An interdict was served late last night against the Mail & Guardian and
its editor, Nic Dawes, after it published a cartoon by Jonathan Shapiro
(Zapiro) depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Dawes said the cartoon depicted Muhammad lying on a couch speaking to
his psychiatrist: "The cartoon picks up on the Facebook group which
encouraged people to send pictures of the prophet."
He said when the first newspapers were distributed, he received a call
from attorney Yusuf Ismail, stating that further distributions should be
halted.
"At that time I could not stop further distributions, and I would not
have," said Dawes.
He said an interdict was then served and handled by Judge Mayat at the
Johannesburg High Court last night.
The Facebook page, "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day", encouraged users to
submit images of the prophet yesterday to protest against threats made
by a radical Muslim group against the creators of US TV series South
Park, for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit.
The page has attracted more than 100 000 people.
In Pakistan yesterday, the government ordered all internet service
providers to block the page.
The case against the Mail & Guardian was brought by the Jamiatul Ulama.
This article was originally published on page 3 of The Mercury on May
21, 2010
The government had failed millions of people who were living "like pigs"
in informal settlements, and efforts to explain to them why this was so
after more than a decade and a half of democracy would be meaningless,
President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.
Zuma told a meeting of the President's Co-ordinating Council that the
conditions he found on Monday's unannounced visit to Johannesburg's
Sweetwaters informal settlement had brought him close to tears.
He was addressing a special meeting of the council, which brings
together ministers, premiers, MECs and mayors to deal with service
issues across national, provincial and local government.
The focus on Tuesday was on "unpacking the human settlements delivery
agreement" and discussing solutions to obstacles blocking provision of
service, Zuma said. He rebuked departments for having budget rollovers
every year and said he could not comprehend how the state could fail to
spend money while service lagged behind.
"One lady lives in a place that when you come in, you may believe that
people left this shack 10 years ago. People are sleeping like pigs,"
Zuma said.
"How does it happen that some of our people still live in such areas, 16
years into our freedom and democracy?" Zuma asked.
Zuma expressed dismay at government officials who, he said, were aware
of shack-dwellers' living conditions, but who sat on their hands.
He also questioned foreign nationals who "forged" documents to gain
access to services meant for South African citizens, and locals who
received government houses and chose to sell or rent them out and move
back into shacks.
This article was originally published on page 5 of The Cape Times on May
19, 2010
By Wendy Jasson da Costa
Just months after she was nearly evicted from her plush Durban home,
South Africa's first lady Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma is in the dark, with no
lights or water.
That's because neither she, nor the president or their benefactors, have
paid the utilities bills. Nor is it the first time that they have
defaulted.
According to the latest information available to The Mercury
[newspaper], the eThekwini municipality is owed a total of R9 564.87.
It will have to be paid in full before the municipality will again
restore services to the exclusive Innes Road mansion in Morningside.
The Mercury understands that the house - which has eight bedrooms - has
been without lights and water since last week.
This article was originally published on page 1 of The Mercury on May
19, 2010
Eskom would like to remind its customers that it is no longer
politically correct to refer to power failures as "black outs".
Reference must now be made to "previously lit" areas.
South Africa's police have launched a fitness regime to battle obesity, after worries were raised about their ability to keep fans safe at the World Cup.
Police commissioner Bheki Cele said new recruits should fit into the same-size uniform for their whole careers.
Officers needing a larger size will be given a year to slim down or face being kicked off the force, he said.
Earlier this month, a study found almost half the officers in Port Elizabeth were clinically obese.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8580948.stm
The magazine annually publishes an eagerly awaited list of the 100 most
influential people in the world. Last week, it also published a list of
the 100 least influential people, sub-divided into four categories:
losers; flame-outs; morons and slimy bastards.
ANC Youth League president Malema was named one of more than 20 morons
to feature on the list of Least Influential People of 2010.
