I am pleasantly shocked by the news that South Africa has already moved out of recession. According to Statistics SA, South Africa recorded modest positive growth in the third quarter.
In a disquieting assessment, an economist has concluded that South Africa could have the most expensive electric rates in the world if ESKOM’s price hikes go into effect. And given the rates of poverty and the status of the working classes and general economic precariousness in South Africa, this is alarming news that could fast […]
Any discussion of contemporary South Africa will come around to the issue of crime fairly quickly. And whenever issues of crime come up someone will raise the issue of “getting tough” on crime. (And this happens everywhere, not just in South Africa — it certainly does in the United States, for example.) But what does […]
Largely in response to the violence that engulfed much of the country in the wake of its hotly contested and vigorously disputed December, 2007 elections Kenya has drafted a new constitution and presented the draft to the public. (You can download a copy here. Hat tip.) Kenya’s Ambassador to the United States, H.E. Peter Ogego […]
The long-awaited Gautrain, which is to connect Johannesburg and Pretoria, will have one of its sections complete by next year’s World Cup. I am a supporter of light rail. And I am all for improving South Africa’s transportation networks, which range from the quite good to the quite abysmal. And a fast, efficient train between […]
As a followup to the story about South African mercenaries training members of Guinea’s ruthless junta: The South African government has begun investigations into the matter. Meanwhile the story gets more complicated, and perhaps alarming, as it seems that among the mercenaries is at least one former high-ranking member of the South African Police Services […]
Three stories brought to you by The Archival Platform, an innovative new approach to archives, memory, history and archival-related information and advocacy in South Africa, based at the University of Cape Town. All three stories are related to Southern African heritage sites: The Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthata (formerly Umtata), in South Africa’s Eastern Cape […]
I don’t usually find myself taking Julius Malema’s side, mostly because of style rather than substance, but I think he and I are on the same page on this one. Can we all just stay here in Reasonable Land for a little while and that acknowledge that as bad, foolish, harmful, and shameful as Thabo […]
In a recent Boston Globe op-ed piece HDS Greenway makes the argument that democracy might not be for everybody. Africa only gets peripheral mention in this particular version of a fairly common argument that is probably true as far as it goes. But the problem I always have with these sorts of contrarian exercises is: […]
Is Mali ripe for radical Islamist terrorist exploitation? That is certainly the fear of many in the US and Britain, as well as in Mali itself. A group known as “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” has been active in Algeria, and the fear is that the organization plans to expand outward toward Mali. Andrew Harding […]
I don’t want to say that the controversy over the vuvuzela at South African football games can be reduced merely to race. But the calls for the banning of the ubiquitous horns from next year’s World Cup shows a remarkable sense of cultural blinders. The latest demand that South Africans yield their own sporting quirk […]
It isn’t easy being a continental superpower. This is a lesson that South Africa learns on a regular basis. By most measures, South Africa is the most powerful country in Africa, which begs the question of what it means to be the most powerful country in Africa. Culturally and economically the country’s influence is pretty […]
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