General

When I first read it, I literally turned into a rooinek as the blood welled up in my gills. “Don’t go where you are tolerated. Go where you are celebrated”, jested the status update on Facebook. The author, a gospel nymph from bygone days in small-town Eastern Cape, now operates her own “revival worship centre” […]

In my previous blog I introduced myself through my questioning of typical assumptions people make about ICT for community development. I also advocated the need for a sympathetic meeting of minds in ICT for development (ICT4D) efforts. In this blog I want to illustrate some practicalities of the intercultural meeting of minds in ICT4D policy […]

Mamelodi Sundowns have just hired another coach, their fourth manager since winning the league title in the 2006/07 season. As a coach hired on an expensive salary and brought from abroad, there are high expectations. Hristo Stoichkov — a former Bulgarian international — was part of Johan Cruyff’s dream team at Barcelona in the early […]

It recently emerged that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has refused to adopt the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) code. An integral part of this position is the BCCI’s support of its top players, who are claiming that the Wada code violates their privacy amongst other reasons. The BCCI has also said […]

I recently had a conversation with some people at Google about mobile applications for sub-Saharan Africa. Two key issues emerged: i) South Africa is ahead of the pack in terms of cellphone adoption, coverage and services, and ii) the lowest common denominator is still SMS. If Google, or anyone else who wants to seriously play […]

In his State of the Nation address Jacob Zuma informed us that the government would introduce the National Health Insurance (NHI) in a phased and incremental manner. He went on to inform the nation that “in order to initiate the NHI, the urgent rehabilitation of public hospitals will be undertaken through public-private partnerships”. I understood […]

More non-stories in the media this week then. Quite disturbing really. How does it ever come to pass that a whole editorial team passes through a “major story” that is well, nothing new and adds well … nothing new? The first related to a supposed expose’ of dodgy arms deals passing through SA’s regulatory cracks. […]

Fifteen years into our young democracy and democratic leadership is severely lacking and sorely needed. Across all sectors in society, from the halls of Parliament, the lawns of our academic institutions, the fertile fields of our farmlands and in company boardrooms, it seems as though democratic leaders are either lacking altogether or incredibly thinly spread. […]

Ok. So this has very little to do with sport. Other than my heart rate racing up as if I were sprinting up Table Mountain. But today, stuck in traffic on the Grayston Drive offramp in Sandton, I was passed by a flurry of cars belting up the emergency lane and restricted shoulder. Passing as […]

By Dr Michael ‘Buchi Eze The ideological platitude on which the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and later African Union (AU) came into being was primarily to challenge colonialism, neutralise any lingering influence of imperialism and gain political independence for the rest of Africa. Thus Kwame Nkrumah in the heydays of independence struggle echoed this […]

The rugby world was recently rocked by a turn of events that screams of realism, the art of carrying a bigger stick than the other guy. The Springboks, the current world champions (which we love bragging about to the consternation of our Kiwi cousins) have always been a team that has bucketloads of potential but […]

“My qualities are not good enough for Ajax,” uttered Marco van Basten, one of the best strikers to ever grace the soccer pitch when he resigned from his job less than 12 months after taking over the coaching reins at his boyhood club Ajax Amsterdam. A few days earlier across the border in Germany, Jurgen […]