulnerable and they need more support and funding for the work they’re doing. … He has taken what I said out of context. We came for support and he has failed and has come back with more police powers to use against our black children."

Keith Jarrett, chair of the National Black Police Association, whose members work with vulnerable youngsters, said: "Social deprivation and delinquency go hand in hand and we need to tackle both. It is curious that the prime minister does not mention deprivation in his speech."

Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London’s mayor, said: "For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with. The PM is spectacularly ill-informed if he thinks otherwise.

"Every home secretary from [David] Blunkett onwards has been pressed on tackling the growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities, and government has failed to respond to what has been a clear demand for additional resources to tackle youth alienation and disaffection".

The Home Office has already announced it is looking at the possibility of banning membership of gangs, tougher enforcement of the supposed mandatory five-year sentences for possession of illegal firearms, and lowering the age from 21 to 18 for this mandatory sentence.

Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don’t think it’s the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

Some people working with children knew at the age of five whether they were going to be in "real trouble" later, he said.

Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models.

He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong – it has not – but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold."

The Commission for Racial Equality broadly backed Mr Blair, saying people "shouldn’t be afraid to talk about this issue for fear of sounding prejudiced".

Mr Blair spoke out as a second teenager was due to appear in court charged with the murder of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon, stabbed to death in east London on Friday. He was the seventh Londoner under 16 to be murdered since the end of January, and his 15-year-old friend, who was also stabbed, remains in hospital.

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Prosecutors drop charges in Duke case

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Duke lacrosse rape case finally collapsed Wednesday, with North Carolina’s top prosecutor saying the three athletes were railroaded by a district attorney who ignored increasingly flimsy evidence in a "tragic rush to accuse."

In a blistering assessment of the case, Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges against the players, all but ensuring that only one person in the whole scandal will be held to account: Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong.

"This case shows the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor," Cooper said.

Cooper, who took over the case in January after Nifong was charged with ethics violations that could get him disbarred, said his own investigation into a stripper’s claim that she was sexually assaulted at a team party found nothing to corroborate her story, and "led us to the conclusion that no attack occurred."

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," Cooper said. "In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly."

Later, at an often-bitter, I-told-you-so news conference, the three young men and their lawyers accused the news media and the public of disregarding the presumption of innocence and portraying them as thugs.

"It’s been 395 days since this nightmare began. And finally today it’s coming to a closure," said one of the cleared defendants, David Evans, his voice breaking at one point. "We’re just as innocent today as we were back then. Nothing has changed. The facts don’t change."

Defense attorney Joe Cheshire said: "We’re angry, very angry. But we’re very relieved."

Nifong was out of town and could not immediately be reached for comment. But his lawyer, David Freedman, said: "If further investigation showed this boys were innocent, he would be in agreement with what the attorney general’s office decided to do."

Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty were indicted last spring on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after the woman told police she was assaulted in the bathroom at an off-campus house during a team party where she had been hired to perform. The rape charges were dropped months ago; the other charges remained until Wednesday.

The case stirred furious debate over race, class and the privileged status of college athletes, and heightened long-standing tensions in Durham between its large working-class black population and the mostly white, mostly affluent students at the private, elite university.

The woman is black and attended nearby North Carolina Central University, a historically black school; all three Duke players are white.

The attorney general said the eyewitness identification procedures were unreliable, no DNA supported the stripper’s story, no other witness corroborated it, and the woman contradicted herself.

"Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges," Cooper said. He said the charges resulted from a "tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations."

"I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people," Cooper said.

Cooper offered no explanation for why the stripper told such a story and would not discuss her mental health. However, he said no charges will be brought against her, saying she "may actually believe" the many different stories she told.

"We believe it is in the best interest of justice not to bring charges," he said.

The accuser’s whereabouts were not immediately known. The Associated Press generally does not identify accusers in sex-crime cases.

Portraying Nifong as a "rogue prosecutor," Cooper called for the passage of a law that would allow the North Carolina Supreme Court to remove a district attorney where justice demands it.

