Lives of CAR fallen heroes were not dedicated to conflict or death-Premier Modise

The lives of the thirteen members of the South African National Defence Force who fell in battle in the Central African Republic were not dedicated to conflict or death but to compassion and life, North West Premier Thandi Modise said at the memorial service held in honour of Private Karabo Edwin Matsheka and Vusumzi in Mmabatho on Thursday.

Premier Modise in paying tribute to the soldiers hailed them as heroes who were committed to something greater than themselves and had mustered the physical and moral courage to accomplish extraordinary feats in battle.

Modise said that they were ordinary men who rose to meet seemingly impossible odds and did extraordinary things for the nation.

“These brave men left the safety and comfort of our land in making sure that peace is attained in the Central African Republic (CAR).We join the nation in saluting and honouring them for the supreme sacrifice they have paid for the achievement of Peace in the continent,” the Premier emphasised.

Modise said as a country we must always remember them and pay tribute to the stories of the heroes.

“We cannot return those who have gone, however we can and we will cherish the virtue of their sacrifice in thought and deed to educate our nation and our children in their spirit;

 to love with all our might our beloved South Africa, to take pride in it and work ceaselessly towards progress,” she added.

The Speaker of the Provincial Legislature, Supra Mahumapelo and Victor Tsie who represented the South African Military Veterans Association also hailed the fallen heroes as role models and gallant fighters.

Keresepe Moncho representing the two families conveyed the appreciation that the families are receiving from the South African Defence Force and North West provincial government which is also supporting the Matsheka and Ngaleka families to meet costs towards the funerals of the two heroes.

In recognition of 28-year- old Private Matsheka’s gallantry, Kgosi Jeff Montshioa of the Barolong Boo-Ratshidi Traditional Council has allocated a burial site at Maphacwe Cemetery reserved for Barolong Boo-Ratshidi Chiefs and the honour that his funeral service to commence at 7:00 am tomorrow will be held at the Tribal Kgotla.Private Ngaleka is to be also buried tomorrow in Khayelisha in the Western Cape. 

Nwest extends municipal traffic boundaries and hours of operations

Traffic law enforcement and visibility are to be enhanced with the extension of municipal traffic boundaries and introduction of 24 hour shift operations in Mahikeng, Rustenburg, Tlokwe, Matlosana and Madibeng Local Municipalities. This follows the resolution adopted by the North West Provincial Executive Council (Exco) this week.

Premier Thandi Modise has expressed confidence that back to back law enforcement operations between municipal and provincial traffic should reduce road accidents and fatalities on public roads in line with the National Rolling Enforcement Plan and the Decade of Action on Action for Road Safety Campaign.

The changes endorsed by Exco on Wednesday were necessitated by the growth of traffic in the municipalities and the need to support provincial traffic on certain municipal roads.

Municipal traffic had been confined to working within an 8kilometers radius as approved in the Gazette in 2010 which limited their operation especially in attending to incidents on some of their municipal roads which stretch beyond the radius.

Most traffic departments in municipalities have been working a shift of up to 10:00pm therefore leaving roads not policed beyond that time.

Research has proven that about 65% of road accidents in the province occur as from Thursday from 3:00pm to Sundays 10:00pm.    

A meeting of Parliament’s joint Standing Committee on Defence on Thursday was an internationally embarrassing disgrace, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said.

DA MP David Maynier said in a statement: “The fact is that today the committee was a national and international embarrassment.”

He claimed committee chairperson Jerome Maake had tried to make sure difficult questions about the deployment of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) troops to the Central African Republic (CAR) were suppressed.

“This was clearly an attempt by the ANC’s chief whip, Mathole Motshekga, who was also ominously present at the meeting, to politically manage the ‘CAR situation’ in Parliament.”  Maynier said the committee did not have the capacity to properly investigate the SANDF deployment to CAR.

On March 23, 13 South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded when Seleka rebel fighters attacked them near the CAR’s capital Bangui. Earlier, the Freedom Front Plus claimed an admission that South African troops were not prepared for attack in the CAR meant government had failed them.

“The acknowledgement by the Minister of Defence, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, that the national defence force had neither been prepared for or expected the rebels to attack them in the CAR, confirms that the government had failed the defence force,” FF Plus  MP Pieter Groenewald said in a statement.

“Through this, the Minister acknowledges that there was insufficient support and in particular insufficient information support for the troops in the CAR.” This was after Mapisa-Nqakula conceded South African troops were not prepared to deal with an attack in the CAR. She suggested there were questions about the military intelligence provided to soldiers on the front-line.

“We never deployed to the CAR to wage a battle. We never anticipated a battle.” Groenewald said there were serious questions to be asked about military intelligence’s capability.

“One of these is how the Minister and President Jacob Zuma were incorrectly advised before the decision was taken to send troops to the CAR. The information was clearly not accurate and military intelligence has to take the responsibility for this,” he said.

BAINGUI – The rebel leader who seized power in Central African Republic and proclaimed himself president accepted on Thursday a call by regional leaders to speed up a transition to democracy, but could stay in office, his information minister said.

Michel Djotodia led thousands of rebel fighters of the Seleka coalition into the riverside capital of the mineral-rich country on March 24, toppling President Francois Bozize.

CARLIFORNIA – Facebook Inc unveiled “Home” softwareon Thursday to place the world’s social network front and centre on Android users’ smartphones, a move that may divert users from Google Inc services and steal some of its rival’s momentum in the fast-growing mobile arena.

Its new family of apps will let users display mobile versions of their newsfeed and messages prominently on the home screens of a wide range of devices based on Google’s Android operating system, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters.

Shares in Facebook climbed 2 percent to $26.83 (17.6 pounds) in the afternoon. Google stock was off 1.5 percent at $793.81.

“Why do we need to go into those apps in the first place to see what’s going on with those we care about?” Zuckerberg told the hundreds of reporters and industry executives gathered at Facebook’s Menlo Park campus.

“We want to bring all this content to the front.”

Facebook executives showed a new “chatheads” messaging service and “coverfeed” — both of which dominate users’ home screens and continuously feed messages, photos, status updates and other content from Facebook’s network.

“Home” brings the competition between the two Web superpowers to the mobile front, which is becoming many consumers’ primary conduit to the Internet. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, and Google, the dominant Internet search engine, are locked in battle for Internet users’ time online and for advertising dollars.

For Facebook, bolstering its mobile presence is critical. Nearly 70 percent of Facebook members used mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to access its service at the end of 2012, and 157 million of Facebook’s roughly 1 billion users accessed the service solely on a mobile device.

The company has stepped up efforts to ensure that its revenue-generating ads can be viewed on mobile devices and Zuckerberg has said that the company’s engineers are now focused on creating “mobile-first experiences.”

Reports that Facebook was developing its own smartphone have sporadically appeared for years though Zuckerberg has shot them one down, saying that building a Facebook phone would be “the wrong strategy.”

With specialized software that adds a layer on top of Android, Facebook may get many of the benefits of having its own phone without the costs and risks of actually building a hardware device.