Archive Page 3
Too many refugees denied their rights, despite recent gains – UNHCR’s 76-member Executive Committee @ AGM – Switzerland
UNHCR – – The United Nations H? C? Refugee Agency [amazing their website doesn't say what HC stands for! grrrrrrr High Commissioner? what is a high commisioner? is there a mid & low one too?]
LINK – UNHCR – Refugee Agency
LINK -UNHCR’s track record – [Helped "50 million people restart their lives" in 50 yrs]
UN official Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller described the past year as “not the worst but certainly not the best of times” in terms of the international community’s performance on refugee protection issues, in an address yesterday to the annual meeting of UNHCR’s 76-member Executive Committee in Geneva.
Continue reading ‘●Geneva: UN refugee agency – report on international protection issues’
Filed under: REFUGEES, WORLD | Leave a Comment
Tags: REFUGEE, UN refugee agency, UNHCR
Attacks on Somalis spread, fuelled by rumours of rapes.
ANOTHER attack on Somali- owned shops on Tuesday night led to the ransacking of one shop and the evacuation of more than 20 others in KwaNobuhle outside Uitenhage.The latest looting and riots were apparently triggered by the alleged rape of two young girls, aged nine and 13, by a Somali, 30, in KwaNobuhle on September 29, although it was only reported on Monday.Word about the alleged rape spread rapidly through the community. The unrest may also have spilled over from a violent outbreak in Jeffreys Bay on Monday night.Police spokesman Marianette Olivier said the two girls had been admitted to the Provincial Hospital on Monday, and the accused Somali had been arrested.Abdi Habarwa, spokesman for the Eastern Cape division of the Somali Association of South Africa, claimed the attacks on Somalis stemmed from xenophobia.“We are very frightened. We don‘t feel safe here any more. The xenophobia started as a small thing in Jeffreys Bay, but now it is in Uitenhage and it‘s spreading,” said Habarwa.
Continue reading ‘●KwaNobuhle: Xenophobia attack near Uitenhage South Africa’
Filed under: SOUTH AFRICA, XENOPHOBIA | Leave a Comment
Tags: KwaNobuhle, somali, Uitenhage, VIOLENCE, xenophoia
LINK – To article on Protest march in Queenstown by residents – walking side by side with Somalis yesterday to protesting against ongoing attacks against nationals from the east African state. A Somali mother, Sahra Omar Farah, 41 and her three children, Mohamed Isse Osman, 19 and Ibrahim Isse Osman, 14 and Asha Isse Osman, 12, were brutally stabbed and hacked to death in their spaza shop two weeks ago.
“QUEENSTOWN PROTEST: Community members gather for the anti-xenophobia march yesterday, joined by Somalians who shared the pain of the family of the murdered mother and her three children.”
Picture: THEO JEPTHA
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● Latest info on refugee camps status by Tracey Saunders
Re: Extension Of Closure Deadlines & DHA Rapid Status Determination Process.
Deadlines Loom For Displaced People In The Western Cape As Camps Face Closure – 8 October 2008
Continue reading ‘●Cape Town: Xenophobia latest – Solamli family murdered & camps about to close’
Filed under: SOUTH AFRICA, XENOPHOBIA | Leave a Comment
Tags: CAMPS, CAPE TOWN, somalia, XENOPHOBIA
It’s ever so tough being an animal on planet earth – bloggers speak up for them
If you want to get involved and find out all about it – here’s a excellent site to go to
http://www.worldanimalday.org.uk/index.asp
It’s jam-packed with info and what and how to[s]
MISSION STATEMENT – WORLD ANIMAL DAY
To celebrate animal life in all its formsTo celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom
To acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives – from being our companions, supporting and helping us, to bringing a sense of wonder into our lives
To acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives
Top photo by ThroughMyEye – LINK
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Is it ALL non human animals I wonder?
Bacteria, viruses, amoebas, periwinkles etc?
Need to include all living critters in my book
food chain and all
interconnectedness….
LINK – Distance healing event for all animals – Saturday 4 October
Filed under: Animals | Leave a Comment
Tags: Animals, PHOTOS, world animal day
Filed under: AFRICA, CAPE TOWN, XENOPHOBIA | Closed
Tags: CAPE TOWN, Gauteng, REFUGEES, SOUTH AFRICA, UNHCR, XENOPHOBIA
2 300 displaced people by the May xenophobic attacks remained in three consolidated camps – Provincial government – gave the refugees the option of reintegrating or going back to their home countries – will close all the camps by end of September.
