SAfrica: Thieves stage heist after Bieber concert

May 13 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $5,849,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,388,064 3. Kevin Streelman $2,572,989 4. Billy Horschel $2,567,891 5. Matt Kuchar $2,493,387 6. Phil Mickelson $2,220,280 7. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,207,683 8. D.A. Points $2,019,702 9. Steve Stricker $1,977,140 10. Graeme McDowell $1,910,654 11. Jason Day $1,802,797 12. Webb Simpson $1,759,015 13. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 14. Hunter Mahan $1,682,939 15. Charles Howell III $1,561,988 16. Russell Henley $1,546,638 17. Martin Laird $1,531,950 18. ...

View the original article here

SAfrica: Balloonist flies from old Mandela jail

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A man has strapped himself to large balloons filled with helium and floated from the island where Nelson Mandela was kept prisoner to the shores of the South African mainland.

The goal of Saturday's trip from Robben Island was to help raise money for the building of a children's hospital that will carry the name of the 94-year-old former president and anti-apartheid leader. Mandela was discharged Saturday from a hospital after treatment for pneumonia.

Balloonist Matt Silver-Vallance, a South African-born manager at a medical device company, dropped a rope near the coastline and a sea rescue craft pulled him to safety.

He had hoped to raise $1 million for the hospital, but organizers of the charity event have not yet announced the final tally.

View the original article here

SAfrica: Balloonist to fly from old Mandela jail

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The power of ideas nourished Nelson Mandela during his confinement on Robben Island, but even this visionary might not have imagined the surreal scene planned for this month at the outpost where he spent 18 of 27 years as a prisoner of apartheid.

Wind speed and direction permitting, a man in a harness will strap himself to 200 big balloons filled with helium, float off the island beneath a bulging latex column of color, and drift to the shores of Cape Town for a charitable cause.

There are a few things he wants to avoid: an international airport, a major harbor, a nuclear power station, and the odd shark in the waters below.

"Apart from all those hazards, there's nothing to worry about," said Matt Silver-Vallance, a South African-born manager at a medical device company who will pilot the whimsical craft.

Civil aviation authorities say they are satisfied with safeguards for what should be a lazy meander in the breeze rather than an edge-of-your-seat stunt.

The goal of the trip is to raise $1 million to help build a children's hospital named after 94-year-old Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president in democratic elections in 1994 after negotiating an end to white racist rule.

Mandela was admitted last week to a Pretoria hospital because of a recurrence of pneumonia, prompting expressions of concern from South Africans and people around the world. On Monday, the office of President Jacob Zuma said family members visited Mandela at the hospital.

"It refocuses everybody on his legacy," Silver-Vallance, who lives in Britain, said Tuesday of Mandela's illness. Referring to the former leader, he said: "You think about all the contributions that a person makes in their life, but also beyond their life as an example to others."

The guardians of Robben Island, a somber site, concluded that the cluster balloon flight, while quirky, was consistent with the spirit of daring and altruism that Mandela personified in the struggle against apartheid.

"This is something that we can identify with," said Shoni Khangala, director of communications and marketing for the Robben Island Museum. He said it was important to celebrate that spirit "without necessarily shedding tears all the time."

The planned voyage, estimated to take about an hour, is a form of flight known as cluster-ballooning. The hobby is expensive and eccentric. As a spectacle, a spur to the imagination, it's up there in the clouds.

"There isn't a kid that hasn't wondered: 'How many of these do I need to make me fly?'" said Mike Howard, an airline pilot in Dubai and cluster-balloonist who is advising Silver-Vallance. "When you see someone doing it, it's one of those dreams you had as a child, and now you see it in reality."

Cluster-ballooning got a boost in in popular culture with the 2009 computer-animated movie "Up," featuring an elderly man who ties lots of balloons to his house and flies off with a young stowaway on board.

Pilots in two motorized paragliders will accompany Silver-Vallance, as will four boats, including one from the South African navy that will transport media and other guests.

He will only fly in gentle winds and stay low at 180 meters (600 feet), below the height of more conventional aircraft. He will carry radio equipment and a long rope that he can toss to his beach crew if he loses control while landing.

