Staggering Out Over The Abyss

[A Lutra Continua]

...discovered a suspended dead body in the plane...

Stowaway in the gear well?

[Flame Lily FX]

German refugee?

[500N]

German refugee?

That is very good Lily, very good indeed.

[Flame Lily FX]

The Herald, a state-run newspaper, reported that the MD-11 trijet was travelling from Germany to South Africa “with millions of rands”. At the current exchange rate, 1m rand is worth £43,866.

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We've come a long way since the days of two rand to the quid and 50c to the USD.

[MoreAviation]

Apart from the mystery of the mangled stowaway (the mystery not being that a stowaway in the landing gear might be mangled but that anyone would stowaway en route back to Africa) the other strange fact was that money was coming back to South Africa. Over the years all the pilfered funds have left South Africa to be converted into safer means of exchange and thence into secret Swiss accounts).

Curiouser and curiouser.

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Like everything else, we now import our currency into SA. Used to print it at the mint but even that has gone the way of everything else that used to work.

Zim and SA used to be the bread basket of Africa. We're now a nett importer of food FFS, and Zim requires donations from the UN to get by! I guess if you're going to go around murdering those who put food on the table, you shouldn't whine when there's nothing there one day.

THE year 2015 saw the highest number of farm attacks in 15 years‚ with 318 attacks recorded and 64 farmers and workers murdered‚ a civil rights organisation and agricultural union TAU SA announced on Wednesday.

Although 64 murders were also committed in 2010‚ there has been a gradual increase in farm murders since 2011‚ in which 48 murders on farms were committed‚ the organisations said.

“In the 318 farm attacks in 2015‚ 570 farmers‚ their families‚ workers and guests fell victim. In 40 cases 65 farm workers were direct victims. Although various families with small children and babies were attacked‚ it seems that older people are targeted more often‚” the union said.

Henk van de Graaf‚ Assistant Head Manager at TAU SA‚ said that along with the drought‚ farm murders was another major problem that farmers had to contend with. He said the safety of farmers need to be looked at from an holistic perspective for the sake of food security.

On average, a farm murder was carried out every five and a half days during the first 104 days of 2015. TAU SA has kept detailed up-to-date annual statistics of farm murders in the country going back to 1990.

These statistics reveal that, since 1990, 1 737 farmers, family members, farm workers, farm worker family members and visitors to farms had been murdered. This equates to a farm murder being carried out every 5,3 days over the 9 234 days from 1 January 1990 to 14 April 2015.

While the farm murder figures were accurate, it had been difficult to obtain accurate details for SA’s farm attacks since 1 January 1990, said TAU SA’s assistant general manager for policy liaison, Chris van Zyl.

Farm attacks “are not always reported in the media and therefore the figures are to be regarded as extremely conservative”, he said.

TAU SA said the figures it had been able to collate showed that at least 3 494 farm attacks had taken place in SA from 1 January 1990 to 14 April 2015.

Last year TAU SA made a verbal presentation about farm murders in South Africa at the UN Human Rights Commission’s Forum on Minority Issues in Geneva.
Van de Graaf, Assistant General Manager submitted a more detailed report to the Secretariat.

This is the third occasion during Mr. Van de Graaf’s European tour that he mentioned the farm murder problem. The first was at a conference in Paris a day after the terrorist attacks, and also at a memorial event for the victims of Paris in Antwerp.

“Farm murders in South African are another form of terrorism that the world does not pay attention to,” was Mr Van de Graaf’s message.

As the South African Permanent Representative launched a scathing attack against TAU SA at last year’s meeting in Geneva, TAU SA’s proposal was not given to them, but they were asked rather to use their influence to get the situation in South Africa normalized.

Guess the reality is a little embarrassing for the clowns in the cANCer regime.

[MoreAviation]

"Imported currency"

A cargo plane carrying millions of South African rand has been grounded at Zimbabwe’s international airport after ground staff spotted blood dripping from it and discovered a man’s body.


