Obama to visit Mandela's former jail

Tour of Robben Island sets tone for keynote speech

Reuters




Obama met Mandela in 2005, when he was a US senator



U.S. President Barack Obama planned to tour an important historic site in South Africa on Sunday, the prison that once held the country's former president Nelson Mandela, who remains in hospital.
Obama is to visit the bleak former detention facility on Robben Island after landing in Cape Town to pay tribute to the ailing anti-apartheid hero and set the stage for a speech urging Africans to strive for prosperity and democracy.

Obama is due to cite the legacy of Mandela, who was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 of the 27 years he spent in jail before becoming the first black president of South Africa, in a speech at the University of Cape Town later in the day.
Current South African President Jacob Zuma was also held on the wind-swept island off Cape Town under the apartheid regime that ended in 1994 with Mandela's election victory.
Some protesters gathered outside the University of Cape Town ahead of Obama's speech, holding placards attacking U.S. foreign policy reading "Obama mass killer" and "End drone wars now".
The 94-year-old Mandela's faltering health has been a sombre backdrop to Obama's eight-day Africa trip. South Africa's government says his condition is "critical but stable".
Obama met Mandela's relatives In Johannesburg on Saturday to deliver a message of support instead of directly visiting the frail former president at the hospital where he has spent the last three weeks.

• Obama meets with Mandela family

The U.S. leader describes Mandela as a "personal hero," and has reminded audiences in Africa in recent days that his first political activism was to urge his U.S. college to divest itself of South Africa investments to protest against apartheid.
On Robben Island, Obama will once again visit Mandela's cell in the former penal colony, repeating a previous visit he made as a U.S. senator in 2006.
This time his tour guide is to be 83-year-old former inmate and anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada
In his speech at the university, Obama will look back to an address the U.S. politician Robert Kennedy gave in Cape Town in 1966 comparing the struggle to overcome apartheid with the U.S. civil rights movement.
Senator Kennedy, the younger brother of U.S. president John Kennedy, was assassinated while running for president in 1968.

Fight for democracy, prosperity

Obama, himself a historic figure as the first African American president, is expected to remind a young audience at the university that Mandela and those in the U.S. civil rights movement persevered against daunting obstacles in bringing about social change that many thought impossible.
The U.S. president will then challenge his audience not to be content with that progress but to push ahead with battles to lift Africans out of poverty, combat government corruption and improve health and living standards across the continent.
He will also aim to restore some of the lustre of the U.S. relationship with Africa by stressing the U.S. desire to move beyond being an aid donor toward greater economic partnerships.
The speech comes in the middle of an Africa trip that has taken Obama to Senegal and South Africa and will conclude Monday and Tuesday in Tanzania.
Obama has sought to use the trip to emphasize Africa's potential as a business partner for the United States and to overcome the perception that he has ignored the continent.
Many Africans are disappointed that despite the U.S. president's African ancestry — his father was a Kenyan — his only previous visit to the continent while in office was to Ghana in 2009.
The president will unveil a $7 billion U.S. initiative to double access to electric power on a continent where only one in three people have electricity.
While in Cape Town, Obama will also visit a health centre to highlight U.S. efforts to combat HIV/AIDS on the continent, which have contributed to a 32 per cent drop in the number of AIDS-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2005 to 2011.

Aphorisms

Just in case you have some time to read something funny and "deep" at the same time.

1. The nicest thing about the future is . . .

that it always starts tomorrow.

 

2. Money will buy a fine dog . . .

but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

 

3. If you don't have a sense of humor . . .

you probably don't have any sense at all.

 

4. Seat belts are not as confining . . .

as wheelchairs.

 

5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is . . .

when you're in deep water.

 

6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of

the dark . .

to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

 

7. Business conventions are important . . .

because they demonstrate how many people a company can

operate without.

 

8. Why is it that at class reunions . . .

you feel younger than everyone else looks?

 

9. Scratch a cat (or dog) . . .

and you will have a permanent job.

 

10. No one has more driving ambition than the teenage boy

  (or girl) . . .

who wants to buy a car.

 

11. There are no new sins . . .

the old ones just get more publicity.

 

12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong

number at 4 a.m. . .

like, it could be the right number.

 

13. No one ever says "It's only a game" . . .

when their team is winning.

 

14. I've reached the age where . . .

'happy hour' is a nap.

 

15. Be careful about reading the fine print . . .

there's no way you're going to like it.

 

16. The trouble with bucket seats is that . . .

not everybody has the same size bucket.

 

17. Do you realize that, in about 40 years . . .

we'll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos?

(And rap music will be the Golden Oldies!)

 

18. Money can't buy happiness . . .

but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Cadillac than

in a Yugo.

 

19. After 60, if you don't wake up aching in every joint . . .

you're probably dead.

 

20. Always be yourself because the people that matter don't

mind . . .

and the ones that mind don't matter.

 

21. Life isn't tied with a bow . . .

but it's still a gift

 

 

TIPs to prepare you oral exam

Next week you'll have to do your oral exams. Probably you are already getting prepared for it but I'd like to give you some ideas to make it easier.

 

• Try to listen to some English everyday (music, news, films, radio, etc.); pay attention to the pronunciation and try to imitate some parts of the texts. Some songs are fantastic!