Silver-Vallance, 36, can climb in altitude by ejecting waterbags that serve as ballast, and reduce elevation by shooting out balloons with an air pistol, or stabbing them with scissors or a blade fixed to a bamboo stick.

He'll aim to fly sometime between this weekend and April 27, deemed the most cooperative time of the year for wind currents, and travel at least 9 kilometers (5.6 miles), which is the shortest distance between the island and the mainland.

Mandela described in a memoir how he and other comrades were transferred to Robben Island in the 1960s and subjected to hard labor and other tough conditions. Today, visitors tour the cramped cells, the exercise yard and the quarry where inmates toiled.

"Moving from one prison to another always requires a period of adjustment," Mandela wrote. "But journeying to Robben Island was like going to another country. Its isolation made it not simply another prison, but a world of its own, far removed from the one we had come from."

Silver-Vallance's escapade adds to the lore of an island that served as a prison under Dutch settlers in the 17th century. At that time, a jailed local leader escaped to the mainland. In 1819, a Xhosa chief who opposed colonial rule drowned after trying to escape.

Lepers also stayed on the island and one group built a boat to flee but authorities discovered and destroyed it, according to Khangala, the spokesman at the island museum.

Vuyo Lutseke, spokeswoman for the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital, said one-quarter of $110 million needed to build the hospital in Johannesburg has been raised and that organizers hope to start construction around Mandela's July 18 birthday.

"We're very optimistic, but we also understand that we need the larger global community to come on board and help us in raising this money," said Lutseke, who welcomed what she described as Silver-Vallance's "crazy" stunt. The balloonist is raising money through online donations, and the independent trust running the hospital project will decide how best to spend the funds.

Mandela, who last made a public appearance in 2010, was known for a lively sense of humor during his career.

"He seemed to be the kind of individual who was able to mix humor with the serious nature of everything that he was doing," Silver-Vallance said. "We all hope, if he sees this story, that it will bring a smile to his face."

---

Robben Island Balloon Run: http://www.balloonrun.com/

View the original article here

SAfrica: Mandela responds positively to treatment

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's presidency says 94-year-old Nelson Mandela is responding positively to hospital treatment for a recurring lung infection.

The office of President Jacob Zuma also said in a statement Thursday that the former president and anti-apartheid leader remains under observation.

Mandela was admitted late Wednesday to a hospital in Pretoria, the South African capital.

Mandela contracted tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment for fighting white racist rule in South Africa. He has repeatedly had lung problems.

View the original article here

SAfrica: Mandela in hospital with lung infection

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa's first black president, has been hit by a lung infection again and is in a hospital, the presidency said Thursday.

Mandela, 94, has become increasingly frail in recent years and has been hospitalized several times in recent months, including earlier this month when he underwent what authorities said was a scheduled medical test. The Nobel laureate is a revered figure in South Africa, which has honored his legacy of reconciliation by naming buildings and other places after him and printing his image on national banknotes.

"I'm so sorry. I'm sad," said Obed Mokwana, a Johannesburg resident. "I just try to pray all the time. He must come very strong again."

The Nobel laureate was admitted to a hospital just before midnight Wednesday "due to the recurrence of his lung infection," the office of President Jacob Zuma said in a statement.

Mandela contracted tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment for fighting white racist rule in South Africa. He has repeatedly had lung problems.

"Doctors are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort," the statement from the presidency said. It appealed "for understanding and privacy in order to allow space to the doctors to do their work."

Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj, referring to Mandela by his clan name "Madiba," said the trip to a hospital in the South African capital of Pretoria was not for previously scheduled treatment.

"No, this wasn't scheduled, as you will appreciate the doctors do work with a great sense of caution when they are treating Madiba and take into account his age," he said. "And so when they found that this lung infection had reoccurred they decided to have him immediately hospitalized so that he can receive the best treatment."

In December, Mandela spent three weeks in a hospital in Pretoria, where he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones.

Maharaj acknowledged there was cause for worry, but said the medical specialists treating Mandela were very competent.