The plane, owned by Florida-based Western Global Airlines, is understood to have been transporting large sums of cash from Munich in Germany via Belgium and Nigeria and was bound for the seaside town of Durban in South Africa when it stopped in Harare for refuelling.

“The jet crew was questioned and they said they hit a bird in the air. But then a search was made and the body of an adult male fell out,” a source told African News Agency.

A spokesman for the South African Reserve Bank suggested the body belonged to a “stowaway” and expressed the hope its money would be released soon.

Local reports said four crew members had been arrested: two Americans, a Pakistani and a South African. An airport source told The Telegraph that two couriers had remained on the plane since the discovery on Sunday, reluctant to leave its valuable cargo...
“The South African Reserve Bank is aware of an aircraft carrying a SARB consignment that stopped in Harare and was detained following the discovery of an unidentified body that is presumed to be a stowaway on the aircraft,” he said in a statement.

“The SARB is working with the relevant authorities to ensure that the cargo is released and transported to South Africa.”

David Chawota, chief executive of Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe, said the case had been handed over to the police. “The plane, which is owned by Western Global Airlines, has been grounded at Harare International Airport since Sunday,” he said. “The cargo in the plane belongs to the South African Reserve Bank."

He declined to give further details about the plane’s cargo, citing “security concerns”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... babwe.html

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...belongs to the South African Reserve Bank...

Eh? I'd have thought it belongs to businesses and people in SA.


viewtopic.php?f=13&p=43045#p43045

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Reverse the roles and the liberal intelligentsia would shit a roll of barbed wire in pure righteous outrage.

Exciting times for whites
Andrew Donaldson |
13 February 2016
Andrew Donaldson on the sad reality confronting Wits' FTW campaigners

ABOUT a month ago, the controversial philanthropist Kenny Kunene took to social media to express an opinion that white people resemble monkeys and, in so doing, generated a suitably outraged response from all the usual suspects.

At the time I thought little of it. It wasn’t serious. White people obviously do not resemble monkeys. No tails, wear clothing, don’t live in trees, and so on. Besides, it’s well known that Kunene has, to put it delicately, a bit of a condition.

He apparently suffers from agnosia, a rare neurological disorder that results in him “seeing” objects a little differently than we do. For example, he mistakes attractive, near-nude women for those dinky little wooden boats that are stuffed with California rolls at sushi buffet bars and, consequently, takes his raw fish off girls in the raw.

It’s not an edifying business, mistaking someone’s daughter for a salver, but at least it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as mistaking an actual boat for a naked supermodel. Think of the horrors that would transpire following an invitation, let’s say, to board a yacht. Or rather not.

Which brings me to the point: these really are exciting times for white South Africans, and provided we are broadminded about it, we should be quite flattered that there is now a campaign aimed at encouraging young people to have sex with us.

Like most progressive initiatives, this one started with the students, this time at the University of Witwatersrand, and here at the Mahogany Ridge we have learnt that there isn’t a single building on campus that hasn’t been spray-painted with the urgent injunction to mate with the mhlungus. Some earnest youngsters, we note, have even scrawled the message on their T-shirts in a bid to spread the word further into off-campus communities.

Such enthusiasm in the youth is commendable, and a dedication to such ends – hopefully with the earth moving and other desired results – will go some distance in allaying fears that these days the universities turn out nothing but selfish brats.

True, there are those for whom the imperative, “F*** white people”, is a little too blunt, especially at this particular time, a Valentine's weekend. It’s not exactly the stuff of Shakespeare’s love sonnets, they argue. Or, at least, nowhere near as coy as a plumber’s T-shirt with the slogan, “I’m Here To Lay Pipe.”

However, according to social justice activist Tokelo Nhlapo, the term “F*** white people” is an “appropriate expression” of pain where he comes from. (Not a nice place, apparently.) More customary but nevertheless equally appropriate expressions of pain that he perhaps should consider include “Eina!”, “Sh*t!” and even merely “Ow!”. But that is neither here nor there.

