Ungoti Chronicles

Laceration

2011-11-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

the location of the tools of our enemy lie in us.

Life, in its purest form with its challenges, its joys as they used to be as soon as we were intelligent enough to experience them, all enabling us to thrive in order that we realized and cemented our most basic purpose, its attributes to the culture and or the norms of each of us as a people, all have been altered completely so that there must exist not just fear but failure thereof as well. Little did we know that the method by which this was to be was just a simple [or not so simple] conceptualization? The one that was to change the way we view ourselves and our environment forever or at least to this day. This has not just had potential in each of us to loose or erase our true identity completely, the one thing that is nexus between ourselves today and generations before us. I am talking about the very source of our strength, courage and wit not just to counter challenges, negotiate sharp and at times sudden turns but to subsist and bring longevity to our achievement potential as human beings.
We inadvertently have allowed ourselves to conceive a self destructive idea that yes was in actual fact somewhat an imposition as to it, value on our basics as we know them was attached. This idea that with it, the owner had to establish artificial mechanisms that were to appear to us to be for our own survival and so that while we appreciate having them, they cunningly sought to entangled us in the vine of furthered dispossession, that of our mind, our spirit and our physicality. We, in the current generations existing today were all born in to this concept and therefore could not have been able to escape it as our then new environment was already contaminated with it with a challenge that would assist us to measure it against. We know that this concept is anti-humanist as it brought alive and continued to feed immortality to materialism and all that is attached to it, why? To simply influence the finite human desire so that the craftsmanship of individualism is not just realized but completed and that the cycle repeats itself over and again. This because as human beings we turn not just to own desire, we believe that it is part and parcel of our selfness as individuals.
if you believe that you are a self, if you believe in self nature as being real, as being truly existent, then there has to be desire, because in order for a or to have a self you have to define a self. If you believe in the nature of self, you have to have an underlying belief that self ends here and other begins there. You have to have some conceptualization in your mind about what the self is, because the idea of self cannot exist without some definition. Conceptual proliferation develops, and with that, desire. Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (Buddha faith)
We need to be able to identify first the immediate enemy, then his instruments of destruction and where they are located. I am saying it is because of desire that money and all other materials that are attached to the same money come alive to coexist with us. I am saying, while desire is unavoidable since one would have come to some level of self realization, its existence within us can successfully rival our longing to consistency serve in our respective faiths and /or beliefs or giving gratitude deities. There is no doubt we are complex creatures and that because of our intellect we are said to be in the driving seat of all life forms as we take the struggle of evolution forward in our own lifetime(s). This comes with a defaulted responsibility of being protectors of the same said life forms with which we share our world. By the same measure we are responsible to the well being and thriving of other human beings we are said to be leading in different areas of demanded by nature on the one hand and our response to such demands on the other.
Our success in sharing the world in the fairest manner with all living organisms is if we are successful in sieving accurately the seeds of bad desire from the good ones. The bad one must be gotten rid of without delay because it objectifies everything in order to satisfy and worship the self, and as it also affixes itself upon the realm of individualism. It is the same which cause us not just to place value but to hunger to take ownership of that same which must stand as an entity for the deserved ones or for all. Capitalism is an enemy of humanity. We must be weary of the forces such as attack on our desires as this will separate us or even cause us to stratify as a people.
Mzolozolo.

When Can We Be in All This Together? - By Dr Peter Lawrence

2011-09-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

The 2007-8 financial and
economic crisis gave the lie
to what had become the
conventional view that neo-liberal
economic policies were the only way
to guarantee growth and stability,
Based on some very simple ideas about
human economic behaviour, they
pushed for policies which reduced the
role of the State in economic activity
and regulation, diminished its welfare
functions, and incentivised private activity
by selling off public enterprises
or sub-contracting these services to the
private sector to encourage competitive
behaviour in their provision, especially
in health and education.
The central idea behind these
policies is the concept of people and
enterprises as self-interested agents
pursuing their own objectives in
competition with others and making
rational choices based on the belief
that they seek to maximise their own
welfare. The assumption is also that
economic growth would ensure that
this need not be a zero-sum game in
which improvement in one individual’s
welfare had to come at the expense
of another; and in any case the State
would ensure that there were safety
nets to prevent people losing out
altogether, albeit that recipients of
state benefits would have to be strictly
monitored to ensure they did not
free ride.
So following the crisis, there were
many calls for a revision of previous
thinking and for new thinking about
economics and policy. The most
common call was for a return to some
kind of Keynesian interventionism with
state investment in capital projects as
a leading strategy, but there were also
calls for more international cooperation
and for a return to mutualism in the
financial sector. The need for a new
paradigm, for a new way of thinking
about the economy and economic
behaviour was patently evident. The
temptation on the progressive left of
the political spectrum was to return
to the old policies of state socialism
honed in a different time in capitalism’s
history and to reject any need for the
Left to adapt to the immense changes
in economy and society in the last
half-century.
The response of the conservative
and social democratic neo-liberal
governments to calls for an alternative
strategy to deal with the effects of the
crisis has been to say that ‘there is
no alternative’, that ‘we are all in this
together’ and that we all have to make
sacrifices. What is evident is that in most
cases some are in it more than others,
with the poor taking proportionately
much more of the sacrifice than the
rich. The Republicans in the US for
instance, want to maintain tax cuts for
the rich while cutting the healthcare
and education budget which partly
helps the poor. In the UK, the coalition
wants to abolish the 50% tax band on
incomes over £150,000, while cutting
health and education expenditure and
social benefits which largely help the
poor. These policies generate a deep
sense of unfairness among those who
feel that they are least able to carry the
burden of cuts. However, fairness is
one concept which is not part of the
framework of neo-liberal economics.
For in its individually orientated
framework it is believed that the rich
create the wealth we all can then enjoy
and to give them the incentive to do
that we should not ask them to pay
more tax, but less, in case they move
abroad and cease to create wealth and
pay the tax they do pay.

Tragedy of the Commons
President Obama’s response to the
Republican Party’s demands, heavily
influenced as these are by the Tea Party
faction, is to argue that the rich can pay
more and are often quite willing to do
so and that tax cuts for the rich and
expenditure cuts for services largely
needed and enjoyed by the poor
are not a fair way to make sacrifices
to cut budget deficits. The idea that
people might also be interested in
making sacrifices to help other people
less fortunate than themselves is one
that has been recognised by those
economists who query rational choice
theory and suggest that there are other
motivations which explain human
behaviour and, within that, economic
behaviour. Significantly the 2008
Nobel Prize in Economics was shared
by Elinor Ostrom for her work on the
governance of common property.
This work offers insights into why and
when collective action and collective
governance work. Her work and that of
her associates presents a challenge to
the prevailing economic ideas based on
self-interested individuals. It suggests
that in particular contexts property
held in common does not induce
behaviours in which participants seek
to maximise their own self-interest and
therefore result in the property being
badly governed – the so-called ‘tragedy
of the commons’.
The ‘tragedy of the commons’ is the
title of an address given by Professor
Garret Hardin, a US biologist, to
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1968.
In it he set out what has become the
orthodox view of human behavior
in circumstances where they have
no apparent individual incentive to
conserve a resource to which they all
have rights. He uses the example of
a piece of common land accessible
to cattle keepers. The benefit to each
cattle keeper of putting one more cow
onto the common land is greater than
the cost to the individual cattle keeper
in overgrazing the land and reducing its
feeding potential. As Hardin puts it:
"Ruin is the destination to
which all men rush, each pursuing
his own best interest in a society
that believes in freedom of the
commons. Freedom in a commons
brings ruin to all."
The first response is to conclude that
replacing common property rights by
private property rights will ensure that
ruin is avoided. A good example of this
has been World Bank policies on land
tenure which have sought to promote
private property rights and, until
recently, to oppose common property
rights both on the grounds of ‘tragedy
of the commons’ type arguments and
more importantly now on the grounds
that private property rights enable
easier access to credit. A second
response is to suggest, as Hardin does,
that such a problem can be overcome
by some external coercive force – the
government for example - regulating
access in such a way as to limit or
even eliminate damage to grazing. The
point that Hardin seeks to make is that
people themselves will not behave in
a way that automatically generates
a rational use of common property
without some coercive force, albeit
one that, in a democracy, is acceptable
and does not impinge too heavily on
individual freedoms.
This argument is one that in a wider
sense is used to explain the collapse of
the Soviet Union and countries with
the same brand of statist socialism,
that is, that people cannot be expected
on their own to subordinate their
individual objectives to those of society
as a whole in the belief that this will
bring the greatest benefit to them
as individuals. The extreme form of
this belief is in that famous dictum of
Margaret Thatcher – ‘there is no such
thing as society’. The value of Ostrom’s
work is that it argues quite the contrary
is possible and that there is empirical
evidence to show that people evolve
ways of interacting which do preserve
the ‘commons’.

Co-operation rather than
Competition
In a paper that surveys the
research that she, in collaborations
with colleagues, have done and will
do, Ostrom reveals that ‘the world
contains multiple types of individuals,
some more willing than others to
initiate reciprocity to achieve the
benefits of collective action’. So for
her, ‘a core question is how potential
co-operators signal one another and
design institutions that reinforce rather
than destroy conditional cooperation’.

This is best explained, she argues, by
evolutionary theory, that is through time
people learn how best to cooperate. It
is not possible to go into all the detail
here, but there are two sorts of
evidence to support the view that
under particular kinds of conditions
people will be prepared to make a
contribution to the cost of a public
good in the knowledge that they will
benefit more from this strategy than
one in which they pay none of the
costs, or a small part of them, in the
expectation that others will pay, or
that they will not need all the potential
benefits. The first kind of evidence is
given from experimental games.
Among other things, it is found that
cooperation is more likely to occur
where people believe others will
cooperate, that the more rounds of a
game that are played and the more the
subjects in the experiment learn how to
cooperate, the more cooperation takes
place and that the availability of some
form of punishment for those who
under-contribute is likely to strengthen
the cooperation of those less inclined
to cooperate at the beginning.
The second kind of evidence is that
coming from field studies from parts of
the world where communal property
rights are dominant, whether they be
rights to fishing grounds, grazing land
or irrigation. Among the major findings
are that self-organisation and drawing
up of rules by the users of a resource
accessed in common works better than
the imposition of rules from an external
agency. Participants in a cooperative
enterprise evolve their own rules,
customs and practices and a trust in
each other through reciprocity which
results in an effective management of
the common resource. Ostrom suggests
that successful common property
organisations need a set of design
rules which involve the participants
constructing and enforcing their own
rules with appropriate punishments
which increase with the seriousness of
the rules breach, clearly state who can
join and leave, and when, and ensure
that costs incurred by members are
proportionately related to the benefits
that they get. So Ostrom’s work suggests that it is
not necessarily the case that what she
calls the ‘rational egoist’ characterises
the nature of all individuals in all
situations, a belief that underpins neoclassical
economic theory. We see
examples of this in various forms of
altruistic behaviour, the most famous
of which is donating blood. Once
we accept that there are contexts
which can be constructed in which
people will act cooperatively rather
than competitively, there is no limit
to the possibilities for collective social
and economic organisation based
on reciprocity and trust. This applies
as much to a fair and progressive
tax system in which everyone pays
according to their ability to pay and
everyone enjoys the same access to
public services regardless of their
means, as it applies to a financial
mutual, or to a producer cooperative,
or to the management of communal
property.
A new economic paradigm
based on assumptions about human
behaviour that go beyond the notion
of the ‘rational egoist’ is badly needed.
There is now a substantial body
of evidence that suggests that new
forms of organisation in which people
cooperate rather than compete,
where dog does not eat dog (a
behaviour that has especially
characterised financial markets), might
more effectively reflect the way people
would prefer to behave. The notion of a
society of individuals each maximising
his/her own utility and by doing so
maximising the wealth of society as a
whole has been seriously challenged
by yet another crisis in which it is clear
that the maximising activities of some
individuals have cost society dear.
There is an alternative.

The Thinker Magazine article

Manufacturing Poor People - by globalresearch.ca

2011-06-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

Even as the overall population of the world continues to increase, the increase in the number of poor people outstrips that growth. How is this possible? Are the poor simply breeding like rabbits, increasing their numbers geometrically in a suicidal, lemming-like production line of poverty-stricken people? Or are they getting some outside aid in their catastrophic endeavor?

In just the past 50 years, the Rich People of the "First", or Western World have invested heavily, through their banks, industries and other corporations, in the poorest regions of the "Third" World in Africa, Asia and Latin America, home to the majority of the world's poor. Transnational corporations are attracted by the richness of these people's natural resources, the richness of profits off cheap labor, the near total lack of environmental and worker safety regulations and the non-existent benefits for said labor.

U.S. transnationals were given a push toward this pregnant profit source, this attractive and waiting richness, by the U.S. government, which subsidizes (read gives taxpayers' money to) corporations in the form of tax breaks on foreign investment and even helping them to pay their relocation expenses at the expense of not only the taxpayers, but those taxpayers whose jobs are outsourced by this support for global U.S. economic dominance.

Local businesses in the "Third" World are destroyed as U.S. transnationals penetrate and overwhelm their markets like species imported to get rid of pests which turn out to be even bigger pests themselves. Taxpayer-subsidized cartels of transnationals dump their cheap, surplus goods in these countries at below their own cost to undersell local producers, thus forcing them out of business and allowing the U.S. corporations to take over the market. (This is also Wal-Mart's favorite technique for killing the competition in local markets right here in America.)

In the case of Big Agriculture they also take over/expropriate the best pieces of land, monocrop them with products for export, and douse them with oil-based, chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides, destroying the soil. Think Dust Bowl. This leaves less land for use for those run-out-of-business farmers and their families to produce the food to feed the local population, who, along with the displaced farmers, are forced to go to work - for next to nothing - on those monocropped plantations to grow food that will be shipped out of the country or to work in American sub-contracted sweat shop factories. This also forces them to buy what food they can afford from these same Big Ag corporations. This is exactly the same scenario as in the U.S., since the bulk of the U.S. population consists of dependent consumers, unable to feed themselves, who must go to a supermarket to feed off the tit of Big Ag.

Robbing local people of self-sufficiency creates a perfect profit-making mechanism based on a labor market flooded with desperate people who can be herded into a neat, ready-to-use package, labor in a box, in slums and shanty towns which they will leave to slave for token, poverty wages - if they can find work - which are most often in violation of their own countries' minimum wage laws. This is thanks to the overarching authority of Western-created "Free" Trade Agreements enforced by the World Trade Organization in its private, unaccountable courts.

Since the U.S. is one of the few pariah nations which refuses to sign the international convention for the abolishment of child labor and forced labor, Wal-Mart, Disney and J.C. Penny were able to pay eleven cents - 11 cents - an hour in Haiti in 2007. This allows these transnational corporations, not only in the "Third" World, but here in America, to have workers as young as 12 - twelve - sustain high rates of fatalities and injuries while working for less than the minimum wage. Talk about your right to work!

