news los angeles timess: after

Showing posts with label after. Show all posts

Friday, 27 December 2013

What's next for ANC after Mandela?

By Justice Malala, South African political commentator, Special to CNNDecember 17, 2013 -- Updated 1551 GMT (2351 HKT)

A statue of former South African president Nelson Mandela is unveiled at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on December 16, 2013.After Nelson Mandela's death, South Africa is a country adrift, says Justice MalalaDespite the peace and stability of the past 20 years, storm clouds are loomingSpats over memorial, funeral led to accusations country's leaders are out-of-touchNext election planned for 2014; ANC likely to retain power but may lose massive majorityEditor's note: Justice Malala is a South African political commentator, newspaper columnist and talk show host. Follow him on Twitter @justicemalala. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.

Johannesburg, South Africa (CNN) -- After 10 days of mourning and thousands of emotional eulogies and speeches, South Africa finally buried its most famous son, Nelson Mandela, on Sunday at his rural village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape.

Speaking at the funeral, Ahmed Kathrada, Mandela's close comrade and a man he spent 26 of his 27 years in prison with, brought tears to the 4,500 assembled dignitaries and the nation when he concluded his eulogy:

"When Walter [Sisulu, another Rivonia trialist with whom the two were imprisoned] died I lost a father. Now I have lost a brother. My life is in a void and I don't know who to turn to."

Today the country blinks the tears away from its eyes and confronts its own void: Mandela is gone, and what now?

South Africa is a country adrift. Despite the admirable peace and stability of the past 20 years, storm clouds are looming for the nation today led by President Jacob Zuma, Mandela's third successor.

The spat over the apparent failure by government to make proper arrangements for Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- a fierce Zuma critic -- to attend Mandela's funeral added to perceptions that a small coterie of arrogant, out-of-touch leaders around Zuma were at the helm of the country.

In the same week, Parliament published a notorious new secrecy law (the Protection of State Information Act) which will criminalize whistleblowers and journalists for exposing stories such as the spending of ZAR208-million ($20M) of taxpayer funds on Zuma's rural palace in his home village, Nkandla.

Zuma ascended to power in 2009 with promises of jobs for the poor, but unemployment has stubbornly hovered at 25%. About 52.8% of young people under 34 are on the streets.

The economy is in trouble, with growth forecasts cut again and again over the past four years. Third quarter growth was an anaemic 0.7%, and full-year GDP growth is forecast at 1.9% by most economists, while the rest of South Africa's peers such as Nigeria forge ahead at growth rates of about 5.6%.

Perceptions of corruption are on the rise, says the non-governmental organization Corruption Watch. The country slipped three places in Transparency International's corruption index this year to 72nd out of 177 countries.

Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's successor who was removed from the presidency by Zuma in 2008, said last week that there was increasing frustration among ordinary people about the direction the country was taking.

"So when they look at some of the things that are happening....when they see this corruption in the country, which seems to be increasing at all levels of government, the people are aggrieved. They are saying but this is not what freedom was for," he said.

The 10-day period of Mandela's mourning amplified Mbeki's words.

'Fake interpreter' scandal

The now internationally notorious "fake interpreter" at Mandela's memorial, for example, has extensive links with the ruling ANC: he is employed at a company owned by the party's religious desk chief.

The man is not proficient in sign language. He is also schizophrenic -- and he stood a meter from some of the world's most powerful leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

Not a single person has been sanctioned for hiring him, seven days after the scandal broke. Ordinary South Africans inured to corruption told me last week that they have no doubt that his hiring was corruptly influenced.

Apart from shining a harsh new light on our current leaders' failings, though, there is an added silver lining to Mandela's death. Members of the ruling ANC and society are now asking questions about the current crop of leaders' ability to get South Africa out of its current slump.

As Mandela was buried, the big political question is whether Zuma's presidency -- wracked by scandal and presiding over a protest for services such as water and electricity every second day -- would survive after he was booed in front of the international media and more than 91 heads of states and dignitaries.

A snap poll by South Africa's largest weekend newspaper, the Sunday Times, published on the day of Mandela's funeral, shows that 51% of registered ANC voters believe Zuma should resign following widespread coverage of the use of taxpayers money to build his rural palace.

