Cape Town has a perception as a racist city, according to Danny Jordaan, South Africa's Local Organizing Committee CEO for the 2010 World Cup. And he believes that the city (and the country in general) will have to shed that image if the 2010 event is to be a success.
As a step in that direction, Cape Town will host “90 Minutes for Mandela,” which will pit an Africa XI against a World XI of all time greats in honor of Madiba's 89th birthday. The game will provide a litmus test, or at least a gauge, of where South Africa is in terms of its capacity to host a big event without major glitches.
The 2010 World Cup is going to be a vital moment for South Africa. In many ways it will represent the country's coming out party, a sort of debut or “Sweet 16,” coming as it does sixteen years after the epochal events of 1994. In this sense the World Cup will be about much more than sport. With the rest of the world watching, South Africa can show that it belongs in the first rank of nations and it can reveal to a skeptical and patronizing world what an African nation is capable of given the opportunity.
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 […]
