Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
The report, The Chilling: Global Trends in Online Violence against Women Journalists, launched as part of UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event, is ground-breaking because of its size and scope. It records 73% of the women surveyed as having experienced online violence (including death and rape threats). Twenty percent of women journalists said they withdrew from social media interaction because of the threats and vilification from being called “witch”, “hag”, “whore”, “bitch”, and “presstitute” (“press” plus “prostitute”).
A team of 23 international researchers from 16 countries, led by Julie Posetti (global research director), Nabeelah Shabbir, Diana Maynard, Kalina Bontcheva and Nermine Aboulez wrote the 94-page report. (Disclosure: I led the Africa region research and the full book on the international study will be published in June 2021.)
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
The price of oil had jumped from $4 a barrel to $12 and his mind was occupied with the need for alternative energy sources and improved batteries for energy storage. He was later joined in this quest by PhD student Michael Thackeray. Their studies into battery materials heralded the start of a glorious 20-year period when the CSIR, supported by Anglo American, De Beers and the South African Inventions Development Corporation, as it was then known, made major contributions to advancing international battery science and technology.
By 1984, the Zebra (sodium-nickel chloride) battery had been built and demonstrated in an electric vehicle, and commercialisation efforts began in earnest. But they were way ahead of their time and in 1986 the CSIR sold its stake in the Zebra battery and 20 years later Anglo American and Daimler-Benz (which had joined the commercialisation efforts) withdrew from further development of the battery. Meanwhile, Thackeray h
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
Applying financial metrics to bribery is usually impossible because one of the leading characteristics is, to put it mildly, a lack of transparency. Secrecy, for obvious reasons, is baked into the pie. But a recent news story allows a certain tongue-in-cheek financial analysis of bribery, and illustrates several things, including why bribery has taken off so powerfully in South Africa.
But first, a whole box full of caveats are in order. Most importantly, this is not a case of proven bribery. The story I refer to traces the history of donations by politically connected businessman Thulani Majola to political parties, both the ANC and the EFF, artfully playing both sides of the aisle. But the story itself does not claim to trace a direct relationship between the donations and the tenders his company LTE Consulting won. It’s possible he was just lucky. The point is that no court has declared a link, and therefore Majola can rightfully claim he i
He might have added that the future of Europe does too.
At stake is an audacious gamble on relaunching and redefining the European economy. Conceived after the first wave of Covid-19, the European Recovery Fund has been hailed as a make-or-break moment for the European project of integration and “ever closer union”.
At its heart is the European Commission’s vast programme of borrowing more than €800-billion, which will then be disbursed from Brussels to member states as loans and grants, in return for those states undertaking extensive structural reforms as agreed with Brussels. The idea is to make the European economy more productive, greener, more digital and more equitable.