Law enforcement prepares for riots on Zimmerman verdict

On Monday, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office released a video calling on the public not to riot in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, expected this week or next in Florida. The Sheriff’s Office released a statement explaining that it was “working closely with the Sanford Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies” to coordinate “a response plan in anticipation of the verdict.”

The video, titled “Raise Your Voice, Not Your Hands,” focuses on attempting to channel reaction into non-violent response. It depicts two youngsters, one black teenage boy, one Hispanic teenage girl. “Raise your voice!” says the girl. “And not your hands!” says the boy. “We need to stand together as one, no cuffs, no guns,” says the girl. “Let’s give violence a rest, because we can easily end up arrested,” says the boy. “I know your patience will be tested,” says the girl, and then both conclude, “but law enforcement has your back!”

“Let’s back up and choose not to act up, and deputies are with us, so no need to act up,” says the boy. “Let it roll off your shoulders,” says the girl, “it’s water off your back, don’t lack composure, because in one instant it could be over.” Both conclude: “So let’s make the choice to raise your voice and not your hands.” Sheriff Scott Israel says, “I’m Sheriff Scott Israel, and law enforcement does have your back.”

“Freedom of expression is a constitutional right,” the Sheriff’s Department states. “While raising your voice is encouraged, using your hands is not. BSO has created a public service announcement with the help of kids from the Jason Taylor Foundation, H.A.N.D.Y. (Helping Abused, Neglected, Disadvantaged Youth) and basketball star James Jones of the championship Miami Heat team urging young people not to let their emotions get the best of them.”

Sheriff Scott Israel said, “We don’t have information about a specific event that might take place at the conclusion of the trial, but we encourage everyone to keep any protests peaceful.”

The Department says that it is keeping its channels of communication open with “community leaders, civic activists, members of the clergy, as well as local, state and federal agencies.” – Breitbart

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New blood test predicts life span

A revolutionary new blood test could tell you how long you will live, and how quickly you will age.

Scientists have discovered a chemical ‘fingerprint’ in the blood that may provide clues to an infant’s health and rate of ageing near the end of life.

The discovery raises the prospect of a simple test at birth that could help doctors stave off the ravages of disease in old age.

A revolutionary new blood test could tell you how long you will live, and how quickly you will age, thanks to a chemical ‘fingerprint’ in your blood

It could lead to the development of powerful new treatments for age related conditions such as bone problems and heart disease.

Scientists identified 22 metabolites, small molecules linked to metabolism, that may be useful indicators of how we can expect to grow old.

One in particular, linked to a range of traits including lung function, bone density, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, was singled out by the researchers.

It is also strongly associated with birth weight – itself a known determinant of healthy ageing.

Levels of this metabolite, C-glyTrp, could reflect accelerated ageing in later adulthood, the scientists believe.

Higher levels of the molecule were associated with lower weight at birth in comparisons between pairs of identical twins.

The discovery raises the prospect of a simple test at birth that could help doctors stave off the ravages of disease in old age

Since identical twins share the same genes, this suggests that levels of the metabolite are altered by nutrition or different conditions in the womb.

Study leader Professor Tim Spector, from King’s College London, said: ‘Scientists have known for a long time that a person’s weight at the time of birth is an important determinant of health in middle and old age, and that people with low birth weight are more susceptible to age related diseases.

‘So far the molecular mechanisms that link low birth weight to health or disease in old age had remained elusive, but this discovery has revealed one of the molecular pathways involved.’

Professor Spector’s team analysed blood samples donated by more than 6,000 twins.

Scientists found 22 metabolites, small molecules linked to metabolism, that may be indicators of how we will age. Some are strongly linked to birth weight suggesting this can be an important factor in health later in life

The researchers identified 22 metabolites directly linked to chronological age, with higher concentrations in older than in younger people.

Further work showed that the gene influencing levels of C-glyTrp could be modified by epigenetics, a process whereby environmental factors switch genes on or off and alter their activity.

The epigenetic changes may influence metabolism during a person’s lifetime, thereby affecting susceptibility to age-related diseases.

The findings are published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Co-author Dr Ana Valdes, also from King’s College London, said: ‘Human ageing is a process influenced by genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors, but genes only explain a part of the story.