Cooper declined to say whether he believes Nifong should be disbarred, saying it would not be fair to pass judgment before he goes on trial before the state bar in June.

At the news conference with his former teammates, Finnerty said: "Knowing I had the truth on my side was really the most comforting thing at all throughout this last year."

Seligmann thanked his lawyers for sparing him from 30 years in prison for a "hoax" and complained that society has lost sight of the presumption of innocence. "This entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice," he said.

The case was troubled almost from the start. DNA failed to connect any of the athletes to the 28-year-old stripper. One of the athletes claimed to have ATM receipts and time-stamped photos that provided an alibi. It was also learned that the stripper had leveled similar gang-rape allegations a decade ago, and no charges resulted.

Then, in December, Nifong dropped the rape charges after the woman said she was no longer certain she was penetrated.

Nifong came under furious criticism from the community, the university and members of the bar for pressing ahead with a case that they said seemed pitifully weak.

The district attorney withdrew from the case in January after the North Carolina bar charged him with making misleading and inflammatory comments to the media about the athletes under suspicion. The bar later added more serious charges of withholding evidence from defense attorneys and lying to the court.

Among other things, Nifong called the athletes "a bunch of hooligans" and declared DNA evidence would identify the guilty. He was also accused of withholding the results of lab tests that found DNA from several men — none of them lacrosse team members — on the accuser’s underwear and body.

Duke suspended Seligmann, 21, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y., after their arrest. Both were invited to return to campus this year, but neither accepted. Evans, 24, of Bethesda, Md., graduated the day before he was indicted.

In the uproar over the allegations, Duke canceled the rest of the team’s 2006 season, the lacrosse coach resigned under fire, and a schism opened up on the faculty between those who supported the athletes and those who accused them of getting away with loutish frat-boy behavior for too long.

The team resumed play this year.

"Two days after this happened, I knew what the truth was. When you say you believe in somebody, when you say you believe the truth, you stand by them," said former Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, now lacrosse coach at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I.

James Ammons, chancellor of North Carolina Central University, said that because of the Duke case, NCCU and Duke "engaged in some very important discussions and forums that enhanced our tolerance and raised awareness regarding race, class, sexual assault and athletic privilege."

"Now that the investigation has concluded, let the healing begin and the growth continue," he said.

James Coleman, a Duke law professor who was one of Nifong’s biggest critics, said he hopes the case makes the public "aware and sensitive to the importance of public scrutiny of what prosecutor can do."

"They have enormous power. They can ruin innocent people and in some cases put innocent people in prison never to get out because they don’t do their job with integrity," Coleman said. "That’s really the lesson."

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Water is found in extrasolar planet’s air

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., April 11 (UPI) — U.S. astronomers have, for the first time, identified water in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet.

The identification was accomplished using Hubble Space Telescope measurements and theoretical models developed by Lowell Observatory astronomer Travis Barman. He found strong evidence for water absorption in the atmosphere of transiting planet HD209458b.

"We now know that water vapor exists in the atmosphere of one extrasolar planet and there is good reason to believe that other extrasolar planets contain water vapor," said Barman.

Although water vapor has been expected in the atmospheres of nearly all known extrasolar planets, most are too close to their parent star to allow identification.

The identification involving planet HD209458b was made possible since, as seen from Earth, it periodically passes in front of its star. As it does so, its atmosphere blocks a different amount of the starlight at different wavelengths.

An analysis of Hubble data by Harvard University student Heather Knutson made possible a direct comparison to theoretical models developed by Barman. That ultimately led to the identification of water absorption on the planet 150 light-years from Earth.

The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

"We now know that water vapor exists in the atmosphere of one extrasolar planet and there is good reason to believe that other extrasolar planets contain water vapor," said Barman.

Although water vapor has been expected in the atmospheres of nearly all known extrasolar planets, most are too close to their parent star to allow identification.

