Mickeys

South Africa is in danger of becoming a major hub for drug trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Thursday.

The office’s Jonathan Lucas said at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report: “West African syndicates had recently become major drug traffickers after Central American cartels began using them due to difficulty with their traditional routes.

“Increased surveillance on traditional routes had made them become unprofitable.”

He said if these new routes through West Africa were successfully dealt with by the authorities, Central American cartels would again look for other alternatives.

“When they are diverted, will they come to South Africa? Maybe.”

There was also a danger the 2010 World Cup would worsen drug trafficking.

Law enforcement and customs officials would be under pressure due to massive tourist inflows during the tournament.

Central Drug Authority deputy chairperson David Bayever said: “We are aware it is going to be a big problem for us.”

He described trafficking cartels as “well-researched guys that know where the loopholes are”.

Despite these threats, SA’s drug problem remained primarily a domestic one, with alcohol and dagga use being well above global averages.

“Cannabis use was three times the global average in South Africa and its alcohol consumption put it in the top 10 of countries.”

Bayever said drugs and substance abuse problems were the underlying causes of such ills as HIV/Aids, violence and crime.

“It is not the result of these problems, but the cause of them. In order to deal with these problems we need to handle substance abuse.”

Most of South Africa’s cannabis was grown in Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa, said the office’s national co-ordinator Johan Kruger. The region was actually a net exporter of cannabis to other countries.

Bayever said an additional problem would be the extension of school holidays during the World Cup. In addition to being at risk for substance abuse, children may also be lured into prostitution.

“Our youth are going to be on holiday and they are going to be targeted to become prostitutes,” said Bayever.

taken from News24

Today is Friday, March 5, the 64th day of 2010. There are 301 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

• 1496 – England’s King Henry VII commissions John and Sebastian Cabot to discover new lands.
• 1684 – Holy League of Linz is formed by Holy Roman Empire, Poland and Venice against the Turks.
• 1770 – Crowds and British troops clash in Boston, an incident that becomes known as the Boston Massacre and hastens American Revolutionary War.
• 1798 – French forces occupy Bern, Switzerland.
• 1867 – An abortive Fenian uprising against English rule takes place in Ireland.
• 1868 – US Senate is organised into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.
• 1933 – The Nazi Party wins 44% of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.
• 1939 – The Republican government of Spain flees to France after their forces are cornered by the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
• 1946 – Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in United States.
• 1953 – Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dies. Some 2 000 people are crushed to death in the crowd during the funeral.
• 1960 – President Sukarno suspends Indonesia’s Parliament.
• 1962 – European extremists in Oran, Algeria, raid prison and kill several Muslim political prisoners.
• 1966 – British airliner hits Japan’s Mount Fuji, killing all 124 people aboard.
• 1970 – Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty goes into effect after 43 nations confirm ratification.
• 1974 – Ethiopia’s leader Haile Selassie, confronted by continued unrest, agrees to constitutional convention to create new system of elected democratic government.
• 1990 – South Africa sends troops to Ciskei homeland to suppress mob attacks on factories and shops after military coup there ousted authoritarian president.
• 1991 – Iraq hands over what it says are the last 35 prisoners from the Gulf War.
• 1993 – General Philippe Morillon of France, commander of the UN mission to Bosnia, goes to the city of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, and the Serbs halt their attack on the besieged city.
• 1995 – Pierre-Claver Rwangabo, the governor of Rwanda’s southern province Butare, is assassinated in an ambush. The prime minister blames soldiers of the defeated Hutu-led government living in Zaire.
• 1996 – US President Bill Clinton sends sophisticated bomb-detection equipment and technical experts to Israel to help battle a deadly wave of terrorism.
• 1997 – Representatives of North Korea and South Korea meet for the first time in 25 years, for peace talks in New York.
• 1998 – Dozens of soldiers from an elite Colombian counterinsurgency battalion are killed in a surprise attack, one of the Colombian military’s worst defeats by leftist rebels.
• 1999 – International mediators say the strategic town of Brcko in Bosnia, held by Serbs since the start of the Bosnian war, should be transferred to joint Serb, Muslim and Croat control.
• 2000 – Thirty-five years after police beat and bloodied voting rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, modern-day civil rights activists trace the same path with Bill Clinton – a white Southerner who credited that march for his rise to the presidency.
• 2001 – A stampede breaks out during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Medina, Saudi Arabia, killing 35 Muslims.
• 2002 – Boris Berezovsky, once one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, accuses the Russian Federal Security Services of perpetrating a series of bombings in Moscow in 1999 that was blamed on Chechen terrorists.
• 2003 – Foreign ministers of France and Russia threaten to veto a UN Security Council resolution by the United States, Britain and Spain that declares Iraq had missed its last chance to disarm peacefully.
• 2005 – A team of US and Ethiopian scientists discovers the fossilised remains of what they believe is humankind’s first walking ancestor, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa nearly 4 million years ago.
• 2006 – At least 100 000 protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra march to the Thai leader’s office after a boisterous rally accusing him of corruption and abuse of power.
• 2007 – The UN Development Programme says that it suspended its operations in North Korea because Pyongyang failed to meet conditions set by the agency’s board following US allegations that UN aid money was being diverted to Kim Jong Il’s regime.
• 2008 – Police shoot and kill a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus in northern China.
• 2009 – In harsh critcism of his successors, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev likens Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party to the worst of the communists he once led and helped bring down.

