360post: 2017 at 08:24AM

Showing posts with label 2017 at 08:24AM. Show all posts

Monday, 13 March 2017

South Africa, Nigeria to form xenophobia-busting monitor

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Jideofor Kwusike Onyeama holds a press briefing with South African Minister for International Relations Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (R) in Pretoria on March 13, 2017 after a bilateral meeting focused on the recent unrest regarding Nigerians living in South Africa. / AFP PHOTO / GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

South Africa and Nigeria on Monday said they would launch a jointly run “early warning” system to track and deter xenophobic attacks against Nigerian migrants.

South African foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane met her Nigerian counterpart Geoffrey Onyeama in Pretoria in a bid to diffuse soaring tensions over a recent string of attacks on migrants living in the rainbow nation.

“The early warning centre would allow us keep each other abreast of issues and help prevent violence,” Nkoana-Mashabane said.

There were several incidents last month of South African locals attacking migrants from Africa and elsewhere and their businesses in both the administrative capital Pretoria and the commercial capital Johannesburg.

Many locals have alleged that the targets were brothels and drug dens being run by migrants from elsewhere in Africa, including Nigeria.

More than 20 shops were targeted in Atteridgeville, outside Pretoria, while residents in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg, attacked at least 12 houses.

The new violence-busting forum will meet every three months and will be made up of representatives from both countries and include immigration officials, business associations and civil society groups.

Nkoana-Mashabane said it was untrue that “the attacks on foreign nationals were targeted at the Nigerians”, adding that citizens of other countries were also affected.

– ‘Mass attacks’ –
Onyeama said he had received assurances that Nigerians in South Africa would be able to live in peace and called for an end to “mass attacks”.

According to the Nigerian Union in South Africa, there are about 800,000 Nigerians in the country, many of them living in Johannesburg.

Onyeama added that groups in Nigeria calling for the retaliatory expulsion of South African residents and businesses “do not speak on behalf of government”.

Attacks against foreigners and foreign-run businesses have erupted regularly in recent years in South Africa, fuelled by the country’s high unemployment and poverty levels.

In response to the violence, about 100 demonstrators gathered on February 23 outside the offices of two South African companies in the Nigerian capital Abuja — telecoms giant MTN and satellite TV provider DSTV — to protest the upsurge in attacks.

The Nigerian government last month called for the African Union to step in to stop “xenophobic attacks” on its citizens in South Africa, claiming 20 Nigerians were killed last year.

South African authorities have declined to confirm the figure which may have been the result of other criminal activity, not just anti-immigrant violence.

A protest march against “migrant crime” was held in Pretoria on February 24 and resulted in violent clashes between crowds of young South African men and migrants from elsewhere in Africa, including Nigerians and Somalis.

President Jacob Zuma responded by condemning the wave of xenophobic unrest and called for calm and restraint, saying that migrants should not be used as a scapegoat for the country’s widespread crime problem.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2mjv6Sd

Saturday, 4 March 2017

Toilet show is light relief at Paris Fashion Week

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A model presents a creation by Manish Arora during the women's Fall-Winter 2017-2018 ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris on March 2, 2017.
Patrick KOVARIK / AFP

Mao Usami (L) and Alve Lagercrantz, the designer duo behind Sirloin, pose prior their women's Fall-Winter 2017-2018 ready-to-wear collection fashion show at the Madeleine's historical public toilets in Paris on March 3, 2017.
GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP

Paris fashion week shows tend to be held at the city’s most opulent addresses, grand chandeliered salons dripping with marble and gilt.

But new brand Sirloin gave tradition the bum’s rush by presenting its debut collection this weekend in one of the French capital’s most well appointed public toilets.

Designers Mao Usami and Alve Lagercrantz said their odd choice of venue was meant to play tribute to “a place that allows the trivial, silly yet brilliant questions and ideas in life to flow free”.

They said it was time to bring the smallest room out of the closet, as models revealed the designers’ autumn-winter collection by opening the mahogany cubicle doors of the historic Madeleine public toilets in central Paris.

The pair are not the only ones to have toyed with convention.

