Category: People

{{South African murder-accused paralympian Oscar Pistorius was seen enjoying a few drinks on a night out, Local media reported.}}

Pistorius was seen arriving at a party at Kitchen Bar restaurant in the Fourways Design Quarter in Johannesburg last Saturday, according to the report.

This was the first time Pistorius, who has been charged with murder after his girlfriend law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead in his Pretoria home on 14 February, was seen out in public.

Pistorius family spokesperson Anneliese Burgess told the Sunday Times that it was the first time the paralympian went out with friends but left the Kitchen Bar when “public interest became overwhelming”.

“He has been out of the house with family, but this was the first time he went out to a restaurant with people other than close family,” she was quoted as saying.

“For Oscar, it was a way of trying to reconnect with friends of his and Reeva’s – and these were the people he went out with.”

According to the report Pistorius left the restaurant and went to Buddha Ta, opposite Kitchen Bar, where he spent 30 minutes before leaving.

Pistorius was released on bail on 22 February under conditions which included a ban on international travel.

He successfully challenged the conditions in the High Court in Pretoria and several were relaxed, including bans on travel and alcohol consumption.

In the week, Pistorius and his family bemoaned the tone of social media comments on his relationship with Steenkamp.

“The disregard that is being shown by some – specifically those commenting via social media – for the profound pain that Reeva’s family and friends are going through is very troubling,” the family said in a statement.

“There is not a moment in the day that Oscar does not mourn for his girlfriend and Reeva’s family, and all those who were close to her are in his thoughts constantly.”

SAPA

{{Malawi issued a scathing critique of pop diva Madonna on Wednesday, accusing her of exaggerating her contributions to the southern African country and unreasonably demanding special treatment during her tour there last week.}}

The pop star denied the accusations. Her spokesman suggested they were prompted by the recent removal of the president’s sister as head of Madonna’s humanitarian organization there.

The singer has a long history with the country, which she first visited in 2006. She adopted two children from Malawi and runs several projects there.

She was granted VIP treatment during previous visits, including when she last jetted into the country on April 1.

But Madonna apparently was surprised when she learned upon leaving Malawi that that was no longer the case, and that she and her travelling party would have to line up with ordinary passengers and be frisked by airport security.

“There was a directive that Miss Louise Ciccone, travelling on an American passport, and her children Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, Rocco Ritchie, Mercy James, David Banda Ciccone Ritchie should use the ordinary passenger terminal on their way to their jet,” said an aviation official who refused to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

A strongly worded statement by the president’s office accused Madonna of trying to use her fame and money to press Malawi into giving her special treatment.

“Granted, Madonna is a famed international musician. But that does not impose an injunction of obligation on any government under whose territory Madonna finds herself, including Malawi, to give her state treatment. Such treatment, even if she deserved it, is discretionary not obligatory,” the statement said.

The presidential statement also questioned Madonna’s intentions behind her humanitarian efforts in Malawi, alleging that the singer “wants Malawi to be forever chained to the obligation of gratitude.”

“Kindness, as far as its ordinary meaning is concerned, is free and anonymous. If it can’t be free and silent, it is not kindness; it is something else. Blackmail is the closest it becomes,” the statement said.

President Joyce Banda was reportedly angered by Madonna’s claims that she has built 10 schools in Malawi, and questioned that statement in widely quoted remarks last week.

“Where are the 10 schools she has built? She is just building school blocks at already existing schools. In some cases she just renovated an already existing block. This is an insult to the people of Malawi. She can’t be lying to the world at our expense,” Banda said.

In a statement released by her spokesperson, Madonna said he was “saddened” that Banda “has chosen to release lies about what we’ve accomplished, my intentions, how I personally conducted myself while visiting Malawi and other untruths. I have no intentions of being distracted by these ridiculous allegations.”

“I came to Malawi seven years ago with honorable intentions,” Madonna said in the statement. “I returned earlier this month to view the new schools we built.

I did not ever ask or demand special treatment at the airport or elsewhere during my visit. I will not be distracted or discouraged by other people’s political agendas. I made a promise to the children of Malawi and I am keeping that promise.”

A spokesman for Madonna expressed surprise at the most recent criticism and called the claim that the singer had requested special treatment “nonsense.”

“Obviously these attacks are influenced by the fact that the President’s sister was removed as the head of Madonna’s organization in Malawi due to concerns about mismanagement of $3.8 million,” said Trevor Neilson, whose Global Philanthropy Group is managing Madonna’s projects in Malawi.

“As the largest private philanthropist to Malawi we would think that the government would be pleased that she is giving her time and money to one of the poorest countries in the world,” Neilson said.

