New Mandela memoir shows personal notes from living legend |
- New Mandela memoir shows personal notes from living legend
- New Zealand PM condemns second broadcaster's Indian slur
- China media say dissident Nobel shows West’s fear
- China media say dissident Nobel shows West's fear
- Putin takes all key Russia econ decisions-Kudrin
- A Nobel prize China is not proud of
- Hungary races to build up new dam
- Govt aims to up investment rate to 12.8% to attain 6% economic growth - Mustapa
- PM meets Ku Li, hands over appointment as Galas by-election director
- Melaka extends aid to accident victims
- New Australia inquest into baby's death by dingo
- China, Japan defence chiefs meet after diplomatic row
- Myanmar opposition party says polls step towards democracy
- Seoul pays tribute to North Korean defector
- In South Africa, crowded graveyards make for heated spirits
- China defence minister says Japan talks "positive"
- Treat water supply as a business -ADB
- Time, money, health lost to Jakarta's traffic jams
- Mountain sculpture to honour chief
- Russia blows up inflatable army
| New Mandela memoir shows personal notes from living legend Posted: 10 Oct 2010 03:52 PM PDT
Correspondence, personal notes and hours of recordings will be published yesterday in "Conversations with Myself", which was compiled by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and includes a foreword from US President Barack Obama. Much of the book is based on an unpublished autobiography that would have been a sequel to his world-famous 1995 "Long Walk to Freedom", including his musings on life as South Africa's first black president. "I have often wondered whether a person is justified in neglecting his own family to fight for opportunities for others," Mandela said in the book. "Even when at times I am plagued with an uneasy conscience I have to acknowledge that my whole-hearted commitment to the liberation of our people gives meaning to life and yields for me a sense of national pride and real joy." Letters from the young Mandela show a side of the Nobel Peace Prize winner now often obscured by the grandfatherly image of the reconciler, now 92, who won South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994. As a young activist, he pushed the African National Congress to form an armed wing after years of devotion to non-violence as a guiding principle. "The actual situation on the ground may justify the use of violence which even good men and women may find it difficult to avoid," he said. "But even in such cases the use of force would be an exceptional measure whose primary aim is to create the necessary environment for peaceful solutions." Strains on the family In diaries of his 1962 journey across Africa to round up support for the armed movement, he recounts learning to fire a gun in Ethiopia and studying Algeria's military tactics against the French. He was arrested shortly after his return to South Africa. The book shies away from the most personal details of his life. It barely talks about his first wife Evelyn, although it does recount one violent argument where she tried to burn him with a hot poker. "So she had put this thing in the coal and it was red hot and as we were arguing she then pulled this thing out, you know, in order to, what-you-call, burn my face. So I caught hold of her and twisted her arm, enough for me to take this thing out," he said. But his many letters to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela during his second marriage which lasted through his imprisonment, and to his children showed the strains on his family. "I feel I have been soaked in gall, every part of me, my flesh, bloodstream, bone and soul, so bitter am I to be completely powerless to help you in the rough and fierce ordeals you are going through," he wrote his wife in 1970. He also remembers feeling gutted when prison authorities refused to allow him to attend the funeral of Thembi, the elder of two sons from his first marriage, who died in a car crash at the age of 24 in 1969. "When I was first advised of my son's death I was shaken from top to bottom," he said, adding that he had experienced similar heartache when he lost a nine-month-old baby girl several years earlier. Some of the entries are more mundane, with calendars chronicling his weight and blood pressure, and the arrival of milk and new razors -- luxuries in his prison life. His notes become less detailed after his release in 1990, as he led negotiations with the white apartheid government and then took office. But he records his own failures, as when the ANC shot down his idea to lower the voting age from 18 to 14. He also scribbled notes ahead of meetings with world leaders, and in an unexpected show of personality, jotted down the address of his current wife Graca Machel -- on a notepad emblazoned with his name and a cartoon of Garfield the cat. The book ends with a passage from his draft for a new autobiography, asking the world not to beatify him. "One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image I unwittingly projected to the outside world; of being regarded as a saint," he wrote. "I never was one, even on the basis of the earthly definition of a saint as a sinner who keeps trying." - AFP
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| New Zealand PM condemns second broadcaster's Indian slur Posted: 10 Oct 2010 03:45 PM PDT
Key, already trying to douse India's anger after a television presenter ridiculed Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's name, said the radio talk show host's remarks were unacceptable. "I find Michael Laws' comments offensive because they're deeply personal and they're aimed at the governor-general in a way that I don't think is appropriate for that office," the prime minister told reporters. Laws said on his show last week that Governor-General Anand Satyanand's weight seemed incongruous on an Indian, likening the official to an obese Monty Python character, Mr Creosote, who explodes after eating too much food. "I mean, we don't all expect Indians to be begging on the streets of New Delhi, but it's like Anand discovered the buffet table at 20 and he's never really left it," Laws said. He initially refused to apologise, telling the New Zealand Herald: "I just said he's a fat Indian man, which is true. He's a fat Indian." But Laws backed down in the wake of yesterday's resignation of another broadcaster, TVNZ host Paul Henry, whose Dikshit comments provoked a furious official protest from New Delhi. "I apologise to the governor-general for comments which were, upon reflection, uncharitable and inappropriate," Laws said in a statement. A good job Henry had also targeted Satyanand's ethnicity, asking whether the official, who was born in Auckland to Indo-Fijian parents, was a proper New Zealander. Key said Satyanand was doing a good job as Queen Elizabeth II's representative in New Zealand and that should be the only standard on which he was judged. "I don't rate people on their physical weight, their height or their religious beliefs and I don't think it's appropriate to take pot shots at the governor-general on that basis," he said. Key did not believe Henry's comments would damage relations between Wellington and New Delhi, saying it was clear "these were the words of a New Zealand broadcaster, not someone from the New Zealand government". "Around the world there are a lot of broadcasters, and I might add, a lot of comedians, who say all sorts of things about other country's nationals," he added. "I think governments, in my experience, have the maturity to recognise that." Asked if India had over-reacted to the insult, he replied: "I wouldn't say that, we just dealt with the situation as was necessary." In a statement yesterday, Henry apologised for his comments. "I am astonished and dismayed that my comments have created a diplomatic incident," he said. "My style is conversational and of course unscripted. I walk the finest of lines and accept that I have inadvertently crossed it from time to time." TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis has also apologised to India. - AFP
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| China media say dissident Nobel shows West’s fear Posted: 10 Oct 2010 11:55 PM PDT BEIJING, Oct 11 — The Nobel Peace Prize for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo showed the West cannot stomach the idea of China's rise, state-run newspapers said today, adding to the government's furious condemnation of the award. Beijing called Friday's award to Liu an "obscenity". Some state-controlled newspapers said it showed a prejudiced West ...