South Africa's fifth democratic elections will be held in the next six months, and although analysts expect the ANC to win without much trouble, few expect the party to hold on to its huge majority. From its current 65.9% the ANC's support could fall to less than 60% according to one group.

Is South Africa about to descend into racial conflagration because Mandela is gone, though? Doomsayers have beaten this drum many times before in the past 19 years, even when Mandela left government in 1999. It has not come to pass, and is a scenario that is unlikely.

The real challenges for South Africa today are poverty, inequality and unemployment. Zuma's presidency has failed to implement necessary structural changes -- the ANC is in alliance with the powerful trade union federation Cosatu and kowtows to it on labour policy, leading to government paralysis -- to create jobs and economic growth. Education is poor -- last year the government failed to deliver textbooks to some pupils for up to nine months.

The young are ubiquitous on the streets and they are now being attracted in significant numbers by the young, former ANC radical Julius Malema's breakaway party Economic Freedom Fighters. It advocates Zimbabwe-style nationalization and land grabs.

It is highly unlikely that these challenges will unseat Mandela's ANC from power - yet. However, with Mandela gone and the halo of the liberation era slowly slipping away, coupled with revulsion in many quarters of the rampant corruption and stasis of the current regime, a change is coming.

For many here, that change will come with the 2019 national elections. In the meantime, South Africa will have a noisy election in 2014, remain on an unremarkable growth path and fail to live up to the promise it showed when Mandela became president in 1994.

It is a path that the unemployed young, standing at the fence outside the largesse enjoyed by their leaders, may one day want to tilt at unless something is done, urgently, to improve their lives.

/* push in config for this share instance */cnn_shareconfig.push({"id" : "cnn_sharebar2","url" : "http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/17/opinion/justice-malala-mandela-death-anc/index.html","title" : "Mandela\'s death shines uncomfortable light on South Africa\'s ANC"});

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Thursday, 26 December 2013

South Africa's Kallis to quit tests after Durban match

(Reuters) - South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis will retire from test and first-class cricket after the Boxing Day test against India in Durban, the country's cricket board said on Wednesday.

Kallis, cricket's fourth highest test run-getter, would be available, however, for selection in the limited-over formats, Cricket South Africa said in a statement.

"It's been an honour and a privilege to have been part of the South African test team since making my debut 18 years ago," said the 38-year-old, who has amassed 13174 runs and taken 292 wickets from 165 tests.

"I have enjoyed every moment out in the middle but I just feel that the time is right to hang up my test whites," said the all-rounder who has also accumulated 11574 runs from 325 one-day internationals.

"It wasn't an easy decision to come to, especially with Australia around the corner and the success this team is enjoying, but I feel that I have made my contribution in this format."

After the first test ended in a draw, world number one Proteas take on India in the second and final test on Thursday.

They will host Australia for three tests and as many Twenty20 internationals in a series starting in February.

(Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Turkish PM presents new cabinet list after 3 ministers resign over graft inquiry

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan presented a new list of cabinet ministers to President Abdullah Gul on Wednesday after three ministers resigned over a high-level graft inquiry, sources said.

It was unclear if more than the resigned ministers had been replaced. Erdogan is expected to make a statement later amid the spiralling corruption scandal.

(Writing by Ece Toksabay, editing by David Evans)

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Wednesday, 25 December 2013

Amnestied Pussy Riot pair criticise Putin after release

By Maria Vasilyeva and Nikolai Isayev

KRASNOYARSK/NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (Reuters) - Two members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot freed from prison on Monday derided President Vladimir Putin's amnesty that led to their early release as a propaganda stunt and promised to fight for human rights.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, shouted "Russia without Putin" following her release from a Siberian prison, hours after band mate Maria Alyokhina, 25, was freed from jail in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The women had two months left to serve but walked free days after a pardon from Putin freed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky eight months before the end of his more than 10-year jail term, decisions widely seen as intended to improve Russia's image before it hosts the Winter Olympics in February.

"It is a disgusting and cynical act," Tolokonnikova, looking relaxed in a black coat and chequered shirt, told Reuters at her grandmother's apartment building in the snowbound Siberian city of Kransoyarsk where she was jailed.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were sentenced to two years in prison for a profanity-laced protest against Putin in a Russian Orthodox church in 2012 after a trial Kremlin critics said was part of a clampdown on dissent in his third presidential term.

