Global Oddities

One in four South African men questioned in a survey said they had raped someone and nearly half admitted having attacked more than one victim.
The study, by the country’s Medical Research Council, also found three out of four who admitted rape attacked for the first time while in their teens.
It said practices such as gang rape were common because they were considered a form of male bonding.
The MRC spoke to 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces.
The research was conducted in both rural and urban areas and included all racial groups.
Using an electronic device to keep the results anonymous, the study found that 73% of respondents said they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.
Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once.

One in 20 men surveyed said they had raped a woman or girl in the last year.
Professor Rachel Jewkes of the MRC, who carried out the research, told the BBC’s World Today programme: “The absolute imperative is we have to change the underlying social attitudes that in a way have created a norm that coercing women into sex is on some level acceptable.
“We know that we have a higher prevalence of rape in South Africa than there is in other countries.
“And it’s partly rooted in our incredibly disturbed past and the way that South African men over the centuries have been socialised into forms of masculinity that are predicated on the idea of being strong and tough and the use of force to assert dominance and control over women, as well as other men.”
She added that all the victims in the main survey were said to be women, but participants were also interviewed about male rape.
The study found that one in 10 men said they had been raped by other men.

Source: BBC news online, June 18, 2009

Kenyan ministers have been told to give up their plush cars and limit themselves to a single vehicle with a small fuel-efficient engine.
All extra cars and those with an engine capacity of more than 1,800 cc will be confiscated and sold by September, the finance minister said.
Money from their sale will be used to house those still displaced after last year’s post-election violence, he said.
Some 300,000 people fled their homes and thousands still live in camps.
But Uhuru Kenyatta, who is finance minister in the power-sharing government that took office in April 2008 after a deal to end the violence, did not give any further details about how the internally displaced people would benefit. The large power-sharing cabinet has come in for criticism for its cost to the taxpayer.
And the BBC’s Noel Mwakugu in the capital, Nairobi, says people are sceptical about whether ministers will actually give up their flash cars.
A similar proposal was made in last year’s budget, but never carried out.
However, Mr Kenyatta arrived at parliament to deliver his budget in a relatively modest Volkswagen Passat (2,000 cc) rather that the 3,000 cc S-Class Mercedes usually favoured by ministers, our reporter says.
He also announced a moratorium on the purchase of government vehicles and said officials with a car would be given a monthly fuel allowance.
“I have discussed all these measures with the prime minister and the president and let me clarify that no official vehicle is exempt,” he was quoted by Kenya’s Capital FM as saying.

Source: BBC news online, June 12, 2009

Growing numbers of children in Zimbabwe are turning to prostitution to survive, the charity Save the Children says.
The aid agency says increasing poverty is leading girls as young as 12 to sell their bodies for as little as a packet of biscuits.
It also claims that the coming football World Cup in neighbouring South Africa could soon make things worse.
Unemployment in Zimbabwe is thought to top 90% and many cannot afford to pay for food, medical care or school fees.
The deputy head teacher of a large school with 1,500 pupils east of Victoria Falls told the BBC that hundreds of her female students are now selling their bodies for whatever they can get.
“It could be books, it could be biscuits, chips, some even just to be given a hug.”
Many Zimbabwean children face terrible risks as part of their everyday lives
Throughout my conversation with the deputy head, two small teenage girls in threadbare school uniforms sat watching from a brick wall by the playground. Both are orphans.
The older one, who is 14, said she knows many girls here who have become prostitutes.
“I don’t want to do that but life is so difficult, so very difficult. Both my parents are dead and I rarely see my two sisters. Recently I stood by the river and I thought about throwing myself in but I didn’t. I don’t know why.”
There is also evidence that many girls are being targeted by child traffickers, Save the Children’s country director Rachel Pounds says.
They are thought to have plans to send young Zimbabwean girls to South Africa to work as prostitutes during next year’s football World Cup finals.

