Judge Willem Heath has engaged in some extrajudicial adventures and a personal crusade against President Mbeki, former Minister of Justice Panuel Maduna and former Director of National Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka. Heath has suggested that charges be laid against these three men following the injudicious inferences contained in the judgment passed by Judge Nicholson. According to […]
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Posted inLifestyle
“I’m a racist. You’re a racist. Let’s talk.” Huh?
“Where are you from? What is your nationality?” are the regular questions I get asked by friendly passers-by (invariably Chinese) as I hasten through People’s Square park in downtown Shanghai, just off West Nanjing road. I say “invariably Chinese” because there are easily one thousand Asians to one foreigner even in cosmopolitan Shanghai. When I […]
Posted inLifestyle
“Come on mate, one billion customers in Choina, whadda yer waitin’ for?”
“Excuse me,” the bloke says with an Aussie drawl at a local watering hole, Big Bamboo, near Jing’an temple, one of Shanghai’s few remaining Buddhist temples. (The building survived the tender mercies of the Mao era because the monks astutely pasted pictures of Chairman Mao across its doors along with heaps of praise for China’s […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Arms trade: corrupting the soul of Africa and developing countries
The government’s strategic arms procurement (the so-called “arms deal”) has been the root of all troubles for our young democracy. The arms manufacturers prey on young democracies and the developing countries, enticing them with promises of endless benefits that industrial participation projects (offset arrangements) make possible. Shortly after freedom ushered a new government after 1994, […]
Posted inBusiness
Wall Street turning the American dream into a nightmare!
James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), the American writer and historian, in his book The Epic of America stated: “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European […]
Posted inLifestyle
Boofheads, utes and de factos: essential Aussie vocabulary
South Africans take words like bakkie and doos and tsotsi for granted. We say things that make no sense to anyone else on the planet, like, “I’ll be there just now. No, not now-now, just now.” Similarly, while Australians might speak English, they have a vocabulary all of their own; one which may be quite […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Zapiro, Zuma and us – Part 2. Using rape against rape
Recently Dr Mamphela Ramphele astutely observed that the problem with African leaders is their inability “to envision their roles as agents of fundamental transformation of their societies”. I want to extend her point to those in the business of manufacturing public opinion, in particular journalists and cartoonists. Ramphele uses the example of Zimbabwean President Robert […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zapiro and the cliché of violence
Forgive me for resorting to the following hackneyed, worn-out story. Shortly before I met my wife some six years ago, she was dragged screaming and gibbering down the driveway by a gang of strong young men so that they could have the pleasure of her and perhaps leave her for dead in the fields near […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Could Zuma be the architect of his ‘political conspiracy’?
History is beset with illustrious men whose ascendancy to power owe to the employment of manipulative schemes intended to provoke innate emotions of the general mass of desperate people. The presence of particular conditions is requisite for the purpose of aspirant leaders to capture the imagination of people and inspire hope. When society is torn […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma decision: Something fishy?
Paragraph 195 of Judge Chris Nicholson’s judgement deals with the overall conspiracy allegations of Jacob Zuma in somewhat fishy terms. In essence, it’s the old sprat-to-catch-a-mackerel routine in that the conspirators, via the NPA, would use Thint (sprat) as bait to nail Shaik (mackerel) and once he was convicted they could bring down the big […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Judge Nicholson leaves President Mbeki with no clothes on
The pronouncements relating to President Mbeki as made by Judge Nicholson in his judgment in the matter pertaining to the president of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, are serious and troubling. Judge Nicholson inferred in his judgment that there had been political interference in the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) case against the president of the ANC. […]
Posted inGeneral
The state of the billion rand rugby nation — Part II: the big bang cometh
Butch James sounds alarm over endless grind. Big bang theory? Every rugby player knows all about it, particularly the fly-half taking on the world single-handedly. One minute Butch James is steering South Africa to Test victories, the next he is back sloshing through the West Country ooze with Bath. In theory James is the future: […]