the american fashion house of calvin klein is, without a doubt, iconic. from the denim ads featuring brooke shields to the campaign introduction of kate moss to the world- brands like calvin klein are far & few. representing minimalistic appeal & structured designs, calvin klein in one fashion house that gives you undeniable chic & is distinctly american. in america, we have had a number of progressive events- the largest for the american public was the election of the first black president, barack obama. now with fashion houses representing for fashion capitals around the world, calvin klein, among others- represents an american market. the design house is known for controversial ads & its signature denim collections. but with all the perks of that reputation, you would think that such a fashion house would take it upon themselves to represent what we, here in america, are with a dedication to responsibility & moralistic value.

now take a look at the above image. the image was shot at the calvin klein presentation which took place on the 10th of this month. showcasing the summer/spring collection, we see a minimalistic chic & easy going style with a muted color palette & a muted model casting. take a look at the image, the only shots of color you see are the charcoal colored blazer & that one female model’s dark top. the castings are almost as white as the pedestals that are elevating the models. i found it odd that there were no castings of black or any colored models for this presentation. joudan dunn appeared alongside sigrid agren for the brands fall campaign & famed latina, eva mendes has appeared for the brands denim, body & fragrance collections this past year as well. one could blame the casting on the theme of the season, which showcases a muted palette. but still- there is a deep issue of concern because color, more importantly, individuals of color are not ornaments. its not about being edgy, you cant represent color because you think black models are the latest trend. minorities are now the majority & none of which are being represented in high end fashion. why hold a showcase that blocks representation of those who are such a mass majority of the population? one has to wonder about this on-going issue, i thought we were getting over this? images for the presentation were shot by greg kessler. the global creative director for calvin klein is kevin carrigan. styling for the SS10 presentation executed by  jay massacret.

ROY Bennett’s trial on terrorism charges has been adjourned to January next year after a key prosecution witness failed to attend court on Friday.

Roy Bennett, a senior official in Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party who was nominated deputy agriculture minister, was arrested in February on charges of illegal possession of weapons for terrorism, banditry and insurgency.

Bennett, a top ally of Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, denies the charges, which the MDC says are politically motivated to keep him out of the unity government formed with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. The charges carry a death penalty upon conviction.

The MDC says Mugabe is frustrating efforts to swear in Bennett, along with other senior MDC officials, as required by a political agreement signed last year between the rival parties.

Arms dealer Peter Hitschmann, a state witness prosecutors allege was paid by Bennett to buy weapons to assassinate government officials, was not present to take to the stand on Friday, prompting the adjournment.

Hitschmann was acquitted of terrorism charges in 2006 but served jail time for possessing dangerous weapons — including six sub-machine guns and two machine guns — which have also been produced in Bennett’s trial.

Police say Hitschmann implicated Bennett in the procurement of the arms, but Bennett’s lawyers argue that the gun dealer had been tortured into making that submission.

“He (Hitschmann) did not come because we thought he would not (be required to) take to the witness stand. This is a situation we did not anticipate,” Zimbabwe’s attorney-general Johannes Tomana, leading the prosecution team, told the court.

Presiding judge, Chinembiri Bhunu, set January 12 as the date for the continuation of the trial. The High Court’s judicial year ended on Friday and the court resumes sitting on January 11. – Reuters

Black Jesus
Bless us
With a political solution
My african nation
Through these cracked streets
The black youth
With one tooth
On the back of this country
Trying to survive
But dying in this jungle
Full of murderers
Devil politicians
With their evil teeth
In our african pie
Let us die of starvation
Before our young nation grows
Like a flower blooms
The power is in the people
Our voice is us
And our blessing is black Jesus

Check it out world — an on time release (although this blog post isn’t)!

There isn’t much new, but I plan to make up for it with some pretty cool stuff for 0.3.
So after the first release, the feedback I got suggested less UI, so that was what I tried to work towards in terms of achievement.

This release seems very scrawny in comparison to the amazing progress being accomplished by other students of my class, mainly the Processing.js crew. But check it out–here are some of the goals I have set up for my 0.3 milestone:

1. Code a function to disable next/prev button if current message is last/first
2. Code a function to allow seeing a short
3. Code a function to allow skipping spam using navigation
4. Test extension’s display flow on a netbook
5. Navigation buttons that look nice
6. Consult other netbook users and seek review on basic UI left available

This release point is the result of one four-hour and one three-hour sessions in my office, where all I need to test front end code between edits is a lightning quick firing up of Thunderbird. These two days of work resulted in a total of +7 -2 lines of code, but I find victory in the fact that that is 7 hours of material I don’t have to learn again. I moved forward from understanding how to add elements to nodes (in layman’s terms: to insert a new control with its own attributes and programmability into item groups used in the base code of Thunderbird) and got comfortable with a new set of different controls and attributes.
My first aim was to get rid of the top toolbar to free up a good chunk of vertical space for the message content portion, so my plan of attack was to ask if element removal is possible in the #extdev channel. I was hooked up with two attributes to choose from, removeelement and hidden.
Removeelement sounded like a bucket of fun, so I gave that a try on the whole mail-toolbox toolbox. That actually ended up being kinda volatile, as the fs window would no longer recognize any selected message, and simply show a blank white inner space. So I dug one level deeper into the node and removed the two toolbar elements individually, one at a time, and found that it was the top [File, Edit, View, etc...] that shouldn’t be removed. Ever.
But even with one toolbar taken down, it still doesn’t look seamless. So the out-in-the-open answer became hidden. mail-toolbox hidden=”true”, that is. Great success!

