Six In The Morning Friday April 25

ANC's glory fades as South Africa's 'born free' generation votes

Twenty years after South Africa's first multiracial election, political history cuts little ice with the young electorate

• • David Smith in Johannesburg
  • The Guardian, Friday 25 April 2014

Six months pregnant, Elizabeth Kganyo was determined to cast her vote, even if it meant standing in a sun-baked queue for hours on end. "I was so excited because it was the first time," she recalls, sitting on an upturned plastic basket outside her shack in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg. "Everybody wanted to vote. Everybody was happy."

South Africa held its first multiracial election 20 years ago on Sunday, defying bombs, bluster and the threat of civil war to conjure a spectacle of voters in long, winding lines that ravished the world. But for Kganyo, like millions of others who put a cross beside the face of Nelson Mandela, those days of miracles and wonder are a fading memory. "It's not the same now. We're not happy to vote any more. It's not like the first time."

South Korea ferry disaster: Boy and girl found with life jackets tied together

Diver who found their bodies believes they tied their jackets together on the sinking ship to stop them floating apart

HEATHER SAUL 

 

 

Friday 25 April 2014

A diver has spoken of the moment he found the bodies of a boy and girl who had tied their life jackets together to prevent them from drifting apart while trapped on the sinking South Korea ferry.

The unnamed diver had to separate the boy and girl because he could not carry both of them up to the surface at the same time.

"I started to cry thinking that they didn't want to leave each other," he told the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper on the island of Jindo on Thursday, near to where the Sewol ferry capsized with 476 passengers on board.

On Thursday, the parents of the boy who made the first distress call from aboard the sinking South Korea ferry said his body has been found by divers, the coast guard has said.

Perfumers promote fair trade for Haiti's 'super-crop'

BY DAVID ADAMS

LES CAYES, Haiti 

(Reuters) - With the sun barely up, beads of sweat already dot the brow of a barefoot farmer as he hacks at the soil with a pickax, digging up a precious root that has been dubbed Haiti's "super-crop."

The vetiver plant, a tropical grass, is a little-known Haitian agricultural treasure, producing one of the most prized essential oils for high-end perfumes.

"It's sent across the sea," said Rose-Marie Adona, a 55-year-old mother of six, working a vetiver plot on a hillside on the southwest coast near the city of Les Cayes. "They make oil from it, and it smells good. But they get it from us for close to nothing."

The crop is a major employer in the region, where farmers have harvested vetiver from the region's dry, hilly soil for decades with little but a subsistence living to show for it - until recently.

Soviet Yearnings: Hopes Rise in Transnistria of a Russian Annexation

By Alexander Smoltczyk

Transnistria is the only place in Europe that still uses the hammer and sickle on its flag. Now that Russia has annexed Crimea and is eyeing eastern Ukraine, many in the breakaway Moldovan republic hope that they are next on Moscow's agenda.

His homeland is recognized by nobody except the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. When Evgeny Ushinin became aware of that uncomfortable fact, he began studying languages. He started with Japanese before moving on to Portuguese, Flemish and Italian. He also took on the Cypriot dialect of Greek, Arabic and Turkish. He already knew Russian, Romanian and German from his school days.

Now, Ushinin speaks a dozen languages. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on "Turkish Influences on the Languages of the Eastern Mediterranean" and translates Japanese mangas into Russian. Sometimes, he plays guitar and sings northern Japanese and Bulgarian drinking songs in the city library. But his homeland is still not recognized. "Nobody knows Transnistria," he says. "My Japanese friends think it's an island. They confuse Moldova with the Maldives."

Mexican law would liberalize telecoms, but critics spy censorship

Mexico says measures to track cell phone calls and censor websites are important for fighting cyberattacks, kidnappings, and other crimes. But opponents fear an online clampdown.

By Maya Kroth, Contributor

MEXICO CITY

Over a thousand people, many of them students, gathered on the steps of Mexico City’s Angel of Independence monument this week to protest a telecommunications bill they say amounts to government censorship.

“They’re trying to silence our voices and our freedom of expression on the Internet,” says Natalie Ollivier, who had an X drawn over her mouth in ink, while the crowd behind her Tuesday night chanted, “No a la censura,” or “no to censorship.”

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed sweeping constitutional reforms last year, tackling topics from ending the state oil monopoly to increasing competition in the telecommunications sector. The initial telecom proposal was lauded for its aim to open the market to greater foreign investment, create new all-access TV stations, and implement stricter competition rules in order to offer consumers better prices and access to phone, Internet, and TV services.

Why is Kim Jong-un always surrounded by people taking notes?

Magazine MonitorA collection of cultural artefacts

There's a newly released batch of photographs of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on a series of site visits. The dozens of photos all have one curious detail in common - the leader is surrounded by officials and generals making notes in identical notepads, writes Kathryn Westcott.

In the photographs - from the country's official Central News Agency (KCNA) - Kim Jong-un observes a unit of women conducting a multiple-rocket launching drill. He strides around a fishery station. He gives a pilot on flight training a pep talk. He enjoys the facilities at a renovated youth camp.

But who are those men meticulously taking notes? They're not journalists, but soldiers, party members or government officials, says Prof James Grayson, Korea expert at the University of Sheffield.