Patrick Bond
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Cape Town Water Wars: A Literal Shitstorm
In Cape Town, one of the most unequal cities in the world, poor people are taking the buckets they use for chemical toilets and turning them into weapons, as the water shortage intensifies class conflicts Continue reading
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Will New ANC President Ramaphosa Bring Real Change to South Africa?
Cyril Ramaphosa, who was recently elected to head South Africa’s ANC, is closely associated with major economic interests in South Africa, such as the Lonmin Mining Company, and is thus unlikely to bring about real change says Patrick Bond (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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South Africa: Infrastructure ‘fast-track’ may trip up government and corporations By Patrick bond
What we academics often term South Africa’s ‘Minerals-Energy Complex‘ (MEC) keeps getting away with murder, including economic strangulation. As just one example, in spite of a recent trade surplus, the balance of payments is going into extreme deficit largely because MEC multinational mining houses – especially BHP Billiton, Anglo, DeBeers, Lonmin and Glencore – vacuum… Continue reading
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Obama in South Africa: Washington tells Pretoria how to ‘play the game’ in Africa By Patrick Bond
US President Barack Barack Obama’s weekend trip to South Africa may have the desired effect of slowing the geopolitical realignment of Pretoria to the Brazil-India-Russia-China-South Africa (BRICS) axis. That shift to BRICS has not, however, meant deviation from the hosts’ political philosophy, best understood as “talk left, walk right” since it mixes anti-imperialist rhetoric with… Continue reading
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Obama in South Africa: Washington tells Pretoria how to ‘play the game’ in Africa By Patrick Bond
US President Barack Barack Obama’s weekend trip to South Africa may have the desired effect of slowing the geopolitical realignment of Pretoria to the Brazil-India-Russia-China-South Africa (BRICS) axis. That shift to BRICS has not, however, meant deviation from the hosts’ political philosophy, best understood as “talk left, walk right” since it mixes anti-imperialist rhetoric with… Continue reading
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South Africa’s ‘sub-imperial’ seductions By Patrick Bond
Thanks are due to an odd man, the brutally frank Zambian vice-president Guy Scott who last week pronounced, “I dislike South Africa for the same reason that Latin Americans dislike the United States”. Thanks are also due to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma for forcing a long-overdue debate, just as the World Economic Forum Africa… Continue reading
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BRICS: ‘Anti-imperialist’ or ‘sub-imperialist’? By Patrick Bond
“We reaffirm the character of the ANC as a disciplined force of the left, a multi-class mass movement and an internationalist movement with an anti-imperialist outlook” — so said Jacob Zuma, orating to his masses at the year’s largest African National Congress celebration, in Durban on January 12, 2013. Eleven days later, Zuma spoke to… Continue reading
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Video: Platinum Miners and Class Struggle in South Africa By Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond: Platinum miners strike inspires workers across South Africa; Billionaire mine owner becomes deputy head of ANC Continue reading
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South Africa: Politics, profits and policing after the Marikana Massacre By Patrick Bond
Lover of fast cars, vintage wine, trout fishing and game farming and the second richest black businessperson in South Africa (global financial publication Forbes puts his wealth at $675 million or £416 million), Cyril Ramaphosa (left) celebrates his election as deputy president of the ANC with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa demanded that police… Continue reading
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The commodification of crap and South Africa’s toilet apartheid By Patrick Bond
In central Durban, the mafia of the global water and sanitation sector – its corporate, NGO and state-bureaucratic elite – have gathered at the International Convention Centre, just a few blocks west of the Indian Ocean, into which far too much of our excrement already flows. They’re at the same scene of the crime as,… Continue reading
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Video: Where is the Urgency About Climate Change?
29 December, 2011 — The Real News Network Patrick Bond: Global elites not interested in changes effective policy requires Continue reading
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Video: Climate Change and the Failure of Market Mechanisms
Patrick Bond: Carbon markets failing and Durban Green Climate Fund doomed – up to activists now Continue reading
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South African Public Sector Strike Highlights Society’s Contradictions By Patrick Bond
The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African (SA) government vow to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the FIFA World Cup. Continue reading
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The Bank Loan That Could Break South Africa's Back By Patrick Bond
Notwithstanding South Africa’s existing $75 billion foreign debt, last Thursday the World Bank added a $3.75bn loan to Eskom for the primary purpose of building the world’s fourth-largest coal-fired power plant, at Medupi, which will spew 25 million tons of the climate pollutant carbon dioxide each year. Continue reading
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Fatima Meer, 1928-2010: `Regardless of how many years we have spent in this life, we must get up and shout' By Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo
Within a year, Meer would be sucking in the smell of post-apartheid tear gas that became so familiar in Chatsworth, her eyes streaming tears of anger, her throat coughing up disgust at the local ANC rulers whom she had helped put into power with unmatched courage during the bad years when she was beaten and… Continue reading
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Curing Post-Copenhagen Hangover By Patrick Bond
Instead of halting the hedonism, Barack Obama and the Euro elites cracked open the mansion door to add a few nouveau riche guests: South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, China’s Jiabao Wen (reportedly the most obnoxious of the lot), Brazil’s Lula Inacio da Silva and India’s Manmohan Singh. By Saturday morning, still punch-drunk with power over the… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 