Source: BBC news online, June 12, 2009

Players have wrecked artificial turf at Swaziland’s main football stadium by putting magic charms, or “muti” underneath it, say furious officials.
The damage was worst near the goals and centre circle at the Somhlolo National Stadium in the capital Mbabane.
The muti, which some believe will help teams win games, has been stuffed under the turf over the last month.
Officials say they may ban any teams responsible for damage to the $600,000 (£375,000) turf.
“Maybe we have to consider banning one big team because whenever that team would be playing at the stadium, something strange would happen,” government sports officer Sipho Magagula told AFP news agency.
The country’s sports minister has reportedly filed a formal criminal complaint over the damage, which has been noticed before and after national league games.
The BBC’s Thulani Mtetwa in Mbabane says holes have been cut and burned in the turf, so the muti can be placed underneath.
He says many rituals involve burning something.
The police say it is difficult to take action as such rituals are often carried out at night.

Source: BBC news online, June 8, 2009

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has requested a meeting with 700 Italian women during his historic visit to Rome next week, when he will set up his tent in the grounds of a 17th century villa on a hill above the city.

Gaddafi, who has a women-only corps of bodyguards, held a similar meeting on a visit to Paris in 2007 with 1,000 selected women guests, who were told he wanted to “save European women.”

He is making his first visit to Libya’s former colonial ruler Italy since he took power in a coup in 1969.

Italy, at the forefront of the West’s warming diplomatic and business ties with Tripoli since it gave up seeking weapons of mass destruction in 2003, made a formal apology last year and offered $5 billion (3.12 billion pounds) in compensation for the excesses committed during its colonial rule 1911 to 1943.

Among the requests for his visit — pitching his tent is routine on foreign visits by the nomadic-born Libyan leader — is a meeting with 700 women from Italian political, business and cultural life, to take place in a concert hall on June 12.

They will include Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna whose appointment last year raised eyebrows because, as a former model, she had been the subject of public flirting by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, angering his now estranged wife.

“Gaddafi has expressly asked to meet representatives of Italian women,” said Carfagna, calling it an opportunity to help cooperation on the economy and illegal immigration, where Libya is helping Italy patrol the Mediterranean for boats of migrants.

Carfagna told Ansa news agency she would talk to the self-styled defender of Islam about the situation of women in Africa.

As well as meeting Berlusconi and other politicians, Gaddafi will see Italian students, face protests by rights groups about the plight of Libyan dissidents and may meet some of the Libyan Jewish community who fled in 1967 after anti-Israeli riots.

Gaddafi should be back again next month, as head of the African Union, at Italy’s G8 summit which U.S. President Barack Obama will also attend.
Source: Reuters, June 5, 2009

Guinean citizens should burn any armed robbers they catch to avoid filling the country’s prisons, the military government’s anti-crime chief said Tuesday.

Lawlessness in the capital city Conakry has risen in recent months, with soldiers accused of being among the main culprits of robberies and rapes.

“I’m asking you to burn all armed bandits who are caught red-handed committing an armed robbery,” said Captain Moussa Tiegboro Camara, appointed by the military junta to oversee the fight against drugs and serious crime.

“The prisons are full and cannot take more people, and the situation cannot continue like that,” he told a meeting of city officials, adding that residents should form self-defense committees to protect themselves against crime.

The National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), seized power in the world’s biggest bauxite exporter last December after long-serving President Lansana Conte died. It has made fighting the drug trade and corruption a priority.

So far Guineans have indicated their readiness to allow the CNDD to stay in power until elections scheduled for December, but last month security forces fired on rioters in Conakry, the first major public disturbance since the junta seized power.

Rights groups were unhappy with Camara’s suggestion on cutting crime.

“These measures worry us,” said Thierno Maadjou Sow, president of the Guinean Organization of Human Rights. “The law of a country must not be bypassed, whatever the circumstances. These people must be handed over to justice and tried.”

Source: Reuters: June 2, 2009

A Kenyan man is seeking damages for anguish sustained during a week-long sex ban called by women’s groups in a bid to force political leaders to put their rivalry aside to work for the common good.

