'Ethnic cleansing' in Belfast

Reported at News24: "Racist thugs" have been trying to drive blacks and Asians out of Belfast, and they have frightened at least one South African family away. London - Thandi, a black South African woman who lived in Soweto through the apartheid years, thought life would be different in Northern Ireland. But one day, she told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, she opened her door to a group of men who swore at her, telling her to leave. The woman, who asked for her surname not to be published, ran out of the back door leaving behind her children, aged 13 and two, who remained silent upstairs as the family's television, kitchen, fireplace and new electronic games console were smashed.

Germany regrets Namibia 'genocide'

Interested to read today about the German Ambassador to Nambia making a statement of regret concerning the killing of between 35,000 and 105,000 Namibians in the early 1900s when they rebelled against German rule in 1904, see BBC. The obvious link was to the new and brutal book by Andre Brink on the subject, still chewing over that one...or perhaps just simply disturbed by its violent content as I noted early in my blog. Anyway, I wonder what will happen next now as a compensation claim is on the cards...

Khulumani Victim Support Group

I added the Khulumani Victim Support Group Website to my Links Page. I am glad their site is now up, informative and helpful.

Daily Summit

Daily Summit is an interesting live commentary site that has in that past reported on the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. I think I'll go back to this one.

9th anniversary of the death of Joe Slovo

Today is the 9th Anniversary of the death of Joe Slovo who at the time of his death was the South African Communist Party (SACP) chairperson and Minister of Housing in President Mandela’s cabinet. He made a very significant contribution to transformation of South Africa over the years. Nothwithstanding his personal contribution which is outlined briefly in the SACP's press statement on the anniversary of his death, I was interested to read the SACP's clear condemnation of Mugabe's Zimbabwe that sneaks through in the statement. Seems as if the SACP are calling Mugabe's recent activities an example of a once-heroic struggle "stagnating post-independence under the domination of emergent, supposedly nationalist, rent-seeking bourgeoisies, abusing newly acquired state power for personal accumulation". Interesting to compare this to the ANC's more benign responses thus far....

Managing Spam

Been trying to monitor my number of emails I get over the last while. On average seem to get about 1250 emails a month, about 50% are spam! I am now using Mailwasher Pro, or have been for the last few months, helps a lot...but wish someone could stop the spam merchants.