BY FREEMAN
The Daily Maverick recently came up with its version of last week Thursday night’s State of the Nation address delivered by President Jacob Zuma entitled, “President Zuma’s State of the Nation address – as it should be”.
Writing for the Maverick, the ever pragmatic Stephen Grootes presented what in most affable circles would pass as, well, [...]
The speech Zuma should have said
How Zuma’s sex-life is endangering millions
BY ALEX MATTHEWS
Recent reports that President Jacob Zuma has fathered his twentieth child with a woman he is not married to has disturbing implications for the battle against HIV/Aids.
The three basic tenets of HIV prevention, used to great effect in Uganda in the 1990s, is “Abstain”, “Be faithful” and “Use condoms”.
By impregnating a woman he [...]
Zuma should venture down the road less taken
BY LUNGELO MAGUBANE
Robert Frost wrote of two roads that diverged into the woods and how his opting for the one less taken made all the difference. As President Zuma applies the finishing touches to his State of the Nation speech, one hopes that he will use this opportunity to take the people of South Africa [...]
Open the door wider, in anyway possible
BY HLANGANANI GUMBI
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has entered into what should be a new and most exciting decade for politics in South Africa. The DA has grown from a minor opposition party to the efficient and effective official opposition it is today. If the strategists who engineered this immense growth continue with the bold and [...]
Why Botswana is “bailing out” De Beers
BY CHARLES LEMOS
Few companies have controlled an industry as De Beers has controlled the diamond industry. De Beers, established in 1888, is the world’s leading diamond company with unrivalled expertise in the exploration, mining and marketing of diamonds. Effectively, the company’s history is that of the diamond industry. Among the founders of the company was [...]
Zim: blood diamonds and spineless Morgan
BY ALEX MATTHEWS
Earlier this month it was announced that Mugabe’s Kimberley Process cronies have decided to give him until June to withdraw the soldiers in the Marange diamond fields. The army runs smuggling operations and use forced labour in mines whose profits benefit Zanu-PF.
Human Rights Watch exposed the horrors of Marange in June. A task [...]
Misogyny a Zimbabwean thing?
BY TESSA KERRICH – WALKER
My dad is a Zimbabwean man. One of my best friends in the entire world is a Zimbabwean man. I thought Zim men were great. Sadly, they are not (yes, generalising I know). But I feel justified in doing so. I found and read an article headlined: “BYO man beats up [...]
Jansen’s pardon means Reitz Four not held accountable
BY HLANGANANI GUMBI
This serves to express the concerns that the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation at Rhodes University, hereinafter referred to as DASO, feels with regards to the recent exoneration granted to the perpetrators of the gross human rights violations in the Free State University.
Let me start by saying with all due respect that DASO unreservedly [...]
Zuma too weak on climate change
BY GARETH MORGAN
President Zuma’s address to the United Nations General Assembly last week included some strong words on climate change, but as with the cabinet statement released two weeks earlier, it did not go far enough. The President reiterated the now well known position that the impacts of climate change will be devastating for Africa, and that it [...]
Travelling down the DA’s Country Road
BY ALEX MATTHEWS
Early last year I complained that the DA’s image was too rich, too old, too white. I wrote, “Clearly brand DA is in need of a major overhaul, a major injection of cool. Its fusty look is rather reminiscent of what Woolworths was like 10 or 15 years ago when people under 30 [...]