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| China media say dissident Nobel shows West's fear Posted: 11 Oct 2010 12:20 AM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - The Nobel Peace Prize for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo showed the West cannot stomach the idea of China's rise, state-run newspapers said on Monday, adding to the government's furious condemnation of the award.
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| Putin takes all key Russia econ decisions-Kudrin Posted: 11 Oct 2010 12:20 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decides on all of Russia's key economic policies, although President Dmitry Medvedev also gets a say on matters like taxes, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in a magazine interview.
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| A Nobel prize China is not proud of Posted: 10 Oct 2010 11:46 PM PDT China has condemned the awarding of the latest Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo as a violation of the Nobel ideals and a discredit to the Peace Prize.
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| Hungary races to build up new dam Posted: 10 Oct 2010 11:58 PM PDT Hungarian workers are building an emergency dam amid fears a wall at a huge industrial sludge pool may collapse, releasing a second wave of toxic mud.
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| Govt aims to up investment rate to 12.8% to attain 6% economic growth - Mustapa Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:56 PM PDT The government aims to increase national investment rate to 12.8% to achieve the targeted 6% economic growth rate a year from next year until 2020, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
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| PM meets Ku Li, hands over appointment as Galas by-election director Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:54 PM PDT Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today met Gua Musang member of parliament Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and handed him the appointment letter as the Umno-Barisan Nasional (BN) Galas by-election director.
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| Melaka extends aid to accident victims Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:50 PM PDT The Melaka state government has expressed its condolences to the families of those killed in a crash involving two buses, a van and three cars at Km223 of the North-South Expressway near Simpang Ampat toll plaza, yesterday.
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| New Australia inquest into baby's death by dingo Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:47 PM PDT SYDNEY, Monday 11 October 2010 (AFP) - Australia will hold a new inquest into the death of baby Azaria Chamberlain to re-examine claims she was snatched and killed by a dingo at Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in 1980, her father said on Monday.
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| China, Japan defence chiefs meet after diplomatic row Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:46 PM PDT BEIJING, Monday 11 October 2010 (AFP) - Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie met his Japanese counterpart Toshimi Kitazawa in Hanoi on Monday, China's state media said, as the two sides look to repair the damage from a diplomatic row.
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| Myanmar opposition party says polls step towards democracy Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:45 PM PDT YANGON, Monday 11 October 2010 (AFP) - A political party formed by ex-colleagues of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said upcoming elections would be a "first step" towards democracy in army-ruled Myanmar, state media reported Monday.
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| Seoul pays tribute to North Korean defector Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:44 PM PDT SEOUL, Monday 11 October 2010 (AFP) - South Korea paid tribute on Monday to the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to flee, praising the late Hwang Jang-Yop for his efforts to speak out against rights abuses by Pyongyang.
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| In South Africa, crowded graveyards make for heated spirits Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:43 PM PDT DURBAN, Monday 11 October 2010 (AFP) - Want to share a grave? It's a blasphemy for South Africa's Zulus who revere their ancestors, but overcrowding in Durban's cemeteries has forced the city to begin "recyclying" tombs.
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| China defence minister says Japan talks "positive" Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:56 PM PDT HANOI (Reuters) - Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie said on Monday talks with his Japanese counterpart went very well and would be positive for bilateral relations.
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| Treat water supply as a business -ADB Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:56 PM PDT MANILA (Reuters) - Running water utilities, whether public or private, on viable business models is the best way to tackle surging demand, looming shortages and counter stress on supplies caused by climate change, an industry expert said.
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| Time, money, health lost to Jakarta's traffic jams Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:20 PM PDT JAKARTA, Oct 11: Jakarta's unprecedented traffic congestion sees millions of cars burning gas as they sit stationary, and millions of residents choking their lives away in plumes of thick pollution every day.
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| Mountain sculpture to honour chief Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:16 PM PDT As parts of the USA mark Native American Day BBC News gets a close up look at the sculpture of Chief Crazy Horse that could one day eclipse Mount Rushmore.
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| Russia blows up inflatable army Posted: 10 Oct 2010 10:17 PM PDT Steve Rosenberg blows up a tank as he investigates the Russian army's new range of inflatable decoys.
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