By Elsabe van Vuuren In 1994 South Africa rejoiced at the ordination of a new government. South Africans also celebrated the end of deeply unjust apartheid laws. This was a new beginning for Southern Africa. South Africa joined its neighbours, namely Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and, Zimbabwe in the fight for more equal opportunities for […]
General
Posted inGeneral
COP17: Are all the essential things on the agenda?
Reading the daily reports on what has been happening at COP17 in Durban leaves one with a mixture of disappointment and hope — disappointment in Northern, developed countries like the US and Canada, for not showing greater commitment to doing what is necessary to (attempt to) secure the world’s future by lessening greenhouse gas emissions […]
Posted inGeneral
Happy Black Tuesday
Dear State Happy Black Tuesday. I am writing this letter to you while I am still free to do so. I am also doing so against the advice of my agent, who is afraid that if I make you angry, you will punish me out of the blue and limit my potential, even though I […]
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Contract law, good faith and the Constitution
On November 17, the Constitutional Court delivered its judgment in the case of Everfresh Market Virginia v Shoprite Checkers. The case involved the validity of a clause in a lease agreement between the parties. The relevant clause provided that the lessee would have a “right to renew” the lease if it “faithfully and timeously” fulfilled […]
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To polder, or not to polder, dike is the question
By way of introduction, a polder is Dutch for land that has been reclaimed from the sea. As the saying goes, God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands. So what do polders have to do with this blog? Post Second World War Dutch society was characterised by, what the British press derisively […]
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Southern Kings saga continues
It is with much amusement that I see the conundrum of the Southern Kings is yet to be solved. Slated to join Super Rugby in 2013, the SA Rugby Union (Saru) is no closer to figuring out a way to squeeze the Eastern Cape franchise into the competition without screwing one of the other five […]
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Fitting UC into your business — five questions you should ask before buying
You’ve thought long and hard about it, and you’re finally ready to adopt unified communications (UC), including its foundation, Voice over IP. Part of the attraction is the rich application benefits of this technology, but you’re also painfully aware that its array of predecessors, including TDM (time division multiplexing) switched telephony, won’t be around or […]
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Leadership starts with us
By Kayeye Cedric Ntumba According to a paper delivered in 2004, “Strengthening African Leadership”, by Robert I Rotberg, the Director of the Programme on Intrastate Conflict at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government and President of the World Peace Foundation, Africa has long been saddled with poor, even malevolent, leadership: predatory kleptocrats, military-installed […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Can DJ Fresh tweet what he likes about suicide?
This afternoon while scrolling through Twitter as I do, I noticed an unusual exchange. You don’t usually see a hugely popular DJ in a back and forth with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag), so I followed the conversation to see what it was all about. And quite frankly, I was appalled. Here […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle
Are Christmas gifts just a horrible waste of money?
December is almost upon us and Christmas is less than a month away. Already the malls are heaving with hollow-eyed wrecks ticking off mental lists of people on their Christmas gift lists (some of them fantasising, no doubt, about bombing a place that approximates Dante’s fourth circle of hell). Ernst & Young is predicting a […]
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What is creativity?
How does it work? Is it mere imitation, or transformation, or could it be — under rare circumstances — “pure” creation, that is, out of thin air, as it were? This last possibility is captured in the Christian doctrine of “creatio ex nihilo”, which is attributed to God — the creation of the universe out […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
COP17: A critical look at SA’s role
By Alex Lenferna South Africa hosts the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) — in Durban, starting today. But what about South Africa’s own response to climate change, and how coherent and meaningful is our response, really? Firstly, let’s look at South Africa’s emissions reduction […]