The case caused an outcry in the West, but there was much less sympathy for the women at home than abroad. They had been due for release in early March.

Putin, who denies jailing people for political reasons, has said the amnesty would show that the Russian state is humane.

The measure, however, does not benefit opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is barred from elections for years by a five-year suspended sentence on a theft charge he says was Kremlin revenge for his activism. Putin, in power since 2000, has not ruled out seeking another six-year term in 2018.

Alyokhina echoed critics who said the amnesty was far too narrow and not an act of mercy but a political ply by Putin.

"I do not think it is a humanitarian act, I think it is a PR stunt," she said in comments to the Russian Internet and TV channel Dozhd. "My attitude to the president has not changed."

Tolokonnikova, who staged a hunger strike earlier this year and drew attention to stark conditions and long hours of mandatory labour in the jail where she was previously held, said she would fight for prisoners' rights.

"Everything is just starting, so fasten your seat belts," she said, suggesting Pussy Riot - jailed for a "punk prayer" in the main cathedral of Russia's dominant faith - would continue to use attention-grabbing protests to make their point.

"We will unite our efforts in our human rights activity," Alyokhina said in Nizhny Novgorod. "We will try to sing our the song to the end."

"I'M NOT AFRAID"

Bundled in a thick green prison jacket and with her long curly hair loose, Alyokhina said she would have rejected the amnesty if that been a option. She said she wants to focus on fighting for the rights of those still behind bars.

"I'm not afraid of anything anymore, believe me," she said.

In an about-face, Putin unexpectedly pardoned Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos oil company chief who had been in jail since his arrest in 2003 and conviction in two trials that critics said were punishment for challenging the Kremlin leader.

Khodorkovsky, who was freed on Friday and flown to Germany, said Putin is seeking to improve his image while also showing that he is confident in his grip on power after weathering large opposition protests and winning a third term last year.

Putin wants to send "a signal to society and the world that he feels secure and is not afraid", said Khodorkovsky, who supporters feared would remain in jail throughout Putin's tenure, in an interview with Russian magazine the New Times.

The amnesty is also expected to spare from trial 30 people arrested after a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling. They face charges punishable by up to seven years' in jail.

A pro-Kremlin lawmaker said he thought the amnesty and pardon would help to remove irritants in ties with the West.

"Political grievances against Russia will shrink somewhat," Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia's parliament, said.

But Putin has said the amnesty was not drafted with the Greenpeace activists or Pussy Riot in mind. In an annual news conference last week, he described Pussy Riot's protest as disgraceful, saying it "went beyond all boundaries".

Rights activists have estimated the amnesty will free fewer than 1,500 of the 564,000 convicts in Russian prisons. Another 114,000 people are in pre-trial detention, the government says.

A third Pussy Riot member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was freed last year when a judge suspended her sentence on appeal.

(Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Iran Claims 'MI6 Spy' On Trial After Capture

Iran says it has arrested a "spy" accused of working for the British secret intelligence service.

A court official said the man had confessed to his alleged crimes and was on trial.

He was detained in the town of Kerman in southeast Iran after authorities spent months tracking him down, the semi-official ISNA news agency said.

The suspect is accused of meeting four British intelligence operatives and giving them information.

Dadkhoda Salari, head of the Kerman revolutionary court, said: "Through the efforts of Iranian security forces, an MI6 spy has been arrested.

"He has met British intelligence officers in person 11 times, both inside the country and abroad, and provided them with intelligence."

It has not been suggested the alleged spy is a Briton, and Tehran has a history of announcing the arrest of people it claims are spying without releasing more details.

But the news is potentially embarrassing at a time when diplomatic relations between the UK and Iran had been improving after a two-year freeze.

On Friday, Iran's new envoy to Britain, Hassan Habibollah-Zadeh, held talks in London on his first visit since his appointment in November.

And a British diplomat, non-resident charge d'affaires Ajay Sharma, said he had "detailed and constructive discussions" about the UK's relationship with Iran during talks earlier this month.

He visited the site of the UK's embassy in the Iranian capital to assess the damage caused when it was ransacked by a mob in 2011, an incident which prompted the Government to pull its staff out of the country.