The savings these transnationals - and their shareholders - are able to rack up by exploiting and further impoverishing the people of the "Third" World do not translate into lower prices for the consumers, e.g. people, of the "First", or Western World. Oh no, my pretty! Transnationals don't outsource to save their customers money. They do it to increase their profits and their payouts to shareholders. For instance, children in Indonesia in 1990 made shoes for thirteen cents an hour working a 12-hour day. The shoes cost $2.60 to make. They sold in the United States for $100.

In addition to this slick trick, any U.S. "aid" to these transnationals-impoverished countries comes with stainless steel strings attached. Besides the "aid" money being used to create an infrastructure - ports, railroads, airports, highways, refineries, utilities, etc. - which facilitates the transnationals' ability to make money at the expense of local economies, this "aid" must most often be spent on U.S. goods, thus enriching even more U.S. corporations.

The country receiving "aid" must also give investment preference to even more U.S. corporations. This causes a shift away from products produced locally and toward those imported from the West, creating more debt, dependency and hunger. Further, a lot of this "aid" slips silently into the silken pockets of the local ruling class to buy their complicity and even enlist them in the enforcement of the ongoing heist.

Hand-in-hand with U.S. "aid" comes more "help" from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The financial contributions to those organizations by countries belonging to them determines the weight of their voting power. Since the U.S. is the largest "donor", you can just guess the name of that tune. And, of course, the IMF (International Mother Fuckers) works under a cloak of secrecy (to protect the confidentiality of the donors, dontcha know) enforced by the banks and the treasury organizations of the rich nations who run it.

The World Bank loans money to a poor country to "help" in its development, to build up a part of its economy. "If", and almost certainly when (that's The Plan) the poor country is unable to pay the usurious interest on the loan becayse of declining exports (again, The Plan), the country has to borrow more money in order to service the debt.

The IMF extends more loans, with more of those stainless steel strings more tightly bound around the victim, er, I mean, loan recipient, trussing up the "benefiting" poor nation like a Thanksgiving turkey about to be devoured by the West, The Rich. The country which borrows money from these Fuckers must give tax breaks to Western transnationals. The country must slash wages and refuse to protect local businesses from being ravaged by cheap imports and corporate takeovers.

The country is further strong-armed to sell, at fire sale prices, all its government-owned mines, its railroads, industries and utilities to privately-owned, mostly-foreign corporations. The country must allow its forests to be clearcut and its land to be strip-mined. Money for education, healthcare, food assistance and the transportation infrastructure must be sheared back to service the debt. And the interest on the debt, through the wondrously magical Western miracle of compound interest, keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and on and on and on and on... And all the while, the people of the country are less able to feed themselves, since they are forced to grow cash crops for export to feed that debt service.

This is how the "Third" World is kept in poverty, subjugated to the "First" World, whose people purposefully, premeditatedly impoverish and immiserate the people of the "Third" World via depraved indifference in order to serve the plump, plutocratic pleasure of U.S. transnationals, their shareholders and American consumers. This debt reaches a point where nearly ALL of a country's export earnings go to debt payment, squeezing the economy like a lemon, and the poverty-making snowballs.

And while critics of these "aid" programs, most often faux-progressives, point out that these programs just don't work for "those people", the people of the "Third" World's nations, these same programs continue to receive funding from their adherents precisely because they do work, exactly as they were intended to work, to transfer the rich resources of the poor in the "Third" World to the already wealthy people in the "First" World. What an arrogant and ludicrous appellation is "First" World, self-designated by fatted, rich Western peoples to describe and denigrate the poor people of whom the scaffold supporting the American, and Western, standard of living is built.

This is how the magical, voodoo, trickle down economics of the Friedmans, the Reagans, the Volckers, the Greenspans, the Bushes, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, etc. who prosylitize "free" market theology works. The people of the "Third" World are used as fertilizer to grow the fortunes of the people of the "First", or Western World. They are used like toilet paper, like disposable plastic packaging, like prophylactics (scum bags) and then discarded as if their lives meant nothing more. They are receptacles, vessels in which the rich "create" their "self-made" wealth - do their business - then casually flush these poor people - and their children - out of sight, down the polluted toilet the "First" World has made of our whole world.

Transnational corporations use the U.S. government and corporate lobbyist-written "free" trade policies, which are designed and work very well, to prevent "Third" World nations from ever "developing" sufficiently to become serious trade competitors. And this is because U.S. corporations learned the lesson of the Marshall Plan very well.

After World War II, America's major trade competitors were flattened, economically as well as physically, and America, in all its beneficence and magnanimity, offered money to Europe and Japan so they could rebuild shattered industries and infrastructure by using this "aid" money to purchase American goods and services, profiting hugely in the process. And while Europe and Japan were rebuilding, the U.S. was busy establishing itself as the world's global economic and military behemoth. Following Word War II, and up to the mid-Seventies, the United States experienced the most prosperous period, overall, in its history. And then things began to go south, as former flattened economic competitors began to recover enough to give the behemoth a run for its money, and actually overtaking the once supremely, economically dominant USA.

Well, U.S. transnationals didn't intend to ever let that happen again. There would be no more giving a real leg up to potential competitors. And thus we arrived at where we are today. And, in fact, the ruse works so well, that since the Seventies the plutocracy has been using the very same template here at home, - with an increasingly heavy hand. See U.S. auto workers, healthcare, the bank bailout, foreclosed homes, 600,00 jobs a month jettisoned, the murder of state governments, et al. Who, or what, will be next?

Vi Ransel is a frequent contributor to online political newsletters. She can be reached at rosiesretrocycle@yahoo.com.

The greatest depression has only just begun - by globalresearch.ca

2011-06-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

The greatest depression in human history is still in its starting stages. What the media and many officials often refer to as the "hangover" from the global financial crisis is in fact the end of the beginning. Originating in 2008, the global economic crisis took the world by storm: banks collapsed, the "too big to fail" became bigger by consolidating the rest, governments bailed out their financial industries, masses of people lost their jobs, the 'developing' world was plunged into a deep systemic crisis, food prices rose, which in time spurred social unrest; and the Western nations that took on the bad debts of the big banks are on the precipice of a great global debt crisis, originating in Europe, hitting Greece and Spain, but destined to consume the industrialized world itself. Though many claim that we are in a "recovery," things could not be further from the truth.

As the mainstream media is finally catching on to the reality of the mirage of the so-called "recovery", reports are surfacing about a dire global economic situation:

"Evidence of a deterioration of global manufacturing growth and renewed weakness in job creation in the United States emerged Wednesday, two reversals that have markets bracing for an economic pause, or worse... Add to that a daunting list of aggravating factors: the continued implosion of the U.S. housing market, an outbreak of worldwide risk aversion, high crude-oil and gas prices pinching consumer demand, further tightening in China and other emerging-market economies, stock market losses, lack of credit growth, the looming end to the Fed’s monetary stimulus, weak business capital spending, and the still-unfolding sovereign debt crisis in Europe."

And now top financial experts are warning of a new financial crisis altogether, since the monstrous derivatives market that played such a nefarious role in the preceding crisis has not been altered, nor have its systemic risks been addressed. The derivatives market - essentially a fictional electronic market of high-stakes gambling - has a value ten times that of the entire global gross national product of the world's countries combined. This market is dominated by hedge funds and the "too big to fail" banks, who in fact created the derivatives trading schemes. As one leading hedge fund manager recently stated, "There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner... because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis." The market for derivatives is somewhere in the realm of $600 trillion.

The most recent publication by Global Research, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," (Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavni Marshall, editors) examines the true nature of the crisis the world faces; not only its historical origins, but its depth and future repercussions. No other book on the subject takes such a nuanced and multi-faceted approach to examining the global economic crisis. Over a dozen different authors, researchers, economists, academics and former policy-makers contributed to this important book. Included within are: an examination of the history of the central banking system, the emergence and role of neoliberalism, the myth of the "free market", the role of war and empire, the National Security State, the relationship between economic crisis and the militarization of domestic society, global poverty, the food crisis, the roles played by major think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group, the nature of the derivatives market, the uses of the crisis as an "opportunity" to forge ahead with long-held plans for a global central bank, a global currency, and a global government, and much much more.

This book is not merely a history, it is a warning, and its message should be heeded now more than ever. As the crisis continues and deepens, as the wars exapand and multiply, as the very institutions that created the crisis are given more power, and as governments become more repressive and people become more resistant, it is vital for all to know the true nature of the crisis we face, the reality of who caused it, and where it is taking the world.

“This important collection offers the reader a most comprehensive analysis of the various facets – especially the financial, social and military ramifications – from an outstanding list of world-class social thinkers.” -Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

“In-depth investigations of the inner workings of the plutocracy in crisis, presented by some of our best politico-economic analysts. This book should help put to rest the hallucinations of ‘free market’ ideology.” -Michael Parenti, author of God and His Demons and Contrary Notions

“Provides a very readable exposé of a global economic system, manipulated by a handful of extremely powerful economic actors for their own benefit, to enrich a few at the expense of an ever-growing majority.” -David Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited

23182 Siyaxuza

2010-11-21T00:18:00.000-08:00

Anyone working in the South African Education context could tell you that our children have horrifyingly sad stories to tell. This post is not about that.

A star not merely rising but soaring and spreading

I want to criticize the media, the president and a whole community of people who have not screamed, shouted and sang the story of Siyabulela Xuza.

Where are the headlines? The television interviews? The conversations about a kid from Umtata who developed rocket fuel! A boy who was snapped up (people I’m talking claimed, lauded and loved) by Harvard.

Yup I wrote rocket fuel. I know, what do we little South Africans know about rocket fuel? Especially a boy running around in short pants! Perhaps that’s why locally he’s so unknown, journalists are intimidated to speak to a smart ass, a real smart ass. Not a bombastic fool heard because they tweet the most or know what to say to get a vote.

He told Clem Sunter that he had been creating small explosions in his mother’s kitchen since he was 12.

“Then I decided to concentrate on a particular project.It was to create an energy-intensive fuel which was safer and more effective than the stuff Nasa uses to propel its rockets into outer space.”

Geez dude.

But let’s face it, it couldn’t have come easy. He comes from Umtata, out of one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. He must have excelled from a very young age because he won a scholarship to attend a top private school in Joburg. Perhaps his situation wasn’t as dire as the majority of our children who go to school hungry, too worn out to write neatly. But let’s hear it for a young man who probably had to overcome stereotyping and will continue to have eyeballs rolled at him for a long time for being the bright black kid from, ummm, what’s that place called, er Umtata.

You think the story ends there right? It doesn’t! This South African guy has impressed NASA so much that they named a frikking constellation after him, it’s called “Siyaxuza” and can be seen near Jupiter if you have a strong enough telescope.

If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know that I don’t swear when I write, at least not that I can remember! But for this hidden story that could bring such inspiration and pride to us…I have to say it – what the fuck?!

I think it’s inexcusable that our local media have not picked this story up yet will analyse the shit out of Idols, like their lives depended upon it. They whine about racism without the realization that they’re demeaning it and turning it into rhetoric. Story angles that contribute to promoting and exalting an egalitarian society are rarely explored. There are white people who still think that black people are intellectually inferior, I know some personally so I can attest to that fact. I have also met black people who feel that they are inferior, not good enough, too black.

So when a story comes along that can make stereo typing look as idiotic as the people who believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and then spat out alive – we need to stop for a few moments and take stock.

But I’ll give him this, he may not have made it to the front page of a local or the 7pm news, but damn, he’s in Wikipedia!

23182 SiyaxuzaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
23182 Siyaxuza is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 1465.0080388 days (4.01 years).[1]

The asteroid was discovered on July 23, 2000.

It is named for Siyabulela Lethuxolo Xuza, South African winner of the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23182_Siyaxuza

If the media cannot report on stories that are truly meaningful in the African context – stories that make our children feel like they can own their aspirations and that they can, albeit with difficulty, rise above their circumstances – why should I purchase their products? And what about stories that provoke that level of introspection, where society questions what it values and recognizes?

It’s time the media considered removing themselves from their own angst and start telling stories that are poignant and not sensationalist. It’s time the media started seeing themselves as part of a solution as opposed to an institution that reports on the bad, glorifies the inane and simpers at itself.

It was paradise until one fateful day when I was absent-mindedly mixing up a new concoction. I forgot to turn down the stove setting, and the bubbly mixture changed to a hissing monster, spitting liquid all over the floor. What had been a spotless kitchen was suddenly covered in smoke and sticky rocket fuel. Mother charged into the room. I stuttered, my hands trembled, and I feared what was to come: the yelling of a lifetime.

My eardrums still rang from the scolding when I continued with the experiments, though more cautiously in the garage. What started as mischief grew into a serious four-year science pr

oject that I juggled with demanding school work, rugby games, theater productions, and community service.

Yes, in Africa we produce rocket scientists

Between you and I we can bring this story to the

fore.

Please write something about him, it can

be about how you responded to the news of his

achievements, your views and impressions. Let’s share this magnificent story in the hope that it’s going to bring strength and hope to someone out there. Tell someone this story whilst having a drink or sitting in a taxi. We have to get it out there. South Africans have a better chance if we inspire and support people like this to progress and lead with dignity.

Media loves the tedious tirade from Julius Malema who barely made it through high school.
People with a pathetically low ability to learn and understand the world lead as if they are there to even the score for their own egos. Please let’s phase them out and make way for people like Siyabulela Xuza.

But before we do that, we have to claim him as our own.

Check these links out and please tweet and share them on your facebook profile, email to friends – just spread it and let’s step aside for Siya and fuck the local media!

http://southafricantimes.co.uk/content/saffa-planet-named-after-him

http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2009/August/20090810110401cMretroP0.8228527.html

http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/ln05-25-07/labnews05-25-07.pdf

http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1343&Itemid=199

http://www.mosaiko.gr/3education/my-journey-to-harvard/

Related Articles

A 1st reply from DBN Municipality on the issue raised and posted prior to this

2010-10-08T03:10:00.001-07:00

Dear Khoza

Please liaise with the area Councilor-

Xaba Linda Denzel

contact details are
0849646452

Hope to have been of assistance
cj

Thank you
Sizakala
Toll Free No. 0800331011

Please read this confidentiality disclaimer:

http://www.durban.gov.za/durban/e_colophon/edisclaimer

[my] First letter to CASAC, KZN HOUSING DPT (jurie.thaver@kznworks.gov.za) and DBN Municipality (sizakala@durban.gov.za)

2010-10-07T02:33:00.001-07:00

this posting was updated 24 hours after this letter was sent, no reply had been received from any of the parties above as yet...

Greetings,

I am a resident of KwaMashu in ward 41 who witnesses on daily basis just as other residents of the area, a situation of a family who used to have a dignified house in a row of other houses of the same standard in terms of social class in my township. The house or rather the stand is situated in K section.

