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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
SA scientist fired over St Louis flood warnings
09:36 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
April 12 2009 - Dr Ivor van Heerden, the South African-born deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center; and director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes, has just been fired.
Van Heerden created a hurricane modeling programme at LSU. For the last decade he has been one of the most persistent voices warning of the inevitable effects of a major hurricane on the Louisiana coast. He was one of several hundred participants at the Hurricane Pam exercise in July 2004.
He claims that his warnings during the Hurricane Pam exercise were ignored, which may have contributed to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He has also taken the Army Corps of Engineers to task for their misdesigns which caused the Levee failures in Greater New Orleans, 2005.
For a time LSU told him not to talk to the media with concerns that book The Storm was endangering federal grant money flowing to the university.
In 2006 his book "The Storm" offered his analysis of Katrina and the levee disasters.
A quote from Van Heerden is on this neighborhood memorial to Katrina dead in the Bywater section of New Orleans, above.
On 9 April 2009 LSU announced it was firing van Heerden. Van Heerden told The Times that he was not offered any reason.
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Seven dangerously genocidal men still at large in Africa
Picture: Seven dangerously genocidal leaders, says the International Criminal Court in The Hague, pictured here, have been responsible for the murders , rapes and enslavement of many millions of Africans. They are still at large on the continent and the ICC want these monsters arrested and brought to trial in The Hague.
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands. The International Criminal Court in The Hague warns that it will not be able to prosecute all the individuals now standing accused of crimes against humanity in the Rwandan and Sudanese genocides, and the crimes against children still being conducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, the central African republic and the Congo -- unless the states harbouring them, start arresting these men. The court said it wanted to urgently remind the international community of its responsibilities when it signed in support of the UN’s Rome Statute.
Following is Interpol ‘s list of outstanding arrest warrants in this regard, which were issued by the International Criminal Court:
AL-BASHIR, OMAR, president of Sudan. His arrest warrant has not been published on the Interpol website. see http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/exeres/0EF62173-05ED-403A-80C8-F15EE1D25BB3.htm
ABD AL RAHMAN, ALI MUHAMMAD ALI
Born 1957. Speaks Arabic. Being protected by the current nominal Sudanese government. Nationality Sudanese
HARUN, AHMAD MUHAMMAD
Born in 1964 Nationality Sudan
Place of birth: ABOU KARSHOULAH, NORTH KORDOFAN, Sudan Language spoken: Arabic
KONY, JOSEPH
Nationality Uganda, leader, Lord’s Resistance Army. Place of birth: ODEK / OMORO / GULU, Uganda Languages spoken: Acoli, Arabic, English, Swahili
NTAGANDA, JEAN BOSCO
Born 1973 Nationality Congo
Language spoken: French, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, SWAHILI Nationality: Congo
ODHIAMBO, OKOT
Nationality Uganda, member, Lord’s Resistance Army. Place of birth: PALUGALA / GULU, Uganda
Languages spoken: Acoli, Arabic, English, SWAHILI Nationality: Uganda
ONGWEN, DOMINIC
Nationality Uganda, sub-leader Lord’s Resistance Army, Place of birth: LAMOGI SUB-COUNTY / GULU DISTRICT, Uganda Language spoken: Acoli Nationality: Uganda
http://www.interpol.int/public/Data/Wanted/Notices/Data/2008/59/2008_26559.asp
Sudanese Massalit tribal genocide, refugees chased into Chad: arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir:
In its ongoing gathering of evidence for all these crimes, the registrar of the International Criminal Court, Ms Silvana Arbia, in March visited refugee camps in Treguine and Bredjing in eastern Chad where tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees from the Massalit tribe are now living. She discussed the ICC’s work with them and discussed recent developments in Darfur, Sudan with the refugees during a four-day fact-finding trip. It started Monday, 30 March 2009.
youtube.com/watch?v=WCz9P5aWvmQ
The registrar met camp leaders, mostly Massalit tribal refugees, as well as with representatives of women’s groups and a great many victims. Questions mainly focused on the arrest warrant recently issued by the Court for the Sudanese President, Omar Al Bashir, and the modalities of its implementation by Sudan. Refugees said they ‘welcomed the arrest warrant but expressed concern at the lack of State cooperation shown to date.’They also emphasised to the Registrar that, as soon as justice was done and peace restored, they wished to return to their place of origin, Darfur.
