- I was reminded of that old saying this month as I was channel hopping trying to find something interesting on the news. Now that the Obama-mania has died down there is very little to inspire one to watch anything related to politics. Which is not good for me, because we are up to our necks in election news down in South Africa. Take a drive down the road and you are greeted by the face of a smiling politician on a lampost asking for ur vote on April 22. I turn on the TV, and there is bound to be an election debate with more fat politicians making promises that they are unlikely to keep. With politics, it seems, the more things change the more they stay the same. COPE (Congress of t…

The world is being encouraged to join a campaign geared towards saving planet earth. Organizers of Earth Hour, a global campaign encouraging people to switch off lights for one hour at 8.30pm on Saturday March 28 2009, hopes the response would be great. - A release on the campaign’s website revealed that 168 cities commit to Earth Hour 2009 since its launch and six additional national capitals pledge their support for ‘lights out’ campaign. “Within a week of its launch, Earth Hour 2009 has experienced an outstanding groundswell of support with the number of cities committed to the campaign increasing by around 230 per cent. The WWF initiative that addresses the iss…

South Africans celebrate Day of Reconciliation yesterday - 17 December. For many it is just another day-off from work with very little meaning. But something about what has been happening in this country of late has made me ponder the significance of this day. - A couple of months ago, I would have said that we need to reconcile as black and white people living in SA, look past our differences and live in harmony. May be to a certain extent, reconciliation still needs to take place on that level. But we can't look past the xenophobic attacks that occurred a couple of months ago. I am yet to hear of a white foreign national who was intentionally hurt during the attacks. To this day, p…

- As I was flicking through the television this weekend, I ended up on MTV watching the MAMA awards. The MAMA's are MTV's Africa music Awards, hence the acronym, MAMA. I am not too sure about the name though, I mean calling MTV mama even if it is an acronym is a bit weird. if i think of a number of "events" that I would associate with the word mama, which means "mother" in many languages, a music award show is not one of them. But that is just me.. So I watched the show, and it was okay. I really didn't know what to expect but I saw a lot of familiar African musicians performing. We also had some performances from some of my favourite artists like Asa…

- Moving to a new city is never an easy thing at the best of times. You have to content with leaving your family behind, the logistics of moving and building a new life in a strange city. It also doesnt help much that Cape Town weather is unpredictable. It has been about four months since I moved cities but my paterns hadn't changed that much. Blame it on globalisation, but four months later, I was still listening to the same music (hip hop), talking to the same people (faCEBOOK) and eating at the same place (fast food). it was like my address had changed but everything else remained stagnant. That was until I decided that I would try something I hadn't done before. I decided t…

- Facebook, myspace, flicker, mxit...the list is endless and I think most of the people reading this are familiar with at least one of these social networking tools. A while back I came across the africanews.com group and I was excited. Through the group, I was able to make contact with journalists working for africanews.com from other parts of the world. But the facebook group itself is a bit quiet and I wonder why, sometimes, because this is one of the platforms we should be using to get our message across. But that is only me. So I urge all of you who are reading this and happen to be on facebook to join the group and lets engage and exchange ideas, pictures of what our part of the…

- Tomorrow is officially World environmental day. I sometimes find it sad that important dates like these are not given as much attention as some of our other holidays or special days. We now know that global warming is a reality, rather than an urban legend dreamt up by scientists and enviromentalists to make us recycle and take care of our planet. The Earth is heating up, polar ice caps are melting, carbon emissions are sky-high and of course, we have a hole in the ozone layer...You would be forgiven for thinking that it was all doom and gloom! But while the situation is critical, it is comforting to know that we (as individuals) can do something to help make it better. It's day…

- This couldn't have come at a more relevent time in South Africa (and across the world). As you may know we have an electricity crisis on our hands and we have to find ways to explore natural resources to give us alternative energy. Solar energy seems to be the most obvious choice since it will cost us nothing, so a couple of Traffic lights in Cape Town and Pretoria are now solar powered to try to take the load off the electricity grid. Global warming is also another big factor that popped into my mind when I was thinking of Earth Day because the day is more focused around educating people about the state of our environment and how to take of it. One of the most practical ways to he…

- In case you haven't been following the latest developments in South African media, racism is back in the news. The latest incident has resulted in the sacking of Sunday Times columist David Bullard, after he suggested in a column published two weeks ago that black people would not have evolved much had it not been for colonialism (or something along those lines). You can have a look at the column on www.thetimes.co.za That story, along with another story involving an organisation called the Forum for Black Jounalists (FBJ) where the forum held an off-the-record briefing with Jacob Zuma as a guest speaker and then refused white journalists entry into the meeting, have thrust journali…