Next thing to do was add a Prev & Next button for navigating through emails with the mouse. It took me about almost two hours and several different placements to get the feng shui just right and make sure that they wouldn’t warp or displace themselves like this:

but the two young buttons seem satisfied in their new home behind a spacer. Their auto-fitting with the vertical space was fixed by simply removing the align=”end” attribute I put in. Now they just need funky arrow icons to express their adolescent creativity, and stuff.

Oh yeah and I fixed the minimum version of Thunderbird problem. I set it to 2.9.*, since it seems the safest bet any 3.0pre build.

Also along this road I tried some other attributes that ended up not being necessary, but still cool tools to understand. The first is observes, which I noticed was on a most of the toolbox items, and insertbefore/insertafter. observes is like a radio to a broadcast tower, a broadcaster, sending the signal to adhere to any changed default attributes in the broadcaster. There’s a better explanation here. And have a XUL element reference also for good measure.

And along this road a few more cool feature ideas popped into my head;
People might like to be able to see or know if the next or previous message is junk and would prefer to skip it.
Perhaps add an easy way to zoom the size of text, both in and out to accommodate many different display settings.
A drop down list of message folders (inbox, sent, deleted, etc), with folder change going to the latest non-junk message, but I’m not dead set on keeping this idea if testers don’t feel it necessary.

Will keep you updated.

É HORA DE MUDAR?

É HORA DE MUDAR?

Com muita inteligência internauta manda ótimo artigo o que eu acho importante esta nova mudança para o Cabo de Santo Agostinho

E o MDC foi criado para isso ouvir e escutar as novas propostas.

Por GENILSON CAETHANO
O Cabo de Santo Agostinho atravessa um momento todo especial, de muito crescimento e investimentos, e têm sabido tirar proveito destas novas oportunidades.

Os recursos que têm sido investidos no município carecem de muita articulação política para que sejam disponibilizados, porque há uma distância anos-luz entre a aprovação do projeto ou uma solicitação/indicação, ainda que recheadas de embasamentos legais e de esperançosas assinaturas, e a chegada de fato, deste dinheiro no município.

Não se pode deixar de reconhecer os esforços feitos pela atual administração na obtenção destes recursos e, nem podemos ser ingênuos em acreditar que de uma hora para outra o Estado e o Governo Federal resolveram se sensibilizar e resolverem sanar os problemas da população cabense.

Nada disso, há um alinhamento bastante positivo, entre o Poder Executivo Municipal, o Governador Eduardo Campos e o Governo do Presidente Lula, que tem propiciado mudanças estruturadoras extremamente importantes para o município. Contudo, reconheço a importância das mudanças, até porque acredito que a alternância nos cargos eletivos é pressuposto essencial para a existência da democracia, entretanto, falo da necessidade de mantermos um projeto político, estruturador e que tem dado certo, e que, com o esforço de sucessivos governos o município foi inserido nele.

Os prováveis candidatos a prefeito do Cabo, que tiveram seus nomes cogitados na imprensa, são pessoas que conhecem o município, suas dificuldades e o seu povo, mas, é importante refletir se desejamos realmente substituir o Projeto do Presidente Lula, pelo projeto de outros partidos, e aí, para mantermos este alinhamento, teremos que mudar também o Governo do Estado e o Governo do presidente Lula.

Não sei se é hora de mudar, mas acredito fielmente que é hora de pensarmos no assunto.

Ass. GENILSON CAETHANO

Berikut Cerita dan Catatan Perjalanan Reef Check Karimunjawa 2009

Jum’at 13 November 2009, tepatnya di PKM Tembalang Semarang acara Launching Reef Check Karimunjawa 2009 berlangsung, kegiatan Reef Check Karimunjawa sendiri merupakan suatu kegiatan yang bersifat kampanye pemulihan kondisi terumbu karang yang melibatkan seluruh penyelam dan orang awam yang belum tahu maupun sudah tahu mengenai ekosistem terumbu karang. Kegiatan ini bertujuan untuk mengecek atau memantau kondisi terumbu karang di seluruh dunia Khususnya di karimunjawa. Reef Check sendiri mempunyai suatu jaringan organisasi yang tersebar di seluruh dunia, di Indonesia Jaringan reef check bertempat di Bali.

Kegiatan reef check Karimunjawa 2009 yang dilaksanakan oleh Marine Diving Club (MDC) kali ini mengajak seluruh relawan-relawan yang peduli terhadap terumbu karang dari seluruh Indonesia, terbukti pada kegiatan ini peserta berasal dari beberapa daerah dari seluruh Indonesia diantaranya Kalimantan, Bali, Bandung, Jakarta dan Semarang. Peserta sebagian besar berasal dari latarblakang club selam mahasiswa seperti FINDC-Universitas wulawarman, Maranata Diving Club,Oseanik-FPIK UNPAD,kemudian ada sebagian peserta brasal dari wartawan  media cetak dan elektronik seperti:Harian JOGLOSMAR, KOMPAS, SUARAMERDEKA,Jogdja TV dan The Jakarta Post. Selain itu tidak ketinggalan dari umum dan mahasiswa diluar club selam.

Launching Reef Check Karimunjawa 2009 yang bertempat di PKM Tembalang ini dihadiri juga oleh Dr. Munasik Msc (ahli terumbu karang dan Pembina MDC), Ir. Irwani Mphil (Ketua Jurusan Ilmu Kelautan Undip). Pada kesempatan ini beliau-beliau memberikan kata sambutan tentang kegiatan ini. “Saya sangat senang sekali MDC dapat melaksanakan Reef Check di Karimunjawa untuk kesekian kalinya, ini merupakan suatu aksi untuk penyadartahuan kepada masyarakat khususnya penyelam tentang pentingya menjaga kelestarian terumbu karang” tegas Bpk Munasik dalam sambutannya. Galdi Arianto yang merupakan Ketua Marine Diving Club, tidak ketinggalan juga memberikan kata sambutan pada Kegiatan launcing ini sebelum dibuka oleh Bapak Ir. Irwani MPhil dengan sembolis penerimaan plakat dan penyematan baju Reef Check Karimunjawa 2009 kepada ketua pelaksana Arif Suryo aji dan peserta.