The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

IAF jets forced to buzz US airliner

The Israeli Air Force came very close Wednesday afternoon to intercepting and destroying a civilian airliner that had failed to make contact with Air Traffic Control and comply with international regulations as it approached the country’s airspace.

Four fighter jets – two F-15s and a pair of F-16s – buzzed a Continental Airlines flight that had originated in Newark and was carrying some 250 passengers once it came within eight kilometers of Israel, after the pilot failed to contact Ben-Gurion Airport upon his approach in line with international regulations.

A senior Air Force officer said the IAF went on high alert due to the suspicious incoming aircraft. He said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz were updated about the event and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi as well as IAF chief Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy were placed "on-line" in case an interception order was needed.

"This was the closest we ever came to intercepting a civilian airplane," the officer said.

However, the IAF shot down a Libyan civilian airliner over Sinai in February, 1973 when it entered Israeli airspace, killing 108 out of the 113 people on board, after it failed to heed attempts at communication.

According to the officer, the pilot of the Boeing 777 contacted Ben-Gurion Air Traffic Control from a distance of some 325 km. from Israel but then contact was lost. Once the plane reached about a 68-km. distance from Israel – a five-minute flight to Tel Aviv – the IAF dispatched the fighter jets to inspect the aircraft and ensure that it had not been taken over by terrorists.

Continental Airlines issued a statement that said the following:

"Continental Airlines Flight 90 from Newark with 251 passengers landed safely in Tel Aviv at 4:30 this afternoon. Before the arrival, there was a temporary lapse in communications between the plane and the Air Traffic Control tower, and responsibility for the flight was passed from one control tower to a second one.

"As a result of this, the Air Force made contact with the plane and escorted it to its landing at its intended destination – Ben-Gurion Airport."

The airline said it was investigating the situation to avoid similar such incidents in the future.

Nathan Burstein contributed to this report.

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Collapsing colonies: Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops?

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Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops?

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist’s trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that "the very existence of beekeeping is at stake."

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein’s apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing — something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers’ association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When "bee populations disappear without a trace," says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because "most bees don’t die in the beehive." There are many diseases that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer find their way back to their hives.

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case — for example in the run-up to the German cabinet’s approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February — their complaints are still largely ignored.

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites.

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent.

In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate — by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover — at more than $14 billion.

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry."

One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that’s left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found — neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were "extremely alarmed," adding that the crisis "has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry."

It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees’ death is accompanied by a set of symptoms "which does not seem to match anything in the literature."

In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi — a sign, experts say, that the insects’ immune system may have collapsed.

The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them," says Cox-Foster.

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that "besides a number of other factors," the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany — only 0.06 percent — and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry — or perhaps it was the other way around. We don’t know."

Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.

Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research," says the professor, "and those who are interested don’t have the money."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Taal kan weens syfers ‘verdwyn’

Volledige artikel hier.

Hoe raak die jongste demografiese tendense Afrikaanse skole en universiteite? Hierop het prof. Flip Smit, demograaf en oudrektor van die Universiteit van Pretoria, in ’n lesing in Bloemfontein ’n paar antwoorde verskaf.

Vooraf ’n paar syfers. Ons huidige bevolking van 47,3 miljoen sal vanweë die afname in die geboortekoers, meer sterftes aan vigs en vigsverwante siektes en veroudering stadig toeneem en teen 2021 sowat 51 miljoen beloop.

Wit mense het die vervangingsvlak (2,1 geboortes per vrou) in 1990 bereik, die Asiërs in 1999. Die bruines sal dit teen 2010 en die swartes teen 2035 bereik. Die jaarlikse geboortes sal dus tussen 2001 en 2010 by wit mense daal van 72 380 tot 59 697, en by bruines van 84 281 tot 73 205.