‘Molecular changes that influence how we age over time are triggered by epigenetic changes. This study has for the first time used analysis of blood and epigenetic changes to identify a novel metabolite that has a link to birth weight and rate of ageing.

‘This unique metabolite, which is related to age and age-related diseases, was different in genetically identical twins that had very different weight at birth. This shows us that birth weight affects a molecular mechanism that alters this metabolite.

‘This may help us understand how lower nutrition in the womb alters molecular pathways that result in faster ageing and a higher risk of age-related diseases 50 years later.

‘Understanding the molecular pathways involved in the ageing process could ultimately pave the way for future therapies to treat age-related conditions.

‘As these 22 metabolites linked to ageing are detectable in the blood, we can now predict actual age from a blood sample pretty accurately and in the future this can be refined to potentially identify future rapid biological ageing in individuals.’ – Daily Mail

Mexico world’s most obese nation

The United States no longer holds the title of the world’s most populous, obese nation; that designation has been passed on to Mexico.

According to a new report from the United Nations, nearly 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, and childhood obesity in the country has tripled within the past decade, Medical Daily reported. One-third of Mexican teenagers are also obese, and experts believe that four out of every five obese children will remain overweight for the rest of their lives.

Overall, 32.8 percent of Mexican adults are considered obese, compared to 31.8 percent of adults in the United States. Nearly 70,000 deaths in Mexico each year are caused by weight-related diabetes, and more than 400,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed annually.

Experts believe the rise in Mexico’s obesity rates has to do with the continuously growing gap between the country’s classes, as 50 percent of the population currently lives below the poverty line. According to Medical Daily, healthy diets are becoming less affordable, prompting individuals with low incomes to consume more unhealthy foods, such as fried foods and soda.

One researcher also believes the increase can be attributed to more Mexicans moving from rural to urban areas, where food prices are much higher and sedentary lifestyles are easier. – Fox News

Xhosa initiation season: 30 dead, 293 hospitalised, ‘some losing genitals’

Five people have been arrested since the start of the initiation season in the Eastern Cape, police said on Tuesday.

The arrests were made in different parts of the province since May, Colonel Sibongile Soci said.

Thirty initiates had died in the province during the current initiation season, the provincial health department said on Sunday.

Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said in the most recent case of botched circumcisions during the initiation season, 10 initiates were rescued from a forest in Mbizana.

“The 10 initiates’ private parts are rotten. They are badly damaged. Their condition is scary,” he said.

They were recovering in hospital.

A total of 293 initiates were currently in hospitals in the province, and were recovering from dehydration, gangrene, and septic wounds. Some had lost their genitals.

African National Congress spokesman Jackson Mthembu said illegal initiation schools were criminal activities masquerading as respected customs.

“Activities that have led to the deaths of initiates, particularly in the Pondoland region of the Eastern Cape, must be harshly condemned,” he said in a statement.

In some illegal schools, young men had been taken by force and money had been demanded from their families.

“The justice, crime prevention and security cluster must consider… the establishment of a specialised unit to crack down on this growing problem and halt it decisively in its tracks,” he said.

He said those who were arrested had to be speedily prosecuted and the cases hastily concluded. – Sapa

‘Corrective rape’ of black lesbian resulted in murder

The family of a woman killed in a suspected “corrective rape” has called for harsh sentences for her attackers, Beeld newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Joyce Ngejane, the aunt of Duduzile Zozo, told the Afrikaans daily at her Thokoza home, east of Johannesburg, that she wanted her killers to go to prison for life.

Zozo, who was her family’s only breadwinner, shared a small shack with her mother and three sisters.

Zozo, 26, was raped in the early hours of last Sunday morning, in Thokoza, near her mother’s home.

She was later found dead after being brutalised in an apparent hate crime.

Her family, friends and neighbours said they believed she was targeted and subjected to “corrective rape” because she was a lesbian.

Delegations from the Democratic Alliance and the ANC Youth League visited the grieving family on Monday.

No arrests have been made, and her funeral will take place on Sunday. – Sapa

China police fire on Tibetans honouring Dalai Lama: Groups

Chinese police blocking exiled Tibetans from ascending a hill in homage to the Dalai Lama

Chinese police opened fire on Tibetans marking the Dalai Lama’s 78th birthday, shooting at least one monk in the head and seriously wounding several other people, two overseas groups said Tuesday.