I am a little concerned that Nhlapo may be putting the cart before the horse. Usually the heartache and pain comes at the end of an affair, and not at the beginning. That at least was how it happened when I was young. When relationships ended, it was war. Paramedics were on standby.

But it may be different in this modern age. I’m told that very little blood is now shed as one breaks up via WhatsApp with a text message. You don’t have to even be in the same time zone as your previously intended.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves. The sad reality – and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially at a time when there are so many greatly agitated shouty types out there – is that, like most other folk, many white people may not be all that fun to sleep with.

God forbid, but this could very well be yet another area in which we greatly disappoint our countrymen. Much like our fondness for old statues and an odd notion that freedom of expression is perhaps not such a bad thing.

President Jacob Zuma, I should add, did not address any of these concerns in his State of the Nation Address. But at least it wasn’t the only stuff he ignored in all that rehashed nonsense about fiscal prudency and austerity measures.

There was no mention, for example, of Nhlanhla Nene. We now suspect the former finance minister will be airbrushed from history in much the same way Soviet officials regularly vanished from group portraits of Stalin’s administration.

On the other hand – and I’m just putting this out there for the sake of – his surname could live on as a “safe word” in all those role-playing, BDSM “tie-me-up, tie-me-down” games enjoyed by those white folk who went to the better private schools.

As for the rest of us? A cup of cocoa and Casablanca is as good as it gets.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/ex ... for-whites

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You couldn't make it up. Residents in areas around Makhado (formerly Louis Trichardt) have torched and vandalised 22 schools because they disagree with new municipal boundaries. Zuma is a little miffed and tutted about it in parliament. Appears he's forgotten that torching schools and pretty much anything else was something he and his cronies also did back in the day, but apparently back then it was a 'good' thing.

Words fail me...

[MoreAviation]

The ANC thrives on the ignorance of the plebs therefore the razing of a couple of schools might even be seen to be a positive thing by the more cynical of the ANC cadre. Of course when the revolting mob starts burning government buildings then that attitude might be altered.

MB

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36210680

Wonder if the above link is something that will go the same way as Mobutu's Zaire. A few years before Kabila took over, Mobutu tried to peg the Zaire at one to one against the USD as they were runnng out of space on the notes for all the zeros.

Started out fine on the morning of the launch of the new currency but by lunch time the rate was already around 30 to the USD By the end of the week it was already in the thousands and within a month everything was back to business as usual with an exchange rate of 30000 to one IIRC.

It got so bad that one would go shopping with plastic packets full of bundles of banknotes and rather than count them, shopkeepers would weigh the packets. You'd carry more weight to the store than what you carried home.

Interesting times ahead for the poor buggers in Zim, although for many I'd say it's self inficted, much like the supporters of Zuma and Malema.


As an aside, it appears Malema is in trouble again. According to the public protector he broke the law on a number of occasions while campaigning for Zuma and the cANCer back in the day. You couldn't make it up...

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You couldn't make up this shit.

‘Bank robber’ tops ANC list
Siphe Macanda | 04 June, 2016 10:38

The controversial inclusion of a former bank robber on the ANC’s list of councillor candidates’ for the Buffalo City Metro in the Eastern Cape has raised eyebrows within the party amid his protestation that he was a changed man.

Mkhuseli “Gidla” Nombewu appears high on the ruling party’s proportional representation list of candidates for BCM – at number four.

The list features 45 names – including current mayor Alfred Mtsi and his deputy Xola Pakati.

But in his defence Nombewu said he had paid for his crime and was granted a presidential pardon in 2011. With a pardon‚ nothing precludes him from occupying office. Effectively his slate becomes clean.

But the Saturday Dispatch could not independently verify this at the time of going to print. Nombewu told the Saturday Dispatch that those questioning his inclusion on the list were motivated by jealousy.

