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A HAPPY CHRISTMAS day to you all. Here are the stories you need to know as you start your day.
1. #THE BIG DAY: Many of us are waking up and exchanging gifts this Christmas morning, but here’s what it’s like for some of the people who get up and head to work.
2. #TAOISEACH: Leo Varadkar has said his low point of 2018 was how the government handled the CervicalCheck scandal.
3. #MASSACHUSETTS: Actor Kevin Spacey has a date set in court for next month over charges of indecent assault against a teenager.
4. #HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: There are fears of a looming humanitarian crisis in Indonesia as supplies dwindle following the deadly tsunami.
5. #DONALD TRUMP: Video on social media is circulating of Donald Trump apparently asking a seven-year-old if they believed in Santa Claus – which is a strange thing to ask because of course he’s real.
6. #IN THE WATER: If you, like quite a few people, are planning a Christmas Day swim, here’s some advice on how to stay safe.
7. #SCRAMBLER: Gardaí who pursue children on scrambler bikes may be ‘personally liable’ if an accident occurs.
8. #HE WAS HERE: Reports are flooding in all over the country saying that Santa Claus visited Irish boys and girls wherever they happened to be last night, as a flurry of present opening began from around 6am.
9. #WEATHER: Forget the snow, it’s set to be quite a mild Christmas Day according to Met Éireann.
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A man of such courage and strength, even after all he endured he had a smile that would light up the room. He is at peace now x
No need for that tracey…
A shame his legacy will be for nought.
South Africa is sliding down the toilet.
Earlier this year, the South African education system was ranked only above Yemen and Libya in the World Economic Forum list, which was topped by Switzerland.
Johannesburg is officially the most dangerous city in the world.
The highest level of HIV/AIDS in the world.
Sixty people murdered A DAY – a third of them racially motivated.
And earlier this year Archbishop Desmond Tutu publicly withdrew his support for the ANC as he said it had lost its values and goals and had become riddled with corruption.
The low quality of schooling is feeding an unemployment rate of almost 25%, the highest of more than 40 emerging markets tracked by Bloomberg.
About 3.3 million of the 10.4 million South Africans age 15 to 24 were not in employment, education or training in the third quarter, official statistics show.
Finally, if you have a few minutes, then this article in the Economist is worth reading.
It was so contentious in South Africa it prompted a public response from President Jacob Zuma who could only say: “This is not true”.
The same Zuma who is spending millions of dollars building new palaces for himself, while most of his people live in abject poverty.
What a country.
South Africa has so much potential, beautiful country rich in resources and some of the most enterprising people in the world. I hope that with Mandela’s death, the country takes stock of where it wants to go in the future…very sad loss for the people of their true spiritual leader. It is a basket case country right now but I do hope for it’s future.
A new FB page set up “Thank You Nelson Madela, RIP” https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thank-You-Nelson-Mandela-RIP/1449892501904660?fref=ts
So unbelievably tragic and none of the media is referencing the reality of South Africa today.
I agree, Declan. A very disturbing reality.
Is It true that many black South Africans are even stating that post-apartheid SA is worse then when apartheid was in SA?
An idea for a good tribute to Nelson Mandela’s legacy: commit to peace and reconciliation in our own lives and try not to think negatively about any person, institution or organisation, and to pursue forgiveness, peace and reconciliation in our own hearts, combined with looking forwards, not back – both in our personal and political lives. I guess if we all did that it would make a real difference…
Go back to bed if your tired
Miss Field — Mandela wasn’t sort sort of hippy pacifist; he engaged in armed struggle FFS!
“not to think negatively about any person, institution or organisation”
This would be a very silly way to live.
Mohammad wept, you are so right.
I am going to make it my life’s mission to show how benevolent and caring the world big 6 mega banks are, especially Goldman Sachs, the architects of world austerity.
I know a lot of you are “overwhelmed with emotion” but your fake sentimentality on here is vomit inducing
I’m just waiting for the next batch of pasty white Irish babies to be called Madiba, Nelson or Mandela.
One final word. Please DO NOT make that dreadful song “free Nelson Mandela” popular.again.
Your comment is vomit inducing
Robert — Your existence is vomit inducing.
How origional. What a clever little boy.
Robert your second name says it all!
Calling Irish babies pasty, is anti-white racism.
Spoken like a true marxist genocidalist maniac.
What is vomit inducing is that the same irish people that make racist comments about black in Ireland,are now screaming rip mandela,hypocrites
Do you think all black skinned people are the same.
Because that would be racist.
Your point being???
Comparing a statesman to a Nigerian scam artist because they have the same skin tone.
There’s a world of difference.
See?
Sorry mandela supported the regime of many scam artists,such as Charles Taylor,gaddafi to name a few,never compared him to a “Nigerian scam artist” you are just proving my point by bringing that irish attitude towards Nigerians to light,the new racism selecting which blacks to idolise go and learn about African history not the selective ones you were taught you moron,before mandela was imprisoned my grandfather a Nigerian was already negotiating independent talks with Britain
What?
You generalised a whole group of people as scam artists,very similar to what the white in South Africans were generalising the blacks same thing mandela preached against,you are a moron!
What’s your problem with morans?
RIP, Madiba. You were the father of your nation, and one of the last great freedom fighters left on the planet.
You do realise he blew up women and children
When was that Foxy? How many? Or have you actually read anything about his life?
