Ready to rumble

Ready for the big screen

Loud and clear

South Africa is ready

Traditional dancers perform at the 100-day count-down ceremony in Johannesburg

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South Africans took to the streets in Johannesburg to protest against poor housing

Protestors call on government to act on housing

Police try to contain housing demonstration in Johannesburg

Protestors say they are fed up with government promises

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Peter and Angelique in the studio

Beninese diva and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo and Emmy Award winning U.S. composer Peter Buffet have teamed up to support the education of girls in Africa with the release of a new hit A Song For Everyone.

Proceeds from the hit, marked with the artistic DNA of Kidjo’s vibrant World sound and Buffet’s pop-rock style, will be donated to charity through the Batonga Foundation, a non-profit organization started by Kidjo to facilitate and support the education of young women in Africa.

“The mission of the song is to advocate for giving girls an opportunity at higher education,” said Bret Caputo of New York based marketing agency The Sheps that Pass,

“To reach this goal, proceeds from A Song For Everyone will be donated to Angelique’s organization, the Batonga Foundation, whose mission is exactly that: advancing young women’s education in Africa.”

The Batonga Foundation also advocates for community awareness of the value of education for girls through programs aimed at eradicating gender prejudice, which remains one of the most common barriers to higher education and job opportunities  for women in Africa.

Angelique Kidjo

“As little as 5 downloads of A Song for Everyone can buy a girl a school uniform or a new book bag, and 1,000 downloads can send a classroom of 45 girls to school for an entire year,” said Caputo.

The four minute hit, composed in both English and Yoruba, costs $0,99, and fans can either buy the track or make a donation directly to the Batonga Foundation, which is also involved in efforts to increase enrollment and improve teaching standards in schools.

Angelique Kidjo is not just another African legend. She is one with a difference, and her

illustrious music career has shown that music is not just for recreation, but also an instrument of emancipation for both artists and the people around them.

With A Song for Everyone, Kidjo and Buffet drive home this message and while enjoying  their passion, are determined to put a book and pencil in the hands of thousands of African girls.

A Song For Everyone can be purchased online as a single on the link below: http://www.peterbuffett.com/store/index.html#singles/asongforeveryone.

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Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopia and Lebanon are locked in a dispute over circumstances surrounding the death of 90 people after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 flight crashed into the Mediterranean Sea a few moments after leaving Beirut International Airport last month.

Frustrated by the slow pace of investigations into the ET409 crash, Ethiopian officials have accused Lebanese authorities of spreading misleading information  and interfering with investigations.

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Cholera epidemic

A former UN official claims his warnings of a coming calamity were stifled by a UN bureaucracy intent on keeping good relations with Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe

In the 11 months between August 2008 and July of last year, nearly 100,000 Zimbabweans came down with cholera in the first countrywide epidemic of the disease in modern history. Previous outbreaks in Zimbabwe, which have occurred annually since 2003, had affected only pockets of the country. This time, cholera was everywhere. Corpses filled the streets and hospital beds. In some districts early in the crisis, half of those infected died. It was a tragedy in every way – not least because the worst might have been prevented. Months before the initial outbreak exploded into a full-blown epidemic, Georges Tadonki, who headed the United Nations’ humanitarian office in Zimbabwe at the time, says he warned his superiors of the severe risk, suggesting to the UN country director, Agostinho Zacarias, that 30,000 cases or more were possible. But Zacarias stifled that warning, Tadonki claims.

“He forced us to put the figure very low,” Tadonki told Foreign Policy in an exclusive interview. “Because the government did not accept that there was cholera, the United Nations was forced to align with that position.” Both a high-level official from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) who worked on the humanitarian response and an independent analyst, Ed Schenkenberg van Mierop, confirmed that Tadonki had warned of a catastrophic outbreak. And indeed, a Nov. 19, 2008, UN appeal for aid, issued months after the cholera epidemic began, predicted just 2,000 cholera cases. Just two months later, the death toll alone had already reached that number. In all, more than 4,000 people died between August 2008 and July 2009, and roughly 98,600 people had caught the disease. The true figures might be even higher. “It was very clear that no action was taken” as the outbreak became apparent, Schenkenberg said. “That is what I would call criminal neglect on the part of the UN.”

