Blog Entries
Thoughts on the Ukraine and Israel conflicts
16 October 2023 — Most of us react emotionally to war. We want to discuss it in terms of good and evil. We want to declare who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. And we want referees to enforce rules. War is not a football match. War is a very rational act. The object of war is to...
The back story to the Russian 'coup'
25 June 2023 — In Frank Herbert's "Dune" series of novels, Salusa Secundus was the ancestral homeworld of House Corrino, the ruling family of the Padishah Empire. Then came the Butlerian Jihad, a great war fought against thinking machines.1 Salusa Secundus was eventually conquered by the...
The Saudi-Iran deal — 10 things you need to know
10 March 2023 — Yesterday, an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans in the US House of Representatives joined forces to call for regime change in Iran. Today, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran issued a joint communique announcing normalising of diplomatic relations between the...
A 10 point history of nuclear arms treaties between the US and Russia
1 March 2023 — Russia’s president Vladimir Putin announced last week that Moscow was suspending participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (“New START”), a pact signed with the United States in 2010, which put limits on the number of strategic nuclear warheads. US Secretary of...
Ten things you need to know about Nigeria's upcoming elections
23 February 2023 — Nigeria goes to the polls this weekend. Here are ten things you need to know about the issues facing Africa’s most populous country: Free and fair elections: Nigeria has a population of 220 million people but only 93.5 million registered voters. Security: Nigeria has...
Monetising the blue ticks on Twitter
1 November 2022 — Self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur and angel investor”, Jason Calacanis, is running a poll on Twitter. The question: “How much would you pay to be verified & get a blue check mark on Twitter?” Possible choices: “$5 a month”, “$10 a month”, “$15 a month”, “Wouldn’t...
Time to buy oil from Russia?
10 August 2022 — Over the past week, Trade and Industry minister Ebrahim Patel dropped “dumping” duties on imported chicken. It’s a good decision, reversing a disastrous policy put in place by Patel’s predecessor Rob Davies in 2013. I said at the time that lower-income groups would pay...
Today is a good day to talk about nuclear war
6 August 2022 — Today is 6 August. On this day in 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Between 70,000–80,000 people were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm. I’ve no doubt that the use of nuclear weapons would have become a regular...
Remembering Dr Aadil Moerat
2 August 2022 — R60 was worth around $12 US in early 1998. It’s a sum that’s worth noting because on the evening of 21 January 1998 at around 6 pm, three armed men walked into the packed waiting room of Dr Aadil Moerat’s surgery in the township of Gugulethu, Cape Town. Minutes later, Dr...
Measuring the cost of justice
1 July 2022 — I’ve had a basic internal rule in place over the years whenever I began a new position — I would make sure that I paid back the cost of my salary to my employer in the shortest possible time. “Paying back” in this case in this case is not a once off thing, but instead refers to...
How can 190 000 Russians win against 700 000 Ukrainians?
25 June 2022 — Established military wisdom has it that an invading army needs to outnumber defenders by a 3:1 ratio. (This makes sense to me. A dug-in defensive unit is able to fortify itself, supply itself with food, water, and munitions.) Ukraine deployed 700 000 combatants to fight...