Robben Island prison tours 'honour a legacy of forgiveness'
'This is not a museum to hatred. Visiting Robben Island should provide a lesson in reconciliation,' says ANC
In Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela described his Robben Island cell as "tiny – I could walk from one side to the other in three steps". Since the island reopened as a museum in 1997, thousands of tourists have taken the 20-minute ferry ride from Cape Town. Guided by former prisoners, they can peer through the bars of Mandela's 2-metre by 3-metre (7ft by 10ft) cell, with its stark grey gloss walls, folded brown blanket, green stool, red bucket, cup and aluminium plate.
One of the guides, Sparks Mlilwana – who was 16 when he was jailed for seven years in 1983 – believes the tours should serve to perpetuate Mandela's legacy. "We show tourists the harsh conditions of the island, but not with rancour," said Mlilwana, a former member of Umkhonto We Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). "This is not a museum to hatred. Visiting Robben Island should provide a lesson in reconciliation."
After Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia trial, he spent 18 years on Robben Island as Prisoner 466/64 – the 466th prisoner registered in 1964. In 1982 he was transferred to Pollsmoor prison near Cape Town, and later to the low-security Victor Verster prison near Paarl in the Western Cape, from where he was released in 1990.
US says Ukraine risks ‘chaos’ if protesters’ EU demands not met
Assistant secretary of state says there should be no doubt where US stands on issue
The United States has thrown unequivocal support behind anti-government protesters who have taken over the centre of the Ukrainian capital, as opposition leaders urged the west to impose sanctions on some of the country’s officials.
Thousands of people filled Kiev’s Independence Square again yesterday, and repeated calls for president Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign over their rejection of a historic deal with the EU and in response to the brutal dispersal of protesters by riot police.
“What a moment this is for Ukraine . . .The whole world is watching . . .This is Ukraine’s moment to meet the aspirations of its people or to disappoint them, and risk descending into chaos and violence,” US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland said in Kiev.
Silicon Savannah: Africa's Transformative Digital Revolution
In the space of 10 years, mobile phones and the Internet have changed African nations more significantly than any development since their independence from colonial powers. Now a growing group of entrepreneurs want to take things further.
In a loft with high windows, wooden floors and long tables, young women with their hair in small braids and men in colorful T-shirts sit bent over their laptops. They are students, bloggers, web designers and programmers. Their office, called iHub, could be somewhere in tech-obsessed California, but is actually located in a place few people associate with cutting-edge tech culture -- Nairobi.
Mexico's dilemma: How do you safely transport radioactive cobalt?
Stolen radioactive cobalt-60 was found in central Mexico. The atomic energy agency said it is radioactive enough that 'it would probably be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period in the range of a few minutes to an hour.'
Officials were engaged Thursday in the delicate task of recovering a stolen shipment of highly radioactive cobalt-60 abandoned in a rural field in central Mexico state.
The material, which the International Atomic Energy Agency called "extremely dangerous," was found removed from its protective container. The pellets did not appear to have been damaged or broken up and there was no sign of contamination to the area, the agency said Thursday, quoting Mexican nuclear safety officials.
Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, said it could take at least two days to safely get the material into a secure container and transport it to a waste site.
Southeast Asia
Dec 6, '13
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ADIZ stirs fears for South China Sea
By Richard Javad Heydarian
By Richard Javad Heydarian
MANILA - China's recent controversial announcement of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) covering disputed island features in the East China Sea has raised concerns in Southeast Asia that Beijing will soon invoke a similar measure for the hotly contested South China Sea.
The ADIZ encompasses the contested leodo/Suyan rock as well as the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, helping to
China on a sharper collision course with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as the United States.
Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, have reportedly been alarmed by China's expressed willingness to "adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions".
The ADIZ encompasses the contested leodo/Suyan rock as well as the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, helping to
China on a sharper collision course with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as the United States.
Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, have reportedly been alarmed by China's expressed willingness to "adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions".
What lurks beneath the sea? Navy launches drone from submerged submarine
The U.S. Navy says it has successfully launched a drone from a submerged submarine, another big step toward developing new military spying and reconnaissance capabilities.
In a press release, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory said the fuel-cell-powered "XFC" unmanned aircraft was fired from the torpedo tube of the USS Providence using a launch system known as Sea Robin.
The launch system was designed to fit within an empty canister used for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles. Once ejected from the canister, the launch vehicle with the drone rose to the ocean surface; the drone's wings then unfolded and the vehicle took vertical flight for several hours.
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