Security forces disrupted Tibetans in Sichuan province’s Daofu county as they carried out rituals to honour their exiled leader, whom Beijing denounces as a separatist, said the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) and India-based phayul.com.

Regional authorities denied the allegations.

“Two Tibetan monks were shot in the head and several others seriously injured after Chinese police opened fire at a crowd,” ICT said, citing unnamed local and exile sources.

It named the monks as Tashi Sonam and Ugyen Tashi, and said both were in hospital.

Armed police and soldiers who arrived to block the group began shooting and using tear gas “without warning”, it said, citing two Tibetans in exile.

At least 20 people were detained after the incident on Saturday, ICT added.

Phayul, a news site on Tibet, said police opened fire after a monk tried to “drive past the security blockade”, citing an overseas Tibetan. One monk was shot in the head, the site said.

Police and religious affairs authorities in Daofu both told AFP: “There was no incident of this kind”.

The county is part of Ganzi prefecture, one of southwestern China’s Tibetan-majority areas.

Members of the ethnic minority have long complained of religious and cultural repression by Beijing, and more than 100 have set themselves on fire in recent years in apparent protest at Chinese rule.

Beijing insists it respects ethnic minorities and has invested heavily to develop Tibetan areas. It blames self-immolations on overseas groups seeking to push a separatist agenda.

Friction in Tibetan areas has sharpened as ethnic majority Han Chinese have increasingly settled in Tibetan areas. Reports of authorities opening fire are rare, however.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and later founded the Tibetan government-in-exile in India.

China has denounced foreign leaders for meeting with the Nobel peace laureate.

Last month Beijing denied reports that it had relaxed its policies of publicly denouncing the Dalai Lama and banning worship of his image.

At a regular press briefing Tuesday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called him “a political exile engaged in separating his country and undermining the social stability of the country”.

“The Dalai clique is using his birthday to promote the separatist agenda of the Dalai Lama,” she said, adding she was not aware of the reported shooting incident. – AFP

Zimbabwe election is ‘a dog’s breakfast’: finance minister

Scenes from Zimbabwe's previous election — Scenes from Zimbabwe’s previous election

Zimbabwe’s finance ministry said it needs to resolve a shortfall of about $85 million needed for crucial national elections just three weeks away, as a month-long chaotic voter registration effort drew to a close Tuesday.

Tendai Biti, the outspoken finance minister, described preparations for the July 31 polls as “a nightmare.”

“We don’t have money for these elections, and everyone knows it. It’s a horror movie except that you are not watching the movie, you are part of it,” Biti said late Monday.

The elections are the first to be held since the violent 2008 polls forced President Robert Mugabe to join into a coalition government with longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a bitter political nemesis. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

On Tuesday, Mugabe’s office said it was cancelling cabinet meetings until the vote so that ministers can campaign for the election.

Tsvangirai, 61, began intense campaigning in the remote northeast Tuesday. Mugabe, 89, has not announced his own campaign schedule but his Vice President Joice Mujuru, 58, has begun a series of rallies for their ZANU-PF party.

Mugabe’s opponents maintained he had acted alone without consulting coalition leaders in a ploy to favor his party. Mugabe said he was following the instructions of a Constitutional Court ruling earlier this month.

Tsvangirai had argued that the July 31 date did not allow enough time for the needed democratic reforms to take place, and that the rushed election did not provide the conditions necessary for a free and fair vote. He later said he was accepting the date with sadness and reluctance but was confident of a victory over Mugabe.

National elections in Zimbabwe are routinely held over two days with ballots cast at up to 9,000 polling stations across the country, slightly larger than Germany. The commission says tens of thousands of voters who have since died have been removed from the lists.

The U.S.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights said in its latest report on Zimbabwe the close approach of the vote has ramped up political tensions in the country. It said opponents of Mugabe are facing “an atmosphere of intimidation,” curbs on free expression and political activities and the suppression of easily accessible voter registration and voter education.

“This behavior is unacceptable and represents clear breaches of domestic and international law,” said Santiago Canton, head of the center’s rights group.

Leaders of the 15-nation regional bloc known as the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, had also called on Mugabe and the judiciary he controls to delay the crucial elections.