Selanjutnya kegiatan dilanjutkan dengan trening klass, diamana dalam trening ini peserta di bekali pengetahuan dan cara untuk memantau trumbukarang yang nantinya dilaksanakan di Karimunjawa, setelah itu pesertapun berangkat ke jepara menggunakan bis pariwisata dan rencananya besok pagi akan berangkat ke Karimunjawa dari dermaga Kartini Jepara.

Sekian dulu cerita tentang perjalanan Reef Check Karimunjawa 2009, nantikan cerita reef chek satu minggu kedepan
Salam konservasi….

I have just received shocking news. Last year I was a guest speaker at the Bristol branch of the MDC.  It was a lively meeting of good will between the Labour Party and the MDC. The main speaker was John Nyamande a recently elected MP in Zimbabwe and a member of the Labour Party. John was distressed about the plight of his fellow Zimbabweans but hopeful that change was coming.

This is the message I have just received by email:

“Some of you may remember John Nyamande MDC MP who addressed a meeting (Joint Labour Group and MDC meeting) at the Pierian Centre sometime ago where he talked about his campaign in Zimbabwe’s harmonised presidential and parliamentary elections in June last year. Sadly, he died early hours of last saturday morning due to a tragic car crash. Reports say he hit a truck which was stationery in the road. However, speculation within MDC and Zimbabweans generally is that the accident ‘was engineered.’ This tragic incident comes barely less than a year after PM Tsvangirai’s wife Susan died in another mysterious accident and investigations are still underway.”

My thoughts are with John and his family and it is a reminder that politics is a serious and dangerous business in many parts of the world.

Another one just in from our Man in Harare.

Bennett trial begins

THE trial of Deputy Agriculture Minister designate and Movement for Democratic Change Treasurer General, Roy Bennett started in Mutare today.

Bennett is being charged with attempting to commit banditry, terrorism and sabotage, charges which carry the death penalty.

He has since denied the charges and is saying he is being framed by President Robert Mugabe for standing up for the rights of Zimbabweans.

His lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa said the trial is expected to resume as scheduled

“The trial will resume on Monday morning at 9 am and it shall be in Court 9,” said Mtetwa. The highly anticipated trial has taken several twists since the arrest of Roy Bennet in February on charges of illegally possessing weapons of war.

Bennet was recently re-arrested after the state issued an indictment. Before that he had been denied permission to travel to South Africa to attend to his businesses.
But his indictment was overturned by a High Court Judge who ended up telling state prosecutor Michael Mugabe not to make a fool out of himself by unnecessarily invoking Section 121 of the Criminal Procedures and Evidence Act.

Bennett was arrested in February at a small airfield as he prepared to go and celebrate Valentine’s Day and his birthday with his family in South Africa, where he lived in self-exile following threats to his life.

The state has religiously used the Act to prolong the incarceration of MDC members and perceived government opponents in jail. Soon after the High Court decision, Attorney General Johannes Tomana took over the case as the lead prosecutor. He said he took the decision to safeguard state security.
Just last week the case took yet another turn when a lawyer representing Peter Hitschman, who has been lined up by the state as the star witness, was arrested. This was after he had written a letter to the AG advising him that his client will not be able to give evidence in court because the information that he gave to investigating officers was obtained through torture.
Mtetwa said Hitschman’s lawyer, Mordekai Mahlangu will be in court on Monday. “I suppose he will be there to represent his client,” said Mtetwa.
The MDC believes Bennett is being put on trial because he is an MDC member. His appointment is one of the numerous outsanding issues under the GPA signed by the country’s three main political parties.

However, in the interview early this year, Bennett vowed never to leave politics or abandon Zimbabweans fighting for their rights, although he was under immense pressure from the authorities. Mugabe has refused to swear him in as a cabinet member, despite his strong endorsement from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

“Part of the persecution is not against me personally but it is against the MDC because I stand for the party in everything I do. I am only there to deliver change to my comrades and my people,” Bennett was quoted saying.

The former MP for Chimanimani – known affectionately as Pachedu – was an early victim of Mugabe-inspired farm invasions. His Chimanimani farm was invaded by militants at the behest of then security minister Didymus Mutasa, who is also Zanu PF secretary for administration who took over the farm.

Bennett was jailed for a year at a remote prison on allegations that he scuffled in Parliament with justice minister Patrick Chinamasa who, analysts said, had severely provoked him when he talked abusively about how Bennett had been dispossessed of his farm.

British subjects can petition the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown to help free Mr. Bennett. Click here for the petition.

note: every month at absolutepunk.net, i run/participate in the “movie dictator club.” people are both assigned a movie to review in a particular subject/genre and assign a movie (not necessarily with the same person). this month’s subject was “movies nominated for the academy award for best cinematography,” and i was assigned the 1955 hitchcock film to catch a thief.