Onder alle groepe is sterftes aan die toeneem. By wit mense styg dit van 50 000 in 2001 tot 63 000 in 2009 vanweë MIV/vigs, veroudering, toenemende werkloosheid en swakker toegang tot gesondheidsdienste. Daarby kom ’n verlies weens emigrasie. Bykans ’n miljoen wit mense het sedert 1990 die land permanent of tydelik verlaat. In dieselfde tyd het tussen 8 en 9 miljoen vreemdelinge die land binnegestroom.

Binnelands verskuif die bevolking. Die verskuiwing uit die Oos- na die Wes-Kaap bedreig Afrikaans se posisie as dominante moedertaal in die Wes-Kaap.

[…]

Dit alles bedreig Afrikaansmediumskole. Deeglike beplanning is nodig om te verseker dat Afrikaans as onderwysmedium voortbestaan. Smit sê Afrikaanstaliges presteer uitstekend en hy pleit dat die prestasies van moedertaalleerlinge nie benadeel moet word deur hulle te verplig om op skool of universiteit na Engels oor te skakel nie. Moedertaalonderwys is een van die hoekstene van gehalte-onderrig.

Hy noem regstellende aksie nie by die naam nie, maar sê pogings om die Afrikaanstaliges se intellektuele vermoëns te beperk of hulle te ontmoedig deur die nie-toekenning van studiebeurse of beperking op werkgeleenthede, gaan die land duur te staan kom.

Tussen 1993 en 1996 het ongeveer 60 000 wit studente uit hoër onderwys verdwyn. Vir sommige was die verandering van die kampusse se karakter en etos net te veel. Hulle het by private instellings ingeskryf, oorsee gaan werk of hul ouers daarheen gevolg.

[…]

Dis ontstellend dat die aantal Afrikaanse nagraadse studente by vier HAU’s daal. Net by Stellenbosch is daar ’n geringe toename. Smit sê hy is bewus van talentvolle nagraadse studente wat in die buiteland studeer. Hulle vrees dat standaarde aan Suid-Afrikaanse universiteite toenemend bevraagteken sal word.

As hulle moet padgee weens regstellende aksie, sal buitelandse kwalifikasies hulle groter toegang tot internasionale werkgeleenthede gee.

[…]

Dis ’n duidelike boodskap vir die HAU’s: Afrikaanstaliges stel Afrikaans as voertaal hoog op prys. Daarvan moet Afrikaanse politici en akademici kennis neem wat polities korrek so aanhou pleit vir nóg ingrypender transformasie, meer swart gesigte in die personeel en in rektorstoele – alles dinge wat ten koste van Afrikaans sal geskied.

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Zuma se belastingprobleem “opgelos”

Jacob Zuma

Jabob Zuma se voorslepende probleem met die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomstediens is in Durban “opgelos”, het die ANC-adjunk-president se prokureur gister, Woensdag 11 April, gesê.

Volgens Zuma se prokureur, Michael Hulley, “is die saak opgelos”.

Hulley het verseg om verdere kommentaar te lewer.

Adrian Lackay, die woordvoerder van die Inkomstediens, wou nie onmiddellik kommentaar lewer nie.

Zuma is in Februarie gedagvaar.

Die Independent on Sunday het toentertyd berig dat die dagvaarding die volledigheid van Zuma se bekendmaking van sy inkomste bevraagteken het, asook dat hy in gebreke gebly het om ’n opgawe in te dien.

Hulley het die koerant vertel dat die opgawe laat ingedien is.

“Ons het geen kommentaar nie… ons beskou mnr. Zuma se belastingsake as privaat en daar is niks om te sê nie,” is hy destyds aangehaal.

Presies hoe die saak Woensdag opgelos is, was nie onmiddellik duidelik nie.

Oorlog en onrus benadeel nie groei in Afrika, meen IMF

Afrikalande sal vanjaar ’n skerp styging in groei ervaar, het die IMF Woensdag gesê, terwyl die organisasie steeds beklemtoon het dat gesonde ekonomiese bestuur ’n sleutel bly om die verbetering vol te hou.