Mugabe, launching his party’s manifesto on Friday, had also threatened to withdraw from SADC, the regional bloc he helped found, saying its chief mediator on Zimbabwe, South African President Jacob Zuma, and his colleagues had pushed for delaying the polls.

Biti, the finance minister, said he has had to “freeze” payments to government departments and only meet public service salaries to try to find the money for this month’s vote.

“The whole thing is an absolute, undiluted dog’s breakfast,” Biti said. – AP

Zuma axes 3 of his ministers

President Jacob Zuma axed three of his ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.

Embattled Communication Minister Dina Pule, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Richard Baloyi lost their jobs.

This is the fourth time Zuma has reshuffled his Cabinet since 2010.

Pule was replaced by Co-operative Governance Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim.

She has been embroiled in a battle with the Sunday Times about reports on allegations of corruption.

At a media briefing in April, she alleged that the Sunday Times was staging a smear and blackmail campaign against her.

In the newspaper’s reports, she was accused of giving tenders to a boyfriend, meddling in tender processes, and interfering in the appointment of officials to the boards of state-owned enterprises.

Zuma announced that Sexwale would be replaced by African National Congress MP Connie September.

Sexwale was said to be part of the ‘Forces of Change’ which resisted Zuma’s re-election as African National Congress president at the party’s elective conference in Mangaung last year.

Sexwale lost his bid for the position of ANC deputy president and his seat on the party’s national executive committee.

Baloyi, who has been an MP since 1999, was replaced by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Lechesa Tsenoli.

Baloyi had been moved to co-operative governance from his position as public service and administration minister in Zuma’s 2011 reshuffle.

After just a year as transport minister, Ben Martins becomes the new energy minister, swapping porfolios with Dipuo Peters.

Zuma also announced the appointments of four new deputy ministers.

ANC MP John Jeffrey was appointed as deputy minister of justice, taking over from Andries Nel, who takes up the position of deputy minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs.

Another ANC MP Michael Masutha was appointed deputy minister of science and technology, a position which was vacated last year with the appointment of Derek Hanekom as minister of science and technology.

Hanekom replaced Naledi Pandor, who was made home affairs minister, following the appointment of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as African Union commission chairwoman.

MP Pamela Tshwete was appointed deputy minister of rural development, following Carrim’s appointment as communication minister.

Zuma said the new ministers and deputies would be sworn in on Wednesday. – Sapa

Almost R1 billion lost to known government fraud in South Africa

The Times reports that nearly R1-billion lost through fraud in the public service has not been recovered.

Government departments have managed to get less than R1-million back into the state’s coffers.

The Public Service Commission has found that the public service lost R932.3-million to financial misconduct in the 2010-2011 financial year.

According to the commission, misconduct relates to theft, mismanagement, misappropriation and abuse of funds, fraud, corruption and gross negligence.

North West – where fighting between rival factions in the ruling ANC is rife – was the worst offender.

Financial misconduct by public servants cost the province R673821980.45, but the authorities managed to recover only R4530.

Limpopo, which had several departments placed under administration by the cabinet, performed much better than North West.

Financial misconduct cost it R16123114.64 – but only a measly R1367.37 was recovered.

Figures for the 2011-2012 financial year show that the cost of financial misconduct has dropped dramatically to R230-million but cases monitored by the commission rose to 1243 – up from 1035 the year before.

In 2011-2012, departments in Gauteng misused R14-million of public money.

Only R27000 has been recouped to date.

Gauteng flushed away R18463258 and recovered a mere R4259.

Public Service Commission member Mike Seloane said the drop can be attributed to two factors.

“The systems are becoming effective or departments are simply not declaring financial misconduct. There are departments that have declared no financial misconduct,” he said.

The commission will launch an inquiry into the reasons for the low rate of recovery of misused public money.

In addition to financial misappropriation, the commission observed that efforts to deal with the problem were being frustrated by political heads of department.

It expressed displeasure at the “reluctance by departments to disclose fully the financial misconduct cases”.

And it noted that there were “no concrete plans to ensure that money lost to the state was recovered fully”.

The report detailing the latest national financial misconduct figures is expected to be published and presented in parliament in August or September.

Living in the cloud, with South African bandwidth

by Dan Roodt

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Ever since I lost some data in a hard drive crash some years ago, I have always been a fan of keeping remote backups online. Somehow hard drives are so fragile – especially so-called “external” ones – that even where you do have a backup, Murphy’s law has it that it too will fail at some critical moment.