There was a programme that ran through out last year probably as a department of housing initiative (not sure of the facts) which saw 4 roomed houses that were at the brink of collapse because the families could not afford to renovate due to stresses of poverty which forced them to always prioritise on the more pressing needs such as food, school requirements and the likes. This particular renovation programme was such that once a house is identified after having been on the register the family will be advised to get alternative accomodation whilst the their house is demolished so that it can be rebuild again. It went like that through out the year in phases that have been disigned and managed by the parties or officials that worked with the Durban municipality, this programmes ran until towards the year end last year and as it was folded the last phase had not been finished completely in that the house of this family had been demolished to the ground and left like that.

The whole of this year that family has been living in a shack made of the fragile asbestos behind the stand of what used to be their house for the whole of this year as we approach its end. Kindly advise if there is anythig at all that can be done as matter of urgency to get this family to own a decent house they once owned, it is a constitutional right and more so because its a house that was taken away from them, it is not their fault that monies ran out of the coffers or wherever the source was, its a human rights matter, I tried to get the ward councillor's email address to find out what has he done with regards to that but i could not on the municipality's website, the page gave me errors.

I hope that you would need to find out more on this family, feel free to contact me.

Thank you.

Kind regards
--
Thobekani Khoza
27832126071/ 27710692930
Ungoti Chronicles

Council for the Advancement of South African Constitution - CASAC

2010-10-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

Founding Principles

Preamble:

South Africa is still a society in transition - the foundations of the new democratic order still need to be cemented. Its potential fault-lines - of race, ethnicity, gender, class and access to resources - have to be addressed within the context of a democratic constitutional order. Some may seek to exploit this vulnerability for personal or narrow gain, threatening the progressive values of human dignity, equality and freedom which underpin the Constitution that, hard won as it was, should not be taken for granted.

The Constitution is a social contract, resulting from, among others, ordinary peoples' struggles and it must therefore be honoured by both government and the people. It must be protected and advanced as an instrument of social transformation, so that the majority of South Africans identify with it and would be willing to mobilize in its defence if required. Only by being seen to work in favour of all South Africans, rich and poor, and in particular the vulnerable and the marginalised, will the Constitution sustain the support of all the people of South Africa.

The ‘people' are the principal custodians of the values of the Constitution, and custodianship needs to be relocated from institutions to people. Once constitutional rights are claimed by the many, then ordinary people will undertake extraordinary acts to assert their rights and protect and advance the constitution.

Core Principles & Values:

The Council is a project of progressive people who want to advance the South African Constitution as the platform for democratic politics and the transformation of society. The Council embraces the contestation of ideas and encourages debate on how best to build a just and equal society in which people can live securely with dignity. .

While recognizing and supporting all the values included in section 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) is founded upon the following core Principles:

The idea of "progressive constitutionalism" is a pivotal founding principle.

As the supreme law of the land, the Constitution provides a framework for the social and economic transformation of South Africa, and for a deliberative, participatory and inclusive democracy. This framework together with its underlying values and founding principles need to be protected and advanced.

The constitution itself must be subject to on-going critical appraisal to assess its efficacy as the needs of the country change. There may be a need to debate and lobby for constitutional and legislative reform to enhance the legitimacy of the democratic political process. The Constitution must be a living, not a static document that evolves to deepen democracy.

The principle of the rule of law is a critical building block in seeking to pursue the concept of constitutionalism; public and private power must be exercised within the law in order to retain legitimacy and to enhance a culture of responsibility and accountability to guard against the arbitrary use and abuse of power and authority.

Judicial independence is, in turn, an indispensable element, if not a pre-requisite for the rule of law and the integrity of the court system if it is to dispense justice that promotes substantive equality as well as procedural fairness.

In order for people to organise lawfully to claim rights, and to participate meaningfully in democratic decision-making, civil liberties such as freedom of speech, access to information, and a free and tolerant political process are essential.

The realisation of the socio-economic rights is intertwined with civil liberties and political freedoms. Social and economic marginalisation deprives people of their fundamental right to live with security and dignity and is a betrayal of the Constitution.. Endemic poverty and inequality renders South Africa a fragile society, where the poor and the vulnerable, especially women and children, are condemned to the fringes and easily exploited. There is an unacceptable and unsustainable gap between the vision of the Constitution and the lived reality for far too many citizens. This gap must be closed. Providing people with access to decent education, adequate housing and health care, and with the protection of a social security net, is essential for a cohesive society and the future prosperity of the nation.

As traditional orthodoxies are being questioned in the global economy, so too must the Constitution take into consideration the socio-economic context in which it exists and be responsive to the scale, urgency and inter-connectedness of the challenges of globalization and sustainable development.

The values that contribute to building a society with effective systems of open governance - ethical behaviour, accountability, competence, hard work, a spirit of public service with consequences for poor performance or corrupt conduct, non-violent resolution of disputes, and non partisanship - also need to be respected.

A rights-based culture must also focus on the responsibilities and obligations that go with these rights, encouraging citizens to be active in improving their own lives and communities, in holding government to account through participative processes and sustained social dialogue. The goal is a deliberative democracy that celebrates diversity, where respect for the views and beliefs of others is the norm, and thus builds solidarity between people from different social groups

A Call to Action:

Significant gains in the constitutional arena have been made in the past fifteen years, and we take pride in these achievements. However the Constitution remains vulnerable to attack by conservative forces both within government and in broader society. It is time to build a broad-based coalition to advance and protect the Constitution. We have resolved, therefore, to establish a Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) to build social consensus and to develop a platform of common and complementary action across and between different sectors, with the following principal strategic objectives:

A) To organise, in harness with others, a multi-sector Campaign to mobilise in support of the Constitution as the expression of the goals and standards to which society aspires - social activism will provide the means by which people can claim and defend rights.

B) To develop an effective strategy for Public Engagement & Dialogue - people will only defend the Constitution if they can see and feel its tangible benefit to them; although leadership is important it cannot be just a leader-driven project.

C) To foster initiatives that provide Advice - institutions and organisations that can help people not only to know their rights but to take action to protect and claim them.

D) To encourage Public Interest Litigation - to enable more people to claim their rights under the Constitution, and to develop a progressive, assertive jurisprudence on human rights.

E) To Conduct Research - there is a strong imperative to ‘make the case' for constitutional rights through evidence-based research, and to leverage new opportunities for strengthening the Constitutional order.

F) To Network and Communicate locally and globally around the need to protect and advance our Constitutional democracy, and to conduct a sustained engagement with key political actors, such as the ruling party, other political formations, the labour unions, business, the faith communities and social movements.

Members of the Advisory Council

Prof Cathi Albertyn

Mr Oupa Bodibe

Adv Geoff Budlender SC

Prof Richard Calland

Ms Susannah Cowen

Prof Pierre de Vos

Mr Mukelani Dimba

Ms Jackie Dugard

Mr Ebrahim Fakir

Mr Glenn Faried

Ms Judith February

Ms Nicole Fritz

Ms Isobel Frye

Prof Adam Habib

Mr Sello Hatang

Dr Frene Ginwala

Mr Mazibuko Jara

Mr Tshepo Madlingozi

Ms Basetsana Molebatsi

Mr Neo Muyanga

Mr Lawson Naidoo

Mr Tembeka Ngcukaitobi

Ms Nomfundo Ngwenya

Adv Vusi Pikoli

Mr Sipho Pityana

Adv Paul Pretorius SC

Bishop Joe Seoka

Adv Wim Trengove SC

Prof Hugh Corder

Ms Sandra Liebenberg

Mr Tseliso Thipanyane

Mr Mathatha Tshedu

Ms Faranaaz Veriava

Source: Constitutionally Speaking, September 16 2010

Joule car aims to electrify car market - a South African concept

2010-09-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

The Joule electric car is the first vehicle to be developed and manufactured by a wholly owned South African company, with the country’s other car plants being funded by multinational motor companies.

Optimal Energy, the Joule car’s maker, is firmly aligned with the government’s second industrial policy action plan, which seeks to increase local automotive content and manufacturing.

These activities are labour intensive and result in SA increasing its levels of beneficiation and economic activity. “Manufacturing — which constitutes a siz able chunk of our value-added production — has not enjoyed sufficient dynamism,” said Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies in a speech in February.

Optimal Energy says it will employ more than 2000 people in its assembly operation, while supplier and support activities could create a further 8000 downstream jobs. Once the plant is established and production volumes rise, the company believes local content value in the car could go as high as 65% — on a par with other local car plants.

The company signed a memorandum of understanding with East London’s Industrial Development Zone so that commercial production should begin in 2013, reaching 50000 units a year by 2015.

East London is not Optimal Energy’s only potential site. It has also considered the Coega industrial zone near Port Elizabeth.

The project is being funded partly by the Industrial Development Corporation and the Department of Trade and Industry, while the Department of Science and Technology has just cut its funding to about R23m.

Nevertheless, production plans are under way and although the car is expected to establish a local market for electric cars, the company says 90% will be exported. Kobus Meiring, CEO of Optimal Energy, says it will be exported to the UK and Commonwealth countries immediately, aiming to enter the

C-segment of the market. This segment includes cars in the R235000 to R280000 price range.

“We want to make it clear that we are not aiming at the green market as such, but rather the C-segment, in competition with cars like the Toyota Corolla,” he says.

In SA, the car will be sold for about R235000. But for this, mass electric plug points and other supporting infrastructure are needed. Mr Meiring said this should not be a problem as those who can afford the car have access to electricity.

The Joule will be marketed as a city car, with long distances not at first encouraged by Optimal Energy. “When we began to conceptualise the Joule electric car, we approached the likes of McKinsey for advice. They told us it would never work. Today, we understand that by 2020, 10% of world automotive production will be in electric vehicles,” said Mr Meiring.

Toyota SA has also entered the “green” vehicle market with its Toyota Prius, launched in SA in 2005, but it is marketed in the premium vehicle sector, which the company says has done poorly because of the economic recession. Monthly sales of the Prius hybrid vehicle have averaged about 25.

Andrew Kirby, Toyota director of sales and marketing, says the South African motorist is not yet prepared to pay more for a hybrid car, although electric car drivers will be exempt from a hefty carbon tax when the carbon emissions tax is implemented from September.

Nissan Japan will start commercial production of its own electric vehicle range, which could be sold in SA in 2012.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in this year’s budget speech the government hoped “to influence the composition of SA’s vehicle fleet to become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly”.

This was in line with the Copenhagen Accord, in terms of which SA declared its intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025.

There are also incentives in the Automotive Development Action Plan to encourage local production and export. But Nissan SA has said that for more green vehicles to be sold in SA, there should be market education. “It must be a combined drive between government and industry,” says Mike Whitfield, CEO of Nissan SA.

- Beth Shirley, Business Day

For more information click here... The ultimate city car completes prototype phase and nears volume production

Date: Sep 1, 2010

ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS Too green for SA

Date: Aug 20, 2010

Joule car aims to electrify car market

Date: Jul 27, 2010

More press releases »

Tax evasion practices stand in the way of Millennium Goals

2010-09-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Efforts to shed light on tax evasion practices are intensifying – and the focus is increasingly on some rather 'unusual suspects'. Earlier this week, an initiative was launched which measures the degree to which countries accommodate or combat various forms of 'financial secrecy': the Financial Secrecy Index (see box). Contrary to OECDs own official list of tax havens, the Top 10 countries accommodating financial secrecy, instead of combating it, are to large part the OECD-countries themselves (USA (Delaware), United Kingdom (London), Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Switzerland).

Financial secrecy is a key factor in making a wide range of illicit financial flows possible – and its ramifications are felt far beyond the OECD countries themselves. Until recently, there was a high degree of uncertainty with regard to the magnitude of various forms of illicit financial flows. This is no longer the case.

For every dollar poor countries receive in development assistance, more than eight dollars are illegally transferred from poor to rich countries. This is one of the key conclusions of a report estimating illicit financial flows from developing to developed countries, published by former IMF economist Dev Kar and colleagues at Global Financial Integrity (see box).

The DIIS Policy Brief, Combating illicit financial flows from poor countries, by Jakob Vestergaard and Martin Højland, assesses these new data as

‘highly reliable’ – and goes on to recommend a number of policies that could be adopted to address the problem. ‘If the world’s developed countries put their act together to combat such illicit financial flows, the costs of meeting the Millennium Goals could be financed by developing countries themselves’, the authors conclude.

Updated: 05/11/09

Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS

http://www.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/PolicyBriefs2009/PB2009_nov_combating_illicit_flows.pdf

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 6

2010-09-19T01:46:00.001-07:00

THE WATER STORY & CANCER

It is estimated 60% to 80% of all cancers are environmental in origin. (21) There is a growing

consensus that the majority of cancers are caused by chemical carcinogens in the environment

and, hence, ultimately preventable. Several studies have demonstrated the presence of

chemical carcinogens in surface water, ground water and municipally treated drinking water. In

addition, trihalomethanes (THM’s) can actually be produced during the chlorine treatment of our

drinking water.

The amount of chemical compounds discharged in our water, directly or indirectly, is staggering.

“Over 2100 organic and inorganic drinking water contaminants have been identified in U.S.

drinking water supplies since 1974. Out of these 2100, 190 of the contaminants have confirmed

adverse health effects, whether carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens or toxic.”(17) Even with the

EPA drinking water standards, we cannot be assured that the tap water we are drinking is not

going to weaken our immune system or lead to cancer.

Many cancer-causing agents take twenty to thirty years before the effects show

up.

Each of us is metabolically different and reacts to carcinogenic agents in a unique way. Epstein

sums it up, “There is no threshold for chemical carcinogens.” Information on a variety of

carcinogenic agents in drinking water: fluoridation, chlorination and asbestos will be represented

later. However, before looking at these, there is some fascinating research based on positive

substances in drinking water that actually can help protect us from cancer. This research centers

on four factors: total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness, pH and silica.

Burton and Comhill analyzed the drinking water of the 100 largest cities in the United States. They

found a 10% to 25% reduction in cancer deaths if the drinking water contained a moderately high

level of TDS (around 300 mg/L), if the water was hard, if the water had an alkaline pH (above 7.0)

and if the water had 15 mg/L of silica. (13) (14) Sauer also found a correlation between silica and

cancer. Namely, the more silica the less cancer. In addition, he uncovered that when the water

was hard, there was less cancer.

Therefore, drinking water with higher levels of TDS and hardness results in lower

heart disease and cancer mortality rates.

A comment on the silica observations: In general, as researchers continue to study specific

elements in drinking water and their relationship to cancer, we are going to see diverse and

conflicting findings. For example, a report from Seneca County, New York revealed high levels of

selenium in the drinking water was associated with a significant decrease in cancer. (30) When

specific elements are analyzed we find diverse and at times confusing or conflicting results. This

identical pattern was observed with heart disease studies. But, when we look at the inclusive

water factors such as TDS and hardness, a highly consistent, meaningful picture emerges.