Refugees to receive money for rent – By Francis Hweshe
Refugees in camps who opted for reintegration are set to receive R750 to pay for one month’s rental accommodation from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Continue reading ‘●Xenophobia survivors: Rent for a tent from UNHCR – R750 (92.48 USD) per month’
Filed under: HUMAN RIGHTS, SOUTH AFRICA, XENOPHOBIA | Leave a Comment
Tags: REFUGEES, SOUTH AFRICA, UNHCR, XENOPHOBIA
●Cape Town: UNHCR attacks civil society – on role during Xenophobia crisis – ARE THEY INSANE?!
Bloody Marvellous! Read the response to UNHCR attack – endorsed by Mike Louw, Cosatu, ALP, TAC, UCT, MSF, PSAM, HST, ARASA, OUT, RHRU, SWEAT, CSPRI, ALN, SCAT, Sonke Gender Justice plus comments at the end of it
BIZLINKS’ REQUEST: PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THE FOLLOWING WIDELY!
Hi All
The press statement released on Friday 19 September by the UNHCR was an unfounded attack on the role of civil society during the xenophobia crisis. Therefore, it has been necessary to respond to the UNHCR with the release of this joint press statement endorsed by several organisations. Civil society has been unified in condemning the UNHCR statement.
Please read the attached press statement and the attached document which is a list of expenditure during the xenophobia campaign. Although donations were made to TAC, and TAC played a central role in the distribution of humanitarian aid, many other organisations and individuals making up civil society have played a major role throughout.
Scott Dunlop
TAC Communications
021 422 1490
084 719 8258
LINK – To view the expenditure of the xenophobic violence, click here [pdf file]
LINK – UNHCR [the UN Refugee Agency]
“The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) protects and supports refugees and assists in their return or resettlement.” [UNHCR]
LINK – The article quoting the UNHCR press statement
LINK – TAC refugee status report [pdf file]
LINK – TAC website – you can register & follow the xenophobia links on the left to find out all about the campaign.
LINK – TAC [Treatment Action Campaign]
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JOINT PRESS STATEMENT BY CIVIL SOCIETY: ON UNHCR CRITICISM OF CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE DURING THE XENOPHOBIA CRISIS
Tuesday 23 September 2008
On Friday 19 September 2008 the UNHCR office in South Africa released a press statement criticizing the “negative role civil society has played” in the xenophobia crisis since May 2008. The UNHCR press statement was in response to a joint civil society report which, amongst other areas of attention, detailed the failure of the UNHCR to act according to its’ mandate during the crisis.
At the beginning of the crisis civil society recognized the importance of utilizing the expertise and practical support of the UNHCR as the internationally experienced and mandated body in dealing with issues of displacement. With this in mind, many attempts were made to invite the UNHCR to meetings, address concerns to them via correspondence and work together with them.
Filed under: CAPE TOWN, TAC, UPDATE, XENOPHOBIA | Leave a Comment
Tags: ALN, ALP, ARASA, CAPE TOWN, CSPRI, HST, HUMAN RIGHTS, Khayelitsha, MSF, OUT, PSAM, REFUGEES, RHRU, SCAT, SOETWATER, Sonke Gender Justice, SWEAT, TAC UCT, UNHCR, Vickers Road, Wadeville, xenophonia
Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in autumn, the rhythm of the earth and of nature. Life is the cry of cicadas signaling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish frolicking in a stream. Life is the joy beautiful music instills in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena. Life is all things.
● Quote by Buddhist Philosopher Daisaku Ikeda
● Photo: by Rana Pipiens with a facinating account about the Lotus flower
LINK – Daily Quotes
The Spring equinox?
In astronomy…. An equinox is the moment in time (not a whole day) when the centre of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth’s equator, occurring around March 20 and September 22 each year.
LINK – for more info on an equinox – Wikipedia
● Photo: by © Bahman Farzad The most exquisite collection of lotus images I have ever seen – absolutely uba!
Filed under: Buddhism, DAISAKU IKEDA, PHOTOS, nature | Leave a Comment
Tags: PHOTOS, QUOTE, FLOWERS, DAISAKU IKEDA, Buddhism, spring, equinox, astronomy, lotus flower
Click on image to go to source & see Zapiro’s other brilliant cartoons – the man is a true genius – THE doyenn of political satire
Zapiro – More @ Mail & Guardian Online [www.mg.co.za]
I’m sooooo shocked that the ANC hadn’t the decency – no matter what shenanigans are going on behind the scenes – to wait for Mbeki’s full term as president to end – I’m feeling depressed – I think we’re in trouble…
Zuma is giving a press conference as I write – he is reading what he has to say – he has hardly looked at the audience as he speaks – and I hear no reason why Mbeki has resigned – “recalled” – were was he? I’m surprised that Zuma didn’t say it was for family reasons that he’s stepped down @ least it would save face for SA in the eyes of the world – great way to turn the investors off
I thought it was ambassadors that are recalled – the ANC have fired him, that’s what.