Lending your external hard drive to your son for that upcoming LAN party where they are all going to exchange programs and movies is also a no no, I have found. Inevitably it will get bumped or manhandled and the result will be that sickening click-click noise indicating a damaged head.

Looking at my bookshelf, I can see a whole collection of damaged drives that I somehow keep as reminders to never trust a hard drive.

Even though I used to be a fan of the Mozilla email client, Thunderbird, I have long since given up on email clients and use online services. To the ordinary person email clients are probably useful, but with the amount of notifications, queries, asides and just normal correspondence I receive at the rate of serveral hundred a day, my email client is bound to clog up. slow down and also fill up my precious hard drive!

I am probably one of the few people who have filled up a 10 Gigabyte Google mailbox in about two or three years. Email is in itself a fascinating topic and I have tried just about every trick in the book already, in an attempt to cope with my electronic missives. That includes some very unorthodox ways too, about which I might write on a future occasion.

However, as a result of my constant need for more online space, I became an early adopter of Google’s paid service. For only $5 per year, I received 30 Gigs of mail and storage space. Then prices suddenly went up and my service was summarily cancelled in a very diplomatic letter from Google! The silver lining on this dark storage cloud was a parting gift from Google for me as an early adopter: 1 Terrabyte of cloud space, to be used as I saw fit, either for mail or storing other documents and data. That is exactly the size of my current, rather full, hard drive.

Microsoft also offers a similar service called SkyDrive which I haven’t really tried. Pricing I found on the internet for three services looks like this:

SkyDrive:

FREE account (7GB)
$10.00 per year, additional 20GB (27GB)
$25.00 per year, additional 50GB (57GB)
$50.00 per year, additional 100GB (107GB)

Google Drive:

FREE account (5GB)
$2.49 per month (25GB)
$4.99 per month (100GB)
$9.99 per month (200GB)
$19.99 per month (400GB)
$49.99 per month (1TB)
2TB, $99.99 per month
4TB, $199.99 per month
8TB, $399.99 per month
16TB, $799.99 per month

Another famous service, Dropbox, offers the following:

FREE account (2GB)
$9.99 per month (100GB)
$19.99 per month (200GB)
$49.99 per month (500GB)
$795 per year (unlimited for 5 users)

Clearly, my gift from Google is worth about $50 per month, which over five years is going to save me (12 x $50 x 5 = ) $3000. In rand terms, that is a whopping R30 000 saving over five years!

Ideally, I would like to store all my data online and just keep what I need daily on my hard drive. In fact, I have taken to writing online as well, using Google Drive mostly, but this very column is being typed online and saved as I write on another system. So if ever my computer catches fire, or an armed robbery takes place at my house, I will be smiling because every piece of information I own, every email or document is actually being kept in some data centre in the USA where presumably there is state-of-the-art redundancy, back-up generators, and the like. Barring nuclear war in America, my data would probably be safe. As a precaution, I use one or two other online email services where I keep copies of emails, so I am super safe, at least as far as email is concerned.

With my free “one terr” as my son calls it – it almost sounds like old SADF slang for “terrorist” – online, worth R30 000 over 5 years, I should be able to keep most essential stuff backed-up and accessible.

My dream is to go completely paperless, scan every document in sight and store it in “the cloud”. But the big question is: how feasible is this in South Africa, where we still have almost third-world bandwidth, especially outside the major cities? A few years ago a Swede casually told me that he had 100 Mb/s bandwidth in his Stockholm appartment. Most of us have to get by with one hundredth of that speed, or maybe one twenty-fifth. So Scandinavian or German or even French speeds are only a dream to most ADSL users in SA.

I am now on about my fourth or fifth ADSL provider and am changing again at the end of the month, because they do not seem to deliver on the stated speeds. “Somewhere along the line”, they all seem to have a chink in their armour, with high contention ratios or latency problems at certain times. Late at night until early morning seems to be the best time to do the heavy lifting as far as data are concerned.