Ms Arbia assured them that the Court would continue to strive for State cooperation in Omar Al Bashir’s arrest and transfer to the ICC. “The arrest warrant will be executed”, she stated, stressing that the Court is a permanent institution, the crimes that the Sudanese President is alleged to have committed are not subject to any statute of limitations and, even in the case of a Head of State, justice takes its course. If the arrest was not carried out, the ICC still had recourse to appeal to the United Nations Security Council.
She also addressed victims’ rights and explained how they could obtain reparations for harm suffered.
see
The warrant of arrest for Omar Al Bashir lists 7 counts on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility (article 25(3)(a)) including:
-
five counts of crimes against humanity: murder – article 7(1)(a); extermination – article 7(1)(b); forcible transfer – article 7(1)(d);
torture – article 7(1)(f); and rape – article 7(1)(g); -
two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities – article 8(2)(e)(i); and pillaging – article 8(2)(e)(v).
Findings concerning genocide in Sudan:
The majority of the Chamber, (Judge Anita UĊĦacka dissenting), found that the material provided by the prosecution in support of its application for a warrant of arrest failed to provide reasonable grounds to believe that the government of Sudan ‘acted with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribal groups.’
Consequently, the crime of genocide is not included in the warrant issued for the arrest of Omar Al Bashir.
Nevertheless, the judges stressed that ‘if additional evidence is gathered by the prosecution, this decision would not prevent the prosecution from requesting an amendment to the warrant of arrest in order to include the crime of genocide.
Current cases heard at the court:
Democratic Republic of Congo
- Mathieu Ngodjolo Chui, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
The court has assigned Trial Chamber II to the case against Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngodjolo Chui, being heard for crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Also in session: the case against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which started on 26 Jnuary 2009, and in which 17 witnesses have testified so far. He’s in custody in The Hague.
Central African Republic – Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo
Also, the court is hearing the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo of the Central African Repoublic, and the pre-trial chamber adjourned on March 4 for confirmation of charges hearing. He’s in custody in The Hague.
Darfur – Sudan
On 2 March 2009, the prosecutor presented evidence to Pre-Trial Chamber 1, requesting arrest warrants for three Darfur rebel leaders accused of crimes against humanity, bu tnot for genocide.
The ICC says it cannot start judicial proceedings in the case against Ahmad Muhammad Harun and Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, pictured, because the suspects remain at large in Sudan.They have issued arrest warrants for these men.
Uganda: Joseph Kony, Lord’s Resistance Army
Summary:
By 2008, despite the ICCs arrest warrants posted on the Interpol website for the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army Joseph Kony and his sidekicks, these extremely cruel men, who often kidnap large groups of children to work for them as ‘child-soldier’ and sex-slaves, and operating in Uganda, the People’s Republic of the Congo, and the central African republic, have not been apprehended. YouTube video: youtube.com/watch?v=9bl9ycNcSpQ
This case is resting at the pre-trial Chamber II of the court, which also found in March 2009 after submissions from the government of Uganda, that the case remains admissable.
In a briefing to foreign diplomats in The Hague early in April, the ICC judge-president Sang-Hyung Song urged assistance from all the world's governments to apprehend these suspects and bring them to trial at the ICC.
"The success of the ICC depends on state cooperation. This includes arests, witness relocation and enforcement of sentences,' he said.
http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/1E5F488B-2FA9-40F4-9378-A386AF6CBA6E/280246/Compilation_of_Statements_15_DS.pdf
Rwandan Genocide Still Unresolved
Also, most of the issues surrounding the Rwanda genocide (commemorated on 7 April each year) still remain unresolved until all the suspects are brought to The Hague, the ICC warns.