He made a dramatic claim that his crime was motivated by politics and that it was the late SACP general secretary Chris Hani who instructed him and his comrades to commit the robbery.

Nombewu is a former Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK) operative.

“I am clean‚ if anyone wants me to be vetted they can request for that again.

“Armed activities of MK were suspended and remember this thing was done in the absence of Chris‚” he said.

“Chris called us and said ‘comrades this thing‚ they [the national executive of the ANC] have done it in my absence … in terms of your military underground work and funding‚ there will be no military trained and armed men who will come to me and say they do not have funds to operate because there are funds … there are financial institutions with money lying (there).’ That is what Chris said; it was not only me.

“This thing was an instruction of Chris during suspension of MK armed activities. He said: ‘The ANC has stopped our operations‚ let us arm as many people as possible so that when the negotiations fail we can be able to take up arms’. This is why we were pardoned‚” Nombewu said.

He said he was arrested in 1993.

“We went around accessing money through guns‚ I cannot hide that … some got caught‚ some succeeded. We continued arming our people‚ arming the masses‚” he said.

“So I was caught in King William’s Town and I was sentenced in 1994 to seven years. I served those years then applied for a presidential pardon.

“It was not only me but with many others and Apla comrades and we got pardoned. That is why when I was vetted you could not see a criminal record‚” he said. Nombewu said he had started on a clean slate.

“I was pardoned by the state‚ I applied for a Presidential pardon. I checked my name even before I went to the vetting my name was clean.

“I would never have passed the vetting if I still had the criminal case. Those people that are telling you that are just playing with their time‚ it’s just a smear campaign. They can go to Pretoria and check. I got the pardon in 2011‚” he said.

But Nombewu’s inclusion has not gone down well with disgruntled ANC members‚ who claim they had been overlooked on the lists‚ in favour of dodgy characters.

On Thursday – the last day of registration for candidates – 26 party members went to the Independent Electoral Offices in Vincent to register as independent candidates.

Outspoken former ANC MPL Joe Jordan – who is currently facing an internal party disciplinary process for his vociferous criticism of the ANC – told the Saturday Dispatch that Nombewu’s inclusion was embarrassing for the ANC.

“That’s a very serious concern. When you vet somebody you immediately pick up a record … you can’t place that person into a position of responsibility‚” he said.

Pardoned or not‚ said Jordan: “that record remains his record. We are saying that record stands.” ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane was not available for comment.

IEC spokeswoman Pearl Ngoza would only say that the commission was still in the process of verifying the names of submitted political party and independent candidates’ lists.

It would only be later this month when the final lists – which will exclude any candidate found to be ineligible – will be published.

TMG Digital/DispatchLive

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Rainbows and unicorns on arrival as the fluffies get all teary.

Gerald Caplan
South Africa’s aid to Canada is more than generous

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jun. 06, 2016 5:19PM EDT

Gerald Caplan is an Africa scholar, a former New Democratic Party national director and a regular panellist on CBC’s Power & Politics.

South Africa to the rescue.

Yes, South Africa has answered the call and is providing aid to Canada. 300 of their firefighters have come to help with the Fort McMurray Beast, landing at Edmonton International Airport a week ago. Anyone who’s ever flown between Canada and South Africa knows that you’re pretty much semi-conscious when you finally arrive after a 24-hour flight. You are jet-lagged out of your skull and want only to collapse, unless you fly in deluxe class, which you can be sure the South Africans did not.

So what did the 300 do on arrival? They danced and chanted, right there and then in the middle of the airport. Mostly young men, with a few young women, looking suitably dynamic in bold yellow shirts and black fire-fighting boots, carrying backpacks that probably constituted their entire personal luggage, they put on a show and a half, and you can catch it here. This version is 1 minute 39 seconds long, but you can easily find the five-minute version and it’s well worth your time.