To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955)

plot synopsis: when a reformed jewel thief is suspected of returning to his former occupation, he must ferret out the real thief in order to prove his innocence.

to catch a thief is what would be called “minor” hitchcock. while it never comes close to reaching the brilliance of films like vertigo, psycho, strangers on a train, etc., it’s also not a misfire (marnie, family plot, torn curtain). it’s a film you could watch and (if not for his trademark cameo) not realize it was an alfred hitchcock film. still, it is a more than pleasant way to pass two hours. cary grant stars as a reformed jewel thief who, when someone starts robbing women in the same fashion as he used to, must prove his innocence. he and kelly (as the daughter of a woman grant’s character suspects will be a victim of the thief) play off each other fantastically, and it’s a shame they didn’t do more films together. the script isn’t great (it’s not bad by any means, just nothing special), but the amount of chemistry between the two leads more than makes up for it. the film basically plays like what it probably was; hitch wanted to spend some time in france, so he figured he might as well make a movie while he was there.

on to the cinematography. the film did indeed win, and it is absolutely deserving. the pure beauty of france is captured in nearly every shot, but never better than an absolutely brilliant (and the film’s centerpiece) car chase scene near the beginning of the film. shot entirely from a helicopter, it manages to be both exciting and beautiful at the same time. it is one of hitch’s greatest (and most underrated) moments.

overall, what you have here is a great lark from the master of suspense. it’s not one of his best films, there’s nothing incredibly complex or deep going on here, and you’ll almost certainly figure out the twists and turns before the film tells you them. but the film is fun and intoxicating; it feels a lot like what tony gilroy was trying to do with duplicity. two actors at the top of their game engaging in a film that is less about the story and more about chemistry and beauty. and while gilroy may have failed (rather miserably) with that film, hitch doesn’t here.

Started compiling my XML data for a complete listing of all pharaohs and their names. It’s quite an undertaking, and I have no illusions – it will take quite some time. Anyway, here’s a taste of how it will look:

Dynasty 1 pharaoh names

I’m typing it in name by name whenever I get some time, so I will be updating it whenever I can, and even look into where I can put the list, probably on some page around here.

President Robert Mugabe first rose to power  in the newly formed country of Zimbabwe in 1980 after helping the country gain independence from Britain.  Seven years later, he became president, a title he has since held.

Mugabe was frequently revered as a great leader when he first took office by the international community, a leader with a clear view of what he wanted for Zimbabwe.  In a 1974 interview a journalist questions the president on his hopes for Zimbabe.  He asked Mugabe if he ever saw free elections for the country, Mugabe replied,

“Yes, of course. Why not? We are fighting for democracy.  We would like to see a democratic state established in Zimbabwe. And this means a state based on the majority of the people.”

Fast forward more than 30 years to the 2008 presidential elections and the news reports tell a different story.

“ Overnight, they had been dragged from their homes and beaten by Mugabe supporters….

President Mugabe went on to lose the 2008 March presidential election to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change Party.  And a few months later, he ordered a run-off after refusing to step down from power.  Mugabe won, but amid accusations of election tampering.

Claims he denies in an interview with Al Jazeera English.

“No. If rigging the elections means winning the elections through majority voting, then, then let it be. That’s precisely, we will be winning, we will be winning all the time.”

Mugabe has since agreed to a unity government, appointing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai Prime Minister. The Zimbabwe government is now a joint coalition with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Party.  A relationship that seems anything but agreeable.

In a radio interview with UK’s The Guardian last August, Tsvangirai stated he and Mugabe were working together affaby.

“Journalist: You, you believe he does have capacity to change? Or has changed already?

MT: I don’t see any attitude of perpetuating hate or division, polarization of the country

Journalist: It must be hard for you sometimes, you must admit, to swallow what’s been going on in the past and sit down with someone being held responsible for a lot of violence against you personally and your supporters?

MT: what is reconciliation without that? Reconciliation is a major for tolerance across this very serious political divide that exists in this country and how we can stand up as leaders and call nationally unity when between us we don’t like each other?”

But, less than a month after the interview was published, Tsvangirai shared a rather different message at a rally for the MDC party as Africa Times News reported, stating Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party:

“…Continues to violate the law, persecute our members of parliament, spread the language of hate, invades our productive farms…ignores our international treaties.”

Most recently, Tsvangirai has ordered all MDC ministers to stop working from government offices, an order  he too is following until all the political issues are resolved.

Other world leaders seem to agree with Tsvangirai’s hesitation to work with the president.

In 2002 sanctions were applied against President Mugabe when suspicion of election tampering surfaced along with human rights violations.

Those sanctions are still in place in 2009 and European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid says they will most likely stay.

“…the EU would not resume development aid until more was done to implement the nation’s power-sharing agreement and to restore human rights.”

Alternatively, socio-economic analyst Udo Froese told The Zimbabwe Times:

“[The international West] wanted from the onset a government of regime change not a government of national unity… Hillary Rodham Clinton, the US Secretary of State came to visit Africa on her Africa safari, she also visited South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma… and seemed to be leaning on him that he must lean on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to finalize the regime change otherwise sanctions would not be lifted….”

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s prime minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has announced its decision to boycott the country’s unity cabinet. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Although Robert Mugabe, the country’s president, has criticised the party of his estranges coalition partner, he said on Saturday that he remains committed to working with Tsvangirai’s MDC despite the boycott.

However the president called on the MDC to honour the power-sharing agreement it entered with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party last year in a bid to end political violence.

Earlier this month, Tsvangirai announced the boycott, accusing Mugabe of refusing to fully implement the power-sharing agreement.

At the funeral of one of his party’s senate members, Mugabe said the MDC has “one leg in, and one leg out” of the government.

“The requirement is that we indeed continue step-by-step to move together and whatever are the difficulties, become our difficulties together,” he said.

“For one party … to decide ‘We shall not be fully in the process’ … then you begin to wonder whether you went into the agreement with persons who actually appreciated what going into an agreement means.”

‘Dishonest’

State media also reported on Saturday that Mugabe called the MDC leader “dishonest”.

“They can never be true and genuine partners and they have proved to be dishonest,” he said.

“We, however, want to assure you that we will not allow the situation to continue like that.”

In the same time as Mugabe’s comments, negotiators from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) proposed an emergency summit to resolve the crisis.

