Signs of division appeared in Jacob Zuma’s camp this week when the ANC president disagreed publicly with one of his staunchest supporters over media effects. While SACP leader Blade Nzimande accused City Press of sowing division and confusion within ANC ranks, Zuma has come to the conclusion that nobody much bothers about what they read […]
News/Politics
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Eskom’s sacrificial offering?
Has Eskom fired Ehud Matya? That is the claim made in a comment on my blog. The Eskom story, with all its myriad twists and turns and all its implications for economic policy and political accountability, has become thoroughly tiresome, but it just won’t die.
Posted inNews/Politics
Could this be the start of something big?
“Sorry” is in the air. “Sorry” is everywhere. And it’s come for you and me! Suddenly, in an unprecedented move, the normally offensive members of the ANC are apologising for their multitudinous mistakes left, right and centre. Bearing in mind this is contrary to every basic principle of its übermensch philosophy; of the African National […]
Posted inNews/Politics
McCain vs Romney, Clinton vs Obama: Super Bowl 42 will identify the next US president
Call me crazy (OK, crazier than usual) but doesn’t the Democratic and Republican primaries remind you of the race for this year’s Super Bowl? First off we have the NFC where the New York Giants (has to be Hillary Clinton as the Senator from New York) beat the Green Bay Packers to reach the grand […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Oh, switch off our MINDS, not our MINES?
If there are two things even more annoying than our power crisis itself, one is the feel-good positive-thinking rubbish people have been writing, and the other are the insults and nonsense we’re being fed by government.
Posted inNews/Politics
Hope as a weapon: Obama, Eskom and Zuma
Hope exists only because of despair. Panic thrives among the ignorant. Discrimination lives in those who fear their own inadequacy. Let’s have a look at what that means for the United States this week as it heads toward Super Duper Tuesday on February 5 and the strongest indicators yet of who its next president might […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Looking at a loser: Ramaphosa the ‘never-ran’
“Newspapers said I was a dark horse in regard to Polokwane. I object to this — I may be dark, but I’m not a horse.” So said Cyril Ramaphosa last night at the launch of Anthony Butler’s biography of him. Describing himself as a “victim” of the writer, the former ANC secretary general nevertheless complimented […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What is wrong with Africa?
January 3 2008 On January 1, as I sat in a Yeoville flat with Kenyan friends, the atmosphere was sombre. A Kenyan friend, was in tears. “They are lying. More people have died,” she said of figures the police were giving on the number of slain. She should have known; anyone who has police blood […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
How would it help resolve the power crisis if ministers were fired?
This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: How would it help resolve the power crisis if ministers were fired?
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Rest in peace, Sheldon, and let us rage
One murder is one murder too many, said South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, at Wednesday’s funeral of Sheldon Cohen, who was shot at Balfour Park in Johannesburg on Monday night. In the past year, three of my friends have been killed by criminals. That it is three murders too many is only the beginning […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Where’s the outrage?
South Africa has been plunged in darkness. Everyone except the idiots who caused the crisis says it will seriously damage the economy. Yet nobody has been fired. Not even a few token dismissals of powerless and innocent underlings.
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Rights, wrongs and regulation
It hurts to say this, but I agree with the health minister. Like her, I believe that something needs to be done to address private hospitals’ proposed tariff increases. But the problem, which the minister has yet to admit, is that she appears to have no express statutory power to act. Like the problem of […]