Although some facts are in dispute, Tadonki’s story highlights the perils of UN engagement in authoritarian states such as Zimbabwe, from the moral choices about engaging with a country in crisis to the pitfalls of navigating “elections” in a place where they are neither free nor fair after three decades of dictatorial rule by Robert Mugabe. In fact, Tadonki says he was at war with his superiors not only about cholera, but also about the United Nations’ preparedness for an election in Zimbabwe that swiftly turned violent. Tadonki, the former head of the Zimbabwe branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was fired at the height of the cholera crisis in early January 2009 – in part, he says, because of the warnings he raised. He has appealed his termination, and his case will be heard before a UN dispute tribunal in Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 23. This FP report is based on more than 200 pages of confidential UN documents, including emails and investigations; interviews with nearly a dozen UN and government officials, NGOs, and independent analysts; and a lengthy telephone interview with Tadonki.

None of Tadonki’s superiors at the United Nations who were contacted for this article, including Zacarias, would comment on the record. One senior UN official, who asked for anonymity because no disclosures could be made to support OCHA while litigation is ongoing, said, “We’re going to just have to take it on the chin.” Some UN officials contested Tadonki’s allegations, including a former UN agency head who told FP that “the actual size of the cholera outbreak was larger than anyone (including Tadonki) had forecasted.” And some claimed Tadonki’s clash with Zacarias was due to poor performance, which is cited in UN internal reports as the reason for his firing, not his efforts to sound the alarm.

Tadonki, a Cameroonian doctorate-holder with a specialty in mapping and a decade-long history with the United Nations, had arrived in Harare on March 25, 2008, at a fraught moment in Zimbabwe’s history. Once hailed as a model African state, the country had been hurtling toward disaster over the past several years, with an inflation rate rising to the billions of percentage points, food shortages pushing up incidences of malnutrition, and thousands of refugees and migrants spilling across the border into neighboring South Africa. It was also a particularly challenging time for the UN mission there, which included a handful of UN agencies, in addition to OCHA, that worked hand in hand with international and local NGOs. Mugabe, who denied his country was in crisis, took issue with OCHA, whose mission was to communicate information about the humanitarian situation. The president and his ruling Zanu PF party were particularly upset, Tadonki says, because of the agency’s participation in a 2005 UN report documenting the forced displacement of an estimated 700,000 Zimbabweans at the government’s behest.

Zacarias, the country director at the time, holds a political science doctorate from the London School of Economics and was once a member of FRELIMO, the former guerrilla movement in Mozambique. He arrived in Zimbabwe three years before Tadonki in March 2005, after two previous UN posts, one in Angola and later as special advisor on Africa to the secretary-general. Tadonki, opposition figures, and some NGO officials raised questions about the proximity of Zacarias to Mugabe’s political party in interviews with FP. “He was certainly perceived as someone who was sympathetic to Zanu PF,” one MDC official told FP. But some UN officials said they saw Zacarias as a classic, old-school African diplomat who thought he could achieve more by maintaining good relations and access to the government.

As both humanitarian and country coordinator, Zacarias faced two conflicting mandates: to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered in a neutral, unpoliticized way, while also working with Mugabe’s regime to coordinate an approach to developing the country. One senior UN official summed up the dilemma this way: “The UN has to work with the government. Clearly, we work in a lot of countries where the government can make it very challenging. But should we say forget it? Or stay and try to help?… To be the resident coordinator in some of these countries is not an easy task; you have to deal with the consequences of the actions of those regimes, but in a way that those regimes don’t take for granted that you’ll be there to clean up.” Unlike Zacarias, Tadonki was in Zimbabwe entirely in a humanitarian capacity, and the two men soon clashed. A dozen emails exchanged between Tadonki, Zacarias, members of the UN country team at the time, and some local NGO leaders, and later seen by FP, make it clear that their conflict was visible and pronounced.

“While my job as Head of OCHA Zimbabwe is not easy, it seems to me that you have made it the most difficult job on Earth,” a particularly pointed Sept. 18, 2008, email from Tadonki reads. “It is not clear to me what triggered this astonishing, unexpected and unwarranted outburst,” Zacarias responded nine hours later, carefully pushing back against Tadonki’s complaints. Not long after his March 2008 arrival, Tadonki says, he updated the country’s contingency plan, a document that every country team produces to prepare for crises, to include political risk, a factor that had been excluded before. “The UN chief in country had been forcing agencies in Zimbabwe to say that Zimbabwe was on the same footing as Lesotho – telling us that the agriculture is troubling because there is no rain, that the education is failing because of a lack of resources from taxes,” Tadonki recalled.

