Countries and aid agencies offering aid and assistance to Gaza have blood on their hands. While food and other humanitarian assistance has been pouring into Gaza, the democratically elected ruling party Hamas, has been funneling funds and huge resources into manufacturing and acquiring rockets. Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, have carefully cultivated an image of […]
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Posted inGeneral
Poor policy slows SA’s growth
James Carvelle, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign strategist, coined a phrase that remains pertinent the world over, especially in South Africa, when he said “the economy, stupid”. As we now paraphrase Carvelle’s phrase, “it is [indeed] the economy, stupid”. In the case of South Africa, I insist that it is both the economy, and more fundamentally, […]
Posted inLifestyle
The only responsibility of a young adult author is to tell a good story
Teenagers are easy to influence. Their plastic minds are wide open to suggestion from just about any source, except for their parents or other authority figures. Popular culture seems to play a particularly large role in shaping their behaviour. In the literary world, this has led to a great deal of introspection on the part […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Informal cross-border trade should be formalised
Despite being a source of income for many living on the African continent, as much as 43%, informal cross-border trade is regarded as illegal. Informal cross-border trade refers to trade in processed or non-processed merchandise that may be legal imports or exports on one side of the border and illicit on the other side and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A miscarriage of justice
The miscarriage of justice regarding the arrest of Dr Cyril Karabus in the United Arab Emirates continues to play out in a manner that reflects poorly on judicial systems partially or wholly based on sharia law. Under this system it appears there is a presumption of guilt, namely that one is guilty until proven innocent. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The decline and fall of the African Renaissance
The Roman achievement was colossal. The Romans knew it themselves hence their belief in Roma Aeterna, the eternal city. But as everybody knows, Rome was not eternal and “the best-known fact” about Rome, remarked Arthur Ferrill, is that “it declined and fell”. Edward Gibbon was summing up not just the reign of Emperor Antoninus, or […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Avoiding the resource curse in Africa
Over the last four decades, resource abundant countries in the developing world have consistently under-performed resource poor countries when it comes to economic growth, income inequality and good governance. It has been well established that the more intense a country’s reliance on mineral exports (measured as a percentage of GDP), the more slowly its economy […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Aid agencies should use local journalists to get message across
By Prue Clarke Mae Azango is one courageous reporter. But she is also a potent weapon in the fight for human rights. Azango’s reporting on female genital cutting (FGC) in her native Liberia earlier this year, brought death threats and sent her and her nine-year-old daughter into hiding. Three weeks later, the Liberian government, having never dared risk votes by […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Compounds, refugees and choosing your words carefully
This week, “compound” joined refugee as an apparently innocuous word that has become the centre of a debate around racism. The circumstances under which they were used are quite different, but both presented our national spin doctors with gift-wrapped opportunities to distract the public and their supporters from real issues of delivery and corruption. In […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA’s woes will ripple through region
Growth in sub-Saharan Africa has remained generally robust against the backdrop of a sluggish global economy. Regional output is projected to expand by at least 5% in 2012 to 2013, a similar pace to that recorded in 2010 to 2011. That being said, there is significant variation across the region, with solid expansion being recorded […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma’s ‘clever blacks’ lost in media translation
Considering the Babel of languages spoken in South Africa and how each developed verbal cues and connotations in state-sanctioned isolation, I think we’d all do well to ask, before assuming, if we’ve understood what the other is saying. This goes doubly so in instances when we think the other person has said something preposterously outrageous, […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, Media
An incorrigible perversion…for men
Last month, linked to Breast Cancer Awareness month, I emphasised a local South African product called Breast Protection Formula™ and its claim that it contains nutrients and plant extracts that help prevent breast cancer. As the US surgeon and breast cancer scientist David Gorski (MD, PhD) stated in commenting on the product: “No, it does […]