James Kimondo is suing the leaders of G10, a coalition of women’s groups that called for a national boycott to push the men into resolving the east African country’s political woes.
“Since the women called for the sex boycott, my wife has denied me my conjugal rights. This has caused me anxiety and sleepless night,” Kimondo said.
“I have been suffering mental anguish, stress, backaches, lack of concentration,” he told reporters outside the Nairobi High Court, where he lodged his petition for damages.
The group even urged prostitutes to join the strike.
The strike ended on Wednesday with the organisers claiming it had been a success.
They argued that the country’s egocentric male leaders should not have time for matters of the flesh when the country is ensnared in economic and political trouble.
President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga were pressured into a power-sharing deal by international mediators following violence which accompanied December 2007 polls, but lingering tensions have crippled the coalition government and fuelled widespread discontent.
The two, who have hardly met recently, held brief talks on Monday and held a cabinet meeting on Thursday, the first in a month.
Odinga accused Kibaki of stealing the presidential election, prompting protests that spiralled into a cycle of tribal violence and killed around 1,500 people.
Source: AFP, May 8, 2008

A Kenyan fan of English football club Arsenal has hanged himself after his team’s defeat by Manchester United.
The north London club was beaten 3-1 in the European Champions League semi-final second leg on Tuesday evening.
Suleiman Omondi, 29, who was watching in a bar in the capital, Nairobi, was incensed by the club’s poor showing.
He left at half-time after arguing with a Manchester United fan and was found hanging from a rope in his house, still dressed in an Arsenal shirt.
The BBC’s Josphat Makori in Nairobi says the unprecedented incident has shocked football fans in Kenya.
According to his friends, Mr Omondi was in good spirits at the beginning of the match and even when Arsenal conceded the first goal, he did not seem to be affected.

But things changed when the team conceded a second goal 11 minutes into the game.
A woman, who sat next to him in the bar, said Mr Omondi was so disappointed by Arsenal’s poor performance that he broke down during half-time.
Another eyewitness told journalists that it was at this point that a Manchester United fan started taunting him.
“Suleiman got hold of him angrily by the neck and started pressing him so hard,” he said.
“We quickly intervened and asked him to stop. Suleiman then stopped but he was so angry that he left in a rage.”
His body was found on Wednesday morning.
Police officer David Bunei told the BBC the incident was being investigated.

Source: BBC news online May 6, 2009

Thousands of people have thronged the streets of the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown, to see one of the country’s shortest people get married.
Masire Kamara is well known in the city where she sells tea in a market.
When word spread that she was getting wed, many people did not believe it was true and went to see for themselves.
Street parties were held in the happy couple’s honour. The event was covered live on state television and was on the front page of many newspapers.
Thousands packed the church and hundreds more climbed onto rooftops to see Sierra Leone’s celebrity wedding – the local equivalent of David and Victoria Beckham.

When it came to the first kiss, Ms Kamara had to stand on a chair to reach.
She is a Christian but her husband, Mohammed Basiru Alghali, is a Muslim so another ceremony was held in a mosque.
Their motorcade was mobbed by people trying to shake their hands, as they drove through town to a reception at a community centre.
Several MPs and a former Freetown mayor also attended the event.
One of Sierra Leone’s best known celebrity journalists told the BBC: “I have been a show-business reporter for six years and I have never seen such a turn-out before.”
Ms Kamara said they met when her future husband called out to her on the street.
“I was not sure of his intentions, since we looked so different,” she said.
“He told me he loved me… A few months later, he proposed to marry me and of course I accepted,” she said.
Source: BBC news online. May 1, 2009

Women’s activist groups in Kenya have slapped their partners with a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting plaguing the national unity government.
The Women’s Development Organisation coalition said they would also pay prostitutes to join their strike.
The campaigners are asking the wives of the Kenyan president and the prime minister to join in the embargo.
They say they want to avoid a repeat of the violence which convulsed the country after the late-2007 elections.
Relations between Kenya’s coalition partners, led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, have become increasingly acrimonious.
Now the dispute has moved to the nation’s bedrooms.
Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

She said the campaign would start from her bedroom and that emissaries had been sent to the two leaders’ wives, Ida Odinga and Lucy Kibaki, urging them to join in and lead from the front.
“Even commercial sex workers should join in the campaign which is so vital to the country,” Mrs Nyaundi told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
“Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: ‘Darling can you do something for Kenya?’”

Source: BBC news online, April 29, 2009