A post template

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

Arriving alive

They’re still playing that ridiculous "Arrive Alive" ad on the radio. The one that says something along the lines of "If you run over a pedestrian you WILL be charged with culpable homicide, whether it’s your fault or not!" That’s balderdash, and they know it. Only if it could be proved that you contributed to the "accident" through negligent or reckless driving could you be charged with culpable homicide.

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

The phantom banker

Namibian authorities have called in the help of South African authorities to trace people who are suspected of having conned state companies out of at least R130- million of public funds under the guise of being investment managers. A Namibian newspaper reported that the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority has asked the Scorpions, for assistance in its search for the Namibian money.

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

Shift in focus, not in content

Last month, I briefly traced the evolution of the outcomes-based education (OBE) movement over the past 35 years: from its focus on expanding the conditions of success in schools and classrooms during the 1970s and 1980s, to the strongly learner-centred, future-focused, personally empowering emphasis of the five Cs in todays transformational models. These five domains of human functioning — consciousness, creativity, collaboration, competence and compassion — could (and should) be viewed as the real basics of learning, living and leadership in todays changing world.

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

A tall order

According to an ancient Bushman legend, Giraffe was given the task of helping Sun find his way around the heavens. Giraffe took his job so seriously that the Creator rearranged a few stars in the sky to resemble a giraffe, in Giraffe’s honour. The Bushmen called the pattern Tutwa and they navigate by it. We call it the Southern Cross.

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

Bold new plan for gender equality

Resentful of the man who has made her HIV-positive, a teenage girl sets out to infect as many males in the village as possible. Realising what she has done, a baying mob tries to lynch her, but she runs away. When her grandmother discovers the truth, and realises the girl will never marry, she sobs uncontrollably. Without a man to support her, how will the girl survive? As if in answer, a man offers her money for sex. The tension is palpable.

No image available
/ 15 August 2005

Make or break for Koizumi

Japan was plunged into political turmoil this week when the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, was pushed into calling a snap election that risks destroying his party. The crisis was prompted by radical plans to privatise the post office, which Koizumi has put at the heart of a structural reform programme.

No image available
/ 14 August 2005

More than 100 dead in Athens air crash

All 121 people aboard a Cypriot airliner died on Sunday after it smashed into a wooded hillside near Athens after air-force pilots said the crew of the Boeing 737 appeared ”doubled up” in the cabin. Greek television broadcast footage of the smouldering wreckage of the plane, with its tail fin sticking out of the earth, as firefighters searched for bodies among the smoking wreckage.