Ndileka Mandela azungumzia mzozo wa familia
Ndileka Mandela mjukuu wa Nelson Mandela
Mjukuu wa rais wa zamani wa
Afrika Kusini Nelson Mandela, ambaye yuko katika hali mahututi katika
hospitali moja nchini Afrika Kusini, amesema kuwa amehuzunishwa sana na
mzozo unaokumbwa familia yake.
Familia ya Mandela imekuwa ikilumbana kuhusu kurejeshwa kwa mabaki ya watoto watatu wa Mandela katika makaburi yao ya zamani.Akizungumza na BBC kabla ya maadhimisho ya miaka 95 tangu kuzaliwa kwa rais huyo kwa kwanza mweusi wa Afrika Kusini, Ndileka Mandela amesema familia yake imekuwa na kibarua kigumu kukabiliana na hali ya afya ya Mzee Mandela.
Mzozo huo umekuwa kati ya wanachama kumi na sita wa familia na Mandela akiwemo mke wake, Graca Machel na mjukuu wa kwanza wa kiume wa Mandela ambaye pia ni kiongozi wa koo hiyo, Mandla Mandela.
Familia hiyo ilikwenda mahakamani, tarehe tatu Julai mwaka huu, kushininiza mabaki ya watoto hao watatu wa Mandela kufukuliwa na kurejeshwa katika makaburi ya ya zamani katika eneo la Qunu, mkoa wa Mashariki wa Cape.
Mandla Mandela mjukuu wa kwanza wa kiume wa Mandela
Kwenye nyaraka iliyowasilishwa mahakamani, inadaiwa Mandla alihamishwa mabaki hayo ili kuhakikisha kuwa Mandela amezikwa katika eneo hilo la Mvezo.
Mabaki hayo yaliyozikwa tena katika eneo la Qunu ni ya Makgatho Mandela ambaye ni babake Mandla ambaye aliaga dunia mwaka wa 2005 kutokana na maambukizi yanayohusiana na virusi vya ukimwi, Thembekile, ambaye aliaga dunia kwenye ajali ya barabarani mwaka wa sitini na tisa na babake Ndileka na Makaziwe mwanawe wa kike kwa kwanza wa Mandela ambaye aliaga dunia akiwa na umri wa miezi tisa pekee.
Ndileka amesema mzozo kuhusu makaburi ni jambo la kusitisha lakini hautasababisha familia hiyo kusambaratika.
Afueni kwa wafanyakazi wa nyumbani
wanawake wafanyakazi Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia imetangaza sheria mpya zinazotarajiwa kuwapa haki zaidi mamilioni ya wafanyikazi wa nyumbani.
Miongoni mwa sheria hizo ni kuwa waajiri watoe haki kamili kwa wafanyikazi zao.Kwa upande wa wafanyakazi hao watahitajika kuwaheshimu waajiri wao na kuheshimu dini ya Kiislamu.
Kumekuwepo malalamiko mengi ya unyanyasaji unaofanyiwa wafanyikazi hao katika mikono ya waajiri.
Masaibu ya wanawake wanaofanya kazi kama wasaidizi wa nyumbani nchini Saudi Arabia yamezua hamaki nyingi miongoni mwa wanaharakati wa haki za binadamu kwa miaka mingi.
Katika tukio baya zaidi, baadhi yao hupigwa na waajiri wao, au kudhalilishwa ki ngono na hata kisaikolojia. Lakini wengi pia wanateseka kazini kwa maisha magumu bila kuheshimiwa na waajiri wao.
Sheria mpya zilizotangazwa na waziri wa kazi nchini humo zinatarajiwa kusuluhisha hili.
Sheria zenyewe zinaamrisha waajiri kuwalipa wafanyakazi wao mishahara yao kamili kwa muda walioagizana.
Waajiri pia wataskahiki kuwapa wafanyikazi wao siku moja ya mapumziko katika wiki, na kutowafanyisha kazi zaidi ya saa tisa kwa siku.
Sheria kwa waajiri
- Walipe mishahara kamili kwa wakati unaofaa
- watoe siku moja ya mapumziko kwa wiki kwa wafanyikazi wao
- wasiwafanyishe kazi zaidi ya saa tisa kwa siku
Adhabu ya faini kali imewekwa kwa yeyote atakayevunja sheria hizi.