Button’s work shows water with an alkaline pH is another key factor in lower cancer mortality

rates. Very few studies have examined the positive or negative health effects of pH. However, his

remarks remind one of Schroeder’s findings. Schroeder observed an alkaline pH resulted in less

cardiovascular disease than water with an acid pH.

For many years, people have thought that soft water is corrosive, that soft water leeches

substances like lead and cadmium from water pipes. But it’s the pH that causes the corrosive

action and not the water’s softness due to lower levels of minerals like Ca or Mg. An alkaline water

should not leech heavy metals or chemicals from galvanized or PVC pipes into the drinking water.

The positive picture emerging from this research is: drink water with around 300 mg/L of

TDS and drink hard water with an alkaline pH (7.0 or higher) to reduce the risk of cancer

mortality.

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 5

2010-09-19T00:40:00.001-07:00

SODIUM & HYPERTENSION

Several studies have been published on sodium in drinking water and its effect on blood pressure.

First some background. Many researchers believe a reduced salt intake can help lower blood

pressure. There is evidence that low salt diets could help prevent high blood pressure in humans.

However, many factors are involved in high blood pressure besides sodium. Diets high in

potassium, rich in vegetables and less meat consumption have been shown to be effective in

reducing or preventing high blood pressure.

Adequate calcium and magnesium intake is also instrumental in lowering blood pressure. And

chloride, not sodium, has been found to be a key factor in raising blood pressure. Salt is a

combination of sodium and chloride.

Many experts worldwide claim 2 to 5 grams of salt daily does not pose any real problem for most

people. However, in Western cultures, dietary intake of salt is between 8 to 15 grams daily. Ninety

percent of all the salt we consume is from food, 10% from water. Now let’s look at the research on

sodium, hypertension and drinking water. Some studies have reported that higher levels of sodium

in drinking water resulted in higher blood pressure. (55) (28) However, most studies have not

supported this finding. No correlation was found between high blood pressure and high levels of

sodium in the drinking water in Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Australia. (4) (27) (22) (39)

However, the vital question is: Are there studies showing a correlation between high levels of

sodium in the drinking water and higher mortality rates? When we ask this question and look at

the studies, we come up lacking. Robinson in England and Wales, and Schroeder, Sauer,

Greathouse and Osborne in the United States studied this. None of these investigations showed

that higher levels of sodium in drinking water resulted in higher levels of mortality. In fact, some of

these studies indicated that higher levels of sodium resulted in lower death rates. (45) (48) (47) (26)

What about water softeners? Many people use them for their laundry and drinking water. Are

they healthy? Some water softening techniques add sodium to the water, replacing significant

amounts of calcium and magnesium. Other procedures do not add sodium, but still reduce the

hardness of the water.

Earlier, we discussed that people drinking harder water have less heart disease mortality rates

than people drinking soft water. Softened water is unhealthy to drink - not because of the sodium,

per se, but because of the lack or lower amounts of calcium and magnesium in the water. If you

are now using a water softener, have a separate cold water line installed for your drinking water

and install a proper filter unit on this line. Recent statements from the American Heart Association

and the World Health Organization recommend limiting the sodium in drinking water to 20 mg/L.

In the United States, 40% of all the drinking water exceeds 20 mg/L of sodium. If we follow this

advice, many people will have to purchase either low sodium bottled water or de-mineralize their

own drinking water through reverse osmosis, distillation or de-ionization. But, if we adopt these

procedures, we will create a soft water, a water low in hardness and low in TDS. The effect of this is

to create an unhealthy drinking water.

Frequently water supplies high in sodium are also high in hardness (Ca and Mg) and TDS.

Higher levels of hardness and TDS protect us from potentially harmful substances and

have been shown to result in lower heart disease and cancer mortality rates. If we want

to lower our sodium intake, we should look to our diets, 90% of all the sodium we

consume is in the food we eat

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 4

2010-09-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

THE WATER STORY & HEART DISEASE

Over the years many studies have been published on the relationship between drinking water

and cardiovascular mortality. Two beneficial factors continually stand out - hardness and total

dissolved solids. Both have been associated with lower mortality from heart disease. Hardness

refers to the amount of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg), or calcium carbonate in the water.

The more Ca, Mg, or calcium carbonate, the harder the water. The less, the softer the water. The

first major study on drinking water and heart disease was in 1960 by Schroeder. In his paper,

“Relation Between Mortality from Cardiovascular Disease and Treated Water Supplies,” the water

in 163 of the largest cities in the United States was analyzed for 21 constituents and correlated to

heart disease. He concluded “Some factor either present in hard water, or missing or entering in

soft water, is associated with higher death rates from degenerative cardiovascular disease.” (48)

In 1979 after reviewing fifty studies, Comstock concluded,

“there can be little doubt that the associations of water hardness with cardiovascular mortality are

not spurious. Too many studies have reported statistically significant correlations to make chance

or sampling errors a likely explanation“. (16)

He suggests that the reason for this association is due to a “deficiency of an essential element or

an excess of a toxic one.” Certainly a combination of both is also possible. Today, after thirty years

of research we are left with Schroeder’s initial conclusion:

Drinking hard water results in less cardiovascular disease than drinking soft water.

Yet over the years there have been several published reports analyzing specific elements in

drinking water and their possible relationship to heart disease. One researcher studies zinc,

another copper, another selenium, and so on. And as you read this material, you find an

inconsistent and confusing picture. But, if you look at the broader picture, if you look at the studies

on hardness, you will find very consistent results:

The harder the water, the less heart disease deaths.

In most cases the harder the water the more Ca and Mg is in the water. However several

interesting studies indicate that Mg might be the more important of the two elements.

Professor Ragnar Rylader notes that studies in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden show that when

the Mg in drinking water exceeds 10-15 mg/L, the rate of mortality falls in comparison to

neighboring communities with lower levels of Mg in the water. Some studies recommend 20 mg/L

as the ideal Mg level. However, there are studies showing 6 to 8 mg/L is highly beneficial while

some bottled water manufacturers go so far as to claim that 90 mg/L is best. (46)(33)(34)(35). At

this time I do not believe that Mg is the all encompassing “silver bullet” that some claim. But I do

believe it is important.

Knowing the levels of Ca and Mg in your drinking water is worthwhile. Look at both

the hardness levels and the specific amounts of Ca and Mg.

Before highlighting some of the major studies, let’s discuss total dissolved solids (TDS). TDS is a

measurement of all the minerals in drinking water. TDS not only includes calcium and magnesium

(the hardness factors), but also zinc, copper, chromium, selenium and so on. Sauer analyzed 23

drinking water characteristics in 92 cities (“Relationship of Water to the Risk of Dying”) and found

that:

People who drank water higher in TDS had lower death rates from heart disease, cancer,

and chronic diseases than people who drank water with lower amounts of TDS. (47)

Frequently, where the water is hard, the water is also high in TDS. Although most studies on heart

disease have not looked at TDS, but only at hardness, this factor has been ever present and may

be playing a very significant role.

The more we try to isolate and study the impact of individual minerals the more we can lose sight

of the unifying, comprehensive, beneficial factors present in water, like hardness, TDS, and pH.

Perhaps one of the main reasons there are inconsistencies in the water story is simply because we

are obsessed to locate a specific isolated element that is responsible for the beneficial effects of

healthy drinking water.

Let’s look at some of the major studies. In Great Britain, the British Regional Heat Study analyzed

253 towns from 1969 to 1973. They found 10% to 15% more cardiovascular deaths in soft water

areas than in hard water areas. They suggest that the ideal amount of hardness is approximately

170 mg/L or ppm (parts per million). (50)

In the United States, Greathouse and Osborne studied 4200 adults, ages 25 to 74, in 35 different

geographic areas. Their findings also showed less heart disease mortality in hard water areas than

in soft water areas. (26)

This study compared the health records of 1,400 Wisconsin male farmers who drank well water

from their own farms. The farmers who drank soft water suffered from heart disease, whereas the

farmers who drank hard water were, for the most part, free of the problem. (63)

Sometimes, the best experiments are those nature has been silently conducting for years. Some of

the most revealing water studies highlight two neighboring towns in which one town alters its hard

water to create softer water. What are the results of this action? A higher rate of heart disease

mortality. We see this in the English towns of Scunthorpe and Grimsby. Both towns drank the same

water with 444 mg/L of hardness and had identical heart disease mortality rates. Scunthorpe then

softened its water to 100 mg/L of hardness and within a few years a striking increase in

cardiovascular deaths occurred. Whereas in Grimsby the rate was virtually the same as it had

been. (51)

This pattern has also been reported in the Italian towns of Crevalcore and Montegiorgio and the

Abruzzo region of Italy. (31) (44)

A report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that the calcium and

magnesium in hard water reduces the risks of heart attacks and strokes.

The National Academy of Sciences concluded, “An optimum conditioning of drinking water could

reduce the amount of cardiovascular disease mortality by as much as 15% in the U. S.”(37)

When looking at the research, two facts stand out. First, there is a definite relationship, a clear

association between water hardness and heart disease mortality. We should try to drink water

that has approximately 170 mg/L of hardness, the level found ideal in Great Britain. Second, there

is a definite relationship with TDS and heart disease mortality. Higher levels of TDS result in less heart

disease.

Proper levels of hardness and TDS are two of the beneficial properties in drinking water

constituting a healthy drinking water.

SODIUM & HYPERTENSION

Several studies have been published on sodium in drinking water and its effect on blood pressure.

First some background. Many researchers believe a reduced salt intake can help lower blood

pressure. There is evidence that low salt diets could help prevent high blood pressure in humans.

However, many factors are involved in high blood pressure besides sodium. Diets high in

potassium, rich in vegetables and less meat consumption have been shown to be effective in

reducing or preventing high blood pressure.

Adequate calcium and magnesium intake is also instrumental in lowering blood pressure. And

chloride, not sodium, has been found to be a key factor in raising blood pressure. Salt is a

combination of sodium and chloride.

Many experts worldwide claim 2 to 5 grams of salt daily does not pose any real problem for most

people. However, in Western cultures, dietary intake of salt is between 8 to 15 grams daily. Ninety

percent of all the salt we consume is from food, 10% from water. Now let’s look at the research on

sodium, hypertension and drinking water. Some studies have reported that higher levels of sodium

in drinking water resulted in higher blood pressure. (55) (28) However, most studies have not

supported this finding. No correlation was found between high blood pressure and high levels of

sodium in the drinking water in Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Australia. (4) (27) (22) (39)

However, the vital question is: Are there studies showing a correlation between high levels of

sodium in the drinking water and higher mortality rates? When we ask this question and look at

the studies, we come up lacking. Robinson in England and Wales, and Schroeder, Sauer,

Greathouse and Osborne in the United States studied this. None of these investigations showed

that higher levels of sodium in drinking water resulted in higher levels of mortality. In fact, some of

these studies indicated that higher levels of sodium resulted in lower death rates. (45) (48) (47) (26)

What about water softeners? Many people use them for their laundry and drinking water. Are

they healthy? Some water softening techniques add sodium to the water, replacing significant

amounts of calcium and magnesium. Other procedures do not add sodium, but still reduce the

hardness of the water.

Earlier, we discussed that people drinking harder water have less heart disease mortality rates

than people drinking soft water. Softened water is unhealthy to drink - not because of the sodium,

per se, but because of the lack or lower amounts of calcium and magnesium in the water. If you

are now using a water softener, have a separate cold water line installed for your drinking water

and install a proper filter unit on this line. Recent statements from the American Heart Association

and the World Health Organization recommend limiting the sodium in drinking water to 20 mg/L.

In the United States, 40% of all the drinking water exceeds 20 mg/L of sodium. If we follow this

advice, many people will have to purchase either low sodium bottled water or de-mineralize their

own drinking water through reverse osmosis, distillation or de-ionization. But, if we adopt these

procedures, we will create a soft water, a water low in hardness and low in TDS. The effect of this is

to create an unhealthy drinking water.

Frequently water supplies high in sodium are also high in hardness (Ca and Mg) and TDS.

Higher levels of hardness and TDS protect us from potentially harmful substances and

have been shown to result in lower heart disease and cancer mortality rates. If we want

to lower our sodium intake, we should look to our diets, 90% of all the sodium we

consume is in the food we eat.

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 3

2010-09-19T00:00:00.001-07:00

FLUORIDATION & CANCER

Now, let’s turn our attention to some of the harmful substances commonly found in our drinking

water. Fluoridation is a highly emotional and controversial issue in which it’s difficult to separate

fact from fiction. The bottom line is: Is it effective? Is it safe? Dr. Dean Burk, who worked for more

than fifty years in cancer research, mainly at the National Cancer Institute states: “More people

have died in the last thirty years from cancer connected with fluoridation than all the military

deaths in the entire history of the United States.” (11)

Fluoride toxicity has been linked to genetic damage in plants and animals, birth defects in

humans, especially Down’s syndrome, plus a whole series of allergic reactions ranging from

fatigue, headaches, urinary tract irritations, diarrhea and many others. (56)

The Marier-Rose study, “Environmental Fluoride 1977" by the National Research Council of

Canada documents the mutagenic and hormosomal effects of fluoride, as well as the evidence

that chronic intake of fluoride interferes with the metabolism of calcium, magnesium, manganese

and vitamin C. If all these problems can arise from too much fluoride, why do we have artificial

fluoridation? Why do we add sodium fluoride to our drinking water? The main reason given by

pro-fluoridationists is that up to 1 part per million (ppm) or 1 mg/L (per liter) of fluoride will reduce

tooth decay.

However, no genuine scientific research has supported this contention. Court testimony from an

Illinois trial on fluoridation reveals: “Although attempts have been made, the United States Center

for Disease Control and the British Ministry of Health admit that no laboratory experiment has ever

shown that one ppm of fluoride in the drinking water is effective in reducing tooth decay.

Furthermore, they admit that there are no epidemiological studies on humans showing

fluoridation reduces tooth decay that would meet the minimum requirement of scientific

objectivity.” After a forty day trial, Judge Ronald A. Newman ruled, “a conclusion that fluoride is a

safe and effective means of promoting dental health cannot be supported by this record.” A full

account of fluoridation and how it has become a political instead of a scientific, issue is fully

documented in Dr. John Yiamouyiannis’ book, Fluoride: The Aging Factor. (61)

Dr. Burk believes the most that can be given to the fluoridation argument is that up to the age of

puberty there may be a temporary delay of about one tooth from decay. When you look at the

problems of fluoridation, this insignificant temporary reduction in tooth decay is meaningless. Let’s

face it; tooth decay is not a fluoride deficiency disease. In most cases, tooth decay is caused by

malnutrition and poor dietary habits, especially the over consumption of sugar and refined foods.

