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SOUTH AFRICA’S PRESIDENT cancelled a foreign trip in order to deal with a wave of attacks on immigrants that have killed at least six people.
In the latest violence, mobs attacked shops owned by foreign nationals in a poor area of Johannesburg.
President Jacob Zuma had been scheduled to leave Saturday evening for Indonesia to attend a meeting of African and Asian leaders, but will instead stay to campaign for a peaceful resolution to the unrest that has swept several areas of South Africa in the past week, his office said.
Zuma planned to visit immigrants staying in a camp in the Chatsworth area of the coastal city of Durban, where some of the worst violence has occurred.
“These attacks go against everything we believe in. The majority of South Africans love peace and good relations with their brothers and sisters in the continent,” Zuma said in a statement.
There was a heavy police presence in the Alexandra township of Johannesburg after rioters looted some shops, burned tires and built street barricades overnight, according to eNCA, a South African news outlet. Police fired rubber bullets in an attempt to stop the unrest, the report said.
Several shops and cars owned by immigrants were torched in downtown Johannesburg in recent days.
Attacks on immigrants, many of them from other African countries, in and around Durban have subsided after the deaths of six people there, police said. Some 112 people were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal province, which includes Durban, during the riots there, according to authorities.
Some South Africans have accused immigrants of taking jobs and opportunities away from them in a country with high unemployment. The government has said it is addressing complaints about undocumented migrants, while noting that many foreign nationals are living legally in South Africa and contributing to economic development.
About 60 people died in similar unrest in South Africa in 2008. In January this year, four people died during a week of looting of foreign-owned shops and other violence in Soweto and other areas of Johannesburg.
The violence this month has prompted some African countries to make arrangements for the return of some of their citizens from South Africa.
Many immigrants are from neighboring Zimbabwe. Its president, Robert Mugabe, said Saturday that he was glad that the South African government had denounced the violence. Mugabe is currently chairman of the African Union as well as a regional group, the Southern African Development Community.
“If there is any issue arising from the influx of Africans into any country, surely that can be discussed and measures can be taken and taken amicably to deal and address the situation,” Mugabe said in remarks on the 35th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence.
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They’re very brave deleting accounts when Donald has days left in office. Where were they 4 yrs ago?
@Dobby Dooo Dooo: They probably needed something tangible, i.e the insurrection, to justify the removal. Or at least, thats what I would assume.
@Dobby Dooo Dooo: you’re right, Trump is a bully and would have used his office to punish Facebook, Twitter etc that’s why they couldn’t do much until now
@Dobby Dooo Dooo: They couldn’t be seen to silencing a fairly elected leader. However, since he has now been voted out of office in the last fair election AND he ihas effectively instigated an attempted coup (without military support), they have a moral obligation to do so now.
@Dobby Dooo Dooo: Busy watching Antifa grow.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: He tried to hold them responsible for their bias, remember?
Very funny seeing all the conservatives complaining about losing twitter followers over the weekend.
@Dave O’Keeffe: I know. I can just imagine Ted Cruz saying, “What? You mean @PatriotBot748334556038 wasn’t a really person?”
@Peter Cavey: there are comments like this from real conservatives. I’m not joking, Matt Gaetz: “I wish I could lose weight like I’m losing followers during this twitter purge”. Twitter announces theyre taking down neo-nazi and violent insurrectionist accounts and all these clowns quickly start complaining about losing followers.
I love how people think they are progressive, Liberal and forward thinking intellectuals by shutting down a whole significantly portioned section of societies thoughts and ideas that conflict with their own. . .
What happens when Twitter, Facebook, The Journal etc suddenly aren’t on your side and want to silence you? A dangerous game.
@Hup Abù: the ideas aren’t being shutdown they broke their contract with these companies and therefore it has been revoked. They can still share their ideas. No company has to deal with a customer they don’t want to. Conservatives made that case in the Supreme Court and won.
@Hup Abù: I also never claimed to be progressive, Liberal, forward thinking or indeed intellectual
@Dave O’Keeffe: As I said in another post. Your view on these just being “private companies” so let them at it is a very simplistic one. They have an over arching power of influence and are a significant aspect of the gogs of our society. Of course at present you are happy with who they choose to not to allow on their platforms, but perhaps consider for a second if you weren’t….. a dangerous game
@Dave O’Keeffe: No you didn’t, but I know you think it
@Dave O’Keeffe: And your avatar is particularly ironic. Jesus
@Hup Abù: are you of the opinion so that Al-Qaeda accounts shouldn’t have been banned? Dangerous ideologies will always be banned, especially when they lead to violence as is the case here.
@Hup Abù: and no, I don’t think of myself as any of those things. I’m the average person.
