There is good news on that eternal South African bugaboo, crime. The country’s police minister, Minister Nathi Mthethwa, has announced that South Africa’s murder rate — perennially one of the worst in the world — fell by 6.5% in the period from March 2010 to April 2011. In that same time span the number of house robberies declined by 10%. All is not good news, as the number of reported rapes rose slightly, though Mthethwa hinted that this may be a function of higher rates of reporting rather than more incidents.
On the whole this is an incredibly positive report. And one question I have that we may never know the answer to is whether or no the increase in policing as a result of the World Cup played any role in these statistics. Despite impressions to the contrary, many forms of crime, including murder, have actually been dropping steadily if too slowly since 1994. But the latest figures are really quite a positive sign, and given that the majority of the 40,000 new police officers hired and trained for the World Cup were to be kept on after the event, one cannot help but wonder if at least some proportion of these improved numbers are the result of greater police presence.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
