BRAILLORAMAMei 2007

Jaargang 38 No. 5

Gedruk deur Brailledienste van Blind SA

Privaatsak X9005Crown Mines

2025

Tel. (+ 27) 11 839-1793

Faks: (+ 27) 11 839-1217

E-Pos: philip@blindsa.org.za

Besoek ons tuisblad by:

http://www.blindsa.org.za

Redaksie: Christo de KlerkMartie de KlerkPhilip Jordaan

Uitgewers: Blind S.A.

Rig alle korrespondensie aan: Die Redakteur,

Privaatsak X9005, Crown Mines, 2025, Johannesburg, R.S.A.

Inhoud

Is Kuba en demokrasie vereenselwigbaar?

Tonge klap oor Britney

Dis wonderlik om 'n man te wees

Aardvark Grappe

10 Kosse wat jou beter laat voel

Deel 2 van Limeriecke deur Ellen Botha

Contents

Ten Best

Gauplane derails mega-buck Gautrain

BA bags first prize for losses

Mon dieu! Going as fast as a jet aircraft is terrifying on land

Drug depot in a patient's tooth

Home is more than a roof to keep the rain out

Soda Makers Pitch Drinks As Healthy to Boost Sales

That Old Burgundy May Be a New Fraud

Roots of Japan's Whaling Obsession

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest Criminals

Mbeki completely loses his cool on crime

Life explained

Gotta love it, Boet

Is Kuba en demokrasievereenselwigbaar?

Bert Ferreira

Sake-Beeld, Vrydag 25 Augustus 2006

Daar is tekens van vreedsamer naasbestaan tussen die VSA en Kuba 44 jaar nadat Kuba byna as wegspringplek vir 'n missielaanval met kernplofkoppe op die VSA gebruik is.

Die wonde van die 13 dae in Oktober 1962 toe wêreldvrede aan 'n baie dun draadjie gehang het, het begin genees, maar ondanks al die optimistiese uitsprake is 'n demokratiese Kuba nog geen gegewe nie.

Die hoop op vrede tussen die twee lande het baie te doen met pres. Fidel Castro se siekte en operasie onlangs en die moontlikheid dat hy die leisels permanent sal afstaan. Terselfdertyd bestaan daar groot twyfel of sy broer Raoul, wat tydelik in beheer is, afstand sal doen van Fidel se onverbiddelike sosialistiese regime.Kuba het lankal die strydbyl met Europa en ander nie-kommunistiese lande begrawe. Die voortgesette koue oorlog met die VSA en sy handelsverbod teen Kuba het egter voortgeduur, hoofsaaklik omdat geen van die twee wou bes gee nie.

Dit is veral die wederkerige handel wat uit 'n diplomatieke skietstilstand sal voordeel trek. Dalk kan die politiek nou voor 'n nugterder beleid swig. Per slot van sake het die VSA se handelsbande met die wêreld se grootste kommunis, China, sedert die 1970's net gegroei en was politiek nie meer hier 'n groot hindernis nie.

Die VSA se ongelukkigheid met Kuba dateer uit die vroeë 1960's, kort nadat Fidel Castro sy stryd teen die Batista-regering gewen en met sy radikale, hoofsaaklik kommunistiese, bewind gegin het.

Die vyandigheid is vererger deur die mislukte Bay of Pigs-insident toe Kubaanse uitgewekenes met die hulp van die Amerikaanse CIA Kuba in 1961 probeer inval het. Dit het wel gehelp om Kuba se bande met die VSA se grootste vyand destyds, die Sowjet-unie, te versterk.

In Oktober 1962 het die Amerikaanse lugmag foto-bewyse gekry van Russiese missiel-lanseerders in Kuba wat op die VSA gemik was. Dit was duidelik dat 'n kernaanval op die VSA beplan word. Die daaropvolgende 13 dae was die VSA op die rad van 'n afgrond. Pres. John Kennedy het dadelik 'n vlootblokkade gelas om te keer dat Russiese skepe in Kubaanse gebiedswater toegelaat word. Dit het verhinder dat die dodelike missiele Kuba bereik.

Die Russiese skepe met hul gevaarlike vragte moes omdraai. Kennedy se optrede het volgens geskiedkundiges 'n kernoorlog gestuit.

Dit het die twee lande onversoenbaarder gemaak. Castro het in sy beleid heelwat aandag gegee aan onderwys- en gesondheidsorg, maar menseregte was nie deel van sy program nie. So kort gelede soos Maart 2003 het die Castro-regering 75 mense vir gemiddeld 20 jaar in die tronk gestop omdat hulle as burgerlike aktiviste beskryf is.

Derduisende Kubane het oor die jare na die VSA gevlug. Onlangs het die nuus van Castro se swak gesondheid en die moontlikheid dat hy nie sal oorleef nie, baie van die derduisende Kubane in Miami juigend en singend na die strate gelok.

Maar kan dinge werklik verander?

Vroeër vandeesmaand het pres. George W. Bush dit duidelik gestel dat sy land 'n vrye en demokratiese Kuba sal steun en bereid is om groot hulp te verleen wanneer so 'n oorskakeling plaasvind.

"Dit is lank reeds die hoop van die VSA om 'n vrye, onafhanklike en demokratiese Kuba as 'n vriend en buurman te hê," het hy in 'n verklaring gesê. "As daar 'n verandering in die Kubaanse regering kom, staan ons gereed met die humanitêre hulp wat die mense van Kuba dalk nodig kan hê."

Daar is een groot probleem: Kenners van die situasie glo nie dat die huidige lede van die Castro-regering dit eens oorweeg om hul mag prys te gee nie.

Mnr. Thomas Shannon, die Amerikaanse departement van buitelandse sake se hoof in die Westelike Halfrond, meen dat Fidel se broer Raoul, wat as opvolger aangewys is, "alles in sy vermoë sal doen om die totalitêre staat in stand te hou".Hy meen die Europese Unie en ander lede van die wêreldgemeenskap kan 'n belangrike rol speel om Kuba te help om na die demokrasie oor te skakel. Hy het verlede week in Praag gesê dat die Europeërs dit duidelik aan die Kubaanse regime kan stel dat hulle nie groter onderdrukking sal duld wanneer Fidel Castro sy politieke leiding neerlê nie.

Hy sê die VSA is heeltemal bereid om sy handelsverbod teen Kuba te herroep as die Kubaanse regering 'n aantal vereistes nakom. Daaronder is die vrylating van politieke gevangenes, die waarborg van fundamentele vryhede soos vryheid van spraak en assosiasie, die totstandkoming van organisasies wat onafhanklik is van die staat - waaronder vakbonde en politieke partye - en voorbereidsels vir vrye verkiesings.