"With Madiba and a person of his age there always has to be concern and therefore the doctors, I think we need to appreciate, will prefer to work on the side of caution rather than taking any risks," he said from the coastal city of Durban.

He said there had been a global outpouring of messages expressing concern for Mandela's health.

Zuma wished Mandela a speedy recovery.

"We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts. We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery," the presidential statement quoted Zuma as saying.

Mandela spent a night in a hospital and was released on March 10 following a medical test. At that time, spokesman Maharaj said Mandela was "well."

In February 2012, Mandela spent a night in a hospital for minor diagnostic surgery to determine the cause of an abdominal complaint. In January 2011, he was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection. He was discharged days later.

He also had surgery for an enlarged prostate gland in 1985.

Under South Africa's white-minority apartheid regime, Mandela served 27 years in prison, where he contracted tuberculosis, before being released in 1990. He later became the nation's first democratically elected president in 1994 under the banner of the African National Congress, helping to negotiate a relatively peaceful end to apartheid despite fears of much greater bloodshed. He served one five-year term as president before retiring.

Perceived successes during Mandela's tenure include the introduction of a constitution with robust protections for individual rights and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel that heard testimony about apartheid-era violations of human rights as a kind of national therapy session. South Africa still struggles with crime, economic inequality and other social ills.

Mandela last made a public appearance on a major stage when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament.

He had spent more time in the rural village of Qunu in Eastern Cape province, where he grew up. He was visited there in August by Hillary Clinton, who was U.S. secretary of state at the time.

Doctors said in December that he should remain at his home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton for the time being to be close to medical facilities that can provide the care he needs.

___

APTN Senior Producer Ed Brown contributed to this report from Durban, South Africa.

View the original article here

S.Africa: Nigerian 2010 bomb suspect gets 24 years

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African court sentenced a Nigerian to 24 years in prison on Tuesday after finding him guilty of masterminding twin car bombings in Nigeria.

Henry Okah was found guilty in January for the October 2010 bombing in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, that killed at least 12 people and wounded three dozen during a celebration to mark the country's 50 years of independence.

The South African Press Association reported that Judge Neels Claassen of the High Court in Johannesburg announced Okah's jail sentence, which includes 12 years in prison for each bombing and 13 years for threats made to the South African government after his October 2010 arrest. The 13 years will be served concurrently with the 24 years.

Okah was a leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, which claimed responsibility for the blasts.

The group accused Nigeria's government of failing to alleviate poverty in the delta, even though it earns billions of dollars from the region's oil. In 2006, militants from groups like MEND started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces.

When Okah was convicted, Judge Claassen had said the state had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and the Nigerian's failure to testify meant the evidence was uncontested. Okah was found guilty on 13 counts of terrorism.

Okah, who had been living in South Africa, said the case against him was politically motivated.

In 2008, he was arrested in Angola and extradited to Nigeria, where he was accused of treason and terrorism and linked to a gunrunning scandal involving high-ranking military officials. His arrest and trial sparked an escalation in MEND attacks.

That violence ebbed in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and scattered kidnappings and attacks continue. And MEND itself, once a powerful, media-friendly militant group in the region, has seen its influence wane since the amnesty.

Charges against Okah were dropped and he was freed in July 2009 as part of an amnesty program.

MEND had issued statements threatening to attack South African interests in Nigeria because of Okah's prosecution in South Africa.

View the original article here

'Chinese Girl' painting coming home to SAfrica

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Bonhams auction house says Vladimir Tretchikoff's iconic "Chinese Girl" painting is coming home to South Africa after some 60 years in a private Chicago home.

The picture of the beauty with a green-hued skin and ruby-red lips, said to be one of the most reproduced in the world, sold for 982,050 British pounds — double the expected price — at a Bonhams London auction Wednesday. Bonhams says it is the highest price paid for a Tretchikoff or any work by a South African artist.

Diamond jewelry magnate Laurence Graff bought the painting and will display it at the Delaire Graff wine and luxury lodges estate in the Cape winelands.