In his eyes, however, the causes were political: Land seizures were rendering agriculture unproductive, and repression was hitting every sector hard. (Zacarias’s annual report for 2008 downplays the government’s role in the humanitarian crisis and doesn’t mention that the Mugabe regime refused to acknowledge the cholera epidemic until December.) Then, on April 7, 2008, Tadonki sent what’s known as an “early warning assessment” to the head of OCHA, UN Undersecretary-General John Holmes. The warning was brutally frank. It declared that Zimbabwe’s UN country team was “not prepared to face the consequences of an emergency silently in the making” and cited “hesitations of the UN in responding to acts of political violence,” warning that the coming months would see “dire consequences.” Such strong words directed at the country team also represented a direct attack on Zacarias.

Tadonki sent his assessment directly to New York, but tensions escalated in Harare on May 14, 2008, after someone leaked Zacarias a copy of the document. In a meeting of fellow humanitarian workers, Zacarias confronted and admonished him for reporting that the United Nations was unprepared for a calamitous humanitarian situation. The following week, a joint World Food Program, UNICEF, and OCHA regional mission arrived in Zimbabwe, staying from May 19 to 21. According to a draft of the mission’s report seen by FP, the mission concluded that “the UN and NGOs are in a ‘reactive’ mode.” It also recommended that Tadonki’s agency be given more freedom to operate. By then, however, the election violence was well under way. After the disputed first-round poll on March 29, Mugabe’s government denied the MDC’s claims of victory and doubled down on repression. On June 4, the government banned all humanitarian workers from moving throughout the country in the days before the June 27 runoff vote.

Tadonki started receiving reports of desperation. “I have pictures of people with their hands crushed. In Zimbabwe you vote with your finger – [so government thugs] would say, ‘In June, we will see which finger you use to vote against Mugabe,’” he recalled. State-orchestrated violence left “at least 36 dead; hundreds tortured; thousands beaten; and tens of thousands deprived of food or displaced,” according to Jon Elliott of Human Rights Watch. “We are responsible for those deaths,” Tadonki said. “If the United Nations had told Mugabe, ‘We know what you are planning,’ we wouldn’t have seen it…. We all sat [in Harare] and knew that in the countryside, 60 percent of Zimbabweans were being killed or raped.” No high-level UN statements regarding the election violence or the humanitarian ban were made until June, after both were already under way.

One former agency head said that the whole country team, not just OCHA, was well aware of the coming election violence and prepared for “the worst case scenario [of] the possibility of 250,000 to 300,000 people fleeing the violence by crossing the border to neighboring countries,” he told FP by email. “A regional contingency plan was established to be able to respond in the event this would happen. Mr Tadonki’s scenarios did not exceed these projections.” On top of the election violence, Zimbabwe had a nascent epidemic on its hands, and the tension between Tadonki and Zacarias continued to build over the summer as the first cholera cases began coming in. Frustrated by his inability to make headway within the UN system, Tadonki shared NGO figures on the burgeoning epidemic with the Ministry of Welfare, without the NGOs’ consent, first in June and again in October.

“This led to a crisis of confidence between the NGOs and head of OCHA, of course,” said Schenkenberg, who had come to Zimbabwe in 2008 to investigate the cholera situation. But the affair, according to Schenkenberg, also “gave Zacarias a pretext to try to get rid of [Tadonki].” In a letter dated July 7, 2008, two NGO leaders expressed concern about Tadonki, claiming they were losing confidence in his leadership. Schenkenberg’s office, an organization that represents NGOs worldwide, saw the letter and sent him to Harare to investigate. “OCHA was not the smartest in terms of sharing without consultation, but the real problem was the lack of action on part of [Zacarias],” Schenkenberg said.

Over the summer and into the fall, the cholera epidemic exploded, killing Zimbabweans at an alarming clip. Cholera epidemics in Africa have been known to edge up on 2 to 3 percent mortality rates at their worst. But in Zimbabwe, rates rose well over 5 percent – five times the rate cholera epidemics should yield if they are tackled with simple, readily available treatments, according to international guidelines. Meanwhile, the Mugabe government denied there was even a cholera outbreak until December 2008. Some former UN agency heads from Zimbabwe highlighted Zacarias’s accomplishments as an interlocutor with the government. For example, beginning in January 2008, the government imposed a ban on paying partner organizations in dollars at a time when the Zimbabwean currency was essentially worthless due to the massive hyperinflation. This made it near impossible to procure or to pay distributors of aid. But on Nov. 12, 2008, those restrictions at last ended, thanks to “intense negotiations lead by the UN Resident Coordinator [Zacarias], with support from UNICEF,” one former agency head noted in an email.