The statement from the president’s office dismissed the claim that Banda is angry because her younger sister, Anjimile Mtila-Oponyo, was fired as the CEO for Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi.

The presidential statement said Malawi has played host to other international stars like Chuck Norris, Bono, David James, Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville “who have never demanded state attention or decorum despite their equally dazzling stature.”

{wirestory}

{{Give us a brief background of yourself and when you became a book writer?}}

LZ: I began writing professionally at the turn of the millennium. This is my second book. I write and speak on topical issues. My first book was a motivation book but I now focus on topical societal issues. I am also a legal practitioner in the making.

{{Your book is titled “The Battle for the Mind”. What is the meaning behind this title and what inspired you to write this book?}}

LZ: My book was a product of my personal experiences. After close to 10 years in the self-help industry I realised I was perpetuating error.

This world is a battleground between two forces that are locked in a serious battle and each individual, by default or design is at the centre of it hence the title.

{{What is the human mind, and in what way is it a centre of this conflict?}}

LZ: The human mind is the engine room of the human soul and anyone who gains control over it conquers the whole person. Satan, through subtle schemes, is seeking to control the human mind.

Obscene dances in the media, sprouting of self-styled prophets and so on show how Satan is seeking to control people’s minds.

{{What is wrong with motivation writing from a biblical perspective?}}

LZ: I have been a motivational speaker and writer for the past 10 years. I have experienced the motivation industry through reading other motivation books. Basically they all agree that man is his own master. That’s where this industry gets it wrong.

{{What inspired your sudden change of mind?}}

LZ: My change of mind was, in fact, gradual. I had realised the greatest error of the motivation industry was its subtle rejection of God as the Supreme Master. It opposes the Bible where instead of teaching God’s supremacy it teaches supremacy of the self.

Allen James, an influential motivation writer, wrote “Man is the architecture and creator of his own life.” Man cannot be his own master. Proverbs 19: 21 says man is a creature whose ways are determined only by the Lord and not by himself.

{{Would you say people should not be motivated into achieving their material or financial goals in life?}}

LZ: Far from it, God wanted people to work hard to achieve their goals in life. That’s one reason why I also wrote against the prosperity gospel because wealth without work (miracle money) is clearly opposed to God’s principle.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with motivation ideals like perseverance and setting goals. The poison lies with promoting self-worship. Jesus taught that we ought to deny self and follow him.

{{You quoted book titles of prominent motivation authors. Would you say these authors are deliberately misleading people into following anti-Christian principles?}}

LZ: That’s a good question. Just like myself when I still believed in motivation, I noted that some of the victims of this deception were the motivation teachers themselves.

Most contemporary motivation speakers are blind to the dark origins of this industry. It’s founders like Teilhard Chardin may know better.

{{You touched on false prophets. What defines a prophet of God?}}

LZ: A prophet of God is not just anyone who predicts the future as is widely held today. The Bible records an account in which apostles Paul and Silas had an encounter with a demon-possessed girl who could predict the future.

If she had lived today she would be considered a prophetess in today’s churches. The Bible states that a prophet is one who speaks to edify the church. A true prophet teaches the keeping of God’s commandments in their entirety.

{{You touched on sex and homosexuality. What are the drivers of a sexual culture in our society and how is this culture connected to Satanism?}}

LZ: Homosexuals try in vain to justify their sexual pervasiveness. Biologically every man’s body is designed for a woman’s and vice versa. Women have a womb and men depend on women to reproduce.

Homosexuality was invented by Satan. He inspired the homosexual culture in Sodom. Today’s world is highly sexual in nature. You will notice that even TV promotes casual sex. The Bible teaches that sex is for married couples only.

{{How do you propose humans can free themselves of sexual sins and addiction?}}

LZ: I personally suggest that people should monitor their media intake. It is the ready vehicle for transmitting sex images into the mind. The Bible teaches that we should jealously guard our minds.

{{Is your book already out and where can people buy it?}}

LZ: Yes, my publisher is in South Africa and the first copies have been released but here the book will be available before end of May.

I can be contacted on apostlekzee@gmail.com.

{{Nineteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africans are still passionately divided over whether Margaret Thatcher helped or hindered the cruel system of white rule and prolonged the incarceration of Nelson Mandela.}}

The heated discussions triggered by Thatcher’s death show how influential South Africans believe she was on the fate of the last bastion of white-minority rule in Africa.

The former British leader supported the apartheid government when it was at its deadliest, killing many in the late 1980s in state terrorism at home and abroad in bombings and cross-border raids on neighboring states accused of harboring guerrilla fighters, said Pallo Jordan, a former Cabinet minister and stalwart of the governing African National Congress.