- "It has been 15 years since the killings started, and the unthinkable has happened again. It is a solemn reminder of the responsibility of State parties to the Rome Statute.
It is a call for action to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, Joseph Kony, Ahmed Harun and Omar Al-Bashir and to stop the massive crimes that they are still committing.'
sources:
http://www.icc-cpi.int/menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/20090401-pr403
http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/exeres/0EF62173-05ED-403A-80C8-F15EE1D25BB3.htm
http://www.un.org/children/conflict/keydocuments/english/romestatuteofthe7.html
Polygamy becomes a hot issue…
By Adriana Stuijt. see Polygamy becomes hot election issue in South Africa on Digital Journal.com
April 11 2009 -- The widespread, hidden practice of polygamy among many black South African leaders was attacked headlong this week by the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party,
Reverend Kenneth Meshoe. A top black journalists says he's being 'sanctimonious' however and ‘taking his cue from foreign missionaries…’
‘Polygamy is an abuse of women’:
Reverend Meshoe - who attacked the practice of polygamy as 'abuse of women' -- has thus hurled himself head-long into a political minefield which no South African politicians have ever dared to tread before. He started attacking the widespread practice of polygamy in South Africa. during a controversial interview with journalist Verashni Pillay.
The influential Sowetan newspaper, read by many millions of blacks, was the first to attack Rev Meshoe, accusing him of being 'influenced by foreign missionaries, sanctimonious and judgmental'.
"From the pulpit of electioneering," writes Sowetan's editor, "the sanctimonious Meshoe extolled that 'polygamy is an abuse of women because you will favour one wife over the other and you cannot satisfy them all. If you are married, you need to take care of that wife and love that wife, as I am doing with my wife.' Sowetan's editor was clearly furious, writing: "what informs the good pastor’s self-righteous view? Does he take his cue from the first missionaries to arrive on our shores?" see
Polygamy is widely practiced among black-African and islamic South Africans alike -- and every 'customary' marriage is recognised under a 1998 South African law as legal.
However, polygamy has rarely been spoken and written about publicly, especially in election years, and most certainly never by politicians.
- This changed after the election of Jacob Zuma as president of the ruling African National Congress party, who happily admits to all and sundry that he's a polygamist, and loving it.
Zulu Homesteads
Zulu homesteads show polygamous marriages
When one travels in the 'traditional areas' outside the major cities, polygamy can be seen quite readily by the agriculture: the houses take on the traditional Zulu shape as soon as one leaves Durban, travelling inland.
The compounds have a central circular house with smaller circular houses around it. These smaller houses are for the wives, as polygamy is strongly practiced, even among self-professed, practicing Zulu Christians.
Zuma once famously told a television interviewer: “There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide so as to pretend they're monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I'm proud of my children.”
Eighteen children, four wives, several mistresses:
Picture: Christopher Szabo
He has recognised at least 18 children from four “official” wives and several girlfriends.
Who will be First Lady?
Political commentators are now raising this issue rather cauteously, asking 'who would be first lady' when he becomes president of the country...
It's also an important issue among the country's 11-million traditional Zulus, who have given him their unwavering support - while the previous president, Thabo Mbeki was so unpopular and distrusted that he often was physically barred with his presidential motorcade from holding meetings in KwaZulu-Natal. see
Proven virility essential quality in SA leaders:
The Times' Jonathan Clayton wrote shortly after Zuma's victory over previous president Thabo Mbeki - who has had no offspring from his apparently monogamous marriage:
- "Sex, virility and loyalty are intimately linked to one of the most remarkable political comebacks in recent history.’
- “They have helped Mr Zuma, a charismatic populist with impeccable liberation struggle credentials, to hone his image as an expansive African “Big Man” politician, champion of the poor and oppressed."
Zuma, who has no formal education, joined the ANC aged 17. Like former president Mbeki, he has also served it all his life, much of it in exile in Mozambique and Zambia. Many supporters in the townships see him as their saviour who, unlike the self-enriching Mbeki clan leader, will uplift them from their misery and poverty.