Proud, confident, well-trained, the 300, Canada has been told, have arrived to give back. With their government’s full support, they’re repaying us for the backing ordinary Canadians gave them (or more likely their parents) during the long, bitter, struggle against apartheid. Talking about parents, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Rachel Notley’s family once boycotted apartheid South Africa’s wine and oranges, just as my own household did.

And that’s the biggest story of Canada’s contribution to fighting South African apartheid. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has been acclaimed often enough by now for his role in the struggle, which while real, was also both brief and exaggerated. The real unsung warriors of Canada’s contribution to the end of apartheid are tens of thousands of ordinary Canadians, whether on their own or through anti-apartheid groups, solidarity groups, church groups, trade unions, or the NDP.

For years this exemplary slice of civil society boycotted South African products, put pressure on Ottawa to be more proactive, and kept in touch with South Africans themselves, giving them hope in their darkest days that the world had not forgotten, although much of the world in fact had. They were the real Canadian heroes of this story, and I hope the 300 learn about them.

The 300 are all firefighters in South Africa, working, as The Globe’s Africa correspondent Geoffrey York explained the other day, for a government-funded group called “Working on Fire.” South Africa today is in grave trouble in many ways, having come nowhere near fulfilling its potential since Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994 in the country’s first-ever free and democratic election.

South Africa has nothing like the infrastructure it needs to fight fires. Global warming has afflicted much of Africa, including South Africa, with drought and fires of their own. South Africa has an official unemployment rate of nearly a third of the labour force and youth unemployment of fully half the country’s 15 to 24-year-olds.

No one would have predicted these appalling figures when Mr. Mandela took over. But of course who would have guessed that so many of South Africa’s former freedom fighters would become millionaires, that millions of South Africans would still live in poverty, and that the country would be ruled by venal politicians in a government characterized by deep corruption and cynicism.

“Working on Fire” has taken a tiny but useful bite out of the awful unemployment total. So far it’s trained 5,000 firefighters, which gives them meaningful work and makes the country just that much safer. But we must not picture here a fire hall in Edmonton. Many, perhaps most, small towns in South Africa lack water and proper fire-fighting equipment. At home these firefighters get a stipend of a mere $150 a month. For their month in Alberta, the 300 will get something over $1,500 each, ten times more than at home but a bad joke for any Canadian firefighter. All this offers a telling insight into the comparative standard of living in Canada and South Africa – and yet South Africa is among the most prosperous and developed of African countries. Canadian officials later said they would bump up the firefighters’ pay.

Before they boarded that Canadian plane, the South Africans got 10 days of special training to get them ready for the realities of the Fort McMurray wildfire, the like of which few in the world have ever encountered. The firefighter-dancers who arrived in in Edmonton certainly seemed to be suffering no lack of self-confidence or willingness to throw themselves into the fray in whatever capacity they’re needed.

This is an unbearably sad time for many Albertans, not least those returning evacuees who have lost their homes to The Beast. At the same time, the South Africans may still be having the adventure of a lifetime, though I expect that their arduous work will soon lead to sheer exhaustion. Still, I can’t help hoping that at least some Albertans will meet the South Africans. Somehow, I’m sure they’ll find more in common than they themselves might anticipate. It would be sweet to think they may find strength and comfort from each other’s adversity and determination. Dancing together would be a fine beginning for a new future.

Didn't take long to revert to type though...

Striking SA firefighters heading home
Article By: Staff Reporter
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 8:11 AM

"The group of South African firefighters who were deployed to Canada to help fight the wild fire near Fort McMurray are heading home following a dispute over pay.

The firefighters, who are members of Working on Fire, arrived in Canada two weeks ago. On Wednesday, though, a number of the 301 firefighters did not report for duty due to the pay dispute.

According to Working on Fire, the Canadian authorities had agreed to cover the firefighters' meals and accomodation while each firefighter would also receive a daily stipend of C$15. They firefighters would also receive an additional "out of country daily allowance" of C$35 a day once they return home. The firefighters would also receive their regular wage that they earn in South Africa.