Die Internasionale Monetêre Fonds het in ’n ondersoek na die wêreldekonomie die korttermynvooruitsigte vir Afrika as “baie positief” beskryf, wat ’n weerspieëling van stygende ru-oliepryse vir uitvoerders is, asook makro-ekonomiese stabiliteit, ’n sterk vraag na grondstowwe en skuldverligting.

’n Toename in groei tot 6,2 persent in 2007 vanaf 5,5 persent in 2006 word voorspel, totdat dit gaan terugsak tot 5,8 persent in 2008 vanweë moontlike stadiger momentum wêreldwyd.

’n Stygende euro kan ook uitvoere kortwiek van Afrikalande wat die CFA-frank van voormalige Franse kolonies gebruik en wat vas aan die Europese geldeenheid verbind is, het die Fonds in sy tweejaarlikse Wêreldekonomiese oorsig gesê.

Met die fokus op Afrika suid van die Sahara, waar momentum van 5,7 persent in 2006 tot 6,8 persent vanjaar gaan toeneem, meen die IMF dat gewapende konflik en politieke onrus steeds vooruitsigte gaan belemmer, maar dat “die frekwensie van sulke gebeure oor die afgelope dekade in die streek as geheel afgeneem het”.

Dit suggereer dat ekonomiese beleid, eerder as sosio-politieke ontwikkelings, die hoofbepaler sal wees of sterk groei plaasvind, aldan nie,” het die Fonds voortgegaan.

Dit het gevra dat die uitset van sektore buiten grondstowwe verhoog behoort te word, dat minder handelsbeperkings behoort te geld, asook strenger perke op regeringsbesteding in olie-uitvoerland en stappe om die sakeklimaat te verbeter.

Volgens die verslag sal Suid-Afrika se groei vanjaar daal tot 4,7 persent vanaf 5,0 persent in 2006, terwyl die betalingsbalanstekort tot 6,5 persent van die uitset gestyg het met inflasie wat tot naby die boonste perk van ’n drie tot ses persentband toegeneem het.

Terwyl die Suid-Afrikaanse sentrale bank monetêre beleid “gepas” strenger gemaak het, “mag verdere rentekoersstygings nodig wees om inflasionêre druk teen te werk, wat ’n skerper afname in produksie tot gevolg mag hê”.

“Gegewe die belangrikheid van Suid-Afrika, veral vir die res van Suider-Afrika, sal enige sodanige verlangsaming ander lande negatief raak.”

Maar in die nabye toekoms sal Afrika suid van die Sahara se lot positief deur olie-uitvoerders beïnvloed word.

Die IMF het verwys na nuwe olieproduksiefasiliteite wat in Angola en Ekwatoriaal-Guinee in bedryf gestel gaan word. In Nigerië, waar die uitset deur die geweld in die Niger-delta onderbreek is, word verwag dat produksie teen die middel van die jaar ten volle herstel behoort te wees.

Nigerië het ook daarin geslaag om sy nie-olieverwante bruto nasionale produk met ’n gemiddeld van 8 persent oor die afgelope drie jaar te laat toeneem.

Regdeur Afrika is inflasie – buiten Zimbabwe – besig om af te neem en betalingsbalanse vertoon ’n oorskot, grotendeels danksy die olieprodusente, aldus die IMF.

US missile shield plan draws fire from SPD

Seen through American eyes, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Germany has become a much friendlier place than that ruled by Gerhard Schröder, her predecessor, who spearheaded Europe’s opposition to the Iraq war in 2002.

Yet a fresh attempt by the Social Democratic party, junior partner in her coalition, to revive some of Mr Schröder’s critical rhetoric shows the transformation is, at best, incomplete.

Kurt Beck, Mr Schröder’s successor as SPD chairman, launched the first salvo early last month when he told the Bild tabloid that US plans to create an anti-missile defence system with bases in Poland and the Czech Republic were a step back to the cold war.