Yet, how is it that we have been led to believe that fluoride in drinking water results in less tooth

decay? I think this confusion originated in 1942 in Hereford, Texas, which was heralded as a ‘town

without a toothache. Drinking water in Hereford, Texas had 2.3 to 3.2 ppm of natural fluoride. But it

also had generous amounts of calcium, magnesium and other minerals. The pro-fluoridationists

pointed to the fluoride as the reason for low levels of dental cavities. But Dr. C.W. Heard, a

Hereford dentist for thirty-five years, called attention to the hard drinking water as the possible

reason for the benefits. “The damage fluoride does,” Dr. Heard stated, “is far greater than the

good it may appear to accomplish.” (56)

Colorado Springs, Colorado also has a high level of fluoride in its drinking water, 2.5 ppm, yet has

a very high level of cavities. The Colorado Springs drinking water is very soft, low in calcium and

magnesium. The water in Hereford, Texas was very hard, high in calcium and magnesium.

The beneficial element is hardness, not fluoride levels. All the large scale studies done since 1970

have shown that fluoride is ineffective in reducing tooth decay.

The largest study, conducted in New Zealand by John Colquhoun, reviewed the cases of 60,000

children and found no difference in tooth decay because of fluoridation. But it did find a 25

percent increase in dental fluorosis (fluoride poisoning of the teeth). The largest study of

fluoridation and tooth decay ever done in the United States examined tooth decay rates of

39,000 children, ages 5 to 17, from 84 different areas of the country. The results again showed no

difference in the decay rates of permanent teeth at any age that could be attributed to

fluoridation. A Canadian survey found that the tooth decay rate in British Columbia, where only 10

percent of the population consumed fluoridated water, was lower than in any of the other

provinces, where 40 to 70 percent were fluoridated. And four studies published in the Journal of

the American Medical Association since 1990 have established a link between fluoridation and

hip fractures.”(32)(62)

Worldwide there is very little fluoridation!

In fact, many countries that previously adopted fluoridation have stopped. A few examples:

Germany, no fluoridation, discontinued in 1971 for health and legal reasons, after eighteen years

of experiments. Spain has no fluoridation, forbidden by law. France, no fluoridation, never

considered it essential to good health. Sweden, no fluoridation, forbidden by law, discontinued in

1969 after a ten-year experimental program. The World Health Organization (WHO) was asked by

the Swedish government to produce evidence to support its earlier claim that fluoridation was

safe. No evidence was produced. Parliament declared fluoridation illegal in November of 1971.

(12) Many more countries are listed in Healthy Water For A Longer Life. (23)

“One tenth of all cancer deaths in this country,” Dr. Burk states, “can be shown to be linked to

fluoridation of public drinking water.” That’s 40,000 extra cancer deaths a year. It’s ten times the

numbers who die from asbestos-induced cancer, and exceeds deaths from breast cancer. Yet

40% of the people in the U. S. continue to drink fluoridated water. High levels of fluoride, artificial or

natural, can be harmful to our health. “The softer the water, the more fluoride passes through the

intestinal wall.” (61) Experiments show that when the water is hard, less fluoride is absorbed.

Therefore, if you are drinking hard water, the harmful effects of fluoride will be minimized.

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 2

2010-09-18T23:55:00.001-07:00

CHLORINATION

Is the chlorine in our drinking water a catalyst triggering tumor development both in

arteriosclerosis and cancer? The addition of chlorine to our drinking water started in the late

1890’s and had wide acceptance in the United States by 1920. Joseph Price, MD wrote a

fascinating, yet largely ignored book in the late 1960’s, entitled Coronaries. Cholesterol. Chlorine.

Dr. Price believes the primary and essential cause of atherosclerosis is chlorine.

“Nothing can negate the incontrovertible fact, the basic cause of atherosclerosis and

resulting entities, such as heart attacks and most common forms of strokes is chlorine.

The chlorine contained in processed drinking water.” (43)

This conclusion is based on experiments using chlorine in the drinking water of chickens. The

results: 95% of the chickens given chlorine added to distilled water developed atherosclerosis

within a few months. Astherosclerosis, heart attacks and the resulting problems of hardening of

the arteries and plaque formation are really the last step in a series of biochemical malfunctions.

Price points out it, takes ten to twenty years before symptoms in humans become evident. This

time factor is reminiscent of cancer, which can take twenty to thirty years to develop.

Can chlorine be linked to cancer too? In the chlorination process itself, chlorine combines with

natural organic matter, decaying vegetation, to form potent, cancer causing trihalomethanes

(THM’s) or haloforms. Trihalomethanes collectively include such carcinogens as chloroforms,

bromoforms, carbon tetrachloride, bischlorothane and others. The amount of THM’s in our drinking

water is theoretically regulated by the EPA. Although the maximum amount allowed by law is 100

ppb, a 1976 study showed 31 of 112 municipal water systems exceeded this limit. (36)

According to some studies, by 1975 the number of chemical contaminants found in finished

drinking water exceeded 300. (59) In 1984 over 700 chemicals had been found in our drinking

water. The EPA has targeted 129 as posing the greatest threat to our health. Currently the EPA

enforces federal standards for 34 drinking water contaminants. In July 1990 they proposed adding

23 new ones and expect to increase this list to 85 in 1992. (2)

Another report claims the picture is much worse. According to Troubled Waters on Tap “over 2100

contaminants have been detected in U. S. drinking water since 1974, with 190 known or

Let’s hope we don’t wait thirty years to realize asbestos fibers don’t belong in our drinking water.

Proper filtration systems will remove asbestos fibers that may be present in our drinking water.

suspected to cause adverse health effects at certain concentration levels. In total, 97

carcinogens and suspected carcinogens, 82 mutagens and suspected mutagens, 28 acute and

chronic toxic contaminants and 23 tumor promoters have been detected in U.S. drinking water

since 1974...The remaining 90% of the organic matter present in drinking water has not been

identified by testing to date. Compounds in these concentrations could pose serious toxic effects,

either alone or in combination with other chemicals found in drinking water... Overall, available

scientific evidence continues to substantiate the link between consumption of toxins in drinking

water and serious public health concerns. Studies have strengthened the association between

ingestion of toxins and elevated cancer mortality risks.” (17)

Studies in New Orleans, Louisiana; Erie County, New York; Washington County, Maryland; and

Ohio County, Ohio reveal high levels of haloforms or THM’s in drinking water. The result is higher

levels of cancer. (40) (25) (15) (58)

“The continued use of chlorine as the main drinking water disinfectant in the United States, only

adds to the organic chemical contamination of drinking water supplies. The current federal

standard regulations of trihalomethanes do not adequately protect water consumers from the

multitude of other organic chlorination by-products that have been shown in many studies to be

mutagenic and toxic.” (17)

“Chlorine is so dangerous,” according to biologist/chemist Dr. Herbert Schwartz, “that it

should be banned.”

Putting chlorine in the water is like starting a time bomb. Cancer, heart trouble, and premature

senility, both mental and physical, are conditions attributable to chlorine treated water supplies. It

is making us grow old before our time by producing symptoms of aging such as hardening of the

arteries. I believe if chlorine were now proposed for the first time to be used in drinking water, it

would be banned by the Food and Drug Administration.” (19)

Many municipalities are experimenting with a variety of disinfectants to either take the place of

chlorine or to be used in addition, as a way of cutting down on the amount of chlorine added to

the water. These alternatives, such as chlorine dioxide, bromine chloride, and chloramines, are just

as dangerous as chlorine. We’re replacing one toxic chemical with another.

On the positive side, some cities are starting to use aeration, carbon filtration, ultraviolet light and

ozone as safe alternatives to chemical disinfectants. But the number of cities and people getting

water from these safer methods are minimal.

Is chlorination linked to heart disease and cancer? In Super Nutrition for Healthy Hearts, Dr.

Richard Passwater shows how “the origin of heart disease is akin to the origin of cancer.”

Chlorination could very well be a key factor linking these two major diseases. Chlorine creates

THM’s and haloforms. These potent chemical pollutants can trigger the production of excess free

radicals in our bodies. Free radicals cause cell damage. Excess free radicals can cause normal

smooth muscle cells in the arterial wall to go haywire, to mutate. The fibrous plaque formed is

essentially a benign tumor. (41) Unfortunately, this tumor is linked with the origin of heart disease.

How safe is the chlorinated water we drink - part 1

2010-09-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

HEALTHY WATER

Martin Fox, Ph.D.

© Copyright 1990, Revised 1998

INTRODUCTION

This booklet briefly summarizes the main ideas and research from Healthy Water For A Longer Life.

(23) Healthy Water discusses both the beneficial and harmful substances commonly found in our

drinking water and what steps to take to protect your family and yourself to enjoy a healthier life.

WATER: THE ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT

We can go without food for weeks, but without water we die of dehydration in a few days. Over

two-thirds of our body is water, yet most of us probably don’t understand the importance of

drinking water, plain clean water.

Water is the most abundant compound in the human body. It is necessary for the digestion and

transport of food to the tissues, for the elimination of body wastes, for the circulation of body fluids

(like blood and lymph), for a lubricant in the joints and internal organs, and for the regulation of

body temperature.

Water is part of the blood system holding dissolved minerals like calcium and magnesium in

solution, making them available to body tissues where they are required for proper health.

We all drink water, yet ironically most of us are suffering from dehydration. We have been led to

believe that only when we experience a “dry mouth” we must be lacking adequate water. This

misunderstanding has resulted in many health problems. Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, by

medical doctor Feereydoon Batmanghelidj, thoroughly explains the forgotten physiological

importance of plain water and the body’s many signals of dehydration. When plain water is

plentiful, blood viscosity, joint cartilage, blood capillaries, digestion, the ATP energy system and

the spinal column, all work in an efficient, easy manner. However, when water consumption is

limited, the body robs water from some areas to protect different tissues and organs, which results

in pain, tissue damage, and a variety of common health problems.

Some of the problems treated and alleviated with adequate water intake are:

asthma, allergies, hypertension, high cholesterol levels, headaches, migraines, low

back pain, rheumatoid arthritic joint pain, angina pain and intermittent claudication

pains (cramp-like pain in the legs due to insufficient blood supply). (6)

As people age, they lose their thirst sensation and become gradually, chronically dehydrated. All

too frequently we tend to confuse thirst with hunger and instead of drinking water we eat, leading

to weight gain. Peak performance is dependent on water, the essential nutrient.

One example I read about several years ago illustrates this. Two European mountain climbing

teams were competing. One team was in far better physical condition than the other team, but

was unable to win. The frustrated defeated team started to carefully study the other team’s every

move. The only thing that they found, was that after so many minutes of climbing each team

member drank water. Copying this water intake regime, they become victorious. No longer were

they dehydrated, lacking sustained energy. Optimum water consumption was the key to peak

performance.

The physiological effects of drinking plain water are not the same as consuming beverages that

contain water like juices, sodas, coffee and tea. In fact, some of these liquids, i.e. coffee and tea,

contain dehydrating agents (caffeine and theophylline) which stimulate the central nervous

system while at the same time creating a strong diuretic action on the kidneys.

Your body needs a minimum of 6 to 8 8 ounce glasses of water each day. Remember, alcohol,

juice, sodas, coffee and tea don’t count as water.

Dr. Batmanghelidj recommends one glass a half hour before each meal and a similar amount 2

1/2 hours after each meal, with an extra glass taken before the heaviest meal or before going to

bed. As an experiment, record the number of glasses of water you drink over a normal 3-day

period. You’ll be amazed. Most of us think we are drinking far more water than we actually do. In

fact 3 to 4 glasses, at most, is what you usually find; far short of the 6 to 8. Try it and see.

Thirst should be satisfied at all times with water. The more we pay attention to the body’s constant

need for water the healthier we will be.

Having a “dry mouth” is the last outward sign of extreme dehydration. Many medications actually

dehydrate the body, leading to more severe problems. Keep in mind, the human body is roughly

composed of 25 percent solid matter and 75 percent water. Brain tissue is said to consist of 85

percent water and the blood is 90 percent water.

Water - plain, properly filtered water - is an overlooked and essential nutrient and may be your

missing ingredient to a healthier, more vibrant, and longer life

South Africa’s looming water crisis

2010-09-13T01:15:00.000-07:00

an ENVIRNMENT article

STATEMENT BY GARETH MORGAN MP

DA SPOKESPERSON FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS & TOURISM,

AND MPOWELE SWATHE MP

DA SPOKESPERSON FOR WATER AFFAIRS & FORESTRY

South Africa’s looming water crisis and the DA’s plan to address it

Release, immediate: 06 March 2008

South Africa faces an electricity supply crisis today because the government ignored the warnings it was given more than ten years ago. The same situation is now facing us with regard to water supply. A combination of polluted water sources and poor management of dams, sewerage works and treatment plants has led to a situation where our water supply is under serious threat.

In 2000 South Africa faced one of its biggest health threats ever when a cholera epi-demic swept through the country, leaving at least 265 people dead and infecting 117 147 people in five provinces. We can expect more such epidemics unless we address this problem urgently.

Water Affairs Minister Lindiwe Hendricks has announced that she will be presenting to Parliament next Tuesday about why South Africa is not facing a water crisis. In a document presented today the DA will outline the reasons that we do in fact face a looming crisis, and make some proposals for addressing it. We will be presenting this document to the Minister to ensure that the national spotlight is turned onto this matter before it is too late.

1. Water sources

The areas where our water originates are being damaged by a generalised official disregard for the environmental consequences of industrial activity. The departments of environment at provincial and national level find themselves in ongoing battles with the Department of Minerals and Energy over attempts to authorise mining in environmentally sensitive areas. Similar problems apply to agriculture. In terms of the Environmental Conservation Act, farmers are not supposed to cultivate land within 30-40m of rivers and wetlands. But this provision is frequently ignored by farmers who know, for example, that in the Western Cape the Department of Agriculture employs only two inspectors to cover the whole province.

The Wonderfonteinspruit catchment area is a particularly clear example of how bureaucratic neglect and unfettered industrial activity are polluting our water at its source. Last year, the Brenk Report showed how sediments within the water at the Wonderfonteinspruit had been contaminated by potentially dangerous chemicals as a result of several decades of acid mine drainage. Yet there is little sign of official concern.

A further problem relates to the poor management of informal settlements. With inadequate sewerage systems in place, and little provision for the removal of waste, large quantities of waste are washed into rivers, where they make their way to overburdened water purification plants.

2. Management of dams

The problems are exacerbated by shortcomings in the management of our dams, which reduces the supply of water we have available and also affects its quality. Build-up of silt, for example, can cause further problems for local councils with regard to the purification of water. According to a reply given by Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Lindiwe Hendricks in July last year, only 160 of the 294 dams owned and managed by her department – 54% - comply with modern safety standards.

As the quality of the water from our water sources deteriorates, it becomes more complex and more expensive to purify this water to make it safe for drinking. For example, the City of Cape Town is spending R400 000 a month more than it should on treating water from the Voelvlei dam alone because of the high level of pollutants in the water.

3. Poor maintenance of municipal water and sewerage systems

To compound this problem, the water treatment plants themselves, and the pipes that deliver clean water to our cities and towns, are old and dilapidated. Most municipal sewerage systems in South Africa are 30 to 50 years old. But few councils are doing anything more than band-aid maintenance. There are many examples of the consequences of this. I will mention only two:

• Pollution in the Vaal River as a result of ongoing sewerage spills has been a problem for over a decade. For many years local residents have been attempting to obtain a commitment from government to rebuild faulty systems. Legal action is now being threatened.

• In a survey carried out six days after the Duzi Canoe Marathon this year, over 40 percent of the field were found to have gone down with chronic diarrhoea. Tests showed that the levels of human faecal contamination in the Umsunduzi River were 115 000 per 100ml; according to international standards, an acceptable drinkable count is 150 per 100ml of water. The uMgungundlovu district, through which the Umsunduzi River runs, has the highest diarrhoea infection rate in the whole country. According to conservationist and Duzi race pioneer Dr Ian Player, the river “gets more dangerous as every year goes by because there's inadequate attention to what is happening all down the river”.

This dire situation has been obvious for several years and has been made known to the DWAF through various reports that have been presented to it. Despite all of this evidence, however, the problem remains.

A further complication is that councils have been under enormous pressure to expand water and sewerage infrastructure to service previously under-serviced areas. This has added to the burden on existing infrastructure. In 2003 the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry warned about the consequences of rolling out new water projects without setting aside enough money to maintain the existing facilities. But the political pressure to deliver has often caused this problem to be ignored. The national government has also not prioritised it adequately. While it estimates that R180bn would be needed for a complete overhaul of the system, it allocated only R1bn – less than one percent of what is needed – this year.

Solutions

It is imperative that we urgently find ways to resolve this problem before it is too late. The DA has various proposals for both rural and urban areas.

In urban areas:

• The DWAF needs to adopt a zero tolerance approach towards non-compliant councils. It is empowered to fine or prosecute municipalities that fail to maintain their water and sewerage systems adequately. It has hardly ever done so.

• A national task team needs to be established within the DWAF to work with the 100 municipalities where water quality management is at its worst. This team must help to identify what problems they face and help to resolve them.

• The main problem with South Africa’s water infrastructure is not a shortage of money, but poor operation. DWAF, in conjunction with municipalities, must therefore develop clear career progression paths for staff and a range of in-house training modules to give staff the opportunity to upgrade their skills.

• Municipalities need to learn from those which have overcome their problems. A survey of success stories needs to be conducted and compiled into a best practices guide to assist municipalities that are still struggling.

• The victims of poor water quality are ordinary people. We propose a national hotline to which people can report complaints to give them the means to highlight problems before they turn into a national crisis.

• Local Water Services Development Plans do not take sufficient account of existing water resource management principles. We need to amend legislation to require local councils to take ecological constraints into account before initiating or extending water delivery services.

• Co-operative governance is proving to be an ineffective tool in protecting the environment against the negative impacts of human activity, and legislation and policies at different levels sometimes contradict each other. Clearer legislative boundaries need to be set; and, ideally, much more involvement from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is required in adjudicating over environmental decisions.

• Finally, as a result of the country's apartheid past, there is little culture in South Africa of participation in government processes relating to the environment. While the government cannot compel people to be more involved in decisions that will affect them, it can certainly make it easier for opinions to be heard and it can create more effective avenues through which the public can express their opinions.

In rural areas, we propose the following:

Firstly, in order to make all the parties whose actions affect water quality involved in preserving it, a process needs to be initiated to involve all farmers, developers, industries and local councils in the holistic management of water.

The premier international example is the Catskill-Delaware Water Management System, which delivers 4.5 billion litres of water from the Catskill-Delaware watershed system to nine million people in New York every day. The water is of such pristine quality that it does not require filtration, but the water is delivered at one eighth of the cost of a filtration system.

The government needs to consider adapting the principles applied in this project to our own circumstances. With regard to farmers, for example, the objective would be to develop Whole Farm Plans, with farmers and environment officials identifying any potential pollutants and reviewing the options available to tackle them. Similar plans would be developed with other parties with the ultimate objective being the elimination or substantial reduction of water pollution.

Secondly, many of the reserves where our water originates are fragmented and are poorly managed from a water retention point of view. For example, at least 200 000 ha of mountainous land in the Western Cape is set out for protection under the Mountain Catchment Areas Act. But since the declaration of this Act in 1972 not a single regulation has been proclaimed to manage these areas.

A process needs to be started to review all the legislation pertaining to the management of our water resources and ensure that all aspects of the law are compatible, and to proclaim and properly manage these areas.

Finally, areas which are important reserves for water and which have been dangerously contaminated - the Wonderfonteinspruit is a key example of this - need to be tackled through specific action plans rather than high-level denial. The DWAF needs to ensure that it keeps on top of problem areas, and ensures that local councils or provinces respond appropriately and have the resources they need to implement their action plans.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES:

Gareth Morgan, MP – 072 528 3910

Mpowele Swathe, MP – 072 371 4255

Lindiwe Mazibuko – 072 805 2220

SA: Chancellor House lesser evil than party donors - an IPOC article

2010-04-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

THE African National Congress (ANC) will cast a shadow over our lives for some time yet. None of the opposition parties — individually and collectively — poses a serious threat to the ruling party’s hold on power.

That being the reality, those who care about the future of SA ought to be concerned about how the ANC finances its activities, especially its election campaigns.

On that basis I am going to argue that as much as Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), is right in railing at the ANC becoming a beneficiary of the multi billion-rand expenditure by state-owned utility Eskom, reality is against her.

The leader of the official opposition had some strong words about the award of the contract by Eskom to Hitachi Power Africa in which Chancellor House, a company controlled by a trust which has been linked to the ANC, owns 25%. German-based Hitachi Power Europe owns 70% and Makotulo Investments & Services, a black-owned firm, the remaining 5% .

“Lawful or not, the awarding of the contract to an ANC front company is corruption on a grand scale. Whatever way you look at it, it is the abuse of public office for political gain. If this scourge of ‘legal corruption’ is not stopped in its tracks, democracy in SA will wither and die. It is as simple as that,” wrote Zille early this month after the public protector had ruled that there was nothing illegal in the award of the contract in 2007 to Hitachi Power Africa.

Zille also lobbied but failed to convince the World Bank not to grant a 3,75bn loan to Eskom as long as Chancellor House remained a shareholder in Hitachi Power Africa.

She said the ANC would make a profit of R1bn from the Eskom deal — enough for the party to fund election campaigns and “lifestyles of its leaders to come”.

What Zille has described is indeed evil, but it is evil of a lesser kind than the status quo. It is the current arrangements for the funding of political parties that pose the biggest threat to SA’s democracy. At present, the ANC and other parties, the DA included, receive donations from individuals and other sources to fund their operating costs and pay for election campaigns.

None of the parties, including the DA, disclose how much money they receive from donors each year and from whom.

It’s a fair assumption that the ANC gets the lion’s share of the funding because it, through the deployment of cadres in senior government positions, controls access to government contracts. This nexus explains the degeneration of the party since 1994. As each poll has become an expensive affair, the former liberation movement’s need for cash has grown exponentially, a development that has driven it deeper into the gutter.

Febe Potgieter-Gqubule, a member of the national executive committee of the ANC, wrote recently that the funding of the ruling of party, and how this could be used to influence leadership and policy outcomes and the integrity of the ANC, was a growing concern. She pointed to the resolution of the 52nd national conference of the ANC held in 2007 which said that the party’s leadership “must urgently develop guidelines and policy on public and private funding, including how to regulate investment vehicles”. The party has yet to develop these guidelines.

Chancellor House was meant to cut the ANC loose from the suckers who have attached themselves onto the ruling party. In time, Chancellor House would have made the ANC self-sufficient, or at the very least reduced its dependence on the leeches that cling so hard to the ruling party.

Financial independence matters for political parties; few around the world have achieved it. Most parties depend on donations — a murky area for which few countries have found a successful regulatory formula. The UK, for example, limits expenditure but not donations, while the US caps donations but not spending. Both formulas have proved to have their problems.

To paraphrase the philosopher Avishai Margalit, is Chancellor House a fly in the ointment, something that spoils but does not destroy the moral status of South African democracy, or is it a cockroach in the soup, something that destroys its moral fabric, rendering it rotten?

Zille, the idealist, believes that Chancellor House is the cockroach in the soup. It’s a fly in the ointment, I would say. However, a corrupting influence Chancellor House may be, it is a lesser evil than the men and women who invest in the ANC ahead of an election in return for huge dividends in the form of government contracts and lucrative positions in parastatals in between elections. These, and not Chancellor House, pose the gravest danger to South African democracy.

What is regulated? - a WHO FUNDS WHO? article

2010-04-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

The private funding of political parties is a necessary to ensure that political parties can fund campaigns designed to reach the voting public during national and local elections. All parties represented in Parliament do receive funding from the State via the Independent Electoral Commission as outlined in the Represented Political Parties Fund Act. It is however argued by parties that this is not sufficient to run a successful election campaign and they are therefore compelled to raise money privately. Estimates in the 1999 election were that the unregulated secret private funding of parties may have outstripped transparent public funding by 4 - 1.

Who are the donors?

Many large donors may be well intentioned and disposed to the development of democracy – and the contribution by many donors may well be motivated by such intentions. However, a lack of control over the private funding of political parties may allow the wealthy to ‘buy' influence and access through secret donations, drowning out the citizens' voice and undermining the equal value of each person's vote. South Africa has a powerful range of legal mechanisms to combat corruption, but the lack of regulation in favour of transparency leaves open the back door for organised criminals and rogue business people to effectively corrupt the political process through party donations. As long as the public cannot see the link between donors and political parties, a real threat exists that party funding could become a tool to undermine internal party democracy and the democratic process as a whole.

Is this a South African phenomenon?

There are a number of instances of impropriety that have demonstrated that it is unhealthy for a democracy when private fund-raising is allowed to continue unregulated. Examples range from the German Christian Democracy Party (CDU) and its links with French oil giant Elf, to the effect that large corporate interests have had on the war in Iraq (the links between the US Republican Party and large corporations such as Halliburton and others) or the relationship between the Bush Government and Enron. The USA is an example of a country were campaign finance remains a conduit for influence peddling despite regulation in favour of transparency. This outlines the many challenges South Africa will face to monitor party funding even after the practice is regulated.

Has South Africa had party funding ‘scandals’?

Most South African political parties have had the whiff of scandal linked to party funding – it is an issue that is not unique to any one political party. The Party Finance Monitor lists media reports of some of these. One such case case is the former New National Party (NNP) Western Cape MEC for Environmental Affairs, James Malatsi, who has been criminally charged with altering important decisions to benefit controversial developer Count Ricardo Agusta (himself linked to organised crime networks). In addition senior NNP members, including the chairperson of Parliament's public accounts committee (SCOPA), Francois Beukman, are alleged in media reports to have offered kickbacks to developers in return for funding in the run-up to the 2004 elections.

The other is German fraudster Jurgen Harksen who provided funding for the Democratic Alliance (DA) at the time that he was a fugitive from justice. Although no link to corruption was identified by the Desai Commission of Enquiry, this highlighted the nature of the problem.

The African National Congress (ANC) has most recently come under the spotlight following the ‘Oilgate’ scandal according to which state funds were allegedly channelled to the ANC. The Independent Democrats (ID) did not escape its first nationally contested election (2004) without allegations of abuse of party funding by a former provincial leader. This includes allegations of funding received from a well-known Western Cape ‘gang figure’.

What to do?

After nearly ten years of democracy, the secrecy surrounding the private funding of political parties has not been pierced because there remains a glaring lacuna in South African law: There is no law regulating private funding to political parties.

As a result, the private funding of political parties remains one of the last ‘legitimate' avenues by which the private sector, foreign governments or even criminals can extract influence on public officials.

Following the country's third democratic elections it is important to now give urgency to the debate on the necessity to regulate the private funding of political parties in South Africa and eventually impact on the debate in other democracies in the region.

http://www.whofundswho.org.za/problem/index.htm

Money In Politics - an IPOC article

2010-04-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

The programme has a long-standing commitment to monitoring the private funding of political parties and promoting policy that regulates this practice through disclosure. The money in politics project has produced an Occasional Research paper entitled SA Democracy Incorporated: Corporate Fronts and Political Party Funding, which focuses is on a particular corporate front party funding source that has possible links to corrupt transactions and that is used by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to augment its income, that of Chancellor House. The project also manages a website dedicated to monitoring political party funding in South Africa, Who Funds Who?

Who Funds Who?

The Money in South African Politics website (www.whofundswho.org.za) is an

initiative of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in partnership with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa). It aims to provide the public with a web-based source of information with which to monitor the reported sources of private funding to political parties, as well as provide up-to-date analysis, international studies and relevant information on disclosure regulations.

It was set against the following objectives:

• To provide tools for political parties, policy makers and others to develop regulations for the private funding of political parties.

• To assist the media, civil society and the research community with background information on this issue.

• To produce a database that will help keep track of reported instances of private funding of political parties – the first online database of its kind on the African continent.

Southern African political party donations

The significance of foreign political donations to domestic political parties surprisingly remains a virtually neglected research subject. This is rather curious given the powerful role foreign donations can play in determining the shape and form of a political parties’ public policies. Sources of foreign funding to political parties in Africa include foreign governments, political parties, multinational corporations, political foundations and wealthy individuals. This project, will assist in identifying cross-border political donations to Africa’s political parties and tracing their effect on policy formation. The research focuses on selected country case studies and is aimed at engaging African policy-makers in the global debate on how to monitor the impact of money in African politics

Extending ‘NURU’ political finance methodology to Africa

The Corruption & Governance Programme, in partnership with TI-Zimbabwe, will conduct ‘NURU’, Transparency International’s latest political finance methodology in South Africa during 2009 and 2010. NURU is based on the original Crinis methodology that was carried out in eight Latin American countries by Transparency International to measure transparency in political finance and better understand the origins of political corruption. NURU (Swahili for ‘ray of light’) aims to identify strengths and weaknesses of a political financing system in a given country and establish a regional benchmark for political finance transparency for political parties and electoral institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. The project also aims to empower citizens to translate findings into active advocacy and monitoring of political processes, including the work of statutory oversight committees. By providing thorough diagnosis of the legal framework and the practice, it provides strong empirical evidence that allows all stakeholders to get a clear picture of areas, in which reforms are most needed.

http://www.ipocafrica.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=77

who are we - unknown author

2010-04-26T00:38:00.000-07:00

Why do we laugh at a Black Man/African people who are struggling to Speak or write English and not laugh at a White man speaking appalling Zulu, seTswana, isiXhosa, xiVenda, siTsonga or seSotho? "We all have done this; we thought that Boxers, Musicians and/or Soccer Players who cannot speak English are Idiots (Siyabonga Nomvete, Steve Lekoelea, Vuyani Bungu, Mandoza, Bashin Mahlangu)!