@Dave O’Keeffe: “Al-Queda” hyperbole much, stretching much. It’s grand I see were you’re at. Just be careful what you wish and desire
@Hup Abù: a dangerous ideology that leads to violence was the example. Funny you’ve never objected to them being banned before this. I didn’t make a comparison between the two by the way, I’m just questioning why you didn’t care when it was a different group inciting violence that was banned.
@Hup Abù: so, to wrap this up, you’re OK with some ideologies being removed. But when it happened to neo-nazis and violent insurrectionists that’s when you got concerned.
@Hup Abù: What you seem to be saying is that Governments should have the power to force publishers to print whatever they tell them too. Is that right?
@Dave O’Keeffe: “No company has to deal with a customer they don’t want to.”
Including or excluding baking a cake? Just askin’
@Daniel Dunne: including, that’s what the Supreme Court said
@Hup Abù: banning ar£seh£les is fine by me.. left or right ar£seho£les.. I’m Centre myself.. sid them touting childish conspiracy twaddle..
@Dave O’Keeffe: Question: If you think dangerous idealogies that lead to violence should be removed from the platform, do you believe that Antifa/BLM accounts should be removed from the platform given the months of violence caused by them last year? Or is it just right wing ideologies that lead to violence that you’re against?
@Dave O’Keeffe: Where were they complaining?
@Hup Abù: Well written. One step closer to North Korea. My best friend was in Cuba when a real dictator took over. The thought police took her father. He was never heard from again. The propaganda is very similar, she tells me.
Why has it taken so long? The damage has been done. Twitter and Facebook just trying to cover their @rse.
@Seán Óg: because ironically Trump signed an executive order removing some protections social media companies had. He was making them accountable for the content of postings….
@Seán Óg: yeah, the enablers of Trump are not so supportive now that he’s leaving office. On another note, I often enjoyed reading tweets from qanon accounts though I could never quite work out if people actually believed what they posted
@Seán Óg: But there’s nothing to cover, right? They are private companies (which trade on the stock exchange, so not sure how that works, but yeah. That’s the mantra here.) The bill President Trump was pushing would have held them responsible for QAnon, Antifa, and bias actions that have shaped elections. Shame he wasn’t able to do that. Like anyone with any knowledge of history will tell you, supression sends people underground where it’s harder to fight them. Congrats!
@Critical Thinker: Then you were an enabler too. I’m sure 8 chan or reddit will help you keep in touch.
Trump’s “Stand Back and Stand By” comment has really come back and bitten him in the proverbials.
@ianglen: I was shocked that neither the moderator nor Biden thought to call him out on that comment during the debate. Talk about a call to arms!
@Barry Evans: At least Biden got him to say it, still remember it and being shocked that Trump came out with that comment.
@ianglen: Putin got him to say he doesn’t trust his own security agencies.
@Dave Thomas: very true
@ianglen: Do you remember the question he was asked when he said that?
@Padraig Corcoran: Biden asked Trump to denounce the Proud Boys and true to form Trump couldn’t help himself..
@ianglen: And a whole bunch of people have run to their fav social media to get info that no investigation has established. Congrats to our resident curtain twitchers on both sides of center.
First they came for Q Anon…
@SC:… No
@Derek: why? The original poem is by a priest who was delighted when the Nazis took out the pro-Soviet communists and later realised the same measures would be used against more moderate dissenters.
This will only convince deranged Qanon supporters that they are correct.Using censorship as proof of conspiracy beliefs and driving their conviction in following orders from the devine Trump. God help USA
@Barney r: Was just thinking that, these guys are just gonna find each other other places online and radicalise eachother through the hype of being, censored’.. Scary
Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.
Noam Chomsky
This is gonna make a really dumb film one of these days.
@Graham Manning: ‘The Battle of Sweatysburg’
@Dave O’Keeffe: “Hamburger and Fries Hill”
@Hughie Lynch: one flew into Capital hill
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: White House Down…… the crapper
@Dave O’Keeffe: all this bigly great tremendous number of years ago, our forefathers…
And que the complaints from the “free speech” keyboard warriors….
Bit late now!
@Gina Carroll: Better late than never.
@Seán O’Loughlin: why the damage has been done.
@Gina Carroll: that was my immediate thought … too little to late from Twitter and VERY disingenuous doing it two weeks before Trump goes after giving him free reign for years
4 years too late.
Bet the flat earth society are shayting themselves
I’ve been taking a nosey around Gab. Man there’s some really deranged people out there, real scary.
Why dose QAnon start with 2 Capital letters
@barreeeeeeeee: (Q) question and (A) answer. (non) nonentity.
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