Japan Marks 80th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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The South African
a minute ago
- The South African
Gayton McKenzie reacts to claims he LIED about his race
Gayton McKenzie has reacted to allegations he 'lied' about his racial background. The Patriotic Alliance leader – whose old tweets using the K-word recently resurfaced – identifies as a coloured South African. This week, the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture called for the hosts of the Open Chats Podcast to be cancelled over their derogatory comments about the racial minority. On his Facebook account, Gayton McKenzie reacted to screenshots of social media users who accused him of 'lying' about being a coloured person. One screenshot of an X post said of the minister: 'Gayton Mckenzie's real surname is Makena. It was allegedly changed by his father to McKenzie during Apartheid for better employment opportunities. Another claimed that Patriotic Alliance leader's son Calvyn Le John used his mother's maiden name as to secure government contracts, a claim he has since disputed. Gayton reacted to the accusations with several laughing face emojis. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Posted by Gayton Mckenzie on Sunday 10 August 2025 In his 2006 biography The Choice, Gayton McKenzie – who was born and raised in Bloemfontein – shed light on his diverse background. He wrote: 'My grandmother is Irish, my grandfather Japanese. My father is a product of that, but looks like a coloured man. My mother is Sotho. I simply look black. 'I am not entirely clear about my ethnicity. My parents have the photographs at home, but the genetics have been shuffled with a deck of wildcards, and the result is me, someone who looks nothing like the Irish, but has their luck, who looks nothing like the Japanese, and can't think of anything I have that's remotely related to them, except the DVD player at home. 'I can't even say I'm a typical Sotho, but at least I can tell you that in Sotho. Ke ka o bolelo ntho eo ka Sesotho'. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
Daily News Egypt
2 minutes ago
- Daily News Egypt
Military production minister discusses cooperation with Japan in key manufacturing sectors
Mohamed Salah El-Din, Egypt's Minister of State for Military Production, recently met with Oka Fumio, Japan's Ambassador to Cairo, along with his accompanying delegation, to discuss the progress and prospects of industrial and technological cooperation between Egypt and Japan. The meeting focused on ways to leverage global expertise and localize advanced technologies in Egypt's manufacturing sector, aligning with Egypt's long-term sustainable development goals. Salah El-Din emphasized that the Ministry of Military Production, which is home to numerous companies and units, has the capacity for high-quality manufacturing, technological, and technical innovations. The Minister reaffirmed the Ministry's strong commitment to strengthening cooperation with Japan in the manufacturing sector, particularly in incorporating cutting-edge Japanese technologies into local industries. This approach, he explained, is vital for responding to the current global changes that demand a greater reliance on local production capabilities. Salah El-Din shared the successful history of collaboration between the Ministry of Military Production and Japan, including a notable partnership with Mizuha Company to develop a water extraction device. The device, which extracts water from the air, is produced by Helwan Company for Metallic Appliances (Factory 360 Military). After more than a year of development, the device now boasts a local component rate exceeding 70% and has passed rigorous climate testing. It has also been proven to meet drinking water standards as set by Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population. He also stressed that the Ministry is open to further cooperation with both Egyptian and international private sector companies to enhance existing product lines and develop new technologies. The Minister highlighted the strategic importance of combining Japan's advanced technologies with Egypt's manufacturing, human, and technical expertise, aiming to bolster national production capacity and improve the quality of local industries. This collaboration supports Egypt's broader goals for sustainable industrial development. Ambassador Oka Fumio expressed Japan's dedication to enhancing the longstanding partnership between the two countries. He emphasized Japan's continued commitment to supporting joint projects that reflect both countries' ambitions for mutual success. The Ambassador praised the Ministry of Military Production for its pivotal role in Egypt's military manufacturing sector, noting that its surplus production capacity is being increasingly utilized for civilian manufacturing and export purposes. Fumio reiterated Japan's willingness to collaborate closely with the Ministry and other stakeholders to overcome any challenges and strengthen bilateral economic and trade relations. He also expressed optimism about the growing economic ties between the two countries and stated his intent to invite Japanese investors to explore the Ministry's manufacturing capabilities for future joint ventures.