Thought For Today:
More tears have been shed over men’s lack of manners than their lack of morals – Helen Hathaway, American writer (1893-1932).

info from News24

The powerful earthquake that killed hundreds of people in Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth’s axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist has said.

Chile and the Andes mountains, as seen from Space Shuttle Columbia in 1994

Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated how much the axis may have changed in position following the the disaster.

More than 700 people died and two million are estimated to have been affected by the 8.8-magnitude tremor and subsequent tsunamis.

The quake, the most powerful to hit the nation in 50 years, sent shockwaves out from the epicentre 70 miles from Chile’s second city, Concepcion.

Buildings and roads collapsed and 500,000 homes have been left severely damaged.

Six aid workers died when a plane carrying them to Concepcion crashed.

The team was on its way to help organise accommodation for those left homeless by the disaster.

Soldiers were sent to patrol Concepcion’s streets after mobs set fire to shops and started looting them, hindering attempts to rescue survivors.

Devastation after the Chile quake

If the planet’s axis did shift by 8cm during the quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that is the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.

The quake shifted the Earth’s axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude tremor off Indonesia that started the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, according to Mr Gross.

This was partly because the fault line responsible for the quake in Chile “dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake”, he said.

The different angle made Saturday’s tremor more effective at moving Earth’s mass vertically and shifting the planet’s axis, Mr Gross continued.

The 2004 quake in Asia, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused the Earth to move by around 7cm.

It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.

story from SkyNews

The Geneva motor show, which opens next week, is not usually the place to spot newfangled bakkies and SUVs. Nissan will be showing off its upgraded Navara and Pathfinder ranges though, boosted by Renault turbodiesel power.

Beyond its larger (utilitarian) Patrol sibling and Toyota's Cruiser, Pathfinder boasts the best towing capability of any Japanese SUV.

Considering the boundless popularity of the Navara locally, the improvements to both it and the five-door Pathfinder SUV should intrigue  local buyers.

From a styling perspective very little has changed – with some stylised high-end wheel options on the Pathfinder being about as much of a muchness as you need to know about.

If you are a particularly astute Navara/Pathfinder owner you’ll notice the slightly-revised bonnet fronted by a reshaped grill, framed by new projector headlights on Pathfinder.

The facelift is underscored by restyled bumpers, which add 80mm to Pathfinder’s total vehicle length too.

Cabin upgrades include new trim, upholstery, chrome highlights, restyled dials and thoroughly contemporary switchgear.

We’re heartened to see a proliferation of steering-wheel satellite controls for Navara, an area it was dating quite badly in compared to rivals.

Touch-screen navigation and a rear-view parking camera will be optional on the Pathfinder, enabled by the screen resolution capability of the new centre console.

Nissan is obviously keen to meet the bakkie market’s biggest shakeup in decades (the pending introduction of VW’s Amarok) with a commensurate increase in performance from its own offering, the Navara double-cab.

New centre console's increased digitisation a welcome boon. Ventilation controls much improved too.

Subsequently the current 2.5 dCi four-cylinder engine benefits from increased outputs and is joined by a Renault sourced 3l compression ignition V6.

Thanks to some fiddling by Nissan’s engineers the 2.5 dCi boasts an extra 13kW and additional 47Nm, boosting peak outputs to 141kW and 450Nm. These numbers best those of the most powerful incarnation of Amarok’s 2.0 TDI engine.