Julius Malema
"President of South Africa's African National Congress Youth League
Malema is just like Joe Biden - if instead of innocuous, silly slipups,
Biden delivered violent, racist, misogynist rants. It got so bad, he's
been censured by his party and convicted of hate speech. So he just said
violent things about the party."
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele made the statement at
the funeral of three Amersfoort police officers shot dead last week.
Cele said well over 10 000 police officers were in jail, without saying
how many had been sentenced and how many were awaiting trial prisoners.
The Independent Complaints Directorate said these statistics would be
released in September. - Sapa
Published on the Web by IOL on 2010-05-04 08:54:22
...and saying so is racist?
By Sinegugu Ndlovu
High school pupils yesterday beat and stoned a thug to death after they
had been victims of crime almost every day this week.
Dried blood and a covered body a few metres inside the gates of Charles
Sabelo High School, at Umbumbulu, south of Durban, testified to the
gruesome revenge the pupils had wrought.
The man, who was about 25, was apparently one of a gang that had robbed
pupils of their cash and cellphones on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He and two accomplices, with guns and a knife, returned to the school
yesterday and held up pupils outside the school. The pupils retaliated
by throwing stones at the men, who ran off.
The knife-wielding man was cornered by angry pupils and other locals. He
was stoned and sjambokked, before he ran into the school where the
children stoned and beat him to death.
School principal Jonathan Shezi said the angry mob would have set the
dead man alight had a teacher not intervened. While he did not condone
the pupils' conduct, he said they were tired of being victims of crime.
"The school doesn't have a phone because criminals stole the cables. I'm
not condoning what happened, but the children were fed up. They resorted
to this because they were tired of the abuse."
'To the Previously Disadvantaged'
We are sorry that our ancestors were intelligent, advanced and
daring enough to explore the wild oceans to discover new countries
and develop them.
We are sorry that those who came before us took you out of the
bush and taught you that there was more to life than beating drums,
killing each other and chasing animals with sticks and stones.
We are sorry that they planned, funded and developed roads, towns,
mines, factories, airports and harbours, all of which you now claim to
be your long deprived inheritance giving you every right to change and
rename these at your discretion.
We are sorry that our parents taught us the value of small but
strong families, to not breed like rabbits and end up as underfed,
diseased, illiterate shack dwellers living in poverty.
We are sorry that when the evil apartheid government provided
you with schools, you decided they'd look better without windows
or in piles of ashes.
We happily gave up those bad days of getting spanked in our all
white Schools for doing something wrong, and much prefer these
days of freedom where problems can be resolved with knives and guns.
We are sorry that it is hard to shake off the bitterness of the
past when you keep on raping, torturing and killing our friends and
family members, and then hide behind the fence of 'human rights'
with smiles on your faces.
We are sorry that we do not trust the government... We have no
reason to be so suspicious because none of these poor "hard working
intellectuals" have ever been involved in any form of "corruption or
irregularities".
We are sorry that we do not trust the police force and, even though
they have openly admitted that they have lost the war against crime and
criminals, we should not be negative and just ignore their corruption
and carry on hoping for the best.
We are sorry that it is more important to you to have players of
colour in our national teams than winning games and promoting
patriotism. We know that sponsorship doesn't depend on a team's success.
We are sorry that our border posts have been flung open and now
left you competing for jobs against illegal immigrants from our
beautiful neighbouring countries. All of them, countries that have grown
into economic powerhouses after kicking out the 'settlers'?
We are sorry that we don't believe in witchcraft, beet root and
garlic cures, urinating on street corners, virginity testing,
slaughtering of bulls in our back yards, trading women for cattle and
other barbaric practices. Maybe we just grew up differently.
We are sorry that your medical care, water supplies, roads,
railways and electricity supplies are going down the toilet because
skilled people who could have planned for and resolved these issues
had to be thrown away because they were of the wrong ethnic
background and now have to work in foreign countries where their
skills are highly appreciated.
We are so sorry that we'd like this country to fulfil its potential so
we can once again be proud South Africans.
From 'The Previously Advantaged'
PS: In the old regime... we had lights and water.
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