Donald Trump Suspends Immigration into the US

(CNN)President Donald Trump said late Monday night he will sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration to the United States as the nation battles the health and economic effects of the corona-virus pandemic.

"In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!" he tweeted.
It's unclear what mechanism he will use to suspend immigration, how long such a suspension could last or what effect this will have on the operation of US border crossings and on those who already hold green cards.
Trump administration looks to triple fees for some immigration court filings
Trump administration looks to triple fees for some immigration court filings
The White House declined to provide further information on the executive order Monday evening. The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
As a result of coronavirus and attempts to curtail its spread, immigration to the United States has been largely cut off: Refugee resettlement has been put on hold, visa offices are largely closed and citizenship ceremonies aren't happening. Trump didn't offer details Monday on what he intends to do to further restrict immigration in the face of coronavirus.
Immigrant advocates immediately pushed back against the tweet.
"This is not about the policy. It is about the message the president wants to send. He wants people to turn against 'the other.' And, regardless of the valuable contributions immigrants are making to the response and recovery, he sees immigrants as the easiest to blame," Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said on Twitter.
Trump's tweet comes as the administration seeks to reopen parts of the country from the coronavirus shutdown through a phased approach, but it's also a continuation of the President's 2016 campaign promise to slow immigration.
Trump has repeatedly touted his decision to halt travel from China and Europe as a means of blunting the spread of coronavirus in the United States.
Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the Trump administration has tried to move forward with some of its most restrictionist policies that have struggled to be put into practice, including blocking entry to asylum seekers.
Citing the "unscreened" and "unvetted" people who come into the US across the southern border, Trump said late last month that the border would be sealed off "mostly, and even beyond, but mostly during this global pandemic." Restrictions on nonessential travel remain in effect and on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced they'd be extended with Mexico and Canada.
The administration has also put in place an order allowing the US to swiftly remove migrants arrested at the border, including children.
This story has been updated with additional immigration reporting.

Ndabeni Abrahams 'maybe' in Hot waters over lock-down rules

As South Africans enter day 13 of the global pandemic lock down as a result of the spread of the Novel Corona Virus, some law makers  are not adhering to lock down rules.
Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has been pictured enjoying lunch with a friend, apparently during the period of lock down. This goes to show of the popular saying "Do as I say, not as I do".

How has Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams allegedly broke lock down rules?
Photos of her and her friend, none other than former deputy higher education minister, Mduduzi Manana, went viral Tuesday. In a photo uploaded to Instagram, he can be seen dining with Ndabeni-Abrahams and a few others. These two politicians do not live together, and it’s difficult to understand what legitimate reason they’d have to meet for this contentious lunch.
All efforts to contact the office of Ndabeni-Abrahams proved futile and were directed only to her communications team: Ironic, given her job title. This is the offending snap that could land her in some serious trouble.
The President as we learnt has said he will summon the Minister for question and possibly disciplinary actions.

Steve Hofmeyr mocks Charlize Theron over parenting revelation

Steve Hofmeyr has responded to comments by Charlize Theron about raising her child as a girl, seemingly mocking the star.

Charlize sparked debate recently when she revealed that her seven-year-old child, whom fans assumed was a boy, identifies as a girl.

Speaking to Daily Mail about the gender of Jackson, whom she adopted years ago, Charlize said: “I thought she was a boy, too, until she looked at me when she was three years’ old and said: I am not a boy!”


She said that it was not up to her to decide what gender her child identified as.

“My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be,” she added.

Steve took to Twitter recently to respond to the news and in a seemingly mocking tweet asked Charlize’s “advice” on raising his daughter.

Steve Hofmeyr

✔@steve_hofmeyr

Liewe Charlize
My dogter dra soms broekies. Sy is 20 maande oud. Is dit dalk die regte tyd om haar te vra of sy 'n oorwig aan y-chromosoom aanvoel?

Zuma damaged South Africa

JOHANNESBURG – Former president FW de Klerk says there is an element of truth that life and public services were better under the apartheid government.


De Klerk, who was speaking on eNCA’s The First Citizen program says this assertion is solely based, not on race and colour, but on the nine years during the Jacob Zuma presidency.


The former president (1989 - 1994) described the Zuma administration

(2009 - 2018) as “nine lost years” which have damaged the country.


“... because of bad appointments made in the nine lost years, inter alia, of cadres, instead of people with the right experience, with the right training into management posts.


“People were appointed because of their connections instead of because of their knowledge and their experience. I think this has harmed service delivery tremendously.”


De Klerk said he believed the opportunity to build a truly non-racial and just society was wasted during the Zuma years.


He advised the current government to accept the challenges it faces, improve the quality of education and training, grow the economy, build investor confidence and rise above racism.


De Klerk, who was the last apartheid government president, maintains that his hands are clean and that he is wrongly blamed.


“My hands are clean and my conscience is clear,” he said. “I have never been part of a policy that says kill people.”

Zodwa Wabantu's slams 'parasites' for using her name to score points

Zodwa Wabantu‚ who is known for her no-nonsense approach recently slammed people‚ who she has labelled “parasites” for using her name for their own benefit.