The thaw in relations between Tehran and the international community has also seen a deal reached over its nuclear programme.

Responding to the reported arrest a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We don't comment on intelligence matters."

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Friday, 13 December 2013

Jane Birkin's daughter dies after apartment fall

Photographer Kate Barry, daughter of singer-actress Jane Birkin and famed Bond film composer John Barry, has died after falling from her fourth floor Paris flat in an apparent suicide.

The 46-year-old was found beneath her flat in the city's wealthy 16th district on Wednesday evening.

Barry lived alone and anti-depressants were discovered inside her flat, which was locked from the inside, police said.

She was the daughter of British-born Birkin, best known as the muse and partner of late French singer Serge Gainsbourg, and British composer John Barry, famous for writing 11 James Bond movie themes including 'Goldfinger' and 'Diamonds Are Forever'.

Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti paid rich tribute to Kate Barry, saying that her "loving and heartfelt thoughts" were with a "family we all love".

Barry had studied fashion but turned to photography later. She had drug and alcohol problems which prompted her to open a centre for addicts near Paris.

"Her fragility touched us," Filippetti said, adding that Barry was an outstanding photographer whose "sense of light and composition was very pictorial".

Kate Barry had said in an interview that she was fascinated by photography as a child, starting out with Gainsbourg's Polaroid.

"For me it was something miraculous, the image appeared almost immediately," she said.

Birkin and John Barry, who died in 2011, separated in 1967, the year of Kate Barry's birth, and she was brought up until her teenage years by Birkin and Gainsbourg.

At the time, they were the most famous couple in France, as much for their bohemian and hedonistic lifestyle as for their work. Gainsbourg, a chronic alcoholic, died, aged 62, in 1991.

Kate Barry was also the half-sister of actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.

Her photographs had appeared in leading French magazines such as Paris Match, Elle and Le Figaro and she had recently held an exhibition of her works entitled "Point of View. Portraits. Still Life" in Paris.

She had one son, Roman, who was born in 1987.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Two men arrested for Hitler gas chamber tweets after football game

Police in london have arrested two men because of tweets they sent following a football game in the city on 6 October.

The offending tweets made reference to Hitler and gas chambers and were described as being of an anti-Semitic nature.

They were sent after West Ham United beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 on 6 October at White Hart Lane.

Both men, aged 24 and 22, were arrested that their homes in the city yesterday and are being questioned on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

A third man, aged 48, was detained earlier this month as part of the same investigation.

All suspects have been bailed to a date in late January.

In a separate investigation that also dealt with anti-Semitic tweets relating to the same match, a 55-year-old man from Hemel Hempstead was arrested and cautioned on 28 November for malicious communications.

Before the game, West Ham’s chairman had sent a letter to fans advising them that a zero-tolerance approach would be taken against any discriminatory behaviour.

Spurs fans have been known to use the word ‘Yid’ which is seen as derogatory towards Jewish people. However, they see it as solidarity with Jewish supporters who are often targeted by travelling fans.

Explosion forces evacuation of busy Belfast retail district

European leaders ‘should hang their heads’ over Syrian refugee crisis

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Three men arrested for anti-Semitic tweets after Premier League match

LONDON (Reuters) - Three men have been arrested for posting anti-Semitic comments on Twitter following Tottenham Hotspur's Premier League match against West Ham United in October, police said on Friday.

Two men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested on Thursday in London and in Wiltshire, while a 48-year-old man was arrested at his home in Canning Town in London last week on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

The investigation following the match on October 6 was triggered by complaints about tweets that referred to Hitler and the gas chambers.

Traditionally Spurs has had a large Jewish following and its supporters have been the target of abuse from opposition fans.

Supporters of the club often chant "Yid Army" and "Yiddo" at matches, using a term deemed offensive by some in the Jewish community, but fan groups say the term is used as a badge of honour rather than a derogatory remark.

However, the governing Football Association and police have warned that using the word "Yid" could lead to prosecution and a ban on attending matches.

All three men have been bailed until January while the police make further enquiries.

In a separate investigation also dealing with anti-Semitic tweets relating to the same match, a 55-year-old man from Hemel Hempstead north of London was arrested and cautioned on November 28 for malicious communications, police said.

(Reporting By Freya Berry, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.