They often refer to him openly as 'the black Jesus'.
Picture: Alet Pretorius, Beeld.
In Mr Zuma's traditional constituencies of teeming black urban townships and poor rural areas, where much of the population still lives in grinding poverty 15 years after the end of apartheid, 'there was very little love for the scholarly Mbeki’ wrote Clayton. Mbeki’s virility became important enough for him to placed the name of the only offspring he's known to having fathered on his cv. His monogamous marriage to his present wife is childless.
Polygamy: South African Pandora's box
The African Christian Democratic Party, which has five MPs in parliament, has always been known for its ultra-conservative pro-Christian stance.
The ACDP is one of the smaller opposition parties in Parliament. And Meshoe, whose church congregation counts about 4,000 members, has managed to maintain a steady foothold for his seemingly niche party, writes Pillay. And his support among black Christians has also been growing steadily: the party grew from 0.45% of the national vote in 1994 to 1.43% in 1999 and 1.6% in 2004.
- Meshoe says he established the party to get Christians and Christian values into government, pointing out that Christian MPs in other parties had to toe the line and suppress their values.
Yet the ACDP MPs have also been targetted the most by fellow-MPs and the liberal news media in South Africa for their opposition to abortion and homosexuality.
They are however also in favour of bringing back the death penalty to curb the country's violence-driven, extraordinarily high crime rate, in which some 90 people a day are officially listed as being killed in murders and culpible homicides by the police -- and one female is raped every 26 seconds...
The ACDP has been campaigning very persistently in this year's national elections on April 22 by hammering on just two issues:
- fighting crime and forming coalitions with other opposition parties to keep the ANC out of power.
However his comments against polygamy have brought him the most notoriety in thus current election campaign thus far.
Eighty percent of South Africans call themselves Christian, according to a 2001 census: Zionist (black) Christian 11.1%, Pentecostal/Charismatic 8.2%, Catholic 7.1%, Methodist 6.8%, Dutch Reformed 6.7%, Anglican 3.8% and other Christian 36%.
African churches have long recognized polygamy. They stated in the 1988 Lambeth Conference, “It has long been recognized in the Anglican Communion that polygamy in parts of Africa, and traditional marriage, do genuinely have features of both faithfulness and righteousness.” see
Other African leaders outside South Africa also have no problems with combining their public lives with their polygamous marriages:
- Mwai Kibaki, the Christian president of Kenya, whose victory was attributed to ‘the hand of the Lord’ by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, is polygamous. see
- And post-apartheid South Africa has also legalized polygamy with a 1998 law. See:
Click here to see News24's video interview with Kenneth Meshoe. see
Summary of Jacob Zuma's wives and lovers:
- (also see our previous article about Zuma here)
Number one: Zuma is still married to his buxom first wife, Sizakele Khumalo, whom he met in 1959. The traditional“MaKhumalo” lives at his smart homestead in Nklanda, KwaZulu-Natal. He has no children with her, but has publicly praised her and she is favourite to be “first lady”.
Number two - Ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - Foreign Affairs Minister - with whom he had 4 children - Msholozi, 24, Gugu, 22, Thuli, 21 and Thuthi, 19. They divorced in June 1998 due to "irreconcilable differences."
Number three - Late wife Kate Zuma - with whom he had 5 children - Saady, 29, twins Duduzile and Duduzane both 25, Phumzile, 20 and Vusi. She committed suicide on December 8, 2000 after apparent strained relations with Zuma.
Number four - Nompumelelo Mantuli Zuma - whom he married in January 2008. She has 2 children from him: Thandiswe, 7 and 8 month old Sinquobile.
Number five - Thobeka Stacey Mabhija - with whom he has two children, including a 5 month old baby.
Mrs Jacob Zuma number six? Bongi Ngema - from Umlazi, has a 7 month old son
Left at the altar
Zuma also paid half lobolo (dowry) for Swazi Princess Sebentile Dlamini, 38, the granddaughter of King Sobhuza III, in 2002 but nothing has come out of it.