In the office they pronounce your name wrongly and you just smile (Mental Oppression I tell you!). You are impressed when Mrs van Wyk tries to speak Isi Zulu, seTswana or isiXhosa . In 15 years Van Der Merwe managed to learn Sawubona, Molo & Dumela only...and you are impressed by that sickening and Lousy Crap !!

Why does it never occur to You that Mrs Van Wyk is not capable of learning one single African Language!

What is compelling me to be writing this email in English and not in Zulu, seTswana, Xhosa; Even though I know that all the Recipients are either MaZulu, baTswana, baVenda, baTsonga, maXhosa or baSotho?

Is it because I know that you will be able to read and understand this email instantly without asking for Interpretation?

The excuse "I am faster when I read or write English", My Foot; That's a big crap! You and I were not born speaking English but we attended English schools,"

You listen to your voicemail; it is in English and how many Whites call you compared to your fellow Africans?

Why do you have to cater for the 10%? You do not even have a single White friend yet your everything is in English. that is Pathetic, I say!!

If I told you that I had a Degree in Zulu, Setswana, isiXhosa or seSotho you would all laugh your head off, for you do not see why someone in his right mind would want to do a degree in vernacular instead of English, yet French classes are overflowing...Your Son or Daughter cannot even write a mere Zulu; SeTswana, isiXhosa or seSotho, s/he detest the language and No one should be learning the Zulu; seTswana, isiXhosa or seSotho by Slave Mentality!

Nokia recently introduced a phone with menus in Zulu, isiXhosa & seSotho...and we think that's 'for people who cannot read/Understand English', Amaqaba/Barbarians!!

When you phone Vodacom Service Centre you always press 1 (to be helped in English press 1, Zulu press 2 (Xhosa), Sotho press 3, Afrikaans 4).

Why is it that you'd rather stammer than proudly speak your own vernacular language?

That is because we are all Slaves...they got to our minds and we can't see it, our minds have been crippled and we will never be free until we free ourselves...

"Emancipate yourselves from Mental Slavery, None but ourselves can free our Minds" so said Bob Marley and even Steven Bantubonke Biko said something to that effect! No one will free us from mental slavery except ourselves..!'' Forward this to all Africans who cannot speak any African language with Pride''

list of positive facts about SA from a note on the FB group "SA United"

2010-04-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

South Africa’s Rand is the second best-performing emerging market currency of the 26 monitored by Bloomberg in 2009

South Africa sold $1.8 billion worth of cars to the US last year, putting us ahead of Sweden and Italy as suppliers to the US market.

In 2009, the Springboks become the first international team to be World Champions in both 15-a-side and Sevens rugby.

29 South African beaches were awarded Blue Flags, an international indicator of high environmental standards for recreational beaches in 2009.

In 2009, Time magazine named two South Africans in their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The International Monetary Forum's World Economic Outlook ranks us in the top 10% of counties in respect of Real GDP Growth Projections for 2010.

In the Economist Intelligence Unit's Survey of Democratic Freedom we rank 31st of of 184 countries.

"South Africa is probably the leading economy in the world." (CNBC Europe)

South Africa ranks second worldwide in terms of the transparency surrounding its budgets - just behind the United Kingdom, tie with France, and ahead of New Zealand and the United States - according to the Open Budget Index.

The number of 'dollar millionaires' in South Africa has increased from less than 25,000 in 2004 to over 55,000 in 2007, according to the World Wealth Report

According to the World Pay Report, South African managers are earning disposable incomes that are higher than those in many developed countries.

The first MBA programme outside of the United States was started by the University of Pretoria in 1949.

South Africa is home to the world's largest individually timed cycle race (the Cape Argus Cycle Race), the world's largest open water swim (the Midmar Mile) and the world's largest ultra-marathon (the Comrades Marathon).

Johannesburg ranks2nd among countries from Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa in dealing with urbanisation and environmental challenges, in the MasterCard Insights Report on Urbanisation and Environmental Challenges.

South Africa ranked 44th out of 131 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2007/8.

South Africa ranks as 44th strongest state out of 177 countries in the Fund for Peace's Failed States Index. The index measures state vulnerability based on 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators.

South Africa was ranked as the 18th most attractive destination for Foreign Direct Investment by global strategic management consulting firm AT Kearney.

Three South African cities were voted amongst the world's top 100 Most Liveable Cities in a study conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Cape Town was ranked in 85th place, Johannesburg 90th and Port Elizabeth 97th.

Since the 1940s, South African golfers have won more golf majors than any other nation, apart from the United States.

South Africa has been ranked 28th among 108 countries measured for responsible competitiveness, according to the global think tank AccountAbility.

Johannesburg has been ranked as the eighth cheapest city in the world for expatriates, according to the most recent Cost of Living Standards Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

More than 12,000 'Black Diamond' families (South Africa’s new black middle class) - or 50,000 people - are moving from the townships into the suburbs of South Africa's metro areas every month, according to the UCT Unilever Institute's Black Diamonds 2007 survey.

South Africa is ranked 20th out of a total of128 economies in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2007, ahead of many developed nations, including, the United States (31), Switzerland (40), Austria (27) and France (51).

South Africa ranks 57th out of 157 countries in the world in terms of economic freedom, ahead of Italy (64), Brazil (101), the United Arab Emirates (63), Greece (94th), India (104th) and China (126), according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2007

ion's share of SA's total middle class to almost a third, according to the Financial Mail. Between 2001 and 2004, there were 300,000 new black entrants to the middle class.

South Africa is ranked35th out of 178 countries for ease of doing business - ahead ofSpain, Brazil and India - according to Doing Business 2008, a joint publication of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

Cape Town has the fifth-best blue sky in the world according to the UK's National Physical Laboratory

La Colombe restaurant in Constantia, Cape Town, was voted the 28th best restaurant in the world by the UK's Restaurant Magazine

South African media ranks26th out of 167 countries in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007, higher than any country in Asia, the Middle East or South America, and ahead of Japan, Spain, Italy and the United States.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange was the 7th best performing stock market in 2005, according to the World Federation of Exchanges

Home ownership in SA has increased from 64% (5,12m households) in 1994 to 78% (7,9m households) in 2006, according to a South African Advertising Research Foundation development index

Pretoria has the second largest number of embassies in the world after Washington, D.C.

In 2005, interest rates were at a 25-year low

Johannesburg is the 117th most expensive city out of the 144 measured by Irish business website http://www.facebook.com/l/1d264;finfacts.com

South Africa accounts for almost 45% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy three times the size of the second biggest (Egypt)

Almost a quarter of South Africa’s non-interest budget is spent on education

The University of South Africa UNISA is a pioneer of tertiary distance education and is the largest correspondence university in the world with 250,000 students

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to provide full protection statusfor the Great White shark within its jurisidictional waters. Countries including USA, Australia, Malta and Namibia follwed suit later.

Afrikaans is the youngest official language in the world

In 2005, Time Magazine hailed President Thabo Mbeki as the Most Powerful Man in Africa

According to the Economic Freedom of the World 2005 Annual Report, South Africa ranks 38th out of 127 countries in terms of ecomomic freedom, tied with France and ahead of Israel, India, Italy, China, Brazil and Russia.

The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency, has joined an elite club of 16 currencies - the Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) - where forex transactions are settled immediately, lowering the risks of transacting across time zones. Standard Bank is the only African bank to be a shareholder partner of CLS.

The Singita Private Game Reserve in the Kruger National Park was voted the best hotel in the world by the readers of travel publication, Conde Nast Traveller

The South African Rand was the best performing currency against the US Dollar between 2002 and 2005, according to the Bloomberg's Currency Scorecard

South Africa's per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world

http://www.facebook.com/l/1d264;Worldaudit.org ranks South Africa as the40th most democratic country out of 150 nations

Stellenbosch University was the first university in the world to design and launch a microsatellite

South Africa is the35th best place in the world to do e-business, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2007 E-Readiness Report.

South Africa is the best-ranked country in terms of price stability, our fiscal policy is ranked 11th, our international trade competitiveness 21st, and we are the 28th most-attractive destination for foreign direct investment, according to the World Competiveness Yearbook 2005

South African business owners of mid-size companies are the second most optimistic worldwide about their economic prospects of the year ahead, according to the annual Grant Thornton International Business Owners Survey for 2005.

South Africa houses one of the three largest telescopes in the world at Sutherland in the Karoo

South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme

The value of South African real estate improved by 30% over the past 5 years

Since 1994, 500 houses have been built each day for the poor

Tax revenue in SA has increased by 220% over the past 10 years

In 2005, 10 million South Africans benefited from access to social grants

The number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown by 116% since 1994

Over the past 5 years, Consumer Confidence in SA has improved by 43%.

In the global measure of women in Parliament, South Africa ranks 8th in the world.

Of the 10 LSM levels ( LSM1=poorest; LSM10 wealthiest ), the average SA family located in LSM6

Protests not just about service delivery: SAIRR

2010-04-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

Service delivery shortcomings as commonly understood are only secondary factors in many of the protests in the last year, an analysis in the latest South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR) Fast Facts pamphlet shows.

“Several were fueled by the fact that councils did not respond to memorandums. Corruption and mismanagement of funds were also cited as reasons for protests in numerous areas. Another prominent reason was the lack of jobs,” SAIRR researcher Nthamaga Kgafela says.

He adds it is quite clear “that service delivery or the lack thereof is only one component of community protests. The other factors may be even more significant, and simply classifying all community protests as ‘service delivery’ is an injustice to these communities because the real issues are not highlighted.”

The latest round of protests started soon after the election of President Jacob Zuma in April last year. “Some were labour disputes such as the nationwide municipal workers’ strike in July and August 2009, but the largest and most violent protests were from local communities.

“Last year’s protests, most of which occurred in July and August, led to the deaths of four people, some 94 injuries (mostly of protestors), 750 arrests, and damage to municipal buildings and police vehicles,” Kgafela says.

The analysis is similar to one made by Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg. Writing in the Business Day in July last year, Friedman said township “citizens are protesting not because they want 'service delivery' but because they want to escape it.”

He said there “is a great difference between 'service delivery' and 'public service'. The first entails officials — and commentators — deciding what people need and then dumping it on them. ...this refusal to allow people to make their own choices is particularly prevalent in housing, but it happens in other areas too: the removal of small traders from areas where some 'service deliverers' think they ought not to be is another grievance that prompts protest. Many local protests are reactions against this high-handedness and so are, in reality, protests against 'service delivery,” Friedman avered.

“To suggest … that the solution is to ensure that officials impose their preference on citizens more quickly and vigorously is to invite at least another three-and-a- half years of protest.

“Public service, by contrast, starts from the recognition that, in a democracy, the government’s job is not to 'deliver' to citizens. It is, rather, to listen to them, to do what the majority asks, if that is possible, and, where it is not, to work with citizens to ensure that what is done is as close to what they want as it can be. It stems from the core democratic idea that government works for citizens and that it cannot do this unless it listens to them.”

“The protesters are demanding public service, not delivery. While the causes of the protests differ from area to area, in every case people want to be heard and to be taken seriously. The protesters are saying that they are citizens with rights and that they insist on being treated accordingly. In some cases, people do want cleaner water or better neighbourhoods. But that does not mean they want officials to 'deliver' to them.

“A study of people who benefited from government housing subsidies in the 1990s found that those who had larger and better houses were not more satisfied than the rest: the only people who were happy were those who said they had been able to choose their housing type. The beneficiaries were saying that they did not want the houses officials thought they should have, even if they were technically 'better' — they wanted the houses that they chose.”

Friedman says the constant claims that citizens want “service delivery” are antidemocratic because they deny citizens a voice: reporters and commentators do not have to listen to what protesters are saying, they can decide for them what they do not like. It is antidemocratic, too, because it assumes that the test of democratic government is not whether it does what the people want, but whether it is technically good at forcing on the people the technical solutions that appeal to the elite.

“As long as we understand popular protests as demands for 'service delivery', we will continue to make the government the master, not the servant, and we will continue to treat grassroots citizens as people fit only to receive the products devised by their betters, not as thinking and choosing human beings. And as long as we do that, people at the grassroots will remain unheard unless they take to the streets.”

By contrast, Kgafela says, the main reasons cited for protests in media reports analysed by the Institute were housing and land issues (28%) and basic service delivery issues such as water, electricity, and sanitation (32%).

Laceration Unseen

2010-04-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

During the latter part of 2000 (August-October), more than 150 ‘experts’ were interviewed as part of a survey undertaken by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on the causes of and controls for the effective fight against corruption in South Africa. The experts are individuals who attended one or more of the major anti-corruption conferences in South Africa over the past few years and who, it can be assumed, have some particular knowledge of corruption issues.

The purpose of the survey was primarily to collect new data on corruption issues in South Africa. It was hoped that the survey might stimulate the policy impasse that had resulted after the April 1999 anti-corruption summit and that the results would assist policy makers in prioritising interventions based on sound information, rather than to draw up ‘wish lists’ for fighting corruption. The key findings of the survey are outlined below.

Conceptual and practical understandings of corruption

Issues of abuse for personal benefit — whether of power, position, public funds, resources, authority and office — stand out significantly as underlying the experts’ understanding of corruption.

Illicit self-enrichment and issues relating to ethics also commonly emerge in experts’ understandings of corruption.

Bribery and payment for services, including kickbacks in contractual and tender procedures, are the most readily given examples of corrupt practises.

Nepotism and fraud are readily cited examples of corruption.

Extent, location and seriousness of corruption

One-third (33%) of the experts responded positively when asked whether they or anyone known to them had been asked or expected to pay a bribe in the past year.

37% of respondents believed that the current government was less corrupt than under apartheid, while 34% believed it to be about the same.

Just over half of the experts (51%) felt that corruption levels would decrease in the next few years, while one-third (31%) felt that it was likely to increase.

While there may be much corruption, the majority of experts (64%) agreed that South Africa was confronted by other more serious problems, such as crime and security, followed closely by job creation.

Conditions for and causes of corruption

Experts ranked weak checks and balances as the primary cause of corruption in government.

Greed was cited as the main cause for corruption in society as a whole, suggesting a differentiated response to control measures against corruption in society and in government.

experts agreed that the payment of bribes to government officials or doing favours for them made it easier to get things done.

Evaluating policy responses to fight corruption

83% of experts believed that the government was committed to the fight against corruption.

60% of experts believed that the government handled the matter of corruption very or fairly well, while 40% were less positive.

Lack of resources was seen as the main problem with the government’s fight against corruption.

73% of experts believed that the government did not have sufficient resources to fight corruption.

Evaluating anti-corruption agencies

Asked to rank the effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies, the majority of experts viewed the Special Investigating Unit as the most effective (85%).

This was followed by the office of the Auditor-General (74%), the office of the Public Protector (62%) the Special Investigating Directorate on Corruption of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (47%) and the Public Service Commission (34%).

