Marklives!com

Talk about cheap politicking. The DA must be taking notes from those megawatt bullshitters over at the ANCYL. The media, with some help from the DA, decided that to produce a kid Jacob Zuma had to have had unprotected sex. Hate to break this to you but sometimes condoms break. It happens. Unless Helen Zille, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, happens to be a webcam buddy with either of the two people involved I suspect it is unlikely she should know what really went down. So to speak.

Yet she categorically states that “President Jacob Zuma’s behaviour directly contradicts the government’s campaign against multiple sexual partners, and the inherent AIDS risk in having unprotected sex.” She conveniently brings up the rape charges from which Zuma was acquitted in a court of law. So far I haven’t noticed anybody in the media calling her on this issue. We happily jumped the band wagon and as it stands most of the country now believe Zuma has unprotected sex with everything in a skirt while in fact nobody can be certain that that is the case.

Shame on Zille for jumping to conclusions that suit her politically when clearly her statement cannot be collaborated. And on the media for republishing it without at least calling on her to back up her claims.

From the guys at LoveJozi. Paper-weight for clothes!

These headlines speak for themselves. Shame on FIFA.

Sacrificing press freedom on the altar of commercialism
Local journalists have accused world football governing body FIFA of acting as a bunch of ‘bullies‘ and ‘dictators’ with a neo-colonialist mentality, following what analysts see as ‘unreasonable’ media restrictions on the 2010 FIFA World Cup coverage.
BizCommunity.com

More Web sites ‘illegally’ using Fifa’s trademarks are expected to be launched, says a lawyer
Fifa expects more Web sites that illegally use its trademarks, such as 2010 and World Cup, to appear as the games draw closer. The federation’s trademarks revolve around the words “2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa” and combinations of those words.
ITWeb

With world domination, no one does it like Fifa
If I was a mascot I know who I’d want to be: Zakumi, the green-haired leopard for the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. I’d get to proclaim being “proudly South African” from the rooftops while coining it in China.
Mail & Guardian

Zakumi: Chinese workers earn R23 a day
Trade union federation Cosatu is up in arms about the fact that light-up models of Zakumi, the Fifa World Cup mascot, are being manufactured in China by workers who are being grossly exploited.
Times LIVE

Money for kicks
I am always amused when I see the game of football referred to as “The Beautiful Game” when, in my view, it would be more pertinent to call it “The Greedy Game.”
Business Standard

South Africa’s cup is failing to set the world on fire
The English FA have returned some of their tickets to Fifa and sales in Germany and Holland have also been slow, amid the disconnected though still unhelpful publicity surrounding the attack on the Togo team bus in Angola and doubts raised by influential football figures such as Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness over cost and security.
The Guardian

A rather marvellous ad from YouTube. Check it out.

e.TV is “clearly a crime-kisser“, according to our gung-ho police commissioner Bheki Cele, for broadcasting a segment in which two criminals held forth on their plans to do what criminals do best, rob people and shoot anybody interfering.

Fearless journalism? Only if you believed that criminals and politicians would suspend their grubby ways and join hands with the rest of the nation in celebrating being overrun by drunken mobs of disenchanted football hooligans (with apologies to The Huffington Post). And yes, the cops should have and did make it a priority to catch these guys, which sent a clear message that South Africans, and the government, are fed up with crime and those who perpetrate it.

At the same time the police commissioner should think twice about his attack on journalists at SA’s only free-to-air TV station (read non state run). Issuing warrants to try and force journalists to identify their sources is counter-productive and contrary to the democratic voice of our country. It also sets a president which, if upheld, could severely influence future corruption cases as potential whistle blowers figure out that ‘journalistic privilege’ means jack and that their identities are at risk of being revealed.

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa has gone as far as to suggest that freedom of the press and editorial independence were not without limitations.

Pierre De Vos of http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/ points out that “the last time I checked section 16(1)(a) of the Constitution states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media’. A journalist’s freedom to gather information and report it would be dramatically infringed if he or she could not keep the identity of their sources secret.”

MarkLives joins other media organisations in calling on the police commissioner to withdraw toss out the goodwill generated towards the police with this short sighted action.

Oh and kissing is not a crime. Except maybe in Uganda (small minds, tiny…?) or at Warrington Station.

The Huffington Post finally publicly distanced itself from a blog post by Jeffrey Hoffman on South Africa’s 2010 World Cup. The story has been removed from its website and the following note appears:

Editor’s Note: Jeffrey Hoffman’s post, “Could The 2010 World Cup Be A Disaster In the Making?,” has been removed due to factual inaccuracy and inflammatory language.