Mamilioni ya wafanyikazi wa nyumbani hutafuta ajira nchini Saudi Arabia wengi wao kutoka Ufilipino, Malaysia, Indonesia na hata mataifa ya Afrika.
Baadhi ya mataifa yamesitisha vibali kwa raia wao kusafiri nchini Saudi Arabia kufanya kazi za nyumbani kutokana na visa vilivyokithiri vya unyanyasaji.
Sheria kwa Wafanyakazi
- Lazima waheshimu waajiri wao
- Lazima waheshimu dini ya kiislamu
- Wasiache kazi au kukataa maagizo bila sababu mwafaka.
Djibouti yamfunga jela mwandishi wa habari wa upinzani
Maydaneh Abdallah Okieh, fundi mitambo ambaye anayehusika na mtandao wa habari unaomilikiwa na upinzani wa La Voix de Djibouti, amewekwa kizuizini tangu tarehe 15 Mei, lilitangaza shirika la Waandishi wa Habari Wasio Mipaka (RSF) siku ya Jumatatu (tarehe 27 Mei), likitoa wito wa kuachiwa kwake haraka.Okieh alikamatwa nyumbani kwake kwa kutuma picha kwenye ukurasa wa Facebook zinazoonesha polisi wakiyavunja maandamano ya upinzani. Anatarajiwa kupelekwa mahakamani siku ya Jumanne kwa mashtaka ya kumtukana afisa wa polisi na kulikashifu jeshi hilo.
"Mashtaka dhidi ya Okieh hayana msingi," lilisema shirika la RSF. "Hakuna chochote kwenye jalada la upande wa mashtaka. Alichokifanya ni kutuma picha tu za polisi wakitumia nguvu za ziada kutawanya maandamano ya amani."
Baada ya Okieh kupelekwa gereza la Gabode, mtandao wa La Voix de Djibouti ulidai ukatili wa polisi hapo tarehe 19 Mei.
"Tumepashwa kwamba Maydaneh Abdallah Okieh alikuwa mwathirika wa vurugu wakati alipokuwa mahabusu katika brigedi ya uhalifu ya polisi," shirika hilo la habari liliripoti. "Kwa saa 48 zilizopita, Maydaneh alifanyiwa vitendo kinyume cha ubinadamu na vya udhalilishaji na kikatili kwa kiasi kikubwa."
Djibouti iko katika nafasi ya 167 kati ya nchi 179 katika orodha ya uhuru wa vyombo vya habari ya RSF ya 2013.
May 28, 2013
Colombia and Farc rebels reach agreement on land reform
The deal would benefit many poor landless farmers
The government of Colombia and left-wing Farc rebels have agreed on land reform, after more than six months of peace talks.
"This agreement will be the start of a radical transformation of rural Colombia," read a joint statement.The deal calls for the economic and social development of rural areas and providing land to poor farmers.
Land reform is one of the most contentious issues in the talks on ending five decades of conflict.
"Today we have a real opportunity to attain peace through dialogue,'' said the Colombian government's chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.
"To support this process is to believe in Colombia," he told journalists at the talks in the Cuban capital, Havana.
The Farc, Colombia's largest guerrilla group, has been in talks with the government on the Caribbean island since last November.
Farc chief negotiator Ivan Marquez said several issues remained unresolved and would be dealt with in later discussions.
"We have advanced in the construction of an accord that will necessarily be checked over before the completion of the final agreement."
The talks in Cuba are the fourth attempt to reach a negotiated settlement of the conflict, the longest-running in Latin America.
Anti-gay marriage protestors clash with riot police in Paris
Riot police have clashed with hundreds of troublemakers in Paris at the end of a largely peaceful march by tens of thousands of people opposed to France's new gay marriage law.
Tens of thousands of people protested against France's new gay marriage law in Paris Photo: AP
The main demonstration saw three separate processions converging on the
Invalides esplanade, filling the huge promenade with pink and blue - the
official colours of the anti-gay marriage movement.
Police said 150,000 people turned out to protest, a figure immediately
contested by organisers of the demonstration who said one million opponents
of the law had shown up.
By early evening, no incidents had been reported despite the presence of
far-right activists, some of whom briefly unfurled a banner at the ruling
Socialist party's headquarters urging President Francois Hollande to resign.