The mistress: His old flame Minah Shongwe, sister of Judge Jeremiah Shongwe (who asked to be recused from Mr Zuma’s rape trial because of the liaison). She has a son, Edward, 30, with Mr Zuma.
Legal rights:
The legal rights of these women and children could also be an issue: Jennifer Williams, the director of the Women's Legal Centre, was quoted as saying to the Mail & Guardian newspaper that polygamous wives also in a tricky legal and financial rights situation:
"If a husband has married once under 'customary tribal law' in South Africa, the later polygamous marriages may only be recognised in terms of the "Recognition of the Customary Marriages Act of 1998" -- if the husband brings an application to court for permission to marry again.
These applications have to set out the property systems for each of his various wives.The idea is that the court then comes to the assistance of the women and children of the marriages in setting out how the marital property is to be distributed equitably." see
20090409 Van den Bosch farm couple murdered, Boschkop, Pretoria
“This was ethnic cleansing, not ‘just crime’,” says Transvaal Agricultural union…
BOSCHKOP, Pretoria, South Africa, April 11 2009 – A Dutch immigrant couple from the Utrecht region who had emigrated to South Africa in 1982 to run a dairy farm, was murdered on Easter Friday, April 10 2009. The farmer, 63-year-old Johannes van den Bosch, was bludgeoned to death while milking the cows early that morning.
His wife Jacobi van den Bosch-Griep, 60, was stabbed to death inside their homestead. Their son-in-law T Schinkel who lives in nearby Randburg, found the murdered couple. The only thing missing, police said, was each of the couple’s cellphones.
The attack on this elderly, Dutch-born farming couple in Pretoria was politically motivated and was an example of "ethnic cleansing", said the Transvaal Agricultural Union ‘s prsident Ben Marais on Saturday.
They were murdered in the cruellest fashion possible, with a shockingly-high level of violence, police have confirmed.
"Once again the impression is left (by the police) that ordinary crime was the only motive for barbaric murders.
"In this case the unarmed farmer was first murdered while he was milking in the shed, and thereafter his unarmed wife was murdered in the house. This is the pattern of ethnic cleansing," president Ben Marais said.
Marais ruled out robbery, saying it was "hard to believe that elderly defenceless people are being murdered only for a cellphone".
"What used to be a day of commemoration for Christian believers, was turned into a day of mourning by these barbaric murders. "We do not have the right words to express our condolences with the Van den Bosch family and we pray that God will help them through this," he said.
He called on the farming community to "stay alert and protect themselves where-ever possible."
see
The couple were members of the Reformed Church in Pretoria. They had twelve children - three live in The Netherlands.
Police spokesman Johannes Jaftha told the South African Press Association on Friday-afternoon that the farmer showed 'very severe bludgeoning marks' to the skull and face, and that the farm wife 'showed stab wounds in the upper body'.
- Both died at the scene of the crimes, he said. The motive is unknown: it could not be determined if anything was stolen from the homestead.
It's not known who would be looking after the couple's prized cattle herd over the Easter weekend. Milk cattle suffer terribly if they don't get milked exactly on time.
Prayers were said in several Reformed churches in The Netherlands when the news spread among the religious community here, amongst others in Scherpenzeel, Rhenen and Uddel in Utrecht province.
The Dutch embassy in Pretoria confirmed that the couple were Dutch citizens. They have offered their help to the family, according to South African news reports.
Police forensic detectives off work due to Easter…
Because it's Easter, the police forensics service is not performing autopsies. The bodies of the couple can only be released for their funeral on Tuesday, said the police.
The Gereformeerde Kerk in South Africa was founded by Rev Durk Postma of Dokkum 150 years ago in the then-independent Boer republic in the Transvaal.
- The Dutch and Afrikaner members have always maintained close-knit ties over the years, with frequent interchanges of religious ministers and members.
One well-known member was the former South African president Frederick Willem de Klerk. The Pretoria church was founded by former Boer republic president Paul Kruger exaclty 150 years ago.
South African news reports: