When Soweto is cold with complacency, the whole world becomes indifferent. After all, it is the biggest township in Africa. Visitors, tourists and foreigners come from far and wide to witness and experience the scene of the most brutal murder to have happened in our history: cold-blooded shooting of innocent children on June 16 1976. […]
News/Politics
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Of mice and Malema
The re-election of Julius Malema as president of the ANC Youth League came as no surprise. The platform afforded him by the court challenge to his singing “the song whose name will not be mentioned” settled any doubt as to his intelligence, the fact of him being so articulate also consolidated his support base. As […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The lone vulture circles Zuma
While five years is a short time in power, 18 months is a long time in politics.
Posted inNews/Politics
SA’s fallen and can’t get up
In my previous blog “Don’t gamble away SA’s future” I question the future of a country not providing proper education. So we’re halfway through the year and there hasn’t been a peep out of the political hacks regarding their plans to ensure education standards, particularly for the matriculants, will be improved and the tinkering down […]
Posted inNews/Politics
No harm in Manyi reviewing state’s R1bn ad spend
Perhaps it’s time the public put on its thinking cap and ask: what has the media got to lose if chief government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi pulls the plug on the government’s R1 billion advertising spend? It would mean huge losses for the private shareholders of many companies. We must understand that the government is not obliged […]
Posted inNews/Politics
No country for young men and women
Last month renowned scholar Mahmood Mamdani wrote “An African Reflection of Tahrir Square” where he linked the Egyptian uprising to the 1976 Soweto uprisings. “Ordinary people stopped thinking of struggle as something waged by professional fighters, armed guerrillas, with the people cheering from the stands, but as a popular movement with ordinary people as key […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Saving Uganda from its oil
In 2006, Uganda confirmed the presence of enormous commercial petroleum reserves around Lake Albert along the country’s western border. Since then, geologists have proven at least 2 billion barrels. With only about 25% of the region explored, some reports indicate that there could be as much as three times that amount — enough to make Uganda […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Zapiro used rape to show severity
I have read both Michelle Solomon’s and Lili Radloff’s pieces on why they think the latest Zapiro cartoon was offsides. I share Michelle’s feeling of looking at the cartoon and feeling powerless to help the two women, and of feeling viscerally nauseated at the image of the unbuckled belt. This cartoon is shocking, and it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The media mafia
I don’t know when it hit me but it was during my first year as a young reporter in 1985 when I had just joined City Press newspaper fresh from studying communications at Fort Hare University. That was when I noticed that newspaper journalists, sub-editors, columnists and editors in every publication have, unavoidably, a particular […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Hell is everywhere in the US
“War … is hell,” observed a famous US soldier, William Tecumseh Sherman, in 1879. If there is any truth in Sherman’s observation, the US seems to be descending into a hell of its own making. The signs and symbols appear everywhere; from the streets of towns and cities, to the schools and on television. One […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
China’s alternative to an American addiction
Last week saw the launch of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, a rich seam of energy industry stats that journalists, analysts and academics will spend many hours mining for nuggets of data that support their chosen narratives. The Financial Times led with “China becomes leading user of energy” – hardly a revelation to even […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Who did the Indians vote for?
By Suntosh Pillay Race, place and identity are all at play during elections. The election circus has left town, new mayors make old promises and the mug shots we’ve been tortured with on street poles have finally been removed. The results were predictable: the ANC a little weaker, the DA gloating its victories, Cope nearing […]