As everyone knows, upload speeds are that much slower than download speeds. My current service provider gives me an upload rate of about 800 Kb/s. Over the last few days I have been trying to upload about 10 Gigs worth of data to my Google Drive and it is taking ages! On average, I manage to send 100 Mb into the cloud every 20 minutes. To upload one Gig of data therefore takes about 200 minutes or more than 3 hours. The entire chunk of 10 Gigs will therefore be uploaded in about 30 hours, more than a day.

In practice, it takes a lot longer. Constantly uploading data clogs up your bandwidth so I get irate groans and shrieks from the rest of my family. So I have to find times to let it run when my daughter is not watching some online series, my son is not playing an online game and my wife is not posting on the internet. Even during the golden time late at night, my gaming son and I now have to coordinate our bandwidth demands. During the current school holidays, he has also developed a nasty habit of all-night gaming against gaming nuts in other time zones.

In theory, the cloud is a nice concept, but is it worth the trouble, given South African bandwidth constraints? For my part, I reckon it might take three to six months for me to upload everything I want to, after which I should hardly ever have to run large uploads for hours and days.

Sitting in a café somewhere with a tablet or small laptop, I would be able to access my life’s work and all of my filing, as well as my entire music and ebook collection, by simply clicking on “Drive” in my normal email window.

Am I chasing the rainbow, err cloud, here? In a few months’ time, I might be able to report back.

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ANC going to court over Potchefstroom

The ANC has filed papers in the High Court in Johannesburg against Potchefstroom mayor Maphetle Maphetle’s unseating, the party said on Monday.

“The speaker [Barei Mosiane], who is the speaker coming from the ANC… has actually filed the papers nullifying that meeting,” ANC North West acting secretary Gordon Kegakilwe said in Potchefstroom.

He was referring to a council meeting on Tuesday at which DA councillor Annette Combrink was voted in as mayor.

“For now, as the ANC, we don’t recognise that meeting, we don’t recognise Combrink.”

Kegakilwe was speaking at the taxi rank in Potchefstroom following an African National Congress provincial working committee (PWC) meeting in the town.

He, ANC North West chairman Supra Mahumapelo, and national executive committee deployee and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti were doing a walkabout at the taxi rank.

Combrink was voted in as the new mayor on Tuesday, the second time since November, unseating Maphetle. Democratic Alliance North West leader Chris Hattingh said at the time that 29 councillors of all parties, including the ANC, unanimously voted to return Combrink to the position of mayor.

On Wednesday, the North West ANC’s provincial disciplinary committee said 14 of its councillors who voted to unseat Maphetle, were expelled from the party. They would also be removed Potchefstroom councillors.

Kegakilwe said the councillors had to be expelled because they handed power to an opposition party.

“They can’t take power that the people have given to the ANC and give it to the DA, the DA which has never taken care of our people and will never take care of our people.

“We are here now in the taxi rank to tell the people that it’s only the African National Congress that can change their lives for the better.”

Kegakilwe said the PWC on Monday appointed six new proportional representation councillors for the municipality.

By-elections would be held soon to elect new ward councillors.

He said the ANC did not recognise Combrink as mayor and said Maphetle was still mayor.

“Combrink will never do anything for the people of Potchefstroom… she will never assist the people, she has never assisted them. They will keep on promising what they can’t achieve,” Kegakilwe said.

He said the ANC was confident it would win the court case to nullify the council’s decision.

“We are confident, we have studied all the documents and we are quite sure… Her [Combrink’s] mayorship is not recognised. Comrade Maphetle is the ANC mayor.”

The DA on Monday said Maphetle had failed to adhere to a legal notice forcing him to vacate his office at the municipality.

“During talks with DA councillors today, Mr Maphetle attempted to push for a political and not a legal resolution for the impasse,” Hattingh said.

“He also indicated that he has instructed his mayoral committee not to vacate their offices.”

Hattingh said the DA was consulting its lawyers on the issue.

Earlier, several Potchefstroom residents welcomed the DA taking over the municipality.

“What happened in the council is right,” PR Kali said at the town’s taxi rank.

“We think there will be change if the Democratic Alliance takes over.”

He said the ANC-dominated council had done nothing to eradicate poverty in the city or create jobs.

TB Masibi said he was expecting “huge change”.

“We expect a lot of change from the DA. They will combat crime and corruption.”