Hy sê 'n Amerikaanse aanbod in 2002 om te kyk hoe die handelsverbod opgehef kan word - wat deur Castro verwerp is - is steeds op die tafel.

Maar al is die VSA bereid om te praat en al help die buitewêreld, sal dit die Kubane self moet wees wat 'n verandering in die regime bewerkstellig.

En dit is seker waar die knoop lê. Hoeveel van die bevolking het ná al die jare van onderdrukking nog die moed om in opstand te kom? En hoe bloedig sal so 'n opstand wees? Is die VSA bereid om met mag en daad die demokrasie in Kuba te verdedig? Wat sal die uitwerking wees op die res van Suid-Amerika, veral Kuba se vriend Venezuela wat baie van die wêreld se olie beheer?

Dalk het die Kubaanse uitgewekenes in Miami 'n ondersteuningsplan gereed. Dalk is die VSA ondanks sy verpligtinge in die Midde-Ooste bereid om 'n revolusie in Kuba te ondersteun.

Kuba is moontlik wel op die drumpel van die demokrasie, maar dit lyk asof die laaste stap na vryheid die moeilikste van almal kan wees.

Tonge klap oor BritneySaamgestel deur

Sonnette Lombaard

Beeld, Donderdag 22 Februarie 2007

‘n Kwarteeu oud en skynbaar pê. Dís Britney Spears wie se gedrag al vreemder word.

Daar word gevrees die pop-prinses en ma van twee is op die rand van 'n ineenstorting ná 'n bisare uitstappie Vrydag vir 'n nuwe voorkoms.Die paparazzi se kameras het oortyd gewerk toe sy in 'n haarsalon in Los Angeles stap en eis al haar hare moet waai. Toe die haarkapper huiwer, het Spears 'n knipper gegryp en haar kop self kaal geskeer, berig IMDb.com.Die sangeres is daarna na nog 'n salon vir tatoeëermerke: 'n paar helderrooi lippe op haar pols en 'n swart, wit en pienk-kruis op haar lae heup.Emily Wynne-Hughes, die tatoeëerkunstenaar, meen dié drastiese nuwe voorkoms weerspieël emosionele onstabiliteit.

"Ná Britney hier uit is, het ons vir mekaar gesê ons het pas 'n ster op die rand van 'n senuineenstorting gesien. Sy was afwesig en deurmekaar - dis definitief 'n hulpkreet."

Dié omstredenheid is die jongste in Spears se kort lewe as superster, wat in 1999 begin het toe sy as 17-jarige tiener uit die konserwatiewe suide met haar gewaagde "Baby one more time" oornag wêreldroem behaal het.

Maar terwyl haar loopbaan daarna van krag tot krag gegaan het, het haar private lewe die tonge laat klap.

In 2002 het sy en die sanger Justin Timberlake hul verhouding van vier jaar verbreek en Forbes het haar as die wêreld se magtigste ster aangewys. 'n Jaar later het die wenkbroue gelig toe sy en Madonna op die verhoog oopmond gesoen het.

Op 3 Januarie 2004 het sy met 'n ou vriend, Jason Alexander, in Las Vegas getrou, maar dié "Nuwejaars-grap" is 55 uur later ontbind.

Vyf maande later was Spears verloof aan die danser en aspirant rapper Kevin Federline, wie se eks toe swanger was met hul tweede kind. Hy en Spears het in Oktober 2004 getrou en hul seun, Sean, is 'n jaar later gebore.

In Augustus 2006 het 'n hoog-swanger Spears kaal vir Harpers Bazaar se voorblad poseer. Maar twee maande ná Jayden se geboorte, in November 2006, het sy Federline om 'n egskeiding gedagvaar. Hoewel haar landgenote openlik gejuig het, het Spears haar nuutgevonde vryheid gevier deur Desember, soms broekieloos, saam met die sosiale vlinder Paris Hilton om te rinkink.

Onlangs is Spears gekiek saam met die model Jason Isaacs. Maar dit het nie lank gehou nie en 'n vriend het uitgelap Isaacs wou haar help, maar "daar is net soveel wat 'n mens kan doen".

Verlede week het Spears haarself ná net 24 uur in 'n rehabilitasieoord in Antigua ontslaan ná bertigte oor haar skandes in New Yord toe sy in 'n nagklub haar klere laat waai en in haar onderklere intiem saam met 'n vrou dans en by 'n nog 'n klub bewusteloos uitgedra is.

Intussen is dit onbekend wie na Spears se twee jong seuns omsien. Nadat foto's van haar kaalkop op die internet verskyn het, het Spears gesê sy is "moeg daarvoor dat almal aan haar wil raak".

Het die juk van superroem Britney Spears op 25 ingehaal?

Dis wonderlik om man te weesE-Pos, 13 Julie 2006

Jou maag steek gewoonlik jou groot heupe weg.Jy kan jou naels met 'n knipmes uitkrap.Jy hoef nie laer as jou nek te skeer nie.Jy het vryheid van keuse of jy 'n moestas wil groei.Motorwerktuigkundiges vertel jou die waarheid.Trouplanne sorg vir hulself.Jy gee nie om of niemand oplet of jou hare gesny is nie.Jy hoef nie na 'n ander vulstasie te ry omdat hierdie een vuil lyk nie.Trourok R5000 - Aandpak R100.00

Mense kyk nie na jou bors terwyl hulle met jou praat nie.Telefoonoproepe is in 30 sekondes oor.'n Vyfdag-vakansie benodig net een tas.Jy kan al jou eie flesse oopmaak.Jy kan jou eie kos doodmaak.Jy kan die motel se bed onopgemaak laat.Indien iemand vergeet om jou na 'n geleentheid te nooi dan bly julle nog vriende.Jou onderklere kos R12.95 vir 'n pak van drie.As jy 34 jaar oud is en ongetroud is, let niemand dit op nie.Jy kan stilweg 'n rit met 'm motor in die passasierssitplek geniet.Jy hoef nie die huis skoon te maak voor die huishulp kom nie.Jy kan by 'n vriend inval sonder om vir hom 'n geskenkie te neem.Daar word nie van jou verwag om die name van vyf kleure te ken nie.Jy hoef nie te twyfel oor watter kant toe om 'n moer te draai nie.Jy kan Kersfees geskenke vir 25 mense op 24 Desember koop.

