Last Word

Zuma, the world’s most consenting adult...

You’ve got to hand it to South African President Jacob Zuma.

Last week it emerged that Mr Zuma, who is married to three wives and is engaged to a fourth woman, had fathered a girl last year with Sonono Khoza, 39, the daughter of the 2010 World Cup organising committee boss Irvin Khoza.

Mr Zuma, 67, allegedly paid compensation for the pregnancy, suggesting that he was not denying paternity.

While his ANC party was quick to defend him, saying that there was “nothing shameful” in a relationship between two consenting adults, others were less forgiving.

One Member of Parliament, Kenneth Meshoe, suggested that Zuma seek treatment for “sex addiction” like “Tiger Woods did.”

In 2006, Mr Zuma was acquitted of the rape of a woman he knew to be HIV-positive. She too was the daughter of a family friend.

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No silver bullets for Kenya’s bumbling police

Kenyan police last week unearthed over 31,000 bullets at the garage of a businessman, Munir Ishmael, who last December had been arrested for allegedly being in illegal possession of firearms, including another 100,000 bullets.

While the police hailed the seizure of the second cache as a huge success, not everybody was impressed.

Why, critics asked, didn’t they go through all the businessman’s properties with a fine tooth comb after the December discovery?

In the same week, incidentally, the police were needlessly embarrassed after a senior officer blamed the death of a young Kenya Airways pilot at the hands of thugs on the victim himself, saying that he had made the mistake of being at the wrong place at the wrong time — Nairobi’s main thoroughfare! Perhaps the police themselves need to re-examine their systems?

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Don’t kick the habit, blow it away!

Andi Susanto, a 31-year old Indonesian, just wanted to have a smoke.

But when he lit his cigarette it exploded, knocking six teeth right out of his mouth and scaring the living daylights out of him.

While saying they did not know what caused the explosion, the makers of the cigarette brand Mr Susanto was smoking, PT Nojorono Tobacco readily accepted liability, agreeing to pay him 5m rupiah ($535) compensation as well as meet his medical costs. Mr Susanto says that he is now so scared of lighting up that he will give up smoking.

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Who wants yesterday’s Blackberries?

Uganda’s government last week gave a two-week ultimatum to all officials who had been given Blackberry mobile phones during preparations for the Commonwealth meeting two years ago to return them following revelations that only 56 out of 300 handsets had been returned.

Those who failed to return the ageing phones, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee chairman Nandala Mafabi said, will be deemed to have stolen government property.

Coincidentally, the order was given on the same day that the PAC discovered that Ush159 million ($79,900) meant to upgrade Mulago Hospital in the run-up to the conference had somehow disappeared into thin air!

IN PICTURES: Congo clashes

In a hand-out photograph released by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team May 2, 2012 outgoing African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) force commander Major General Fred Mugisha (left) prepares to hand over command to his successor, Ugandan Lt. General Andrew Gutti (right) at a ceremony at the mission's headquarters in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Mugisha had commanded the AU force since early August 2011. Photo/AFP

AMISOM handover

Malawi's late president Bingu wa Mutharika's supporter wears a "Bingu rest in peace" tee-shirt as he stands in front of the Mpumulo wa Bata Mausoleum during his funeral at his Ndata farm residence in the district of Thyolo, southern Malawi, on April 23, 2012. Photo/AFP/Amos Gumulira

Final send off for Mutharika

Sudanese carry an Armed Forces officer as they gather outside the Defence Ministry in the capital Khartoum on April 20, 2012 to celebrate retaking the oil town of Heglig from South Sudanese forces. Border clashes between Sudan and South Sudan escalated last week with waves of air strikes hitting the South, and Juba seizing the north's Heglig oil hub on April 10.  PHOTO/AFP/ASHRAF SHAZLY

Sudan celebrates retaking Heglig