Word: zuma
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Scrabble players around the world had to double-check their calendars this week after Mattel announced that it was releasing a new version of the game called Scrabble Trickster, which allows players to use proper nouns such as Quzhou (a city in southern China, worth 27 points) and Zuma (the surname of South Africa's President, worth 15 points). "I was sure it was an April Fools' joke," says John Chew, co-president of the North American Scrabble Players Association. "I thought someone was a few days late reading the press release and the joke was on them...
...visit. The character bashing continued with the Daily Telegraph, which reported that of "all the colorful characters who have visited the Palace during her [Queen Elizabeth] 58 years on the throne ... the South African president is probably the first to have faced a multitude of criminal charges." Zuma was charged with rape five years ago, but he was acquitted at trial. He also faced charges of fraud, racketeering, money laundering, tax evasion and corruption - but all were dropped before last year's general elections. (See pictures of Zuma and the worst-dressed world leaders...
...Zuma lashed out at his critics this week, telling South Africa's Star newspaper that the British were acting in the superior manner of a colonial master. "When the British came to our country, they said everything we are doing was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way," he said. "Bear in mind that I'm a freedom fighter and I fought to free myself, also for my culture to be respected." The African National Congress Youth League, part of South Africa's governing coalition, went even further, claiming the treatment of Zuma was fueled by racism. "These British racists...
However, the South African media, particularly editorial cartoonists, have not spared Zuma from criticism. Indeed, much of what the British media have focused on this week is considered old news at home. "His presidency is also highly controversial in South Africa and is being debated by the public and civil society who are holding him to account," University of Sheffield journalism lecturer Herman Wasserman says. "[It has] created a robust debate about him, which has caused his approval to be at a low point at the moment." Raymond Louw, editor and publisher of the Southern Africa Report, a South Africa...
However, some media analysts believe there are more sinister motivations behind the media's preoccupation with Zuma. "Just using the word 'buffoon' harks back to an era of portraying Africans as simple and less educated," Wasserman says. Richard Lance Keeble, a professor of journalism at the University of Lincoln in northern England, says the British tabloid obsession with sex and sleaze drives the type of coverage seen with Zuma. "Add to that heady brew a pinch of unacceptable racism and you can easily explain the tabloid treatment of President Zuma's visit to London this week...