"We do not need new rockets in Europe. The SPD does not want a new arms race between the US and Russia on European soil," he said. "We already have enough problems in the world as it is."

Although broad-brushed, the comment was well calculated, both in its historical reference and in its intended effect. The reference was to Nato’s decision in 1979 to deploy nuclear missiles in western Europe to match the Soviet arsenal.

The decision did persuade Moscow to sign the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the US in 1988, leading to the withdrawal of nuclear warheads in the European theatre. Yet it sparked an uproar in Germany at the time, where its rejection became a defining position of the left.

"These were the times when politicians of Beck’s generation were being socialised. The whole missile debate shaped the foreign policy outlook of the entire 1968 generation left of the centre," says Jan Techau, head of European studies at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr Beck’s comment was also aimed at a domestic audience. The goal was to allow the SPD to recapture precious points in the popularity ratings lost to Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in previous months.

The chancellor, having grabbed the traditionally leftwing themes of environmental protection with her European initiative to reduce carbon gas emissions, and progressive family policies – her cabinet agreed this week to boost the number of kindergartens in order to help women take up work – the only way for the SPD to raise its profile was to paint itself as the "party of peace", already an over-used label during Mr Schröder’s anti-Iraq war campaign.

The move struck a chord; a poll in Stern magazine last month showed that 48 per cent of Germans saw the US as more dangerous than Iran (31 per cent said Tehran was a bigger threat), and nearly three-quarters agreed with Mr Beck’s comments.

"We are very much aware of the domestic dimension of the discussion," said a US diplomat. As the SPD be-longs to the coalition, there is some concern in Washington about the debate spilling into Berlin’s official policies.

This concern rose when Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD foreign minister, penned a virulent attack against the US missile defence system in an article last week in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Our highest priority is disarmament, not rearmament. We want no new arms race in Europe," he wrote.

The criticism went further than Ms Merkel’s cautious call for Washington to consult more openly with Russia and the EU and to bring its plan under the umbrella of Nato. Her defence minister, a Christian Democrat like her, has openly supported the US plan.

This cacophony raised questions in the US about what, exactly, was Berlin’s position, and it prompted the US embassy to hold separate seminars on the anti-missile shield with the coalition parties and to seek a meeting with the SPD chairman.

On the domestic front, analysts doubt Mr Beck’s Schröderian gamble will pay off. With the next general election scheduled for 2009, many think he has moved too soon. Neither has the offensive met a universally positive echo in the SPD. Gunter Weissgerber and Markus Meckel, two MPs and foreign policy experts, have accused the chairman of launching a simplistic and mistaken controversy.

Yet with public opinion, in-cluding many conservative voters, so firmly on Mr Beck’s side, Ms Merkel too has grounds for concern. If her at-tempt to seek a rapprochement with US President George W. Bush fails to show dividends by the next election, she may come to regret it.

swarovski crystal bridal Александр Фильчаков

US submarine forced to leave Persian Gulf

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The damaged US nuclear submarine ‘Newport News’ which polluted the Persian Gulf waters with radioactive and chemical materials after it collided with a Japanese super tanker in Hormoz Strait was forced to leave the Persian Gulf following strong protests by Iranian officials.

Newport News, which accompanied USS Eisenhower, sustained heavy damages after it collided with the Japanese super tanker Mogamigava east of Hormoz Strait at 22:15 hours local time (18:45 GMT) on January 8, 2007, as a result of which its captain Mathew Vinegar was dismissed.

Following the collision and when the submarine was transferred to a port in Bahrain to undergo repair works, chemical and radioactive materials started leaking into the Persian Gulf waters.

Subsequently, commander of Iran’s naval force voiced his deep concern over the pollution of the Persian Gulf region and its negative impacts on the environment, following which the Iranian parliament’s Environment Commission pursued the case through correspondence and exchange of views with different world authorities and bodies.

As per the objections made in this regard coupled with the United States’ fear from the consequences and aftermaths of the case, the nuclear submarine was transferred from the Persian Gulf for overhaul.