- I don't know what's sadder. The fact that she made almost all the front pages in my city or the shameful fact that I am even writing about it. Paris Hilton,the blonde hotel heiress who stands for almost everything I loathe is in South Africa to support her rock star boyfriend (What's his name) as he tours around the country with his band. My one friend pointed out that she went to a children's home in Pretoria and apparently brought "joy" to the grannies and kids at the home...and the fact that she gets media publicity for it had nothing to do with it, right? I have a big problem with these celebrities who come here to do "charity work "and adopt…

- I hate sport!!! There I said it. I'm so relieved now. In case you are wondering, that includes soccer, I think soccer is my pet peeve though. The only positive thing about soccer for me, is that it's not on every single day...well that was until soccer-mania arrived in the form of Africa Cup of nation! Now all people taround me talk about is soccer, I can't escape it. I turn on the tv and chances are I'l either see a soccer match or commentry on a match or an ad or two or three..It's really depressing. I don't really know what it is that I hate about sport in general, maybe it's all the running. But I'm pretty sure all that spiting puts me off as…

- for the past three weeks I have been buried in my books busy studying for my finals. So I finally wrote my last exam today and I am so relieved but sad at the same time. Why?? Well because I now realise that since this was my senior yeah, I am probably not going to see some of my classmates ever again ( which is not necessarily a bad thing). Also because I think that the December holidays are highly overated. I mean do the shopkeepers actually believe that playing Boney M will get me to buy more stuff so I can spread a little bit of cheer...[please!! So now I have a long wait ahead of me before I get my results so I can go look for a job, Oh wait I did get a job for next year...suddenly…

- Surely this is not a new phenomena. People emigrate, that is a reality , maybe even a result of globalisation but it is not new. With some luck some will even come live in South Africa. So why is it that these people, who choose to come share our beautiful country with us, are sometimes treated with contempt? Surely a refugee escaping from a genocide or a war-torn country or anyone who feels like coming here should be welcome. What frustrates me is that when someone moves here from say, Zimbabwe, they are likely to be reffered to by the name "lekwerekwere" but someone moving here from the UK or even the USA is not afforded the same treatment. The latter is likely to be met with…

- I have a love/hate relationship with my pc. Most of the time I love working on it, in fact I prefer working on it to writing down stuff. I wish someone would invent a device that lets my pc run on batteries when the power is out, so I never have to panic like I always do when the power goes off and my editor is waiting for a story i WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE WITH AGES AGO...somehow "Eskom is load-shedding again " does not cut it as an excuse. What I dont like about computer technology though, is the fact that I have become so used to Googling (is that even an actual word?) everything that I hardly ever read anymore, even my favourite newspaper is a few clicks away. I also don…

- So finally our soccer boys won the Cosafa Cup on Wednesday in a match against Namibia. This is great stuff . So maybe I was write about the domino effect resulting from the Rugby cup win. Sadly for the team though is the fact that the Cosafa cup is not recognised by FIFA so their ranking will not change but I don't mind as long as these boys keep winning!!!

- I am concerned. In fact I am very concerned. About what you ask? well about a lot of thing but Il stick to Lucky Dube for today. The raggae star passed away after being shot in front of his kids in a botched car hijacking. What concerns me is the brutality of the whole thing. We live in a violent country but what kind of people shoot a man in front of his kids. Obviously this is not an isolated incident, it's just that Dube was famous so his case gets first preference in the media but it is not unique to Lucky Dube. The suspects were arrested the next day(I stand corrected). Does this mean that the police can actually find criminals if they want to but it depends on who you are? Bu…

- On Saturday the South African rugby team beat England to win the rugby world cup. This is so exciting. Considering that rugby is such a big sport here in Pretoria, the celebrations carried on till late on Sunday. I will admit to not being that fanatical about sport but I know a winning team when I see one, the boys really made me proud to be a South African at this moment. This win was long overdue and a welcome change. Some of us had all but given up on ever winning a tournament. Our boys did good. They've restored our faith in sport and our national pride. Now if only Bafana Bafana can start winning some matches, we are not asking for the World cup (yet) but at least win a couple…

- Today marks the last day of a week -long campaign by the Dept of water and forestry, agriculture and tourism dept. respectively to create awareness to the problem caused by the invasion of alien plant species in our rivers. Its all good and well to import beautiful shrubs or flowers from other countries in order to plant them in our gardens (for example). But this results in an ecological disaster when these are thrown in our rivers where they suck up water leading to the death of fish, exasperate the spread of malaria and bilharzia among other diseases as a result of people not knowing what to do with them when they're no longer needed. Water hyacinth can double the area it inva…

- One of the most amazing cities in Africa and probably in the world. I was a bit put off by the weather while I was planning the trip with my mates but we decided to go in August and that was a good decision because the weather was beautiful. Apart from getting rained on while at the beach, we had an awesome time. WEe went to Robben Island (very humbling experience), the Navy, parliament and hit long street in a big way. The cape it truly beautiful, and there are so many tourists there that the only way to establish if someone is a local is by speaking Afrikaans. The V&A woterfront is a must if you wanna see a spectacular view of Table mountain or if you want to have dinner on a fl…