A Renault sourced 3.0l V6 will now headline the diesel side of the Navara/Pathfinder range, producing 173kW and 550Nm – whilst the current 4l V6 engine is carried over.

The surge in power courtesy of the 3.0 V6 significantly ramps up Pathfinder’s braked towing capacity to 3.5t, enabling it to join the Land Rover Defender/Discovery 4 league of big-rig towing.

Not to be outdone by its SUV sibling, Navara double-cab will now see off a 3t braked trailer with ease.

The handsome double-cab bakkie also benefits from a neat dynamic safety upgrade in the shape of Pathfinder sourced ESP brake actuated chassis stability control.

New ten-blade, 18-inch, alloy wheels will appeal to urban SUV owners.

The updated Pathfinder and Navara models are set to on sale in Europe from April.

Expect them to arrive locally in the third quarter, although the sophisticated nature of Renault’s 3l V6 turbocharged engine, especially considering its compression ignition format, might preclude it from the local market at first – where diesel fuel quality is still vacillating at best.

taken from Wheels24

Former advocate Cezanne Visser was sentenced to seven years direct imprisonment on Wednesday for sexually abusing young girls and women.

Cezanne Visser is seen outside the North Gauteng High Court before being sentenced to seven years in prison.

The sentence was passed down by acting judge Chris Eksteen in the North Gauteng High Court.

He found her guilty on 11 charges, including two of indecently assaulting two girls of 11 and 14 years and soliciting a 13-year-old to commit indecent acts.

She was also sentenced on a charge of defrauding a children’s home in order to get them to allow children to spend weekends with her and her former lover, Dirk Prinsloo.

The judge also linked her to the indecent assault of a 20-year-old woman, indecently assaulting two other younger women and the possession and manufacturing of child pornography.

Judge Eksteen said Visser had willingly associated herself with, and actively participated in, depraved sexual activities at Prinsloo’s house during which drugs were sometimes also used to overcome victims’ resistance.

taken from News24

South African Film & Television Awards

On Saturday night (20 February 2010) the 4th annual South African Film and Television Awards took place at the State Theatre in Pretoria and almost knocked guests and viewers into a coma.

Despite the many complaints and criticisms last year about the ceremony being much too long and drawn-out, the exact same problem struck this year: except this time round lots of the nominees – and winners specifically – decided that it was more trouble than it was worth to actually pitch up.

Winners in numerous categories weren’t around to collect their Golden Horns and there was clearly no directorial plan as to what to do when it happened. A random selection of their fellow cast members shuffled in to try to save the show, emerging from an auditorium that thinned out as the hours went on and on and …. ‘zzzzz (to the backdrop of VERY bad dancers).

If you didn’t manage to make it through seeing who won, here are the nominees in the main television categories, with the winners in red:

DRAMA

Best Drama Series

A Place Called Home (T.O.M Pictures)
Sokhulu & Partners (Paw Paw Films)
The Lab (Curious Pictures)

Best Drama Mini-Series

Death of a Queen (Mud Hut Productions)
iZingane zoBaba (Paw Paw Films)
Noah’s Ark (Sidewalk Productions)

Best Director

Akin Omotoso and Rolie Nikiwe (A Place Called Home)
Tim Greene (iZingane zoBaba)
Barry Berk & John Trengrove (The Lab)

Best Actor

Ronnie Nyakale (Sylvester in A Place Called Home)
Patrick Shai (Moses Mokoena in Noah’s Ark)
Fana Mokoena (Jaws Bhengu in The Lab)

Best Supporting Actor

Terence Bridgett (Wong in Erfsondes)
Fana Mokoena (Officer Khobane in Hopeville)
Jabulani Hadebe (Mandla Dlamini in uGugu no Andile)

Best Actress

Shoki Sebotsane (Grace in Death of a Queen)
Jana Strydom (Kate Spencer in Erfsondes)
Linda Sokhulu (Pamela Thusi in Sokhulu & Partners)

Best Supporting Actress

Bongi Ndaba (Thembeka in iZingane zoBaba)
Nolwazi Shange (Precious in A Place Called Home)
Harriet Manamela (Ausi Dlamini in uGugu no Andile)

Best Ensemble Cast

A Place Called Home
Soul City
The Lab

Best Writing Team

iZingane zoBaba team
Sokhulu & Partners team
The Lab team

(continue reading…)

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema owns two houses worth almost R5m and cars worth R1.2m, on an alleged salary of R20 000 a month.