A policeman wearing civilian clothes kicks a protester (AFP)
swalehabdurahman@gmail.com
When Israel hits Syria, it hones military edge for wider war
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When Israeli jets bomb Syria
to deny it or its allies "game-changer" weapons, they play according to
one core rule: ensuring the Jewish state maintains the military
superiority to swiftly prevail in any war.
On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's target list are four types of advanced arms, Russian- or Iranian-supplied, whose transfer from Syria to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas next door would hinder Israel's strategic options.
Although they outgun Syria, Hezbollah and Iran,
the Israelis assume all three allied adversaries may have to be fought
at once - an unprecedented scenario complicated by the probable launch
of thousands of missiles into the Jewish state.
That, air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel cautioned in an unusually forthright speech last week, meant the Israeli military had to be ready to lash out "with the full spectrum of its might" almost anywhere and at a few hours' notice.
But Eshel said this
capability was challenged by Syria's acquisition, at a time when
President Bashar al-Assad is fighting a two-year-old rebellion, of "the
best Russian air defense systems available".
One such system, the SA-17, was on a convoy bound for
Hezbollah when it was hit by Israel warplanes in late January,
intelligence sources said. Two other air strikes near Damascus this
month destroyed formidable Fateh-110 ground-to-ground missiles flown in
from Iran and awaiting transit to Hezbollah.The other two types of arms Israel says it is monitoring for any sign of handover to Hezbollah are Syria's chemical warheads and Russian-supplied Yakhount anti-ship missiles, which could repel Israel's navy and threaten its Mediterranean gas rigs.
Short on land, the Israelis have long relied on their hi-tech warplanes, helicopters and drones to keep any war mainly on enemy turf. But while the air force could best any Middle East adversary one-on-one, it might struggle to keep up far-flung sorties - especially if more-distant Iran were involved.
"Sustaining massive air operations far from home has not been an objective within the Israeli mission set," said Philip Handleman, an American aviation expert and author.
"MASSIVE FIREPOWER"
The most potent Russian air defense system, the long-range S-300, is "on its way" to Syria, Eshel said. He did not say where he got his information but it could indicate that appeals by Netanyahu to Russia to scrap such a deal had not succeeded.
Russia's foreign minister said on May 13 that it had no new plans to sell an advanced air defense system to Syria but left open the possibility of delivering such systems under an existing contract.
One senior Israeli official quoted Netanyahu as saying privately that the S-300 could "turn Israel into a no-fly zone" as well as curb its currently unrestrained Lebanese overflights.
Amos Gilad, an Israeli defense official, said in a radio interview that the S-300, if delivered to Syria, could end up in Iranian hands and thus "threaten the Gulf" - hamstringing any plan for a pre-emptive attack on Iranian nuclear sites.
Sounding similar warnings about the limits of Israel's conventional arsenal, Eshel said it would not achieve any "knock-outs" but would have to "prevail in the war within a few days - and that will require massive firepower".
"The homefront will be hit no matter how much we defend it," Eshel said. He was referring to some 200,000 missiles and rockets Israel believes are aimed at its interior from Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza.
The Fateh-110 would significantly increase the potency of Hezbollah's stockpile. Accurate to a few dozen yards (meters) at ranges of 300 km (190 miles), carrying half-ton warheads and designed to be fuelled up and fired at short notice, they could disrupt the military command and commercial centers of Tel Aviv.
Israel suffered thousands of shorter-range missile strikes during its wars with Hezbollah and in Gaza in 2006 and 2008-2009. Its firepower also exacted a vastly greater casualty toll in Lebanon and Gaza than it suffered, drawing unfriendly media coverage and diplomatic pressure to relent.
With their regional isolation deepening, the Israelis predict they will have "days" in which to wage another offensive before foreign remonstrations become impossible to resist.
"In modern times, because war is all the time on television, people see this and can't take it. There are limits. There is a price you pay," then-deputy prime minister Dan Meridor said in 2011, remarks echoed recently by Israeli officials and officers.
That the Assad family has never brandished chemical weapons against Israel during its 43 years of rule suggests a parity with the Jewish state's reputed nuclear arsenal. But such deterrence may not apply, some Israeli experts argue, for non-state actors like Hezbollah or the Islamist militants among the Syrian insurgents fighting to overthrow Assad.
Yet Amos Yadlin, the former chief of Israeli military intelligence who now runs the INSS think-tank at Tel Aviv University, parted with the government's chemical arms fears.
With their lack of a comprehensive military structure, Hezbollah guerrillas are even less likely than Syria to use such weapons, were they to obtain them, he told Reuters.
"I am not at all worried by the chemical weaponry. On
the operational level, it is not efficient or easy to operate. It is
more dangerous for those launching it."(Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Rockets hit south Beirut after Hezbollah vows Syria victory
By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two rockets hit a Shi'ite Muslim district of Beirut on Sunday, driving home the risk of spillover from Syria's civil war, after the head of Lebanese Shi'ite militant Hezbollah said it would keep fighting on the Syrian government's side until victory.It was the first attack to apparently target Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital since the outbreak of the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria, which has sharply heightened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions.
The United States and Russia have proposed an international peace conference to douse a civil war that has killed more than 80,000 people, driven 1.5 million Syrians as refugees abroad and raised the specter of sectarian bloodshed in the wider region.
Syria's government will "in principle" attend the talks tentatively set for June in Geneva and believes it will be an opportunity to resolve the crisis, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday.
But in an apparent rebuff of Western calls for Assad to cede power as part of any deal on a political transition, Moualem said: "No power on earth can decide on the future of Syria. Only the Syrian people have the right to do so."
The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers, striving to refloat a plan for a political transition in Syria, were due to meet in Paris on Monday to work out the details.
Whether the exiled Syrian civilian opposition will take part in the envisaged peace talks - and be able to negotiate effectively, given their internal divisions and shaky rapport with rebels inside Syria - remains in doubt.
The United States has been prodding opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to unite before the conference. But the Islamist-dominated coalition has been hamstrung by power struggles during talks going on in Istanbul aimed at broadening its representation and electing a cohesive leadership.
The talks stalled on Sunday in a factional dispute over proposals to dilute Qatar's influence on rebel forces, with Saudi Arabia angling to play a greater role now that Iranian-backed Hezbollah was openly fighting for Assad.
CONFLICT AFFLICTING LEBANON
Syria's conflagration has polarized tiny Lebanon, with Sunni Muslims supporting the mainly Sunni insurgency against Assad, and Shi'ite Hezbollah standing by the president, whose minority Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.
In Sunday's attack, one rocket landed in a car sales yard next to a busy road junction in south Beirut's Chiah neighborhood, and the other struck an apartment several hundred meters away, wounding five people, residents said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Brigadier Selim Idris, head of Syria's Western-backed rebel military command, told Al-Arabiya Television that his forces had not carried out the attack.
He urged rebels to keep their conflict inside Syria.
But another Syrian rebel, Ammar al-Wawi, told Lebanon's LBC Television the attack was a warning to authorities in Beirut to restrain Hezbollah. "In coming days we will do more than this. This is a warning to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to keep Hezbollah's hands off Syria," he said.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had declared on Saturday night that his heavily armed fighters were committed to the conflict against what he called radical Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria, whatever the cost.
"We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position," he said in a televised speech on Saturday evening. "We will be the ones who bring victory."
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned the violent spillover into Lebanon. "The war in Syria must not become the war in Lebanon," he told reporters in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
Until recently, Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah had not sent guerrillas to fight alongside Assad's forces.
Syrian government forces reinforced by Hezbollah launched an onslaught last week on Qusair, a rebel-controlled town close to the Lebanese border that rebels have used as a crucial supply corridor for weapons coming into the country.
For Assad, taking Qusair would reconnect Damascus, the capital, with the Alawite heartland on Syria's seacoast and help sever links between the rebel-held north and south of Syria.
Lebanese authorities, haunted by Lebanon's own 1975-1990 civil war and torn by the same sectarian rifts as Syria, have pursued a policy of "dissociation" from the Syrian turmoil.
But they are unable to stem the flow into Syria of Sunni Muslim gunmen who support the rebels and Hezbollah fighters who back Assad, and have struggled to absorb nearly half a million refugees coming the other way to escape the fighting.
At least 25 people have been killed in Tripoli in the north of Lebanon over the last week in Sunni-Alawite street fighting triggered in part by the battle for Qusair across the frontier.
In Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, residents said three rockets landed on Sunday close to the mainly Shi'ite border town of Hermel, without causing injuries. Rebels have targeted Hermel from inside Syria several times in recent weeks.
Nasrallah's speech was condemned by former prime minister Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni who said that Hezbollah, set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation forces in south Lebanon, had abandoned anti-Israeli "resistance" in favor of sectarian conflict in Syria.