“It was such a painful decision we had to make..”
bollocks! You couldn’t wait 4 more months?
Politicians think we are so thick don’t they!
Mbeki was so composed when he gave his talk on TV last night- just as Zapiro draws him – always with the same expression but with no pipe!
Zuma has just said
“I would like to reiterate that we will always abide to the rule of law and respect the judicial system” [paraphrased]
I think he’s addressing all the criticism – especially the reaction to Zapiro’s recent cartoons showing him and his cronies [& Mbeki & his cronies] about to rape the woman representing the judicial system
A carpet
To sweep under the carpet = an english idiom
sweep something under the carpet (British, American & Australian, American & Australian)
to try to hide a problem or keep a problem secret instead of dealing with it. The incident has forced into the open an issue that the government would rather have swept under the carpet. The evidence was on film and the police couldn’t just sweep it under the rug.
LINK – to idiom @ the thefreedictionary
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Other Zapiro Gems
●Zapiro: on Mbeki’s removal – spot on!
●Zapiro: So what’s all the furore about? Freedom of expression for starters – that’s what!
●Zapiro: On the gay bishop debate – betwixt those men in fancy gowns, hats & jewellery
●China olympics: Zapiro – spells it out
Filed under: POLITICS, SOUTH AFRICA, zapiro | Leave a Comment
Tags: ANC, ART, MBEKI, POLITICS, rat, SATIRE, SOUTH AFRICA, zapiro, ZUMA
You may have heard about the amazing experiment that has taken 10 years to put together.
“If you keep an eye on the big picture, we’ve been building the machine for 20 years” James Gillies – Cern’s [CERN] director of communications. [BBCNews online]
“The most powerful physics experiment ever built” – CERN
[It took 7 years [seven!] for Thabo Umbeki’s soft diplomacy to get some action from Mugabe] [And Mugabe took 20 years to do something about the land issue]. [It took 200? years to abolish slavery]
A 27 kilometres long [16.8 miles], circular tunnel was excavated under ground [imagine a dough nut] & cooled – as the superconducting magnets have got to be at absolute zero.
A group of scientists are wanting to study what happened at the point of the big bang – the birth of the universe – in ultra miniature assimilated conditions and as outer space is at a temperature of, absolute zero, they had to fill the tunnel with helium to bring the temperature down to −273.15C [-427.8F?] ["Superconducting magnets are cooled down using liquid helium" - LINK]
Absolute Zero
Absolute zero is the lowest possible temperature where nothing could be colder and no heat energy remains in a substance. Absolute zero is the point at which molecules do not move (relative to the rest of the body) more than they are required to by a quantum mechanical effect called zero-point energy.By international agreement, absolute zero is defined as precisely 0 K on the Kelvin scale, which is a thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale, and −273.15 on the Celsius (centigrade) scale.
Source Wikipedia – LINK
Photo/top: The Large Hadron Collider [LHC] at CERN1 – THE Accelerator LINK
No credits for the photographer/s that I could find [bloody marvellous - such gorgeous images and no names of who took them - I wonder why there is generally such disrespect for photographer’s work by not naming who they are? Why does a text writer get credits and not the image maker - after all an image is worth at least a thousand words!]
I heard on the news today [BBC Wold News] that a plug caught fire and helium leaked out of the contraption – which means to fix it, will take a month for the temperature to be brought back up to the point where they can fix it and then another month to take it back down to absolute zero. The spokesperson mentioned that it was a costly repair!