Sadc is a 15-member bloc that has been involved in a search for a solution to Zimbabwe’s governance problems.

Over the past two days, ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia, support staff from the Sadc secretariat and representatives of Thabo Mbeki, a Sadc mediator and former South African president, have been meeting Zimbabwean officials.

Even though it was not immediately clear how the negotiations progressed, analysts said there were slim chances of a breakthrough because the Zanu-PF and the MDC remain at loggerheads over some aspects of their power-sharing pact.

The MDC says Zanu-PF has blocked the swearing-in of some of its officials.

The power-sharing deal between Zanu-PF and MDC was signed in September last year, following a crisis after disputed elections and political violence.

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations human rights investigator is throwing tantrum in the media following his ejection from Zimbabwe. Nowak alleges that the Mugabe government has intentionally barred him from entering the country because ‘he knows’ he will find evidence of human rights abuses committed by Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF. Nowak states, using undiplomatic language and improper protocols, “I can only interpret that, at this point of time, they didn’t want any kind of independent fact-finding on torture and other forms of ill-treatment,” referring to ZANU-PF. He goes on to add, “This is totally unacceptable conduct of a government – of a member state of the United Nations – vis-a-vis a United Nations independent expert who is mandated by the human rights council to carry out fact-finding missions on the invitation of the government.” Notice the last part, “on the invitation of the government.” Also notice Mr. Nowak is exaggerating his importance by implying that he is ‘mandated’ by the U.N.’s  human rights council, an act that is essentially imposed on a U.N. member state by the council through the Security Council. In fact, the government of Zimbabwe invited him voluntarily with no mandate to carry out, other than to investigate rights abuses in the country and report it to the human rights council – an entity that once included Iran, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, etc etc.

While he was in South Africa, the government of Zimbabwe asked Nowak not to come now because the government officials he needs to talk to as part of his investigation are busy with SADC mediations on the unity government between Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party that is currently in jeopardy of dissolving. Thus, the government of Zimbabwe rescinded its invitation and asked Nowak to reschedule it for another time before he arrived in the country. But Mr. Nowak, who was only coming to the country on the invitation of the host government, took matters into his own hands and showed up at Harare International Airport with a stupid look on his face and insisting that he was invited by the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai – who I should add has ceased to participate in the unity government and has no authority on foreign relations. Accordingly, the immigration authority refused him entry into the country and put him back on the returning flight to South Africa. Case closed, right?

Not if you are Manfred Nowak, a supposed neutral diplomat working for the United Nations. He has spent the last couple of days bitching to every media outlet that is willing to listen to his petulant and undiplomatic behavior. Furthermore, Nowak’s self-righteous attitudes and media blitz seems to reflect a disdain for the United Nation’s own Charter that is built on the foundation of respect for member states’ sovereignty and territorial integrity. If I invite someone to my house party and I change my mind and tell them not to come, I expect my wishes to be followed. If they choose to ignore my request and show up at my door anyway? Of course I would shut the door on their face. Too bad the mindless western media will not put this simple diplomatic issue into context. Granted, there a lot of human rights abuses that have to be investigated in Zimbabwe (it is long overdue) and more importantly, MDC-Tsvangirai supporters are just as culpable in these abuses as ZANU-PF supporters are – a fact the western media has been sweeping under the rug for far too long. Because of Nowak’s self-righteousness and stupidity, many victims of state and political parties’ abuse will not have their stories heard.

The moral of the story though? Don’t invite Manfred Nowak to your house!

Tidak terasa waktu berlalu begitu cepat, rasanya baru tahun lalu Marine Diving Club (MDC) berulang tahun dan kemarin Rabu, 28 Oktober 2009 MDC merayakan Ultahnya yang ke-19 tahun.
Acara yang bertempat di Basecamp MDC ini sangat sederhana namun sangat meriah karena dihadiri oleh Pak Rudhi Pribadi (Dosen kelautan UNDIP/Anggota kehormatan MDC), anggota MDC angkatan 10, angkatan 12,angkatan 13, angkatan 14, angkatan 15, dan anggota muda 16. Awalnya acara dimulai dengan pembukaan dari MC/Pembawa acara, lalu di ikuti pembacaan doa dan sepatah kata dari Galdi arianto (Ketua MDC), Huda Saka selaku Badan Pengawas (BP), dan Pak Rudhi, setelah itu dilanjutkan dengan acara puncaknya yaitu potong tumpeng oleh Ketua MDC yang diserahkan ke Pak Rudhi dan selanjutnya makan-makan….
Harapan dari kami semua semoga di umur MDC yang semakin dewasa ini mudah-mudahan bisa menjadi lebih baik lagi untuk kedepannya, cita-cita MDC bisa tercapai semuanya dan juga Ultah MDC bisa dirayakan oleh generasi MDC seterusnya, amin…

Selamat Ulang Tahun MDC…

Terima kasih buat anggota MDC yang telah ikut berpartisipasi untuk memeriahkan ULTAH MDC, dan Pak Rudhi P.

Det tilspisser seg mellom Zimbabwes statsminister Morgan Tsvarangirai og diktator Robert Mugabe. Trolig er ikke en samlingsregjering løsningen for et land, fullstendig politisk og økonomisk skakkjørt, etter mange års vanstyre.

Regjeringssammenslåingen som ble iverksatt i fjor høst, har siden da sett ut til å bli vanskelig å gjennomføre. Hyppige arrestasjoner av medlemmer av opposisjonspartiet MDC, samt full splid om viktige posisjoner i regjeringen, utmatter det allerede slitne landet ytterligere.

