The sophisticated voters of Kaduna in Nigeria are worried about the latest road safety law being enforced against motor-cycle users. The new law, which enforces the use of helmets, which are to be worn by all motor-cycle riders, is said by some to be an aid to those wicked people who use ‘Juju’s’ or witchcraft spells to influence the wearers, or allow the drivers to cast spells on their passengers, and steal all their money! As one really well-informed person stated, "Some people can put juju inside the helmets and when they are worn the victim can either lose consciousness or be struck dumb”.

My point in posting this slightly dotty story is to emphasise that a goodly proportion of the Labour-voting population of these islands carry somewhere near the same degree of sophistication as the afore-mentioned Nigerian motor-cyclists when it comes to believing the tripe slung around by the Labour spin machine!

Once more we hear of the attacks by either ‘rebel’ or ‘government’ troops in the steamy jungles of either the Congo or the Central African Republic. In hushed tones, the reporter questions individuals who queue up to denounce the violence, and the fact that both countries are ‘failed states’! Time and again, over several weeks, these reports have been broadcast on the Today programme, telling the listener of the collapse and disappearance of civilized behaviour. The details of injuries, of whole families being slaughtered, are all broadcast with particular relish, all in the cause of broadcasting the ‘Truth’.

The last sentence brings me to the point of this particular post,

Click to read more ...

I read that machete-wielding gangs in South Africa are mutilating young people to provide body parts for the traditional medicine market. What a reflection on a country which is frequently held up as  the very model template for modern Africa!

"Special superintendent Gerard Labuschagne, an expert on ritual killings, said traditional healers are behind the killings, prescribing body parts to patients and hiring men to go out and find them. Human genitals are the most prized parts and can be used to attract wealth and increase fertility. They are cooked and ground down for use with herbs and other ingredients. Children's body parts are thought to be the most potent and victims are often tortured first as the pain is believed to add to the power."

It's no longer Nelson Mandela that needs freed, it is many of the people of this nation who have the most primitive and grotesque practises. Civilisation has still to reach the end of the rainbow evidently and I hear very little criticism of these barbarisms from the ANC.

I hate to be the spectre at the feast BUT I must be honest and say that I think that no good will come from the compromise deal between Zimbabwaen thug Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Fool. Mugabe is not be trusted and compromise with evil is always wrong. I am aware how Morgan Tsvangirai has suffered personally but I think he is wrong to cut a deal with Mugabe and it makes me wonder if in years to come, Zimbabwe will end up swapping one egomanical tryrant for another?

Jacob  Zuma will be the next leader of South Africa. He has the  blessing of Saint Mandela and Mugabe's best pal Mbeke. He's quite  the character.

He stands accused of corruption, fraud, racketeering and money-laundering . He was sacked as South Africa's deputy president when his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was found guilty of soliciting a bribe on behalf of Mr Zuma and jailed for 15 years in connection with an arms deal. In February 2006, Mr Zuma was acquitted of rape in a separate case, though he was widely criticised for comments about sex and HIV/Aids. What were those comments you ask? Well, he reckons that he didn’t put his life in jeopardy after having sex with the 31-year old family friend, who happens to be an HIV activist, because he thought the chance of transmitting was “very minimal” because he was a healthy man. “And I also took a shower,”  Wise words from the future leaderof the Rainbow Nation. His loyal supporters have turned out to support him - have a look at the guy dancing in the street with a machine gun. But relax, it's ONLY a fake. Just like Zuma. South Africa seems mired in ANC corruption and lacks the will to accept this crock at the end of the Rainbow Nation....

Wonder what you make of the news that South African police have forcefully removed hundreds of immigrants from temporary shelters where they had taken refuge from xenophobic attacks? Authorities say the immigrants, who were taken to a repatriation centre in Johannesburg, had not registered with the home affairs department.So, they are going to be booted OUT of the Rainbow Nation. With the international political left lionising South Africa post-apartheid I wonder if they also agree that the UK could take a LESSON from Mr Mbeki and his pals and boot out all our illegal immigrants? Or perhaps there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...??

I see that Sudan is gaining support from fellow African nations in the face of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court charging Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide yesterday, accusing him of masterminding a campaign to "destroy" three tribes in Darfur, killing 35,000 people and persecuting 2.5 million refugees. Tanzania, which is chairing the African Union, called yesterday for the ICC to suspend the move "until we sort out the primary problems in Darfur and southern Sudan".

This translates as leave well alone. And THAT is to the eternal shame of Africa. Does Africa deserve ANY of our financial whilst its leaders sit back, contentedly, and allow genocide in Sudan?

