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Obama explains once again his thoughts on torture.. He uses the word ‘torture’ confidently – there is no doubt what he thinks about waterboarding.
On Monday the Malawian Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal by US pop star Madonna against the ruling that said she could not adopt a second child, Mercy James, because she wasn’t resident of the Malawi.
Last night the Human Rights Consultative Committee, a group of organisations in Malawi who have campaigned against the adoption, received a handwritten letter from the four-year-old little girl’s father. In it 24-year-old James Kambewa, who has never met his daughter, asked lawyers for help for a permanent injunction against Madonna adopting his daughter. Why now? Has it taken him this long to hear about his daughter’s pending adoption? And if he had known about the case, why has it taken him this long to react to it? It is odd.
And then odder, he claims that Madonna can’t be a good mother because her behaviour is scandalous. The Daily Mail reports that in the letter he said he wanted to spare his three-year-old daughter Mercy a life of ’scandal’ with a woman he claimed lacks ‘good morals’.
Kambewa who walked out on Mercy’s mother when the then 15-year-old mother was pregnant said that: ‘I have learnt that an American-musician called Madonna has applied to a court for the adoption of the kid, to which the grandmother has consented.”
‘I don’t think Madonna is a model mum. I have seen her in movies of her songs. She doesn’t portray good morals. How can a woman of 50 dance almost naked on stage? I wouldn’t want my daughter to grow up like that! In Malawi women respect themselves. Cultured women do not go about half-naked. I also heard after her marriage failed she is already seeing two men, both very younger than her and her ex-husband. I hear one of them is even less than half her age. That’s scandalous. How can a normal woman fall for a boy who can as well be her son? No, spare my Mercy that scandal.’
There is lots to be said about this.
Huffington Post says that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are expecting twin girls through a surrogate pregnancy. A statement from their publicists said that they “are happily anticipating the birth of their twin daughters later this summer with the generous help of a surrogate. The entire family is overjoyed”. “The couple has a 6-year-old son, James Wilkie Broderick, and will mark their 12th wedding anniversary next month” reports the Huffington Post.
And then today I bought People magazine, the local version, because I saw on the cover that Angelina Jolie is expecting her seventh child! It’s true she is pregnant. Can you believe that she willingly wants to raise 7 babies. “Yes, Angie is pregnant,” a family insider says. “They have been trying for another baby for months, but it was still a total shock when I found out. Brad and Angie have been fighting so much lately, it just didn’t seem possible.”
The happy news has apparently warmed the chilly atmosphere between the couple after Angie found Brad comforting a nanny earlier this year.
Benjamin Bradlow, an American journalist working in Johannesburg, and interning at the Times wrote this piece. It’s an interesting and inciteful piece comparing Zuma’s corruption charges with those of Ted Stevens’ corruption case in the US. Also have a look at his great blog here.
Here’s his piece:
Southern Africans have a tendency to worry about things “going to the dogs.” This has been the case for many whites, first in Zimbabwe, and then in South Africa. Alexandra Fuller captured the phrase well in the title to her memoir about growing up in a number of southern African countries, Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s decision to drop corruption charges against ANC President Jacob Zuma threw many of those white South Africans who have stuck around post-Apartheid-and-the-Mandela-years into fits of panic about the proximity of these ever-present “dogs.” These canines are almost the white version of tokoloshes. A similar charge making the rounds is that the NPA decision is setting the country down “the way of Mugabe.”
Perhaps a rainbow nation of worriers is emerging. Shortly after acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe announced the end of the Zuma case, friends both black and white took to Twitter, Facebook, and — gasp — real life to express these concerns. I wondered, could the Zuma ordeal really be as bad as people are saying? Should I join in the chorus of concern? Should I rather head to Newtown to urge Msholozi to grab his machine gun? Read More…
On Sunday while far away from everything I received a message from the US embassy’s spokesperson to say that Hillary Clinton is not attending Zuma’s inauguration on the 9th of May. The Sunday Times reported that she will be attending. Ok, so they got it wrong. But now I see that Obama is not coming either! Eish, what a pity.