Valgfusk
Robert Mugabe har ledet landet siden 1980, og innehatt presidentembetet siden 1987, da statsministerembetet ble nedlagt.  I fjor sommer tapte Mugabes parti Zanu-PF valget, til fordel opposisjonsleder Morgan Tsvangirais MDC. Valget ble fort ugyldiggjort, sett med vestlige øyne, da internasjonale observatører ble nektet inngang til landet. Mugabe, som da hadde regjert landet i 28 år, nølte med å offentliggjøre resultatet. MDC var imidlertid tidlig ute med å erklære at de hadde fått flertall i parlamentet – noe som etter en stund ble bekreftet av valgkommisjonen, men med under 50 prosent flertall.

Mugabe erklærte derfor en andre valgomgang, men store uroligheter i landet gjorde dette umulig, og Mugabe klamret seg til makta. Etter intense forhandlinger, klarte imidlertid de to partiene i fjor høst å enes om en regjeringssammenslåing.  Nå spørs det om denne noen gang vil bli gjennomførbar. Historien mellom Tsvangirai og Mugabe er lang, og hvordan skal egentlig to politiske ledere som ikke tåler trynet på hverandre kunne samarbeide?

Kontroversielle reformer
Zimbabwe het en gang Rhodesia, var britisk koloni, og sett på som et afrikansk foregangseksempel – et fremtidshåp. Landet var, og er fortsatt, rik på naturressurser, og var regnet som ”Afrikas kornåker”.  I år 2000 startet imidlertid Robert Mugabe sine jorbruksreformer.  Problemet var at knapt 4000 hvite farmere, eide så mye som 70 prosent av den beste dyrkbare jorden i landet. Og mange svarte mente at de var ”frarøvet” jorden, og at de i så måte også var de rettsmessige eierne.

Tusenvis av hvite farmere ble jaget vekk fra gårdene sine, og for de 600 som fortsatt oppholder seg i landet, pågår terroren fremdeles.

Stoppet bistanden
Reformene i år 2000 ble også starten på en stor økonomisk kollaps i Zimbabwe. Da landet i 2003 opplevde en hungersnød skyldte regjeringen på tørke, mens FNs Matvareprogram sa det var et sammenbrudd i landbrukssektoren. Bistanden inn til landet ble stoppet som konsekvens av den hårreisende politikken, og Zimbabwes diplomatiske forbindelser til vesten havnet på kjølepunktet.

Inflasjonen i landet er et kapittel for seg selv, og nådde i 2006 tusen prosent.

Tidligere denne måneden varslet Storbritannia at de øker bistanden til Zimbabwe til hundre millioner dollar i 2009. Mens vesten ellers vegrer seg for å gjenoppta bistanden, gir britene mer til de sørafrikanske landet, enn noensinne.

Må øke presset
Nå er det kanskje på tide å se etter andre løsninger, enn et samarbeid mellom Zanu-PF og MDC. Problemet er – og Mugabes fordel – at afrikanske ledere vegrer seg stort for å kritisere mannen, som i 1980 ble sett på som en frigjøringshelt i kjølvann av borgerkrigen. Mugabe dyrker fortsatt høy status blant politiske ledere i Afrika, og tabbekvoten ser også ut til å være umåtelig lang.

Samtidig vil neppe den 85-årige lederen gi seg, i den prekære situasjonen landet nå er i. Manglende pressefrihet, human nød og økonomisk kaos er fasit for dagens Zimbabwe.

Noen afrikanske ledere har imidlertid tatt til orde for å få fjernet Mugabe. Den sør-afrikanske erkebiskopen Desmond Tutu og den Kenyanske statsministeren Raila Odinga uttrykte i 2008 at militær makt kunne være løsningen. Sistnevnte oppfordret også Den afrikanske unionens ledere til å engasjere seg mer mot Mugabe.

Zimbabwe har en lang vei å gå, og samlingsregjeringen i Harare ser nå bare ut til å minimere det direkte internasjonale presset mot Mugabe, og skape ytterligere kaos. Zimbabwe trenger trolig et fullkomment regimeskifte for å komme på beina igjen.

“Mbudzi yaba nyama imbwa iripo” – The goat steals the meat while the guard dog looks on.

As the bankrupt apartheid regime in South Africa was waning, and in its very last days of existence, it was said that the cabinet of President P.W. Botha convened an emergency meeting. The purpose: frantically allocate funds that were still held in the national coffers before Nelson Mandela assumed power. As frenzied ministers jostled for monies to be allocated to their respective department, Minister of Defence Magnus Malan requested for the lion’s share of the fiscus. This instantaneously triggered a counter-plea from the apartheid’s gatekeeper, the dreaded Adriaan Vlok, Minister of Law and Order.

Malan apparently requested funds to enable him to re-equip the SADF, so that he could effectively defend apartheid, while Vlok wanted the money to build more prisons. Minister of National Education, F.W. De Klerk, stood up and asked for all the funds so that he could build better schools for blacks immediately.

Vlok had eloquently laid out an elaborate proposal to build state-of-the-art prisons complete with air-conditioning, gymnasiums, wall to wall carpeting, and beds with therapeutic mattresses, colour televisions with satellites, three hot meals a day, and hot showers. Weekly conjugal visits from the prisoner’s partner of choice (any sexual orientation and ethnicity) were proposed as an amendment to the Prison Act.

P.W. Botha requested Vlok to explain his unusual, extravagant and seemingly irrational request. Vlok emphatically asked the entire cabinet, “When these ex-freedom fighters take over, do you think they are going to imprison us in schools?”

Whether this cabinet debate took place or not is contentious; however, what is not debatable is the urgent need for ZANU (PF) to recalibrate its violent posture. The day for justice is looming closer and indeed ZANU (PF) human rights violators are not going to be housed in schools or on the farms they misappropriated.

