Just a week ago a young white male was mercilessly beaten at the University of Johannesburg by other white males for standing with a black girl. In February, the same university had an incident of a black male forced into a cold shower for some four hours. Now another race driven incident repeats itself, in […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Is anybody advising our president?
I don’t pretend to know anything about politics. In fact, I generally avoid it like the plague, leaving it to those who are passionate about it to comment on the folly of politicians. But I can’t help wondering what on earth is going on in Thabo Mbeki’s head. Perhaps someone can explain his point of […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Lessons for the DA: From Woolworths nogal!
The DA is in crisis. A friend of mine at the University of Cape Town tells me that joining the party’s student wing, Daso, is social suicide. And as such, its reputedly attractive members are remaining unloved and unlaid — leaving me wondering as to whether alliances (democratic or otherwise) will occur to ensure the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
McCain’s repeal of the “Alternative Minimum Tax” shades of Gordon Brown’s 10p debacle?
Gordon Brown is set to scrap many of his proposed tax increases pursuant to threats of a backbench rebellion arising from the disaster that was Labour’s showing at the local and London elections. Not for voters Britain’s foreign policy or climate change, this time it was all about credit crunch, food and petrol prices and […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Games over, free Tibet
‘Games over, Free Tibet’ is one of the really good slogans coming out of the Free Tibet campaign. The campaign has got a lot of press recently. Mostly, of course, because of the useful insistence of the Chinese on parading the Olympic flame through cities in which there are a bunch of Tibetan exiles and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
More Manto than Manto
It’s really hard to take anything Peggy Nkonyeni says seriously. As MEC for Health in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), home to about one in four people living with HIV in South Africa and the epicentre of the global extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB epidemic, Nkonyeni is the epitome of arrogance, incompetence and malevolence. Every time she opens […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe: Observers out! Bob’ll fix it…
As Zimbabwe fluctuates between glimmers of hope brought about by international and South African pressure on Robert Mugabe, and despair brought about by the SADC and certain other South Africans preaching quiet diplomacy, one man remains steadfast to his principles — Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This giant of the southern hemisphere has been unwavering in his […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
Wanted: $136 million to grow African media
Media movers meeting in Maputo: Amadou Ba (All Africa.com), Prof Fackson Banda (Rhodes University), and Eric Chinje (World Bank). Three years of work came to part fruition in Maputo this week, when some 50 media enthusiasts concretised research into a proposed institution, a project focus and a pretty big budget. People like Ba, Banda and […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Beware the alchemists
Last night, I found a neatly printed-out and stapled copy of Beware the Alchemists, by Ludwig von Mises. It is surprisingly accessible. It takes an initially complex topic, encrusted with 100 years of Keynesian pollution and toxic government waste, and turns it into something simple and intuitive. I wish I had learned what I understand of interest rates and monetary policy, and what inflation really is, from this text.
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe poll: Is there any sense in establishing a government of national unity?
This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: Zimbabwe poll: Is there any sense in establishing a government of national unity?
Posted inNews/Politics
Black whingeing and the FBJ
The Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) malarkey has recently provided a counter to so–called “white whingeing”. That counter is the emergence and increasing prevalence of “black whinging” and the volume is creeping ever steadily upwards. How rainbow. The recent BJF ruling has been a rallying point; a target in stocks on the village square for […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Understanding the kabuki of Mbeki’s diplomacy
How, exactly, is the UN Security Council going to contribute to the resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe? What would a special envoy say to Mugabe and his securocrats that would have any more impact than the messages already being sent — in no small part thanks to Thabo Mbeki’s reviled diplomacy — by SADC […]