H&K 1 - Hijacker 0

As News24 reports on a Johannesburg story:

"It was him or me", said Alexi Kyriacou on the East Rand on Tuesday (29 July) after he almost shot off a hijacker's arm.
At about 15h00, four suspected hijackers tried to hijack a truck that was delivering mageu (an energy booster) to the Kyriacou family business, the Cosmos Café.
Alexi, a manager at the café in Third Street in Vorsterskroon, and his father Chris, 61, took on the hijackers.
The station commander in Nigel, Superintendent Yogita Kasaven said that Alexi nearly shot off a hijacker's right arm with a 40-calibre Heckler & Kock [sic] pistol.
A police officer said the man's arm was hanging by a small piece of flesh.
"The man was taken to the Heidelberg Hospital for treatment and is under arrest."

Comment: South Africa, what an awesome country – never a dull moment.
I also note with some humour how we in gun-loving/gun-fearing SA have reached the point where one of Germany's finest brand names H&K aka Heckler & Koch has been bastardised into Heckler & Kock.
Adds a spin to the well-known Southern Baptist reply to an ugly comment: "Suck my Glock" which can so easily be updated to: "Suck my Heckler & Kock"

The good news about SA?

According to a blog on SA's The Times website, the tide is turning ...

the small picture
1. The petrol price seems to have arrived at some sort of ceiling and may even start falling

2. The Boks beat the All Blacks at the House of Pain (Dunedin, NZ) for the first time ever

THE BIG PICTURE
1. Even eight months after Polokwane's NC conference, the sky has not fallen on our heads .President Thabo Mbeki and Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel, appear confident South Africa will hold its economic policy line. The voices of the left are sounding increasingly shrill. Silly rantings about the zero-rating of foods that are already zero-rated and calls for killing in the name of Jacob Zuma are not causing alarm so much as tut-tuts.

2. Zimbabwe is now involved in serious talks aimed at settling that country's political crisis. It has only been a few days, so chickens ought not to be counted. But as soon as there is any advance on this front, the dividend for South Africa and this region will be phenomenal.

Comment: So the score is 2-2. Will we go into Extra Time and if it comes down to a penalty shoot-out, will anybody be able to clearly see the goalposts?

Josephine Public strikes back!

News24 reports how a local Port Elizabeth ballerina Pasqual Burger, 17, set all thoughts of graceful movement aside to help a friend. She helped to prevent hijackers from getting away with the car of a fellow dancer, Beathe Barnard, on Friday [25 July]. Two armed men attacked Barnard when she got to her car in the parking lot behind the ballet studio in Mount Pleasant after ballet practice.

Burger says, "I yanked the man from behind the steering wheel.
When he was out of the car, he threw me to the ground.
I jumped up and grabbed him again - I just didn't want him to get into that car again ... I didn't really take a decision to help Beathe ... it just came automatically."

Comment: You go girl! Womandla and all that ...

SA: Ex-Prison Official Hijacked, strangled and left on a dirt road

According to a News24 article headed 'We don't forgive the killers'
22 Jul 2008

Cape Town - The family of a Department of Correctional Services former brigadier, Willie Rousseau, 76, of Jacobs Bay, have described his murder as senseless, barbaric and humiliating.
About 16:20 on Friday, Rousseau drove to buy cigarettes at a nearby café, as he did every day. His wife, Joey, became worried when he was not back at his usual time.
By 04:00 on Saturday, the satellite tracking device in his vehicle showed that the car was in the Malmesbury area.
Rousseau's bakkie was hijacked and he was strangled to death.
[An arrested] suspect then took police to the place where Rousseau's body lay in a pool of water on a gravel road near Hopefield.
The two suspects they arrested, Cedric Lottering and Ricardo Petersen, both of Saldanha Bay, appeared in the Circuit Court in Velddrif on Monday on charges of theft and murder.
[ends]

Comment: I'm wildly guessing this the reason so many people are making plans to leave this crazy, beautiful, gentle and wild country – one of the best and worst life experiences Africa has to offer