By Robtel Neajai Pailey Late last week, I was informed that I would not be able to travel to Dubai for an important meeting scheduled months ago. Like other countries across the globe, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) halted travel for those with Guinean, Liberian, and Sierra Leonean passports during the height of the Ebola […]
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Posted inGeneral
Travels through Schizoville
On a recent trip to the Netherlands we had a first-hand experience of what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari mean when they claim that the typical “malady” of today is schizophrenia — what Ian Buchanan calls “an everyday schizophrenia in which the absurd is simply ‘how things are’ ”. Once you have been alerted to it, […]
Posted inBusiness
Into the aerotropolis
The best place to spot planes in Johannesburg is on Jan Smuts Road off Yaldwyn in Boksburg. You park right next to the runway, just beyond the razor wire, and wait. On Saturday my brother and I achieved a haul of a Kulula 737, three SA Express Embraers and an SAA Star Alliance Airbus. I […]
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 inLifestyle
Unstoppable forces and immovable objects
“That’s my new house,” my Chinese tour guide gestured toward a row of featureless apartment blocks beneath our vantage point overlooking the river, “and that’s where I used to live.” She showed me a photograph of a modest two-storey structure within the walls of the ancient city of Fengjie. It presumably remains intact, albeit more than […]