Palaver

Sample this from Bloomberg News: "Carlos Slim, the telecommunications tycoon who controls Mexico's America Movil SAB, is the richest person on Earth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 20 wealthiest individuals. The 72-year-old’s net worth was $68.5 billion as at March 2, as US moguls Bill Gates and Warren Buffett placed second and third on the list. Brazil’s Eike Batista, 55, who ranks 10th, still covets the top spot after vowing a year ago that he’d become the world’s wealthiest man by 2015." Now that’s is ambition, or does Mr Batista know something we don’t? How about an autograph Eike?

We would like to meet a Moroccan. Any Moroccan to tell us who makes up such stories. Is it true that Amina Filali,16, killed herself after she was forced to marry the man who raped her a year earlier? An Associated Press report says: "Article 475 of the Moroccan Penal Code allows for the "kidnapper" of a minor to marry his victim to escape prosecution, and it has been used to justify a traditional practice of making a rapist marry his victim to preserve the honour of the woman’s family." Even more horrifying is the fact that there is a similar injunction in the Old Testament’s Book of Deuteronomy to justify this law! Please send Palaver as many calendars as you can for onward transmission to Rabat, to remind them that the rest of humanity just recently entered the 21st Century. And for those who can read, it is 2012 AD. Good grief!

As the world commemorated International Condom Day and Valentine’s Day last month, Uganda Ministry of Health officials were warning of a looming condom shortage as demand for the items increased. But that is nothing compared to what folks in Zimbabwe are proposing. Senator Sithembile Mlotshwa is urging her government to avail sex gadgets to prisoners to curb homosexuality. She argues that since other countries provide such gadgets and rooms where prisoners go and "service themselves" when desire arises, why not Zimbabwe? Fiction just got stranger!

And finally...

Never enter a mud fight with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig likes it! Think about it.

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