Julius Malema

The Star on Friday reported that Malema paid R3.6m in cash for a three-bedroom home in Sandown, Johannesburg, in December last year.

He has another home in Polokwane, for which he paid R1m in cash.

The report said the Sandown home was luxurious, with three bedrooms, an office, a TV room, a lounge, a pool and a large garden.

It was here that Malema entertained guests at a house-warming party last year which hit headlines after a police reservist said he was assaulted by the youth league leader.

This was after neighbours complained about the noise and mess.

Guests were entertained by YFM DJ Oskido and drank Johnnie Walker Gold Label whisky, which costs around R700 a bottle, and Moet et Chandon French champagne.

When approached for comment by The Star, Malema reacted angrily.

“You and your husband and your family – that’s who you need to write about. You go away, just go away,” he told the paper.

League spokesperson Floyd Shivambu said the paper was being nonsensical.

“I think you need to rethink what you are doing. What business is this of yours? How dare you call me and ask for comment on this?”

The report quotes sources in the league who place Malema’s salary at around R20 000 per month.

As the transfer of the Sandown house went through, Malema went to a press conference wearing a Gucci suit and a Breitling watch worth about R250 000.

He also owns a black Mercedes-Benz AMG, which retails at R734 000, and reportedly drives an Aston Martin and a red Range Rover Sport. He attended a Wits University lecture on Thursday in a brand-new white Range Rover – with no number plates – which sells for R1.2m.

The controversial youth league president who is spearheading efforts for the nationalisation of South African mines, is the director of four companies according to the report: 101 Junjus Trading CC, Blue Nightingale Trading 61, Ever Roaring Investment and SGL Engineering Projects.

taken from News24

The Western Cape is to pass a law banning politicians from using blue-light convoys in the province, Premier Helen Zille announced on Friday.

In her state of the province address, she said this would apply to politicians from “any sphere of government”.

The only exception would be a genuine emergency.

“And being late for a meeting does not constitute an emergency,” she said.

Zille’s announcement follows outrage at the arrest this week of a University of Cape Town student who allegedly made an obscene gesture at President Jacob Zuma’s convoy as it passed him.

Scores of students on Thursday demonstrated in solidarity with the arrested Chumani Maxwele, all flashing the same raised middle finger.

Zille said law enforcement agencies were supposed to protect innocent citizens against power abuse.

Unfortunately, in South Africa there were cases where the police themselves were accessories to this abuse, she said.

When her provincial executive assumed office nine months ago, one of the first things it did was to instruct the police’s VIP protection services to stop using blue lights and sirens on ministerial vehicles unless in exceptional circumstances.

“We did this because we don’t believe that politicians should have special rights and privileges that other citizens don’t have,” she said.

“We share the public’s disgust at being forced off the road by blue light bullies escorting self-important politicians.”

Maxwele’s arrest and interrogation by the president’s protection officers was an example of such abuse.

South Africa was a constitutional democracy, not a police state, she said.

“We will therefore introduce legislation… to prevent any politician from any sphere of government using blue-light convoys and sirens in the Western Cape, unless a genuine emergency arises.”

This would be done in terms of the provincial government’s constitutional competencies for road traffic regulation.

Zille also announced planned legislation to prohibit employees of the province conducting business with it, except in strictly defined and transparent circumstances.

Tender rigging and conflicts of interest were one of the primary sources of corruption in all provinces, she said.

taken from News24

Bob Skinstad arrested

Cape Town – Chaos erupted at the V&A Waterfront on Monday when former Springbok captain and SuperSport presenter, Bob Skinstad, was arrested.

Journalists at the venue were quick to react, grabbing their tape recorders as they started firing questions at the two armed policemen who handcuffed Skinstad and escorted him into a police van.

The commanding officer refused to comment as to the exact charges, except to say “Mr Skinstad cannot be giving out free school shoes to children. Just imagine if every child thinks they should now have a pair of school shoes. And for free. What would happen? There would be dancing in the streets and that is not right. ”

An anonymous rugby fan in his late 40s, who was passing by at the time said, “I was shocked. Just the other day I was watching Bob on TV thinking what a likeable, decent guy he is and then I see him being dragged off in handcuffs by the police. It was terrible to see.”

