Terry Bell

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SA Bill of Rights and the 2014 election

February 22, 2013

The 2014 election campaign in South Africa has clearly begun and promises to be long and almost certainly very bitter and at the core of the ongoing debate will be the Constitution and, specifically, the Bill of Rights.

Groping towards the future

February 14, 2013

In stygian depths 4km and more below the surface of the earth gold continues to be harvested, but by fewer miners and with the aid of more — and increasingly efficient — mechanisation. The primary unemployment problem is not a question of skills or the lack of them: it is just that there are fewer and fewer jobs and more and more people wanting — and needing — work.

Inauspicious start to the ANC’s year

February 9, 2013

It was a not very auspicious start to 2013 for South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC). Not only did a host of unwelcome baggage from the past come tumbling into the new year, but other, new, difficulties also emerged before the year was even a month old.

Clarity about M&G’s Mbeki & survey allegations

February 8, 2013

Here is the response to Mail & Guardian allegations involving Moeletsi Mbeki, as chair of the non-profit think tank, Forum for Pubic Dialogue (FPD) and a survey of the attitudes of shop stewards in the ANC-aligned Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosau).

Early ANC election salvoes backfire

February 8, 2013

South Africa's governing ANC has loosed off the first major salvoes of the 2014 election campaign — and all of them have backfired, largely because of the confusing balancing act of trying to keep its trade union ally, Cosatu on board while pursuing policies the unions bitterly oppose.

Unions: a need to get back to first principles

February 4, 2013

Forty years ago the modern union moveent in SA was born. Then the demands, including pay and conditions, amounted to one word: democracy. But a democracy that went well beyond the veneer of electoral politics, of the legalistic notion of rich and poor being equal.

A tale that is a warning & stark reminder

January 30, 2013

This book is much more than the very well told story of the life and tragic death of the young idealist; it is also a stark reminder of the mundane brutishness that can be unleashed when bigotry and power supercede justice.

Less gold at SA’s rainbow end

January 28, 2013

Once upon a time and not very long ago, South Africa, as the continent’s largest economy and with a first-world banking and financial sector, was regarded as the potential gateway to investment in Africa. This is no longer the case: investors are tending to look north, to Ghana and even Zambia.