South Africa // Current

A Luxury Airstream Trailer Park

Here is one trailer park most of us can't afford to stay in...A new penthouse trailer... more

jwheat22
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17 hours ago
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Mass bikini parade in South Africa

great way to bring attention to a good cause

lmbowler
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3 days ago
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Dilana - "Holiday"

South African born, former Rockstar: Supernova contestant, Dilana's lead single... more

sfoom
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6 days ago
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Ancient human metropolis found in Africa

They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who... more

Vierotchka
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6 days ago
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MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST on HuffPost: Anthony Fabian on SKIN

You could probably forge a good, absurdist, dark comedy out of a government where... more

DanPersons
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13 days ago
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Animal slaughter for the World Cup?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual... more

tcmfan08
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20 days ago
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1 comment

Book Fakes Nelson Mandela Foreword

Why did Nelson Mandela call Denis Sassou-Nguesso "one of our great African leaders" in... more

Future_America
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21 days ago
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Mr. Sauce

"'You can eat it?' Yes, you can eat it," explains 18-year-old Zimbabwean refugee and... more

sluppy
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27 days ago
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3 comments

Mandela notes show 'grave error'

Unseen writings of Nelson Mandela which are being sold this week show the... more

franksalot
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28 days ago
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1 comment

"When someone perpetrates an act of rape, it's about reclaiming a sense of power"
Kelly Hatfield, formerly the director of People Opposing Women Abuse.

South Africa, has the highest rate of crime per capita than any other country in the world, and according to the BBC, a young female has more of a chance of being the victim of rape than learning how to read.
When you have a country who’s parliament is so corrupt that even the President has been tried for a rape crime, what hope does that really give it’s citizens who, a quarter of them live on less than 75p a day
It comes as no surprise then that women’s rights in South Africa is appallingly behind the rest of the world, also there are virtually no feminist movements, and women are paid on average 30 % less than men, often for the same type of work.
Of these women, it is statistically black women who are more subject to Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment by farm owners, managers, and by other farm workers according to United States government research. The dreadful consequences of this type of inequality is apparent in one recent court case that garnered media attention where a mother begged a judge not to send her working husband to court for raping her daughter, for fear of the family starving.
For a woman, more importantly a mother to have to make a decision based on her child’s safety or the rest of her family going hungry is direct attestation that something is urgently wrong.
About 50,000 rapes were reported in 2001, that figure rose to 54 926 in 2006 nevertheless not at rapes are reported and this estimate goes as high as 450,000.
A woman is raped every 26 seconds, according to the South African police that figure is 36 seconds, of course different organisations give different estimates, with the lowest being every 17 seconds.

The problem may lie in the unacceptable public welfares system resulting in insufficient education, the lack of specialist rape units and correct training for the persons that run it, some cite the media and internet with the growing catalogue of sexual images and videos available, whilst others pin the blame on the various tribal cultural beliefs inherited in traditions. Many men in South Africa believe they are entitled to sex and that women enjoy being raped. In a study done in the Gauteng area, 8 in 10 men believed women were responsible for causing sexual violence (Scared at School, 2001)
Even though In 1999, the government established approximately two dozen courts intentionally to handle sexual offenses, this has done little to halt the increasing number of rapes and indecent assaults, as most victims are too scared to come forward about their ordeal, the myth that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS is becoming increasingly worrying too, with the number of child rapes sadly escalating to an unacceptable high, naturally the amount of cases where this method has cured the sufferer of HIV is zero.
Still, after the government won a court case against the pharmaceutical companies to buy AIDS vaccines more cheaply, these possible cures cost £30 to £40 per month, when some people only earn the equivalent of £300 a year this is an impossible solution, forcing the estimated 5.5 million of HIV sufferers to seek alternative options, a desperate person takes desperate measures and unfortunately it is the women and the young that bear the brunt of this.
This isn’t just an epidemic restricted to South Africa either, a study in Zaria, Nigeria by the UNFPA found that 16 percent of hospital patients treated for sexually transmitted infections were younger than 5, this is a trend that should not be growing.
Try to put yourselves in these situations, how would you spend that 75p a day? Or try counting 26 seconds repeatedly, over and over. The problem with the developed world is that we fortunately seldom see these types of stories, to truly grasp and understand the horrors Africans have to deal with, we would have to personally experience them."When someone perpetrates an act of rape, it's about reclaiming a sense of power"... more

CarolineS
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1 month ago
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The Shack Dweller's Movement Under Attack In Durban, South Africa, New Yorkers Protest In Solidarity

Several New York Non-Profits and Supporters came together in front of the South... more

peoplesmovement
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1 month ago
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1 comment

MTN May Seek to Resolve Regulatory Hurdles, Reopen Bharti Talks

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest wireless operator, and... more

northrunnnercano6
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1 month ago
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Men rape women to "cure" them of lesbianism

This practice in South Africa called corrective and curative rape, is a gang of men... more

JuJubeez
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Official: Nothing good happens in South Africa

The South African Good News website had nothing good to report again this week.The... more

stupidy
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Lesbian "Corrective Rape" Killer Gets Life

Eudy Simelane, a player for Banyana Banyana and prominent South African gay rights... more

stupidy
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1 month ago
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2 comments

Booming business for tuberculosis infected saliva in South Africa.

Apparently a new south African welfare scam involving false TB claims is gaining such... more

bombastinator
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1 month ago
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2 comments

Nigerian officials:"District 9 not welcome here"

One of the summer's biggest blockbusters — a sci-fi morality tale about aliens and apartheid — is not welcome in Nigeria because of its portrayal of Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals, Nigeria's information minister said Saturday.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili has asked movie houses in the capital of Abuja to stop screening "District 9" because the South Africa-based sci-fi movie about aliens and discrimination makes Nigerians look bad.

"We have directed that they should stop public screening of the film," she said. "We are not happy about it because it portrays Nigeria in bad light."

Akunyili said she has asked Sony for an apology and wants them to edit out references to Nigeria and to the name of the main Nigerian gangster Obesandjo, whose name closely resembles that of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

"We have written to the producer and distributor of the film, Sony Entertainment, expressing our displeasure and demanded an apology," she said. "We have asked that the areas where Nigeria and Obasanjo are mentioned should be edited from the film."

She and other government officials first saw the movie Wednesday during a private screening.

In one scene, Obesandjo tries to cut off and eat the arm of the film's protagonist, in an attempt to gain his supernatural powers. In others, Nigerian prostitutes are seen courting alien customers.

The film's portrayal of Nigerians has also drawn the ire of critics and bloggers, and has spawned a Facebook page called "Nigerians Offended by 'District 9,'" which had 57 members on Saturday.

Corlize Luttig, marketing manager for the South African cinema chain Ster-Kinekor, who represent Sony in South Africa, said they had no comment on the request by Akunyili. Ster-Kinekor does not distribute to Nigeria, she said.

Luttig said they were still waiting for comment from Sony's head office in Los Angeles.

"District 9" tells the story of an alien ship that mysteriously comes to hover over the South African city of Johannesburg. Its inhabitants are separated from the human population and segregated into a walled area known as District 9. But after nearly 30 years, government officials aim to relocate the extraterrestrials, with disastrous results.One of the summer's biggest blockbusters — a sci-fi morality tale about aliens and... more