Aardvark GrappeVanaf www.woes!.co.za

Matriek eksamenvraag & antwoord

Naam: Kleinkoos Van der Merwe - VRAAG 1:

VERTAAL IN ENGELS: Soos in die tyd van die Voortrekkers, het ek en my swaer, Jan, ystervarke en stinkmuishonde gaan jag met die dubbelloop-haelgeweer. Uiteindelik sien my swaer Jan 'n stinkmuishond, sit 'n patroon in die loop, lê aan, trek los en daar lê die stinkmuishond bene in die lug. Net toe ons nader kom ruik ons hoe die stinkmuishond stink en hardloop weg. My voet haak toe vas aan die wortel van 'n boom, ek slaan neer en breek my sleutelbeen. By die hoofpad uitgekom, staan daar 'n ou met 'n pap wiel. Hy vra toe of ons weet waar hy 'n motorhawe kan kry om lug vir die agterwiel te bekom. Van pure moedeloosheid bly sit ons net daar langs die pad.

ANTWOORD: As in the time of the Frontpullers, me and my heavy, John, went to shoot iron pigs and stink-mice-dogs with a dubble-walk-hailgun. At last my heavy John saw a stink-mouse-dog, so my heavy puts a pattern in the walk, lies on, pulls loose and there lies the stink-mouse-dog, bones in the light. Just as us come close, us smelt how the stink-mouse-dog stinks and runs away quick. My foot hooks fast to the carrot of a tree, I fall down and breaks my keybone. As we came to the chiefroad, there stand an old with a porridge wheel. He asks if us knows where he can get a motorharbour to get some sky for his afterwheel. From pure motherlessness us sits just there next to the road.

Minibus Gevaar

Toyota het uiteindelik uitgevind hoekom minibus taxis so baie ongelukke maak op die pad. Die fout lê by die moer wat die stuurwiel vas hou.

Oupa Op Die Stoep

'n Seuntjie gaan vir sy oupa en ouma kuier, en vind sy oupa op die stoep sit met net 'n hemp aan. "Oupa, wat maak jy nou?", wil die seuntjie weet. "Dis die middel van die winter, familiejuwele sal afvries!" "Wel," antwoord sy oupa "Laasweek het ek op die stoep gesit sonder 'n serp, en my nek het styf geword. Hierdie is jou ouma se idee."

Die Wyse Man

Sneeuwitjie, Arnold Schwartzenegger en Saddam Hussein gesels een middag oor tee. Sneeuwitjie sê: "Ek is sekerlik die mooiste vrou in die wêreld, maar hoe sal ek seker weet?" Schwartzenegger sê: "Ek is sekerlik die aantreklikste man in die wêreld, maar hoe sal ek seker weet?" Saddam sug en sê: "En ek is sekerlik die mees gehate mens in die wêreld, maar hoe sal ek ooit seker weet?" "Ek het 'n plan," sê Sneeuwitjie. "Kom ons gaan vra die Wyse Man." So sit die drie af na die plaaslike Wyse Man.

Sneeuwitjie gaan eerste die Wyse Man se hut binne. Toe sy uitkom sê sy: "Dis waar, dis waar! EK is die mooiste vrou in die wêreld!" Arnold gaan volgende, en hy kom stralend uit: "Ja! Ek is inderdaad die aantreklikste man ter wêreld!" Saddam kry sy beurt, en kom vreeslik terneergedruk uit: "Wie de hel is George Bush?"

Chinese

Volgens statistici is 1 in elke 5 mense in die wêreld Chinees. Ons is 5 mense in my familie, dus moet een van my familielede ook Chinees wees. Miskien is dit my ma of my pa. Of my ouer broer Frikkie. Of my jonger broer Lee Wong. Maar ek dink dis Frikkie.

10 Kosse wat joubeter laat voel

deur Marie Lindeque-Reinecke

Vrouekeur 23 Februarie 2007

Dit kan nie altyd voor die wind gaan nie. As jy voel dinge kry jou onder, is daar kos wat jy kan eet om bedruktheid teen te werk.

1. Eiers. Eet twee elke dag wanneer jy in 'n emosionele krisis is.

2. Jogurt. Dit bevat koolhidrate, vet en proteïen. Eet een of twee porsies per dag.

3. Neute. Dit bevat selenium en vitamien E wat velselle wat deur stres afgetakel is vinnig herstel.

4. Vis. Die onontbeerlike Omega-olie in vis voorkom daardie uitgedroogde voorkoms wat 'n mens met 'n emosionele krisis oorval. Eet een porsie elke dag.

5. Avokado's. Dis propvol heilsame olies wat 'n vel herstel wat onder stres is. Eet minstens een porsie elke dag.

6. Rooivleis. Dit het 'n hoë ysterinhoud wat uitputting wat met emosionele trauma saamgaan hokslaan. Eet twee porsies per week.

7. Maaskaas. Dit bevat triptofaan wat jou senustelsel kalmeer en jou goed laat slaap. Triptofaan stimuleer die opname van serotonien in die brein, wat onontbeerlik is vir 'n gevoel van gesondheid en welsyn. Eet twee of drie porsies per week.

8. Groente. Die vesel in groente verwyder die opbou van gifstowwe in die liggaam. Eet elke dag een groot slaai en twee tot drie ander groente.

9. Kleurryke vrugte. Dit bevat antioksidante wat die skade wat stres in die liggaam aanrig doeltreffend herstel. Eet minstens drie vrugte elke dag.

10. Hoender of kalkoen. Die vleis bevat baie proteïen en triptofaan. Eet twee porsies per week.

Kilojoules maak saak

Ons eet meer as 30 jaar gelede. So sê dieetkundige Anne Till in haar nuwe boek The ultimate diet solution. Waar ons in 1962 'n gemiddeld van 10'891 kj per dag ingeneem het, was dit in 2001 12'221 kj. Dis 'n verhoging vab 1'255 kj per persoon per dag. Daarmee saam het die inname van vet (61.2 g teenoor 79 g) en koolhidrate (445 g teenoor 478 g) ook verhoog. Dit is dus duidelik dat ons meer eet as 30 jaar gelede en boonop oefen ons minder. Waar kom hierdie ekstra kilojoules vandaan?

1. Groter porsies

Die hoeveelheid kos wat jy eet bepaal hoeveel kilojoules jy inneem. Eet jy dus groter porsies, neem jy outomaties meer kilojoules in. 'n Studie wat in die VSA gedoen is, toon waar mense in 1970 679 kg kos per jaar ingeneem het, het dit in 2000 tot 805 kg verhoog - 'n hele 126 kg meer kos! Terwyl kitskosplekke hul deel gedoen het met hul supersizing, het porsies tuis ook groter geword en is dit nie

meer wat as 'n gesonde porsie voorgeskryf word nie. 'n Studie het bevind 'n porsie pasta is 480% groter as die aanbevole grootte, muffins is 333% groter, steaks 224% groter en bagels 195% groter. Koekies vat egter die koek en is 700% groter. Dit is dus duidelik dat ons perspektief verloor het met wat 'n porsie is.

