black youth – praag.org

Five black minors stone friend to death

It is not yet certain whether five black minors from North West, who are accused of murder, will appear in court tomorrow.

This is according to police spokesperson Sabata Mokgwabone, and follows after the arrest of the minors along with two older suspects for allegedly killing a schoolboy at Kgakala township in Leeudoringstad.

Mokgwabone says the 17-year-old was apparently stoned to death yesterday.

He added that the minors are currently undergoing assessment by social workers, and that if they should appear tomorrow it will most likely be in camera.

Mokgwabone told OFM News that the motive of the incident is unknown at this stage, and the investigation continues.

Police kill three Charlie Hebdo suspects

Heavily armed SWAT teams moved into Porte de Vincennes after the hostage situation developed at a kosher grocery, involving a black gunman and at least one hostage, police said.

The Paris Public Prosecutor’s office confirmed the standoff had been connected to another hostage situation that had occurred at the same time outside Paris, where police shot dead two gunmen suspected in Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Police told ABC News that a suspect in the Thursday fatal shooting of a police officer in Paris’ Monrouge area, identified as Amedi Coulibaly, 32, was believed to have been involved with the grocery standoff.

Police issued a wanted poster for both Coulibaly and another female suspect named Hayat Boumeddinene earlier in the killing of the policewoman. Police also gave more details about the attack, saying Coulibaly wore body armor when he allegedly killed the officer.

Coulibaly had met with Nicolas Sarkozy. He worked at a Coca-Cola plant in his hometown.

He and nine other people like him visited the President of the Republic in 2009, who wanted to meet companies engaged in favor of the employment of young blacks.

Sarkozy was not really very popular with black and Arab youths. But “the encounter in real life, it is impressive. Like it or not, it’s still the president,” Coulibaly said then.

The other hostage situation ended in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele outside of Paris. The two men, identified by police as Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, were holed up in a printing company in a town northeast of Paris, taking one male employee hostage, before they were shot dead by police.

Both had been on a US No Fly List ‘for years,’ a US official said. According to different revelations, one of the suspects trained with Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen.

French-born sons of Algerian parents, they were both logged in the US government’s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) system, a database on known or suspected international terrorists, US counterterrorism sources said on condition of anonymity. TIDE contains over one million names.

The casualty situation in Vincennes is still not clear. There have been reports of at least four hostages killed, but they have not been confirmed by French authorities. Other sources spoke of four “critically wounded”.

Gun-toting black kids hold up Swedish tourists

Four gun-toting black children held up 17 Swedish tourists in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

The robbery occurred on Monday when the tourists were visiting the Iliso Care Society, which runs programmes including a project to address unemployment, a day-care centre and a food garden.

The children held up the tourists at about 11.30am , said Vivian Zilo, the founder of the NGO.

“The tourists were unperturbed by what has happened to them as they said it is not a true reflection on the situation in the area. They are grateful that they are unharmed,” said Zilo, the foster mother of two children.

Khayelitsha was one of the worst ten murder precincts in 2014. It also has the lowest police-to-population-ratio in the province, at 111 police per 100,000 residents.

“What happened is very sad because it was children as young as 14 who smoke drugs in the community committing this crime.”

Cameras, money and personal belongings were taken by the children. Zilo said the tourists did not want to be named.

Police spokesman Lieutenant- Colonel Andrè Traut confirmed the incident.

“The suspects are still running loose and the matter is under investigation.”

The locals who live off foreign donations are worried that this could give tourists a “bad impression” of the area.

“Some of them are our donors and this also provides a source of income to some unemployed people in the community,” said Zilo.

Source: timeslive

Ferguson all over again

A white off-duty policeman shot and killed a black teenager in St Louis on Wednesday, officers said, triggering a night of protests just miles from the site of another police shooting of another black youth in the suburb of Ferguson.

Police said the 18-year-old was armed and fired three shots while he was being chased by the officer, and they had recovered a gun at the scene.

The youth was killed almost two months to the day since sometimes violent protests erupted in Ferguson after a white police officer shot dead unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In Wednesday’s shooting, the dead man was one of three people who fled after being approached by the officer, a six-year veteran of the department who was working for a private security company, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson said.

The officer, who was wearing his city police uniform, fired 17 shots at the teenager, police added.

A crowd of around 200 gathered at the scene in the south St. Louis neighborhood of Shaw, 11 miles (18 km) south of Ferguson. Many of the protesters marched to a major thoroughfare, partially blocking traffic and chanting “Whose streets? Our streets?” as a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Teyonna Myers, 23, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper that she was the cousin of the suspect and that he was unarmed when he was killed.

“He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It’s like Michael Brown all over again,” she told the paper. Police have not named the teenager.

Source: Reuters

65% of black youth unemployed – Zuma

South Africa has changed for the better since 1976, President Jacob Zuma said on Sunday.

“We have come a long way since 1976. South Africa has changed considerably, for the better. We thank the youth for their sterling contribution to both freedom and the reconstruction of their country,” he said at a Youth Day celebration in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, according to a copy of his speech.

Zuma said the government had prioritised youth development because the 2011 Census indicated South Africa was a youthful country.

“[The census] told us that for the next 20 years, South Africa will have over 14 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29. The number will peak in 2021, reaching 15.1 million.”

Quality education was needed. The percentage of completed higher qualifications like certificates, diplomas, degrees and post-graduate qualifications increased from 7.1 percent in 1996 to 12.1 percent in 2011.

The percentage of those who had completed secondary or higher education increased from 23.4 percent in 1996 to 40.5 percent in 2011.

“This figure shows improvement, but it is still far from what we want for our country,” the president said.

Sixty-five percent of the black youth was unemployed.

“Our education and development programmes are designed to correct these challenges.”

Zuma urged young people to help in the fight against crime, drug abuse, xenophobia and other social ills.

“Thus our special message to the youth of the republic today, is that you must become an integral part of the struggle against all these cancers that are painfully eating our society,” he said.

“We must fight the scourge with the same vigour that we fought apartheid, and the zest that is displayed in our successful fight against HIV and Aids today.” – Sapa