Twenty one heads of state will be attending but no names have been released yet.
Something to look forward to I suppose.
This little boy, Patient Zero, has survived the swine flu. Edgar Hernandex who lives in Mexico close to what is now called “ground zero” was the first known swine flu sufferer. It is apparently too early to pinpoint the origins of the virus but residents of La Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from “manure lagoons” created by Granjas Carroll were causing severe respiratory infections. AP reports that Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, operates several large-scale pig farms near the village of La Gloria.
Smithfield Foods has come under criticism for the millions of gallons of fecal matter that it produces and stores in holding ponds, untreated, according to Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia says that workers and residents near Smithfield plants have reported health problems, and have complained about constant, overpowering stenches of hog faeces.
AP reports that the virus has killed an estimated 152 people in Mexico and 1 Mexican City toddler in Texas, caused more than 2,000 others to fall ill, and prompted the World Health Organisation to raise its pandemic threat level to 4 on a scale of 1 to 6.
PS Sapa’s report on the latest data released by the World Health Organization Wednesday for the number of confirmed cases of A/H1N1 swine flu recorded around the world since the outbreak was first revealed last week.
United States: 64 (one death) Mexico : 26 (seven deaths) Canada : 13 Spain : 4 New Zealand : 3 Britain : 2 Israel : 2 Total number of infections confirmed by laboratory tests: 114 Total number of deaths: 8
It seems Barack Obama’s overtures towards Iran have worked wonders. Obama’s Iranian counterpart has flattered Obama by copying his can-do electioneering tactics. The Guardian has reported that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is featured in a video wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalises on his former status as a university lecturer.
Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election in Iran’s presidential poll on 12 June.
…more about weddings. I went to the most marvellous wedding on Saturday night. My friends married on the Troyeville Hotel’s rooftop in Johannesburg. It was a beautiful setting on a beautiful autumn day. They exchanged their wedding vows as the dusk cast a soft pink glow over them. For the reception, we went down to the hotel’s dining rooms to eat and dance – lots of fun.
The weekend was a long one. I didn’t pay any attention to the newspapers, my blog or work.
So I missed the news about yet another wedding: Salma Hayek married Francois-Henri Pinault in Venice on Saturday. I feel I have to post this picture. Salma Hayek looked beautiful.
Correction: Premier should be spelt premiere, and somewhere I heard/read that the movie opens on the 1st of May, but it’s opening today, the 29th April at 28 cinemas around SA. Thanks Brad Thomas-Wilson for pointing out the mistakes.
I went to the premier of White Wedding last night at the Maponya Mall in Soweto. There were lots of glamorous people and me. This truly delightful film by Jann Turner, Jonathan Nkosi and Rapulana Seiphemo made me feel happy. It’s a story about love, friendship, family, this amazingly rich South African culture of ours – and a wedding.
It opens at Ster Kinekor on May 1. Go see it. You’ll feel happy too.
Tomorrow will mark the first 100 days in office for President Barack Obama. Republicans are refusing to play ball with him eventhough his apporoval rating is high. The man has banned torture, he has begun diplomatic talks with Iran, he is addressing climate change… Obama’s biggest campaign promise was to confront the economic crisis. He has done this, but so far with largely inconclusive results. The first family finally got a dog.
In his first 100 days, Barack Obama has set the tone and laid the groundwork for his presidency. It’s disciplined. He is sidestepping distractions and has so far maintained strong party unity.
Andrews Sullivan’s sense is that this is a subtle and auspicious start. “He has built trust; he has restored a tone of responsibility; he has shown a new American face to the world; he has ended the torture program; although it may not be enough, he has done the minimum necessary to prevent a truly epochal depression; he has put science before ideology; and he has demonstrated outreach to his opponents. And he has done it with a real degree of grace and eloquence and sincerity that have rendered him more personally popular today than ever before.”
But as the BBC points out “we should take counsel from Napoleon, whose story reminds us so effectively that history is all about how you finish, not how you start.”