Israeli Aggression

Mahmoud Darwish, poet and writer: born al Birweh, Palestine 13 March 1941. The poet Mahmoud Darwish was the voice of… Read More »Obituary mahmoud darwish

 By Tahir Sema

ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has been elected President of the Republic of South Africa.

A man well liked by South Africans, and even many of the ANC critics have given Motlanthe there support.

A biographical profile of Motlanthe as told by the ANC:
Kgalema Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, to a working class family. Most of his childhood was spent in Alexandra and much of his adult life was spent in Meadowlands, Soweto.
 
In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training.
 
The unit was later instructed to transform its function from recruitment to sabotage. While some members of the unit left the country, he and Stan Nkosi remained in the country to establish such a machinery. Their unit was also involved in smuggling MK cadres in and out of the country via Swaziland.
 
On 14 April 1976 they were arrested for furthering the aims of the ANC and were kept in detention for 11 months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg.
 
In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island.
 
After his release in 1987, he was tasked with strengthening the union movement.
 
Motlanthe worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in charge of education. Among other things, he was involved in training workers to form shopsteward committees.
 
In 1992 he was elected NUM General Secretary.
 
He was instrumental in negotiating a deal for mineworkers under which their wage increases would be pegged to productivity at a time when the gold price was low, and the industry was closing marginal mines. This deal helped to avert massive retrenchments in the sector.
 
He was involved in the establishment of the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC), which was wholly owned by the Mineworkers Investment Trust, with seed capital of R3 million. This has proven to be one of the best examples of effective economic empowerment in the country.
 
During his tenure, NUM established the JB Marks Education Trust, which provided bursaries to mineworkers and their dependants, and a resident trade union school called the Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre, located in Yeoville, Johannesburg. He was also involved in establishing the Mineworkers Development Agency, which focused on the developmental needs of ex-mineworkers, their dependants and communities.
 
While in NUM he served on the Miners’ International Federation, and was involved in exchange programmes with the United Mineworkers of Australia.
 
When the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he was put in charge of re-establishing the legal structures of the organisation in the PWV region and was elected its first chairperson. He often travelled around  the country with Walter Sisulu visiting violence flashpoints.
 
He was elected unopposed as the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1997 and was re-elected in 2002. Among other things, his responsibilities included the development of party-to-party relations in the region, across the countries of the South, and around the world.
 
In December 2007 he was elected ANC Deputy President at its 52nd National Conference in Polokwane.
 
In July 2008 he was appointed Minister in The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.

Meanwhile Mugabe has been left “devastated” and “disturbed”.

The Herald newspaper reported today that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has called the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki "devastating".
He reportedly told journalists on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday that "It’s devastating news that President Thabo Mbeki is no longer the president of South Africa, but that is the action of the South African people. Who are we to judge [them]? But it is very disturbing".

Read More »Kgalema motlanthe elected president of south Africa

One of the most eagerly-anticipated games in the history of the Sony PlayStation has been delayed because of concerns some of the background music may offend Muslims, the game’s developers said today.

LittleBigPlanet, in which gamers can customise the rag-doll protagonist Sackboy and allow it to roam through an interactive world filled with different challenges, had been hailed by video games website IGN as "nothing short of astounding" and given a review rating of 9.5 out of 10.

But its release date has been put back after one of its background music tracks, a song by Mali-born artist Toumani Diabate, was found to have included expressions from the Koran, which could be interpreted as an offence to Muslims.

"We’re sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Koran," a statement on the game’s website read.

"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence this may have caused.

The developers added "Obviously MM and Sony together took this very seriously. LBP should
be enjoyable by all."

Sapa-AFP

Read More »Anticipated videogame delayed over possible offence to muslims

By Tammy Obeidallah

(source: Palestine Chronicle)

The human catastrophe gripping Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated that nation on January 12 rightfully dominated nearly every newscast for a week. With devastation of such unimaginable proportions, there are the riveting stories of despair and courage, along with a relatively new and hideous phenomenon:  politicization of the disaster and its aftermath.

Media opportunists have reached new depths of hypocrisy and ineptitude in covering the tragedy. Mainstream television networks and newspapers touted the overwhelming US military response, as well as other countries that were among the first to reach the victims in Haiti, including Israel.

Conspicuously absent from the kudos list were two of the first responders, Cuba and Venezuela.

Read More »Haiti hypocrisy hides another war crime in Gaza