2. Gesonde kos, verkeerde porsies

Al maak jy die regte koskeuse, kan jy te veel eet as jy nie na die porsie oplet nie. Jy eet bv 1 k muesli in plaas van 'n ½ k en voek 1 k vetvrye melk ipv net 'n ½ k by. Jy dink dalk aan die einde van die dag dat jy baie gesond geëet het terwyl jy steeds 2'000 of meer kilojoules ingeneem het as wat jou liggaam nodig het.

3. Kilojoules-gelaaide kos

Ons maak dikwels die fout om te dink as ons 'n klein porsie eet, het ons min geëet en as die porsie groot is, het ons baie geëet. Die porsiegroote kan misleidend wees as ons na die soort kos kyk. Ons kies dalk om heeldag niks te eet nie en net aandete te eet en kan dan nie glo as ons gewig aansit nie. Daardie een aandete kan egter meer kilojoules bevat as wat ons liggaam vir die dag nodig het. So kan een klein broodrolletjie en botter 'n middelslagsteak sonder vet, slaptjips, gebraaide uieringe, pepersous en 3 glasies rooiwyn 1'200 kj meer bevat as wat die gemiddelde vrou se liggaam per dag nodig het.

4. Ons verbrand minder kilojoules

Navorsing toon ons verbrand en gebruik nie al die kilojoules wat ons inneem nie. Mense oefen al minder, is onaktief en doen al meer lae-energie-dinge soos om voor 'n rekenaar of TV te sit. As ons meer kilojoules wil verbrand, sal ons aan die gang moet kom. - Uit: The ultimate diet solution deur Anne Till (Struik)

TEN BESTTEN BIGGEST SA

SHOPPING CENTRES

Sunday Times Magazine, March 4 2007

Sandton City: 127’380 metres squareCanal Walk (Cape Town): 125’000 metres squareMenlyn Park (Pretoria): 115’000 metres squareGateway Theatre of Shopping (Durban): 110’000 metres squareEastgate shopping centre: 109’000 metres squareWestgate shopping centre: 106’270 metres squareThe Pavillion (Durban): 100’000 metres squareCresta shopping centre: 92’740 metres square

The Bridge (Greenacres): 84’894 metres squareNorthgate shopping centre: 82’430 metres squareSource: Tourist’s Guide Magazine

Gauplane derailsmega-buck Gautrain

Aprile FuleSunday Times, 1 April 2007

KULULA.COM has announced a bold plan to take on the Gautrain by launching a shuttle flight service between Pretoria, Sandton and the OR Tambo International Airport.

The flight duration between the three points will be only six minutes and flights using 100-seater jets will depart every 15 minutes. The airline also plans to undercut Gautrain rates by between 30% and 40%.

“All the hype around the Gautrain really got us thinking and we’ve come up with a plan to do it quicker and cheaper,” said Kulula’s joint CEO, Gidon Novick.The launch date for the venture is planned for the last quarter of 2008. However, one major obstacle to overcome is the completion of a runway facility in the Sandton area.

An Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and feasibility exercise has been undertaken for the construction of a runway in Innesfree Park, Sandton – a very large area conveniently situated near the Grayston off-ramp, off the M1 highway.Novick said: “We’re looking at an investment of less than R1-billion for the facility, considerably less than the R20-billion earmarked for the Gautrain.”

Waterkloof Air Force Base, to the east of Pretoria, will be used as the Pretoria hub.

Kulula promises to make the experience quick and easy with short check-in times, ample parking facilities, free seating and no checked baggage.Refreshments will be on sale prior to departure and additional perks for travelers will include cellphone usage on board and wifi Internet access.The public will be called upon to suggest names for the new service. Some suggestions so far include “Gauplane”, “Op-en-af” and “The no-gravy plane”.

BA Bags first prize for losses

Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

BRITISH Airways lost more luggage than any other major European airline last year, according to statistics released this week.

Britain’s Air Transport Users Council (AUC) said that for every 1’000 passengers on the British carrier, 23 bags went astray.

This is the worst performance among 24 airlines who are members of the Association of European Airlines.

Across all the airlines, about 5.6 million bags went missing in 2006, an average of 15.7 bags per 1’000 passengers.

Among those airlines which had worse-than-average figures were Germany’s Lufthansa AG, Air France-KLM and AlitaliaSpA.

About 85% of the bags were returned to passengers within 48 hours, the council said. However, some “never get returned at all”.

The council said that the overall European figure could be much worse, because airlines such as Virgin Atlantic do not provide luggage data.

Also, budget airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet are not members of the Association of European Airlines.

“We can only speculate on what the total might be for all airlines worldwide,” said Tina Tietjen, chairman of AUC.

“Complaints to the council show that instances of mishandled baggage can cause passengers considerable stress, inconvenience and expense,” Tietjen said.

“They also show that passengers often struggle to get reasonable redress from airlines after the event.”

Geoff Want, BAs operations director, said that the airline was coping with a 25% increase in the number of checked-in bags at Heathrow since last August’s frightening terror threat.

“The volumes of hold baggage going through Heathrow, the change in security procedures and some baggage system failures within Terminal 4, have not helped our performance.

“But we accept that, overall, the levels of service we offer to our customers has not been up to an acceptable standard,” Want said. – AP

Mon dieu! Going as fast as a jet

aircraft is terrifying on land

Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

Ben Webster takes a ride on France’s TGV train as it hits 574.5km/h on a record-breaking run this week

AT 574.5km/h, it was impossible to focus on anything within a kilometre of the train. Even distant hilltop villages flashed past in a second.

The sense of flying across the landscape of the Champagne region was accentuated by being on the top deck of the TGV train.

Engineers had laboured for months to ensure precision to the millimeter in the track geometry, but we still lurched alarmingly. The train seemed to rise from the tracks for one terrifying moment.

We were travelling twice as fast as a passenger jet at the point of takeoff, but there were no seatbelts. At that speed, they wouldn’t have saved us anyway.As the only foreign journalist on board, I was determined not to show how frightened I was. The assembled French media, politicians and rail bosses seemed to love every second and showed no trace of fear. But then they have absolute faith in the safety of their high-speed lines, with no passenger deaths in 26 years of operation.

The most disturbing feature of this journey was not knowing how fast we would go. There had been rumours that the French would try to exceed the 580km/h that was achieved by a magnetically levitated Japanese train. But the maglev floats above its concrete guide-way and is far smoother and quieter than wheels on rails.