Other NGO and UN colleagues of Tadonki defend their response, saying that they found ways to work with the government to bring in medical aid. Custodia Mandlhate, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Harare, said in an email that the response had been delayed, but that she, Zacarias, and the country head of UNICEF had finally “decided to go and see the minister of health … and convinced him to declare cholera an emergency.” Schenkenberg, however, remembers it differently. The WHO, he said, which is supposed to lead the health response, “didn’t have its first meeting [to begin coordinating operations] until the first week of December” – after the government had already declared the cholera emergency. Nor had Zacarias pushed the WHO to do so, according to Schenkenberg.

By January 2009, Tadonki was gone. Assistant UN Secretary-General Catherine Bragg, who terminated Tadonki’s contract, cited concerns about a poor performance review and relations with donors in his dismissal notice, according to UN internal reports. A November 2008 OCHA mission concluded that Tadonki lacked leadership skills and had polarized the OCHA office. One donor, however, wrote in a Jan. 19, 2009, email to Bragg, “As a donor, I can tell you that it is not the right time to leave a such important office during this time of humanitarian crisis including cholera, without a head. The gap that this may create while you are looking for someone else will be huge…. I can speak for other donors if I say that since the cholera breakout, we have been receiving regular daily and weekly reports from OCHA which have been very useful.” Bragg declined to comment because of the ongoing litigation. Tadonki’s dismissal case will be heard starting Tuesday in Nairobi.  Elizabeth Dickinson, Foreign Policy

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Toyota Lexus

The tide is turning against Japanese car-maker Toyota after confidential company correspondence submitted to the U.S. government revealed that the company had cut corners and saved $100 million by downgrading safety related vehicle recalls to minor equipment recalls.

In a company memo submitted to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committe, a Toyota executive discloses that the company “Negotiated ‘equipment’ recall on Camry/ES re: [sudden acceleration], saved $100 million+ with no defect found”. This opens the flood-gates to lawsuits by victims of accidents involving Toyota cars that could have had mechanical malfunctions. With such evidence of Toyota’s complicity in hiding defects, victims could easily sue for more than $100 million in damages. The Toyota president is expected to testify before the committee this week.

Toyota memo

Toyota has recalled eight million vehicles following revelations that they had with faulty accelerators, some of which caused accidents killing at least 36 people in the U.S. alone.

The findings of the oversight committee are likely to seal Toyota’s fate in a highly competitive market where safety is increasingly becoming a major selling point. IA

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Aboriginal dance

RUSSIAN world champion figure skaters Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin will do a virtually unchanged version of the “Aboriginal dance” that has offended Australian indigenous groups in today’s original dance section of the ice dancing competition in Vancouver.

“I am offended by the performance and so are our other councillors,” Bev Manton, the chairwoman of the NSW Land Council said.

“Aboriginal people for very good reason are sensitive about their cultural objects and icons being co-opted by non-Aboriginal people – whether they are from Australia or Russia.

“It’s important for people to tread carefully and respectfully when they are depicting somebody else’s culture and I don’t think this performance does.”

Shabalin said it was never their intention to offend.

“Our purpose was the opposite. We want to honour the culture, to show a dance as it was 1000 years ago in the Southeast Asian region. We are respectful towards all competitors and all nations.”

He said the couple had considered abandoning the program but had decided to persevere.

“A lot of Australian people wrote to our website that they liked the dance,” he said. “We did research and after the reaction we did an even deeper research. I don’t think that it is offensive.”

Shabalin said the restrictions of ice dancing prevented them from making the dance more authentic.

“It is not possible to do a 100 per cent authentic folk dance on the ice. We have to do four elements in two and a half minutes.”

The Russians said they were bemused by the ongoing controversy. “Who would have thought that philosophers would discuss our dance? We just wanted to do something different.”

