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South African police link explosives to right wing

JOHANNESBURG (AP)—South African police have confiscated a large cache of weapons and arrested suspects linked to right-wing groups, the police ministry said May 6.

Zweli Mnisi, a spokesman for Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, told The AP that police acting on tips raided sites in the capital and a western town and found large caches of explosives, illegal guns and ammunition. He said there was a “strong linkage to right-wing operations.”

Last Updated on Monday, 03 December 2012 19:28

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Male and pale'...New UK Cabinet criticized for lack of diversity

by Sylvia Hui

LONDON (AP) – Prime Minister David Cameron's three-day-old administration was criticized by activists, the press and even his new coalition partners Friday for picking an almost entirely White, male and upper-class Cabinet despite pledging that his Conservative party would no longer be an old boys club.

Last Updated on Monday, 03 December 2012 19:28

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Mexican women’s activists call for Cancun boycott

MEXICO CITY (AP)—Women’s rights activists called on tourists May 6 to boycott the Caribbean resort city of Cancun, saying authorities there failed to protect the rights of an 11-year-old rape victim who is carrying the baby to term. Activists say the case of the girl, known only as “Amalia,” illustrates the lack of protection for women’s rights in the state of Quintana Roo, which recently passed a law banning most elective abortions.

MexicoWomensRights
PROTEST—A woman holds a banner that reads in Spanish: “Sexual Education in Order to Decide,” during a demonstration organized by women’s rights activists in Mexico City, May 6.

The girl, 10 years old at the time, told authorities she was raped by her stepfather, and activists say a doctor at a government hospital failed to inform her that the new law allows for rape victims to have abortions. The child is reportedly carrying the baby to term and will give birth by cesarean section.

Last Updated on Monday, 03 December 2012 19:28

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Obama signs Haiti debt relief bill

WASHINGTON (NNPA) —President Obama has signed into law a bill calling for the United States to take the lead in forgiving debt owed to international lenders by earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The bill, signed April 26, urges major multinational institutions to cancel all debt owed to them by Haiti and recommends that all aid to the country for the next five years be provided in the form of grants rather than loans.

Last Updated on Monday, 03 December 2012 19:28

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Racist Belgian comic book to be tried In court


(GIN) – Capping a three-year effort, Congolese national Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo may finally get his chance to pull a racially insulting comic book “Tintin in the Congo” off of library shelves.

A trial is scheduled to begin this week in Brussels, the city where Tintin's creator, pen-named Hergé, once lived. Mbutu Mondondo, 42, says the book — first published in 1930 — is racist, colonial propaganda and should be banned.

Tinton in the Congo appeared just 22 years after the Belgian-born King Leopold II laid claim to the Congo with Belgian money. In the so-called Belgian Congo, Leopold with his private army, the Force Publique, enslaved and mutilated the population. .

Estimates of the death toll range from two to fifteen million.

“(Tintin) served – and still serves to prop up a sanitized account of Belgium’s colonialism. "It twists history to suggest that everything was happy and fun," says Mbutu Mundondo. "In reality, it was a tragic, hurtful time."

The offensive images ranged from Tintin's faithful terrier Snowy being crowned king by the Africans, to a Black woman bowing before the blond boy and declaring "White man very great. White mister is big juju man!"

The Brussels court will consider whether the book should be banned, or sold with a warning across the cover that some readers might find the content offensive. In 2007 a British court ruled that “Tintin in the Congo” should be sold with such a warning.

Mbutu has also tried, unsuccessfully, to have the cartoon banned in France.

Special to the NNPA from GIN

Last Updated on Monday, 03 December 2012 19:28

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