The speed was displayed in kilometers per hour on screens above our heads and there were cheers as we broke 500km/h. The cheers grew louder as we edged past the world rail-speed record, set by a TGV in 1990, of 515.3km/h. Then an extra surge pushed us up to 570km/h.

A camera on the roof showed white flashes on the overhead power lines, from which we were drawing 19.6MW, more power than is used by all the cars that start a Grand Prix race. The sense of being on the edge of a void was hightened

by the knowledge that, in test runs, this train had taken 16km to stop after the brakes were fully applied at 506km/h.

When we slowed to 320km/h, which will be the standard speed when the Paris-to-Strasbourg line opens for service in June, it felt like a jaunt on a branch line.

Developments to WatchDrug depot in a patient’s tooth

Karel Smrčka

Swallowing pills on a regular basis is tiresome. Researchers are now developing a dental prosthesis capable of dosing drugs as required.

Filled with the relevant agent, it independently releases the appropriate amounts into the mucous membranes in the patient’s mouth.

When were you supposed to take those pills again? And how many?

Chronically ill patients are often tired of constantly having to swallow tablets, while those with dementia simply cannot cope. However, regular pill taking is soon to become a thing of the past.

Scientists in an European Union consortium are developing a new prosthesis that releases the correct dosage of the required medicine on continuous basis. This will help to avoid the peak concentrations that occur on taking pills, aggravating the side effects.

What makes the Intellidrug prosthesis unique is that, unlike existing drug prostheses and implants, it is small enough to fit into two artificial molars. Inside the patient’s mouth, it is readily accessible and can easily be maintained and refilled.

HOW IT WORKS

“The dental prosthesis consists of a drug-filled reservoir, a valve, two sensors and several electronic components,” explains Dr Oliver Scholz, of the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering, in St Ingbert, where the sensors and electronics were developed.

“Saliva enters the reservoir through a membrane, dissolves part of the solid drug and flows through a small duct into the mouth cavity, where it is absorbed by the mucous membranes in the patient’s cheeks.”

The duct is fitted with two sensors that monitor the amount of medicine being released into the body.

One is a flow sensor that measure the volume of liquid entering the mouth through the duct, while the other measures the concentration of the agent contained in the liquid.

Based on the measurements results, the electronic circuit either opens or closes a valve at the end of the duct to control the dosage.

If the agent has been used up, the electronic system alerts the patient through a remote control, which was also developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering. This control permits wireless operation of Intellidrug, and can be used by the patient or doctor to set the dosage required.

The patient has to have the agent refilled every few weeks.

“This could be done using a deposit system whereby the patient swaps the empty prosthesis for a newly refilled one. At the same time, the battery could be replaced and the device could be serviced,” says Scholz.

The researchers presented a prototype for the first time at the MedTec trade fair in Stuttgart from February 27 to March 1.

Intellidrug is to undergo clinical testing this year – filled with a drug called Naltrexon, which is taken by drug addicts undergoing withdrawal therapy.

HOME IS MORE THANA ROOF TO KEEP

THE RAIN OUTJack O'Brien

ENGINEERING NEWS, March 16-22 2007

“The man said: `This one, at last, is bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh. She shall be called Woman, for from Man she was taken.` That is why a man leaves his father and mother and attaches himself to his wife, and the two become one.” (Genesis 2:23-24)

When the late Mr and Mrs Henry Ford celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, a reporter asked them: “To what do you attribute your 50 years of married life?”

“The formula,” said Ford, “is the same formula I have always used in making cars – just stick to one model.”

Questioning the children before confirmation, the bishop asked one nervous little girl: “What is matrimony?”

She answered: “A place where souls suffer for a time on account of their sins.”“No, no,” said the parish priest, “that’s purgatory.”

“Let her alone,” said the bishop. “She may be right. What do you and I know about it?”

“In imperial China, where wise justice was legendary, the law maintained a careful balance between the sexes. The first time a wife was unfaithful, it was her seducer who was punished, because he was presumed to have taken advantage of her innocence. At the second breech, it was the fickle spouse herself who was whipped. On the third occasion, her husband was imprisoned for having brought the venerable institution of marriage into disrepute.” (James de Coquet)

When Gerald Ford, a former President of the US, who died recently, married Elizabeth Bloomer, in 1948, they drew up a private marriage contract between them. “We sat down before the wedding and, in a very businesslike way, defined our objectives,” says Mrs Ford.

“We decided the number of children we would have, and ardently agreed to the mutual promise that one would never try to `change` the other.

“We decided, too, that a successful marriage is never really a 50:50 proposition and settled for a 75:25 arrangement. Sometimes the 75 would emanate from my side. Sometimes it would have to be Gerry’s gesture. We have carefully worked out the art of generous compromise.” (Marian Christy)

“What is home? A roof to keep the rain out? Four walls to keep out the wind? Floors to keep out the cold?

“Yes! But home is more than that! It is the laugh of a baby, the song of a mother, the strength of a father, the warmth of loving hearts, light from happy eyes, kindness, loyalty, comradeship!”

“Home is first school and first love for young ones, where they learn what is right, what is good, and what is kind; where they go for comfort when they are hurt or sick; where joy is shared and sorrow eased; where fathers and mothers are respected and loved; where children are wanted; where the simplest food is good enough for kings because it is earned; where money is not as important as loving kindness; where even the tea kettle sings from happiness. That is home: God bless it!” (Anonymous)

Arnold Toynbee, the eminent historian, asserted, “Homes are the building blocks of civilization.” Similarly, William Gladstone, England’s famous Prime Minister, said: “The homes of the people are the soul of the nation.”

Soda Makers PitchDrinks As Healthy

to Boost SalesBy Andrew Martin

SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2007

Healthy soda?

That may strike some as an oxymoron. But for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, it’s a marketing opportunity.

In coming months, both companies will introduce new carbonated drinks that are fortified with vitamins and minerals: Diet Coke Plus and Tava, which is PepsiCo’s new offering.

They will be promoted as “sparkling beverages.” The companies are not calling them soft drinks because people are turning away from traditional soda, which has been hurt in part by publicity about its link to obesity.

While the soda business remains a $68 billion industry in the United States, consumers are increasingly reaching for bottled water, sparkling juices and green tea drinks. In 2005, the amount of soda sold in America dropped for the first time in recent history. Even the diet soda business has slowed.

Coca-Cola’s chief executive, E. Neville Isdell, clearly frustrated that his industry has been singled out in the obesity debate, insisted at a recent conference that his diet products should be included in the health and wellness category because, with few or no calories, they are a logical answer to expanding waistlines.

“Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands,” Mr Isdell said. He asserted that Diet Coke Plus was a way to broaden the category to attract new consumers.