Domnina and Shabalin lead the ice dancing competition after the compulsory dance section, with a score of 43.76, more than a point clear of second-placed Canadians Tess Virtue and Scott Moir (42.74), with an American pair third. The Australian

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John Bredenkamp

Marion, Illinois – Until recently, people here had little reason to know the name John A. Bredenkamp or anything about his past, a tale worthy of a James Bond villain, filled with allegations of international arms deals, blood diamond trades and ties to despotic regimes in his native Africa. Bredenkamp had visited Marion just once, nine years ago, to look over the Bermuda grass fairways and 96 sand bunkers at the Kokopelli Golf Club he was about to buy. He flew out the same day. A low-profile owner, he sold the course to a Florida group in 2006. He kept only a right to split future profits if the course sold again, his one tenuous tie to this Southern Illinois city. His name might have been forgotten, except for what took place two years later. “It’s just so absurd,” said Fritz Archerd of Gainesville, Fla., head of the group that bought the course from Bredenkamp. “And it’s all because of him.”

Just as the golf course was to change hands, the US Department of Treasury blocked the sale – indefinitely. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control had named Bredenkamp to its roster of terrorists and others deemed so undesirable they are targets of economic sanctions. They are called Specially Designated Nationals. Most of al-Qaida is on there. So are Colombian drug kingpins. Their US assets are frozen. US citizens are forbidden from conducting business with them. Now Marion’s only golf course has been frozen, too, stuck in a perplexing legal limbo for the last 15 months. The current owners are desperate to unload the club, but can’t. Last week, it effectively closed its doors. Seventy-five workers were let go. Just the golf pro remains, left to keep an eye on golf shirts and hats marked down 70 percent.

Kokopelli Golf Course, Illinois

Meanwhile, the owners and politicians are rushing to hash out a deal with Treasury before the fairways turn, in the horrified words of the local chamber of commerce, to wheat fields. “Hard to believe that what he did has reached all the way to Southern Illinois,” said David Hays, a local restaurant owner who leads a group of investors still hoping to buy the golf course. Hays added he had done some research on Bredenkamp since this all happened. “He’s a bad dude.” Bredenkamp, 69, is still barely known in the United States. He was born and reared in Africa. He was captain of the Rhodesian national rugby team in his younger days. He built a tobacco leaf company from scratch into one of the world’s largest. He made the 1996 list of Great Britain’s richest people (No. 76). His fortune was pegged at several hundred million.

About that time, he made a heavy foray into sports, at one point managing the careers of star golfers Ernie Els and Nick Price. Rumors of misdeeds swirled around Bredenkamp even then. But little was known for sure. Sports Illustrated called him “the most mysterious man in golf.” “He’s a charmer,” said Steve Smyers, a noted golf course architect from Florida who designed Kokopelli and knew Bredenkamp. Smyers got Bredenkamp interested in buying the course in 2001. But Bredenkamp was not a golfer. After several years, the pair decided to sell the struggling Kokopelli. Archerd’s investment group saw an opportunity. They structured a deal to buy out Bredenkamp and Smyers while giving them the right to share profits if Archerd’s group made a killing. But Archerd said his group has taken a hit on Kokopelli. With the economy tanking, it was not a good time to invest in a golf course. So in late 2008, they were close to selling it to Marion-area investors.

The exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but both sides said it would have been a wash. The Marion group would pay off about $330,000 debt and tax liens, plus other expenses of Archerd’s group. No profit remained. Archerd said he expects his investors will lose about $750,000 on the deal. “We are getting nothing out of this. Bredenkamp would get absolutely nothing out of this,” Archerd said. “They’re blocking a guy’s interest that is worth zero.” But they didn’t get the deal done before Treasury’s letter arrived in November 2008. The Treasury called Bredenkamp a crony of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, a pariah leader whose government in the war-torn nation has been criticized for land seizures and corruption. “Bredenkamp has financially propped up the regime and provided other support to a number of its high-ranking officials,” Treasury said in its letter. Treasury described Bredenkamp as a businessman with dealings in “tobacco trading, gray-market arms trading and trafficking … and diamond extraction.”