"The resistance is ending by your hand and your will," Hariri said in a statement. "The resistance announced its political and military suicide in Qusair."
Hariri is backed by Saudi Arabia, which along with other Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab monarchies has strongly supported the uprising against the Iranian-backed Assad.
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Istanbul, Laila Bassam and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Ahmed Rasheed and Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad, John Irish in Abu Dhabi; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Will Waterman)
May 11, 2013
Retrial due for ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Mr Mubarak's first retrial ended amid chaotic scenes in April
The retrial of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is due to begin at 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT).
Mr Mubarak faces charges of complicity in the killings of
protesters in the January 2011 uprising which overthrew him and of
financial corruption.Mr Mubarak was convicted in June 2012 but a retrial was ordered on appeal.
His first retrial collapsed in April amid chaotic scenes as the presiding judge referred the case to another court.
Judge Mustafa Hassan Abdullah said he was referring the trial to the Cairo appeals court as he felt "unease" in reviewing the case.
Mr Mubarak's former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six aides will also be retried on the charges relating to the killing of protesters in 2011. Mr Al-Adly will also be retried for corruption charges.
About 850 people were killed in the 2011 crackdown.
Both men successfully appealed against their convictions at Egypt's Court of Cassation, which cited procedural failings in the original trial.
Mr Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa, will be retried on corruption charges for which they were acquitted in June 2012, because of the expiry of a statute of limitations.
May 11, 2013
Carbon dioxide passes symbolic mark
Key measurements are made on top of the Mauna Loa volcano
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have broken through a symbolic mark.
Daily measurements of CO2 at a US government agency lab on Hawaii have topped 400 parts per million for the first time.The station, which sits on the Mauna Loa volcano, feeds its numbers into a continuous record of the concentration of the gas stretching back to 1958.
The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago - before modern humans existed.
Scientists say the climate back then was also considerably warmer than it is today.
Carbon dioxide is regarded as the most important of the manmade greenhouse gases blamed for raising the temperature on the planet over recent decades.
Human sources come principally from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
James Butler NoaaIn eight to nine years we will probably have seen the last CO2 reading under 400ppm”
The usual trend seen at the
volcano is for the CO2 concentration to rise in winter months and then
to fall back as the northern hemisphere growing season kicks in. Forests
and other vegetation pull some of the gas out of the atmosphere.
This means the number can be expected to decline by a few ppm
below 400 in the coming weeks. But the long-term trend is upwards.Carbon by proxy James Butler is responsible for the Earth System Research Laboratory, a facility on Mauna Loa belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). Its daily average CO2 concentration figure on Thursday was 400.03.
Dr Butler told BBC News: "Carbon dioxide has some variability on an hourly, daily and weekly basis, so we are not comfortable calling a single number - the lowest we will go is on a daily average, which has happened in this case.
"Mauna Loa and the South Pole observatory are iconic sites as they have been taking CO2 measurements in real time since 1958. Last year, for the first time, all Arctic sites reached 400ppm.
"This is the first time the daily average has passed 400ppm at Mauna Loa."
Italian showdown with Germany as Enrico Letta rejects 'death by austerity'
Italy’s new premier Enrico Letta is on a collision course with Germany after vowing to end death by austerity, and warned that Europe itself faces a “crisis of legitimacy” unless it charges course.
Encrico Letta said Italy would abide by
EU budget pledges and but in reality he seems to have broken with the
core demands of the EU fiscal compact
“Italy is dying from fiscal consolidation. Growth policies cannot wait any
longer,” he told Italy’s parliament. He said the country is in “very
serious” crisis after a decade of stagnation and warned of violent protest
if the social malaise deepens.
The grand coalition of Left and Right - the first since the late 1940s - will
abolish the hated IMU tax on primary residences, a wealth levy imposed by
ex-premier Mario Monti, and push for tax cuts for business and young people
to pull the country out of perma-slump. A rise in VAT to 22pc in July may be
delayed.
Vice-premier Angelo Alfano - the appointee of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi -
said he agreed with every word from “beginning to end”, as the Berlusconi
camp claimed “total victory” over the policy agenda.
Mr Letta said Italy would abide by EU budget pledges and but in reality he
seems to have broken with the core demands of the EU fiscal compact.
Markets surged as optimism swept the country, with the Milan bourse up 2pc and
yields on 10-year Italian bonds falling to 3.94pc, the lowest since 2010.
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