Reports abroad | Terry Bell Writes

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Ireland’s Obama mania

October 30, 2019

The Irish legacy of US President Barrack Obama is an example of ostentatious vulgarity known as Obama Plaza. But it is also a masterpiece of marketing in a country known more for its wild beauty and its contribution, especially to literature and migration.

Johnson puts UK establishment & Ireland in the firing line

August 31, 2019

‘Make the most of October: a month of anniversary events, before the bank runs, food shortages and petrol queues start . . .’ (London Review of Books advert as demonstrations erupted in several UK centres) The decision by British premier Boris Johnson to prorogue (suspend) parliament has caused an uproar throughout Britain and Europe and […]

A hat, a kayak & dreams of Dar

September 6, 2017

Finally, after 50 years, the story of the chaotic, haphazard attempt by a hopelessly ill prepared couple to paddle a 5metre kayak from London to Dar es Salaam. Published in South Africa next month as A hat, a kayak & dreams of Dar.

The threat behind Zuma’s ’embarrassment’

May 20, 2016

According to South African President Jacob Zuma, opposition parliamentarians are an embarrassment to him, at home and abroad. “I go around Africa and people ask me very embarrassing questions about this parliament,” he told a national assembly boycotted by almost all the opposition parties following the physical expulsion of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members.

Zuma, the “teflon president” digs in his heels

May 7, 2016

The political teflon that seemed to enable South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma to slip out of one scandal and crisis after another has been ripped away by the Constitutional Court. But he still sows no signs of budging and even electoral damage may not move him.

Reality & danger of SA student protests

April 2, 2016

With the insecurity and fear still being spread by the global economic crisis, all the resentment and tensions of recent decades is coming to the surface in South Africa and the recent campus upheavals are a good — and nihilistic — example.

South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

March 9, 2015

South Africa’s teflon president Jacob Zuma, was at it again in February, slipping away from responsibility after the State of the Nation Address debacle in parliament. But no matter what transpires over the coming weeks and months, the country will not be the same again — and a state of emergency may yet be on the cards.

SA faces it most critical election since 1994

February 28, 2014

The results of the May 7 South African general election — the most critical in the 20 years since the transition from apartheid — including abstentions and spoiled ballots should be a good measure of the mood of the country.