Tom Pirko, president of Bev-mark, a food and beverage consulting firm, said it was “a joke” to market artificially sweetened soft drinks as healthy, even if they were fortified with vitamins and minerals. Research by his firm and others shows that consumers think of diet soft drinks as “the antithesis of healthy,” he said.These consumers “comment on putting something synthetic and not natural into their bodies when they consume diet colas,” Mr Pirko said. “And in the midst of a health and welfare boom, that ain’t good.”

The idea of healthy soda is not entirely new. In 2004, Cadbury Schweppes unveiled 7Up Plus, a low-calorie soda fortified with vitamins and minerals. Last year, Cadbury tried to extend the healthy halo over its regular 7Up brand by

labeling it “100 percent natural.” But the company changed the label to “100 percent natural flavor” after complaints from a nutrition group that a product containing high-fructose corn syrup should not be considered natural, and 7Up Plus has floundered.

The new fortified soft drinks earned grudging approval from Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group and frequent citric of regular soft drinks, which it has labeled “liquid candy.”

“These beverages are certainly a lot better than a regular soft drink,” he said. But he was quick to add that consumers were better off getting their nutrients from natural foods, rather than fortified soft drinks.

Besides the vitamin-fortified diet sodas, PepsiCo is introducing Diet Pepsi Max, with increased caffeine and ginseng, and Coca-Cola has started a new marketing campaign for Coke Zero, emphasizing how close it tastes to Coke Classic.In discussing the sluggishness in diet soda sales, Dawn Hudson, president and chief executive of Pepsi-Cola North America, noted that over the last decade, consumers grew tired of drinking nothing but colas like Coke and Pepsi and sought other beverages. But recently, she said, noncola diet drinks like Diet Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist Free have done well.

Tava, the new drink, will contain vitamins B3, B6 and E, and chromium.Katie Bayne, senior vice president for Coca-Cola Brands at Coca-Cola North America said lackluster marketing and lack of innovation hurt the diet category. But she also predicted that new products and clever marketing would reinvigorate diet sales.

“In today’s world, it’s not about what we choose to sell, but what consumers want,” Ms. Bayne said. Diet Coke Plus – which will contain niacin, vitamins B6 and B12, magnesium and zinc – “is right for a certain group of consumers,” she said.

While it is too soon to know whether consumers will buy the idea of a vitamin-fortified diet soda, soft drink companies are trying to find other ways to reposition their products as healthy. For instance, all of the major soft drink companies are furiously trying to develop a no-calorie natural sweetener to allay concerns about artificial sweeteners. “I think it is the holy grail,” said Ms. Hudson of Pepsi-Cola. “But it has to taste great.”

That Old BurgundyMay be a New Fraud

By Eric Asimov

1 April 2007

A few months ago a wealthy wine collector held a dinner to taste some rare old Burgundies that he had purchased at a recent auction. The wines poured that night, ranging from 45 to 85 years old and worth tens of thousands of dollars, represented just a small cross-section of the purchase.

The collector’s primary reason for the dinner was simply to enjoy great wines with like-minded friends. But the dinner had another purpose.

“It was an authentication tasting,” said Allen Meadows of burghound.com, a leading Burgundy critic who attended the dinner. “Off the top of my head we had 17 wines, three of which I personally felt were outright fakes.”

Today, the price of coveted old wines has shot upwards, with individual bottles primarily of aged Burgundy and Bordeaux wines sometimes selling for tens of thousands dollars each. Naturally, this small but lucrative market has become a target in the last five years for counterfeiters.

The United States government is now investigating whether auction houses, collectors or importers knowingly sold wines that were not from the vintages listed on the labels.

Wine collecting is now a world wide phenomenon, with buyers from Russia and Asia, along with wealthy new collectors, leaping into the game with seemingly bottomless pools of cash.

“If a 25-year-old Wall Street exec says to me he’s selling wines, and he’s made all his money in the last three years and he’s got $5 million worth of wines, I feel suspect,” said Tim Kopec, the wine director of Veritas restaurant in New York, who sometimes acts as a consultant for collectors. “The problem is when you see older bottles, you’re never positive.”

The rise of Internet sales and wine auctions has given all collectors the opportunity to bid against each other for what ought to be very few bottles. Wine auctions were not even legal in New York until 1993.

In New York, which is now a center for auctions, $131 million worth of wine sold in 2006, up 66 percent from 2005, according to Wine Spectator magazine. Worldwide, auction sales of wine were more than $240 million last year, up 45 percent from 2005. Last fall, a six-magnum case of 1945 Château Mouton Rothschild was auctioned off in Los Angeles for $345'000, or $57'000 a magnum.“Ten years ago nobody was even thinking about counterfeit wines,” said John Kapon, the president and auction director of Acker Merrall & Condit, a New York wine merchant.

Back in October, Mr. Kapon presided over an auction in New York that sold almost $24.7 million worth of wine. But this auction, from the private holdings of Rudy Kurniawan, a wealthy young collector from Los Angeles, came with a guarantee. If buyers weren’t satisfied with any part of their purchase within 90 days, Acker Merall would buy back that part.

That 90-day timeframe led to what Mr. Meadows called the authentication dinner.One bottle served at the dinner, a 1923 Bonnes Mares from Georges Roumier, was suspicious simply because the domaine was not established until 1924. “But it was possible,” Mr. Meadows said. “when they took the domaine over, it could have come with stocks of wine.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Meadows felt that wine was a fake because the color seemed far too youthful for a bottle more than 80 years old.

“Could you have a wine that does not conform to the average still be real?" He asked. “Yeah, it’s possible. But is it likely? No.”

As to who is producing the bogus bottles, the answers amount to little more than guesswork.

“It’s a small group of select people, not hundreds of counterfeiters all over the place,” Mr. Kapon said.

Wine producers themselves have made tracking counterfeit wines far more difficult because of their own haphazard business practices, particularly before World War II when few records were kept.

And then you have devious practices of the wine producers themselves. In the 19th century Burgundy producers were known to beef up a bad vintage with a little wine from the Rhone or even from Algeria. Today, some wine producers may take older bottles, which have lost wine to evaporation, and top them off with a more recent vintage of the same wine, effectively freshening up the bottle.“A 1915, topped off with some 1985, is that a sin?” Mr. Meadows asked. “Well, it raises the question of why you have a vintage. I’m personally offended by that.”

Roots of Japan’sWhaling ObsessionBy Norimitsu Onishi

Sunday Times, 1 April 2007

AYUKAWA, Japan – Why does Japan insist on whaling and going through the annual international clashes it causes?

After all, current demand for whale meat in Japan is abysmally low. Even in a town like Ayukawa – home to a century-old whaling tradition – officials are struggling to preserve the tradition of eating whale meat by serving it in classroom lunches. Whale nuggets stewed in ketchup was on the menu on a recent Friday. “I believe this is our traditional culture,” said Natsumi Saito, 15, a junior in high school. “It’s whaling that made this town famous.”

For Japan as a whole, whaling is a far more complex issue. It is intricately tied to Japan’s relations with the West, especially the United States.

It comes as little surprise that foreign opposition to whaling has fueled nationalist sentiments in Japan. What is far less known is how the United States instigated, at least partly, Japan’s obsession with whaling by first urging the Japanese in the postwar years to hunt and eat whale meat, and then telling them to stop.The clash over whaling emerged with the United States-led environmental movement, which emphasized that endangered animals should be protected and that certain highly evolved ones, like whales, should not be killed at all. Under a 1986 ban on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission, Japan was allowed to engage in limited, scientific whaling of certain species – for things like gauging populations and tracking movements - and to sell the meat for consumption.

Japan has maintained ever since that human beings should be allowed to consume any animal as long as the fishing or hunting is sustainable.

Last year, Japan killed 1’073 minke whales, which ended up in restaurants, supermarkets, school cafeterias or unsold.

Arguments about resource management do not resonate as much as those about culture.“I was afraid that our food culture was going to die, so that’s why we began serving whale meat in school cafeterias,” said Shigehiko Azumi, 80, who served as mayor here when the ban went into effect.

Few deny that whaling is part of Ayukawa’s culture. But opinions divide over whether it is part of Japan’s. Historically, fishermen in coastal towns hunted whales in nearby waters. But things changed after the Commodore Perry’s so-called Black Ships forced an isolationist Japan to open up in the 1850s. Back then, the United States used whale oil lamps, and part of Perry’s mission to Japan was to secure the rights of American whalers in the Pacific.

As whaling became knotted with Japan’s traumatic opening to the world and its subsequent drive to modernize, the Japanese adopted American and Norwegian whaling vessels and techniques. Some coastal towns were transformed into Whaling stations, including Ayukawa, when the Toyo Whaling Company started operating here in 1906.

More Japanese, in turn, began eating whale. But it was after World War II that the American occupation authorities urged that whale meat be offered in classroom lunches nationwide as a cheap source of protein. For the first time, under America’s influence, whale meat became part of Japanese everyday life.Whaling opponents say that Japanese mostly stopped eating whale as the country became richer and alternatives became widely available.

Ayako Okubo, a researcher at the private Ocean Policy Research Foundation, said that the cultural argument first emerged in the late 1970s, and was then effectively and enthusiastically used by politicians. Now, most Japanese favor whaling.

“It’s not because Japanese want to eat whale meat,” Mr. Okubo said. “It’s because they don’t like being told not to eat it by foreigners.”

DUMB,DUMBER,

DUMBEST CRIMINALSBy WILLIAM BEAMAN

Readers Digest, February 2006

Who knew that shoplifting could be a perfect Kodak moment? A thief and his sidekick seemed pretty savvy when they entered a department store and swept the shelves of $2000 (about R12’500) worth of digital cameras. A shop assistant found only an abandoned shopping trolley filled with empty camera boxes.Meanwhile, the store’s surveillance tape looked like it was going to be useless: the video showed the suspects, a man and a woman, but the images were far too grainy to identify them.

Then security officials noticed that, at one point, the tape showed the woman picked up a demonstration camera that was chained to a counter, and pointed it at her partner. No, she couldn’t have …. Yes, she did.

The store’s manager went over to the photography centre and asked about the camera. The guy operating the desk, Brian Mikucki, said they were in luck: the camera had batteries and a disc. What’s more, it was hooked up to a printer. All they had to do was press the print button to see what the picture on the disc looked like.

Out popped a clear colour image of a balding man with a moustache, looking straight at the camera. The police couldn’t ask for a better mug shot.Shortly after the robbery, Suffolk Police Detective Sergeant Paul Dodorico said he thought the couple “will be kind of surprised. I’m sure they thought there was nothing in the camera.”

No sooner did police go public with the photograph than calls poured in, identifying the man as 36-year-old James Stissi. Less than three weeks later, detectives arrested Stissi at his home and charged him with grand larceny.

And Your Previous Jobs?IT MAY be tough for Alejandro Martinez to clear himself of charges that he robbed a Las Vegas pizza parlour after allegedly leaving behind a crucial piece of evidence.

According to prosecutors, the 23-year-old Martinez entered the parlour, ordered a pie and requested a job application. “The cashier immediately gave him an application and a pen, so he started filling it in,” said Clark County prosecutor Frank Coumou.

“Then, when he thought the moment was right, he lifted his shirt, exposed the but of a firearm, and told her to give him all of the money.”

After stuffing over $200 in his pocket, Martinez hustled out to a waiting car, authorities say. But a witness followed the gunman and jotted down the number plate. An easy trace of that number led police to Martinez, whom they found sitting at home.

None of that has made it easy for the public defender who has taken on the case. But the evidence left behind could make his job nearly impossible.

When police returned to the pizza parlour after the arrest, they found Martinez’s job application still on the counter. He had dutifully written down on it his real name and address.

“I’d chalk it up to either inexperience or plain stupidity,” said prosecutor Coumou. Martinez has pleaded not guilty and his case is now pending in district court.

Copy This and No One Gets Hurt

NOTHING looked too suspicious about Paul Callahan except maybe the gardening gloves he was wearing – as he slipped into a building on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue. The 32-year-old Callahan was on a mission to rob a bank, and he’d found his target. Striding past a row of Fleet Bank ATMs, he went through a glass door and walked up to a clerk standing behind a counter. Without saying a word, Callahan handed him a newspaper. Tucked inside was a note demanding cash.

The clerk read the note, looked puzzled, and conferred briefly with another clerk. Then he turned back to Callahan: “Do you know you are in a copy store, and all we can give you is copies?”

Oops. It turned out that Callahan had opened a door marked “Image X-Press”.Undeterred, he said he was looking for a Fleet Bank and asked if one was close by. The copy shop employees said they weren’t sure and, once Callahan left, immediately called police.

Shortly after, a Fleet Bank in another part of town was held up by a man with, you guessed it, a note concealed inside a newspaper.

It took until the next day, but Boston police nabbed Callahan at a petrol station. That morning he had hit another bank, but things still weren’t going right. The hapless robber was at the station because his get-away truck had a flat tyre. And now did this attract the attention of police? Callahan had called 911 for help.

Got Change For a W?

EVEN the police had to smile at this one. It was a case of passing counterfeit money that brought cops in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, to a local supermarket. There they got a look at the bogus banknote. Was it a bad likeness of Jefferson on the $20, or maybe of Grant on the $50? Nope.

It was a fairly sharp presidential likeness, actually – of George W. Bush on a $200 bill. On the back of the note, police found an image of the White House, with its South Lawn cluttered with signs reading “We like broccoli” and “USA deserves a tax cut”.

Pretty goofy to think you could get away with that as payment for groceries, right? Well, this is a case of dumb and dumber. The supermarket cashier actually accepted the phony bill, and gave the customer his groceries along with $50 in change. Apprehended 12 days later, the man with the funny money was ordered to pay back the store – in real bills, thank you – and then released.

Mbeki completelyloses his cool on crime

James Myburgh

Article from the website: www.moneyweb.co.za, 19 March 2007

...And why he and Zuma don’t differ on Zimbabwe

For a long time now President Thabo Mbeki has managed to keep his resentments bottled up. Last week they finally boiled over. He wrote in ANC Today that a significant proportion of the white minority “continues to live in fear of the black, and especially African majority. For this section of our population …

every reported incident of crime communicates the frightening and expected message that – the k**** are coming!”

This outburst provides confirmation, if any was needed, that Mbeki was the author of the article last month which accused BBC World of perpetuating a stereotype of black Africans as “less than human, or at least, genetically inferior” – and aligning itself with the “most die-hard racists in the country” – by airing a critical report on crime in South Africa.

The last time Mbeki made such gratuitous use of the k-word was in 2000, at the start of his first full year as President of South Africa. In his speech to the opening of parliament Mbeki quoted at length from an e-mail of an anonymous white engineer which had repeatedly used the epithet. “Such unadorned statements” he stated, “bring us face to face with the brutality of the racism that will continue to exist in our society unless all of us engage this monster consciously and systematically.”

Mbeki proceeded to engage this “monster” by supporting ZANU PF in Zimbabwe and blocking the provision of treatment to HIV/AIDS sufferers in South Africa. In early 2001 he insisted that those South Africans calling for the government to act against Robert Mugabe were “convinced that we are savages and that we must therefore do everything in our power to prove that we are not savages, to the satisfaction of white South Africa.” Later that year he claimed that those campaigning for the provision of anti-retroviral treatment within the public health-care system believed that black South Africans were “germ carriers, and human beings of a lower order that cannot subject its passions to reason.”

There is an old saying that, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Mbeki is no longer the all-powerful figure he was at the start of his presidency, nor does he have the same moral authority. South Africa is also a very different place. For one, such crass appeals to racial solidarity no longer exert the same pull that they once did. And, if anything, far from being a cause of division a shared experience of crime has generated a certain sense of camaraderie between black and white South Africans.

Of course, Mbeki’s article was as noticeable for what it didn’t say, as for what it did. There was no mention of the crisis in Zimbabwe and no condemnation of the brutal beating of opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Such silence has prompted renewed speculation as to Mbeki’s motives for not intervening in Zimbabwe. In fact he gave the answer many years ago. In September 2000 Mbeki was asked, in parliament, about his policy towards the crisis in Zimbabwe. He replied: ”I hope the Honourable Members are aware that the issues they have raised are a legacy of colonialism. Everyone who is seized with this matter agrees that all attempts towards the resolution of this problem has to

comprehensively and adequately address the land crisis in Zimbabwe.” His objective then was to help the black majority in that country “regain their land”.Mbeki further stated: “I know there are many people around the world who think that we should do something else, who think that our principal task is to stand on platforms and denounce the government of Zimbabwe. We are not going to do that. The reason why we are not going to do that is that it is not going to result in addressing this colonial legacy.” The subtext to what he was saying was that the ANC would continue to support ZANU PF’=’s hold on power – regardless of what the Zimbabwean electorate wanted – so that it could bring the dispossession of the white commercial farming class to completion.

There is, incidentally, little prospect that Jacob Zuma would follow a different policy. In an under-reported interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, published in December last year, he was asked why “Pretoria continues to exercise great restraint when it comes to Robert Mugabe, who has turned neighboring Zimbabwe into a dictatorship and has forced whites from their land and driven them out of the country.” The exchange that followed is worth quoting at length:

Zuma: The Europeans often ignore the fact that Mugabe is very popular among Africans. In their eyes, he has given blacks their country back after centuries of colonialism.

Interviewer: But with the methods of a brutal police state.

Zuma: You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. When I met Mugabe a few years ago he said: “I am the elected leader of a sovereign state. The British and the Americans criticize me while at the same time embracing a military leader like Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. He came to power in a military coup and he continues to wear his uniform.” Mugabe asked me: “How does one reconcile that? I had no response.

Interviewer: But Zimbabwe has not had free elections in a long time.

Zuma: People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq. Are the Americans even qualified to criticize Mugabe?We have decided not to take steps against Mugabe, but rather to engage him with quiet diplomacy.

Interviewer: But that hasn’t produced any results. Mugabe has grown into a dictator, and his country is isolated internationally and economically in ruins. It has more than 1’000 percent inflation.

Zuma: The people love him. So how can we condemn him? Many in Africa believe that there is a racist aspect to European and American criticism of Mugabe. Millions of blacks died in Angola, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. A few whites lost their lives in Zimbabwe, unfortunately, and already the West is bent out of shape.

That’s LifeLife Explained

From the Internet site Joe Monster.org

On the first day, God created the dog and said, “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.”

The dog said, “That’s a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten”?

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said, “Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.”The monkey said, “Monkey tricks for twenty years? That’s a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did”?

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said, “You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer’s family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.”The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I’ll give back the other forty”?

And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said, “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I’ll give you twenty years.”

But man said, “Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back and then the ten the dog gave back. That makes eighty, okay”?

“Okay,” said God, “You asked for it.”

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.Life has now been explained to you. Now go forth.

Gotta love it, Boet

Received via e-mail

Sitting together on a train, traveling through the Swiss Alps, were a South African, an Australian (both guys), a young blonde lady, and little old Swiss lady.The train goes into a tunnel & a few seconds later there’s the sound of a loud slap.

When the train emerges from the tunnel, the Australian has a bright red hand print on his cheek. No one speaks.

The old lady thinks: The Australian must have groped the blond in the dark, and she slapped his cheek.

The blond thinks: That Australian must have tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled the old lady. She slapped his cheek.

The Australian thinks: That South African must have groped the blonde in the dark. She tried to slap him but missed and got me instead.

The South African thinks: I can’t wait for another tunnel, so I can moer that Aussie again.