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Experts bash Bush: Pullout won’t bring ‘enemy’ to U.S.

WASHINGTON – It’s become President Bush’s mantra, his main explanation for why he won’t withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq anytime soon.

President Bush meets with troops during a visit to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Wednesday.
(GERALD HERBERT/Associated Press)

In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that ”this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here.”

The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California’s Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on America’s streets.

But is it true?

Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn’t. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.

”The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature,” said James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization. ”It’s a poor choice of words that doesn’t convey the essence of the problem – that walking away from a problem doesn’t solve anything.”

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush’s own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they’re believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters – 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists – according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.”Attacks by terrorist groups account for only a fraction of insurgent violence,” said a February DIA report.While acknowledging that terrorists could commit a catastrophic act on U.S. soil at any time – whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not – the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best, according to experts.

James Lewis, a U.S. foreign policy analyst at CSIS, called Bush’s assertion oversimplistic.

”There’s a grain of truth in Bush saying it’s better to fight them there rather than here, but it’s also overstated,” Lewis said. ”It’s not like there’s going to be gun battles in the United States.”

Daniel Benjamin, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, agreed.

”There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don’t have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States,” said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council’s director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. ”I’m not saying events in Iraq aren’t going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president’s formulations call for a leap of faith.”

”The war in Iraq isn’t preventing terrorist attacks on America,” said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he’s contradicting the president and other top officials. ”If anything, that – along with the way we’ve been treating terrorist suspects – may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy.”

Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they’re much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are to try to penetrate America.

Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce.

”The danger is not that they’ll follow us home,” Carafano said. ”The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists.”

Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into.

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Adopt our baby girls, India begs Britons

The Indian government wants Britons to adopt India’s street children

British couples are being urged to help save millions of Indian baby girls from lives of abuse and misery.

The Indian government is relaxing its adoption rules to encourage more British and other western couples to reduce the number of orphans living on the streets, and abandoned in squalid and dirty children’s homes throughout the country.

There are more than 11 million abandoned children in India , and ministers want more families – both Indian and British – to offer loving homes.

Under current rules, it takes more than a year for British and other foreign families to successfully adopt an Indian baby, but under new government plans couples will be able to complete the formalities in just 45 days.

The emphasis will be on finding new families for thousands of babies – most of them unwanted girls – dumped in ‘street cots’ attached to childrens homes in India’s major cities.

The government is anxious that infants dumped in homes are given to new families before they are six months old. They fear institutionalisation could starve them of the love and nuturing they need to develop.

The new rules will give new hope to British families who have faced increasing problems adopting overseas. In the last few years Russia, China, Romania and Cambodia have all raised bureaucratic hurdles, and some, like Romania, have suspended foreign adoptions altogether.

India however has unique problems which ministers believe foreign adoption could play a part in solving. Thousands of Indian baby girls are killed at birth by poor mothers who cannot afford the lavish weddings and dowries they would one day be lumbered with, and also by middle-class women under pressure to bear their husband a prized son.

The government has encouraged more ‘street cribs’ to give mothers of unwanted daughters an alternative to ‘female infanticide.’ If it is successful, it will mean even more baby girls being dumped in orphanages, and more to find families for

Officials say they will still give priority to Indian families looking to adopt, but traditional prejudices against adopted children mean too few come forward to help. Each year around 4,000 orphans are adopted, and only three thousand of them are taken in by Indian families.

In some Delhi orphanages, like North Delhi’s ‘Cradle’ home,where around five babies are dumped every week, as many as fifty per cent of unwanted children go to families in Britain , the United States , Spain and Denmark.

Staff at the home say Indian families are often reluctant to take dark skinned babies or children whose complexions are not a good match with their own. The stigma against adoption and infertility is so great that many families adopt a well-matched child and pretend to relatives that it is their own baby.

