Ag Shame Charlize!

5:30 pm - The long-winded, over-the-top group and self-serving draw ceremony for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa is showing now on Spanish TV, live by satellite from Cape Town.

Actress Charlize Theron just came on stage and said "I'm one proud South African" in her Hollywood accent. Please Charlize!

6:00pm - Charlize is back on now for the actual draw, drawling away. The whole qualification process and the draw itself appear to be heavily fixed to minimise the chance that top-seeded and European teams don't end up taking an early bath in the group stage.

Put it this way - there are more nations in Africa than in Europe, but Europe gets twice as many places in this, the first African world cup.

Oh Christ, they just wheeled David Beckham out. He looks like he had an accident at the barbers.

6:20pm - As hosts, South Africa qualified automatically, but have drawn Mexico, Uruguay nad France in their group. They'll have a tough time getting through to the quarter-finals. Meanwhile Spain has drawn Honduras, Chile and Switzerland, and Italy has just Paraguay, Slovenia and New Zealand to beat.

Serbia are drawn against Germany - Distant and recent history that could make that a real grudge match for players and fans alike.

6:30pm - With Mediterranean Europe nigh-on guaranteed two teams in the quarters, on come the traditional dancers and the credits roll. Then it's back to the studio in Madrid from where they have been narrating the proceedings in Spanish for more pointless analysis.

The mystery of the Guanches

The origins and language of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands remain a mystery, writes Dr Sabina Goralski Filonov Translation by James Tweedie The guanches, the aboriginals of the Canary Islands whose origin, lost in the mists of time, still arouses intense and passionate debate and great controversy about their origins and the how the seven Canary Islands were populated – which according to some studies occurred between 10,000 and 8,000 years BC. Literally, the word ‘Guan’ means man or person and ‘Chenech’ or ‘Chinet’ is applied to the island of Tenerife, thus meaning a man or inhabitant of Tenerife – although according to Núñez de la Peña, the Spanish named them the Guanchos during the conquest of the islands. But with the passage of time, experts in the subject are questioning whether the word Guanche was used to designate the primitive inhabitants of all the islands in the pre-Hispanic period. The term ‘Guanche’ has also ceased to be applied to the di...

Homeless dogs’ home fights for compensation

Dingo Dogs owner Phil Nelson at his since-demolished home. DOGS’ home owner Phil Nelson has vowed to take legal action following his eviction from his Dingo Dogs animal sanctuary in August. by James Tweedie Indian-born Mr Nelson, along with former girlfriend and Dingo Dogs treasurer Leigh Crouch were left homeless by the court-ordered eviction and have been sharing a small hut in the mountains near Las Chafiras with ten dogs and three cats ever since. Mr Nelson’s dispute with his former landlord began in September 2004, after he officially registered his rented hillside finca as an animal sanctuary. It was a requirement of his registration that he keep proper financial records, including receipts for payment of rent. Mr Nelson says that despite having a rental contract and paying his rent “as regular as clockwork” for years, his landlord never gave him a receipt even after he began asking for one every month in 2004. In May 2005, after his landlord ha...

Sun-crossed haters endanger 220,000 lives

My stepmother Shanthie Naidoo and her sister Ramnie were on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow for a speaking tour when Extinction Rebellion offshoot Heathrow Pause began wilfully endangering aircraft by flying drones over the airport this morning. Shanthie is an ANC struggle veteran who lived in exile in London from 1973 to 1993, apart from some time in the exile community in Mazimbu, Tanzania. She and all her immediate family were jailed by the Apartheid government for political reasons. Shanthie's late brother Indres did 10 years on Robben Island and later wrote the book 'Island in Chains'. Their grandfather Thembi Naidoo worked alongside Mohandas K Gandhi during the civil disobedience campaigns against the early form of Apartheid. Extinction Rebellion has chosen for its logo a variation on the 'sonnenkreuz', a symbol used by both proto-fascist neo-pagan organisations and modern neo-Nazis. Around 220,000 passengers fly in and out of Heathr...

Ecuador: Correa defends VP over graft charges

Former Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa backed Vice-President Jorge Glas on Monday — even as he was detained on corruption charges. "An honest man has lost his freedom," Mr Correa tweeted after the Supreme Court ordered Mr Glas remanded in custody pending an investigation into allegations he took bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. President Lenin Moreno stripped Glas of his duties as vice president in August but allowed him to keep his title. Mr Glas claimed his detention was "a clear retaliation" for criticising Mr Moreno's policies, with additional pressure from "major businessmen and opposition leaders." Mr Glas’ barrister Eduardo Franco said he would appeal the "bad, unjust and arbitrary decision" which he described as a "judicial coup" — like that against Brazilian Workers’ Party president Dilma Rousseff last year. "He is being victimised by the media, and by the political perversity of opposi...

Thomas Cook CEO predicts “return to growth” in 2010

Thomas Cook UK Chief Executive Officer Manny Fontenla (third from left). Playa de Las Americas, Tuesday December 15 2009 THOMAS Cook Chief Executive Manny Fontenla predicted on Tuesday that Tenerife's crisis-hit tourist economy would begin to recover next year. by James Tweedie Speaking at the travel giant's annual convention at the Magma Arte y Congresos centre in the resort town of Playa de Las Americas, Mr Fontenla said that the tourism slump had “bottomed out” and the island was “on the way back to growth.” He said: “Things have been tough in Spain because of the crisis,” pointing out that the weakness of the pound against the Euro had made non-Eurozone destinations like Turkey more attractive. But he stressed that Spain remained the favourite holiday destination for Britons, Germans and Scandinavians and that it took “barriers” to discourage them. Mr Fontenla said that British tourists were leaving it much later to book their summer holidays, a trend ...

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