Zimbabwe’s gulag is the notorious flea-infested Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison; a colonial relic built in the 1940’s and home to ZANU (PF)’s imagined and perceived enemies since independence. It shall soon become the new zip code, the eternal domiciliary for all ex-ministers, and the secure abode for their unrepentant lackeys.

To cater for the spill over, and to avoid sharing beds, ZANU (PF) needs to include Khami Maximum Security Prison, Kwe Kwe, Gonakudzingwa, Sikombela, and the Wha Wha detention centres in the same remodelling project. A constitutional amendment to allow the privilege of conjugal visits to ZANU(PF) prisoners shall not be entertained.

Mugabe is cognisant of the looming day of reckoning and has proactively pardoned over one thousand hardcore criminals to prudently make room for his bloated government’s war cabinet (amadhodha sibili). Dockets alleging acts of murder, rape, torture, and theft of state property are being prepared by the people of Zimbabwe who have been witnesses and are the innocent victims of ZANU (PF)’s misrule, since 1980.

Phil Matibe – www.madhingabucketboy.com

According to the Zimbabwean finance minister, a building belonging to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party was raided by police on Friday. The police had reportedly been searching for weapons.

The MDC secretary-general, Tendai Biti, said that the house, located in a suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, was “ransacked” by several dozen armed policemen after dark on Friday. One of the rooms in the building had been searched, and police confiscated what Biti called “valuable party documents”.
The secretary-general accused President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party of being behind the raid, wanting the country’s unity government to fail, describing it as “provocation”. “They are behind this attack. Our decision of pulling out of the inclusive government infuriated ZANU-PF and this is the price we now pay for that decision,” he said.
The police have not yet released a statement regarding the raid.
Tsvangirai and his MDC party had pulled out of the coalition government last week, accusing Mugabe’s party of not complying with the unity government deal made last year, and oppressing opponents. Mugabe, however, dismissed the boycott, calling it a “non-event”, and said that his party would not alter its plans or agree to the

Visitors to Zimbabwe who have been fed a BBC/CNN-type diet of news about ‘The Zimbabwe Crisis’ and how everything in the country has ‘collapsed’ will be surprised at how ‘normal’ Harare looks at first glance. Driving from the airport into town, there are certainly signs of decay since a few years ago, but no immediate or obvious signs of the ‘collapse’ that certain media have in recent years hysterically, lovingly and perhaps even hopefully talked about.

Looking out of the airplane’s windows as it circled to land and on the drive into town in early August, the most obvious change for me was how areas that had once been at least semi-savannah on the outskirts of Harare had been stripped of trees. One manifestation of ‘The Crisis’ in recent years has been the difficulty in accessing forms of modern energy that had once been taken for granted: petrol, diesel, paraffin, butane, coal, electricity, etc. Their availability had been erratic for many years and their cost prohibitive, forcing many people to resort to firewood for energy. Hence the massive deforestation, which I later found was widespread.

The still newish airport is clean and well maintained, though the number of vacant boutiques compared to, for instance, Nairobi airport’s full complement of seemingly thriving over-charging boutiques was one indicator that things were not quite ‘normal.’ On the drive home from the airport there was no dramatic evidence of ‘The Zimbabwe Crisis,’ though the buildings did look shabbier than before and there were definitely more potholes to dodge on the roads. But the over-riding impression for me was the powerful natural beauty and colour of Zimbabwe, not the indices of the difficult times the country has undergone in recent years.

Having had a few days to unwind at home, I began to gradually drive around and explore my home city Harare. There definitely seemed less traffic on the roads than I remembered from a few years ago. Finding a parking spot in the city center was surprisingly easy at any time of day and the roads there were generally in very good shape, as appeared to be most of the visible infrastructure.

In town and in many of the suburban shopping centers there were many more vacant shops than before, but I was also impressed by the number of businesses that had hung on during the difficult years. But almost all had ‘diversified’ in various ways, with all selling a much wider variety of goods and/or services to survive. I thought the general level of service in shops had declined noticeably. I didn’t encounter any outright rudeness but it seemed noticeably common to be met by disinterested, bored and sometimes almost sullen store personnel. Almost all stores I remembered from a few years ago had a much narrower range of goods than during ‘the good old days,’ but many people mentioned to me that what I thought was a limited range of goods was a vast improvement from the situation a few months ago, and that the availability of goods was improving dramatically by the day, one of the early benefits of the US-”dollarization” of the economy.

While the widespread shortages of all kinds of goods was rapidly receding into the past as price controls and currency restrictions fell away, most things seemed very expensive, sometimes absurdly so. In the weeks before my visit home I had visited Europe and the U.S., as well as having passed through Senegal’s capital city Dakar,  a city not known to be cheap, and so I particularly keenly felt the comparatively high cost of goods and services in Harare. It was easy to understand why many Zimbabweans are only grudging in their praise of the ‘normalization’ that has begun to take place. “We are happy the shops are full again but we can’t afford the goods” was a frequent complaint I heard. But even as people grumble about “we can’t afford anything” the shops are certainly not empty of customers, although many merchants and traders said the level of spending was still low and still limited mainly to necessities. Yet all I spoke to agreed that the situation was significantly better than before, and dramatically better than in 2008, the period everyone agreed was Zimbabwe’s low point, with hyperinflation, shortages, violence and political tension and so on at their worst.

As ridiculously expensive as almost everything seemed to be, even in just the one month I was there prices were creeping down to more realistic levels. And if one took the trouble to shop around, which many more people were doing than I remember from before, it was possible to find widely varying prices for the same thing. A big culture change was that even in ‘formal’ shops it was possible to negotiate for price reductions, common in many countries all over the world but previously almost unheard of in Zimbabwe’s stiff formal economy. So merchants are feeling the effects of consumer resistance and growing competition from the opening up of the economy and the greater availability of goods, and they are being forced to respond by lowering their prices. In the shortage economy that had prevailed for several years, the relatively few people who could raise the hard currency to import goods became accustomed to charging huge, arbitrary mark-ups. The merchant was king, not the customer.