Tretchikoff was inspired by a Cape Town launderette worker and sold the painting while touring the United States in the 1950s.

View the original article here

High-tech search for snake in SAfrica capital

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Pretoria Zoo says it's turning to technology with infra-red cameras to search for a two-meter-long (6.5-foot-long) black mamba snake that escaped from its enclosure a week ago.

Marketing manager Craig Allenby of the zoo in South Africa's capital said Thursday the missing snake probably is in the roof of a service building behind its terrarium. That has not stopped fearful callers to radio talk shows discussing the nearly always fatal results of a bite from one of the world's fastest and most venomous snakes.

Zookeepers realized last week that the mamba's enclosure was empty. They have been unable to search the roof area where they suspect it is preparing to hibernate.

The cameras to be used detect infra-red radiation emitted by bodies and objects, even cold-blooded reptiles.

View the original article here

SAfrica audit: $2.8 billion lost from provinces

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African trade unions say they are shocked at the disappearance of 24.8 billion rand ($2.75 billion) from provincial governments which a prominent research group says could pay the president's salary at current rates for 9,000 years.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions says it is "absolutely outrageous" that such an amount has gone missing in a country with such massive poverty levels.

The Institute of Race Relations says the money could have built 460,000 low-cost homes to house a quarter of the population living in shanties or 400 new schools.

The auditor general reported last week that the money had "disappeared" in "irregular, fruitless and wasteful spending." His reports annually record other billions of dollars in state funds lost in corruption by local councils and the national government.

View the original article here

SAfrica police boss endorses officers in killings

MARIKANA, South Africa (AP) — South Africa's police chief said Tuesday she stands by her statement praising officers involved in the shooting massacre of 34 striking miners and insisting they were "just doing your work."

Evidence before the judicial commission questioning her Tuesday has indicated some miners were shot in the back as they tried to flee and others were killed when they already were wounded and no threat.

Gen. Riah Phiyega said "I stand by statement." She repeated that after a commissioner asked her if she might feel differently given other evidence that has come to light.

Police said they opened fire after striking miners attacked them. No police were hurt in the Aug. 16 incident at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, northwest of Johannesburg, that shocked the nation with its echoes of police brutality under apartheid. It was the worst state violence since that system of white minority rule ended in 1994.

Phiyega, who had been newly appointed, stuck to her story even after evidence leader Mbuyiseli Madlanga read testimony from a police officer who said that he was searching for other suspects when he heard a gunshot from behind, where he had left a group of wounded miners. He said he turned to see a constable putting a revolver back in its holster and, when he asked what was going on, the constable said: "They deserve to die."

Photographic evidence presented to the commission in November showed police may have altered the scene of the killings and planted weapons after they shot 112 miners, killing 34.

Photographs taken by police at night show more weapons by the dead bodies than there were in news photographs taken immediately after the violence.

Video evidence shown to the commission has also indicated that some of the slain miners were handcuffed.

Thousands of miners had been striking for six weeks in Marikana to demand more money. Twelve people had been killed before Aug. 16, including two police officers, in violence blamed on rivalry between two unions, including the government-allied National Union of Mineworkers. The day after the shootings, Phiyega told a gathering of officers, "I want to thank you once more for doing what you did ... All we did was our job, and to do it in the manner in which you were trained. ... Don't feel you are being persecuted as police — you were doing your work."

View the original article here

SAfrica: apartheid hit squad leader dies

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African hospital says a former commander of an apartheid-era police unit that killed black activists has died of kidney failure.

Dirk Coetzee died Wednesday, said Ineke Jonker, spokeswoman for the Life Wilgers Hospital in Pretoria. He was 57.

Coetzee fled South Africa and switched his allegiance to the anti-apartheid African National Congress in 1989 after confessing he had belonged to a covert group known as Vlakplaas that murdered ANC members.

He returned in 1993 and was a witness at the trial of former police Col. Eugene de Kock, the highest-ranking police official convicted of crimes during the white minority rule that ended with democratic elections in 1994.

Coetzee was granted amnesty in 1997 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel that heard testimony about human rights violations under apartheid.

View the original article here