We’re back with the round up that causes minor sensations and draws this blog closer (or farther) to (or from) its continental and intercontinental counterparts. It’s been a long, drawn out, heavy summer that once again threatened to shoot blogs and blogging into oblivion as most people preferred the cool of the sea to the corner of the comment box. The summer has not exactly been soporific, even in political terms, given the good old border dispute and immigrant landing here and there. Thankfully – barring a beleagured barge or two – eight o’clock news drama was avoided by those enamoured with pyrotechnics and general games of fire. But here we are… back with a bang, cushioned in the Duchy of Bad Weather and ready to aim our pointed keyboard at whatever most tickles our fancy. Let the ticker tape resume its roll…
Whipping the Mores
In Sudan, former UN employee Lubna Hussein battles on in an effort to expose the failure of the Sudanese system to protect her fundamental human rights. The universality of such rights has found another testing point in the heat of the historic city of Kharthoum. You can tell the discomfort of the magistrates judging her case with the eyes of the world turn upon them. The verdict of 40 public lashes was switched to a $200 dollar fine. Yet Hussein is not fighting to have a reduction in penalty. She believes that every woman should have the right to wear loose trousers. So right now Lubna Hussein is in jail for having refused to pay the fine. And the Sudanese legal system is in a quandary.
Destination Johannesburg
Elsewhere in historic Africa, Accra to be exact, scenes of jubilation greeted Ghana’s second consecutive qualification to the World Cup finals. The motor behind the Ghanaian machine is its wonderful trio of midfielders Muntari-Essien-Appiah with the latter surprisingly in the picture notwithstanding the fact that he has been two years without a professional contract. Unfortunately Appiah left a mountain of personal debts wherever he played and will return to countries such as Germany or Italy with great difficulty. Across the Atlantic Brasil trounced an angry Argentinian team by three goals to one in a heated affair in Rosario. The verdeoro became the first South American team to qualify for next year’s edition – and might not be relishing a rematch with the tough Ghanian team who they had knocked out in the previous edition’s quarter finals.
Victory Day
They tell me that in Isla they put up a statue representing Malta during the feast of our Lady of Victories which celebrates a number of events when the divine took sides in battles temporal and aided one side which believed it had God on its side defeat another which had an equal but opposite belief on its side. That Our Lady could prove to be so magnanimous with her devout sons and daughters in 1565 and 1943 is quite a credible feat. One wonders whether she could be equally tempted to intervene for this new batch of proto-christians should push come to shove in this battle with the new “invaders”.
Samoa turns Left
Or rather. Samoa has switched to driving on the left – becoming the first country since the 1970s to perform a major switch. From the BBC:
Samoa has become the first country since the 1970s to change the side of the road on which cars are driven. At 0600 local time (1700 GMT) sirens sounded and drivers were told to move from the right side to the left. Police said that no accidents had been reported in the first hours after the switch in the island nation despite predictions of chaos from critics.
That’s all I have time for right now… a bien tot!