In his autobiography ‘the long walk to Freedom’ he casually admits ‘signing off’ the 1983 Church Street bombing carried out by the ANC and killing 19 innocent people whilst injuring another 200.
It is true that Mandela approved that massacre and other ANC killings from his prison cell, and there is no evidence that he personally killed anyone but the same could be said about Stalin or Hitler, and the violent history of the ANC, the organisation he led is not in question.
According to the Human Rights Commission it is estimated that during the Apartheid period some 21,000 people were killed, however both the UN Crimes against Humanity commission and South Africa’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission are in agreement that in those 43 years the South African Security forces killed a total of 518 people.
The rest of the 20,482 , (some 92%) were accounted for by Africans killing Africans, many by means of the notorious and gruesome practice of necklacing whereby a car tyre full of petrol is placed around a victim’s neck and set alight. This particularly cruel form of execution was frequently carried out at the behest of the ANC with the enthusiastic support of Mandela’s demonic wife Winnie.
The figure of 518 is from the period 1990 to 1994. Therefore doesn’t include Sharpeville or the Soweto uprising casualties. I have read his book and don’t see any casual reference to signing off on the bombings. Then again as you lifted the entire thing from the southafricanproject.info site I would imagine you didn’t study much independent data. Stalin gave orders for specific people to be killed, not much different from killing them yourself.
A great man, he will be missed.
Thats a bit hypocritical James is it not,given your stance on armed struggle in the North where there was also effectively an apartheid against the nationalist people. But then again the struggle in South Africa was half a world away as opposed to the struggle in Ireland which was probably a little too close to home for you.
Irish desease.
More fashionable, trendy and cool to support some cause half way around the world then something in our own backyard.
*disease
Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.
RIP Mr Mandela
@ Hilary,
Like Bobby Sands Eh?
Yes he was prepared to sacrifice nearly all whites in South Africa and now the place is number one genocide, murder and rape capital of the world.
A great man was lost to us today. A true man of the people. Though it is sad that his message of peace and compassion seems to be blantly absent in some of the comments above and below. It is shamefull to his memory
at the very least.
How is blowing up buses full of people peaceful?
He was a terrorist plain and simple
When did he blow up buses of people, dates, casualties?
Gerry
In his autobiography ‘the long walk to Freedom’ he casually admits ‘signing off’ the 1983 Church Street bombing carried out by the ANC and killing 19 innocent people whilst injuring another 200.
It is true that Mandela approved that massacre and other ANC killings from his prison cell, and there is no evidence that he personally killed anyone but the same could be said about Stalin or Hitler, and the violent history of the ANC, the organisation he led is not in question.
According to the Human Rights Commission it is estimated that during the Apartheid period some 21,000 people were killed, however both the UN Crimes against Humanity commission and South Africa’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission are in agreement that in those 43 years the South African Security forces killed a total of 518 people.
The rest of the 20,482 , (some 92%) were accounted for by Africans killing Africans, many by means of the notorious and gruesome practice of necklacing whereby a car tyre full of petrol is placed around a victim’s neck and set alight.
I refer you again to my reply above with regard to your copy and paste from a highly subjective obviously anti Mandela site called southafricanproject.info
Clare Daly could have been our Mandela, until she got mixed up with Mick Wallace.
Seriously lmfao Claire Daley
I hope that was a joke
Of course it was a joke, but hey didn’t she go to jail for something she believed in. Not many of us can say that.
Joe Higgins too :-)
S.A….well on its way to becoming
Zimbo 2..
” Unlike Robert Mugabe or other “post-colonial” African leaders, Mandela did not immediately unleash a reign of terror on his political opponents. He even refrained from eating his enemies, unlike, say, Idi Amin. Instead, Mandela simply squeezed the white population of South Africa and feigned polite concern about the opening stages of Afrikaner genocide.
The result is that the Afrikaners were destroyed as a people but enough of them were kept alive to pay the taxes for Mandela’s one party state. However, as the social norms of a former First World country are lost, the quality of life in South Africa is decreasing and those whites who can flee the country largely do. The Boer farmers forced to stay behind because of the concentration of their wealth in the land are brutally slaughtered, to the blithe indifference of the global media.
The legacy of Nelson Mandela is slow motion white genocide and the ruin of a once great country. However, he didn’t kill all his opponents. Implicit in the rejoicing of the Main Stream Media at his legacy is the idea that South African whites deserve to be murdered, but Mandela magnanimously refrained. This should provide a useful lesson for Western whites who are being reduced to minorities in their own historic homelands.
In “post-Apartheid” South Africa, all one has to do to be a civil rights hero is not be too enthusiastic in calling for the murder of whites. If one does kill them, the media won’t praise you… but they won’t condemn you either.
We all must face death, so RIP to Nelson Mandela. He certainly is not the worst leader Africa has produced.
But what no one else will say is: RIP to the Boer farmers being murdered every day, to the Afrikaners attacked in the streets, to the poor blacks savaged by ANC thugs and police…and finally, rest in peace, the dream of a First World South Africa.”
James Kirkpatrick
one more terrorist down.
Mandela was once my President, guess that’s why my comments get deleted…:)
OK,nominations now for which black actor will get the role in the next Hollywood fiction factory production on his life??
I tip Morgan Freeman and Samuel L Jackson as the younger Mandela.
have your say