News/Politics

Very wonderful China! 棒极 了中国! Yep, we can’t get into Facebook or use Twitter here in China any more, or for the time being. This is apparently due to the recent riots in Urumqi. We can certainly read about the riots in the (state-approved and monitored) newspapers such as China Daily and Shanghai Daily. I […]

Seems to me that most of you lot have forgotten former president Mbeki’s 90-foot security wall which had everyone at the time going spare on account of the government’s repeated denials that crime was out of control. This time around crime levels must definitely have dropped because President Jacob Zuma has hardly bothered with security: […]

Lesson 1: When acting through political proxies, always ensure that the legitimacy of your proxies cannot be called into question. Ensure that at no time do any of your proxies refer to you or accredit you as the source of their mandate, their agenda, their authority or their power. Further, ensure that none of the […]

Whether or not African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema believed that the comments which he made at the Cape Peninsular Technikon concerning the complainant in the Zuma rape case were justified or not, there is an issue which transcends who was legally right or wrong. The fact of the matter is that South […]

Many of you have probably read some of the stories regarding the resignations of Lynda Odendaal and Simon Grindrod of Cope. My response was simply this: Lynda who? Simon who? With the utmost respect to Cope and their leadership — including Dandala, Lekota and Shilowa — there is not one individual among them who stands […]

Monday saw the launch of a new TV drama — The Hawks. The latest offering in that uniquely South African genre, the crime-fighting soap opera. It will be taking the place of the ill-fated show The Scorpions — recently cancelled despite favourable reviews. The studio cited irreconcilable creative differences between the script-writers and studio bosses […]

While Mrs Traps and a billion people around the world watched the Michael Jackson Memorial Service, I was giving consideration to the events taking place around the world which the media, in their wisdom, had decided to put on the backburner. Undoubtedly Jackson was an immense talent worthy of extensive coverage but surely not to […]

Whenever things get a bit dull and dreary in sub-Saharan Africa don’t despair because everyone’s favourite Uncle Bob is just five minutes away from another classic encounter. This one, for me, was by far his funniest because I had seen the build-up in the early hours of the morning. Let’s start at the beginning. As […]

The Chinese economy is in desperate need for energy to keep it growing. With power shortages and blackouts as well as a growing demand for electricity, the Chinese government is looking for new energy sources and nuclear energy stands at the top of the list. The rapid pace of China’s nuclear energy growth is emphasised […]

When African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema first raised the issue of nationalising the mines at the opening of the ANCYL political school in Krugersdorp, very few people took the matter seriously. On the one hand ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe moved quickly to clarify the position ie that it was not part […]

One of the major problems politicians experience in living in a global village, during the information age, is that everything they say or do is quickly recorded, translated and then spewed out to a waiting world. The planet in its turn then analyses that information or data and assesses its impact on individual countries, their […]

No one has come out shining in the mud-slinging around the SABC, but the biggest loser is the autonomy of communications. This has been paralleled by a similar song-and-dance in parliament, in regard to the broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). The consequence is that South Africa currently sits with both […]