praag.org

Pollution pimp flies for Woolworths

US pop star Pharrell Williams is collaborating with Woolworths on its “Are You With Us” campaign, acting as style director on several “sustainability-focused projects” and fundraising for education. Williams will be in South Africa next month but faces disruptions from pro-Palestine protesters over a promotional deal he has with major retailer Woolworths, which has trade

Luister, a new take on ‘free’

Living on the conveyor-belt of state-promoted South African Stalinist ‘alternative realities’, the makers of Luister have found a unique way to survive without money. Praag asked filmmaker Dan Corder how he funded his diatribe against Afrikaners. Corder promptly replied as follows. For clarity, there was no funding whatsoever for this film. Not a single rand

Black US cities see sharp rise in murders

Black cities across the US are seeing a startling rise in murders after years of declines. Milwaukee, has had more killings this year already than all of 2014. As in places like Ferguson and Baltimore, tensions over race and police conduct have risen in Milwaukee, where the population is 40 percent black, compared with 6

Murder of elderly couple fuels anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy

Italy’s simmering anti-immigrant sentiment has been stoked by the murder of an elderly couple in their home in Sicily, allegedly by an African asylum seeker. Mamadou Kamara, an 18-year-old from the Ivory Coast, allegedly slit the throat of Vincenzo Solano, 68, and then attacked his Spanish-born wife, Mercedes Ibanez, 70. Ms Ibanez fell to her

‘We face an Armageddon scenario with migrants’

The General Secretary for Danish Refugee Help, Andreas Kamm, used to be a politically correct pro-multiculturalist. But he has had a change of mind, and is not even sure if we can save our societies. From Jyllands Posten: The number of refugees and migrants heading towards Europe is historically high. The political institutions that are

New Ebola death in Sierra Leone

A woman who died last week in northern Sierra Leone tested positive for Ebola, the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said Monday, in a setback for the country’s bid to gain Ebola-free status. Related Stories There had been celebratory scenes last week when the country’s last known Ebola patient was released from hospital in the

Ground Zero for migrants errupts in chaos

Keleti train station in Budapest, which has emerged as ground zero in Europe’s spiraling migration crisis, temporarily shut down its services on Tuesday under the strain of an influx of migrants trying to travel to Germany from Hungary. Emphasizing the sense of confusion across Europe, Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, called on Germany, the preferred

Czech army should defend borders against migrants

The Czech Republic should defend its borders, using the army to expel “illegal immigrants” because the European Union isn’t curbing the influx of refugees into the bloc, President Milos Zeman said. Zeman’s comments echoed those of other politicians calling for the EU to take action to stem the flood of people into the region from

Showers at Auschwitz shock Israelis

Israelis who visited the Auschwitz concentration camp museum in Poland on Sunday were shocked to discover that the museums’ management had placed mist showers near the facilities entrance, in an effort to beat the heat. Anyone who saw the showers could not help get past the gas chamber connotation. “As soon as I got off

Stellenbosch promises to ‘remove racists’

Rector and vice-chancellor Professor Wim de Villiers promised Parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education and training on Tuesday Stellenbosch University would root out “racists”. Stefan Lang, the outgoing SRC chairman, having to rush through his address in order to provide committee members the chance to respond to the university’s presentation, reiterated that the SRC was

Former adviser of British PM in full panic mode

A former adviser to Gordon Brown is in full-blown panic mode over China’s Black Monday, and has urged people to stock up on canned goods and bottled water as stock markets around the world slide. Damian McBride appeared to suggest that the stock market dip could lead to civil disorder or other situations where it

French forces brace for civil unrest

French security forces are bracing for the eventuality of civil unrest. The army has made contingency plans for the “reappropriation of national territory”, meaning to win back control of neighbourhoods where the population become hostile to the security forces and where guns are easily obtainable, according to the source. “There are a lot of alienated

Coloured parents have no faith in Roodepoort task team

Parents and pupils of Davidsonville vowed to forcibly reopen Roodepoort Primary School on Monday morning. “I am going to use bolt cutters to open this school. We are going to open it with force,” Jerome Lottering from the Davidsonville Community Forum told News24 outside the school. Parents and a group of around 40 couloured pupils