News/Politics

The depressing state of international and domestic affairs has seen a rise in optimistic thinking, specifically exploring alternative economic paradigms, modes for environmentally sustainable and eco-aware living and more holistic models for civic engagement and citizen participation. However, despite this renewed enthusiasm to revisit social and economic orthodoxy, very little has been championed with regards […]

The funniest thing I have read in a long time is the article about the “diesel conjurer” who was convicted of fraud for fooling Bob Mugabe’s government into thinking she could tap diesel from a rock. What makes it so funny is the fact that a con of such simplicity could not be picked up […]

Recent shocking images of the police shooting at South Africa’s poorest citizens were beamed around the world as people in poor communities were protesting. The damage to the country caused by these images that looked like a flashback to the 1980s is incalculable. There were more than 6 000 protests in 2005 and one academic has […]

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has blamed councillors elected during former president Thabo Mbeki’s time as the reason for the latest wave of protests sweeping the country. He then goes on to suggest that it has to be the former government’s fault because this one has only been in power for three months. Minister, this […]

How has it come to this? Our African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema reduced to an also-ran in the 2009 World Under-70s Political Sledging Finals. It’s enough to make any self-respecting revolutionary weep. Having slagged his party off, former president Mbeki, party elders, cabinet ministers, Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the […]

Almost within minutes of moving into the White House, US President Barack Obama was issuing orders, addressing priorities and meeting ordinary Americans on their terms, in their towns and face to face. He even wrote a note for a 10-year-old girl to be excused from school for attending a town hall meeting with her dad. […]

Most of my regular readers will know that I have stood squarely behind former National Prosecuting Authority boss Vusi Pikoli in his bid to regain his position at the head of the NPA. I have done so because Pikoli is a man of unquestionable integrity who showed that he had the courage to withstand the […]

This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: What does the government need to do to improve service delivery?

Whenever I raise the issues surrounding Judge John Hlophe’s latest endeavours I am set upon by Paul Ngobeni, the man who cannot see wrong in His Lordship and is hell-bent on ensuring that he is made Chief Justice of South Africa. Unfortunately in his quest to explain why this country badly needs a judge steeped […]

Over the past few weeks we have seen waves of strikes, one after the other, putting pressure on the newly formed administration of President Jacob Zuma. This was followed up by two significant events over the weekend both of which involve the ANC’s alliance partner Cosatu and neither of which covered them in glory either. […]

With Morgan Stanley cutting the allocation to South African stocks while upping Brazil, we have just one measure of the impact of what the words and conduct of the ANC’s alliance partners and the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) have on the South African economy. Indeed President Jacob Zuma has not been hammered a […]

Way back in April I did an article on the flu pandemic which broke out in 1918 and then went on to decimate this planet in numbers that not even World War II could match. My point at the time being that I found it strange that every pupil learns about World War I in […]