Bob Skinstad in jail

It has since emerged that Skinstad, who prefers to be called Bob, is being charged with a “positivity” crime – using the media to raise awareness for the millions of schoolchildren who are subjected to the daily pain and humiliation of having to go to school without school shoes.  In fact, in most cases, children who do not have uniform or shoes do not attend school.

Says Bob: “What child wants to go to school when they know they will be teased, when they know that they will stand out? I believe every child has the right to own a pair of school shoes because it’s an important step in giving children a sense of pride and dignity, thus enhancing the child’s education.”

Determined to “walk the talk”, Bob started the “bobsforgood foundation” along with his good friend, Ron Rutland. The foundation is driven by a single concept – to put shoes on the seven million children in South Africa that do not have shoes. Bob is fully committed in providing beneficiaries with shoes made in South African, by South African women who were once disadvantaged themselves. It’s about supporting everything that is South African. It’s a win-win situation for children and our economy.

So serious is Bob about this issue, that he is willing to “go to jail” for the cause.

Over the next five days, Bob will be housed in a constricted jail cell at the V&A Waterfront’s Barrow Court in the shopping mall. He will be released from jail on February 20 when the next leg of his awareness campaign – Walk This Way – will begin.

Bob and his team will Walk This Way to nine key towns in the Western Cape and aim to provide over 5 000 shoes to underprivileged kids from pre-selected schools. The entire campaign is fully endorsed by Donald Grant, MEC Education, whose department helped the campaign organisers ensure they benefitted the neediest schools.

Bobs urges everyone to come to the Waterfront, have lots of fun, enjoy the event and support bobsforgood, saying, “If we all do our bit, no matter how small, I believe we can create a better South Africa – one step at a time.” Your donation can make a massive difference in a child’s life.

Visit www.bobsforgoodfoundation.org and donate online

Visit him in the V&A Waterfront’s Barrow Court from the 15th to the 20th of February where you can make a pledge to Bob

The public can give Bob’s team a call on 0861 00 BOBS

Or to send an EFT, Bob’s foundation bank account is called ‘bobsforgood’
Standard Bank Mowbray
Branch No: 024909
Account No: 075 221 381

taken from News24

Today is Wednesday, February 17, the 48th day of 2010. There are 317 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

• 1568 – Turkey’s Sultan Selim II makes peace with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II.
• 1801 – US House of Representatives breaks an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president.
• 1817 – A Street in Baltimore becomes the first to be lighted with gas from America’s first gas company.
• 1852 – Repressive measures are adopted in France, including press censorship in the aftermath of overthrow of the constitutional monarchy.
• 1897 – Britain rejects Austro-Russian proposal for blockade of Piraeus in Greece.
• 1904 – Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly is poorly received during its world premiere at La Scala.
• 1916 – British and French forces complete capture of Germany’s African colony of Cameroon during World War I.
• 1944 – US forces attack Japanese at Eniwetok Atoll in Pacific in World War II.
• 1947 – The Voice of America begins its radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union.
• 1964 – The US Supreme Court rules in Westberry v Sanders that congressional districts within each state have to be roughly equal in population.
• 1965 – US spacecraft Ranger 8 is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, and crashes on the Moon three days later after sending back more than 7 000 pictures.
• 1972 – US President Richard Nixon departs on his historic trip to China.
• 1990 – East Germany announces it will tear down a 180m section of the Berlin Wall near Brandenburg Gate, which will be first section with no official controls.
• 1991 – Amid the Gulf War, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz arrives in Moscow for talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
• 1992 – UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommends deployment of 13 000 peacekeepers in Yugoslavia.
• 1993 – In a controversial move, the United Nations suspends most of its relief convoys in Bosnia, criticising all sides in the conflict for not letting convoys through. The convoys are resumed a week later.
• 1994 – Serb guns pull back from positions around Sarajevo, Bosnia, ahead of a Nato deadline.
• 1995 – Peru and Ecuador sign a peace treaty, ending a five-week border war that killed 78.
• 1996 – A magnitude-7 quake strikes eastern Indonesia, killing at least 53; world chess champion Garry Kasparov beats IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue”, winning a six-game match in Philadelphia.
• 1997 – Former copper trader Yasuo Hamanaka pleads guilty in a Tokyo court to fraud and forgery in trying to cover speculation that depressed world copper markets and lost his company $2.6bn.
• 1998 – American athletes compete in Iran for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
• 1999 – Three Kurds are shot and killed trying to enter the Israeli consulate in Berlin to protest what they believe was Israeli involvement in the arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan by Turkey.
• 2000 – A judge upholds the conviction of a man who cursed in front of children after falling out of a canoe, ruling that Michigan’s 102-year-old anti-swearing law is constitutional.
• 2001 – A bomb attack on a bus kills seven Serbs and injures dozens in northern Kosovo.
• 2002 – Maoist rebels kill 137 people in raids on a town and an airport in the northwest of Nepal. The attacks are the worst since November 2001, when the rebels broke a peace agreement and the government declared a state of emergency.
• 2003 – Twenty-one people are crushed to death and some 50 others are injured when a panic-stricken crowd tries to exit a nightclub in Chicago.
• 2005 – A court rules the previous year’s privatisation of Ukraine’s largest steel mill illegal, the first showdown between some of the nation’s biggest businessmen and the new government.
• 2006 – Up to 1 800 people are killed when a farming village in eastern Philippines is swallowed whole by a wall of mud and boulders in a landslide that sweeps down with terrifying speed from a mountainside.
• 2007 – Tens of thousands of people march through the northeastern Italian city of Vicenza under heavy police guard to protest a planned US military base expansion.
• 2008 – Kosovo declares independence from Serbia; Serbia immediately denounces the declaration as illegal.
• 2009 – US President Barack Obama signs a massive $787bn package to revive the country’s economy.

