WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?
The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.
A HERO IS BORN.
I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.
IT IS WHAT IT IS.
"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.
WORD!
A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.
NOW, YOU KNOW.
When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.
JUST THE FACT.
In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle
DO YOU?.
“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.
HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.
Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.
OUR SHARED HUMANITY.
Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.
#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.
"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.
RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.
No licence to kill for SA police
ReplyDeletePresident Zuma had said the police should use "extraordinary means"
South Africa's President Jacob Zuma has said the police do not have a licence to kill, a day after a minister said officers should shoot criminals.
Mr Zuma stressed that the police must obey the laws which govern the use of deadly force.
His government is giving the police greater powers to use force against the criminals who have made South Africa one of the world's most violent places.
But this week's killing of a toddler by police has sparked a national outcry.
"No police officer has permission to shoot suspects in circumstances other than those provided for by law. The law does not give the police a licence to kill," Mr Zuma said in a statement.
Murder charge
Last month, he said the police should use "extraordinary means" to tackle the country's "abnormal crime problem".
The government is trying to reassure potential visitors that the country is safe ahead of next year's football World Cup.
On Thursday, Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said it was inevitable that innocent people would get caught in crossfire when the police tackled criminals.
And referring to what he called "incorrigible criminals", he urged the police to "shoot the bastards".
Three-year-old Atlegang Phalane was shot dead in Midrand, near Johannesburg, last Saturday as he sat in the back seat of a car next to his uncle.
The police officer is reported to have said that he thought the boy was carrying a firearm, though according to Moses Dlamini, from the Independent Complaints Directorate, no gun or object which could have been mistaken for a firearm was recovered from the car.
The officer has been charged with murder.
South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime with an average of 50 killings each day.
Three-year-old Atlegang Phalane was killed when a police officer allegedly mistook a pipe the boy was carrying for a gun - he died from a single shot to the chest.
ReplyDeleteSouth Africa's police chief Bheki Cele did not excuse the "reckless criminal act", but did defend his call for the police to use "deadly force" when necessary.
Mr Cele was appointed in July, two months after President Jacob Zuma's took office - and 11 months before the 2010 football World Cup kicks off.
President Zuma said at the time that police should get tough to deal with South Africa's high levels of violent crime, but not be "trigger happy".
And deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula has gone even further, saying: "Shoot the bastards," referring to "incorrigible criminals".
Two off-duty police officers, from Pretoria Central, said to have been "under the influence of alcohol" allegedly shot a street vendor on 1 November after he demanded they pay for sweets taken from his stall. A fight ensued and the officers reportedly shot him twice, killing him instantly.
During an investigation on 31 October, a trainee officer allegedly shot and killed 21-year-old Kgotatso Ndobe who began running as the police approached his house outside Pretoria. His family said he had been smoking marijuana and feared he would be arrested. Mr Ndobe was killed by a single shot to the head.
Thirty-year-old Olga Kekana was killed and her two friends injured on 11 October when police mistook a car they were travelling in for a hijacked vehicle.
"The proximity between the recent spate of police attacks on civilians, and the police commissioner's wild talk about shooting to kill, is surely no coincidence," says Dianne Kohler Barnard of the opposition Democratic Alliance.
The opposition Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said Mr Zuma's government should "admit that it made a mistake and apologise to the nation".
Bheki Cele says police have a right to use deadly force when in danger
Relatives of the victims have questioned the police's apparent inclination to shoot first and ask questions later - and have accused police of shooting with no provocation or warning.
They are not allowed to shoot at fleeing suspects or those suspected of having committed serious crimes, as was the case under apartheid.
The government has recently proposed changes to Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act to allow police to use whatever means necessary to affect an arrest.
The government argues that many officers' lives have been lost at the hands of criminals who don't think twice about shooting.
They believe that if policemen were given more leeway to use their firearms when confronted with criminals, it would help reduce the country's crime rate and also possibly save their lives.
However there are worries that the government and police bosses have not explained to officers what circumstances warrant a shoot-to-kill approach.
"We are concerned that we are going to lose more lives if the 'shoot-to-kill' statement is not clarified as a matter of urgency," says the IFP's Petros Sithole.
"Heated political rhetoric which encourages the reckless or unlawful use of lethal force does not serve to support police officers but rather feeds into confusing them and potentially placing them in legal jeopardy," it said a statement.
The officers involved in the shootings have been arrested and are currently going through the judicial system.
Police watchdog the Independent Complaints Directorate, which is handling most of these cases, has said it will "not hesitate to take action against those officers who act outside the ambit of the law".
And as it stands, the government is adamant that there is no link between its call for "deadly force" and the lives that have recently been lost.