Working on Fire added that each firefighter had signed an agreement on pay before being deployed to Canada.

The strike was caused by media reports that claimed that the firefighters were being paid $21 per hour, Working on Fire said.

"We wish to categorically state that the quoted amount of $21 per hour is incorrect and was never agreed to with anyone," Working on Fire said in a Reuters report.

Canadian authorities said that the South African firefighters' departure would not disrupt efforts to fight the wildfire."

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Funny how those who saw this coming and voiced their concerns back in the day were all shouted down and vilified at the time. As usual those in the liberal west who agitated for this are nowhere to be found, having washed their hands of it and moved on to the next thing they want to destroy.

Malema: Don’t be apologetic about occupying land illegally

Malema says there's clause in the Freedom Charter that says South Africans can decide where they want to stay.

Clement Manyathela | about 14 hours ago

JOHANNESBURG - Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has told supporters in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal they must not be apologetic about occupying land illegally.

Malema addressed EFF supporters at the Madadeni College Stadium yesterday.

The party was celebrating the 61st anniversary of the Freedom Charter.

The EFF leader says because the African National Congress (ANC) failed to realise the clause in the Freedom Charter that says South Africans can decide where they want to stay, supporters can occupy any land they want.

“So, if you see a piece of land and you like it, don’t apologise, go and occupy that land. That land belongs to us.”

'WHITE PEOPLE CAN'T CLAIM OWNERSHIP'

Malema yesterday said, white people can’t claim ownership of land, saying it belongs to the country's African majority.
The firebrand politician said his party agrees with Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) founder Robert Sobukwe, who said the clause in the Freedom Charter, that the land belongs to all who live it, was a sell-out clause.

“If we say that South Africa belongs to whites too it means we are defeating what our forefathers were fighting for.”

The EFF leader also said the land can't be shared among those who work on it, as the Freedom Charter says, because this would mean if whites work the land, they too can claim it.

“These whites found us here and not one of them came with a piece of land in their pockets.”

He says once blacks have been declared rightful owners of the land, the party will decide how much percentage to give white people who have naturalised.

Not a student of history re the migration from central Africa either. Strangely enough, nothing but tumbleweeds and crickets from those who would crucify a person of another demographic for saying something like that.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

HELP! I would like to think that the above isn't true. ....is this guy related to Mugabe by any chance!?

It's interesting that he talks about taking land illegally in one breath and then tries to justify it as being ok as long as you are non - reflective; as millenia ago the land was inhabited by your ancestors and therefore yours. You couldn't get more racist if you tried. Unfortunately a lot of people will tolerate it because it comes from a non -reflective.

I hope Bots retains sanity while all around seem to be losing it. Feel for you all down there.

[A Lutra Continua]

Historically his ancestors migrated down from central Africa and displaced (read slaughtered and enslaved) the local Khoi and San people a few years before Europeans first landed in the Cape and Natal/Mozambique. At the time the estimated population of the entire region was a couple of hundred thousand. In hindsight, I wonder if the Voortrekkers (pioneers) handing out medicine and religion was such a good idea.

[Pinky the pilot]

I wonder if the Voortrekkers (pioneers) handing out medicine and religion was such a good idea.

Another example if such a thing was needed, that this site is the bastion of free speech ALC, as we both know that saying the above quote on TOP would earn you a ban at the very least.

And FWIW, I tend to wonder the same thing M`self!

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

One counter argument could be that we are all descendents of Lucy and therefore we are all entitled to go to Africa and grab a nice piece of land. African Reflectives are just as African as the non - reflectives.

ALCmaybe it could be said that it was a shame that we treated diseases, some of which we introduced to the indigenous population.....but then Africa probably has more nasties which killed many more missionaries than locals I suspect. Including Livingstone and his wife.

What I find so sad, is the blatant racism directed towards Reflectives which goes un-noticed by so many people in this World when they would be up in Arms if it was the other way around. I'm just glad that I don't have children. ......