While the DA was in charge last year, it requested a forensic investigation into irregularities at the municipality. The probe found that the council had irregularly bought Maphetle a R736,000 customised Mercedes-Benz. Maphetle also allegedly abused the disaster management fund and poverty relief fund.

The report recommended that formal disciplinary action be taken against him and other officials.

In May, the DA laid criminal charges against Maphetle. In June Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said she would investigate the claims of corruption involving Maphetle.

Both Masibi and Kali complained about corruption and the lack of jobs.

Many of the fruit and vegetable vendors at the Potchefstroom taxi rank were from Lesotho.

Masibi said he used to have a shop but could not compete with the foreigners and the ANC had done nothing to create jobs for locals.

A woman who did not want to be named said she “felt good” about the DA taking over.

“I am happy… [The ANC] is not for me,” she said. – Sapa

Toronto storm causes chaos throughout city

A severe thunderstorm caused flash flooding in Toronto during the Monday evening rush hour, cutting power to at least 300,000 in Canada’s largest city, shutting down subways, and leaving about 1,000 passengers stranded for hours on a commuter train filled with gushing water.

Environment Canada said some parts of the city had been drenched with more than 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) of rain in the evening storm, easily beating the previous one-day rainfall record of 1.4 inches (3.6 centimeters) in 2008.

Scores of Toronto police and firefighters used boats to rescue commuters from a 10-car, double-decker train that stalled in floodwaters that reached up to the lower windows. Murky brown water spilled through the bottom floor of the carriages, sending passengers fleeing to the upper decks. Power was shut off and the windows were opened to provide ventilation.

“There’s a full-on river on either side of us… We. Are. Stuck. Hard,” passenger Jonah Cait wrote on Twitter.

A Metrolinx spokeswoman told the broadcast news network CP24 that about 1,000 passengers were aboard the train. Rescue workers were pulling weary passengers through the windows about 3 ½ hours after the train got stuck.

Another passenger told CP24 that she could see people clinging to trees after abandoning their cars on a flooded highway alongside the tracks.

All of Toronto’s subway service was temporarily halted due to power and signal issues. Some stations were also flooded. Partial service later resumed but large parts of the system were still shut down.

The storm left the downtown core dotted with abandoned vehicles, some sitting in water up to their windows. One woman, in a T-shirt and shorts, dove head-first through the window of her marooned car before wading away in the thigh-deep currents.

Porter Airlines canceled all flights out of the downtown airport due to power outages in the terminal Monday evening. It was not clear how many flights were affected.

As many as 300,000 Toronto Hydro customers lost power. Hydro spokeswoman Tanya Bruckmueller said efforts to restore power to customers might be slowed as night fell.

Another utility, Enersource, said power was cut to about 80 percent of Mississauga, a suburb of 700,000 west of Toronto. By around 10 p.m., only about 50,000 were without power.

Toronto’s flash flooding comes two weeks after extensive flooding in Calgary turned parts of the western Canadian city into a lake and forced up to 100,000 Albertans from their homes. Three bodies were recovered during the floods. – AP

Brazil opens investigation into US spying

The Brazilian government began an investigation Monday into whether telecommunications firms operating in the country cooperated with the U.S. as part of a spying program that has collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations.

Anatel, the government agency that regulates the telecom sector in Brazil, said it’s working with federal police and other government agencies on the investigation.

The O Globo newspaper reported this weekend that information released by the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden showed Brazil is the top target in Latin America for the NSA’s massive intelligence-gathering effort aimed at monitoring communications around the world.

Brazil isn’t alone in its concern; London-based advocacy group Privacy International filed lawsuit on Monday over alleged spying of internet and phone users in Britain. Earlier, official in Germany, France, Hong Kong and other nations lodged complaints.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff the nation would raise the issue at the 193-country U.N. International Telecommunications Union and also at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights since the “fundamentals” of human rights include “freedom of expression and the right to privacy.”

“If there was any involvement of other countries, of other businesses that aren’t Brazilian, then it’s certainly a violation of our sovereignty, without a doubt, just like it’s a violation of human rights,” Rousseff said. “Now, we have to look at things without pre-judgment, we have to investigate.”

Brazilian regulator Anatel said in its statement that “it’s worth clarifying that the confidentiality of data and telephone communications is a right guaranteed by the constitution, by our laws and by Anatel’s regulations. Its violation is punishable in civil, criminal and administrative realms.”