L.K Mittal, chairman of the Indian government’s Central Adoption Resource Agency, said the new rules, which will come into force in two months’ time, are aimed at making more of India ’s orphans available for adoption, and making easier for British and other western couples to give them loving homes.

“There will be more domestic adoptions, and more foreign adoptions. The rules we have now are too lengthy and cumbersome – it takes a year for a foreigner to take a child from India , but it should be done within a couple of months. Every child needs a home with loving parents.

“Where there’s a threat of institutionalisation [for the child], and there’s a loving foreign family, that’s a better option than the orphanages. We want a loving, caring family for every child.’ To adopt an Indian child, couples must be financially secure and must have been together for more than five years. They must be between 30 and 55, with a combined age of less than 90. Single people are eligible but not same-sex couples.

The vetting procedure for Britons adopting in India is the same as if they were adopting within Britain. Potential adoptees first have to undergo a ‘Homestudy’ assessment by the Department for Education and Skills to check they are suitable parents to adopt.

Once a Home Study Report has been issued, the search begins for a child cleared for adoption in India. When a child is matched with British parents, the Indian government’s Central Adoption Resource Agency and the courts must issue ‘No Objection Certificates’ before the adoption is completed.

Under this system, the Indian end of the process has taken a year to complete. The Indian government is planning to impose short deadlines on each stage of the process to make sure it is completed within 45 days. The new rules will come into force within the next three months.

US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed

First Published: 25 September 2005

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.

"The Department of Defense’s increased requirements for small- and medium-calibre ammunitions have largely been driven by increased weapons training requirements, dictated by the army’s transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force – which was accelerated after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 – and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the report by the General Accounting Office (GAO).

Estimating how many bullets US forces have expended for every insurgent killed is not a simple or precisely scientific matter. The former head of US forces in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, famously claimed that his forces "don’t do body counts".

But senior officers have recently claimed "great successes" in Iraq, based on counting the bodies of insurgents killed. Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, the top US military spokesman in Iraq, said 1,534 insurgents had been seized or killed in a recent operation in the west of Baghdad. Other estimates from military officials suggest that at least 20,000 insurgents have been killed in President George Bush’s "war on terror".

John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, said that, based on the GAO’s figures, US forces had expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005. "How many evil-doers have we sent to their maker using bullets rather than bombs? I don’t know," he said.

"If they don’t do body counts, how can I? But using these figures it works out at around 300,000 bullets per insurgent. Let’s round that down to 250,000 so that we are underestimating."

Pointing out that officials say many of these bullets have been used for training purposes, he said: "What are you training for? To kill insurgents."

Kathy Kelly, a spokeswoman for the peace group Voices in the Wilderness, said Mr Bush believed security for the American people could come only from the use of force. Truer security would be achieved if the US developed fairer relations with other countries and was not involved in the occupation of Iraq. The President, said Ms Kelly, should learn from Israel’s experience of "occupying the Palestinians" rather than buying its ammunition.

The GAO report notes that the three government-owned, contractor-operated plants that produce small- and medium-calibre ammunition were built in 1941.

Though millions of dollars have been spent on upgrading the facilities, they remain unable to meet current munitions needs in their current state. "The government-owned plant producing small-calibre ammunition cannot meet the increased requirements, even with modernisation efforts," said the report.

"Also, commercial producers within the national technology and industrial base have not had the capacity to meet these requirements. As a result, the Department of Defense had to rely at least in part on foreign commercial producers to meet its small-calibre ammunition needs."

A report in Manufacturing & Technology News said that the Pentagon eventually found two producers capable of meeting its requirements. One of these was the US firm Olin-Winchester.

The other was Israel Military Industries, an Israeli ammunition manufacturer linked to the Israeli government, which produces the bulk of weapons and ordnance for the Israeli Defence Force.

The Pentagon reportedly bought 313 million rounds of 5.56mm, 7.62mm and 50-calibre ammunition last year and paid $10m (about £5.5m) more than it would have cost for it to produce the ammunition at its own facilities.

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