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News & Views by Terry Bell
A Michelangelo’s David that will turn heads
A new replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David arrived on the art scene in November. It was launched at Britain’s Silverstone Formula One racetrack on a Friday night and, as time goes by, is likely to have art purists frothing at the mouth. At the same time, there are already plaudits galore from srtistically inclined […]
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Rugby, racism and ethnic unity
November 6, 2023
(First published on Fin24 and in City Press, South Africa) South Africans were united, perhaps as never before — and that includes1995 — by the 2023 rugby world cup. As a result, the final game — along with the score, the closest possible to a draw — made for a fitting celebration of the 50th […]
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Gaza, unions, fascism & oppression
October 22, 2023
(First published on Fin24 and in City Press, October 23, 2023) Get back to basics. It is a cry regularly heard within a globally weakening trade union movement. And this is usually spelled out as dealing with localised bureaucracy and corruption within the nation-state. But the true basis of trade unionism is internationalism, summed up […]
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Some real costs in the EV revolution
October 1, 2023
(First published on Fin24) There was international media coverage this week when President Joe Biden, megaphone in hand, stood on a picket line with striking car workers in Detroit. Being the first US president to take such action warranted the coverage. But the strike itself and the issues raised have lessons for workers everywhere. However, […]
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A tale of two countries (in decline)
September 4, 2023
It may sound melodramatic to claim that Britain is a country sliding steadily toward the ranks of developed nations. Yet that, in effect, is the clear headed assessment of UK political economist and leading commentator, Will Hutton. And it is a worrying assessment shared by many in the British labour movement as workers in the […]
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SA’s real gold mining problem is not Zama-Zamas
August 14, 2023
Zama-Zamas, are not the problem claimed by the police, the government and highlighted by the media.. These “illegal miners” are, for the most part, thousands of men and a very few women, who risk life and limb to harvest what is left of one of the bounties of nature. The name they have been given, […]
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Chaos, calamity and AI
July 23, 2023
(First published on Fin24) he past week has thrown into sharp relief the impact that the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is having — and will potentially have — on all our lives, now and into the future. But it does seem almost ironic that this fact has reached global attention because of the […]
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Obituary: Blanche La Guma
July 10, 2023
Blanche La Guma who died on Thursday (July 6), aged 95, was one of the most unacknowledged veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle. A nurse and midwife, principled, dedicated and intensely loyal, she gladly lived in the shadow of her writer husband Alex who died and was buried in Cuba in 1985. One of her proudest […]
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Terry Bell Writes 
December 25, 2023
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