Evaluating anti-corruption strategies

On a scale of one to four, with four being the most effective anti-corruption strategy, experts ranked the following as very effective:

Greater transparency in government tender processes

Schools placing more emphasis on moral values

Legal protection for whistle blowers

Prosecution of high-profile individuals

Barring corrupt officials from holding public office

Greater financial controls/internal audits of government spending

A national anti-corruption hotline

Vigorous news media investigation of corruption

Least effective strategies with a mean score of 3.0 or lower include:

Cross-sectoral anti-corruption conferences

Increased salaries for government employees

Codes of conduct to promote professional ethics

A single independent agency to fight corruption

http://www.issafrica.org/Pubs/Monographs/No65/ExecSumm.html

General Description of Corruption - Rent-seeking or Rent-giving by SC Bansal MD.

There is a consensus on many issues relating to rent seeking and rent giving behavior and some are given below. 11

Corruption threatens people and their governments. It makes societies unfair. It is argued that bribery is a negotiated rent, as the beginning of all illegalities and tyranny. There is no more powerful engine of injustice and cruelty, for bribery destroys both faith and state. The serious consequence of corruption thus is not only State Capture but also Mind Capture. Rent-seeking behavior occupies the human mind and removes it from useful task.

Corruption is universal. It is present in developed and developing countries, in the bureaus of public or private sectors, and in nonprofit or charitable organizations. Shift from governance to management only changes its residence.

Consequences of rent seeking and rent giving can be seen on income distribution, consumption patterns (in each social stratification), and rise of an underground economy.

Corruption plays a central role in politics thus state objectives. Rent seeking and rent giving are major obstacles in the process of planned change of economic layers. A promise of democracy remains undone. However it does allow selective change in economic-cycle of an individual, an individual household and a business.

Media's preoccupation with corruption is understandable because it is a highly marketable commodity since they understand the general public's fascination for seeing prominent personalities in embarrassing situations. The media may have brought this common human frailty into the limelight. However, it is equally possible that unknowingly they may have helped in spreading this meme. No study has been undertaken to assess the effect of media in spreading this meme or in helping to remedy.

Increasing public interest and concern over corruption have resulted in a large volume of scholarly research on the subject.

Corruption is usually a kept secret and therefore the behavior of the corrupt agent near impossible to observe in real life. The character of rent-seeking has all the qualities one can ask for such as charm and acting talent to create a mirror image of the truth i.e., of an actor; book keeping i.e., of an accountant; to understand and manipulate rules and regulations and ability to protect, i.e. of a custodian. 12

Corruption makes distinction between "need driven" and "greed driven" necessity harder.

Campaigns against corruption have not met with much success. It is a worrisome development. When the majority of people operate under such a system, individuals have no incentive to try to change it or to refrain from taking part in it. [See p176, Corruption and Mexican History.]

Corruption is a type of strategic action in which two or more actors undertake an exchange relation by way of a successful transfer of money (material) or power (political or status) or promoting of gene (genetic), which sidesteps legality or morality or civility to regulate the relation. It is a strategic interaction or an art of nonviolent negotiation. As mentioned before, social action is strategic when it is aimed at the successful realization of personally defined goals.

With concentration of ill-gotten wealth in the hands of a few or the undesirable, there emerges a distorted consumption pattern. Many learn it by imitation thus produces this dynamic state of rent giving and rent seeking (see Figure 1.2 on p5 and Figure 4.2 on p93).

It underlies many other crimes. This social crime inflicts little visible wound on the victim-person. The entire mechanisms, under a corrupt system then are at stake, i.e. household, the neighborhood, group and the society, i.e. social coexistence. They say "honesty is likely to make a greater and more lasting impression on our children than political posturing and hysteria. 13" Though it remains a theoretical observation for most but one that is negotiable. Economic progress will remain incomplete and illusionary unless the theorists of economics address this crime.

What rhymes with dilemma? How a news blackout of our favourite youth leader could happen

2010-04-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

a Daily Maverick article

Yusuf Abramjee, head of news and current affairs at Primedia and chairman of the National Press Club, has been the media’s point man in terms of the reaction to the events of the past few weeks. He reveals to us what’s been going on behind the scenes, and what it would take for a news boycott of Julius Malema to be put into practice.

On Tuesday, April 13, a column appeared in the Pretoria News under the header “There is still hope for this country”. In South Africa, those seven words have been written so often – in that precise order – that they’ve just about been stripped of their meaning. This time, however, was different. The picture on top of the header was of a well-known and respected face in media circles, and the name confirmed it: we were dealing here with someone deep on the inside, a person who not only had access to the facts while others were dealing in conjecture, but a person with the power to change things.

As head of news and current affairs at Primedia Broadcasting, Yusuf Abramjee is the man ultimately responsible for South Africa’s most important radio stations. (If you think that any other commercial station, or indeed any of the SABC radio brands, do as much to hold our democratic institutions to account as Talk Radio 702 or 567 Cape Talk, you probably work for one of those stations). Abramjee is also the chairman of the National Press Club, an amalgamation of journalists, news photographers and communications professionals that’s been operating in the interests of a free media since 1975. In short, what he says matters.

So when Abramjee wrote on Tuesday that “developments over the past ten days have brought South Africa’s national psyche to an all-time low,” it wasn’t a cliché offered by your bipolar relative at the dinner table. He meant it, and what he was referring to was the racial polarisation brought about by Eugene Terre’Blanche’s murder and funeral on the one hand, and Julius Malema’s incendiary behaviour on the other.

In an interview with The Daily Maverick on the same day the column was printed, Abramjee gave more background to his comments. He traced the slide into our current national condition to the moment in March that journalists exposed Malema’s dodgy business practices, and the ensuing allegations, from 19 of South Africa’s top political journalists, that senior members of the ANC Youth League were spying on them.

“When I met Jacob Zuma at the National Press Club awards,” Abramjee told us, “I raised the issue with him, I said we were concerned. To which he publicly responded at the awards event with a question: ‘Why’s there a need to spy on the media?’”

Be that as it may, Abramjee continued, there were repeated instances of media abuse by the Youth League in the following weeks. The “name-calling of journalists” in the organisation’s press releases continued apace until Malema booted a BBC reporter from a news conference last Thursday, calling him a “bloody agent” and a “bastard”.

“The BBC reporter might have been a bit out of order when he interjected out of question time,” said Abramjee, “but even if he interjected, Malema should not have responded the way he did.”

Last Friday at 2pm, while thousands of neo-Nazis were following the corpse of Eugene Terre’Blanche to its final resting place on a farm outside Ventersdorp, a media summit was held amongst members of the National Press Club, the South African National Editors Forum, The Professional Journalists' Association, the South African Freelancers Association, and the Foreign Correspondents Association.

Abramjee chaired the meeting, and he allowed two hours for debate, most of which was taken up by the subject of Julius Malema. “One or two people suggested a news blackout of Malema,” Abramjee told us. “The meeting was off-the-record, so I can’t give their names, but they were senior editors, one from a Sunday newspaper. In the end the discussion was unanimous; a news blackout was not the way to go.”

The consensus was that the media should instead engage President Zuma, said Abramjee, and ask him to discipline Malema.

Another point agreed on at the meeting was that if in future a journalist is kicked out of a news conference by a political leader (such as Malema), the other journalists present should act “according to their conscience” when deciding to walk out in solidarity. “We can’t dictate to people what to do,” Abramjee explained, “we can only encourage them.” (Of course, it’s clear from these words what Abramjee thinks the proper response would be).

According to Abramjee, the office of the presidency has already been contacted, and Zuma is willing to meet a media delegation to discuss the Malema problem when he returns from a trip to the United States. As for the president’s press conference last Saturday, where Malema – although not mentioned by name – was called to order, the media body is satisfied. “We believe it’s one of the strongest statements on media freedom that the president has made to date,” said Abramjee.

A question that media organisations have faced in the last week, Abramjee added, is why they’re coming down hard on Malema and the Youth League and not on the AWB. “The day after Terre’Blanche was murdered, we condemned the white racists who intimidated black journalists. Also, the AWB guy walking out of an eTV studio, that type of behaviour is shocking. We’re not picking on anyone. All we’re asking is that the media is treated professionally and with dignity.”

Importantly, Abramjee revealed to us that last Thursday night, a few hours after he’d stripped his proverbial moer at the BBC reporter, Malema called and asked for a meeting with the media. It was a personal call to Abramjee himself. “He was prepared to talk about the BBC incident,” Abramjee said. “But at the media summit the next day we decided it wasn’t necessary. We wanted to speak to the president of the ANC instead.”

The big question here is this: What if the president’s words last Saturday were empty? What if there’s no follow-through? What if Malema continues to behave as if he’s accountable to no-one and nothing but his bank account and his inbuilt inclination to demagoguery?

Said Abramjee: “If nothing happens and he carries on, we’ll convene an urgent meeting. If at that stage we decide there needs to be a news boycott of Malema, then that’s what we’ll do. But that’s a last resort. Boycotting was a technique used by the apartheid government; they used to institute news blackouts. At the same time, though, we as the media fought against apartheid; we can decide on our own strategy.”

By Kevin Bloom

It all begins at home level

2010-04-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

Here's my thing,

On the race issue: If in one's attempts to bring up their children is gearing them to view and judge the world according to colour and even attach historical eventualities that seek to charectorize the one side of colour in a degrading and hateful manner, Ithey are creating a foundation for a specific thougth paradigm for their kid(s), he is readying them for the life out there which they will face in accordance with such assisted mentality establishment,

We are overlooking the fact that a source of society's view is any one home's to upbring [a child], whilst it is true that black and white youths of today were born after the abolishment of apartheid [in the country] we are still not sure of how these issues are mananged at home level going forward as questions arise about our history as a country and as a people. Its even more of a challenge for poor illequipped black [& some white] parents to identify a problem that needs addressing when explaining why is there a side that seem to be economically marginalised today compared to the other if [at all] such issues are raised the pick of curious years of the one being brought up, yes there are poor whites but the fact is that more and more blacks go poorer as we deepen our age into the millenium and I do concede that whilst it has to do with current state governance, it is also a historical phenomenon. Communinities need to mobilise and come together in forming CBO's. Church & SALGA, other governmental departments such as social welfare, police, health, education etc. need to compile a plan on not only to work together on how to reach these CBO's but educate them on how to apply values in their homers,

leadership

[self] Respect

Relationships

Owning things

Spirituality

Control of self

Security and safety - value of life/ Concern for self & others - regardless of race

Feeling of belonging

Self-improvement

Wealth

responsibility - risk taking

Sexuality

Good health - drug/alcohol abuseConcern for others

Enforcing law

physical disability

defination of stigma

HIV/AIDS

Using the same CBO's government can easily track down using accurate demographical stats that will address defferent issues that are challenges to these communities such as poverty, crime, health, family planning, housing etc. CBO's must properly registered and well marketed in the communies to get more people to participate, most people have no idea on the interventions by their municipality's (if any) to eradicate problems and hence most of these interventions are ineffective or take longer to achieve these, give these CGO's/NGO's shares in state owned companies, same CBO's must be assisted effectively in training on different fields of businesses they can be helped to explore, keep people constructively busy to care about issues of racism. Farm communities must have a difference type of plan to reach them.

Feel the abundance

2010-03-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

Ralph Marston

Go ahead, and let yourself be wonderful. It's much, much easier than you think.

Nothing has to get you down unless you choose to get you down. Stop looking for reasons to place judgments on events and realize the abundance that always is.

Go ahead, and let your beautiful purpose flow out through your words and actions. Let go of the twisted reasoning that says you must hold yourself back.
It never makes sense to be any less than you are. Richness arises out of how much you put into each moment, not from what you hide away.

Instead of wasting your energy on blocking your true self, use that energy to create and fulfill and express in ways that are wonderful. Instead of constructing and maintaining doubt, release and nourish new joy.

It's so much easier to be who you are than to try and pretend who you're not. Go ahead, feel the abundance, and let yourself live its endless possibilities.

2010-03-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

Critical Conversations on Becoming a Nation, - Prof. Janson

What I wish to do is share some life-experiences about leadership in a troubled country, positive and negative lessons about leadership that makes an enduring difference.
I learnt that in leadership, clarity of purpose matters. Every day I go to work with two simple goals: to enable my students to learn to live together; and to ensure that in the heart of the country we build a university that insists on high-quality education for young graduates.
Nothing else matters. I know what I need to do, and I move heaven and earth to accomplish those goals. To be sure, I have millions of little things to do, like balance the institutional budget. But there is a broader purpose, and being clear about that purpose is fundamental to strong leadership.
In a crisis, exemplary leadership matters. Through all my years as a school teacher and as a university teacher, I know only one thing for sure, and that is that young people do not listen to us. They observe us, and imitate us. Your staff will not follow you wholeheartedly unless your life as a leader is worth following in the first place. When the chips are down, followers look to leaders not for all the answers, but for pillars of assurance, for certainty of direction. Your example is crucial.
I have learned that leadership is not only technical and muscular; it is also spiritual and emotional. The textbooks are wrong. Strong leaders are in touch with their own emotions and the emotions of their followers. They know that the "bottom line" can only be achieved by relating to the spiritual and emotional lives of people.
In divided communities, equanimity of leadership matters. When you make choices as a leader based on race, when you favour one group over the next, you lose the commitment and the morale of the other side. Even-handed leadership acknowledges the humanity of all followers, irrespective of what they look like or what they believe.
Most white South Africans know that corrective action is necessary; but do it with humility and with understanding. And do not believe the lie that leadership choices in South Africa represent a racial zero-sum game. Correct in ways that include. That is a craft, and the secret of wise leadership.
In difficult times, courage of convictions matters. Courageous leadership is in short supply. Leaders often do what is expedient, not what is right. And that is why when the strong winds come, leaders topple so easily. People will sometimes criticise and dismiss you for taking a tough stand; but do the right thing, and they will come to respect you even if they disagree with you.
The most important preparation for leadership in a broken country is the acknowledgement of one's own brokenness. No leader can be perfect; that is a relief. But good leaders are aware of their weaknesses, and readily admit to their own sense of struggle with history, memory and identity. In the language of the Cold War, good leaders recognise our mutual vulnerability in a dangerous and divided country.
I've learned that leadership that overcomes division has to be counter-cultural leadership. I often listen to my white brothers and sisters talk about Nelson Mandela. What they admire him for is one thing: as a leader he came out of prison without bitterness.
The expectation, a reasonable one, was bitterness and vengeance. He acted against expectations by demonstrating counter-cultural leadership. To be a strong leader, do what people do not expect; love those you are expected to hurt; forgive those who do not deserve it. Surprise your followers by generosity when it is least expected. Make your leadership appeal not to racial solidarity but to human solidarity.
Simply put, there can be no social change without personal change. Our salvation will not lie with governmental leadership (which is increasingly a parasitic leadership) but with the profound leadership that each of us brings to our communities, our organisations and our country.