Why Jacob Zuma will be a good president of South Africa
Posted on June 25th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,072 views
One reason so far: Zuma is not following in the troubled footsteps of Thabo Mbeki in respect of Zimbabwe.
Zuma refuses to unconditionally support Mugabe’s failed regime, and is instead calling for urgent intervention in an "out of control" Zimbabwe.
So, that’s good, right?
I think people need to keep an open mind towards Zuma. I instinctively feel he won’t disappoint us, if we trust him to lead us.
Jacob Zuma is not another Thabo Mbeki and that is a very good thing.
Tags: Jacob Zuma, Robert Mugabe, Thabo Mbeki, Zimbabwe
Filed under South African politics | 3 Comments »
People who played with FaceBook and got burnt
Posted on February 29th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,368 views
Back in Dec 2007, I wrote about a blogger on Thought Leader who created a fake FaceBook profile for Thabo Mbeki, which contravenes FaceBook’s Terms and Conditions. IOL reported, at the time, that President Thabo Mbeki’s office was referring the matter of fake FaceBook profiles (which impersonated him) to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Naturally, this threat was not taken seriously by either Thought Leader, the blogger in question or many of my readers.
However, although South African authorities have failed to make good their threats, Morocco has taken action against a fake FaceBook profile creator.
Fouad Mourtada, a Moroccan citizen has recently been jailed for three years for creating a fake FaceBook profile of Moroccan Prince Moulay Rachid. FaceBook has denied assisting Moroccan authorities in this matter. This judgement has sent ripples of alarm through the Moroccan Blogosphere and caused at least one Moroccan blogger to stop blogging altogether, out of fear that other forms of online activities might invite unwanted attention from the authorities.
Unsurprisingly, the sentence handed down to Mourtada has been condemned as excessively harsh by many. Nevertheless, he remains incarcerated whilst his supporters scramble to rally international pressure for his release.
Mourtada played with FaceBook and got burnt. But he is not the only one.
More recently a British policeman, Inspector Chris Dreyfus (30), British Transport Police’s head of royalty and government protection, had his promotion to Chief Inspector denied after his superiors had a look at his FaceBook profile which includes details of his gay lifestyle.
Dreyfus also played with FaceBook and got burnt. Are you next?
It could be that more and more people are becoming aware of the dangers that FaceBook poses to themselves because people are logging off. El Reg reports that FaceBook traffic amongst UK users is down 5%. I know of more than one local blogger who has recently opted out of FaceBook over privacy concerns.
The Canadian military is also concerned that insurgents in Iraq could use FaceBook to gain intelligence about their soldiers deployed there, and has cautioned personnel not to post personal information on their FaceBook profiles.
So, are you worried yet or do you reckon your titanium armour will hold off all comers?
Tags: Chris Dreyfus, facebook, Fouad Mourtada, Thabo Mbeki, Thought Leader
Filed under facebook | 10 Comments »
Cape Town news welcomes Gerrie Hugo to our blog roll
Posted on November 3rd, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,550 views
Gerrie Hugo is a South African living in Sweden.
You may not like everything he writes because he is scathingly critical of South Africa, especially in regards the lack of personal safety due to crime, that weighs heavily on him.
However, he writes well. You will get a jaundiced view of South Africa, but also an intelligent and articulate one, like his recent article, Shooting the Bull, in which he satirises Mbeki’s authorised biography "Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki" by Ronald Suresh Roberts.
Hugo produces for us, his own list of politicians and humorously rates their fitness to govern in terms of how well they can shoot (marksmanship):
Nelson Mandela — will always be number one sniper to be deployed in the most desperate of situations when one needs to get the job done. He can name his price.
Swedish Politicians — can be left alone as they will hit the target 50% of the time, adhere to safety regulations and spend the rest of the time in meetings discussing the merit of each and every shot fired. They are also very fond of special committees where some more discussing can be done and therefore worth their salaries.
Robert Mugabe — to be terminated with extreme prejudice as he could not hit any target and thus decided to blow up all the shooting ranges. He is still armed. Sulking and sitting in the middle of fuck-all, looking for a target. Name your price to cull this abhorrent viral strain.
Thabo Mbeki — can not be allowed close to any shooting range as he failed the entry exam for eight consecutive years. He is yet to hit a cow’s arse with a double-barrelled shotgun at five feet. And yet he earns almost R 2 million annually.
I think I am going to enjoy reading his future blog posts, and I invite Cape Town news readers to join me there. In fact, I hope Gerrie will deploy feedburner to manage his RSS feeds and also allow readers to subscribe to a daily email digest of them, which is my preferred method of RSS feed consumption these days.
Tags: Fit to Govern, Gerrie Hugo, marksmanship, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Suresh Roberts, South Africa, Sweden, Thabo Mbeki
Filed under Ex-pat South African, Gerrie Hugo, Sweden | No Comments »
