President Jacob Zuma has defended China’s surging investment in Africa, telling an audience at Beijing’s Renmin University that China was making an important contribution to the development of the continent.
“We are still at an early stage of what will be an exciting journey, a journey out of poverty, a journey to sustainable improvements in the lives of our people, here in China, and on the African continent,” President Zuma said on Wednesday, the second day of his state visit to the country.
Zuma’s comments come as the debate over China’s role in Africa continues to rage. Critics have raised concerns about China’s support for countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, as well as its questionable worker safety rules.
“Chinese assistance in infrastructure development in some of the less developed parts of Africa is certainly making an important contribution to future African development,” Zuma said.
African countries remain an attractive destination for Chinese investment funds, though Africa is looking for China to expand its investments beyond mining and resources.
South Africa, for its part, is looking to the world’s second-largest economy to increase its investment in the country. South Africa is strategic for China in that it is Africa’s largest and most advanced economy.
South African President Jacob Zuma and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed the Beijing Declaration, outlining 38 cooperation agreements, following their one-hour talks in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday.
And on the same day, Chinese and South African companies signed more than a dozen agreements covering investments in railways, power transmission, construction, mining, insurance, telecoms and nuclear power.
Zuma is being accompanied on his trip by over 370 representatives from the business community, the largest ever contingent from South Africa to visit China.
Africa Day is the annual commemoration on May 25 of the 1963 founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). On this day, leaders of 30 of the 32 independent African states signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 1991, the OAU established the African Economic Community (AEC), and in 2002 the OAU established its own successor, the African Union (AU or UA). However, the name and date of Africa Day has been retained as a celebration of African unity.
With the excitement back home building around the 2010 World Cup, this is indeed Africa’s YEAR!
The 2010 FIFA World Cup is but mere days away but alas, Howzit-HongKong.com can confirm that we will miss out on Afrika’s grandest gathering.
That said, we will continue to do what we do best, get YOU to go and experience the warmth and love that only our homeland can give.
HongKongers LOVE football, however you have to experience the heart and soul of the sport; that there is more to the game than just to win or lose a fistfull of dollars at your nearest HK Jockey Club outlet.
Go to Afrika in June 2010. You will find it there.
Every great event needs a good soundtrack. Come June 2010, when we sit in front of our tv screen here in Hong Kong, sipping our Nederburg Twenty10 Cabernet Sauvignon to balance out the sweetness of our favourite char siu bao, all the time watching the world visiting South Africa, this will be our soundtrack to the 2010 FIFA World Cup!
Welcome to my home and…
Feel Afrika.
Mike Jansen
“We came, We saw, We tried!” Cheers Akon for the Video: Oh Africa
Nederburg’s Twenty10 range is available at your nearest Park ‘n Shop.
South African readers, please click on the banner below to support Howzit! (only a click needed)
The Hong Kong Sevens is almost upon us and with the Springbok Sevens coach Paul Treu having declared his mission to capture the Cup for the first time ever, it’s time to polish our knowledge of the South African National Anthem.
I noticed at the previous Cup Finals, notably the New Zealand and USA Sevens, that the anthems of the finalists were not played. I could be wrong, but as far as I remember, the anthem of the Cup finalists are still played here in Hong Kong. OK, Maybe I visited the sponsor’s brew bar too many times in previous years! Cheers to that Guinness!
So, mense, to prepare you for the Hong Kong Sevens Cup Final 2010, where South Africa will play …..? here’s a little tutorial to help you sing you South African National Anthem uit volle bors (like we say in Afrikaans!):
(The Afrikaans translation is within brackets, for the English translation, refer to the YouTube video below)
[Xhosa]
Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika
(Here, seën Afrika)
Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo,
(Mag haar gees opstyg)
[Zoeloe]
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
(Hoor ons gebede aan)
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.
(Here, seën ons, u kinders.)
[Sesotho]
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
(Here, beskerm ons nasie)
O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeho,
(Verban oorloë en twis)
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso, Setjhaba sa South Afrika – South Afrika!
(Beskerm ons, beskerm ons nasie, Suid-Afrika)
[Afrikaans]
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
(English)
Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.
Daar het jy dit nou!
The full rendition will be done just before the Cup Final of the 2010 Cathay Pacific/Credit Suiise Hong Kong Sevens.
