News/Politics

By Levi Kabwato From a distance, the ongoing debate about the ANC’s Media Appeals Tribunal proposal seems unrelated to the discomforting comments made by Malawi’s president, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, that he will close down all newspapers (read media) that report and continue to report that at least one million Malawians are facing hunger in […]

The Congress of the People must practice what it preaches and implement the direct election of its president, as it advocated during the election campaign. With preparations under way for the Cope national elective and inaugural congress to legitimately and democratically elect its leaders, it is imperative that the party seriously considers and implements the […]

“God and religion are two very very different things.” — Sinead O’Connor on Sky News (September 15 2010). With this simple sentence, the manifest of the Post-Religionist generation was posted on the billboard of human consciousness. This simple statement has done for modern spirituality what Martin Luther’s 95 theses, hammered to a church door in […]

This entry marks the first of my revived, renamed blog. Yes, future missives of mine will henceforth be fired off under the title, “Chequered Reality”. Because I am a pessimist? No. Because I believe that advocacy on economics is something best rooted in reality, rather than the insular vacuums that the policy wonks love to […]

Have you ever thought about leaving South Africa? Do you feel like spitting on someone who would even consider it? Or have you already left? At one point or another, I’ve been all three. So perhaps that’s why I’ve found that Should I Stay or Should I Go, a collection of writing about leaving South […]

By Loammi Wolf The ANC’s mooted legislative initiative to create a Media Appeals Tribunal is undeniably causing a furore. That is understandable given the historic background of muzzling the media during the apartheid era. History has shown that authoritarian regimes often come about in a creeping way. Typical indicators are the following: First, the executive […]

The Sunday Times headline story by Stephan Hofstatter and Mzilikazi wa Afrika — how the government spent R4.2 million buying and furnishing a plush home for police commissioner General Bheki Cele — is the perfect example why certain parties are adamant that the Protection of Information Bill (POIB) should be implemented and why South Africans across […]

Upon sober evaluation of the snout-to-trough threat factor, the ANC’s ‘good’ idea is allowed quietly to pine away from neglect.

The government has released its latest crime statistics. You can access the full page here. The scary truth is that approximately 2 121 887 serious crimes were committed in the 2009/2010 calendar year. More than 30% of these were contact crimes and more than 25% were property-related crimes. So what does that mean for the ordinary citizen? […]

“What a dick,” I muttered, shaking my head as I watched Terry Jones, yet another apostle of the Christian fundamentalist lunatic fringe*, declare on television that he was going to publicly burn the Koran as part of his church’s ceremony to observe the anniversary of 9/11. “What on earth makes him and his ilk think […]