[not as costly as the "war against terrorism" a billion plus dollars a day for bleep sake - & governments wont talk to them! I recall reading a book a while ago that mentioned the many of the most powerful families in the states are connected to the army and the administration [civil service] by them marrying each other. Who are the weapons manufacturers, who owns them? Who are the dealers, go betweens? Who are the people benefiting from the conflict? History keeps showing that wars don’t stop as it’s making people loads of money – just like the slave trade – why it took so long to stop and why the US had a civil war over it was that it was too lucrative – I’d say! when you’ve got free labour – slave labour still goes on today – Sex slaves for starters – guess what? It’s a multi billion dollar industry – Let’s start by legalising sex work – let’s stop being bigots about the so called oldest profession in the world – spouting morality for bleep sake! They legalised dope in Holland and the nation hasn’t fallen apart – in fact its a great tourist attraction & it got rid of the dope dealers]
[I'm on a circular rant and rave to day 
]
Here is one of the first images captured from the LHC’s experiment
[Written on the image it says -Run62063. Event 2433. Orbit 15231634 BX680]
“It’s a fantastic moment,” said LHC project leader Lyn Evans, “we can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe.” – Source: Press release
First beam in the LHC accelerating science – LINK
LINK – CERN web site – brilliant stuff on it – one can spend ages peroozing
LINK – What happened to the Big Bang machine? By Paul Rincon – Science reporter, BBC News Online + lots of links to more info
“If you keep an eye on the big picture, we’ve been building the machine for 20 years ” James Gillies – Cern’s [CERN] director of communications [BBC News online]
Photo: No credits [ On BBC News Online]
Looks like ground zero? – the caption does not ID what one is looking at
[I'm sure it's due to horrendous live lines!]
LINK – Tim Berners-Lee – he invented/put together the internet @ CERN way back in the early days when he worked there. [wikipedia? sorry]
Filed under: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY | Leave a Comment
Tags: arms dealers, arms manufacturers, big bang, LHC, MBEKI, mugabe, physics, SCIENCE, SLAVERY
The Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) of Cape Town, Invites you to attend a seminar – “Building Bridges with Cricket: The Legacy of Bob Woolmer” - on Tuesday 30th September 2008 – All are welcome and entry is free.
UPDATE: as soon as the transcript of the seminar is ready i will post the link to it! [1st October '08]
Continue reading ‘●Cricket: Building Bridges – The Legacy of Bob Woolmer’
Filed under: ART, CAPE TOWN, HEALTH, PHOTO, SPORT | 1 Comment
Tags: Bob Woolmer, Conflict Resolution, Cricket, Helen Moffett, Tim Noakes
Some feared that firing up the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] would create a black hole and/or doom the Earth
The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web. [heard on BBC world radio this morning - in the news]
Talking to BBC News Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was increasingly worried about the way the web has been used to spread disinformation.
Source: Pallab Ghosh – [Science correspondent, BBC News]
LINK To article – Warning sounded on web’s future
Photo: by Pashasha [Flickr] with good caption about Tim BL
VIVA! Tim Berners-Lee VIVA!
A debt of gratitude goes out to you, Tim Berners-Lee!
If you didn’t know who this man was you’d never guess that he is one of THE super geeks – I believe he developed the web when he was working at CERN, where the Large Hadron Collider lab is. He came up with the www so that all the scientists could communicate with each other. [This could be a load of old rubbish of course]
need to check – now where do i go to check this?…………
Filed under: BBC, INTERNET, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY | Leave a Comment
Tags: BBC, INTERNET, SCIENCE, tim berners-lee, world wide web
Filed under: HEALTH, PHOTO | Leave a Comment
Tags: break dancing, PHOTO, street culture, visual poetry, young men
Good news for BAD SCIENCE blogger & Gaurdian columnist, Dr Ben Goldacre, whom exposes all the bad science us unscientific types often fall for – hook line and sinker.
[South African] vitamin pill magnate Matthias Rath has pulled out of his gruelling legal case against me and the Guardian. He bought full page adverts denouncing Aids drugs while promoting his vitamin pills in South Africa, a country where hundreds of thousands die every year from Aids under an HIV denialist president and the population is ripe for miracle cures. I said his actions were highly worrying, in no uncertain terms. I believe I was right to do so.
Link – full article – Bad Science blog – loads of other bad science claims exposed
LINK – Fall of the doctor who said his vitamins would cure Aids by Sarah Boseley, health editor The Guardian
LINK – Dr Rath Health Foundation [Matthias Rath]
LINK – Wikipedia Matthias Rath
LINK – Wikipedia article by Dr Rath Health Foundation
UPDATE – 14.9.08
LINK – Speaking gigs this week in London, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..
Filed under: HEALTH, SCIENCE, UPDATE | Leave a Comment
Tags: AIDS, Ben Goldacre, HIV, legal, medical, SCIENCE, SOUTH AFRICA, vitamins
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Photo [Top left] by Ev Lloyd
Photo [Top right] by DigiDragon
Photo [Middle left] by Andrew Dunn
Photo [Middle right] by Ann J P
Photo [Bottom left] by Zachstern
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Filed under: PHOTOS, nature | 2 Comments
Tags: photographers, PHOTOS, TRANQUILLITY, TREES
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