The Prime Minister's offer to help "tackle lawlessness" in the world's eighth largest oil producer was immediately condemned by the main militant group in the Delta, which abandoned a two-week-old ceasefire and accused Britain of backing what it calls Nigeria's "illegal government". The group issued a "stern warning" to Mr Brown in an emailed statement: "Should Gordon Brown make good his threat to support this criminality for the sake of oil, UK citizens and interests in Nigeria will suffer the consequences." The Nigerian press received the British offer as a declaration of war against rebel groups. The Daily Champion newspaper ran the headline "Battle Line! UK to Declare War on Delta Militants".

Poor Mr Broon can't stand up for falling down..........

Here's a bit of liberal guilt to lay on you.

"The world's richest nations will today be told by Gordon Brown to stop backsliding on their pledges to double aid to Africa by 2010. The Prime Minister will risk a clash (Sure) with world leaders at next week's G8 summit in Japan over their failure to honour pledges to boost aid made three years ago.  Mr Brown is backing Bob Geldof, who warned yesterday that high energy prices are starving the super-poor in Africa. The prominent aid campaigner and the Prime Minister fear that Japan, France, Italy and Canada are using the global economic downturn as an excuse to scale back their aid payments to the world's poorest countries. They believe the global food crisis makes it even more important to help Africa feed itself and that rich nations will make a catastrophic error if they turn their back on the continent at such a critical moment."

Three points.

1. It is not lack of financial AID thats causes continued poverty in Africa; it is the lack of freedom, liberty and democracy. See under Zimbabwe for more details.

2. What gives Gordon Brown the right to spend MORE of my taxes on his pet hobby horses to salve his liberal conscience? I disagree with the idea of the State giving charity on my behalf.

3. Is Brown and Geldof suggesting that the super-rich Arab Oil States drop the price per barrel of oil to help Africa's poor? On what planet might this be happening?

4. Throwing more and more cash into the maws of Africa's corrupt and venal leaders does NOTHING to bring relief from hunger. See under Ethiopia.

Brown is simply trying to win PR plaudits here - it is a cynical grab for good press.

It's pretty clear that Zimbabwe is a totalitarian hell-hole ruled by the Marxist thug Mugabe. His contempt for the well being of the Zimbabwean population is obvious. But what is to be done to help the poor and starving, the terrorised and the brutalised in this country? W

ell, the UN has a plan and guess what, we've heard it before.

"A top UN official is due in Zimbabwe for a five-day visit ahead of the presidential run-off, which continues to be marred by political violence. Haile Menkerios is expected to meet politicians to discuss the situation in the run-up to the 27 June vote."

Talks and discussions that DO nothing - that is the UN mantra. The political Left love this empty dialogue - it operates as a surrogate for doing something of substance. When I listen to the barrage of criticism directed the way of the US for actually taking action and doing things - however imperfectly - and contrast that to the demur approval for the UN's approach of doing nothing (See also under Sudan genocide et al) it makes me very clear as to just how malignant both the MSM and UN are.

OK, this is going to sound harsh but stick with me.

Ethiopia has appealed for $325m (£167m) in food and other humanitarian aid after drought and crop failure more than doubled the number of people needing emergency assistance to 4.6 million. Poor rains have affected much of southern and south-eastern Ethiopia since last year, significantly cutting harvests. The shortage of local cereals has sent prices soaring, while the cost of imported food has also risen sharply due to the global food crisis and increased fuel prices. Aid agencies said hundreds of thousands of the country's poorest families can no longer afford to buy enough food to sustain them. According to the UN, which issued the appeal to donors yesterday together with Ethiopia's disaster prevention and preparedness agency, 75,000 children are already suffering from acute malnutrition and illness.

I am sorry to hear of all this suffering but I am sure of one thing - the more financial aid that is given to Ethoipia the less chance this country will have of rising out of the mire of corruption and greed that brings this situation about on a regular basis. Those politicians and other assorted hanger-ons that sit at the top of Ethiopean life are to primarily to blame for refusing to be responsible for the condition of their own people and wickedly calculating that along with famine comes riches - for those in the right place.

It is shameful beyond words that despite the £££BILLIONS poured into this country for decades such conditions are still allowed to come about. Giving more money in aid will ensure that we will continue feeding the parasites that run this country, who will divert the money into ways of getting more military weapons, and who must be denied even so much as one more penny candle.

Ethiopia needs freedom and democracy - not more aid.  

I see that Robert Mugabe has warned Zimbabwe's war of independence "veterans" are ready to fight to stop the MDC gaining power (Winning the election) Mugabe was quoted by the Herald newspaper as saying the "veterans" had asked approval to take up arms but he had advised them against violence. (Sure) They said Zimbabwe was won "by the barrel of the gun" and should not be let go at a pen stroke. Mugabe is a tyrant, a murdering  despot, and he should be toppled from power. So, what does his neighbour President Mbeke have to say? Nothing. God help Africa when it tolerates monsters like this. 