Thought For Today:
The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease – Marianne Moore, American poet (1887-1972).

info from News24

Music fans can now download Simon Cowell’s charity song which is raising money for victims of last month’s devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Leona Lewis records her vocals for the Haiti charity song

Twenty-one acts have joined forces to record the single, which is a cover of REM’s Everybody Hurts.

Among those stars who have lent their vocals are Robbie Williams and former Take That bandmates Gary Barlow and Mark Owen as well as Kylie Minogue, Mariah Carey and Westlife.

X Factor winners Leona Lewis and Joe McElderry, Susan Boyle from Britain’s Got Talent, Rod Stewart and JLS are also participating.

The order of those singing on the record is Lewis, Stewart, Carey, Cheryl Cole, Mika, Michael Buble, McElderry, Miley Cyrus, James Blunt, Barlow, Owen and Jon Bon Jovi.

James Morrison, Alexandra Burke, Boyle, Aston Merrygold and Marvin Humes from JLS, Westlife’s Shane Filan and Mark Feehily, Minogue and Williams complete the line-up.

Proceeds from the sale of the single go to Haiti quake victims

The ballad will be available to buy in shops on Monday, with those behind it hoping it will top the charts and provide much-needed funds for charities in the process.

Originally a hit in 1993, the new version was recorded in London and Los Angeles and got its first airplay on Tuesday.

REM are waiving royalty rights to the charity track, while the Government has said that there will be no VAT cut.

Proceeds will be split between the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and The Sun’s Helping Haiti campaign.

Up to 200,000 people are believed to have died as a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12, with hundreds of thousands more left injured and homeless.

taken from SkyNews

Simply Slim

The diet pill Simply Slim was recalled with immediate effect for safety reasons, the health department said on Friday.

“The Medicines Control Council suspended sales of the product,” health spokesperson Fidel Radebe said.

“It must be removed from shelves with immediate effect.”

Radebe said the product should have been registered with the MCC and it was not.

“People have been complaining about difficulties during and after using this product. It can be dangerous to use,” he said.

Beeld reported on Friday that the slimming product, which claims to be 100% herbal, contained sibutramine.

According to health regulations, any pill containing sibutramine must be registered as a prescription medicine and must contain no more than 15mg sibutramine.

Beeld, quoting Dr George van der Watt, a chemical pathologist at a Cape laboratory, said tests showed Simply Slim contained 27mg of sibutramine.

Simply Slim has maintained that these are falsified Simply Slim products.

Simply Slim is sold by agents who buy the product for about R350 and resell it for about R590, Beeld reported.

Side effects of sibutramine could include an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

taken from News24

Love is a temporary insanity, as all those know who have ever lost their hearts to a stranger. Here are 25 signs that a new relationship is heading for disaster.

