Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 41 to 60 of 65

Thread: South Africa (catch all)

  1. #41
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Durban, South Africa
    Posts
    3,902

    Default

    Carl,

    You have a good understanding of how Africa works...

    Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
    I'll bet the interpreter is related to somebody.

    God save the RSA. Nothing else will.

  2. #42
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default It's not the first time the fake has appeared

    ITN has found some previous footage:
    The footage, apparently filmed in January 2012 at the ANC party's 100th anniversary, shows the man making gestures as Zuma sings to the crowd.

    ANC communications manager Keith Khoza told NBC News that the interpreter had translated for party events in the past, but said that the man only “volunteered” and was not paid.
    Link:http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-1...ealed-as-fake/
    davidbfpo

  3. #43
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    David:

    Further down in that string of ITV reports, various RSA gov authorities 'claim' they don't know who that guy was. I guess he just shows up.

    The US Secret Service is going to love hearing that.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  4. #44
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default

    Carl,

    For the moment this story is not going away!

    Within the linked report is:
    ....defenders of the ANC-linked interpreter claimed that he was signing in South Africa's Zulu language.
    Citing a UK academic expert on sign language:
    Professor Woll dismissed such claims, allegedly made by the ANC: "The very fact that this was explained as a person signing in Zulu suggests that actually whoever employed him knew nothing about this person's abilities."
    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...terpreter.html
    davidbfpo

  5. #45
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    Anything to avoid admitting that some esteemed minister of something got scammed by his idiot nephew or his sister forced him to use the idiot nephew.

    Geesh, when that guy was 'signing' he looked like a penguin at the zoo.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  6. #46
    Council Member Firn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    1,297

    Default

    The interpreter's reaction was certainly more spirited compared to your typical Western one:

    He told the BBC that during the event, he had had a breakdown, and started hallucinating that angels were coming down into the crowd.

    "I started knowing that I am not real, because it's not something possible. But believe me I saw them coming on stage.

    "From that moment, it was not myself," he said, saying he had becoming concerned for the safety of people in the stadium and was "absolutely" aware that he was not signing correctly.
    His employer, SA interpreters vanished. It is interesting to note that he was employed before in some occasions by the ANC, in which 'nobody complained' about his capabilities, which is rather telling about the quality of internal processes. How he could get his security (and professional) clearing for the funeral is matter of SA state affairs so the ANC can't comment on it. Which is of course fully understandable since the two are obviously clearly distinct entities.
    ... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"

    General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
    Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935

  7. #47
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    4,818

    Exclamation Subject Has Violent History

    I just saw a report on NBC where they actually interviewed this person and he admitted he was being treated for schizophrenia and he has a history of violence.......so they let this person stand next to our President???? Like they say you just cant make this stuff up.

    (Added by Moderator) Try BBC interview:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25346253
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-12-2013 at 09:15 PM.

  8. #48
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Durban, South Africa
    Posts
    3,902

    Default

    Carl, I waited to see who would cut through the crap...

    Simon Jenkins of the Guardian finally did:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ty-of-goodness

  9. #49
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Northern New Jersey
    Posts
    40

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Carl asked:
    Will the relatively new Portuguese community in RSA look to Brazil and the former, nearby colonies? I expect the shallow foundations of the German business community have not stood up to the new pressures.
    Interestingly, there's a fairly significant Portuguese community here in New Jersey. In most of the family owned businesses around here, you can walk in and speak Portuguese and be understood. A good chunk of the folks at the plant I work at are Portuguese immigrants too (many coming from the colonies in Africa). I wonder if that would continue?

  10. #50
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Better and better

    Now BBC report SA police were at the fake's house yesterday to arrest him under mental health provisions, except the media got there first. Surely the government wouldn't silence him that way, that's so old style Soviet repression.

    Just spotted on Twitter, so perhaps we should be wary? The faker has a record, note accused, not convicted and read the link for more:
    accused of: theft (1995), house-breaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), rape (1998), murder, kidnapping(2003)
    Link:http://www.enca.com/south-africa/interpreter
    davidbfpo

  11. #51
    Council Member Firn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    1,297

    Default

    One thing is certain, every way you look at the issue the SA government doesn't come out looking competent. It really goes from the hilarious to the ridicolous and further to the insane and just doesn't stop giving.

    Being accused of grave crimes on several uncorrelated occasions is certainly a bad sign, even if he never was convicted. Getting a men with such a trackrecord in accusations and no track record in sign interpretation competence on the stage of the biggest SA political event of the decade right next to some of the most important men in the world is quite the sign that many screwed up their job very badly indeed.