As I am typing this, I am listening to the local Cape Town radio stations reporting on the vibe in Cape Town ahead of the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup (Football World Cup for the rest of you) Official Draw taking place at the city’s International Convention Centre (CTICC).
The World Cup will resonate to a distinctly African beat for the first time here on Friday when the final draw is made for next year’s sporting spectacular.
Eighty years and 18 tournaments since the first World Cup was held in Uruguay, when only 13 teams took part, none of them African, an African nation will host the event for the first time with 32 countries vying for the biggest prize in sport.
Commenting on the significance of the occasion, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said: “This is a very important event for football and Africa as the Final Draw comes to Cape Town where an unprecedented six teams from the host continent will be represented.
“We expect a record global audience which I hope will be glued to their screens for the duration of the show.”
That show has taken a year of preparations to put together and includes performances by Grammy award-winners Soweto Gospel Choir, Beninese singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo and one of South Africa’s favourite solo musicians Johnny Clegg.
The grand finale will feature 80 artists including the internationally acclaimed musical ensemble Africa Umoja.
African beats will echo throughout the show which will reach a fitting climax at the moment when the 32 teams discover who they will be playing and when during the June 11-July 11 tournament.
The guest presenter to assist FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke make the draw at the Cape Town International Convention Centre will be South Africa’s Academy Award winner Charlize Theron.
South Africa’s Hollywood actress, Charlize Theron will assist in the FIFA Draw
They will be joined on stage by a line-up of sports celebrities, including football star David Beckham, who is hugely popular in South Africa, marathon champion Haile Gebrselassie, the first black player in the South African cricket team Makhaya Ntini and John Smit, the captain of rugby world champions South Africa.
Among dignitories attending will be South African President Jacob Zuma, Nobel Peace Prize winners FW. de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as former football icons such as Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Eusebio and Roger Milla.
Former president Nelson Mandela, who played a leading role in winning South Africa the right to host the World Cup seven years ago, will address the audience by video message.
And then there will be most of the 32 coaches of the qualified teams eager to learn what their opposition will be in six months time when the action gets underway in the month-long showpiece.
The draw itself sees the 32 teams divided into four pots of eight from which the eight groups that will contest the first round will be drawn.
The first pot will consist of hosts South Africa, and the seven top-ranking world teams – holders Italy, five-times winners Brazil, former champions Argentina, Germany and England and two teams yet to hoist the World Cup in Spain and the Netherlands.
Pot 2 will have the four Asian qualifiers, the three from North and Central America and rank outsiders New Zealand representing Oceania.
Pot 3 sees the remaining five African sides grouped with the remaining three South American, while the final pot consists of the remaining European qualifiers.
Among the latter will be 1998 champions France and semi-finalists four years ago Portugal, and where they end up will likely go a long way to designating the inevitable Group of Death.
It will all take 90 minutes and when it is over the talking will begin and is unlikely to stop until South Africa fittingly plays the opening game of the first World Cup on African soil in Johannesburg on June 11.
Today is Heritage Day in South Africa. Wikipedia defines it as follows:
Heritage Day, September 24, is a Public Holiday on which South Africans across the spectrum are encouraged to celebrate their cultural heritage and the diversity of their beliefs and traditions, in the wider context of a nation that belongs to all its people.
Here in my apartment in Hong Kong, as things go in Asia, my kids are swamped daily with studies and other school-related issues. However, as it is Heritage Day, I had them finish their homework early and right now, they are enjoying the David Kramer DVD called SongBook.
You may remember that David was part of the most dynamic and internationally recognised duo of David Kramer & Taliep Petersen. Together they produced the much-acclaimed musicals District Six and Ghoema, to name only two.
On a recent trip home, this DVD became one of my most cherished purchases. As a committed follower of Cape Town music (especially the unique genres known as Cape Jazz and Ghoema) it is one of a set of treasured items also because it helps me to explain to my kids, who basically grew up in Asia, where their forefathers came from what our culture is all about.