eNCA
34 minutes ago
- eNCA
Italian Brainrot: the AI memes only kids know
In a Japanese shop selling pocket-money trinkets, there is a rack of toys, stickers and keyrings based on a global crew of AI-generated characters that almost every child knows about -- and very few adults. A walking shark in oversized sneakers, an orange with muscular arms and a twirling "Ballerina Cappuccina" with a mug for a head are among the strange stars of the online phenomenon called Italian Brainrot. "At first it's not funny at all, but it kind of grows on you," 16-year-old Yoshi Yamanaka-Nebesney from New York told AFP. "You might use it to annoy someone and find that funny." The name nods to the stupefying effect of scrolling through mindless social media posts, especially over-the-top images created with artificial intelligence tools. Shouty, crude and often nonsensical Italian voiceovers feature in many of the clips made by people in various countries that began to spread this year on platforms such as TikTok, embraced by young Gen Z and Gen Alpha members. The dozen-plus cartoonish AI creatures have fast become memes, inspiring a stream of new content such as "Brainrot Rap", viewed 116 million times on YouTube. A YouTube Short titled "Learn to Draw 5 Crazy Italian Brainrot Animals" -- including a cactus-elephant crossover named "Lirili Larila" -- has also been watched 320 million times. "There's a whole bunch of phrases that all these characters have," said Yamanaka-Nebesney, in Tokyo with his mother Chinami, who had no idea what he was talking about. School-age Italian Brainrot fans can be found from Kenya to Spain and South Korea, while some of the most popular videos reference Indonesia's language and culture instead. "I went on trips with my boys to Mexico" and people would "crack jokes about it" there too, Yamanaka-Nebesney said. - 'Melodic language' - Internet trends move fast, and Italian Brainrot "hit its peak maybe two months ago or a month ago", said Idil Galip, a University of Amsterdam lecturer in new media and digital culture. Italian -- a "melodic language that has opportunities for jokes" -- has appeared in other memes before. AFP | STR And "there are just so many people in Indonesia" sharing posts which have potential for global reach, Galip said. A "multi-level marketing economy" has even emerged, with AI video-makers targeting Italian Brainrot's huge audience through online ads or merchandise sales, she added. Nurina, a 41-year-old Indonesian NGO worker, said her seven-year-old loves the mashed-up brainrot world. "Sometimes when I pick him up from school, or when I'm working from home, he shouts, 'Mommy! Bombardino Crocodilo!'" -- a bomber plane character with a crocodile head. "I know it's fun to watch," said Nurina, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. "I just need to make him understand that this is not real." Some videos have been criticised for containing offensive messages that go over young viewers' heads, such as rambling references in Italian to "Bombardino Crocodilo" bombing children in Gaza. "The problem is that these characters are put into adult content" and "many parents are not tech-savvy" enough to spot the dangers, warned Oriza Sativa, a Jakarta-based clinical psychologist. - Tung Tung Tung Sahur - The best-known Indonesian brainrot character "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" resembles a long drum called a kentongan, which is used to wake people up for a pre-dawn meal, or sahur, during Ramadan. Indonesia has a young, digitally active population of around 280 million, and "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" is not its only viral export. This summer, video footage -- not AI-generated -- of a sunglass-wearing boy dancing on a rowboat during a race at a western Indonesian festival also became an internet sensation. Noxa, the TikToker behind the original "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" clip, is now represented by a Paris-based collective of artists, lawyers and researchers called Mementum Lab. "Noxa is a content creator based in Indonesia. He's under 20," they told AFP. "He makes fast, overstimulated, AI-assisted videos." "He doesn't call himself a 'contemporary artist', but we think he's already acting like one," said Mementum Lab, which is focused on complex emerging issues around AI intellectual property, and says it is helping Noxa negotiate deals for his work. Noxa, in comments provided by the collective, said the character was "inspired by the sound of the sahur drum I used to hear". "I didn't want my character to be just another passing joke -- I wanted him to have meaning," he said. Cultural nuances can be lost at a mass scale, however, with one 12-year-old tourist in Tokyo saying he thought "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" was a baseball bat. And the generation gap looks set to persist. "What's that?!" laughed a woman as she puzzled at the row of Italian Brainrot dolls. "It's not cute at all!"