    Possibly there was a divine intervention even before the angles came flying down into the stadium...
    ... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"

    General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
    Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935

  12. #52
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Security tightened in Eastern Cape

    Did anyone note the rather blunt military presence, with numerous Casspir APCs in the procession and otehrs parked up, as the funeral cortege reached the Eastern Cape, the third photo in the headline story 'Nelson Mandela's body arrives home':http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/africa/
    davidbfpo

  13. #53
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Hiding from the Dreaded Burrito Gang
    Posts
    3,096

    Default

    Anyone else see the Saturday Night Live skit?
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


    http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg

  14. #54
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default South Africa general 'used troops to break men out of prison'

    Something is wrong here, even more so that this involved the main SANDF infantry training base:
    A South African military general has been accused of facilitating an illegal prison break from a local police station using two armoured personnel carriers and at least 120 soldiers. The general is alleged have flown into a drunken rage when he learnt that a group of his men had been arrested outside their base in the South African town of Oudtshoorn. The arrested soldiers - alleged to include at least one senior officer - had been found by police at an illegal drinking den, where they were celebrating a change of command at the training base.
    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...of-prison.html

    The police negoitated a solution, yes releasing all their prisoners.
    davidbfpo

  15. #55
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Durban, South Africa
    Posts
    3,902

    Default

    Well South Africa is an African country.

    Brig Gen Xolani Mankayi (the drunk who ordered the action) has refused to comment as have the authorities. Don't hold your breath for any serious action to be taken.

    Here is the precedent: The general who deserted his troops when attacked in the CAR has since been decorated and promoted.

    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Something is wrong here, even more so that this involved the main SANDF infantry training base:

    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...of-prison.html

    The police negoitated a solution, yes releasing all their prisoners.

  16. #56
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default South Africa’s parliament and the politicisation of the police

    An Open Democracy piece, which should be read alongside the SWJ Blog link to 'Underplayed Conflicts' and I cited the link excerpt:
    South Africa, a country that has been heralded for creating one of the world’s most democratic constitutions. Conditions for many blacks there have not improved much since apartheid ended, a generation ago. Unemployment is now twenty-five per cent, and has not been below twenty per cent in almost two decades. Unofficially, the number could be much higher…
    Link:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/und...flicts-of-2014

    For those who watch the region the continuities in state power after apartheid's end in South Africa and independence in Zimbabwe, these developments are not a surprise. The sub-title:
    The police were a symbol of the old, apartheid South Africa. Unfortunately they are becoming a symbol of the ‘new South Africa’ too.
    Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/open-s...tion-of-police
    davidbfpo

  17. #57
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default South Africa's military at a crossroads

    No great surprise that the SANDF faces such a crossroads when you consider the budget allocated, manpower, external and internal demands:
    South Africa wants to re-establish itself militarily as an important player in Africa's peacekeeping initiatives. But it has to overcome a small budget, and its own needs to police its borders, to move it from a 'critical state of decline.'
    Link:http://news.yahoo.com/once-major-con...63100590.html?

    Going back awhile now:
    At its peak, the apartheid military had more than 100,000 active conscripts, and consumed 4.4 percent of national GDP, making it one of Africa’s largest and best trained fighting forces.

    (Today) South African military spending today stands at just 1.2 percent of its GDP, an Army of more than 40,000 troops.
    There is a link to an earlier report, some of the comments are interesting:http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.ph...nce&Itemid=242
    davidbfpo

  18. #58
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default How Long Will South Africa Survive?: The Looming Crisis

    A bestseller in South Africa, even without any reviews and no loud criticism. Perhaps the new edition has "hit home"?

    A review by Rian Malan:http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/961...-south-africa/

    A taster:
    ...Mandla Gcaba, a nephew of Jacob Zuma and according to Johnson, one of the state president’s key backers. Gcaba is a boss in the taxi business, a man whose foot soldiers defend their turf with heavy weapons. He is also linked to a police constable named S’bu Mpisane who vanished just before testifying in a murder trial that threatened to put the president’s nephew in jail. When the heat died down, S’bu came back to life, married into Zuma’s ‘Tammany machine’ and began to move up in the world. Today, still a policeman, he owns a mansion worth 94 times his annual salary and, according to Johnson, bought his wife a Rolls Royce for Christmas.
    davidbfpo

  19. #59
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default How Long Will South Africa Survive?: The Looming Crisis

    From a "lurker" familiar with Southern Africa, after reading Johnson's book wrote:
    Devastating. Johnson is a good analyst – remember his 1977 original. If he’s only half right there are problems looming for the Beloved Country.
    davidbfpo

  20. #60
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Four South African farmers in court for murder of two ‘attackers’

    Perhaps such crimes happen regularly, this one got external press coverage; maybe with white farmers as defendants, not the victims it caught the editor's eye:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...attackers.html
    davidbfpo

Similar Threads

  1. South China Sea and China (2011-2017)
    By Ray in forum Asia-Pacific
    Replies: 769
    Last Post: 11-13-2017, 01:31 PM
  2. The Wikileaks collection
    By Schmedlap in forum The Whole News
    Replies: 542
    Last Post: 03-30-2011, 12:55 AM
  3. Replies: 164
    Last Post: 05-10-2010, 11:40 PM
  4. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 01-05-2009, 03:33 PM
  5. Tom Barnett on Africa
    By SWJED in forum Africa
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 10-22-2006, 12:46 AM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •