You could say South Africa has a problem with AIDS. And not just because the condition kills 1000 South Africans every day. The nation is still working to correct the damage done by years of "Aids denialism" under the leadership of former president Thabo Mbeki, who delayed the roll out of life-saving anti retro-viral drugs, while his health minister suggested a diet of beetroot and garlic could cure the virus. Now a pastor has at the non-denominational Way of Life church in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, has hit upon a novel way to change attitudes. He recently caused outrage by preaching a sermon entitled "Jesus was HIV positive". Reverend Xola Skosana, who has lost two sisters to the disease, said his sermon was designed to combat the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids. His approach has been praised by Aids campaigners in the country but condemned by some Christians, who accuse him of portraying Jesus as sexually promiscuous. WWJD?
Ghana on the other hand, has issues with English. Recently the leader of the main opposition National Patriotic Party sparked controversy by calling President Atta Mills "Professor Dolittle". For a week, the full machinery of the state was deployed to counter this. While that controversy raged, an even greater row broke out when the chairman of Mills' National Democratic Congress called for a purge of the judiciary. This in a country where the word "purge" evokes images of nasty medicines for bodily functions. The idea of party officials lining up judges and forcing purgatives down their throats or rectums to empty their stomach contents drove tensions up. Things got worse when he was asked how he intended to do the purging. "There are many ways of killing a cat," declared the NDC chairman, who comes from a region where cats are considered a delicacy. And again, this in a country where independent-minded judges have in the past been abducted and murdered by government goons. Eventually, President Mills calmed the furore by assuring all that he had no intention of interfering with the judiciary and even thanked his opponent for not calling him “Professor Do-nothing”!
Africans in general have a problem with the weather. Not only do thousands perish every year from the results of droughts and floods, but some have also taken to blaming climate change for the seemingly interminable wars on the continent. Last year, a research paper suggested that climate had been a major driver of armed conflict, and that future warming was likely to increase the number of deaths from war. However, recent study suggests that this is not the case and challenges assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. The findings, which have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States, instead blame traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - for the outbreak of conflicts. One might also include traditional, melanin-induced, stupidity.
Chimpanzees in the wild don’t take too kindly to snares. And now the primates are learning to outwit their human hunters. Researchers in the rainforests of Guinea are going ape over the discovery that chimps have not only learnt to recognise snares but, astonishingly, intentionally seek the traps out and deactivate them, setting them off without being harmed. The observation was serendipitously made by primatologists Gaku Ohashi and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa who were following chimps living in Bossou, Guinea to study the apes' social behaviour. The two, from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan, observed five male chimps, both juvenile and adult, attempting to break and deactivate snares on at least six separate occasions. On two of them, the traps were successfully deactivated. In all cases, the chimps avoided touching the dangerous part of the snare, the wire loop.
Jemaine Jackson, brother of the late pop sensation, Michael, obviously has no problem with torture and repression. In May, the pop star, who was attending the birthday celebrations of Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, declared that the dictator, who is famous for a herbal concoction that he claims can cure AIDS on Thursdays, was “doing a wonderful job, and putting a smile on the faces of the people… He's not just a politician; he's a wonderful, genuine person." It’s enough to make one question whether the President’s birthday fell on a Thursday, and whether he shared his concoction with the guests. At the very least, it is a cautionary tale for those who confuse celebrity with intelligence or wisdom.
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Ghana on the other hand, has issues with English. Recently the leader of the main opposition National Patriotic Party sparked controversy by calling President Atta Mills "Professor Dolittle". For a week, the full machinery of the state was deployed to counter this. While that controversy raged, an even greater row broke out when the chairman of Mills' National Democratic Congress called for a purge of the judiciary. This in a country where the word "purge" evokes images of nasty medicines for bodily functions. The idea of party officials lining up judges and forcing purgatives down their throats or rectums to empty their stomach contents drove tensions up. Things got worse when he was asked how he intended to do the purging. "There are many ways of killing a cat," declared the NDC chairman, who comes from a region where cats are considered a delicacy. And again, this in a country where independent-minded judges have in the past been abducted and murdered by government goons. Eventually, President Mills calmed the furore by assuring all that he had no intention of interfering with the judiciary and even thanked his opponent for not calling him “Professor Do-nothing”!
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Africans in general have a problem with the weather. Not only do thousands perish every year from the results of droughts and floods, but some have also taken to blaming climate change for the seemingly interminable wars on the continent. Last year, a research paper suggested that climate had been a major driver of armed conflict, and that future warming was likely to increase the number of deaths from war. However, recent study suggests that this is not the case and challenges assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. The findings, which have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States, instead blame traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - for the outbreak of conflicts. One might also include traditional, melanin-induced, stupidity.
__________________________________
Chimpanzees in the wild don’t take too kindly to snares. And now the primates are learning to outwit their human hunters. Researchers in the rainforests of Guinea are going ape over the discovery that chimps have not only learnt to recognise snares but, astonishingly, intentionally seek the traps out and deactivate them, setting them off without being harmed. The observation was serendipitously made by primatologists Gaku Ohashi and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa who were following chimps living in Bossou, Guinea to study the apes' social behaviour. The two, from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan, observed five male chimps, both juvenile and adult, attempting to break and deactivate snares on at least six separate occasions. On two of them, the traps were successfully deactivated. In all cases, the chimps avoided touching the dangerous part of the snare, the wire loop.
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Jemaine Jackson, brother of the late pop sensation, Michael, obviously has no problem with torture and repression. In May, the pop star, who was attending the birthday celebrations of Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, declared that the dictator, who is famous for a herbal concoction that he claims can cure AIDS on Thursdays, was “doing a wonderful job, and putting a smile on the faces of the people… He's not just a politician; he's a wonderful, genuine person." It’s enough to make one question whether the President’s birthday fell on a Thursday, and whether he shared his concoction with the guests. At the very least, it is a cautionary tale for those who confuse celebrity with intelligence or wisdom.
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