If you know anything about the Kramer/Petersen musicals, you will remember that it talks, through the music, about the people who arrived at the Dutch halfway station (as Cape Town was known back in the days) from as far afield as Malaysia/Java, Madagascar, Batavia, India and yes… even China. They know about these places because of the songs in the musical. In this unique way, SongBook is aiding the Missus and I to explain to our 2 little ones our equally unique cultural issues in a clearer and more fun way. What makes this task all the more easy is the fact that our kids naturally took to this kind of music like ducks to water. It is, after all… in their genes! Right now my 9-year old son is spraying furniture polish on the lounge tiles so that he “can jive better!” (his words, not mine)
On this Heritage Day, I can just say thank you to David Kramer and (even after your sad passing) Shukran to Taliep Petersen. Not only for making my job as an expatriate father so much easier, but also for what you have done to keep the Cape Town and by extension, the South African culture alive.
The Scatterlings of Africa Ten-a-side rugby team made their debut at the GFI HKFC Tens in driving rain this morning. The team was clad in a unique leopard-skin print rugby jersey with a red African-continent motif on the chest.
Scatterlings of Africa warming up in drivng rain (Bob Skinstad in No.2)
Scatterlings of Africa is led by former Springbok captain Bob Skinstad who last played competitive rugby in the SAR during the 1997 Sevens Rugby World Cup, when the Springboks lost to Fiji in a thrilling Cup Final.
In a hard-fought game against the HK Football Club (HKFC) the wet conditions prevented the game from being the spectacle of running rugby that everyone expected, and the South African unfortunately went to 7-5 to the local side.
Bobby Skinstad will be the guest speaker at the SA Association in Hong Kong Sevens Dinner tonight where the Association of expatriates will officially welcome the SA Sevens team to Hong Kong.
Rugby World Cup winner Bobby Skinstad will lead a strong South African challenge at this year’s GFI HKFC Tens. The Springboks icon is part of a new team, Scatterlings of Africa, who will attempt to end New Zealand’s eight-year winning streak at the popular Hong Kong tournament.
Springboks icon Bobby Skinstad will play for the newly formed Scatterlings of Africa in the GFI HKFC Tens at Hong Kong Football Club on March 25-26, 2009. (GFI HKFC Tens)
”All the boys have played at a high level,” revealed team organiser and player Rorke Slater. “We have guys who have represented their provinces and played Super 14, plus of course Bob, who captained the Springboks and has won a World Cup. ”We cannot wait to get to Hong Kong. Most of the guys haven’t been there before so we’re looking forward to seeing such a great city and hopefully playing some top rugby.”
Back rower Skinstad played 42 tests for South Africa, including 12 as captain, and was a member of the victorious Springboks squad at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Scatterlings of Africa – named after a song by South Africa’s most famous musician, Johnny Clegg – are mainly Durban-based but will also feature three players from Cape Town and a trio of players based in Hong Kong. “We are an independent side made up of friends, so we are not linked to one particular club,” explained Slater.
Since Fiji’s Magicians triumphed at the Tens in 2000, teams from New Zealand have won the past eight editions of the tournament. The 2009 GFI HKFC Tens will be held at Hong Kong Football Club in Happy Valley from March 25-26. Sixteen club and invitational teams from around the world will compete for four trophies – the Cup, Plate, Bowl and Shield. The Tens was first held in 1986 to celebrate HKFC’s centenary and is now firmly established as a highlight of the Asian rugby calendar.
Tens organising committee chairman Paul Smith predicted another high quality tournament. “We’re delighted to welcome three new teams this year and it will be particularly interesting to see the South African challenge to New Zealand’s supremacy,” he said.
”The tournament has attracted some truly exceptional players in recent years, including Jonah Lomu, Joe Roff, Toutai Kefu and Neil Jenkins, so it’s great news for rugby fans that Bobby Skinstad will be appearing this year. ”The Tens has developed a reputation as the best ten-a-side rugby tournament in the world and we are all looking forward to what promises to be another two days of fantastic rugby.”
The tournament is once again title sponsored by global cash and derivatives broker GFI. Organisers have also confirmed that Skinstad will be making an earlier visit to Hong Kong as guest speaker at the Tens Dinner, to be held at Football Club on Saturday, March 7. The Springboks great has developed a reputation as a livewire after-dinner speaker and is sure to keep guests entertained with stories from his stellar career.
Australian TV sports anchor Toby Lawson will be the MC while the evening will also include a live interactive quiz and an auction of unique memorabilia.
