Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced a “new growth path” for the South African economy — one that would signify a “turn-around” and “achieve the kind of transformation required to draw the millions of unemployed into the economy”. The finance minister envisaged the current budget to be “labour-absorbing”, “to raise employment of young school-leavers by … […]
Steven Lamini
Steven Lamini is a specialist adviser in one of the key policy fields troubling modern-day Europe and works across a range of equality fields, advising on policy and strategic approaches to cohesion.
His interests are wide and varied, and he writes on world politics, economic issues, current events, mediocrities and lame-duck presidents of countries. He believes that heads should be enlightened, but somehow regrets having such a stubborn principle, for some heads are rather best chopped off. He lives in York.
Posted inGeneral
Power lodged in narrow hearts IV: The Netanyahu phenomenon
If there is one person who personifies the expansionist policy of Zionist Israel with ruthless cool-headedness, that person is Benjamin Netanyahu. Many years ago, in 1923, the founder of Jewish Legion, Vladimir Jabotinsky, wrote an article (“The Iron Wall”) in which he said, among other things, that “Zionism is a colonising adventure and therefore stands […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Manuel, Zille and that little thing called the economy
When the ANC launched its elections manifesto recently, two senior South African politicians (Zille from that party of the rich and arrogant and the other, Trevor Manuel, from the ANC — monopoly capital’s new kid on the block) expressed their concern for this supposedly “left turn” of Zuma’s party. Now, it must be said: the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Israel broke the cease-fire
As Israel’s genocidal aggression increases in Gaza, the lie of who broke the cease-fire is spun over and over across the world. Of course, the lie is manufactured in Tel Aviv, but the silence of the Arab bourgeoisie, especially Egypt, has the same credibility as the confessions of a liar. On November 4 2008 Israel […]
Posted inNews/Politics
State genocide in Gaza
Today, nine days into a campaign of extermination by Israel, the Gaza strip is the largest open-air prison camp the world has seen. Commentators the world over are outraged by the carnage of the 1.5-million Gazans and the complicity of bourgeois governments in the West. True to form, the US vetoed a UNSC resolution condemning […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Open borders!
Not far from where I live is a woman who, like many others from her class, have the best of all the worlds possible. She owns a house somewhere here in Yorkshire and one in Cape Town, allowing her to live here for six months during the best of weather conditions in Britain, and to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The wrangle over Africa
It is hard to fathom, but Zimbabwe is sandwiched between the ambitions of two super powers to extend their influence over the African continent. Both China and the United States see Africa as the strategic focus in an ever-tense game of vying for hegemony. The recent outrage by the Bush administration at South Africa’s refusal […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Indaba with a peg in the ‘axis of evil’?
The Guardian featured an article on Thursday, July 17 that showed the US plan on setting up “a US interest section — a halfway house to setting up a full embassy” in Tehran sometime in August 2008. This article followed short on the heels of a US announcement on Wednesday, July 16 2008 that the […]
Posted inBusiness
Globalisation and the challenge of needs
The exponential changes in production, distribution of goods across continents, dominance of the world economy over the last thirty years, collapse of beacon institutions of the capitalist world (Bear Stearns, etc) make the analysis of globalisation somewhat of a moving target. This post will clearly not attempt to present a detailed analysis of globalisation — […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The new superstition: consult the share index
Fuel hikes, exploding food prices, major economic down turns and a world gripped in social instability raise serious questions about the future development of civilisation. This is to be expected, yet not only because the twenty first century poses challenges unique to the era of globalisation, but more so because more and more people get […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The flight of rigour
The lazy fallacy that the alternative (i.e. life organised on conscious production for need) to societies based on exploitation and the profit motive is incompatible with human nature represents the clearest sign yet of humanity strolling downhill with the inscription written in bold on its back: “The hour of rigour’s flight”.The strength of this fallacy […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Blood oil
At last! The five-year old predatory war of America and its coalition partners has finally been placed in its clearest possible perspective. Britain, France and the US finally have their hands on the oil reserves of Iraq. For the first time in 36 years the oil reserves are in the hands of people who have […]