We all know that the United Nations is the world's highest moral authority. That's an article of faith for some on the left and who am I to deny it? The elevated moral position enjoyed by the UN may explain why it is that Robert Mugabe - the Zimbabwean Marxist thug who starves his own people -has been kindly invited to a UN Food Summit in Rome. To an ordinary mortal like me, this reeks of gross political hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. I am also disgusted, though not surprised, that the EU has allowed Mugabe to attend this event. Between them, the EU and the UN seem unable, or unwilling, to do the RIGHT thing and ensure that Mugabe is punished for his wicked treatment of his own people. Instead they conspire to allow him to posture as a Statesman at a Food Summit even as many ordinary Zimbabweans slowly starve to death.   

Did you see that xenophobic violence in South Africa, which has caused 24 deaths and forced 13,000 people to flee their homes, has spread from Johannesburg to the volatile Zulu heartland, prompting President Thabo Mbeki to deploy the army on the streets for the first time since the end of apartheid. 

Asylum seekers have been burned to death by raging mobs and I suggest that were this happening in any other continent than Africa the liberal media would be ablaze with outrage at such naked intolerance. But this is  is South Africa - the rainbow nation and so a different standard. It strikes me that at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of seething hatred but we daren't mention it since that might mean criticising the ANC, and we all know that might mean an indirect  criticism of Saint Nelson - the man who has had nothing to say on this vicious xenophobia that now disfigures his nation - again.

Church leaders in Zimbabwe have called for international action to prevent post-election violence developing into genocidal proportions. African countries and the UN should intervene to deal with a "deteriorating" situation, they said. Sorry but if these clerics put their faith in their fellow African countries and the UN, then they are in for a major let down. It's a terrible situation here but I cannot see the UN doing anything other than brokering some sordid deal with Mugabe and too many African leaders admire Mugabe's strong-arm techniques. How do you think this one will end? Mercifully maybe Mugabe will just die? 

As I have visited Zimbabwe twice, both times mainly on business from my home in South Africa, I am as qualified to comment upon the disaster which Black rule has become as any other. Disaster as a description is only an air-brush of the reality which is everyday life in the country which once, quite rightly, was termed the 'Breadbasket' of Southern Africa. Most observers have touched upon the means by which Mugabe and his gangster friends in the ruling Zanu-PF Party have clung to power, destroyed a once booming economy, and managed to drive the only people who knew anything about farming out of the country. The end results of their scheming is now apparent in the headlines which warn that the President is days away from ending the last fictions of democratic government, and through a rigged 'second vote' declare himself the winner once again.

What I am attempting to do is to discuss how it is always Africa, and the poor, benighted nations of that sorry Continent, where these sorts of plots and headlines emerge. If we look away to, say, India, we see an entirely different result. From a Sub-continent which once was described as the 'Jewel of the Empire' to a nation which, it is true, has a population of many millions who still live in direst poverty; but also whose very Governance changes hands from one political Party to another in a peaceful tradition. Both Parties have diametrically opposed viewpoints on virtually everything, and as we are only too well aware, politicians like to remain in the positions of power which they are given via the ballot box but; and it is a huge 'But', when the Indian voters speak, their wishes are respected above all, and the reins of power are handed obver to the successors of a democratic election. There are many things in India which need change, and the politicians are as loathe to fund the needs of their oppositions' supporters as any other Party organisation worldwide, but the basic rule of democracy is scrupulously observed.

So why is it always Africa, and the Black man within? Why is it that the Congo, a country rich beyond belief in all sorts of minerals, is dysfunctional almost to the point of collapse? Why is it that Nigeria, whose oil wealth exceeds the Congo's, has been run by a collection of crooks, thugs and criminals almost from day One? Why do the Interahamwe still pillage on the borders of Rwanda? Why do the headlines of ballot-rigging and corruption blaze from the newspapers and screens of Kenya?

 Are they incompetent? Are they always corrupt? Should the ex-colonial powers such as France, Belgium and Great Britain accept blame for what is happening some forty-odd years after the flags were unrolled at the multifarious 'Independence' ceremnies? Should we stand by and condemn Africa and the Black rulers of that Continent to 'wither on the vine', while releasing such stinging phrases as "But the international community's patience with the regime is wearing thin".   

I would invite those commenters who always seem to rush to imply that I long for the 'old days' to state that I am wrong in my conclusions and thinking, that Africa isn't on the edge of an abyss, and that the headlines are all wrong, and the Zimbabwe voters are only too keen to see Mugabe returned to power? As ever, all workings and calculations shall be shown, and arguments shall be impersonal but robust!