Terreblanche death brings Zuma appeal for calm | ||||||||
BBC,,11:18 GMT, Sunday, 4 April 2010 12:18 UK South African President Jacob Zuma has appealed for calm after the killing of the white supremacist leader, Eugene Terreblanche. Mr Zuma said South Africans must not allow anyone to take advantage of the "terrible deed" by inciting racial hatred. Police said Mr Terreblanche had been beaten to death in a dispute with two farm workers over unpaid wages. Mr Terreblanche's far-right movement urged its members to be calm. The 69-year-old was attacked on Saturday evening at home on his farm near the town of Ventersdorp, North West province. 'Must be condemned' Two males, aged 21 and 15, have been arrested and charged with his murder, said police.
His body was found with facial and head injuries on a bed, after he was apparently attacked with a machete and a wooden club. Mr Terreblanche came to prominence in the early 1980s, campaigning for a separate white homeland and championing a tiny minority determined to preserve apartheid. Mr Zuma's office said in a statement: "The president appeals for calm... and asks South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fuelling racial hatred. "The murder of Terreblanche must be condemned, irrespective of how his killers think they may have been justified. They had no right to take his life." The BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg says the murder comes amid growing anxiety about crime in South Africa. Opposition politicians linked the death to racially inflammatory sentiments from a minority of the ruling ANC party.
During a news conference in Ventersdorp on Sunday, South African Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa cautioned against stoking tensions. "We call on all South Africans across whatever divide - across the racial divide, across the political divide - to desist from making any inflammatory statements which are not going to help anyway on the case we are dealing with," he said. Meanwhile, relatives and friends of Mr Terreblanche gathered near his home to pay their respects. His Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement - AWB) echoed Mr Zuma's call for calm. AWB spokesman Andre Visagie said: "We will decide upon the action we are going to take to avenge Mr Terreblanche's death," adding that next steps would await a party meeting in May. He earlier blamed the killing on the recent singing of an apartheid-era song by a firebrand ANC leader. 'Explosive situation' Last week, South Africa's High Court banned ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema from singing "kill the Boer". It ruled the song was hate speech, but the ANC is appealing.
Boer is Afrikaans for a farmer, but is sometimes used as a disparaging term for any white in South Africa. A spokeswoman for the opposition Democratic Alliance party, Juanita Terblanche, no relation, said: "[Mr Terreblanche's killing] happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fuelled by irresponsible racist utterances." The minority party Freedom Front Plus called on people to refrain from reacting emotionally. "The murder creates an explosive situation and is condemned in the strongest possible terms," party spokesman Pieter Groenewald said.
More than 3,000 white farmers are estimated to have been murdered since the end of apartheid in 1994. A committee of inquiry found in 2003 only 2% of farm attacks had a political or racial motive, although critics said this figure was far too low. Mr Terreblanche had founded the white supremacist AWB in 1973, to oppose what he regarded as the liberal policies of the then-South African government. His party tried terrorist tactics and threatened civil war in the run-up to South Africa's first democratic elections, before sliding into relative obscurity. Mr Terreblanche served three years in jail after being convicted in 2001 of the attempted murder of a farm worker. | ||||||||
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Calm after... the killing.. [ 836 ]
are going to take to avenge Mr Terreblanche's death 
Nasa, Image of the day Apr 3rd...[ 835 ]
Edwin P. Hubble--famed astronomer--and basketball star? In fact, Dr. Hubble was both. The University of Chicago alumnus was a member the UC Maroons team that in 1909 won the college championship over Indiana University.
It's only fitting that the man, the astronomer, the basketball star be honored for all of his accomplishments as the college championships are being played again in Indianapolis in 2010.
In this image from May 2009 during the Hubble servicing mission, NASA astronaut and fellow University of Chicago alumnus John Grunsfeld paid homage to Dr. Hubble, after whom the telescope was named, by photographing the team’s vintage basketball aboard space shuttle Atlantis.
The Hubble Space Telescope is visible through the portholes. Image Credit: NASA
Σάββατο, 3 Απρίλιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ
Senegal : Α 164-foot colossal Status structure..[ 834 ]
Senegal unveils colossal statue amid criticism
(CNN) -- Senegal on Saturday unveiled a colossal statue during a lavish ceremony amid reports of criticism over the monument's construction at a time when the western African nation is struggling financially.
The 164-foot structure -- about a foot taller than the Statue of Liberty -- shows the figures of a man, a woman and a child, arms outstretched, facing the Atlantic Ocean.
President Abdoulaye Wade says the statue, which he designed, is a monument to Africa's renaissance. Critics say the opulent copper structure is merely the product of the president's own self-indulgent vision and poor governance.
And though it dominates the skyline of Senegal's capital, Dakar, the monument falls far short of the president's claim that it is the world's largest. Several other statues are listed by multiple sources to be taller, including China's Spring Temple Buddha, which stands just under 420 feet.
Opposition group Benno Siggil Senegal called on the Senegalese people to "refuse to associate themselves with a fraudulent scheme designed to satisfy the fantasies of Abdoulaye Wade and to lay the foundations of dynastic reign of Wade on our country," according to the African Press Agency.
A spokeswoman for the president sought to downplay criticism Saturday, saying the statue -- valued at roughly $20 million -- was made possible by a land deal between Wade and North Korea, and that proceeds from the monument will benefit Senegalese children.
The statue is "an affirmation to be proud of Africa -- to be proud to be black," said spokeswoman Gia Abrassart.
--Malawi President Bingu Wa Mutharika
Other dignitaries in attendance at Saturday's ceremony, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence, echoed that message.
"This renaissance statue is a powerful idea from a powerful mind," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson in remarks to the crowd of hundreds waving flags at the foot of the lighted monument. "This is dedicated to the journey of our ancestors, enslaved but not slaves."
Malawi President Bingu Wa Mutharika praised Wade for constructing a monument that represents Africa.
"This monument does not belong to Senegal," he said. "It belongs to the African people wherever we are."
North Korea, which made the statue's construction possible, also sent Wade a congratulatory message, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
In exchange for the money to build the statue, North Korea received a piece of Senegalese land, Abrassart said.
The message from top North Korean official Kim Yong Nam "expressed belief that the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries would grow stronger in various fields in the future, too," according to KCNA.
Χριστός Ανέστη εκ νεκρών,
θανάτω θάνατον πατήσας
και τοις εν τοις μνήμασιν,
ζωήν χαρισάμενος
Ανάστασιν Χριστού θεασάμενοι,
προσκυνήσομεν Άγιον, Κύριον,
Ιησούν
τον μόνον αναμάρτητον.
Τον Σταυρόν Σου Χριστέ προσκυνούμεν
και την Αγίαν σου Ανάστασην
υμνούμεν και δοξάζωμεν
Συ γαρ ει ο Θεός ημών,
εκτός Σου άλλον ουκ οίδαμεν,
το όνομά Σου ονομάζομεν.
Δεύτε, πάντες οι πιστοί, προσκυνήσωμεν
την του Χριστού Αγίαν Ανάστασην.
Ιδού γαρ ήλθε δια του Σταυρού
χαρά εν όλω τω κόσμω.
Δια παντός ευλογούντες τον Κύριον,
υμνούμεν την Ανάστασην Αυτού.
Σταυρόν γαρ υπομείνας δι' ημάς,
θανάτω, θάνατον ώλεσεν.
Αναστάς ο Ιησούς από του τάφου καθώς προείπεν,
Έδωκεν ημίν την αιώνιον ζωήν και το μέγα έλεος
