Prince Charles with King Zwelonke Sigcawn of Xhosa tribe.
Winnie Mandela and Graca Machel
Makaziwe Mandela on the right
Friday, June 27, 2014
Nelson Mandela Memory
From left Winnie mandela, Jacob Zuma, Winnie Mandela
The first African President of South Africa - Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Uruguay striker Luis Suarez was banned for nine matches
Uruguay striker Luis Suarez was banned for nine matches by FIFA on
Thursday after being found guilty of biting Italian defender Giorgio
Chiellini.
Suarez was also suspended from any football-related activity for four months and fined 100,000 Swiss francs ($111,000).
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Andre Ayew
Andre Ayew celebrates his goal equalising the score against the United
States at the World Cup. But the U.S. went on to score again in the
final minutes of the game.
Monday, June 16, 2014
World cup 2014
I am so proud of Africa, I am proud to be African.
Ghana - The Black Stars.
Nigeria - Super Eagles.
Cote d'Ivoire - The Elephants.
Cameroon - Indomitable Lions
Algeria- Les Fennecs
Friday, June 13, 2014
Croatia coach is angry with referee after loss
Furious Croatia coach Niko Kovac blamed "out of his depth" referee
Yuichi Nishimura and warned the World Cup could turn into a circus after
a contentious penalty decision effectively cost his team the opening
game of the tournament against Brazil.Japanese ref Nishimura ruled that Croatia's Dejan Lovren had fouled Fred
when the Brazilian fell to the floor with 20 minutes remaining and the
score at 1-1. Neymar converted the penalty for his second goal of the
game and they went on to win 3-1 in Thursday's Group A match.If that's a penalty, we don't need to play football any more. Let's play basketball instead.
"My lads have fought for two years to reach the World Cup. They
worked hard, prepared, and then they were faced with such a penalty
decision here. You can imagine walking into our dressing room -- what
kind of mood my lads are in."
Kovac said he did not blame Fred for his theatrical fall.
"The referee was well-placed, he was not unsighted, he saw everything
and he took that decision," he said. "I don't blame Fred at all."
Croatia's fans were also furious with the Japanese official.
"I'll never eat sushi again," said Goran, a Croatian fan who attended
the game as he ate dinner afterward. "I guess the world was against us
today."
Despite the setback, Kovac said he remained confident his team could progress from the group.
They play Cameroon in the hot and humid Amazon city of Manaus on June 18 and Mexico in Recife five days later.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Doctors forced to carry patients
The Gauteng health department apologised on Friday for
the inconvenience broken lifts at Natalspruit Hospital in Katlehong
have caused.
"The department would like to sincerely apologise to patients,
staff, and users of the hospital for the inconvenience caused by the
malfunctioning lifts at Natalspruit Hospital," spokesman Simon Zwane
said.
The hospital's five lifts were more than 50 years old and spare parts were unavailable because the lift model was obsolete.
Democratic Alliance health spokesman in the province Jack Bloom expressed concern about the state of affairs at the hospital.
"I am horrified by the report today [Friday] that doctors are forced
to carry patients on their backs to operating theatres at the
Natalspruit Hospital because of broken lifts," he said in a statement.
Zwane said patients were assisted to the second floor of the
hospital for operations when the lifts were out of order, and were kept
on that floor while they recuperated to ensure they did not strain or
injure themselves.
Problems with the hospital's CT scanner were mitigated by transferring patients requiring scans to neighbouring hospitals.
"Natalspruit Hospital's radiology team schedules bookings and accompany our patients to these hospitals," Zwane said.
Emergency cases were transferred to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
to ensure patients were treated promptly and with minimal inconvenience.
Zwane said the Natalspruit Hospital was faced with an increasing
number of patients, including walk-in patients who could not be turned
away.
"The hospital is currently facing an increased demand due to an
escalation in the burden of disease, coupled with the increase in
population size and indigent patients who have no place to go after
being discharged."
The number of nurses at the hospital was increased to help cope with these problems, he said.
Bloom asked when the New Natalspruit Hospital would be up an running.
"Former premier Nomvula Mokonyane promised that the New Natalspruit
Hospital would be opened in July this year, but there have been repeated
delays previously."
Zwane said a team comprising officials from the health and
infrastructure development departments was tasked with commissioning the
new hospital.
"The process of commissioning involves the installation and testing
of medical equipment and systems, induction of hospital staff, and
technical snagging related to the hospital infrastructure."
The new hospital would be ready to receive patients after this
process, which was expected to be completed by the end of next month.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Girl left in forest in Central African Republic war
CARNOT, Central African Republic – When gunfire rang out through the
village just after dawn, when neighbors dropped their coffee to flee,
even when her mother grabbed three younger children and ran for her
life, the 10-year-old girl did not move.
It was not terror that pinned Hamamatou Harouna to the ground,
although she was terrified. It was that polio had left her unable to
walk.
So all she could do was wait and watch, paralyzed, as the vicious war
between Muslims and Christians in Central African Republic came to her
village. The Christian fighters were going from door to door, and she
wondered if she would die.
That’s when her 12-year-old brother came to her rescue. Barely bigger
than his sister, Souleymane struggled to hoist her, all 40 pounds of
her, onto his back. Around his neck she clasped her calloused hands,
dirty from pulling herself over the ground.
They set off, barefoot, disappearing into the dense tropical forest
as fast as they could manage. Her legs could not hook onto her brother’s
back, and her body drooped like a dead weight.
Hamamatou had never felt so heavy in her life.
