afrikaners Category

Martin Sutovec, Slovakia

President Obama recently said in a dinner at the White House he is a Trekkie. But Trekkies say he doesn't qualify. Would that be because he has a wife... and kids... and a job?

De wereldberoemde gebedsgenezer Chris Oyakhilome, die lammen kan laten lopen en blinden kan laten zien, heeft zichzelf deze week in Kaapstad overtroffen. Op een gebedsbijeenkomst in Zuid Afrika waar 150.000 gelovigen waren, vielen één dode en 16 gewonden.

Volgens The Telegraph waren er nogal wat bezoekers voor wie de reis teveel was geworden. In totaal werden ruim dertig mensen onwel, aldus een aanwezige dokter. Hij stuurde zestien naar het ziekenhuis. Voor pastoor Simon Williams (56) kwam de reis te laat. Hij overleed onderweg naar het ziekenhuis aan falende nieren.

Er moet wel bij worden gezegd dat de Nigeriaanse gebedsgenezer Chris nooit een cent heeft verdiend aan het genezen van mensen.

Zijn vermogen van tenminste 35 miljoen euro heeft hij verkregen door vrijwillige bijdragen van dommerikken.

Joep Bertrams, The Netherlands

American airlines from now on have to advertise the full cost of tickets. Mány 'cheap' airlines like Southwest, Spirit, and Allegiant disguise the real prices of tickets by not including taxes and fees. That is no longer allowed thanks to a new law by the Obama administration. Low-price airlines Southwest, Spirit, and Allegiant are going to court to stop the new rules, arguing they violate corporate free speech rights.
Consumer advocates say the changes are positive for travelers who have been swindled by airlines too long:

Advertisements that make airfares seem enticingly low will soon lose that asterisk pointing to a dense paragraph of additional taxes and fees that make a cheap ticket much more costly.

Beginning Jan. 24, the Transportation Department will enforce a rule requiring that any advertised price for air travel include all government taxes and fees. For the last 25 years, the department has allowed airlines and travel agencies to list government-imposed fees separately, resulting in a paragraph of fine print disclaimers about charges that can add 20 percent or more to a ticket’s price.

But with...

Ik snap het echt niet hoor, al die heisa over die man. Mensen vergeten gemakshalve dat hij vijfentwintig jaar geen flikker heeft uitgevoerd. 

 

Feb. 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.

The Hindu - The Dutch East India Company started the city of Cape Town. In 1652 they sent Jan Van Riebeeck to solve the problem of scurvy suffered by ship crew. He was to set up a station - Fort de Goode Hoop - to provide fresh vegetables to be loaded on to ships before they set off to the Dutch East Indies. Riebeeck and crew worked the hard, rocky ground, succeeded in creating gardens which supplied fresh vegetables to passing ships. [read on]

Today what remains is called “Company Garden” a place you can visit and stroll through. Reinbeck’s success led to a hoary history; wars with local tribes, struggle for land, slavery, classes between the English and the Boers (People of Dutch origin), issues of colour and ultimately the formation of an Apartheid (racial segregation) government in 1948. For a period Cape Town was divided based on the colour of the skin - Whites and Blacks.

Shop till you drop

The V&A (Victoria & Albert) Waterfront is a good place to start exploring Cape Town. This is a fashionable shopping centre. Spend hours buying branded products, handicrafts, music, movies or join the friendly people (all...

Een Zuidafrikaan op bezoek in de Melkweg. Voor het Amsterdam Fringe Festival. Het was even wennen voor Zane Henry. Vooral aan het feit dat er theater is dat niets met politiek te maken heeft. Maar daarna heeft hij toch genoten.

South African theatre can stand toe to toe with the Dutch work

Tonight.co.za - Like so many life-changing experiences, the Amsterdam Fringe Festival started with nudity and beer.
After 18 hours of planes, trains and automobiles, I found myself sitting in the Melkweg Theatre watching The Freak and the Showgirl. Even though it was a UK/US production, it served as a good introduction to the festival. 
In South Africa, everything is political. Everything. Even if a play doesn’t deal with very obvious political or social issues, the spectres of apartheid, racism, HIV/Aids and poverty hover in the background. We can’t escape it. In Amsterdam, art can exist in a political vacuum. This idea was initially disappointing, but then became reassuring.
[read on]
Quite a few of the pieces I saw there were about inner conflict, the nature of art and arch existentialism. These were -in varying degrees -...

Dit verhaal wordt natuurlijk gelijk opgepikt door de Zuidafrikaanse krant News24. In twee van de zeventien klassen op de lagere school in Lokeren zouden alleen blanke kinderen zitten. In de rest van de klassen immigranten en allochtonen. Dus we nemen maar aan dat in de rest ook de Walen zijn gedumpt. 
Maar is het waar? Is er echt apartheid in Lokeren?
Zie verderop de Belgische versie van dit verhaal waarin wordt gesteld dat niet twee van de zeventien klassen blank zijn, maar dat in twee van de zeventien klassen geen blanke kinderen zitten.
De Vlaamse overheid stelt een onderzoek in. Dat is een hele opluchting.

‘Apartheid’ at Flemish school 

News24 (SA) - A Flemish primary school head has separated native Dutch-speaking children from his overwhelmingly immigrant pupils, defending his decision against the charge of “apartheid”.
Two out of 17 classes in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw school in Lokeren, a Dutch-speaking part of northern Belgium, itself divided along linguistic lines, have been reserved for Flemish speakers, its head Luc Audenaert said.
Local Flemish television revealed the move, which Audenaert defended on the...

Is it starting? The slide downwards for South Africa many people expect to happen under the new president Jacob Zuma? Towards were almost all other countries in Africa are? A corrupt government that tries to protect its business deals - with mainly constitutes of stealing from it’s people - by stifling the press?

In South Africa, media endangered

Boston. Globe - South African President Jacob Zuma, just a month removed from soccer’s glitz, is threatening to return to grimmer days by clamping down on news organizations that criticize his government. This misguided effort threatens the foundations of the new South Africa, which up to now has set an inspiring example for all young democracies. Embarrassed by media coverage of scandals in Zuma’s family and of profiteering by public officials even as millions struggle in poverty, the government has proposed a “Protection of Information Bill.’’ His party, the African National Congress, is calling for tribunals to regulate the media. Earlier this month, a journalist was arrested after reporting that the national police commissioner may have may questionable business dealings....read full article

The Los Angeles Times - [It was a] sad ending Sunday night for the scads of Dutch expats and Afrikaners who watched their hopes crushed by Spain’s 1-0 victory as they nibbled on boerenkool met worst (mashed vegetables with smoked sausage) and, yes, bitterballen(fried meatballs).
The game Sunday had special meaning for some here because of history. South Africa was settled by the Dutch when the area was administered by the Dutch East India Company; thousands of Boers, or Dutch settlers, eventually trekked inland to escape British rule and established their own settlements. [read on]

Truth be told, many descendants of the Boers remain bored, or worse, by soccer. For Afrikaners, rugby — the game traditionally played by whites — is their true love. Soccer has been seen as a black game in South Africa, with few white supporters before the World Cup.

Yet during the monthlong tournament, many here Sunday night said they had supported the South African team until its first-round defeat and were only now rooting for the Netherlands — the Afrikaners, because of the affinity they feel to Holland with their Dutch settler...