One of the most disheartening remaining signs of how Zimbabwe has slid was in the complete absence of a daily media alternative to the state media. There are no daily independent newspapers and at US$2 an issue, the weekly private newspapers are way out of reach of most people. Of course there is no private TV or radio so there is a huge information deficit. But this is not to say the state media dominates the shaping of opinion. Despite its near monopoly, state newspapers, TV and radio are so dull and so blatantly pro-establishment that their credibility is extremely low. The public has largely learned to sense when they are being fed propaganda instead of news, which is rather often, and to dismiss and ridicule it even if they don’t know for sure what the other sides of the story are. Even more than before, the propaganda is so crudely done that I found myself often marveling that the government didn’t find it embarrassing and a negation of its attempt to win heart and minds. The stiffness, awkwardness and the over-the-top nature of much of the state media in the support of Mugabe and ZANU-PF and against Tsvangirai and the MDC had an almost surreal, self-defeating quality in its crudeness.

President Mugabe is still ass-licked by the state media as much as ever before, and in a way that I do not think does him any credit. One big change was that Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Gideon Gono was no longer the swashbuckling public hero the media had tried to make him out to be when he was first appointed five or so years ago, promising to swiftly bring down hyper-inflation and perform all kinds of other miracles. Even in the slavish state media Gono’s gloss had long turned dull, with him now struggling to defend his controversial legacy to a tired-of-him, sceptical public. One would have to have been there in his early days in office and to experience what a dominant public presence he came to be to understand how far the man has fallen in public esteem.

Electricity and water cuts were frequent, although even in these regards many people said I had visited when the situation was getting much better than it once was. People are inconvenienced but out of necessity have had to adjust, and the down times are handled very matter of factly. Up until a few years ago I had never even seen a fuel-powered electricity generator but now many in the cities who can afford them have them and they are widely advertised in the Press. Those who have boreholes or wells can avoid the worst inconveniences of the periods without running water, but I was shocked by the number of people who calmly mentioned having gone for months without seeing a drop of municipal water in their taps, a major cause of last year’s cholera outbreak.

Visits to some of Harare’s once-bustling industrial areas were depressing. A few years ago a quick drive through any of them would have been enough to show anybody why Zimbabwe’s economy was the sub-region’s most dynamic after South Africa’s. Now they are quiet, many companies still open but quite clearly operating at a low level. The areas do not have the bustle of before; buildings, roads and company premises are no longer maintained like they once proudly were. But from job-seekers to company owners, many people said whereas most companies were just treading water for several years, there are now signs of activity picking up as a result of the policy changes in the economy and the relative political calm.

With low productivity in agriculture and industry for several years, and given all the crises the country has undergone, it is startling to see the number and proportion of smart late-model luxury cars on the streets of Harare. There seemed a very bizarre disconnect between the economy under-performing as it has done for years and the number and types of expensive cars which would have turned one’s head even in a wealthy, ‘normal’ economy. While the signs of the lack of investment in many critical areas of the economy were everywhere, this certainly did not seem to extend to the cars many higher-ups in government and the private sector drive. I’m still trying to figure out what this says, and whether this is positive or not.

My impressions are of a tiny slice of life in Zimbabwe. For instance, I only made two one-day forays into rural areas to visit relatives, and only made one other one-day trip out of Harare during my one-month stay. There are obviously many parts of the traumatic economic and political period Zimbabwe is just coming out of that will only be fully understood by those who were there during it. But the instinctive adaptation that one “who was there” undergoes to the rapidly changing situation is also precisely why it can be hard for them to pin down and catalogue the changes, even though they will have an insider’s deeper understanding of events they were a part of. On the other hand an inside-outsider like me, visiting for the first time in about three years, can much more quickly see what is different even if he has no first-hand knowledge and experience of the factors and events that drove the change.

When I ended my previously visit to Zimbabwe, in early 2007, it was with a very heavy heart. The economy was very steadily declining and the tensions between the rival political parties escalating. That state of affairs had been on-going for close to 10 years. There was a widespread sense that the country was still going down, with no one able to guess when we would hit bottom or how bad things would be then. I left home then worried and depressed.

My feelings were quite different this time. There remain many political and economic problems but there is now a widespread feeling that the worst is behind the country. There is not the same feeling of widespread political dread and economic desperation, even though things are far from easy or back to any definition of ‘normal.’  Everybody grumbles about how high the cost of living still is, but unlike before, prices are stable and in many cases even declining, and goods are widely available, which is a very different scenario from early 2007!

I found widespread relief at the existence of the inclusive government of the major political parties, and I thought that most people were generally much less passionately partisan than I remembered. I also think cynicism about all politicians was higher and more widespread than before, which may be a good sign!

The last ten years or so have been a lost decade for Zimbabwe in many ways. And there is no guarantee that the beginnings of stabilization that are being experienced will take hold or that the country will organize itself to get close to meeting its great potential. The possibility of the political parties going back to the bitter fighting that has contributed so greatly to Zimbabwe’s misery remains very real. But when I left Harare in early September after a month at home, for the first time in many years I felt the stirrings of hope about the country’s prospects.

iris is represented by supreme model management.
she appears alongside fresh face gerard alondo for the FW09 issue of hercules.
as this appearance by gerard is almost a debut, his agency representation is unknown.
photographic credit for the cover & editorial to paola kudacki.
iris leads in the asexual/androgynus model movement.
dope spread, look out for more gerard.

imagesource | mdc

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