Treasury officials declined to talk about Bredenkamp or the golf course sale for this article. But news reports and investigations over the years paint a colorful picture. Bredenkamp has admitted that he evaded United Nations economic sanctions in the early 1970s when he bought aircraft for the Ian Smith-led white Rhodesian government during a civil war with black citizens. (Rhodesia would later become Zimbabwe.) A British TV documentary in 1994 claimed Bredenkamp was deep in the illegal arms trade, his companies selling land mines to Iraq and anti-aircraft guns to Iran. A 2002 UN National Security Council interim report looking into the diamond trade in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused a Bredenkamp company of supplying parts for Zimbabwean troops and war planes for missions in the Congo. He also was linked to questionable deals for rights to Congo diamond mines, home to so-called conflict or blood diamonds. Last year, the European Union joined the United States in blacklisting Bredenkamp.

Bredenkamp has not taken the criticism lightly. He frequently writes letters to British and African publications to complain about the stories detailing his alleged exploits. He also maintains JohnBredenkamp.com, which is aimed squarely at refuting the official record. He did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. On his site, Bredenkamp complains that he has never been given the chance to defend himself against the actions by US and EU governments. How someone gets on the list is difficult to discern, according to attorneys familiar with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control. But once you get on the list, it is almost impossible to get off. And the evidence can be a national security secret. “They make it a complicated process,” said Clif Burns, an economic sanctions attorney with Bryan Cave in Washington. Burns, who is not involved in the Bredenkamp case, said the sanctions list serves a worthy purpose, but can overreach. That appears to be the case with Kokopelli, Burns said, because it seems certain Bredenkamp would not benefit from the golf course’s sale. “There is no reason on Earth why the people in this town should be caught up in this,” Burns said.

Archerd said he has struggled to get Treasury officials on the phone. He and others recently enlisted the help of US Rep. Jerry Costello and Sen. Dick Durbin. Thanks to their help, Archerd is flying to Washington this week to talk with Treasury officials. He sounded hopeful. Hays, the restaurant owner, said he still wants to buy the golf course. He would run the restaurant. Another investor plans to build 90 homes on some unused acres. They want to retain the club’s 200 dues-paying members. And there are some big tournaments coming up: a state open qualifier in June and PGA sectional in September. But they need to move quickly, Hays said. “Otherwise,” he said, “the golf course is going to be in a true ‘Twilight Zone.’” Todd C. Frankel, ST Louis Post Dispatch

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Tiger Woods

“Good morning and thank you for joining me. Many of you in this room are my friends, many in this room know me, may have cheered for me, worked with me or supported me, now everyone of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you simply and directly i am deeply sorry for my selfish and irresponsible behavior I have been engaged in. People want to know how i could have been so stupid and selfish.

While I have always tried to be private, I have a few things to say. Elin and i have started to work though this. As she has told me, my real apology to her will not be in words but in action, however what we say to each other will be private. I am also aware of the pain I have caused everyone in this room I have let you down and let down my fans, for many my behavior has been a major disappointment, my behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners ,and everyone involved in my business, but most importantly to the young people we influence, I apologize.

Millions of kids have changed their lives, due to the programs I am involved in, and I am still dedicated to that, but I still know I have bitterly disappointed all of you. I have made you question who I am and how I could have done these things. I am embarrassed that I have put you all in this position, for all I have done I am so sorry, I have a lot to atone for, but one issue I want to discuss. It has been said that Elin hurt me (on the night of the wreck) That angers me there had never been domestic abuse in our marriage, Elin had shown tremendous grace in this ordeal, she deserves praise not judgment.(Looking directly into the camera) I alone am responsible for this situation.

The issue here is that I cheated, I am the only person to blame. I stopped living according to my core values. I knew what i was doing was wrong but thought only about myself and thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to, I felt I was entitled. I had worked hard. Money and fame made me believe I was entitled. I was wrong and foolish. I don’t get to live by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I hurt my mother, my wife, kids, friends my foundation. This has made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to again. It is time to make amends and that starts by never repeating this behavior again. Its not what you achieve in life that matters, it is what you overcome. Achievements on the golf course are not what matters, decency and honestly are what matter. Families used to look up to me as a role model to their kids, to those families I am so sorry. I have been in inpatient therapy, receiving guidance.

I have a long way to go but have taken the right first steps. I understand the press wants details,(such as whether he and Elin will stay together, etc) but please know that as far as I am concerned all of these questions and answers are between Elin and me. Some have made up things that never happened they said that I took performance enhancing drugs that has never happened. I still believe it is right to shield my family. They did not do these things, I did, I have always tried to keep my wife and kids separate from my career, however my behavior does not make it right to follow my mom, wife, and follow my 2 yr old daughter to school and report the location. Please leave my wife and kids alone. I have brought this on myself. I have a lot of work to so and i intend to dedicate myself to doing it.

