"South African white extremist plotters sentenced" by Carley Petesch | Associated Press, October 30, 2013
JOHANNESBURG — White extremists who set off a series of bombs and plotted to overthrow the South African government and kill Nelson Mandela were given jail terms Tuesday, ending the first major treason trial under postapartheid laws....
Who gets the money when he goes?
Members of the Afrikaner extremist group Boeremag, or White Farmer Force, were convicted of treason last year for a plot, in the late 1990s and early 2000, to violently overthrow South Africa’s government. The African National Congress formed the government when Mandela was elected to office in 1994 to bring an end to white minority rule.
Related: Sunday Globe Specials: Batch of Obituaries
Hey, when governments do it there is no problem.
Some members were also convicted of culpable homicide and conspiring to murder for a thwarted plan to kill Mandela. The group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that killed a woman and caused damage throughout the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2002.
Judge Eben Jordaan handed out the sentences in Pretoria to end the decade-long trial, which has cost the country millions. Most sentences were suspended by 10 years and due to time served since around 2002, nine of the defendants will go home Wednesday, said National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Medupe Simasiku.
‘‘For those that are going free, it’s not really freedom because they will serve their sentences at home,’’ he said.
Simasiku said the trial will set a major precedent.
‘‘This is our first major case that involves terrorism and treason under the new democratic dispensation,’’ he said, meaning the laws of post-apartheid South Africa.
--more--"
"Nearly 100 migrants die in Sahara" by Krista Larson and Rukmini Callimachi | Associated Press, November 01, 2013
DAKAR, Senegal — Nearly 100 African migrants hoping to escape crushing poverty met a grisly end in the desert, officials said Thursday, dying of thirst under the baking sun after their two trucks broke down in the middle of the Sahara before reaching Algeria.
It took weeks for authorities to learn of the tragedy and for teams to reach the site, where they found a gruesome scene including the remains of 52 children and 33 women.
‘‘It was horrific. We found badly decomposing bodies and others that had been eaten by jackals,’’ said Almoustapha Alhacen, the head of a nonprofit organization in northern Niger that helped bury the bodies and who was at the site Wednesday. ‘‘We found the bodies of small children who were huddled beside their dead mothers.’’
The victims were spread across a 12-mile radius, suggesting they had set off on foot but failed to head in the direction of the Algerian border just 6 miles away, he added.
The tragedy is the latest to shed light on the perils of illegal migration. In early October, at least 365 migrants drowned when a boat capsized near the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than to the European mainland.
Related: Ship Full of Immigrants Sinks Near Sicily
Also see:
Migrating Across Europe
Slow Saturday Special: Greece's Gypsy Migrants
Slow Saturday Special: Girl Found in Greece From Bulgaria
The little white blonde girl got a lot more coverage than these black migrants.
The migrants in Niger had begun their journey late last month in two trucks and were being smuggled along a well-established trafficking route to neighboring Algeria, said Colonel Garba Makido, the governor of Niger’s Agadez province.
And yet no one came along after to possibly help or give assistance?
--more--"