 

• Prepare the topics that appear in the book. Don’t attempt to memorize everything because the moment you forget a word, then you’ll get stuck. Repeat the speech some times, making changes and trying to improve what you didn’t do well the previous time. If you know very well what you’re talking about, you won’t have any problem to improvise in case it’s necessary.

 

• Prepare some new vocabulary for each topic and use some of the new structures you studied this course. It will be a positive!

 

• Record your speech and listen to it later. Make sure you spot the mistakes and write them down. Next time you record it, pay special attention to these mistakes.

 

• Check the pronunciation of the words you don’t know. Don’t trust your logics. Remember that pronunciation rules in English have nothing to do with the Spanish ones.

 

• If you have a very strong Spanish accent, try to imitate Spanish people mocking English accent. It works!

 

• Speak slowly and paying attention not only to the right pronunciation but also to the accuracy: speak correctly. The exam is NOT a speed competition.

 

• For the individual topic you have just about 3 minutes. You should start with a brief introduction about the topic chosen, then only 2 or 3 ideas (no time for more) and then a good conclusion. Connect the different parts with appropriate connectors and make sure you have covered all the points given.

 

• As for the dialogue you have to keep  a "spontaneous and natural" conversation with your partner for about 5 minutes. Use the techniques you have learnt to agree or disagree; interrupt each other in a polite way; express your point providing examples or supporting your partner's idea, etc. Don't do individual speeches because that's not the aim of the exercise. Just hold a discussion for some minutes. 

 

• If possible, practise with your partner; it'll help you be more confident the day of the exam.

 

Good luck!

Hi all,

You're about to do your exams. I hope you all stay calm, read carefully the instructions and do as much as you can.
Don't get stuck if there's something you don't know or any answer you can't find. Just leave it and when you finish with the rest of the questions, come back to it.
Don't forget to underline in the multiple choice questions the differences among the 3 options. You won't need to remember a lot of information as you can glance at the possibilities and quickly choose the correct one.
And finally, make sure you leave some time to check your writing. Read it again to see if you can understand what you wrote and if there's any mistake, make corrections. Use new structures, new vocabulary, anything you can do in order to impress the teacher: me!

You can do it!

 

All hail the undisputed King of Clay

Nadal clinches EIGHTH French Open title with win over Ferrer

From DAN KING at Roland Garros , The Sun

RAFA NADAL’S march into history went exactly to plan.

Well, apart from the rain, the protesters shouting from the stands and the masked man with a flare who invaded the court.
But not even those distractions – and certainly not poor David Ferrer - could prevent Nadal cruising to a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 victory and becoming the first man ever to win eight titles at the same Grand Slam.
This imperious victory was all the more satisfying for the master from Mallorca because it completed a stunning comeback after a serious knee injury had kept him out of tennis for seven months.
Nadal said: “I’m very, very happy. Every moment is different but this one is very special.
“Five months ago nobody in my team dreamed of a comeback like this.

ACE ... Nadal punches the air in delight

“We thought it would be impossible. But here we are. It’s fantastic, incredible.”
It certainly is. In nine events since his return, Nadal has reached nine finals and won seven titles.
Want some more stats? Tough, because you’re going to get them.
This win was Nadal’s 59th at Roland Garros, putting him one ahead of Roger Federer and setting a new record.

Mandela in serious but stable condition

 

            CAPE TOWN - Former South African president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is in a “serious but stable” conditon in hospital with a lung infection, a statement from the presidency has said.

Saturday’s statement said Mandela, 94, who was discharged from hospital in April after receiving treatment for a lung infection, had suffered the same illness in the past few days. “This morning at about 1.30am his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition,” the statement said.

It added that the Nobel laureate, who is said to be breathing on his own, was receiving expert medical care and doctors were doing “everything possible to make him better and comfortable”.

President Jacob Zuma, on behalf of the government and the nation, wished Madiba, Mandela’s clan name, a speedy recovery and requested the media and the public respect the privacy of the former president and his family. Mac Maharaj, Zuma’s spokesperson said Mandela has suffered a lung infection from as far back as he was in prison. “Because he has grown older ... it [infection] needs more careful attention. This time round he was receiving treatment at home but doctors decided the deterioration was serious [enough] to warrant immediate hospitalisation,” he said.

“So when I describe his condition as serious, I am saying what the doctors have said to me. But they have also added this morning that he is in a stable condition. He is frail and nobody would be prepared to predict how speedily or effectively he would recover.” Keith Khoza, the spokesperson of the governing African National Congress, said Mandela was “in capable hands as he has always been and will pull through”.

Media kept away: Al Jazeera’s Tania Page, reporting from Johannesburg, said the hospital where Mandela was receiving treatment had not been disclosed as happened with previous admissions because the authorities were trying to keep the media away. “They don’t want a large contingent of media outside the hospital,” she said.

“But that in many ways is inevitable because this information does eventually leak out and because there is also such an extraordinary level of attention and care among members of the public as to how he is doing. “People are aware that he is frail; that he is an elderly man [and] many people are desperate for any news really of his condition.”

Mandela, revered at home and abroad for leading the struggle against white minority rule, has been in and out of hospital for lung infection and other health problems. Last year, he was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection.

In March and April, global figures such as US President Barack Obama sent him get-well messages and South Africans included Mandela in their Easter prayers.

Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and served only one term in office, was jailed on Robben Island for 27 years for resisiting white minority rule.