I have had the fortune (or misfortune … I’m not quite sure yet) to be at the International Conference on Victim Empowerment this week. We began yesterday with 12 hours of travelling, no food and shower that I had to run circles in to get wet and I had hoped that today would be better. […]
News/Politics
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Media tribunal: Why access to the courts is important
The ANC’s thrust to create a Media Appeals Tribunal has met with considerable opposition across the board. I would like to focus on two issues in the debate on press freedom that received little attention. Depending on the perspective, the one could be described as the flipside of the other. State regulation and non-state self-regulation […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Too old to rock ‘n roll, too young to braai!
Waking up with a pounding headache in a small room with extremely ugly curtains. Where am I? I force my aching body out of bed, stumbling through the debris of the night before. Empty wine bottles. Dirty clothes flung over a guitar case. Scribbled notes for a musical set list. Blinding sunlight pouring in through […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Can police search you at a roadblock?
In light of the arrest of Atul Gupta, for allegedly refusing a search at a roadblock, as well as the police searching vehicles seemingly without warrants, one of my readers, Graham Bailey, asked if I could have a look at the powers of the authorities in these circumstances. At the outset always bear in mind […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics, Tech
The real cost of renewables
We are at the start of a period of significant investment in renewable energy in South Africa. Renewables will bring many advantages for the country. For simplicity in this blog I will deal mainly with the benefits of wind power, but these benefits will occur with solar, particularly solar PV, as well. The headline cost […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘It’s the ANC that decides, not the youth league’
After a national general council, which can only be described as a triumph for South African and African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, the party returns to business-as-usual on Monday. It goes without saying that the ANC has done a lot of soul-searching — following the insurrection that was gaining momentum within the party — […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The ANC’s young lions get mauled
Junior needs a good caning in the headmaster’s study rather than just a public slap. Already, by the end of the week, Malema was again causing trouble.
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
I’m weeping for our rhinos
Twenty. That’s how many rhino are being lost to South Africa every month through poaching. A creature that first emerged during the Eocene and lumbered through the aeons to walk the Earth today is being shot and hacked in numbers that are truly terrifying. The horn that makes it among the most distinctive creatures on […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Booted out of school for speaking Xhosa?
Sixteen-year-old Luthando Nxasana was allegedly asked to leave a class at Roosevelt High in Johannesburg for speaking Xhosa. This, on the face of it, sounds scandalous and has managed to make news internationally. But it becomes less scandalous when one realises that the class she was attending was given in the medium of another language, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Make Poverty History (Bono Remix)
Despite what John Pilger, or any other investigative journalist might have to say, I have always been a big U2 fan. I was hooked with Sunday Bloody Sunday back when Radio 5’s Barney Simon would play it practically every night, along with The Cure and other alternative gems. By the time I made it out […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Gender equality an unrealistic dream for SADC
Gender-based violence (GBV) is not a single crime committed in a vacuum. It is committed daily and targets “women, gay men, lesbians, transgenders, transsexuals, intersex, girls [and] boys”. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Gender Protocol [1] signed by all states except Mauritius and Botswana [2] states that GBV “Means all acts perpetrated against women, […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Make jobs and economic growth the tests for media tribunal
The governing party’s proposed media appeals tribunal will be a rare discussion point attracting some consensus at its National General Council (NGC) meeting in Durban this week. If it was thought that the tribunal was supported when it first emerged at Polokwane due to the media’s treatment of ANC President Jacob Zuma during his rape […]