Socialite Zodwa Wabantu provoked onlookers

The dancer took to Instagram to address the issue which she sees as a desperate attempt to be relevant by some people.
“Guys‚ but some of you have a problem hey. You see these guys that are always surrounding rich guys...the ones that are usually sent around and get ice (for the bosses’ drink) and stuff? These guys pretend that they are good people but really they’re not. Theirs is to be sent for ice‚ have free drinks and food. They attempt to be relevant by trading gossip from one boss to the other‚ just so they remain relevant.”

" Culled from Sowetan"

Robert and Thusi Splits

South African sports journalist and television and radio personality Robert Marawa recently confirmed rumors making rounds about relationship break-up with actress and television presenter, Pearl Thusi.


Robert reportedly tweeted “I confirm the rumor and speculation that our relationship with Miss Pearl Thusi ended a few months ago. We continue to be good friends though.”


Three months ago, City Press reported that the relationship between actress and television presenter Pearl Thusi and sports broadcaster Robert Marawa was in trouble. At that time both neither confirmed nor denied the breakup.

Arts that leaves you in bewilderment

 

As arts and culture continues to evolve in today’s world  we see various mediums of painting and sculpting where the artists creates new forms of art but the issues of originality and creativity often arises. This write up takes a peep into the strange balance that exists between the intensely macabre and the bizarrely beautiful in artist Nandipha Mntambo’s oeuvre. Invariably it leaves you haunted yet in awe of her distinctive aesthetic and technique that combines the use of cowhides, and hair with clever juxtaposition and positioning. One can only interpret her work as it is, a spectacle that leaves you repulsed or that piques your interest for the grotesque, yet profound. The artist brings issues of identity and conflict to the forefront, and she frequently addresses the dynamic tension that exists within the self, the push-pull between libido and mortido, life instinct and death drive. Concepts of powerlessness versus empowerment, the public versus the private selves, or the presentation of unexpected role reversals have arisen in some of her latest bodies of work.

Born in Swaziland in 1982 and raised in South Africa, Mntambo is a sculptor who has made cowhide her medium of choice.  Her choice is inspired and informed on one hand by a childhood dream where she found herself left with a pile of cowhides and on the other by her interest in science and forensics, which was her first passion before she decided to become an artist.

“I enjoy chemical processes. I was never really interested in ‘conventional’ materials and was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with a taxidermist for a while. The thin line that exists between our understanding of attraction and repulsion has always been of interest to me. I developed my aesthetic in an attempt to destabilise/push this boundary while challenging how art material and the product are understood.”

 In describing the artist media, Gabi Ngcobo, in Art South Africa vol 04, issue 03, 2006 said “It is a material variously associated with wealth and power. The literal hairiness of her figures also functions as a distancing device... Her work encourages us to critique the politics and aesthetics of femininity and beauty and is suggestive of the ways in which (black) women are re-interpreting their bodies and claiming visibility.'

 She uses plaster moulds of her own body and envelops them with the still malleable cowhide that she has thoroughly treated and cured.  The hide becomes a beautiful and repulsive empty floating carrier. These hairy feminine shapes defy our notion of feminine beauty. The artist remembers her early years at Floating Figures, girls’ school where there was so much focus on getting rid of body hair. With her haunting simultaneously human and animal like, she deliberately seeks to provoke a sense of agitation. 

 She describes her use of cowhide “as a means to subvert expected associations with corporeal presence, femininity, sexuality and vulnerability.”  The animal/human association is not new but rarely has it been so provocative. The cowhides seem to be worn as garments caught in movement. As Mntambo explains, the many folds and creases were inspired by the move of the dress worn by a woman dancing the Paso Doble with her partner. She defines herself as existing between several worlds, and refuses to be located in one particular identity. Cowhide is a conceptually loaded substance and to mistake the (often dark) cowhide with the female figure is a contentious practice, which might arguably naturalize the ideological metonymy of women, blackness and nature. Other readings of Mntambo's work have centred on the traditional practice of 'ilobola' [bride-price] in South Africa, which is often criticised by feminists for reducing women to the level of possessions. Although these issues do play a part in Mntambo's attraction to the medium, it is reductive to read her production only in these terms. In filling out the vacated body of the cow with different forms, then vacating it again or re-embodying it herself, Mntambo utilizes the semantic layering embedded in her material to flesh out, exaggerate and ultimately - I would argue - deflate the terms which have kept people in subjugated states of embodiment. The quasi-scientific arguments which backed up the discourse of racism and sexism have long been discredited; however, their semantic legacy continues to haunt contemporary culture. It is this ghosting that Mntambo points to with her evocative and alluring sculptures.

“My work was never meant to be a direct exploration of the African Female body. I just happen to be African and female and use my body in my art making process.” She said.

 Mntambo addresses issues of gender, which are also at the core of her work.  She has more recently expanded her work to include video and photography where she explores further associations tied to the cow iconography.  The videos, which is be her first foray into the medium, translates her interest in femininity and cows into a cross-gender foray into bulls and the masculine arena of the bull-fight. It shows Mntambo as a matador in a deserted bull-fighting arena. She enacts a phantasmagoria bull-fight, making herself both the subject and the object of the work.

 Mythology plays an important part and helps position her work in a broader geographical context.

Nandipha Mntambo completed a Master of Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town. She was the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for visual arts and she has been shown in group shows in the US, Europe, Africa, and Australia.