Saint Laurent held its catwalk show on a building site on Tuesday night, while French designer Delphine Delafon staged hers Saturday as a Sicilian wake-cum-funeral with 15 models in widow’s reeds silently mourning over a man’s body.

“The king is dead,” the designer said in her notes to the show, “Long live the queens!”

Usami, who has worked for Louis Vuitton and Dries Van Noten, told AFP that toilets were the world’s great refuges.

They are the place where you go to hide “when you are pretending you are working, but you are just escaping and having a break,” she said.

“We encourage everyone to accept their own twisted thoughts and strangest habits. The worse, the better!”

The award-winning Shanghai-based couple, who are Japanese and Swedish, said they built their collection from the underwear out, “merging lingerie with ready-to-wear” suits and streetwear.

Invitations to the show came with a vanity pack of folded toilet paper.

The designers insisted, however, that the venue was not a stunt, claiming the collection “focuses on the intellectual questions that every Sirloin girl would ask herself during their brief moments in the toilet”.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2mZm5i7

Thursday, 2 March 2017

South Africa hospital roof collapse sparks search…Read full details

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A rescue worker works at the scene of a roof collapse at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg on March 2, 2017. Several people were feared trapped in the rubble following the accident. / AFP PHOTO / Marco LONGARI

Emergency workers dug through rubble in Johannesburg on Thursday after part of a hospital’s roof collapsed, reportedly trapping several patients.

Others were removed from wards, health officials said of the incident in an area near the maternity department of the Charlotte Maxeke hospital.

Local television showed images of men sifting through debris including mangled corrugated iron in a devastated atrium area.

“Rescue services are still digging in the rubble which is quite a painstakingly slow process,” ER24 spokesman Russel Meiring told AFP.

“Initial reports show there were several patients trapped beneath the rubble. That cannot be confirmed at this moment. ER24 services has several vehicles on the scene.”

The main opposition Democratic Alliance party claimed that stones had been shifted onto the roof that collapsed.

The Charlotte Maxeke is a large public general hospital in central Johannesburg, named after a social worker and activist who died in 1939.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2lYixip

Monday, 27 February 2017

Uproar in NFF over federation boss’ CAF pick

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CAF President, Issa Hayatou and NFF chairman, Amaju Pinnick. PHOTO:itsagoal

The head of Nigerian football’s governing body is at loggerheads with his executive committee after he endorsed Madagascar’s Ahmad Ahmad to be president of the Confederation of African Football.

The Nigerian Football Federation said it had called a meeting on Tuesday to distance itself from Amaju Pinnick’s position and instead throw its weight behind the incumbent Issa Hayatou.

CAF member countries vote for the new president in Addis Ababa on March 16. Ahmad is challenging Hayatou, who has been CAF boss since 1988.

One senior Nigerian official, who asked not to be identified, said the meeting in the capital, Abuja, was likely to be stormy after Pinnick made his preference known.

“He (Pinnick) has clearly upset the Nigerian football establishment and he will be told that in no uncertain terms at this meeting,” the official added.

Nigeria’s sports minister Solomon Dalung has already said Pinnick’s position was not that of the NFF, as have senior Nigerian football officials already holding CAF portfolios.

Amos Adamu, Dominic Oneya, Sani Lulu and Aminu Maigari — who have all been NFF president — at the weekend gave their backing to Hayatou in a public statement.

Pinnick as an individual could support anyone he wanted, they said, but added there was “no evidence where Mr Pinnick was mandated to commit this country to supporting Mr Ahmad”.

“No Nigerian member of CAF has been consulted nor informed out of courtesy about the ambitions of the NFF President,” they added.

“We do not remember Mr Ahmad visiting Nigeria to solicit or canvass for votes nor do we have any record of Mr Ahmad’s pedigree in the running of football in Africa that would have led Mr Pinnick to dangerously throw all of Nigeria’s eggs in his basket.

“We stand dangerously threatened.”

The Nigerian CAF officials instead said there was every reason to continue to support Hayatou, calling him “a pillar of support” and a “true friend of Nigerian football”.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2m2ZRyO

Uproar in NFF over federation boss’ CAF pick…See full details

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