There are certain telltale signs early on in a relationship that ‘the path of this love may never run smooth’:

• You are hesitant to introduce your new partner to your parents or friends
• You are sure you will eventually get used to the smell of smoke
• Your idea of a good movie is a three-handkerchief affair while your partner prefers the latest in the schlock-horror genre
• You like to sleep in, while your partner prefers the early morning for marathon training sessions
• Your partner kisses with his/her eyes open
• You belong to two book clubs, while your new partner’s reading skills are restricted to figuring out instructions on DIY kits
• You are a dog person and she is a cat person
• Her ex-boyfriend hides behind a shop display when he sees her approaching
• He takes you to a cheap franchise restaurant on a first date
• You really mind that she messes red wine on your couch
• You think her children are undisciplined and demanding brats
• Your partner has an uncertain and erratic employment history, yet drives a fancy car
• You lose the battle for her attention to computer games on a Saturday night
• Your partner is using a credit card that bears a different surname to his own
• You find out that there are three ex-husbands lurking in the background – and she is only 29
• Your new partner is rude to waitresses in restaurants
• There are certain phone calls your partner will not answer in your presence
• You get a box of chocolates for Christmas, his daughter gets a car
• He/she never opens bank statements or accounts
• Your new partner constantly badmouths previous partners
• You like food from delis – she likes McDonalds Burgers
• You find your partner’s ID Book on the floor – and realise she has subtracted 8 years from her real age
• Your partner wants to have children with you, but shows little interest in those he already has
• She does not seem to have any friends who have known her for longer than six months

The answer is simple – get out while you can still do so with minimal damage to yourself and your self-esteem.

taken from Health24

In February 1990, ANC activist Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela walked out of the gates of Victor Verster prison a free man after being jailed for 27 years by the apartheid regime.

Nelson Mandela remembers 20 years of freedom.

There to meet him were members of the National Reception Committee, who helped Mandela as he took the first steps to his election four years later as SA’s first democratically elected president.

On Thursday this week, former members of the committee and family members gathered in Johannesburg to reminisce about that day, 20 years ago.

The gathering, arranged by his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and his daughter Zindzi, took place around a dining-table in a marquee on the grounds of Mandela’s Houghton home.

Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a Catholic priest detained and tortured during the apartheid years, said the gathering had brought together the people who served on the reception committee.

Unbelievable

“I am a priest and I was responsible for Nelson’s security that day,” he laughed.

“We are meeting to reminisce. When you look back, the way this country has become normal is unbelievable. There were prophets of doom, but life has gone on and we have done exceptionally well, even though there is still lots to do.”

“He looks fine, jolly as ever. Age has taken its toll but he has not lost his sense of humour,” Mkhatshwa, who went on to become mayor of Pretoria, said when asked how Mandela was.

Among those attending the celebration were Mandela’s children and grandchildren, ANC comrades, former activists, and members of government past and present.

They included Cyril Ramaphosa, Dali Mpofu, Bulelani Ngcuka, Saki Macozoma, Valli Moosa, Trevor Manuel, Sydney Mufamadi, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada, Frank Chikane, Murphy Morobe and Roseberry Sonto.

Also present were Sister Bernard Ncube, Hilda Ndude, Farieda Omar, photographer Alf Kumalo, and ex-prison warder Christo Brand, who befriended Mandela during his years of incarceration under the apartheid regime.

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It has transpired that a police reservist who was shot three times during a house robbery in Murrayfield, Pretoria – and complained after he got no reaction from police after calling 10111 four times – never called the number at all.

10111

After a member of the community police forum called the 10111 number after the attack on Johnny de Jager, 52, and his girlfriend Karen Victor, 47, police were on the scene within three minutes.

De Jager admitted on Thursday that Victor had called 911 on her cellphone after they were attacked by two robbers on Friday night. De Jager said he never called 10111 himself.

He was under the impression that Victor had called 10111 and that he was busy talking to an operator from the 10111 call centre.

Gauteng communications head Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said the 10111 call centre had no record of calls from De Jager or Victor.

In an investigation by 10111 it was established that they had called 911. They had called this number three times.

According to Mariemuthoo they had reached the cellphone network Cell C’s emergency centre where an ambulance was called but not the police.

The first call that police had received about the incident, was on Friday night at 21:18 when a member of the community police forum called 10111.

The operator at the call centre immediately sent a vehicle to the scene which arrived within three minutes.

taken from News24