Oscar Pistorius to Undergo Month of Tests at Psychiatric Hospital

Oscar Pistorius will be evaluated at a psychiatric hospital for one month so that doctors can assess his mental state when he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a South African judge ordered on Tuesday.

The paralympian star must visit Pretoria's Weskoppies Mental Hospital, where he will be assessed every weekday for 30 days, Judge Thokozile Masipa told his murder trial. 

Pistorius admits shooting model and law graduate Steenkamp while she was in the bathroom of his luxury home on Valentine's Day last year. The prosecution said he murdered her after an argument, but Pistorius denies this and says he thought she was an intruder. 

The trial will be postponed until June 30 while Pistorius undergoes evaluation by four doctors at the hospital in South Africa's administrative capital city, starting May 26. He will be released and allowed to return home at 4 p.m. each day. 

The development came after Judge Masipa on Wednesday approved the prosecution's request for a psychiatric evaluation after a doctor testified that the athlete suffered from "anxiety disorder."

Dr. Merryll Vorster told the court this condition could have been caused by various events in Pistorius' life, such as the amputation of his lower legs as a baby and his late mother's habit of sleeping with a gun under her pillow. 

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel had claimed Vorster's evidence suggested Pistorius' lawyers were preparing a defense based on mental health conditions and asked the judge to send Pistorius for an independent assessment at a state hospital. 

Granting that request, Judge Masipa said: "Mental illness and mental defects are morbid disorders that are not capable of being diagnosed by a lay court without expert psychiatric evidence. 

"The evidence of Dr. Forster has not been contradicted nor can it be in the absence of other psychiatric evidence," she added. "This court is ill-equipped to deal with the issue raised in Dr. Forsters evidence at this stage." 

Masipa stressed that the ruling was not meant to "punish" Pistorius.
Source: NBC News

Death toll doubles to 19 in Somali attack, African Union says

A Somali government soldier looks at a destroyed car at the site of car bomb blast in front of the Makka Al Mukarrama Hotel in Mogadishu, on March 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mohamed Abdiwahab)

Mogadishu (AFP) - #African Union forces in Somalia on Tuesday said a "cowardly" bomb attack the previous day had killed 19 people, nearly double the number initially reported.

The car bomb exploded on Monday outside a bank on a busy street in the southern Somali town of Baidoa.

"The blast killed 19 innocent victims and destroyed valuable property," the AU force said in a statement, updating an earlier toll from the police of 10.

The town, which is under the control of government troops backed by AU soldiers, was wrested from the #Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels two years ago.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Shebab have carried out a string of bombings and vowed to overthrow the war-torn country's internationally-backed but fragile government.

"This was a cowardly attack, which highlights the vicious nature of the enemy who continues to target innocent civilians," AU envoy to Somalia Mahamat Saleh Annadif said.

The Shebab have been driven out of fixed positions in Somalia's major towns by the #UN-mandated AU force, but still regularly launch attacks that include bombings and guerrilla-style raids.
Recent Shebab attacks have targeted key areas of government or the security forces, in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities that they are winning the war against the Islamist fighters.

Continued conflict, compounded by poor rains and funding shortfalls, are threatening the few gains made in Somalia since an extreme famine less than three years ago, with the United Nations and aid agencies warning the troubled country could be sliding back into a food crisis.

Some 250,000 people, around half of them young children, died in Somalia during the 2011 famine, according to the UN, which has acknowledged it should have done more to prevent the tragedy.

Today, over 50,000 severely malnourished children are at "death's door", a coalition of 22 international and Somali aid agencies warned earlier this month, with almost three million people in crisis and over one million forced from their homes. The violence continues, with attacks even in the heart of the capital Mogadishu

Source: Yahoo News

Ruling African National Congress Party Confirmed Winner Of South Africa Election

African National Congress (ANC) supporters celebrate during the victory celebrations of the ANC at the Peoples Park outside the Moses Mabhida Football stadium in Durban on May 10, 2014. (RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP/Getty Images) | RAJESH JANTILAL via Getty Images

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — #SouthAfrica's election commission completed a vote count that confirms the ruling African National Congress as the winner but also shows the strengthening of prominent opposition groups, according to results Saturday. The government said the election and its aftermath had gone smoothly, despite some scattered delays and disruptions, and an outbreak of street violence in a poor area of Johannesburg.

With all 22,000 #voting districts counted, the #AfricanNationalCongress ( #ANC) had 62.15 percent of the vote, several percentage points lower than its result in 2009 elections, the election commission said on its website. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, won 22.23 percent of the vote, an increase of more than 5 percent from 2009. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a new party that wants to distribute national resources to the poor, won 6.35 percent.Voter turnout was 73 percent of the 25 million South Africans, or half the population, who registered for the national and provincial elections.

In a key race, the ruling party won Gauteng, South Africa's most populous province and its economic center, by about 53 percent, but that was a drop of 10 percent from its performance in the 2009 vote. The Democratic Alliance came second in Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, with nearly 31 percent and the Economic Freedom Fighters won 10 percent.

Once led by Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress campaigned on a record of promoting democratic freedoms and providing basic services to millions of South Africans since the end of white minority rule in 1994. Its reputation has been tarnished by the 2012 killing of several dozen protesters by police during labor unrest and a scandal involving more than $20 million in state spending on the private home of President Jacob Zuma, but its relatively solid showing reflected the resilience of its nationwide support.
The Democratic Alliance, which has centrist policies and campaigned on a platform of more jobs and curbs on corruption, has expanded its influence beyond its stronghold in the Western Cape, one of South Africa's nine provinces.
The election was mostly peaceful, but police on Saturday warned the public to stay away from areas of Alexandra, a poor township that is part of Johannesburg, after overnight unrest linked to allegations by opposition groups that vote-rigging had occurred.
About 60 people involved in violent protests have been arrested since Friday, the South African Press Association quoted police as saying.
Protests periodically break out in poor urban areas of South Africa where residents complain that government help is insufficient and they have been marginalized. #President #Zuma has said he will accelerate the provision of basic services to those who lack them in his new administration
Source: The Huffington Post.