News/Politics

“Freedom of expression as safeguarded in various constitutional and international law instruments has been developed and expanded by the case-law and the doctrine of western countries and by the struggles of journalists in a dynamic and progressive manner in line with the liberal trends and ideas of democracy that have emerged during the years following […]

Why is it that, despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and ever increasing calls for an end to the Mugabe regime, the SADC and its worst offender, South Africa, refuse to accept that this will be the inevitable short-term outcome? All that we are really waiting to see is how short the period will be and […]

So the ANC is bleating about what it sees as an “unwarranted intrusion” into the private life of acting President Kgalema Motlanthe — who, it seems, suffers from the Bill and Jacob syndrome of being pathologically unable to keep his hands off women he is not married to. In fact, that bastion of sense and […]

This might not be a topical area today given the global excitement around Obama and other developments in the continent. However, I have been hoping to put my thoughts on paper on African representations and interpretations in the media for some time now. The following are just thoughts and must be treated as such. The […]

Imagine a scenario where former president Thabo Mbeki decides to announce his endorsement and intentions to vote for Cope but decides to remain a member of the ANC. I cannot imagine a situation that could rattle the feathers of some of the over inflated egos at Luthuli House more. Some of those egos are “too […]

(Warning: this is long. It’s intended primarily as reportage rather than opinion.) THE WEATHER on Australia Day is most un-Australian. Cool and overcast, it’s more reminiscent of the soggy island whence this continent’s first European immigrants sailed. Still, it’s a welcome change from the heat wave that has baked New South Wales for more than […]

Britain’s political and media elites are still reeling from the revelation this weekend that the House of Lords might be corrupt, after four lords allegedly offered to amend legislation in return for cold, hard cash. In other news it has been reported that, on the outskirts of Alaska a bear defecated in the woods, while […]

There’s a fascinating article on the spread of happiness in the New Scientist, reprinted this weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald. It seems that the notion that one should choose one’s friends carefully holds more truth than we might have imagined. For it seems that phenomena as apparently ephemeral as happiness — or as weighty […]