“Maggie Thatcher and Britain were important figures … they were defending (apartheid) South Africa, they were preventing international sanctions,” said Jordan to The Associated Press.

“Many lives were lost (as a result of the apartheid regime). I don’t think it’s a great loss to the world,” Jordan said of Thatcher’s death. She died after a stroke Monday at the age of 87.

“I say good riddance,” he said Tuesday on South Africa’s Talk Radio 702.

Thatcher branded Mandela and his ANC movement “terrorist,” amid concerns that they received backing from the former Soviet Union during the Cold War era and because of their guerrilla war for democracy.

Jordan was at Mandela’s first meeting with Thatcher after his release from 27 years in jail, at Downing Street in London in 1990.

“What amused the old man (Mandela) more than anything else was that here she was engaging in a conversation with this man that she thought an arch-terrorist.”

He said Mandela’s inherent charm disarmed “the Iron Lady,” and the meeting passed without confrontation.

Thatcher’s spokesman said in 1987 that anyone who thought the ANC, then the leading anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, would govern South Africa was “living in cloud cuckoo-land.”

But others argue that Thatcher was strongly opposed to apartheid and racism and helped influence the white government to free Mandela.

“Thatcher did more to release Nelson Mandela out of prison than any of the other hundreds of anti-apartheid committees in Europe,” Pik Botha, the last foreign minister of the apartheid regime, said Tuesday on Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg.

F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president of South Africa, said in a statement that Thatcher, whom he called a friend, was “a steadfast critic of apartheid.”

He said she had a better grasp of the complexities and realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries.

“She exerted more influence in what happened in South Africa than any other political leader,” de Klerk said.

He said Thatcher “correctly believed” that more could be achieved through constructive engagement with his government than international sanctions and isolation of the South African government.

Thatcher argued that sanctions were immoral because they would throw thousands of South African blacks out of work.

Her stance allowed British companies to continue operating in apartheid South Africa, where the United Kingdom was the biggest trading partner and foreign investor.

Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda berated Thatcher bitterly at a 1986 Commonwealth conference where she refused to join six nations including Australia and Canada in imposing a package of sanctions against South Africa.

Kaunda told reporters Thatcher cut a “very pathetic picture indeed” and accused her of “worshipping gold, platinum and the rest” on offer from South Africa.

It was a far cry from his amused references to Thatcher as “my dancing partner” after the two famously waltzed at a 1979 Commonwealth summit of Britain and its former colonies in Livingstone, Zambia.

The rapport engendered there led Thatcher to help resolve the impasse in Rhodesia’s 7-year war.

With Australian negotiators, she persuaded the warring parties to sign a peace settlement that ended that country’s white-minority rule and installed Robert Mugabe as leader of a democratic Zimbabwe in 1980.

Mugabe, now derided for destroying the economy of his country through violent and illegal grabs of white-owned farmlands, always enjoyed a collegial relationship with Thatcher.

He said he admired her and that she was easier to deal with than Tony Blair who later became prime minister for Labour Party.

But Britain’s government under Thatcher ignored the killings of an estimated 20,000 Zimbabwean civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe, prompted by an uprising of dissidents, that lasted from 1982 to 1987.

Queen Elizabeth II even gave Mugabe a knighthood after the massacres. Donald Trelford, editor of The Observer newspaper in London, later charged that Thatcher and her Foreign Office were more concerned about their relations with Mugabe than with human rights.

Only after thousands of white farmers were driven off their land and more than a dozen killed did the queen strip Mugabe of his knighthood in 2008.

Thatcher finally was forced to impose sanctions against South Africa by following the lead of the U.S. Congress, which in 1986 passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, overriding Reagan’s presidential veto after South Africa attacked Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana on the same day, recalled Pallo Jordan.

The official ANC statement on Thatcher’s passing was surprisingly restrained, perhaps reflecting an African tradition of respect for the dead.

“She was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe, to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world,” said ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu, referring to her view that the apartheid regime was a bulwark against communism.

“Her passing signals the end of a generation of leaders that ruled during a very difficult period characterized by the dynamics of the Cold War.”

{Associated Press}

{{The Moroccan woman at the center of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s sex-for-hire trial has denounced what she says is psychological warfare being waged against her by Italian prosecutors.}}

Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby, read out a lengthy statement Thursday to a gaggle of reporters in front of Milan’s courthouse denying she was a prostitute and insisting that prosecutors hear her side of the story.

Berlusconi is accused of having paid for sex with el-Mahroug while she was a teen during the infamous “bunga-bunga” parties at his villa near Milan, and then trying to cover it up. Both deny sexual contact.

Her protest came at a politically sensitive time: Berlusconi’s center-right party is seeking to muscle its way into a governing coalition after coming in second in inconclusive February elections.