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Dance, songs & tears: S Africa salutes its anti-apartheid hero, Mandela
A man during a gathering of mourners in Soweto on Friday. Reuters
After Saudi refusal, Jordan elected to Security Council
Hasina ready to defer polls to accommodate BNP
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Three suspended for misquoting Sharif on war with India
US freeze shows no signs of meltdown
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Dance, songs & tears: S Africa salutes its anti-apartheid hero, Mandela
Johannesburg, December 7 In Rwanda a million people had died in a ghastly genocide. But South Africa had made an astonishingly peaceful transition from oppressive white rule to a black-majority government elected in the country’s first free elections ever – and it had done so under the guidance of one extraordinary man. His very name ought to have given a clue to the background and influences which formed him as one of the seminal figures of 20th century history. His forename was Rolihlahla – which in the tongue of his native Xhosa tribe means “troublemaker”. Mandela’s journey His family name, Mandela, like his clan name, Madiba — which became the affectionate term by which he was known in his later years as father of his nation — revealed him to be a member of the family of the paramount chief of the Thembu people, to whom his father was chief councillor in the rural Transkei, the homeland of the Xhosas in the Eastern cape province. There he was born on July 18, 1918 and there he was imbued with strong sense of both tribal pride and of the responsibility of leadership. Nelson Mandela led the struggle to replace the apartheid regime of South Africa with a multi-racial democracy. Imprisoned for 27 years, in 1994 he went on to become his country’s first black president. “Yesterday we were crying, and we didn’t sleep, now even as you see me,” said Thandie Bushala, one of a trio of women who danced all day in honour of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s anti-apartheid hero and its first black president, who died peacefully at the age of 95 on Thursday evening, surrounded by his family at the Mandela house in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton. Images of Mandela’s smiling face leapt out from rosettes, T-shirts, flags and even paintings that people had brought to hold high above their heads as they sang liberation songs – the same images and songs that were banned under apartheid as former white rulers tried to stamp out dissidence, branding Mandela a firebrand for his socialist rhetoric and demands for equal rights for the country’s black population. — The Independent Preparations begin to bid adieu to Mandela
South Africa on Saturday began preparations for the December 15 funeral of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, which will be preceded by 10 days of memorial events expected to draw an unprecedented number of world leaders and luminaries. Mandela's memorial service at the 95,000-seat FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday is expected to be one of the largest such gatherings in decades. — PTI |
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After Saudi refusal, Jordan elected to Security Council
United Nations, December 7 Jordan, endorsed by the African and Asian regional group, was elected yesterday to serve on the Council for two years beginning January 2014. It received 178 "yes" votes in the election in the 193-member General Assembly. Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said Jordan was “extremely honoured" and "humbled" by the near consensus support from the world community which recognised his country's "relentless efforts in the pursuit of peace and security, the very principles that the Security Council is mandated to preserve." Jordan will be seated alongside Chad, Chile, Lithuania and Nigeria, which the General Assembly elected in October. Saudi Arabia was also elected in the October vote, but signalled that it would not accept the position. In a November statement to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Saudi Foreign Ministry formally confirmed that it would not take up the UN Security Council seat. In the statement, the Ministry apologised for its non-acceptance, explaining that the country could not serve on the Council until the body is “reformed and enabled, effectively and practically, to carry out its duties and responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security.” The Foreign Ministry cited the situation of the Palestinian cause, lacking a just and lasting solution for 65 years, as “irrefutable evidence and proof of the Security Council's inability to carry out its duties and assume its responsibilities”. It also laments the Council's “failure to make the Middle East a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.” — PTI Filling vacant post
* Jordan won 178 votes from among the 193 members of the UN General Assembly and was the only candidate put forward for the vacant post that Saudi Arabia had declined to accept *
Saudi Arabia was elected in October to join the 15-member council from January 1, but in an unprecedented move Riyadh declined the role a day after the vote |
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Hasina ready to defer polls to accommodate BNP
Dhaka, December 7 Hasina’s media adviser Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury said the premier told UN Assistant Secretary General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco that the independent Election Commission could defer the poll schedule to accommodate the BNP. The UN envoy, on a mission to end political turmoil triggered by a standoff between the Awami League and the BNP over the general election, sought revision of the poll schedule for negotiations. “But whatever the Election Commission does, they must do it within the constitutional framework,” Hasina was quoted as saying by Chowdhury. The envoy told Hasina that the UN wants continued democratic process through peaceful polls joined by all major parties. — PTI |
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Three suspended for misquoting Sharif on war with India
Islamabad, December 7 The statement was, however, denied by Sharif’s office. Press Information Department (PID) director Chaudhry Abdur Rashid, Press Information Officer Parvez Ahmed and assistant director Khawaja Imran were suspended for issuing “irrelevant material” to the media that “embarrassed” premier Sharif and his government, the Express Tribune newspaper reported. The ministry had released a statement misquoting Sharif, stating that “Kashmir was a flashpoint and that unless the issue was resolved there was a possibility of a fourth war between Pakistan and India”. — PTI
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US freeze shows no signs of meltdown
Texas, December 7 A layer of ice and sleet up to three inches thick is expected to stay on roads in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex through Sunday, forecasters said, after what some say is the worst winter weather to hit the US in years. — Reuters
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“Rwanda is our nightmare, South Africa is our dream.” So wrote the Nobel Prize-winning African novelist Wole Soyinka in 1994. It was just a month after two events which seemed to span the polarities of despair and hope so many saw in the continent of Africa in the
post- independence era.