Part of this for me is Buddhism. It teaches that craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security, it teaches me to stop following every impulse and practice restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught. Starting tomorrow, I will leave for more treatment and therapy. In therapy I have learned the importance of keeping spiritual life and professional life balanced. I need to regain my balance. I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be. I don’t rule out this year. When I do return I need to make my behavior more respectful of the game. I have received thousands of letters and emails to encourage me. To everyone who has reached out to me and my family, thank you. (He added that their encouragement was very helpful and appreciated) Thank PGA tour, it’s commissioners and players (for your support) and I look forward to seeing my fellow players on the course. Finally to the many people in this room and homes who believed in me, I ask for your help, I ask you to find room in your heart t one day believe in me again, thank you.”

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By Susanne Gutsche, Vienna, Austria

VIENNA: Austrian government officials are up in arms over the issue of housing Nigerian and other African asylum seekers, with the government saying no village or city can be found to build a third asylum center for refugees.

Asylum shelter in Vienna, PIC: Susanne Gutsche

Some Austrian government ministers and city mayors have even suggested imprisoning asylum seekers the government has resolved the issue of providing additional accommodation.

Austrian law says that there have to be three housing centers for asylum seekers, and the construction of a third unit has sparked arguments in internal politics.

Besides the ongoing debates about additional housing, the situation of asylum seekers in Austria is already lamentable, with widespread allegations of racism and abuse.

A racism report released by Amnesty International in 2009 confirmed that people of different origin or with dark skin do notreceive the same rights as Austrians in public institutions. Racial discrimination and harassment by some elements of the police are part of the daily lives of minorities.

Emeka Sonday (19) from Nigeria was detained is one of the asylum seekers detained by Austrian authorities. Sonday arrived in Austria in 2008 after fleeing alleged political persecution in his home country. His asylum application was rejected, and he refused to go back to Nigeria and stayed remained in Austria illegally. He was arrested and jailed for five months.

“In jail you see people getting mad every day. They don’t act like human beings any more” says Sonday. Sonday said African asylum seekers sacrifice and take very long and hard journeys to seek asylum. All their hopes are based in Europe. Once they arrive, they are often treated like criminals and sometimes even locked up.

“It is extremely frustrating to be arrested without having committed a crime and face an absolutely uncertain future”, said Christos Papaioannou, project-coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières

Sonday said although he explained to Austrian authorities that he faced political persecution in Nigeria, Austrian authorities did not believe him.

“You know, the treatment of asylum seekers here in Austria is not very good. I would go home if I could, but I can’t”said Sonday.

The worst case of expulsion happened ten years ago, when Nigerian asylum seeker Marcus Omofuma was sent back to Lagos by plane. Even on the plane, Omofuma resisted repatriation to Nigeria and three Austrian policemen taped his mouth and nose with adhesive foil. Thirty minutes later, Omofuma was dead. The three policemen are still serving in the Austrian police force.

The European Union guidelines on the treatment of asylum seekers state: “Asylum (…) is granted to a person who is unable to seek protection in his/her country of citizenship and/or residence in particular for fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.

The Austrian Home Office, when asked about  Sonday’s situation said: “You see, Austria is a Constitutional State. More than 15,000 refugees sought asylum last year. We can’t help everybody. And if we don’t lock up those asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been refused, it would call into questionAustria as a Constitutional State”.

Furthermore, they said asylum seekers are free to come and go from the asylum centers until it is clear if Austria is responsible for their case, adding that the objective of the Home Office was to make sure that asylum seekers don’t disappear illegally.

“We have buildings similar to hotels, surrounded by parks and they have access to health services and advice in legal matters. They come to ask for protection”, explained the Home Office Minister’s spokesperson.

Asked whether it is not unjust for a person to be shut away without having committed a crime, the Home Secretary said  the question of housing asylum seekers is not a philosophical one.

The discussion about locking up asylum seekers came from Statistics which show a rise of crime in one of the villages where an asylum center is already established.

Crime has declined in the last few years but residents of the villages are still afraid of the potential crime. Right-wing politicians now intentionally use these fears and even exaggerate them because of the election campaign due in spring.

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