Browsing Archive: May, 2011
The level of unemployed graduates in South Africa displays a cause of urgent concern for South African Government. High School students coming from both advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds that have been granted the opportunity to study have been automatically placed in a predicament where finding work may just as challenging as completing the degree itself. Universities, Technical Faculties and Colleges annually send thousands of young and hopeful graduates into South Africa’s job mar... Continue reading ...
The contemporary global economy is characterised by great income inequalities that exists through the current liberal economic paradox. There are developing nations experiencing high levels of economic growth, but still have great income divisions. Some have argued that income inequality and economic growth go hand in hand, while others have argued that income inequality has to be addressed as it hinders the full potential of economic growth.
According to Nel (2003:614) inequality refer... Continue reading ...
“… Lots of kids
are working to get rid of these blues, cause everybody’s sick of the American
ruse” – MC5 “The American Ruse”
(Cavallo, 1999: 11).
The way in which
Jimmy Hendrix played the national US anthem has, without question,
become a symbol of the counterculture revolution during the 1960’s. The
symbolic distortion in his rendition of the anthem showed the significant
alteration of the proud and patriotic American image at the time. A black man
playing the anthem of a p... Continue reading ...
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 not only symbolised the end of the Cold War but saw the breakdown of the bi-polar power structure that had dominated global security concerns since about 1947. The victory of one ideology over another did not completely usher in a new age of conflict and cooperation amongst and within the states of the world however, but rather lifted the veil off the state-centred perspective in security studies. Therefore the classical approach of (national) security, as ... Continue reading ...
There is a general consensus within the UN that reformation of the Security Council is necessary (Souare, 2005:12) (Goodman, 2005:26). Africa has been a major source of discussion within the UN Security Council, but it is rarely the source of influence. Events such as the Rwandan genocide, Darfur conflict, Somali civil conflict, the current Libyan revolt, etc., all have been analysed there in the absence of an African permanent member. The concept of path dependence states that “individu... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Friday, May 20, 2011,
In :
Africa
Between 1418 and 1433, Zheng He, China’s exploratory admiral sailed to the East African coast on several occasions. His mighty fleet was at least six times larger than the ones sailed by Christopher Columbus (Brautigam 2009: 23) and capable of carrying 2500 tons of cargo (Maxwell 2011). According to Maxwell (2011), these voyages intended to satisfy China’s growing demand for raw materials by creating intricate trade networks and investment opportunities, as well as to establish the Ming d... Continue reading ...
May 5th, 2011, marked the end of what appeared to be an endless battle against the reigns of terrorism. U.S president Barak Obama announced that Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden had finally been detained, captured and killed. Several questions have arisen as result of these interesting turn of events. Many have asked, is this is finally the end of terrorism as we know it? What are the repercussions in terms of security risks within the USA from the Al-Qaida network? This paper will outline the... Continue reading ...
Since the 1980’s globalisation has become a popular term for politicians, journalists and social scientists to describe the world that we live in, yet with no apparent consensus of its explicit meaning (Flynn & Giráldez, 2002a: 1).
Globalisation refers to a process of the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies, involving networks of interdependence that span intercontinental distances – in a way enabling individuals, corporations and nation-states to reach ar... Continue reading ...
According to ex-World Bank economist, Paul Collier, 80 percent of the world’s population live in countries that are developing and moving forward, meanwhile, the other 20 percent are stuck in conditions similar to the 14th century (Collier 2007: 3). These states are as a result, falling further behind. Civil war, abject poverty and ignorance are a few harsh realities that face the countries of the “bottom billion”. On the other hand, the major powers have spent $2.3 trillion on foreign ... Continue reading ...
Structural adjustment programmes (SAP) are a product of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). These IFIs or Bretton Woods Institutions, as they famously known, are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (Levin Institute, 2009:3). According to the Levin Institute (2009:8), the overall purpose of the IFIs was to push neo-liberal policies called the “Washington Consensus.” The Consensus had ten core points (Levin Institute, 2009:8): fiscal discipline, redirection ... Continue reading ...
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