Over the past year, conflict between Muslims and Christians has
killed thousands of people in the Central African Republic, a nation of
about 4.6 million that sits almost precisely at the heart of Africa. As
families flee, it is often children who carry the weight of the crisis
on their backs.
Nearly half a million children have been displaced by violence in the
country last year, with many hiding out in forests, according to
UNICEF. Hundreds have become separated from their families, lost or
simply too slow to keep up.
That’s what left Hamamatou and her brother trudging along the red
dirt path on an unlikely journey that would reflect a world turned
upside down by the complexities of war. The AP pieced together the story
from interviews with the girl over two weeks and information from witnesses, health workers, priests and medical records.
Hamamatou, a Muslim girl, grew up in Guen, a village so remote that
it can hardly be reached during the rainy season. Before the conflict,
it was home to about 2,500 Muslims, a quarter of the population, many of
whom worked as diamond miners. Today only three remain.
Life had not been kind to Hamamatou. She lost her father at age 7. A
year later, her limbs withered from polio, a disease that had almost
died worldwide but is now coming back in countries torn by war and poverty.
The pain started in her toes, and a traditional healer could do
little for her. Within a month, she could no longer walk. Soon she had
to crawl across the dirt.
Most days she helped her mother sell tiny plastic bags of salt and
okra, each one tied firmly with a knot. Hamamatou had never been to
school a day in her life, but she spoke two African languages and knew how to make change.
Her brother, Souleymane, doted on her like a parent, helping her get
around as best he could. With what little money he had, he bought her
stunning silver earrings, with chains that swayed from a ball in each ear.
On the day of the attack, Christian militia fighters burst out of the
forest with machetes and rifles to seek revenge on the civilians they
accused of supporting Muslim rebels. Hamamatou’s mother scooped up her baby, grabbed the hands of two other children and disappeared into the masses. Souleymane was left carrying his sister.
He headed deeper and deeper into the forest on paths used by local
cattle herders. His back hunched forward from his sister’s weight. The
cacophony of insects drowned out the sound of his labored breathing.
The crisp morning air gave way to an unforgiving afternoon sun.
Hamamatou didn’t know how far they had walked, only that they had not
yet reached the next town, 6 miles (10 kilometers) away. It was clear
they would never make it to safety this way.
Exhausted, Souleymane placed his sister down on the ground and told
her he was heading for help. If he didn’t come back, he said, she should
make as much noise as possible so someone would find her.
Hamamatou told her brother she would wait for him in the grass, in the shade of a large tree.
As evening fell, hunger set in. Hamamatou had nothing to eat or
drink. She talked aloud to her brother and mother as though they were
still beside her. But with each sound of the grass moving, she feared wild boars would come to eat her.
She cried until her eyelids were swollen. She said aloud: “I have been abandoned.”
___
Despite decades of near anarchy, Central African Republic had little
history of overt sectarian violence until 2013, when Muslim rebels from
the north invaded the capital and overthrew the president.
The rebels, known as the Seleka, looted and killed Christians but
largely spared Muslims. The hatred toward them mounted, fuelled by
longstanding resentment that a Muslim minority of about 15 percent still
made up most of the merchant class in a desperately poor country.
And so when the Seleka were pushed out in January, Christian fighters
within minutes descended upon Muslim shops and claimed Muslim homes.
The backlash turned into a blood bath, and hundreds of thousands fled
their homes. Among them was Hamamatou’s family.
As Hamamatou sat on the same patch of forest, her stomach rumbled.
She dragged herself toward the grass she had seen the cattle eat. That
night, when it rained, she sipped from the puddles.
She was growing weaker by the day. And Souleymane was wrong – no matter how much noise she made, no one could hear her.
Boy tied to bus stop highlights struggled for disabled indians
Mumbai – The nine-year-old boy dressed in blue lay listlessly on the
pavement in the scorching Mumbai summer afternoon, his ankle tethered
with rope to a bus stop, unheeded by pedestrians strolling past.
Lakhan Kale cannot hear or speak and suffers from cerebral palsy and
epilepsy, so his grandmother and carer tied him up to keep him safe
while she went to work, selling toys and flower garlands on the city’s
roadsides.
“What else can I do? He can’t talk, so how will he tell anyone if he
gets lost?” said homeless Sakhubai Kale, 66, who raised Lakhan on the
street by the bus stop shaded by the hanging roots of a banyan tree.
Lakhan’s father died several years ago and his mother walked out on the family, his grandmother told AFP.
A photograph of him tied up appeared in a local newspaper this week, sparking concerns among charities and the police, and he has since been taken into care at a government-run institution.
But activists say his plight on the streets comes as little surprise
in India, where those with disabilities face daily stigma and
discrimination and a lack of facilities to assist them.
Kale said Lakhan “tends to wander off” and that there was no one else
to stop him walking into traffic while she and her 12-year-old
granddaughter, Rekha, were out making a living.
At night she would tie him to her own leg as they slept on the pavement so she would know if he tried to walk away.
“I am a single old woman. Nobody paid attention to me until the newspaper report,” she said.
“He was in a special school, but they sent him back.”
Social worker Meena Mutha has since managed to place Lakhan in a
state-run south Mumbai home, which takes in a range of needy children
from the disabled to the destitute.
“Residental homes are very, very few. There’s a major need for the government to do something, a social responsibility
to provide residential centres for children like Lakhan,” said Mutha, a
trustee at the Manav Foundation helping people with mental illness.
She said government-run centres that put together children with
different needs did not always have the range of facilities required.
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