The O Globo article said the NSA collected the data through an undefined association between U.S. and Brazilian telecommunications companies. It said it could not verify which Brazilian companies were involved or if they were aware their links were being used to collect the data.

On Monday, O Globo reported that the U.S. had a significant data center in Brasilia for the collection of intercepted global satellite communications until at least 2002, based upon the Snowden document it’s seen. The documents didn’t indicate if that still exists.

Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo told reporters in Brasilia that he “has no doubt whatsoever” Brazilian citizens and institutions were spied upon.

“Even the European Parliament was monitored – you think that we weren’t?” he said. “We have to verify the circumstances in which this occurred, the exact way and when.”

Bernardo met Monday afternoon with U.S. Ambassador Thomas Shannon.

“He denied that there is such monitoring here in Brazil, he said that there never was a data center and that there is no agreement with Brazilian companies to collect data in Brazilian territory,” Bernardo said afterward, according to the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency.

The O Globo article printed Sunday said that “Brazil, with extensive digitalized public and private networks operated by large telecommunications and internet companies, appears to stand out on maps of the U.S. agency as a priority target for telephony and data traffic, alongside nations such as China, Russia and Pakistan.”

The report did not describe the sort of data collected, but the U.S. programs appear to gather what is called metadata: logs of message times, addresses and other information rather than the content of the messages.

U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro and originally broke the Snowden story in the Britain-based Guardian newspaper, where he writes a regularly blog, co-authored the Sunday report in O Globo.

In an interview with the Globo TV network, Greenwald said the Snowden documents show that the U.S. was using Brazil as a “bridge” to gather data on better-protected states where it cannot gain direct access, but whose traffic may pass through Brazil.

“We don’t have access to China’s system, but we have access to Brazil’s system,” Greenwald said, speaking Portuguese. “So, we collect the traffic in Brazil not because we want to know what one Brazilian is saying to another Brazilian, but because we want to know what someone in China is saying to somebody in Iran, for example.”

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota expressed “deep concern” about the monitoring of Brazil and demanded explanations from U.S. diplomats. On Monday, he said the conversations with the Americans were “encouraging” but that “we need to deepen the discussions.”

Patriota reiterated that Brazil was looking at how to take measures at the United Nations “that would guarantee not just privacy, but also the respect and the citizenship of states when it comes to the use of information technology and cyber security.”

In Washington, the U.S. State Department declined to comment on the alleged intelligence activity.

“As a matter of policy, we have been clear that the United States does gather foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations. I can tell you that we have spoken with Brazilian officials regarding these allegations,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “We plan to continue our dialogue with the Brazilians through normal diplomatic channels. But those are conversations that, of course, we would keep private.” – AP

Corruption seen on the rise: study

More than half of respondents in a global corruption survey released Tuesday think that graft has worsened over the past two years, and a quarter reported having paid officials a bribe in the last 12 months.

The survey by Berlin-based non-profit group Transparency International also found that people have least trust in institutions meant to help or protect them, including police, the courts and political parties.

Respondents also believed official anti-corruption efforts had deteriorated since the 2008 start of the world financial and economic crisis.

The group’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013 is the world’s largest public opinion survey on corruption. It surveyed 114,000 people in 107 countries, the group said.

It found that 27 per cent of respondents had said they had paid a bribe to a member of a public service or institution in the past 12 months, revealing no improvement from previous surveys.

The group pointed to a link between poverty and graft. Eight of the 10 countries with the highest bribery rates are African, said a Transparency spokesman.

In 36 countries, respondents viewed police as the most corrupt, while 20 countries view the judiciary as the most graft-ridden. In 51 countries political parties were seen as the most corrupt institution.

People’s appraisal of government efforts to stop corruption was worse than before the financial crisis began in 2008, falling to 22 percent now from 31 per cent then.

Still, the group said that there was a growing will to fight back, with two-thirds of those who were asked to pay a bribe saying they had refused.

“Bribe paying levels remain very high worldwide, but people believe they have the power to stop corruption and the number of those willing to combat the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery is significant,” said Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International.

She added that “governments need to make sure that there are strong, independent and well-resourced institutions to prevent and redress corruption. Too many people are harmed when these core institutions and basic services are undermined by the scourge of corruption.” – AFP