Welcome to Orania, South Africa's only "purely" white town

Orania is a South Africa's only "purely" white town founded in the Northern Cape province in 1991 by Afrikaners, for Afrikaners opposed to the post-apartheid "rainbow nation," just after the release of Nelson Mandela. One thousand people live in Orania, and they try to be as self-sufficient as possible. They have their own money, as well as their own flag. Orania's population grows at nine per cent a year. It attracts Afrikaners who feel to be left out in the new South Africa, and who are scared of the country's high crime rates. The little town is protected by article 235 of South Africa's constitution, which guarantees the right of self-determination. But residents here are thinking big — their next goal is the creation of an Afrikaner Republic.

Photos taken by Stephane de Sakutin of AFP/Getty Images on April 17, 2013.

 

A young boy plays by a painted wall reading "Welcome in Orania" in Afrikaans.

 

Afrikaner pupils attend a lesson with their teacher.

 

A cashier holds Orania's currency notes.

More photos after the jump.

Dredging up shipwreck treasure - Editor's Choice - Pictures of the Day - April 8, 2013

Treasures dating back 400 years were recently recovered from the Tortugas shipwreck, in the Straits of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. The site, called the "Tortugas" excavation, was first discovered back in 1965. The galleon Buen Jesus y Nuestra Senora del Rosario, of the Tierra Firme treasure fleet, was sailing back to Spain after collecting colonial treasures back in 1622. It was struck down by a fierce hurricane off the southwest tip of Florida, about 400 miles from the Florida Keys. Photos courtesy of Odyssey Marine Exploration, via Reuters.

 

Five Mexico City and Peruvian silver coins

 

A selection of the 27 gold bars recovered

 

A Spanish olive jar being recovered using the limpet suction device

Great Kite of China - Editor's Choice - Picture of the Day - April 3, 2013

Reuters

A 138-meter (452-foot) kite in the shape of the Great Wall and China's first emperor Qin Shihuan (L), who gave orders to build the Great Wall, flies above Daming Palace National Heritage Park during a kite fair in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, April 3, 2013.

Ten years after U.S. bombs rained down on Baghdad, Iraq...

It was a decade ago today that U.S. bombs first rained down on Baghdad, Iraq, while in Washington, then-President George W. Bush announced the start of hostilities — a U.S.-led coalition with the U.K. and other forces — on March 19, 2003. It was already the early hours of March 20, 2003, in Iraq when the airstrikes began.

The military action quickly ousted Saddam Hussein, but led to years of bloodshed as Sunni and Shiite militants battled U.S. forces and each other, leaving nearly 4,500 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis dead.

At the end of 2011, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta officially declared the Iraq War over with the last U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraqi soon after. Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the coalition, prompting the invasion in 2003, were never found in these 10 years following the start of the invasion.

A decade later, Iraq’s long-term stability and the strength of its democracy are uncertain. While the country is freer than it was during Saddam’s murderous rule, its Shiite-led government is arguably closer to Tehran than to Washington. It faces an outpouring of anger by the Sunni minority that was dominant under Saddam and at the heart of the insurgency that followed his ouster.

With files from the New York Times and Associated Press.

Smoke rises from the Trade Ministry in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, after it was hit by a missile during U.S.-led forces attacks. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

 

A U.S. Marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

 

Piles of torn and burned Iraqi currency bearing the portrait of Saddam Hussein lie in ashes on the floor of the burned Baghdad Central Bank on April 18, 2003. (David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)

More photos after the jump.

Editor's Choice Picture of the Day - March 6, 2013

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LUIS CAMACHO/AFP/Getty Images

View of the hearse carrying the coffin of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez while leaving the Military Hospital to the Military Academy, on March 6, 2013, in Caracas.The flag-draped coffin of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez was borne through throngs of weeping supporters on Wednesday as a nation bade farewell to the firebrand leftist who led them for 14 years.

Editor's Choice Picture of the Day - March 5, 2013

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AFP PHOTO/PHIL MOORE

Men watch the incoming provisional election results on a television outside a shop in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya's capital, March 5, 2013. Kenya's deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces an international crimes against humanity trial, took an initial lead in presidential elections today, the first since disputed polls five years ago sparked a wave of violence.

Editor's Choice Picture of the Day - February 28, 2013

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REUTERS/Alessandro Bianch

A helicopter carrying Pope Benedict XVI takes off from inside the Vatican on its way to the papal summer residence at Castelgandolfo, February 28, 2013. Pope Benedict slips quietly from the world stage on Thursday after a private last goodbye to his cardinals and a short flight to a country palace to enter the final phase of his life "hidden from the world".          

Rare Kennedy family photos up for auction - Editor's Choice - Picture of the Day - February 14, 2013

John McInnis Auctioneers/AP Photo

This undated photo provided by John McInnis Auctioneers in Amesbury, Mass., shows late President John F. Kennedy, right, with his wife, Jacqueline, center, and sister-in-law Ethyl Kennedy, left. The photograph is among items to be auctioned Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013.  The family of David Powers, a former special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, is auctioning hundreds of photographs, documents, gifts and other memorabilia that once belonged to the late president. Other items include a photograph of John F. Kennedy with Harry Truman, autographed by Truman, and Kennedy's Air Force One leather bomber jacket.

 

—@canice

French King Henri IV's face reconstructed - Editor's Choice - Picture of the Day - February 12, 2013

A panel of forensic scientists have identified this mummified head as that of French King Henri IV (1553-1610), who was murdered at the age of 57 on May 14, 1610, by a fanatic. Below is a computer generated image that reconstructs what Henri IV may have looked like. Scientists headed by France's Philippe Charlier found a common genetic profile between the mummified head of Henri IV and dried blood from his descendant, Louis XVI.

Bellet/Stephane Gabet/Galaxie Press/AFP/Getty Images

 

 

 

—@canice

Marilyn Monroe Rediscovered - The lost film of Peter Mangone

Photos: The Estate of Peter Mangone and Danziger Gallery, New York

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Marilyn Monroe continues to beguile the world today.
And now a gallery in New York is showcasing some rediscovered photos of the iconic movie star shot from 1955.
The Danziger Gallery has continued with the exhibition which started Jan. 10. It runs to Feb. 9 even though the man who shot the grainy eight-millimeter footage passed away on Dec. 11.
However, Peter Mangone lived to oversee the printing of his historic pictures and the publication of the gallery’s catalogue.
Mangone was a high school student in New York who skipped his Grade 9 class in an attempt to stake out the star at the Gladstone Hotel. Monroe had just divorced Joe DiMaggio and was living at the hotel while taking classes at the Actors Studio.
On a grey, March day, the fan used his new Revere movie camera and caught the star as she emerged from the hotel and noticed the young fan.
Monroe beckoned him to follow and for the next few hours, the young fan recorded the star as walked around midtown Manhattan.
Mangone had the film developed, but he remembers cleaning out his room and throwing out the film. Then in 2002, he brother called him to tell him he had found the Monroe film while cleaning out his father’s possessions.
They had been stored in a beaten-up cardboard box, but the film was in near mint condition.
The film was 5-1/2-minutes long and shows Monroe blowing kisses at one moment and looking pensive in other moments as she walked freely on the street in her fur-trimmed black cashmere suit.

 

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