July 2012

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Helen Zille's Hopeless Handling of Cape Gang Violence

Picture: The Democratic Alliance/Flickr Anna Majavu - With the DA beginning their campaign to wrest control of another few provinces from the ANC in the 2014 elections, the impoverished residents of Cape Town’s Lavender Hill and Hanover Park have become the latest convenient political footballs. Like other so-called “Coloured” communities - Delft, Grassy Park, Ocean View and Bishop Lavis - Lavender Hill and Hanover Park remain derelict ghettoes, which appear to be stuck in a long forgotten era. A part-privatised leaky...

Drumbeat for Fracking Drowns out Reason and Rationality

Picture: Artist Fazila Farouk - Highlighting the need for a more skilled workforce, Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, recently encouraged youngsters to choose science and technology as a career path at a prize-giving event linked to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope - the world’s largest radio telescope that will be hosted in the Karoo. Pandor said, "We don't want to rely on extracting raw materials from mines and exporting them to other countries any longer. Many leading economies in...

The Sky is Pink: How Energy Companies Spread Misinformation about Natural Gas Fracking

Picture: CC by 2.0 Video The Sky is Pink a recently released “emergency” short film from Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated director of the documentary Gasland, which addresses the urgent crisis of drilling and fracking in New York State, as that state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, increasingly appears disposed to reversing a temporary moratorium on natural gas fracking. The people of the Karoo in South Africa find themsleves in a similar situation, as our Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu,...

As Japan Says Fukushima Disaster 'Man-Made' & 'Preventable', Fears Grow for Nuclear Plants Worldwide

Picture: Abode of Chaos/Flickr Video A Japanese parliamentary inquiry has concluded that the 2011 nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was "a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented". The more than 600-page report urged greater safety around nuclear plants. It also urged the Japanese government to be more transparent about its relationship with the nuclear industry. In a surprise turn, the report also leveled criticism at the Japanese culture of...

Are We Over-Medicalized?

Picture: pipereport.com Video Everyday thousands of people are diagnosed with pre-conditions. We hear about pre-hypertension, pre-diabetes, pre-cancer and many more. In this engaging talk, Reuters health editor, Ivan Oransky warns that we are suffering from preposterous pre-conditions diagnosed within a system that thrives on over-medicalizing treatments. Most doctors are in a fee-for-service system. They are basically incentivized to do more tests, perform more procedures and prescribe medication. Pharmaceutical...

The End of TomKat: Scientology, Celebrity and Business

Picture: Jay Tamboli/Wikimedia Commons Binoy Kampmark - His comments are dangerous. He should stick to saving the world from aliens. – Brooke Shields on Tom Cruise The gossip columnists are compiling their ill-composed scribbles, and their latest find (or non-finding) is working out what is transpiring in the dissolution of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes union. Could it be an issue of parenting and religion? Was educating their 6 year-old child Suri central to their parting? "Many reports we are hearing is that Tom was very...